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Rock Lizard/Weekend Ultra4(?); blown LS, 40s, tons, bypasses, etc.
- Thread starter snivilous
- Start date
snivilous
Well-known member
Bringing this forum up to date with posts I've made elsewhere; March 11 2021:
Monthly update
Most of this was done about 2 weeks ago, then I had to leave for work for the past week and got back last night and got to play with some new toys to add to the buggy.
Starting out, I got the full powerstop kit since I was missing most of the brake components, plus they're red
With the calipers in hand I took them apart, measured the pistons, did some research, and bought a Wilwood 1.125" master and a 9:1 brake pedal assembly from Busted Knuckle. According to their spreadsheet this should put me in the goldie locks zone for a manual brake setup (stroke vs force).
There's a few paths I'm going down, but essentially the buggy is broken up between the front end and rear end. To install the brakes, that forces me to finish the axles so I'm not welding on the axles next to the new calipers/rotors. Starting with the rear I just had to weld up the link brackets.
Which one thing leads to another, and the axle has been sitting and moved around so much that it's so nasty I can't effectively clean it to weld the brackets that are tacked on. My dad bought me an Eastwood sand blast cabinet for Christmas that I had yet to put together, so I was now forced to do that. I cut off the brackets with the plasma, sand blasted them and cleaned the axle, then welded everything back up.
The upper link tower was clean enough I didn't have to pull it; though in that regard, all the axle parts I'm MIG welding. The axles were all tacked up long before I learned how to TIG so weren't prepped or cleaned well enough to be TIG welded, plus a lot of the components on the axle just aren't conducive to TIG welding. I'd liked to have TIG'd them, but MIG was the better option in my opinion.
Rear axle all together. Parking brake/dust covers removed, new brakes on, old shafts back in (for the moment). She's ready to rock.
Additionally I've started wrapping up the parts associated with the rear axle. I've done most of the interior welding of the Y link and welded the bungs on (first pass) to make sure nothing will move. It still needs to be braced up.
Moving on to the front, before pulling the front axle I did some flex testing (my forklift from 1974 started up which made me happy, despite sitting for like 6 months
). With clearances and an idea of where the driveshaft could go I pulled it too.
That catches us up to today. When I got back home I had a bunch of parts waiting, a midship, a midshaft, brake master/pedal, and some exhaust parts. The front is where most of the remaining work is, the driveshaft needs to be figured out so the floor can be figured out so the brake/throttle can be figured out
easy. To start with, the driveshaft setup I'm doing uses what's referred to as a "midship" which is essentially a super fancy carrier bearing/mini driveshaft. A driveshaft goes in one side, and a driveshaft comes out the other. The two shafts don't directly connect, instead they connect to the midship. The benefit of this is, the angles are essentially reset at the midship. So instead of the driveshaft at the transfercase being angled over to the side, then the one off the axle connecting to that and getting some weird combined angles going on, the midship is parallel and level with the transfer case so the u joints are all phased and happy with small angles, and then the driveshaft off the axle is horizontally aligned and just angles vertically--each driveshaft is operating in just one plane and all the angles are on that same plane. Simple
Monthly update
Starting out, I got the full powerstop kit since I was missing most of the brake components, plus they're red
With the calipers in hand I took them apart, measured the pistons, did some research, and bought a Wilwood 1.125" master and a 9:1 brake pedal assembly from Busted Knuckle. According to their spreadsheet this should put me in the goldie locks zone for a manual brake setup (stroke vs force).
There's a few paths I'm going down, but essentially the buggy is broken up between the front end and rear end. To install the brakes, that forces me to finish the axles so I'm not welding on the axles next to the new calipers/rotors. Starting with the rear I just had to weld up the link brackets.
Which one thing leads to another, and the axle has been sitting and moved around so much that it's so nasty I can't effectively clean it to weld the brackets that are tacked on. My dad bought me an Eastwood sand blast cabinet for Christmas that I had yet to put together, so I was now forced to do that. I cut off the brackets with the plasma, sand blasted them and cleaned the axle, then welded everything back up.
The upper link tower was clean enough I didn't have to pull it; though in that regard, all the axle parts I'm MIG welding. The axles were all tacked up long before I learned how to TIG so weren't prepped or cleaned well enough to be TIG welded, plus a lot of the components on the axle just aren't conducive to TIG welding. I'd liked to have TIG'd them, but MIG was the better option in my opinion.
Rear axle all together. Parking brake/dust covers removed, new brakes on, old shafts back in (for the moment). She's ready to rock.
Additionally I've started wrapping up the parts associated with the rear axle. I've done most of the interior welding of the Y link and welded the bungs on (first pass) to make sure nothing will move. It still needs to be braced up.
Moving on to the front, before pulling the front axle I did some flex testing (my forklift from 1974 started up which made me happy, despite sitting for like 6 months
That catches us up to today. When I got back home I had a bunch of parts waiting, a midship, a midshaft, brake master/pedal, and some exhaust parts. The front is where most of the remaining work is, the driveshaft needs to be figured out so the floor can be figured out so the brake/throttle can be figured out
snivilous
Well-known member
March 11 2021 Part 2:
Now the "issue" I had, is the midship is meant for two u joints, and since I'll be running a double cardan I (preferably, at least as far as I can tell) need a flange. So I bought a u joint stub, swapped that into my transfercase, then took the flange adapter from the tcase and machined it down so it would fit in the angular contacts/seals of the midship.
And this is the result:
Then I used a driveshaft kit (both the midship and driveshaft kits are from TMR) to build a mini driveshaft to connect the midship to the atlas.
Since the tcase to midship are parallel with each other, I can run a "basic" mini driveshaft that just has a u joint on either end. The shaft from the axle to the midship however needs the double cardan due to how the axle geometry cycles with the suspension (same thing applies to the rear axle, but it uses just a single driveshaft since it doesn't have to snake through the chassis) so that's why there's u joints on the tcase side of the midship and then a flange output on the axle side. Now that the atlas side driveshaft and midship are in, I can figure out the front driveshaft length and start mocking up the pedals and floor!
And then to wrap today up, I cut off the front upper link brackets, sand blast, clean axle, and welded on.
