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7 minute(s) of a 55 minute read
8-12-2009
A buddy (FEAR) called me a little while ago about the melted motor mounts. He asked me what I was doing about grounding my block to the chassis. On my old setup I had atleast 3 grounds from block to chassis. For whatever reason, I didn't put any back on the car when I put it back together. About 2 weeks ago, Steve put one small one on there as he noticed that I didn't have any. So it appears that my block was arcing to the kmember which is what melted the poly prior to us adding that one little strap. This could also be causing my starting problem. I'll be adding 2 more strap tonite.
I changed the wires ($60) and put insulated boots on them ($60). Replaced all the o-rings (donated). Fired her up and I could hear the air sucking in. Before it was leaking everywhere so you couldn't hear it. Now it's down to the last leak which I think is this Fibertuned intake having a split weld somewhere underneath or a seperated runner. Tomorrow I'll pull it off and I will NEVER put this thing back on. Been a pain the *** since day one. I'm going to put my ported and epoxy'd FAST90 back on and pray that I dont blow it apart at 16 lbs or so.
8/15/2009
Sure as ****, the Fibertuned intake was split. Just not where I thought.
I ended up doing some modifications to the FAST in order to make it a little more boost friendly. I tapped the MAP hole in the back and screwed in a barbed fitting. Worm clamped a little piece of high pressure fuel line to it and worm clamped the MAP sensor to the other side. Found a short, coarse thread screw and screwed it into the small vacuum port (for A/C controls) in the rear with a generous helping of RTV on the threads. We cut both of the front large nipples off (PCV and the one that vents the gas tank). Neither of which is barbed. We drilled and tapped both holes. Driver's side got a plug and passenger side got a barbed fitting for boost gage and BOV reference. I also got the 8 threaded plugs to plug the nitrous bungs. I also removed all the rubber gaskets on the inside and replaced them with black RTV.
Put it all together and the car would not start. Just crank and crank. I was like WTF? There was spark but no fuel. Turns out that one of the wires to the TPS sensor broke. Apparently, that kills the injectors. Called the dealer for a new pigtail, $42. Are you ******* kidding me? I took it over to my buddies house and we took it apart and soldered all new wires to the connector. Hooked it up and all was good. Fired right up and took it for a drive. Stabbed it and saw about 18 PSI. Woot! Throttle response from the FAST is far superior. With the other intake I would only have about 4 psi at 4K RPM. With the FAST, I'm seeing 4 psi at 3500 and 8 psi at 4K RPM.
So the weather held out and after a little street tuning I set out for the track. I wanted to make one pass at the 18 psi just to see how it would do because it felt so good on the street. Told my buddies to look out for the wheel stand. Got to the line, got up on the tbrake/2 step to 4K (about 10 psi) and let her eat. Carried the wheels almost all the way through first, pulled 2nd and right before the shift to 3rd (before the 1/8), it fell over completely. Coasted out the back. My charge pipe from the turbo to the IC popped off. Here's what it ran on that pass.
1.361 60'
4.07 330'
6.54 1/8
87.3 MPH LOL
Previous best
1.417 60'
4.166 330'
6.437 1/8
108.08 MPH
I turned the boost down 12 psi and managed to run a couple of 10.60's @ 128 w/o blowing the tube off. Spun to a 1.57 60' both times. Track was going away. Tried turning it back up and it popped off again. Taking it to another buddy's shop that has a bead roller tomorrow to see if that helps. The motor mounts being shot isn't helping and I will replace those next week. Atleast I'm back to racing.
Just ordered my AMS-500 boost controller and motor mounts.
8/20/2009
R.I.P.
LQ9 stock short block.
You will be missed.
4/9/09-8/21/09
But before she let go, she put down a strong 1/8 mile.
1.38 60'
4.08 330'
6.32 1/8
109.55 MPH
3700# Race weight.
The bad news is that atleast one rod let go and broke the block. Probably wasted the oil pan also. I just hope that nothing went thru the turbo. I'll take a look at it in the next few days and post up the carnage to close out the thread.
8/22/2009
That's the video of the good pass which is the 6.32 @ 109.55 in the 1/8. Well it was good to the 1/8. Then it chunked a plug. I new it was bad but I wanted to make another pass. Switched plugs and fired it back up. No knocking so I made another pass. Then the carnage hit at about the 1100' mark but it felt a little sluggish and ran a 6.409 @ 109.09 to the 1/8. Came out the back at 10.179 @ 116.14 in a cloud of fire and smoke.
I'm pretty sure that one or more rod bolts failed. I'll know better after the autopsy results are in. Won't be for little while though.
9/17/2009
No carnage pics yet. She hasn't moved an inch since we rolled her off the trailer that night. I'll take her apart when it's time to put the new short block in.
I did manage to snag a good LQ9 shortblock without a crank for $200 this week. It came out of a running truck with about 200K miles. Seasoned.
Dropped it off at the machinist/engine builder. He's gonna get the deck nice and flat, and bore it up to 4.030.
Mike @ TEC (the builder) had a set of LS7 lifters, trays and oil pump that they pulled out of one of their Mosler road race cars after 60 hrs as part of the maintenance schedule. He builds every engine that goes in a production or race Mosler car. They come stock with a forged LS7 427.
My buddy Dave, that did all the aluminum welding, recently picked up a PT94 for his camaro and found a LQ9 longblock out of a wrecked Escalade for his build. He's going to let me have the crank out of his 98 LS1. That motor just had bad cam bearings.
My other buddy Steve is donating a set of Eagle rods that came out looking new from his old LS7 motor.
My AFR 225's are currently being repaired. I bent a couple of valves and beat up the deck back when I had the LS2 408 on the juice. Never used them with the turbo due to the small 62cc chambers and stock flat top pistons.
Tony Mamo is getting me a good deal on a Comp Cam (he doesn't know it yet
). I want to try out one of those new LSL lobes. I'm thinking 231/231 .624/.624 115+1. I like the look of it on paper for a front mount PT88 370ci build. Open to critique.
I intend to continue to use the FAST90 intake until it breaks. The boost will be going up over 20 psi. Shooting for high 8's.
The entire first portion of this build was intended to show that with some creativity, good friends, and good buys it is possible to put together a turbo power plant and not break the bank. Seems like the forged bottom end is going to follow the trend. It takes a village to build a race car.
