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C1 Motorsports Evo Swap Time Attack Eclipse

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MCA suspension golds if memory serves me.

Sorry I forgot to reply to your question; good guy Kevin nailed it though: custom MCA Golds with remote canisters.
 
So quite the busy month preparing for our latest track event.

After a shake down in Sonoma, we headed back to the dyno to look at fixing the higher RPM stutter and get a proper tune on the car.

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During diagnosis, the tech checked timing again, checked ignition, and fuel pressure and everything seemed fine, but the car kept stuttering and a lean AFR at higher RPM not responding to dumping fuel in the tune. Something mechanically had to still be off. We pulled the fuel injectors out and gave them a test.

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Luckily we are running e85, because with a fuel injector firing like this, one cylinder running lean while the other's aren't is very dangerous. You can obviously see the cylinder 3 fuel injector was under-performing. The AFR is reading in the downpipe, as a sensor reading on a collection of 4 cylinders, so it was difficult to identify a single cylinder issue. This scared me straight; I will need to get individual EGT sensors to tune and alarm better. Luckily we didn't push the car above the 4-5k mark on the track and didn't force through the sputtering and nothing major happened. We decided to just buy new fuel injectors. I will clean these old ones and will have a second set on hand for anything in the future. In the mean time, time is literally money to the shop so I had to get the car running asap and tuned. New injectors were faster to get than to send the old ones out for a clean.

After the swap however, we still had issues..

The Fuel pressure signal that is logged by the Motec is showing fuel pressure at 51 psi, but we notice no matter what the RPM is or Boost Pressure, it doesn't move at all. So he hooked up a mechanical gauge:



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So now the problem is fuel delivery. At this point the tech who just wants to tune my car is starting to turn into a builder and he has other cars to tune, so I have no choice but to take the car home and figure out yet another issue. I am pretty bummed all the time and money it's costing, but no body ever said a winning race car was cheap or easy. He tells me he's cleaned up the tune for lower rpm part throttle and the sub 4kish RPM range, so if we fixed the fuel pressure issue, he could just turn up the boost and massage the tune a bit. Remember, the car was tuned on E98 before so we aren't doing anything drastic.

Getting the car home, I order new 3 new fuel pumps and prepare myself for a relatively quick fix. I am pushing for the next track day which is the following weekend so I don't have time to mess around. I start to remove the fuel lines from the pump and then the fuel filter so I could check on that (admittedly, I should have replaced or cleaned that before going to the tuner. Learn from me!!)

Before:
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After:
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Eh.. it was dirty, so I don't feel like I wasted time there, but.. how about the fuel line itself?

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Now THAT looks like it would be restrictive at a higher flow rate. Seems like we can never catch a break. At some point during reassembly, this line must have been kinked terribly. Again, I am not going to be pointing fingers at anyone, because it's my fault for not catching it when I looked the car over when I got it, but this is a fuel line that would need to be replaced. Luckily Amazon has next day shipping so I could fix both this kink plus the fuel leak prone area I had to fix the first time I went to the tuner.

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Since the issue seemed to be with a kink probably caused by a hand formed bend, I decided to spring for a fancy tube bender. This thing has aluminum dies in every size I'd need sub 1". Larger than that I would be using my JD2 Model 3 tube bender, but when one die for that is 150-200 bucks vs this whole kit for 200, it made sense to have a smaller tool for use under the car.

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I also used a Rigid Flare tool which I had acquired previously for brake lines. I love it when I have a tool that I use more than once! Within about an hour, I had myself a new fuel line.

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I am so happy to replace this crazy fitting area. It leaked once before so it was probably a matter of time before it would do it again. Except, it won't now. And of course the kinked lines were a think of the past. Very happy with this.

I was certain the fuel pressure issue would be resolved now, there is no way fuel pressure would have been able to climb with the kink it had, so I assembled the cleaned fuel filter and new lines and turned my attention to the fuel pressure sensor.