The remaining front axle tasks are to finish out the bottom link brackets, gusset the hydro mount, and install brakes. Once that's done I can bolt the front axle up, and make sure the front driveshaft will work with where the midship is tacked up, then I can brace the midship, order driveshafts (I think I've decided to just buy kits from Goat Built and build both myself), and then continue with the interior/pedals. Once that is all done, I have exhaust collectors, flanges, filler, purge plugs, and a bunch of other shit and will fabricate the headers once I know where the front driveshaft is going.
I'm hoping I can take it to the Ultra4 race in Moab on April 2nd (just to test out, not race), there's about a 3% chance it'll be able to drive by then but we'll see! Besides the driveshaft kits I think I have all the big stuff to get it moving under it's own power soon! If work can just stop bugging me
Now the "issue" I had, is the midship is meant for two u joints, and since I'll be running a double cardan I (preferably, at least as far as I can tell) need a flange. So I bought a u joint stub, swapped that into my transfercase, then took the flange adapter from the tcase and machined it down so it would fit in the angular contacts/seals of the midship.
And this is the result:
Then I used a driveshaft kit (both the midship and driveshaft kits are from TMR) to build a mini driveshaft to connect the midship to the atlas.
Since the tcase to midship are parallel with each other, I can run a "basic" mini driveshaft that just has a u joint on either end. The shaft from the axle to the midship however needs the double cardan due to how the axle geometry cycles with the suspension (same thing applies to the rear axle, but it uses just a single driveshaft since it doesn't have to snake through the chassis) so that's why there's u joints on the tcase side of the midship and then a flange output on the axle side. Now that the atlas side driveshaft and midship are in, I can figure out the front driveshaft length and start mocking up the pedals and floor!
And then to wrap today up, I cut off the front upper link brackets, sand blast, clean axle, and welded on.
The remaining front axle tasks are to finish out the bottom link brackets, gusset the hydro mount, and install brakes. Once that's done I can bolt the front axle up, and make sure the front driveshaft will work with where the midship is tacked up, then I can brace the midship, order driveshafts (I think I've decided to just buy kits from Goat Built and build both myself), and then continue with the interior/pedals. Once that is all done, I have exhaust collectors, flanges, filler, purge plugs, and a bunch of other shit and will fabricate the headers once I know where the front driveshaft is going.
I'm hoping I can take it to the Ultra4 race in Moab on April 2nd (just to test out, not race), there's about a 3% chance it'll be able to drive by then but we'll see! Besides the driveshaft kits I think I have all the big stuff to get it moving under it's own power soon! If work can just stop bugging me
snivilous
Well-known member
May 3rd Update:
Starting to plumb brakes. The master cylinder didn't come with the pushrod so made one on the lathe.
Cut some side plates to adapt the brake assembly to the chassis.
The brake pedal sits further forward than I was expecting it would, and it's a 9:1 throw so at full extension it's way out there. Luckily my fender line is kind of deceiving and the tire sits really far forward so there's plenty of room, but the floor board may look a little odd with how far into the "wheel well" it'll sit.
I'm using stainless braided lines for everything, no hard lines at this time. Busted Knuckle said this is how they run their brakes to keep it simple and less connections, and my Can Am is set up the same way so we'll see how it does. I'm welding studs to the axle for P clips. I'm not sure how long I'll keep this rear configuration for, I'm worried a branch will hook under the lines and yank them. I might move them or create a little shield eventually, and I also don't have my bump stops in yet so that may move them later too.
While deciding what I wanted to do next, the transmission has been leaking for a few weeks so I pulled the atlas. I'm gonna change a few things I think, having to remove the entire dash to pull the atlas seems like a bad idea. If I add one tube junction next to the drivers seat I can pull it by just removing the driver seat and nothing else which would be nice.
Transmission output seal has somehow been fucked for who knows how long, at least it's an easy and obvious fix. Not sure how that even happens, pretty sure it wasn't me unless installing the atlas somehow caused that which seems unlikely.
Moving to the front, I realized after installing the hydro skid bracing that the chassis now doesn't reach full bump (it was tight before). The solution will be to upgrade to 16s, which will extend the shock body, move full bump down a bit, and then gain more travel all around. I had been thinking of doing this already, 8" of up travel and 8" of down travel sounds a bit nicer at the moment than 10" up and 4" down anyways. There's also some shock changes I need to make that I'll get to.
With some 2" spacers under the shocks to simulate 16s, I mocked up where front bumps would sit, and essentially they don't sit.
The can doesn't even protrude out the bottom of the chassis with the increased full bump height and removing the striker pad. I could extend the can, but packaging is still tight and the whole bump stop sits above the chassis rail then, which could make pulling the engine a bitch and makes packaging of the winch and other front end components more annoying. On top of that, the bump stop mounting area is not very structural so would need to be braced up to the shock mounts most likely. So with all that in mind, I decided not to run front bump stops. I know Camburg TTs don't run front bump stops, and after some reading it's actually fairly common due to packaging issues like I have. Since I need different shocks anyways, I can set the valving and bypass layout to optimize the bump zone in the bypass and rely solely on that for bump control. There's a lot of advantages to this: more room, the shocks act as bump stops both in valving and with their rubber bottom out pucks so all the bump load goes through the shock mounts which is the strongest area, I swap from 14s to 16s, I swap from a 2.5 to either a 3.0 or 3.5 bypass, I change to a remote mounted reservoir vs a piggyback to gain more shock room, change from a staggered bypass layout to overlapping tubes, makes plumbing easier since no bump pads in the way; the biggest "downside" is tuning the front will take a bit more time, I can't just rely on the bump stop to save me if the suspension is way too soft out the gate, so tuning the front bypasses will be a bit more critical. I don't think this is that big of a deal, since the bypass will just be very stiff with a lot of overlapping tubes to soften it up and running a bigger piston will help too. I'm pretty excited with this revelation, since it takes changes I was already planning and kills two birds with one stone, and doesn't require any actual changes on the chassis side.
So with all that in mind, and concluding I don't need to figure out where my bump stops and pads go, I was able to run the front brake lines.
And that brings us up to speed. I had to order a longer brake line for the master to the front axle, once I get that the whole brake system will be ready to go. I'm still waiting for my driveshaft kits, so after the brake lines are wrapped up I think I'll start building the exhaust. With how far forward the firewall will be, I'm going to run the exhaust out the back I think, which has benefits but will be a bit more effort. There's now no way to mount the muffler in the wheel well, so as usual packaging is driving what configuration everything is in.
Starting to plumb brakes. The master cylinder didn't come with the pushrod so made one on the lathe.
