Stuff I'm working on.

What was up with the Black Fox body and the Red Camaro smoke under the hoods is that just blow by, or stuff just burning off the exhaust? I have much want for red Ford!! would be fun for such a sleeper.

Louis Winthorpe III said:

What was up with the Black Fox body and the Red Camaro smoke under the hoods is that just blow by, or stuff just burning off the exhaust? I have much want for red Ford!! would be fun for such a sleeper.

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The camaro had some new parts on it that had never had a chance to run that hard on the street. It was just some burn off.

The Fox is just a leaky ****ing bastard. Ran good, but just pissed out of the back of the engine all over the H-pipe. I normally would have the leaks fixxed prior to running it, but its a dyno day, "rules" get a bit looser for the sake of the event.

Late last week this showed up to the shop. Looks like alot of fun. Forged 5.3, S480, manual 4L80, E85, Holley ecu, ect.

Note the booster seat in the middle. Dude is doing parenting correctly.

Solid work here. Looks good! Still hate Optima bateries.



Marshal got a new tool box sticker.


We had Trev's BMW on the dyno for the dyno day and it was kind of disappointing. Lots of misses and farts, waaaaaaaaayyyy too rich. After the dyno day we had a few minutes to get back up and try and lean it out and see what's up. the plugs are junk, the wires are junk. Turns out maintenance is a thing. I am not a BMW fan, but this thing really spoiled him. When asked about the maintenance schedule there was "I think i changed the oil twice".

He has owned it for 10 years or so.
We get some new tune up parts in it and run it again next week. I feel like a solid 350rwhp is on the horizon.

After the work weak and taking Friday off Me and the girl got after some yard work. **** did the black berrie3s go for it this year. We ordered a 30 yard debris bin and over Friday Saturday Sunday and Monday did our best to fill it.

We broke out all the required tools for the job. Beer being the biggest one I think.

Number two is......

The Zero turn got a huge work out as well. This was all overgrown 24 hours ago. Black berrie4s 10 feet tall.

After getting what we could done it was Monday evening and our last day for work around the house we took the fun car out for dinner! We ran into Friends!!! The little T bucket was cool. 8.2 deck aluminum head small block with a C4 trans. given the weight, its a rocket for sure!
And you may remember the red truck from about a year ago when he brought it into the shop and we got it sorted out for him. Fixed some idle problems and some dying on decel issues. We made a ton more power and got the trans to shift firm and at the proper time. it was good to see him in the wild driving it.
I asked him how it ran and was really pleased with it. Bragged up one side and down the other. That's always good to hear.
Don't think he ever figured out it was me that tuned it, and he told me he was in the middle of having his corvette tuned by the same guy that botched the truck but again, oh well, you can lead them to water, hold the head under, and punch them in the gut, but can't make them drink. I don't know where the issue came up with is truck and the dude who originally tuned it. I know the tuner guy and he is solid so I suspect there was a comms problem between the owner, the tuner, and the office. We are certainly guilty of that as well at times regardless of trying not to be.
Dinner was pretty fun. the cars got a lot of attention. The weather was awesome and I didn't have a black berry bush stuck in me for the first time in 4 days.

Pray you and yours all had a great weekend!
Hope you all didn't have to deal with any yard work at all.
Later guys.

Fastspec2 said:

Still hate Optima bateries.

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Man, They still suck?

I got burned by a couple like 20 yrs ago and swore them off ever since but assumed I was just anecdotally holding a petty grudge

I can't find that degreaser anywhere. Is it really tire and wheel cleaner?
Brake-R Non-Acid Tire & Wheel Cleaner

MattS said:

I can't find that degreaser anywhere. Is it really tire and wheel cleaner?
Brake-R Non-Acid Tire & Wheel Cleaner

Amazon.com: Technicians Choice Tire & Wheel Cleaner - Brake-R - Non-Acid - Biodegradable - VOC/OTC Compliant - Body Shop Safe - Hard Water Stability - 1 Gallon - 1 lb - Wheel Cleaner : Automotive

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a.co

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Thats the stuff. Cut it 50% or so with water, steam clean all the gunk off you can, hose it down with that stuff, wait 15 minutes, and repeat till spick and span.