This is something I could type out and tell you a story that spanned 4 or 5 hours in the garage, but I'm going straight to the TLDR: the sensor wasn't wired. Milspec wiring is fantastically sexy to look at when its completed, but when you have a 50 pin firewall plug with all white wire, tracing wires from the sensor to the ECU was impossible. I tried. So the quick fix was running new wire, rewiring the ECU pin and assigning it correctly.

I tested the sensor with the air compressor to check pressure readings in the ECU and felt confident to start the car. The car was so so much happier! The new fuel injectors had the car idling so much better, and a quick test of the car showed fuel pressure climbing 1:1 with boost even above 4k rpm. The stuttering was gone so we were ready for the proper tune to max boost pressure.

By Wednesday, and I decide to follow up with a call to my tire supplier to see if my new tires, Yokohama Advan A052, were going to be arriving sooner than expected. The A052 are going to be a spec tire for the future of Super Lap Battle and the racecar needed new tires anyways. The country wide back order meant no one had them though so I was waiting for them to come in. Out of months of stories with nothing but bad news, I finally got some good: they had some come in!

With a little bit of begging and pleading for free shipping as advertised...., I still ended up paying for next day shipping LOL. This was something I really wanted to have, a day to test the car on its proper tires would be invaluable and the prior test day on 5+ year old street tires was not going to net me any more information. Even with the tires not leaving the warehouse Wednesday, instead shipping Thursday, and showing up by Friday, all I had to do was get them mounted and balanced on the big boy rims and that doesn't take long at all. Maybe not even a day to spare, but it was more than enough.

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I installed the tires on the car and topped the oil off in the dry sump and the transmission with Motul gear oil and as the sun set after work, I was looking to load truck up with all my tools and get the car up onto the trailer to head back to Sonoma.

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I started the car and got the ramps ready on the trailer, when I came back, under the car was this:

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Nooooooo!! NO, no no no no no! I thought we fixed this oil leak issue, OMG! Upon further investigation, I found that when the car got up to temp, oil start pouring out of my puke tank/Oil Vent. I had over filled the dry sump. My car didn't come with an instruction book, and there isn't an oil level dip stick for me to check, but apparently I went too high. I drained the overflow tank and revved the engine a bit trying to purge the system of anything extra, empty the tank again and repeat. At 9-10pm or so I am sure my neighbors loved that... Eventually I was satisfied and got the car loaded on the trailer. Off to Sonoma I went.

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Boy was I excited!

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I was so excited to have Mario behind the wheel testing the car for me, he was getting an opportunity to get a feel for the car on its tires as he prepares himself to race the car at Super Lap Battle Buttonwillow. But it wouldn't be today.

Shortly after this video, Mario pulled the car in. He said he smelled oil.. and I bet you can guess what the cause of that was... The dry sump was still too full, and was dumping oil out the vent and onto his tires where he noticed it get squirly in a corner. I felt so embarrassed a day at the track could have turned so bad over something so dumb, endangering both my driver and the car.

There is no way to drain the oil in the dry sump only partially, and just emptying the catch can while reving the engine wasn't doing it apparently. So we were 3 of us running around the paddock asking random people for a tube to use as a siphon. NASA folks are awesome to be around, and even those without a tube were still willing to look and ask around to their friends. Luckily we got a tube, tapped it to a windex squirt bottle, and starting SLOWLY pumping oil. It took well over an hour due to air gaps and tape and just random dumb stuff, but we drained a quart or two of oil and it got us back on track, and this time hopefully without issue.



The next session was a heartbreaker. Lap 4, Mario was continuing to drive at an imposed RPM limiter til we had enough full lap logs for our tuner (who was on site) to green light us to go faster. I also wanted to be sure we were good on the oil leaking issue and I didn't want to endanger anyone. The over filled oil wasn't the issue though. Coming around turn 8, I spot the car coasting, slowly even for the limitations I had the driver under.