Cut some side plates to adapt the brake assembly to the chassis.
The brake pedal sits further forward than I was expecting it would, and it's a 9:1 throw so at full extension it's way out there. Luckily my fender line is kind of deceiving and the tire sits really far forward so there's plenty of room, but the floor board may look a little odd with how far into the "wheel well" it'll sit.
I'm using stainless braided lines for everything, no hard lines at this time. Busted Knuckle said this is how they run their brakes to keep it simple and less connections, and my Can Am is set up the same way so we'll see how it does. I'm welding studs to the axle for P clips. I'm not sure how long I'll keep this rear configuration for, I'm worried a branch will hook under the lines and yank them. I might move them or create a little shield eventually, and I also don't have my bump stops in yet so that may move them later too.
While deciding what I wanted to do next, the transmission has been leaking for a few weeks so I pulled the atlas. I'm gonna change a few things I think, having to remove the entire dash to pull the atlas seems like a bad idea. If I add one tube junction next to the drivers seat I can pull it by just removing the driver seat and nothing else which would be nice.
Transmission output seal has somehow been fucked for who knows how long, at least it's an easy and obvious fix. Not sure how that even happens, pretty sure it wasn't me unless installing the atlas somehow caused that which seems unlikely.
Moving to the front, I realized after installing the hydro skid bracing that the chassis now doesn't reach full bump (it was tight before). The solution will be to upgrade to 16s, which will extend the shock body, move full bump down a bit, and then gain more travel all around. I had been thinking of doing this already, 8" of up travel and 8" of down travel sounds a bit nicer at the moment than 10" up and 4" down anyways. There's also some shock changes I need to make that I'll get to.
With some 2" spacers under the shocks to simulate 16s, I mocked up where front bumps would sit, and essentially they don't sit.
The can doesn't even protrude out the bottom of the chassis with the increased full bump height and removing the striker pad. I could extend the can, but packaging is still tight and the whole bump stop sits above the chassis rail then, which could make pulling the engine a bitch and makes packaging of the winch and other front end components more annoying. On top of that, the bump stop mounting area is not very structural so would need to be braced up to the shock mounts most likely. So with all that in mind, I decided not to run front bump stops. I know Camburg TTs don't run front bump stops, and after some reading it's actually fairly common due to packaging issues like I have. Since I need different shocks anyways, I can set the valving and bypass layout to optimize the bump zone in the bypass and rely solely on that for bump control. There's a lot of advantages to this: more room, the shocks act as bump stops both in valving and with their rubber bottom out pucks so all the bump load goes through the shock mounts which is the strongest area, I swap from 14s to 16s, I swap from a 2.5 to either a 3.0 or 3.5 bypass, I change to a remote mounted reservoir vs a piggyback to gain more shock room, change from a staggered bypass layout to overlapping tubes, makes plumbing easier since no bump pads in the way; the biggest "downside" is tuning the front will take a bit more time, I can't just rely on the bump stop to save me if the suspension is way too soft out the gate, so tuning the front bypasses will be a bit more critical. I don't think this is that big of a deal, since the bypass will just be very stiff with a lot of overlapping tubes to soften it up and running a bigger piston will help too. I'm pretty excited with this revelation, since it takes changes I was already planning and kills two birds with one stone, and doesn't require any actual changes on the chassis side.
So with all that in mind, and concluding I don't need to figure out where my bump stops and pads go, I was able to run the front brake lines.
And that brings us up to speed. I had to order a longer brake line for the master to the front axle, once I get that the whole brake system will be ready to go. I'm still waiting for my driveshaft kits, so after the brake lines are wrapped up I think I'll start building the exhaust. With how far forward the firewall will be, I'm going to run the exhaust out the back I think, which has benefits but will be a bit more effort. There's now no way to mount the muffler in the wheel well, so as usual packaging is driving what configuration everything is in.
snivilous
Well-known member
May 17 Update:
It drives!!!
Things that I've done recently, started the rear bump stops, once these are done I can figure out sway bar routing. The bump stop controls how much flex the vehicle has to some extent, and that range of motion controls where the sway bar goes.
The bump stop will get braced up more, but this is a good starting point and can now mockup the bump pads on the axle.
Little bracket for the radiator overflow can:
Routing stuff in the front. Floor tube is in, it will brace the midship bearing.
Got some driveshaft kits and made some driveshafts. The tubing ID was too small so had to open it up on the lathe, then the slip yoke and CV were a light press fit.
The double cardan is so long that the actual shaft length is significantly shorter than I thought, so I need more angle to pull full travel. Right now I will probably have to strap it around 22-24" of rear travel. I may be able to modify the double cardan to pull a bit more, though after pulling one apart it looks like it's pretty optimized already. I may be able to adjust my pinion angle to help some too. If I can strap at 24" I'd be plenty happy though.
I got exhaust tubing in on Friday and started building the drivers side header, which has the O2 sensor and my janky previous ones no longer fit so it got priority. On Sunday I finished welding it up. Really happy with how it turned out for my first try!
The headers are extremely tight with the upper link, I may actually have to pound on them a bit to clear since they pulled a bit when welding and at most had a 1/4" of clearance to start with. If they hit they just kiss so not a big deal. I spent a lot of time flexing the front out to get as much room as possible. There's a lot going on, front driveshaft, front links, gas and brake pedal, steering lines, engine cradle, etc. but it worked out good, and I was able to pull out a lot more leg room than any off the shelf options which was a goal.
I also built some little shock bump extensions out of delrin that just snap onto the shock shaft. Until I get longer shocks with the correct bypass tube layout, these will be my bump stops.
And finally, after working hard the past few weeks and a lot the past few days--building the exhaust and driveshaft, installing all the suspension and shock bolts and actually torquing them, bleeding and adjusting the brakes, bleeding the full hydro, wiring the engine harness back up, etc. etc. I was able to fire it up and take it around the block! The brakes barely worked, the throttle was a piece of wire going to my hand, I had to reach down to shift the transmission, it had no springs on the coilovers--but it ran and it drove and nothing broke or burned down! I started this project almost 3 years ago, and this was the first time it has ever moved under its own power! It's a big relief, from here on out everything feels like little modifications and tweaks which I can immediately go out and test and I now have a baseline of "it runs and drives". Prior to this, everything was just assumptions and hopes that the whole package would work. Modifying a vehicle is a lot easier than a complete blank slate that's unknown, and it feels like I've built a vehicle and can now just modify it!