Been slammed at work last few days.
To start off we had a few more Miata's show up as the season is starting to take stride.
Another Miataville showed up in the back lot.



This is normally one of the best running cars in the field. it got a new motor that we were sorting out that for lack of a better term really sucked. It just nevcer made any power. Its down a solid 5HP from the other cars in its its class. NNot sure why, we checked cam timing, VAM, CAS, ECU, Compression, Leakdown, you name it, we checked it and found no smoking gun. Its just a turd engine. So the owner drug it home and is going to put last years engine back in it for the season. i actually likie this idea as his engine from last year lead to him on the podium (1st 2nd or 3rd) like 75% of the time.



Lat weekend while doing a pile of work around the house a few buddies blew through town and stayed with us while they were picking up a 59 Elcamino. Or at least thats what they called it. I'd call it more like "parts of an 59 Elcamino"

Glass is good, some body panels I guess................. I don't know I wish them luck. Its a long haul from Idaho for this pile in my opinion.

We had this show up this week as well.
Dodge SRT4 caliber.


Looks like the guys are having fun with it. They want to do some road rally stuff with it. I'm not even sure if the software i have will work with it, or if the info I need to make it all work is even available and documented. We are going to see.

In other news, I FINALLY have a working fuel gauge in the Datsun. I think that is the end of the road for us at this point. I;m almost embarrased by how much time and effort whent into making this ****ing fuel gauge work.

There has been a few other projects making good headway I'll fill you in on tomorrow. Have a good night ladies!

arse_sidewards said:

The GMT400 has way more anti-squat than anything else in that lineup.

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Its also the only rig in the line up that has spent any real time at the track.
I was impressed with it. Its one of the better running SBC's that drove to the shop on pump fuel.

The 2500 that we were doing cam swap that turned into an engine out and new cam bearings got finished up wed. Dyno vid.


Truck turned out great. Makes target power and runs good. And now has about 30PSI more oil pressure at idle hot!

Finishimg off thge week, we got a ton doen! lots of progress. It also gave us time to start pulling the engine out of the ZL1. They drop out of the bottom. We are hoping to find a stuck open oil bypass, but alot of these engine have grenaded pumps. Fingers crossed.

We ended Friday here and headed home. This weak will tell us whats up.
Still getting all the yard work done. Turns out 2.5 acres is kinda a big deal to keep in line. We are doing pretty good though. When I am not running a 2 stroke yard implement I am helping Jay get his 5.3 turbo swapped Nova running.
Step one this weekend is getting my flag pole back up and running. Nice night. The pole had fell down in a wind storm late last year and it kinda killed me to not have it up till now. I Put Dads flag up. I only fly it a few time a year. His Birthday, Memorial day, The day he passed. And him and my moms wedding date.

After that bit of family business Jay and I started working on his nova. Most of the projects at this point are welding in nature.
So a few of the welding projects for Jays Nova.
The drivers side manifold needed sorting. The X and F body front subframes all use the 4th gen LS drivers manifold to clear the steering box in my experience. My own 69 has a early manifold for the drivers side. It fits perfects and looks to be built for it. There are 2 kinds. The early pre-2000 manifold is a stamped steal and welded manifold that fits good and is easy to modify because of how its made. the later 2000+ manifold fit great too, but have a port that needs addressed and are harder to weld to. No big deal, just keep in mind there is a slight difference.

Tacking the Vband to the maniofold.

Burned in Vband.

Next was his Fuel tank. I hate welding on used tanks but volunteered for the sake of cost. I had him fill it with water for a day or two before hand. There was a fair amount of wire wheel work and general cleaning/scrapping to make sure it was ready to weld. Jay bought a cheap fuel tank sump kit that we made work.
The holes drilled to act as a baffle and sump at the same time.

After cleaning up the kerf and and burs we fit the sump over the target area. Few tacks and then burn it in. the original tank material welded like ****, but thats expected.