He came to a complete stop, in the middle of the session. My heart is sunk. Did we just lose an engine? Did our PPG dogbox already die? That and a 100 other terrible ideas popped in my head as I could do nothing but watch as the safety and tow crew made their way to collect the car.

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Murphy's law, I swear. Anything that can go wrong, will. In this particular case, and I am not sure on the order of events, we lost an axle and CV boot, causing a major mess under the car. The axle came out of the transmission somehow, and due to the car having a Quaife LSD, with a missing axle the gearbox acts like an open diff, meaning all mechanical grip was sent the path of least resistance which, in this case, was the axleless driver side. That is what put the car to a stop. This in it self is not the end of my worries, because an axle that slowly falls out with a fully engaged transmission meant there would be likely damage to the splines of the axle and differential as one was spinning faster than the other.

That would be the end of our test day. I have spare axles at home, and I am feeling silly I don't own a giant enclosed trailer that can haul a full car's worth of spare parts. ** Looking at the big boy racers and their big rigs grumble grumble** Easiest thing to do is just swap the axle and hope the splines in the diff aren't garbage. Luckily they aren't, so OEM style replacement will have to suffice til I can rebuild the DSS it replaced. Looking forward to Sunday for another test day.

Sunday, however, was something no one could have expected. For the first time in 30 years, due to California wildfires, the race track was shut down. The safety personnel were needed for the fires and the track was ground zero for evacuees. I was having car problems but there were much bigger problems going on that day.

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So with Super Lap Battle just two weeks away, we never got a full tune on the car, we never got a full test day with the car. Things are looking pretty grim, but I have plans to rebuild the DSS axle properly and another dyno day in the shop with the tuner. The car's mechanical grip with the new tires was good but we never got heat in the tires to know just how well it will hold up. This is not the car I wanted to have going into SLB, but I do have a team of folks helping with the car trying to make the most of our situation.

I feel like every time you talk to a car guy, they always have excuses about something, always say "next time it'll be faster because of" this or that. Here I am 2 weeks before the race and I already am lining up the excuses, but after talking with the team, they want to go forward and learn as much as possible from this experience and attend SLB anyways. I had expectations of winning the race before we even got there, but now I would be happy to just attend. I continue to appreciate more and more the racers who do this regularly and show up to put respectable times down. Anyone can spend money on parts, or with a little know how spend time fabricating custom pieces, but it's the determination to keep going forward you can't buy.

I look forward to all the competitors at Super Lap Battle on November 16/17 and can't wait to see what the C1 Motorsports team can do to over come the hurdles we must face to go fast.

p.s. Social media is how I connect with fans of the Eclipse and other Time Attack race cars, and is the metric used for acquiring some sponsors. If you have a social media account, please consider following us on Facebook or Instagram to show support. It means more than you can imagine.
 
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Great update Philip. Sorry to hear about all the troubles with the car. It's never a good feeling going to a race event when you haven't been able to get some good test laps in, especially with a car as heavily modified as this. So many unknowns. And I can relate with all of the thoughts on the excuses, but honestly, that's just part of the journey. Frustration and heart break are simply part of this passion. It's those few times where it all comes together that gives us motivation to keep doing it, but having fun with the rest of the process (or at least most of it) is imperative. Determination is required, but so is enjoyment.

Keep up the good work! Can't wait to see how it all plays out this year.
 
So calling up DSS, they sent over the C clips we needed to keep the axle in the transmission, and rebuilt the boot with new grease. What isn’t shown is the 4+ hours of cleaning up the huge mess. There was old grease throw up as high as the intake manifold and covered tons of wiring.

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While considering just throwing in a stock axle that Sunday, I found the design of transmission support would not accommodate the stock axles, which we will keep as backup at the track. Now, with time so tight I didn’t have time to waste waiting to borrow a plasma cutter again, so I did what had to be done to shape the thick support piece.