I'm shooting to take it to the Rubicon in June when a friend of mine is hosting an event, so have a list of things to buy and dial in. Once I get my springs, and mount the shifter and a gas pedal and bleed the brakes though, that will make it truly drivable and I can start tuning the engine and getting some miles on it.
It drives!!!
Things that I've done recently, started the rear bump stops, once these are done I can figure out sway bar routing. The bump stop controls how much flex the vehicle has to some extent, and that range of motion controls where the sway bar goes.
The bump stop will get braced up more, but this is a good starting point and can now mockup the bump pads on the axle.
Little bracket for the radiator overflow can:
Routing stuff in the front. Floor tube is in, it will brace the midship bearing.
Got some driveshaft kits and made some driveshafts. The tubing ID was too small so had to open it up on the lathe, then the slip yoke and CV were a light press fit.
The double cardan is so long that the actual shaft length is significantly shorter than I thought, so I need more angle to pull full travel. Right now I will probably have to strap it around 22-24" of rear travel. I may be able to modify the double cardan to pull a bit more, though after pulling one apart it looks like it's pretty optimized already. I may be able to adjust my pinion angle to help some too. If I can strap at 24" I'd be plenty happy though.
I got exhaust tubing in on Friday and started building the drivers side header, which has the O2 sensor and my janky previous ones no longer fit so it got priority. On Sunday I finished welding it up. Really happy with how it turned out for my first try!
The headers are extremely tight with the upper link, I may actually have to pound on them a bit to clear since they pulled a bit when welding and at most had a 1/4" of clearance to start with. If they hit they just kiss so not a big deal. I spent a lot of time flexing the front out to get as much room as possible. There's a lot going on, front driveshaft, front links, gas and brake pedal, steering lines, engine cradle, etc. but it worked out good, and I was able to pull out a lot more leg room than any off the shelf options which was a goal.
I also built some little shock bump extensions out of delrin that just snap onto the shock shaft. Until I get longer shocks with the correct bypass tube layout, these will be my bump stops.
And finally, after working hard the past few weeks and a lot the past few days--building the exhaust and driveshaft, installing all the suspension and shock bolts and actually torquing them, bleeding and adjusting the brakes, bleeding the full hydro, wiring the engine harness back up, etc. etc. I was able to fire it up and take it around the block! The brakes barely worked, the throttle was a piece of wire going to my hand, I had to reach down to shift the transmission, it had no springs on the coilovers--but it ran and it drove and nothing broke or burned down! I started this project almost 3 years ago, and this was the first time it has ever moved under its own power! It's a big relief, from here on out everything feels like little modifications and tweaks which I can immediately go out and test and I now have a baseline of "it runs and drives". Prior to this, everything was just assumptions and hopes that the whole package would work. Modifying a vehicle is a lot easier than a complete blank slate that's unknown, and it feels like I've built a vehicle and can now just modify it!
I'm shooting to take it to the Rubicon in June when a friend of mine is hosting an event, so have a list of things to buy and dial in. Once I get my springs, and mount the shifter and a gas pedal and bleed the brakes though, that will make it truly drivable and I can start tuning the engine and getting some miles on it.
snivilous
Well-known member
May 21 Update:
Test drive two update. Wrenched a bit yesterday and did another test drive. It seemed like last week I was still having some overheating issues, so I pulled the thermostat and removed the jiggle valve entirely so there's now the jiggle valve hole and two .100" bleed holes in it and that seemed to fix it overheating, though hard to say since I didn't have it running very long but it seemed to top out around 200deg and that's with the single radiator fan which will get doubled eventually. I also bled the brakes a bunch, which helped but still have aways to go it seems like. I'm also suspicious that the rotors aren't fully seated on the hubs and are wobbling causing the calipers to open up when pressure is off of them. The brake pedal location is absolute ass, since it's a top swing pedal it rotates up and how I have it setup you have to totally angle your foot forward so your toes are pushing the pedal--it's super awkward, and the master cylinder angle makes filling it with fluid difficult so I think I'll cut it off, reposition the master so it's parallel with the ground, and then make my own brake pedal that does some weird Z jog to get into the right position. Being full manual brakes the pedal has about 10" of travel too, which makes things difficult to package. You need a lot of throw to get the mechanical advantage, but then the first half of the pedal motion doesn't really do anything so it's difficult to put it in a comfortable spot to keep your foot off and comfortable to have it fully depressed.
The final things I wanted to play with was data logging this run, and getting the transmission shifter vaguely setup so I didn't have to reach down and move the shift linkage by hand. Well after lots of fucking with things and confusion, I've concluded my clutch packs are seized together. Every gear is a forward gear, including reverse. I thought the shifter was hooked up wrong, but even after removing it there was no finding reverse and everything besides park was a forward gear. The fluid smelled pretty weird the other day, and after some research if you run the trans low on fluid and it slips at all essentially your clutches are screwed. I had a LOT of slippage on the first drive, and this time I was going to check the fluid level and have the shifter hooked up to avoid that, but apparently with the 4l80e (or at least this old bitch) running it low just destroyed it. I've had a handful of Toyotas that were run low on atf for one reason or another, and all of them ended up being fine. The 4l80e? One trip around the block and reverse is now a drive gear
After concluding reverse was totally gone, we pushed it out of the shop backwards and still went for a drive around the block with the data logging on. I had refined my TIG wire throttle cable a bit so got on the gas a little just to get some data. With a couple second throttle blip at 70% I made about 8psi of boost, which was the first time I've really had it make any boost since it had load on it. The engine needs a lot of tuning, it didn't pull anywhere near as much as I thought but there's lots of issues from the torque converter to the trans to tuning and probably has 3.73 gears pushing 40s, and I wasn't at WOT or revved out for very long since I didn't want to get going too fast since I have no suspension still. I'm thinking of loading the stock Holley tune back on, and tune from that as the baseline and add power into it; right now I'm running on a modified twin turbo Holley tune I found, so I think tuning might be easier starting from a stock-ish baseline and building on it versus starting on the crazy end and trying to tweak it. Additionally, I'm seeing massive amounts of blowby. I'm slightly worried about it, but I think there's a few explanations. One, the ring gap I made very large to accommodate the heat from the supercharger. Two, it's boosted. And three I wouldn't be surprised if the oil is on the high side which can cause increased oil evacuation. Add all that to the fact the engine only has a few hours (of no load) run time, so the rings aren't seated yet and I'm not super worried. The valve covers are just venting to atmosphere right now, so you can see vapors being blown off constantly and ESPECIALLY after my boosted pull. Considering the engine seems to be running totally fine, and the spark plugs all look pretty happy I think I'll just keep running it and with a catch can mounted up it'll be fine. I'll check compression later, but so far no indications anything is actually wrong.
