metaruss

On the road again.  New intermediate shaft, new seals.  Thanks to Dave for the crankshaft seal housing (had to strip the orange paint…sorry :).  I still have a rattle coming from the tranny in neutral.  I noticed that it doesn’t rattle if I release the clutch slowly, so perhaps it has something to do with this 6-puck HD clutch disc.  Nice to have A/C again.

I was doing some post-convention maintenance such as retorquing the head studs (which it didn’t need, BTW), when I had a slight problem.  While trying to track down a fuel leak I dropped one of the fuel rail bolts on the head, which of course went straight down the center oil return passage and into the oil pan.  Grrr.  While pulling the pan, I cracked the front crank seal housing.  Grrr.  I then noticed that the new intermediate shaft seal housing is also leaking.  Grrr.

Well, another year, another convention.  SDAC-14 was a blast as usual.  I went home each night, which made it hard to get up at 5am for the car show and the driving school.  The car show was pretty cool, as we were right along side the classic Mopars from the Chicago Mopar Connection.  My dad had a good time checking out all the classic Mopars.  I didn’t bother showing the CSX because it was…well just ugly.

The performance driving school was awesome.  I liked it even more than SDAC-10 (even though that one had the NASCAR oval).  Blackhawk Farms is a really fun track and the weather was beautiful.  I got a total of 6 sessions in and my instructor was with me the whole time.  He really helped me a lot.  The car was running a little lean at the top end.  Some 100 octane stopped the pinging, but it still broke up on the straights after a couple of laps.  I think I cured it the next day by raising the pumping effeciency table up a bit in the upper RPM range.  Guess I’m flowing a bit better than stock…probably the ported exhaust manifold/bigger exhaust.  By the end my rear brakes were toast.  They sounded horrible, so I just put a new set of pads on since I couldn’t find rotors that night.

The drags were fun, but a little quieter than usual in terms of participation.  There was some scheduling confusion and the bracket races happened while everyone was eating lunch.  I didn’t realize until the end that time trials were still running between events.  I would have run more if I had known.  One thing on the Shelby that I have not been able to fix: the car won’t boost past about 14-15psi, even with the wastegate unplugged.  I made a new BOV flange, swapped Talon BOVs, replaced the ribbed, upper hose, etc.  Nothing helped.  It’s either a boost leak in the intercooler or somewhere that I can’t see or the wastegate actuator is toast.  The turbo is getting rather sloppy on the compressor side and there seems to be some oil in the IC now when there wasn’t before the headgasket change.  I have a feeling that it’s on the way out.  Grrr.

In the staging lanes at Da Grove.  Thanks to Kevin Schellenberg for the pictures.

My best run was the first of the day: 14.737sec @ 96.35mph:

Found a friend for that head.  New Turbos Unleashed S60 unit with an adjustible large can wastegate, stock .48 A/R exhaust housing, clipped turbine, and a 3″ TU swingvalve.

06/29/04: Version 1.3 – added some advance on the in the mid and top end and backed-off on the high-boost advance.  Put a tad more fuel in the PEFTBL.

Well, on my way to Dave’s house for the SDAC-14 early bird BBQ, the car completely died about 3 miles from his place.  I managed to roll it into a gas station.  I thought it was the HEP, as I got fuel pressure when I turn the ignition on, but upon further inspection, I noticed that the distributer rotor had about 180 degrees of slop.

Luckily, JT had his truck and trailer up at Dave’s and was able to drive down and haul the beast back up to Dave’s garage.  A bit of disassembly confirmed that the intermediate shaft and oil pump gears were toast.  The teeth were simply worn away to oblivion.  I’m alittle unclear what causes this failure.  It looks like a lack of lubrication to me.

Dave and Kate, being the cool people that they are, put me up for night and then Dave took me to the parts store in the morning.  Dave had a selection of used intermediate shafts from various motors and I bought a new Melling oil pump from Autozone.  After getting it all back together, the car ran like a champ.  All the idle problems, pinging weirdness, and revving problems were gone.  She pulls hard to 6k.  Thanks guys!

Hail to the king, baby.  Come get some sweet sweet Steve Menegon ported head action.  Oh yeah.

I pulled the A568 out of the CSX so I can bolt it to this powertrain.  I found an A523 with 3.50:1 drive ratio in another corner of the garage.  Where did that come from?  Then I tripped over this box marked “Quaife”….

Well, the car is back together.  While I had it apart, I swapped in the A520 that I had just rebuilt before getting rid of the Shadow.  It has the chrome moly bearing plate too, so it should hold up to this motor.  The taller overall gear ratio will be welcome.  Since it had the A568 in it before, I had to swap the shifter, cables, etc.  I also replaced the middle rear freeze plug with a rubber one, as it was starting to seep.  It was rusted through from the inside, just like the one behind the starter was.  I also replaced that first one as the rubber was looking cracked and shabby.

I couldn’t see where the headgasket had blown into a coolant jacket, but it did blow between cylinders 3 and 4.  The gasket was still there, but it was burned between the gasket and the head.  That area of the head is still flat and intact, so it should be fine.  Unfortunately, I drove it to and from work and it still runs like crap except now it won’t rev past 4500.  Grrr.

I am slowly collecting parts to build up the new power train for this thing.  Who knows, maybe I’ll have it done for SDAC.  Hahahaha…yeah right.  Via a series of junkyard trips and parts cars, I finally have all the interior bits for a complete ’91 interior.  The center console was a bit of a challenge, as it changed between ’90 and ’91.  I wanted a manual shifter and trying to find the right center console pieces in the right color was tricky since I am partial to the ’91+ style.  I am still confused about how the whole center console works with the navigator and CD player slots.  I am not going to install a factory CD player, but it would be nice to understand this.  I don’t see how one could get at them with the console up so high.  The service manuals didn’t really have any diagrams that were terribly helpful.  I have my hands on a parts car that has everything else I need and more…bwahaha.