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It’s the weekend before Super Lap Battle and we were back at the dyno trying to get our elusive full tune back. We get the car hooked up for the third time on the dyno, and for the first time, we do a pull all the way to redline at wastegate spring boost pressure. We finally did it, all the time effort and energy felt like it paid off. The tuner started to turn to boost up and at about 22 PSI, fuel pressure started dropping again.

I am running out of ways to describe the team’s disappointment. There is no way that makes sense to have the fuel pressure dropping. I am thinking “The only thing we haven’t replaced at this time is the wiring” and at this point, the tech says, “Well, then let’s check the wiring!”

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This shunt resistor can measure and log the current flowing to our three fuel pumps; that is if we knew what it was beforehand. Tracing power we found this box and what was a pretty obvious cause of the fuel pressure loss. Only one of the two pressure side fuel pumps was receiving power, so in the interest of time and continuing the tune with the car, we would just jump this for now and continue turning up the boost.



Pull after pull, the tuner turned the boost up and cleaned up partial throttle. For two or three hours we worked our way up adding more and more HP every pull.

Until we didn’t.

I was recording every pull on camera but after an hour or so, I decided to just hold out for a final “Max HP” pull. So of course I wasn’t filming on one particular pull, that much like every other prior pull, the car gets put into 3rd gear and begins it’s climb up the RPM range. By ear, it sounded like 5k RPM or so, which is when our broad torque curve and fully spun turbo would be shining, when the RPMs jumped unnaturally like a free rev.

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I never thought I’d say this, but I hoped the axle had just popped out again. That was a relatively easy fix (though I guess unexplained..), but this wasn’t an axle.

The Dogbox sheared 3rd gear and cracked the mid transmission housing, probably from wedging some fragmented metal between another gear and the thin aluminum housing. This is a season-ender.

We have three other transmissions for the car, but they were all broken from other similar excursions from past race events and we haven’t had the time to replace them yet. Dog box, face plated, it doesn’t matter; this car’s 2.4l torque eats transmissions for breakfast. Cost of replacement aside, getting a new transmission, or even just the parts from Australia’s PPG would take longer than a week, which means we have to officially announce a withdrawal from Super Lap Battle Finals 2019.

It was the one race we had planned for all year, but nothing went right for us. It is certainly a hurdle not being able to street drive the vehicle or have a local dyno for quick tests, but nothing can prepare you for a major engine or transmission failure like this.

Before the decision to withdraw was made, I called all our sponsors, and every one of them asked how they could help. Horse Power Industries said they’d swap a transmission in this week, driver Mario asks how much money does he need to send to just straight up buy a new box, and as beaten up as I am, I still wanted to make the race. I gather myself to reached out to @twicks69 at TMZ Performance to ask the big question, “Optimistically, and realistically, can we get a replacement transaxle before next week”. Tim is a great sponsor and like many of our other sponsors, helps with more than just what his primary business services provides, knowing about race cars in general. However, time is our limiting factor now, and we are all out of that.

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I even tried swinging by TEM Machine where I got to finally meet face to face with our engine building sponsor, Rich. I asked if he had any leads or solutions on such short notice, but there aren’t a lot of folks around with spare Dogbox transmissions in a DSM.

So that’s a wrap. Luckily a transmission swap is a very simple process, all things considered, so we’ll be able to swap it easy enough when we can get a replacement. We’ll have plenty more time to go out and get a few more shakedowns before next year’s event. For 2019 however, it seems we’ve reached the end of the road on the opportunity to make it out to Super Lap Battle Finals.

We’ll continue to post updates on the transmission rebuild and keep you up to date on SLB results on our social media accounts, so stay tuned, and wish GOOD LUCK to all our SLB competitors!
 
:banghead: what a kick in the balls.

For what it's worth Philip, it's great reading about the effort. You tell a great story, and I feel like I'm right there with you, feeling the same devastation. It's one thing to put in all the time and effort to have the car break at the event, but to not even be able to make the trip due to lack of time/availability of parts... :mad:

Hope to see you continue the quest. That car needs to compete. We need to see it on track fighting for glory.
 