I also got a little janky air intake thrown on for the time being, and finished welding the collector on the drivers side header so I was getting accurate AFR readings. I have some 3" tubing that showed up, and some V bands and exhaust hangars arriving today so I can finish out the drivers side exhaust, and then this weekend will start on the passenger header. I also have a bunch of intercooler components showing up, and after some research will be doing a pretty cool and unique setup where I'm welding a sleeve around my hydro reservoir and will be pumping coolant from the supercharger into that to keep my steering cool, so I have some lines and a tank and pump to start routing and figuring out the intercooler/hydro/radiator setup to keep the supercharger and steering cool.
In regards to the transmission being fucked, I have a few options. The first is to get a rebuild kit, which from Jakes Performance is $1000. The second is to just buy the stage 2 (or 3) transmission from them that's built to 750 (or 1000) horsepower which costs $3700-$4700. I'm planning to do the latter, after the amount of effort to do the shift kit in this transmission, it'll be cheaper and easier after you factor in time to just buy the built trans instead of spending days or weeks fixing my current one. So tentatively in the next few weeks I'll pull the trigger on that; however I was hoping to do the Rubicon in 4 weeks, so if I can find a cheap stock transmission for like $300 I'll just get that and swap it in for the time being for that trip, and if I can't get a stock one then I'll just take the Can-Am on that trip. Kind of a bummer about the transmission, but I knew it'd be the first thing to go and was hoping it'd last a bit longer than me running it low on fluid. If I get the Jakes Performance one they also build custom torque converters so will get one of those, and then I'll have a vary stout drivetrain all the way through.
Test drive two update. Wrenched a bit yesterday and did another test drive. It seemed like last week I was still having some overheating issues, so I pulled the thermostat and removed the jiggle valve entirely so there's now the jiggle valve hole and two .100" bleed holes in it and that seemed to fix it overheating, though hard to say since I didn't have it running very long but it seemed to top out around 200deg and that's with the single radiator fan which will get doubled eventually. I also bled the brakes a bunch, which helped but still have aways to go it seems like. I'm also suspicious that the rotors aren't fully seated on the hubs and are wobbling causing the calipers to open up when pressure is off of them. The brake pedal location is absolute ass, since it's a top swing pedal it rotates up and how I have it setup you have to totally angle your foot forward so your toes are pushing the pedal--it's super awkward, and the master cylinder angle makes filling it with fluid difficult so I think I'll cut it off, reposition the master so it's parallel with the ground, and then make my own brake pedal that does some weird Z jog to get into the right position. Being full manual brakes the pedal has about 10" of travel too, which makes things difficult to package. You need a lot of throw to get the mechanical advantage, but then the first half of the pedal motion doesn't really do anything so it's difficult to put it in a comfortable spot to keep your foot off and comfortable to have it fully depressed.
The final things I wanted to play with was data logging this run, and getting the transmission shifter vaguely setup so I didn't have to reach down and move the shift linkage by hand. Well after lots of fucking with things and confusion, I've concluded my clutch packs are seized together. Every gear is a forward gear, including reverse. I thought the shifter was hooked up wrong, but even after removing it there was no finding reverse and everything besides park was a forward gear. The fluid smelled pretty weird the other day, and after some research if you run the trans low on fluid and it slips at all essentially your clutches are screwed. I had a LOT of slippage on the first drive, and this time I was going to check the fluid level and have the shifter hooked up to avoid that, but apparently with the 4l80e (or at least this old bitch) running it low just destroyed it. I've had a handful of Toyotas that were run low on atf for one reason or another, and all of them ended up being fine. The 4l80e? One trip around the block and reverse is now a drive gear
After concluding reverse was totally gone, we pushed it out of the shop backwards and still went for a drive around the block with the data logging on. I had refined my TIG wire throttle cable a bit so got on the gas a little just to get some data. With a couple second throttle blip at 70% I made about 8psi of boost, which was the first time I've really had it make any boost since it had load on it. The engine needs a lot of tuning, it didn't pull anywhere near as much as I thought but there's lots of issues from the torque converter to the trans to tuning and probably has 3.73 gears pushing 40s, and I wasn't at WOT or revved out for very long since I didn't want to get going too fast since I have no suspension still. I'm thinking of loading the stock Holley tune back on, and tune from that as the baseline and add power into it; right now I'm running on a modified twin turbo Holley tune I found, so I think tuning might be easier starting from a stock-ish baseline and building on it versus starting on the crazy end and trying to tweak it. Additionally, I'm seeing massive amounts of blowby. I'm slightly worried about it, but I think there's a few explanations. One, the ring gap I made very large to accommodate the heat from the supercharger. Two, it's boosted. And three I wouldn't be surprised if the oil is on the high side which can cause increased oil evacuation. Add all that to the fact the engine only has a few hours (of no load) run time, so the rings aren't seated yet and I'm not super worried. The valve covers are just venting to atmosphere right now, so you can see vapors being blown off constantly and ESPECIALLY after my boosted pull. Considering the engine seems to be running totally fine, and the spark plugs all look pretty happy I think I'll just keep running it and with a catch can mounted up it'll be fine. I'll check compression later, but so far no indications anything is actually wrong.
I also got a little janky air intake thrown on for the time being, and finished welding the collector on the drivers side header so I was getting accurate AFR readings. I have some 3" tubing that showed up, and some V bands and exhaust hangars arriving today so I can finish out the drivers side exhaust, and then this weekend will start on the passenger header. I also have a bunch of intercooler components showing up, and after some research will be doing a pretty cool and unique setup where I'm welding a sleeve around my hydro reservoir and will be pumping coolant from the supercharger into that to keep my steering cool, so I have some lines and a tank and pump to start routing and figuring out the intercooler/hydro/radiator setup to keep the supercharger and steering cool.