Last but not least. In honor of Memorial day. This was My dad.
I spent alot of time thinking about the old man today. Miss him so much. He was a good guy.
His Name was Dwan Hall.
He was a FAC in Vietnam. He did forward air traffic control and airstrike management. His job was to hang out with the forward troops and call in help when the **** hit the fan. Basically according to him "Hike till you got shot at, then call in an airstrike"
He survived and came home to work at Maelstrom Airforce base in Montana in the mid 70's. He retired early and took my mom to Alaska from Montana. **********er could do anything.



Anyway, have a good one guys. I hope today was important to all of you. It sure was to me.
Have a good night.

Miss my dad too man. he worked on radar on airplanes. was on 4 different aircraft carriers. could also do just about anything.

Fastspec2 said:

Last but not least. In honor of Memorial day. This was My dad.
I spent alot of time thinking about the old man today. Miss him so much. He was a good guy.
His Name was Dwan Hall.
He was a FAC in Vietnam. He did forward air traffic control and airstrike management. His job was to hang out with the forward troops and call in help when the **** hit the fan. Basically according to him "Hike till you got shot at, then call in an airstrike"
He survived and came home to work at Maelstrom Airforce base in Montana in the mid 70's. He retired early and took my mom to Alaska from Montana. **********er could do anything.

Anyway, have a good one guys. I hope today was important to all of you. It sure was to me.
Have a good night.

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Sounds like a Combat Controller. They also set up/Surveyed LZs/DZs
They were also Military ATC qualified

6869704x4 said:

Sounds like a Combat Controller. They also set up/Surveyed LZs/DZs
They were also Military ATC qualified

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Yep, That was him.

We got a fuel system to install for a 2016 Coyote Mustang. The kits from Fore fuel system and is very complete. the only issues are that none of these car sare stock anymore. You have catch cans, air intakes, fuel lines ect that get in the way. So you gotta make it fit.
Really nice parts.


This appears to be some 3d printed bracket. Sure is a nice piece.

Super heavy duty electronics for the new pumps. The box natively accepts 6 gauge feed wires. Its legit stuff. The kit is rated foer 110 amps at max load. Thats a ton of draw for the fuel system.

Taking some parts out of the car to amke some room, we have a few bits that are not great. This poor tube got the **** kicked out of it.

Project is moving. Tomorrow should see the car back running and driving.

In other fuel system news the 2009 GMT900 truck with the magnuson suspercharger got some parts that finally showed.
DW has some great drop in fuel system modules that run in the 400+ lph pump range.


Really great part of the kit is it has an added return fitting in the pump assembly. Its a -6 AN 90 with a cap. If you wanted to run a return style system this is perfect and easy. **** we are spoiled. Truck runs great after the install and we need to get it back onto the Dyno.

The next project was the 89 Saleen Mustang with the 03 Cobra 4.6 SC swap. Customwer wanted some 3.55 geqars and a new limited slip.

Car runs a disk brake rear with C-clip elliminators.

It also runs some great 31 spline Yukon axles.



By the time we are done with the day, we have 2016 Coyote Mustang runs with a big fuel system.
We have a 2009 GMT900 supercharged truck that has a new fuel system that should supply close to 750 rwhp woth of fuel.
And a 89 Mustang with a new rear differential arrangement.

Was a good productive day!!!!!!!!!!!

Hope you all had a good day as well.
Later my guys, have a good night!

Fastspec2 said:

Car runs a disk brake rear with C-clip elliminators.

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This is something I don’t quite understand. When you ask people what’s wrong with C-clips, they say it can spit out under extreme stress and you can lose an wheel/axle. Or if the axle breaks, you can lose the wheel/axle. They also make replacing a wheel bearing more difficult. I can see all that. But if you have disc brakes, you won’t lose the wheel/axle, so then the only benefit is easier disassembly? Doesn’t really seem like a big deal since wheel bearing failure isnt that common.

So, stuff and things for the day. Was a good one!
We got back to the F100. This was supposed to be a fairly standard baseline and advise kind of thing.
The truck just fell on its face anytime we got into any real boost.
This is what it looked like.

