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rabenne's street car

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Tested the fuel system as Kevin Jewer describes on his website. I was able to go as low as 26 psi backing the screw out, so my "5an" aka 5/16 return line doesnt seem like it will be a problem. Nor the tiny orifice in my FPR. Yay! So I cranked down the screw and saw 71 psi before it dropped down to 37 psi for no apparent reason. First thing I look for turns out tobe the prob. The oring on the pump pushed out of the bell. So I stuck a second oring on there and had a very similar result. Finally I pulled it out, added about 3/8" long piece of 3/8" fuel hose to the fuel pump outlet. The goal being the hose will keep the orings pressed down into the bell. Well that seemed to work. I was able to get 82 psi before it felt like I was out of adjustment on the regulator.

Glad I took the time to do those checks before getting this car out on the road. I've never had the oring issue before, but I knew it was common from spending time on this forum. So easy to fix with a small piece of hose....
 
Well I fired her up last night! Car ran well, but with some high idle. I debated and researched about camshaft break-in on a roller cam engine and concluded that 10 mins of high idle would be sufficient. Got it up to temp, no leaks!

I played with the biss screw to get it into a reasonable range, but I still need to do some setup steps. I need to check/set the base timing and try to get the fuel trims in line, and a quick BLT, but I should be okay for a test drive this evening.

The turbo sounds pretty awesome on the two step, although I only logged 4.2 psi of boost with it set at 4500 rpm.

The cams are extremely tame at 900 rpm idle. a little burble and that's it. Intake vacuum was reduced from 22 in hg to 17 in hg.
 
What cams are you running in it Will?
It sounds nice!!!
My Kelford264's sound tame too, unless I lean it out at idle, then she blubbers.
 
Yes the cams are degreed to kelford spec. They are the k264s. It required 1.5deg advance on intake and 1.5 retard on exhaust. I asked them for rec on cam timing and they said to go to a much bigger cam. Ya ya. I know. I want my powerband where I want my powerband tho

Let's see how bad these little cams hurt me...
 
I turn mine 9k in 1st 8500 thru the rest in both a stick or auto car. I ran them in my Red Talon and when I bent all the valves, I donated the cams to the blue car and bought Kelford 272's for the stick shift car.
 
Your valve cover looks sick... If I decide not to stick with the polished look on mine I definitely want to do this. Did you do it yourself or did you take it somewhere?
Thank you very much, it was a bit of a gamble (very limited examples), but I am very happy with the result. This was done by Mirror image coating in Racine, Wisconsin. Dustin does nice work! For reference, this is silvery artery base coat and l0llipop red topcoat. Both colors can be found on prismatic powders website.
 
Yeah that would be cool, maybe give me some pointers. I'm trying to get my tool game back up by getting a head count on what I still have and need to get. I pop the hood after so many yrs sitting and time did it no justice. Everything I cleaned up and painted if f$!#ed up, so my first step after getting her started will be cleaning her up. Definitely replace all hoses and vacuum lines, and possibly eliminating unnecessary stuff too.
 
Love the work you did on the cyclone manifold. Would you mind sharing what material you used for the diy gaskets you made? Sorry if you already mentioned it and I just missed it.
 
Well, I cant say 100% that it was right, but I used part number 3157 from Fel-pro. The package says, "Recommended for use on timing covers, axle housing cover and differential carrier gasket applications".

It sealed up nicely for now, but only time will tell if the material was a good choice for the intake. I expect it to be fine as long as the bolts stay tight.


edit: I should add, I have been using this material for BOV, TB, TB elbow, and other random gaskets for years, because I am too cheap to pay mitsu for those things. Never had an issues at the TB or BOV, although I usually slather the BOV gasket in ultra flex rtv before bolting it down.
 
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Got some miles on the car... and unfortunately I think it might be lifting the head. I have a high coolant pressure issue at the minimum. I dont yet know if its a head gasket issue or what. The t-stat seems to be working fine. I knew there was an issue when after making a pull I smelled coolant. Pulled it off to the side and found two coolant caps on the t-stat housing weren't holding coolant. One is for the heater core, and I had a 5/8 cap and clamp on it. They were missing, and the port was naked. The other was the 3/8 port right above it that goes to the throttle body. This is the concerning one. The brand new cap had blown the tip off, and the remaining portion was still clamped to the nipple. So I might be saving for an engine refresh before long...

There was def a lot of pressure in the system. I pressure tested the cooling system to cap pressure prior to startup, and had no hint of issues with those hose caps. I am currently running the small water pump pulley, so its spinning faster than it ever has before. That makes me think maybe I should just buy the evospec pulley. The oil is still extremely clean.