In regards to the transmission being fucked, I have a few options. The first is to get a rebuild kit, which from Jakes Performance is $1000. The second is to just buy the stage 2 (or 3) transmission from them that's built to 750 (or 1000) horsepower which costs $3700-$4700. I'm planning to do the latter, after the amount of effort to do the shift kit in this transmission, it'll be cheaper and easier after you factor in time to just buy the built trans instead of spending days or weeks fixing my current one. So tentatively in the next few weeks I'll pull the trigger on that; however I was hoping to do the Rubicon in 4 weeks, so if I can find a cheap stock transmission for like $300 I'll just get that and swap it in for the time being for that trip, and if I can't get a stock one then I'll just take the Can-Am on that trip. Kind of a bummer about the transmission, but I knew it'd be the first thing to go and was hoping it'd last a bit longer than me running it low on fluid. If I get the Jakes Performance one they also build custom torque converters so will get one of those, and then I'll have a vary stout drivetrain all the way through.
snivilous
Well-known member
May 26 Update:
I couldn't get over the fact the blowby seemed super bad, so did a compression check and cylinders 1-2-3 were all dead. Did a leak down test and it pointed to the rings, so my girlfriend and I tore it down on Monday and this is what we found!
Some numbers:
3 of 8 pistons measured extremely low compression, and even less in the leak down.
6 of 8 pistons are cracked, 5 of which you can literally remove inches of the ring lands.
2 of 8 pistons had the bottom oil ring (5 rings total, three oil rings) get ejected, not sure if this was an assembly error on my part (seems unlikely) or the ring got spit out when everything above it collapsed.
2 of 8 cylinders have the smallest scratch, could probably reassemble without honing it and be fine.
Just wanted to post it here, it's a wild failure and really cool I think. These were stock pistons (250k on them) and new rings. The ring to groove clearance was on the looser end of spec, the end ring gap was on the loose side and spec'd for the blower. There is no sign of detonation, though the timing from my last datalog seems like it's on the high side (going up to 38deg of advance during throttle blips, but from what I've read that isn't necessarily crazy so i dont know). I had a lot of blowby initially, and then a ton after I did the last trip around the neighborhood and got into boost once (70% TPS and 8psi), so I suspect some pistons were already cracked and then the boost obliterated them after that. But it's hard to say. Could be all those factors, old pistons, boost, too much timing/poor tune. No idea. Everything else is totally fine is the crazy part too
So now I have a dilemma, bare minimum is forged pistons and rods. Though at that point may as well get a forged crank and may as well stroke it. Well at that point, a short block stroker is only a couple grand more and I can swap over all my other parts. A Texas Speed forged rotating assembly is like $2500, a TSP balanced stroker short block is $5700. So I'd "save" $3000, but the short block comes with everything ready to rock and built by guys who do that all day every day, and I need to add the cost of machining my block and measuring everything and assembling it so not really saving anything at the end of the day. Though that's also multiple weeks lead time, where as getting a stroker kit might save some time, and just getting forged pistons and rods would save a lot of time and could probably get by without any machining then. Back to the flip side though, I was a cheap skate with the bottom end and intended to eventually upgrade it (just like the transmission) and that bit me in the butt, so want good shit this time around. I could buy forged pistons and rods for $1000 and be up and running in a week or two, but that's also $1000 towards a stroker! I don't know, so many options and ideas to play with.
I couldn't get over the fact the blowby seemed super bad, so did a compression check and cylinders 1-2-3 were all dead. Did a leak down test and it pointed to the rings, so my girlfriend and I tore it down on Monday and this is what we found!
Some numbers:
3 of 8 pistons measured extremely low compression, and even less in the leak down.
6 of 8 pistons are cracked, 5 of which you can literally remove inches of the ring lands.
2 of 8 pistons had the bottom oil ring (5 rings total, three oil rings) get ejected, not sure if this was an assembly error on my part (seems unlikely) or the ring got spit out when everything above it collapsed.
2 of 8 cylinders have the smallest scratch, could probably reassemble without honing it and be fine.
Just wanted to post it here, it's a wild failure and really cool I think. These were stock pistons (250k on them) and new rings. The ring to groove clearance was on the looser end of spec, the end ring gap was on the loose side and spec'd for the blower. There is no sign of detonation, though the timing from my last datalog seems like it's on the high side (going up to 38deg of advance during throttle blips, but from what I've read that isn't necessarily crazy so i dont know). I had a lot of blowby initially, and then a ton after I did the last trip around the neighborhood and got into boost once (70% TPS and 8psi), so I suspect some pistons were already cracked and then the boost obliterated them after that. But it's hard to say. Could be all those factors, old pistons, boost, too much timing/poor tune. No idea. Everything else is totally fine is the crazy part too
So now I have a dilemma, bare minimum is forged pistons and rods. Though at that point may as well get a forged crank and may as well stroke it. Well at that point, a short block stroker is only a couple grand more and I can swap over all my other parts. A Texas Speed forged rotating assembly is like $2500, a TSP balanced stroker short block is $5700. So I'd "save" $3000, but the short block comes with everything ready to rock and built by guys who do that all day every day, and I need to add the cost of machining my block and measuring everything and assembling it so not really saving anything at the end of the day. Though that's also multiple weeks lead time, where as getting a stroker kit might save some time, and just getting forged pistons and rods would save a lot of time and could probably get by without any machining then. Back to the flip side though, I was a cheap skate with the bottom end and intended to eventually upgrade it (just like the transmission) and that bit me in the butt, so want good shit this time around. I could buy forged pistons and rods for $1000 and be up and running in a week or two, but that's also $1000 towards a stroker! I don't know, so many options and ideas to play with.
snivilous
Well-known member
June 7 Update:
Over the weekend pulled the block and tore it down.
Today dropped it off at the machine shop. Immediately after ordered the 408 (6.7L) stroker kit from TSP
A short block was like a multi month lead time, and they didn't have any gen 3 blocks so my wiring harness would need to be hacked up or a different one bought since some sensor spots are moved for a gen 4. I called TSP and dude said essentially everything was out of stock, so I said okay what is IN stock, and we came to the below parts list. All I really cared about was the piston dish, with -15cc I should be in the ~9.8:1 range depending on heads versus the previous setup was around 10.7. All these parts are apparently in stock, and dude thought they'd ship by the end of the week.