The proboem with 2.4's is it either cracks a block or eats trannys, either one its a common thing but it certainly does suck man, i hope you get it all sorted in time and you will be one busy monkey wrenching away into the early hours of each day.

If i was closer i would lend a hand for sured, is there any other local dsm guys that know enough to help out
 
I think the 2.4 has a place in a DSM. In the 400-600 HP range, they are going to provide the meaty torque and help spool the turbo that will be sized appropriately for that application. When you start getting into the 600+ HP range, you start getting into larger turbos that need more RPMs to breath, and you have to start considering higher revving/ lower torque engines like the 2.0/2.1/2.2. Maybe it's something we consider? I still haven't pulled the gearbox apart to verify exactly what happened, but I don't know if counting the 2.4 out is the right decision at this point in time.

I jumped into the project mid way after Andrew; he was already trying to solve these issues 10 years ago. The last year has been a flurry of information from Andrew and the original supporters of the car providing information and the new guys getting caught up on what all was done before. @Boostin Performance developed a billet bearing housing, maybe some new developments like that could solve issues with our dog box. He's making 1800 HP I think, I'd hope we could figure out how to hold my lowly 600 together.
 
A Long rod certainly wouod go down well in racing. Torque is nice but not in a FWD so a high compression LR would be a nice compromise i think. If he was having issues and never solved them i doubt much will chsnge now because apsrt from a few billet upgrades the rest still is the same and our boxes never get better.

Would it be cheaper to look at a seqentual unit for the long run where our boxes and gears are not onoy getting weak and old but extint aswel? At least they are designed to work alot better for super high levers of power and torque. It is costly up front yes but i think its alot cheaper then that gesr set you was selling alone and these would at least be cheaper to replace. Just an option. I know its something i am considering for strength anyway.

I know a few of the guys running evos here in TA had engine issues but not so much tranny issues so maybe it is just a trans thing for us but the blocks are better? Who knows with out the kind of data we cannot afford to get from testing
 
Thanks for checking in! It's been a busy last couple of weeks; lots of projects going on. The team and I are very excited to share what we've all been up to, but we'll need a few more weeks to gather all the details!

There are 5 obvious projects in this clip, but you guys will be pretty surprised how they all come together.

 
Bullet Race Engineering has some really neat stuff coming out of their shop. Once the block arrives, I'll do another video specifically catering to the new engine block. I'll try to get Rich from TEM involved in the video maybe so you get a machinist's impression as well. He's shy though :coy:
 
Bullet Race Engineering has some really neat stuff coming out of their shop. Once the block arrives, I'll do another video specifically catering to the new engine block. I'll try to get Rich from TEM involved in the video maybe so you get a machinist's impression as well. He's shy though :coy:
The one thing i cannot find on the web on the blocks is do you use sleeves because the design looks sleeveless,

Also how many passes or skims do you get because the surface has a lip and i assume thats a gauge to say how many time it can be skimmed
 
Since the dawn of time, before DSMtuners existed and every other week since then, man has asked:

"Can I/How do I put an Evo motor into my Eclipse"

I finally have the answer. I present to you step 1 in a comprehensive guide to building an Evo 4g63 motor in Eclipse.

Step 1: Find giant block of aluminum to build your billet evolution motor:

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I am excited to announce Bullet Race Engineering is starting our billet aluminum engine block! Over the next few weeks they will be milling all the benefits and improvements you could ever dream of in a 4G63 while maintaining complete bolt in compatibility with all 4g63 accessories.

While the guide and custom installation parts we'll provide for this swap in the future to all DSMers will not require a billet block, we chose to utilize this 1700 HP rated block for the ultimate in strength and reliability in the torturous environment of the road course. We will be filming a complete overview of this block and its benefits for anyone interested in this fine piece of aluminum booty once it arrives at the C1 garage.

