Well yesterday I got the engine from a block with a rotating assembly to a fully dressed engine ready to drop in. The only mishap er surprise I fortunately caught while I was timing the engine. During the whole time I had the engine apart I was on the fence about doing a balance shaft delete but in the end I didn't have the expendable funds to buy a kit that gets rid of the counterweights and I didn't want to run a stub shaft so I left them in. While I was timing the engine I found a slight issue with the rear shaft belt... So no rear shaft for me. Next time I have the engine out I'll either throw in a weightless race shaft or pull the stock shaft and turn it down in a lathe. Going to get the clutch and trans on the engine monday morning and crossing my fingers there will be an open lift to start vehicle install monday evening.
Almost there. Tomorrow should be the day. Gives me two solid days to break in the engine and make it to MWM
TOMORROW is the day. Just need to fill it with fluids, throw the serpentine belt, hot pipe and downpipe on, connect the oil cooler lines and one more engine mount. Gave the new clutch a try and was surprised at how light it is. I'd figured moving to a 6 puck that is rated to hold like 600tq that it'd have a pretty stiff pressure plate.
Project is moving along quite nicely. I am Looking forward to the next update! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
Car is running. Had to go to 4 stores to find the right gear oil for the trans. Fill fluids. Prime oil system. Inhale. Start car. Exhale. Bleed coolant. Go to take car off the lift. Dies. Car won't stay idling. Trace it to being my tial bpv valve that I converted to a bov hanging open (car is still a maf car). Swap the bpv bottom back on. Recirc hose is too large for the recirc fitting on my valve so I had to "enlarge" it. Throw that on the car and everything is cherry. Time to break it in...
On my second oil change. Car has 160 city miles on, everyone seems determined to keep me from driving it though. Hoping to get converted over to speed density tomorrow. I'm really liking the comp stage 4 clutch. It's very grabby for a single disk but pedal effort is barely harder than the exedy stage 1 I just took out. Going to try to make it to a strip sometime next week to see how it handles launches on radials. As for the balance shaft it's hard to say how much it increased nvh because I also swapped in the rear trans torque solutions mount. Vibes are definitely up from before but it's nothing harsh which leads me to think that most of the nvh increase is from the mount. Overall I'm liking how things are shaping up. Mostly went together fairly smooth, no leaks, no start up problems other than the bov, first oil change looked pretty good (slight silver tint but no large flakes).
And the engine is fucked. Got a little over 500 miles on it and threw E85 in. Drove it on some back roads saturday and the car felt great. Took it to an autox earlier today/yesterday. My co-driver and I each got one run in without issue. Sometime during the 50 seconds or so during my second run the engine went from perfectly fine to HEAVY rod knock, didn't even hear it until I crossed the finish line. Trailered the car 5 hours home, just finished ripping the pan off. 1, 2 and 3 rod bearings are all damaged, I haven't pulled to rod caps off yet but there is tons of metal in the oil pan so I wouldn't be surprised if they spun. This is probably going to be an early end of my season.
That sucks and I hate to hear that it happened. Any ideas on what your next steps will be? Good thing @Micha had his truck with 21000 lumens of brightness. crapatalk it sucks for free
Maybe we figure out a sponsor deal to get the car back up and running. Grapers Racing? crapatalk it sucks for free
Sorry to hear this happened Austin. Good to see @Micha using that badass mofo for something other than wot pulls...hahaha Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Sounds like we have the start of a plan. @AYOUSTIN, how do you feel about dildo numbers on the side of the car when you start racing again? crapatalk it sucks for free