The machine shop will balance the bottom end, and I'll drop the harmonic balancer and flex plate off so they'll get balanced with everything. Then the cylinders will be bored out for the 4.03 pistons, and everything else cleaned up and inspected. I plan to buy new heads and a new cam optimized for the supercharged 408 combination too, though I need to research and call around first. I've been looking around at dyno shops in Las Vegas, and now definitely want to get the engine dyno tuned. It's turning into a pretty serious build and don't want to cut any corners and grenade this one too
Hopefully have the engine back together by the end of the month, and then start looking at transmissions. Right now leaning towards the stage 3 4l80e from Jakes Performance which is rated for 1000+hp, and just having them build it, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.
Over the weekend pulled the block and tore it down.
Today dropped it off at the machine shop. Immediately after ordered the 408 (6.7L) stroker kit from TSP
The machine shop will balance the bottom end, and I'll drop the harmonic balancer and flex plate off so they'll get balanced with everything. Then the cylinders will be bored out for the 4.03 pistons, and everything else cleaned up and inspected. I plan to buy new heads and a new cam optimized for the supercharged 408 combination too, though I need to research and call around first. I've been looking around at dyno shops in Las Vegas, and now definitely want to get the engine dyno tuned. It's turning into a pretty serious build and don't want to cut any corners and grenade this one too
snivilous
Well-known member
And finally up to now, July 11 Update:
Dropped the block and rotating assembly off at the machine shop on June 15 and still waiting to hear back, but made a little progress on other things in the mean time. I started modifying my hydraulic steering reservoir to be water cooled. I bought an aluminum tube off of McMaster, some AN bungs that match my supercharger intercooler ports, and then cut some filler plates and a little internal divider too out of 1/4" aluminum.
Excuse my nasty ass welds, for one I don't weld aluminum often and still unsure of the best settings, and two it seems like plasma cutting it injects a lot of nasty shit that is hard to fully get out. Regardless, got it all welded up and it seems to be sealed. The next thing to do was the hydraulic fluid passages were kind of convoluted. The line off the orbital went into the filter, then the filter outlet (in the middle) came up, did a 90deg turn and went straight towards the outlet for the pump. The reservoir itself was T'd into that leg from the 90 to the pump outlet, so effectively the reservoir is ONLY used for fluid thermal expansion since the ports aren't setup to actually circulate fluid through the reservoir. To fix this, I just drilled out the middle hole coming off the filter outlet so it's blowing straight into the reservoir. I don't know if that made any sense, but this is what the inside looks like now:
So the two ports into the reservoir are connected, but since the one coming off the filter goes straight it should just push fluid into the reservoir and then the pump outlet is just gravity fed which is how it behaved when I hooked a hose up to it. With all that said, I now have a reservoir for my hydraulic steering that has a water jacket for cooling, and the hydraulic fluid ports and the cooling ports are properly setup so fluid is circulated all through/around the reservoir to optimize cooling. The supercharger return line for it's intercooler will go straight to this, and then back to the intercooler reservoir so the blower and the steering will be cooled off the same loop.
After that I started building my rear axle bump stop towers:
And at this point I ran out of argon and called it a day. Besides some other little things, that is the extent of work for the last month
Dropped the block and rotating assembly off at the machine shop on June 15 and still waiting to hear back, but made a little progress on other things in the mean time. I started modifying my hydraulic steering reservoir to be water cooled. I bought an aluminum tube off of McMaster, some AN bungs that match my supercharger intercooler ports, and then cut some filler plates and a little internal divider too out of 1/4" aluminum.
Excuse my nasty ass welds, for one I don't weld aluminum often and still unsure of the best settings, and two it seems like plasma cutting it injects a lot of nasty shit that is hard to fully get out. Regardless, got it all welded up and it seems to be sealed. The next thing to do was the hydraulic fluid passages were kind of convoluted. The line off the orbital went into the filter, then the filter outlet (in the middle) came up, did a 90deg turn and went straight towards the outlet for the pump. The reservoir itself was T'd into that leg from the 90 to the pump outlet, so effectively the reservoir is ONLY used for fluid thermal expansion since the ports aren't setup to actually circulate fluid through the reservoir. To fix this, I just drilled out the middle hole coming off the filter outlet so it's blowing straight into the reservoir. I don't know if that made any sense, but this is what the inside looks like now:
So the two ports into the reservoir are connected, but since the one coming off the filter goes straight it should just push fluid into the reservoir and then the pump outlet is just gravity fed which is how it behaved when I hooked a hose up to it. With all that said, I now have a reservoir for my hydraulic steering that has a water jacket for cooling, and the hydraulic fluid ports and the cooling ports are properly setup so fluid is circulated all through/around the reservoir to optimize cooling. The supercharger return line for it's intercooler will go straight to this, and then back to the intercooler reservoir so the blower and the steering will be cooled off the same loop.
After that I started building my rear axle bump stop towers:
And at this point I ran out of argon and called it a day. Besides some other little things, that is the extent of work for the last month
Looking really slick, nice fab work and some killer ideas.
gt1guy
Apparently a racist
So your first test drive was full-on go kart style. Bet it would have cornered really good.
Since you're boosted and your block is at a machine shop, have you thought about having the block machined for the LSA piston oil squrters? Only other change needed is to run a LSA spec oil pump, which is just 30% more volume.
![squirter[1].jpg](https://irate4x4.com/attachments/squirter-1-jpg.430734/ "squirter[1].jpg")
Since you're boosted and your block is at a machine shop, have you thought about having the block machined for the LSA piston oil squrters? Only other change needed is to run a LSA spec oil pump, which is just 30% more volume.
TTMotorsports
Red Skull Member
I didn't see what motor exactly he is running but an iron block means it's a truck motor and I know the 6.0L and those don't have the flat part for those to be machined in, like an LS2,3,7,LSX. I know you can do them but machining the Main Bulkhead but from my research is that it will let oil leak out and when starting it could cause a delay in oil to the engine and more for racing applications.So your first test drive was full-on go kart style. Bet it would have cornered really good.
Since you're boosted and your block is at a machine shop, have you thought about having the block machined for the LSA piston oil squrters? Only other change needed is to run a LSA spec oil pump, which is just 30% more volume.
gt1guy
Apparently a racist
His thread on the other site said LQ4. I'm not switched on to the LS alphabet though.
The LSA oil squrters have a check valve in them that doesn't open until they see 42psi. Which is pretty cool actually. Makes sense because they were designed for a production vehicle.
Might not be worth it if it costs a ton to machine the block OP has.
snivilous
Well-known member
So your first test drive was full-on go kart style. Bet it would have cornered really good.