If you want a sneak peak of what this block of aluminum turns into, check out the Bullet Race Engineering website.
 
Bullet Race Engineering has completed milling the chunk of aluminum and is in the final stages now sleeving the block. There are are so many goodies and upgrades on the block, more than just weight loss by going aluminum. Take a peak at it fresh off the mill:

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That is correct, sleeved cylinders. But something else unique is that block's deck. We have no coolant passages in the block/headgasket, but then look at the side photo, we are still water cooled. We're going to be doing a trick cylinder fire rings sealing system and rerouting water from the head to the block behind the head.

There is so much cool stuff with the block I can't wait to nerd out in front of a camera and share everything.
 
That is correct, sleeved cylinders. But something else unique is that block's deck. We have no coolant passages in the block/headgasket, but then look at the side photo, we are still water cooled. We're going to be doing a trick cylinder fire rings sealing system and rerouting water from the head to the block behind the head.

There is so much cool stuff with the block I can't wait to nerd out in front of a camera and share everything.
So they sleeve it for you from them or thats upto you?

I been reading up on it all and they offer many choices, so your cooling is going to be block and hesd seperate and not psssing through the head gasket.

Also have you looked into the SME heads? One of the best heads going and uses bucket type lifters for very high revving
 
They sleeve it the first time for ya, and then you either bore it with your machinist or you could have them build the engine for you. They offer many in house services in addition to machining the block. The sleeves are replaceable and serviceable much like any sleeved block. Long as you don't window the block, you are good to go another round. Same with the fire rings. Since we aren't sealing the head and block via a head gasket, in theory we have a longer potential life expectancy by just replacing the copper fire rings, no decking required. The only thing passing through the block deck is oil.

I did reach out to SME. They didn't want to sponsor the car this year, and we already have a huge number of (expensive) projects on our plate as it is. :coy:... Rich @TEMPerformance is going to work some magic on the OEM cast head though, porting, over-sizing valves, running solid lifters, and upgrading the valve train to support a 10500 red line. I think when we get a second year of the build going after some successful testing in our first, there will still be plenty more on the table to upgrade to, which is crazy to think about.

That said, if anyone wants to buy a sponsor spot on the car for 5k, I would not object to throwing the SME head in the mix this year! :sneaky: We'll take one for the 'team' and see if it's any good in an Eclipse ROFL (read: those heads are not cheap)
 
They sleeve it the first time for ya, and then you either bore it with your machinist or you could have them build the engine for you. They offer many in house services in addition to machining the block. The sleeves are replaceable and serviceable much like any sleeved block. Long as you don't window the block, you are good to go another round. Same with the fire rings. Since we aren't sealing the head and block via a head gasket, in theory we have a longer potential life expectancy by just replacing the copper fire rings, no decking required. The only thing passing through the block deck is oil.

I did reach out to SME. They didn't want to sponsor the car this year, and we already have a huge number of (expensive) projects on our plate as it is. :coy:... Rich @TEMPerformance is going to work some magic on the OEM cast head though, porting, over-sizing valves, running solid lifters, and upgrading the valve train to support a 10500 red line. I think when we get a second year of the build going after some successful testing in our first, there will still be plenty more on the table to upgrade to, which is crazy to think about.

That said, if anyone wants to buy a sponsor spot on the car for 5k, I would not object to throwing the SME head in the mix this year! :sneaky: We'll take one for the 'team' and see if it's any good in an Eclipse ROFL (read: those heads are not cheap)
thoe heads are not for the guys with shy wallets! its a thing I would love to have also. very top spec and worth every penny im sure for the security of the head / lifters. what you got going so far is great and maybe its something o look into once you have more data or even if you run into issue as you may not have any at all.

as for the block i wish they designed it with a replaceable top so once you skimmed it many times you can unbolt that and replace it rather then throwing away the cmplete block but i gues if they did that they would loose out on money, look forward to seeing this all come together just like im sure you certainly are
 
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