We put the project on hold until the customer figured out what he wanted to do. This morning Trev and I decided to just figure it out. I made a few pulls while he was watching what was going on and he noticed water squirting from the intake manifold under load. E-85 makes a bunch of extra moisture normally but this was excessive.
We puled the lid from the intercooler reservoir and its empty. Alarm bells are ringing.
I pulled the lower boost pipe from the IC to the TB and got probably a gallobn and a half of water out of it. Cab was pretty flooded.lots of water from about everywhere.

This tells me the IC is leaking into the air path. Water makes its way into the IC and when boost starts to come on, it pulls the watwer that has pooled into the lower IC tank into the engine. Thats the cause of the giant cloud of steam and the engine that essentially cuts off. We pulled the IC out of the truck and let sit on the bench full of water and sure enough it slowly fills with water.
The IC is a custom thing that integrates the water inlets, the air inlets, and apparently a child seat into it. We pulled it out and handed it to thge sutomer to sort it out. I have been thinking about what coyuld have caused the leak and have landed on it freezing. Maybe I'm wrong, but the truck spending the winter in the trailer and getting cold enough to freeze makes the most sense to me.
We had a pretty cool 89 GTA show up at the shop for a general inspection. Basically just making sure its running good and in good shape.

Man the thing is clean.

After that we had a 02 C32 Mercedes hot rod show up for some dyno time. I was really impressed with how it ran. Made almost 400 RWHP Sounded good and was block of wood repeatable.

After that we had a 69 Camaro Pace care edition show up for a simple tune up. Sunny was having fun! Fairly strait forward tune up, New plugs, wires, clean the carb, new fuel filters, cap rotor ect. Biggest hard sell we did was put a Pertronix in it. I get wanting an original car, but you cant even buy decent points anymore. this was the best and easist way to replacing a burnt as **** set of points.


Well that was 5-29 my guys. Hope you all have a great weekend.

Thanks for the update. Can't wait for the ZL1 teardown.

WaterH said:

This is something I don’t quite understand. When you ask people what’s wrong with C-clips, they say it can spit out under extreme stress and you can lose an wheel/axle. Or if the axle breaks, you can lose the wheel/axle. They also make replacing a wheel bearing more difficult. I can see all that. But if you have disc brakes, you won’t lose the wheel/axle, so then the only benefit is easier disassembly? Doesn’t really seem like a big deal since wheel bearing failure isnt that common.

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Trust me, that caliper ain't gonna keep the wheel captive for long. They aren't made to take that kind of load. Either the mounts rip out, the disk shatters or the caliper comes apart. Or a combination of any or all of those.

bdkw1 said:

Trust me, that caliper ain't gonna keep the wheel captive for long. They aren't made to take that kind of load. Either the mounts rip out, the disk shatters or the caliper comes apart. Or a combination of any or all of those.

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I had the wheel bearing disintegrate on my Bronco. The only thing keeping it on the truck was the caliper. Drove it that way for about 100 miles.

bdkw1 said:

Trust me, that caliper ain't gonna keep the wheel captive for long. They aren't made to take that kind of load. Either the mounts rip out, the disk shatters or the caliper comes apart. Or a combination of any or all of those.

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Eh, really depends on the vehicle. Street car that simply popped an axle on a launch is way different than losing one mid donut on something with big tires.

MattS said:

Thanks for the update. Can't wait for the ZL1 teardown.

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Apon tear down. Actually got a bit further but will post those pictures tomorrow.

Motor out and ready to tear down on the stand.

Pan and front cover off. Starting to look for sighns of failure. Nothing yet.

Time to pull the oil pump off. this is most likely the issue. Either the bypass is stuck open or the pump has died inside. Nothing out of the ordinary yet.

Pump pulled out and the cover removed for inspection.
Its ****ed. Problem is found. the pump died. Now we are looking at what else it may have taken with it. We need to look and see if the rest of this engine is savable, or does it get turned into lunch at the tune of $32 a ton.
The pump vanes are just gone.

Pump cover caught some hard scoreing.

We found the pump vanes. They were all pumped into the main oil galley to the filter.
Lots of debris here.

Pulling out a few chunks of vanes from the main galley.