To avoid issues with stupid caps in the future, regardless of the source of high pressure, I removed all three press-in hose barbs on the t-stat housing. I then tapped the holes with a 1/8NPT tap and put plugs into each hole. I also put 3/8 BSPT plug into the heater core fitting. The open ports in the photo are where the ECU and gauge sensors go. To complete this, I am committing to ditching the factory oil cooler, because one of those ports is now going to be plugged. that means I have to deal with the water pipe as well. I figured I can probably get away with a plug on the inlet side of the system, but I might pull it off and weld the tip of the barb shut. I also have to deal with the heater core portion of the water pipe. I would like to put hoses back on once I fix my leaking heater core and figure out the cause of my high pressure, so I am not sure what the plan is. Might hack a spare water pipe down to bare minimum or try making one from scratch.


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Me too, but I dont know if I am that lucky. Its got regular ARP studs. MLS OEM gasket.

Unfortunately I dont have a log to figure out what boost it was seeing. Somewhere between the 25 psi wg spring pressure and this turbos limit??

I have been trying to figure out what else could have contributed to high coolant pressure, and with the hose cap blowing apart, I am thinking compression gasses are to blame. Its hard to replicate this scenario in a garage for diagnostic purposes, so I plan to try a few things to learn more about it. Both caps were technically under the t-stat, so I am going to throw in a lower temperature t-stat with failsafe. I am also going to replace the radiator cap with fresh one. Also looking at different ways to monitor the cooling system pressure above and below t-stat.
 
Well, I am both pleased and personally embarrassed to report that a lack of proper spring pressure on the new radiator cap appears to have been the problem. Its embarrassing because I didn't try another new cap, or find a way to test the cap (I do have a universal adapter for my cooling system tester, or hell any hose would work...) I put the cap from the auto AWD on.

I think they both have a weak spring.

Here's how I got there... I started the car this morning with my radiator pressure tester setup on it, and let it run until the t-stat opened. I watched closely to monitor the temp, and to keep and eye on the pressure in the tester. While there was some pressure in the system after warming up and cycling through the t-stat, it was well below the cap pressure .9 bar (13ish psi). This led me to a couple of conclusions, first the cap wasnt holding enough pressure, because I had witnessed some coolant bypassing the cap and going out into the res. tank. Second, my temporary placement of the reservoir would allow bypassed coolant to find the pavement because it was sitting so low. These problems in tandem mean low coolant level, over heating, boiling (at a lower temp than intended with a .9bar cap) and probably some excess pressure while thats happening... Boiling is bad, but I dont think I have any major damage. Ill find out before long... Maybe the unrelated boilover blew the caps off/apart...

I threw another used cap I had sitting around on there, and bent its 2 tabs slightly to ensure it was fitting nice and tight to the water neck. Then I ran the car for just under 60 mins at idle and a several of those off-idle, 1500 rpm, 1700 rpm. The car never rose above 206 F. I bypassed zero additional coolant into the overflow tank, so I am convinced my issue was 2 bad radiator caps, one being brand new... Hopefully the rain lets up and ill get some road time tomorrow. I need data, I basically started over with the tune.

Ill probably still pick up that EvoSpec pulley for a bit better water pump bearing life... high rpms cant be fun for it...
 
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Love build threads like this!!

Hope it all gets sorted out soon and that's all the issue was with the coolant cap. Really damn exciting :)
 
@MorrisonFab Thank you for dropping in! I am loving this setup. I am surprised by the mid-range response, and I am really looking forward to getting a decent tune on it so I can report back some spool data.

The sun is finally coming out so hopefully this evening ill get to play around a bit.
 
Yeah do check with all mount on the car. Morrison setup might be as snug to the oan as possible since they would want it out the way. Im assuming this is the case.

Check your end out first and i shall make a small list of checks for me

The flex section is almost always further forward (about at the crank centerline) and would never cause an issue- this just happened to have that oil pan and tcase brace making the flex moved back a safer bet for clearance in this case. Until that slick brace showed up :p
 
Yes, which proves no matter how much you think and plan ahead, there is always going to be a few uh-oh moments!

I never even mentioned the brace to you guys (MFab) so this is 100% on me. You were so diligent about collecting the relevant data, and accommodating the specifics of my setup... then I go and forget to mention this?!? LOL

I will just redo that cross bar and everything will play nice together again! I wouldnt have wanted to push the flex section back much further anyway. Its in a good spot.

@ec17pse these are just mild steel right? What kind of tube should I grab to patch in a new cross bar?
 
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Yes, which proves no matter how much you think and plan ahead, there is always going to be a few uh-oh moments!

I never even mentioned the brace to you guys (MFab) so this is 100% on me. You were so diligent about collecting the relevant data, and accommodating the specifics of my setup... then I go and forget to mention this?!? LOL

I will just redo that cross bar and everything will play nice together again! I wouldnt have wanted to push the flex section back much further anyway. Its in a good spot.

@ec17pse these are just mild steel right? What kind of tube should I grab to patch in a new cross bar?
It is normal CDS tube or DOM as you guys call it over there.
 
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