I cut the filter open and found what left or them all. Looks like the filter caught it all. We will take a look at the the rest of the bearings to make sure. At this point it looks like we can just clean everything after a full tear down and put it all back together. Some gaskets, a pump and some soft parts look to be the only issues so far.

Filter is plugged, but nothing looks like it got through at this point.


Anyway, have a good night my guys. Tomorrow I'll post some of the rest of the tear down so far.

****, if it's down that far put new bearings in it.

That pump was trying to be a powdered metal rod and fractured it's cap......

I had the pump go out on my 18 ZL1. But not completely, just low pressure.

Had it replaced with a Katech. They take a stock pump and replace parts inside with billet. Did their chain and guide also.

Took it to a dealer recommended by a friend in my Buick club that used to work there. Guy in charge tells me they will check the pan etc when they pull it off. Charge me for the hours to do it properly but never pull the pan. Snuck the pickup off somehow only pulling the front cover.

Doing fine after a year....

bdkw1 said:

****, if it's down that far put new bearings in it.

That pump was trying to be a powdered metal rod and fractured it's cap......

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If it's down that far put ported heads and a cam in it. Then it is just injectors and a blower away from 1k HP.

We had a black 01 Lightning show up "ready to tune!" It runs a Whipple 2.9 blower, a set of ID1050X injectors, and a SCT BA2600 Maf. It also has a fuel pump upgrade I am told.

I built a tune file for the injectors and MAF. Flashed it and fired the truck. It runs like ****. Complete ****. It has a terrible miss at rpm, bangs and pops at idle, and is not happy at all. Wierdly the fuel trims were close. Normally with this MAF and inj combo the trucks just run. I have used this combo a bunch and never had any real issue tuning them. The plugs are unknown and it has my much hated colored coils. I wanted to pull the plugs and coils and have a look whats there. Unfortunately you gotta pull the blower for access.
Meh, is what it is.
Time to pull the supercharger.

Pulled supercharger from the truck to access spark plugs, coils, and injectors.

There is a TON of carbon in the intake tract of this thing. There is no reason for this much to be this far upstream of the intake valves with such little run time.

This is the blower outlet.





This is the top of the IC brick. Very fouled with carbon.







I do not know what the history of the blower is but it looks like enough carbon has gone through it to start to erode the rotor coating. This is not a big deal at this point, but it’s a concern.







Another angle with some different lighting.







In doing the plugs, I found one cylinder, #7 plug that appeared to have some coolant on it. #7 is the one on the left,#6 on the right for comparison.





I bore scoped the cylinders.

On the left of the scree shot you can see two distinct drops of coolant on the piston.





I can’t tell for sure, but further work with the bore scope and I got an angle on the sealing surface between the head and block at the gasket. It looks wet to me. I’m not positive though.



There are some options moving forward as I see it.

#1 Pressurize the cooling system overnight and re-scope it in the AM. See if any extra coolant has showed up.

#2 Pressurize the IC system as coolant can come from there as well. Would be the second one we have seen this week. After a few hours I would pull the lower manifold/brick off the engine and make sure no coolant has accumulated in the lower manifold.

#3 While out, flush the IC brick of carbon. Also wash the rest of the parts to remove as much as possible.

#4 I’d run a compression test. Probably not going to find anything here as there isn’t really enough miles but it would sure be a bummer to do this twice.

#5 If nothing found that is definitive, we reassemble with new plugs/coils.

#6 I highly suspect the carbon issue is through the EGR valve. For the sake of diag we can disable that for initial starting and to verify I’m right. If it is though the valve, it could be a leaky valve, or a valve that is held open by improper vacuum routing and or a bad AGR control solenoid.

#7 by this point we SHOULD be able to determine if the thing running right and be able to plan from there.

In one of the rarest pictures I have taken lately we have these guys.

Just a 67 Indy pace car next to a 69 Indy pace car just setting in the parking lot.
Its the hot rod shop rule of two's apparently.
the 69 was leaving and the 67 was showing up. Made for a fun conversation.

Anyway. Have a good one ladies.

What color would the coils you hate be if I may ask?