Since you're boosted and your block is at a machine shop, have you thought about having the block machined for the LSA piston oil squrters? Only other change needed is to run a LSA spec oil pump, which is just 30% more volume.
Both correct, LQ4 which is just a ironblock (6.0), though I thought the block was identical to a LS2 besides material. I've never heard of doing that, but I'll look into it and talk to the machine shop what their thoughts are.
And yes, full go cart sucked total ass, I don't know how rock crawlers do it 😂 course, my springs finally showed up from Eibach but then the engine was toast so that was good timing
snivilous
Well-known member
From what I've read it's from hardcore detonation, I think the tune I was using was totally wrong and I was on the higher end for static compression and the cam might have made the dynamic compression even worse. Because of all that, I'll be talking to companies this time around when I buy heads and cam and then what I want is to take the engine to Westech Performance in California and have them dyno tune it so it's dialed before it's ever dropped into the chassis so I can't screw it up. Like you said, live and learn and make it better which is why I'm building the bottom end instead of just throwing stock replacement pistons in. It shit itself in a cool way, and better now before everything is buttoned up and hard to reach and not in the middle of nowhere blowing a rod, it's a bummer but did it in the best way/time possible.
azdirt3.0
Red Skull Member
Stoked to see the progress on this buggy and as before love the work you're doing 
Bummer on the motor but sounds like you have a good plan going for getting it done right this time.
Bummer on the motor but sounds like you have a good plan going for getting it done right this time.
WaterH
Well-known member
Wow, I wish I had seen this earlier. Great build. Really sucks about the motor trouble, but seems like you got a handle on it. It was a good read and I only skimmed. Need to go back and read it good.
Good luck and I'll be watching now.
Good luck and I'll be watching now.
snivilous
Well-known member
Still haven't heard back about the engine (I think they meant 2 months to do it, not 2 weeks!) but it had moved from it's place of rest in the front room of the machine shop I saw. I've started compiling parts so once it shows up I can slap it together, and if I have any hope of going to Trail Hero in October (a nice 40 minute drive from the house) then I need to get everything in order to be efficient about putting it back together. I've been looking around at head and cam stuff and was totally lost, and I kept seeing the name "Pat G" thrown around so looked up what that was, turns out it's this older dude who builds engines and does consulting, and you can pay him a few bucks for advice. So I went ahead and did that and essentially said I'm building an Ultra4, I have a 408 and a LSA supercharger, and nothing between them, what would you do for the valvetrain? He got back to me an hour ago and said get the AFR LS3 heads and this Brian Tooley cam for a supercharger and it should be very controllable and tame on the bottom end but pull hard, so now I have new heads and a cam on order! Already ordered a new gasket kit and some LS9 head gaskets, and some ARP main studs so I think I have everything to put the engine together when it's ready. The heads and cam are like a 4 week lead time though...
Which on that note, I still have a transmission where reverse and neutral are forward gears! I wanted a Jakes Performance stage 3/4 transmission built for 1000hp, but it turns out their projected delivery is past the end of the year right now AND their kits are multiple weeks out and backordered. I watched some videos, and it looks like rebuilding the 4l80 and specifically the forward clutches (most likely culprit for what's wrong) actually isn't that bad. I ordered a transmission table mount, and a handful of specialty tools to help pull it apart and then bought a run of the mill rebuild kit off amazon. Due to lead times on everything, the only two options really is a basic rebuild or get another used transmission. I figured it doesn't hurt to rebuild it, and I have some time to kill waiting for the engine stuff so may as well try it. Best case I can order the Jakes kit in the future and save $2000 and rebuild it with upgraded internals---but for now I'm just shooting to have it good enough to run some rocks with my friends in 2 months.
Additionally I ordered some Branik 35 spline unit bearings for the front axle, though that's the extent I've gone down building the axles. Worst case I weld the rear and maybe the front, and run them stock, best case the engine and transmission work is cheaper and faster than I expect and I lock and regear and chromoly everything but I doubt I'll have time for that, main focus is get it driving.
I picked up two 40s from a friend in SLC for $200, about half tread but I had a 5th beadlock sitting in a box so now I have spares. This is roughly what I was thinking placement wise, but angled up a bit (parallel with C pillar) and then a replaceable mount coming off the back of the chassis. That thing is an utter bitch to get up there though, even with two people and it's at full bump. If I ever pop a tire I'll probably just leave it behind and say fuck it lol
Something I've been putting off is fixing the brakes, the reservoir was mounted at a hardcore angle to get the brake pedal angle "more right" and turned into being a bitch to fill. I cut it all off, cut new brackets, and welded it back up.
That meant I had to make the brake pedal not a POS. The easiest way I decided was to keep the top section with the pivots, and modify the bottom so I cut it up.
And turned it into this:
It's already WAY better. The big issue with the original is it's a 12:1 travel or something, and inevitably by the end of pedal you are tip towing the top of the pedal assembly. To fix that, my thought was make a round pivot that your foot is on, so the pedal just rotates under your foot versus pushing a plate essentially. I tried to machine some grooves in, which got kind of fucked since I didn't realize machining a 4tpi thread would be hard due to how fast the machine is moving--regardless I think it turned out pretty well. Still need to weld it up, and I plan to move that floor tube since the pedal sits too far up my foot to be comfortable if I rest my foot on the tube, so if I drop the floor a few inches which I have room to do, then I think it will be very comfortable and I can push the full travel without my foot running into the top of the pedal.
That wraps up my minimal progress on the buggy, hopefully get the engine together early next month and hopefully get in to a dyno (or create a super safe basic tune to start with), and hopefully have the transmission back together before then. With some luck maybe I can take something besides the can am to Trail Hero this year :D
Which on that note, I still have a transmission where reverse and neutral are forward gears! I wanted a Jakes Performance stage 3/4 transmission built for 1000hp, but it turns out their projected delivery is past the end of the year right now AND their kits are multiple weeks out and backordered. I watched some videos, and it looks like rebuilding the 4l80 and specifically the forward clutches (most likely culprit for what's wrong) actually isn't that bad. I ordered a transmission table mount, and a handful of specialty tools to help pull it apart and then bought a run of the mill rebuild kit off amazon. Due to lead times on everything, the only two options really is a basic rebuild or get another used transmission. I figured it doesn't hurt to rebuild it, and I have some time to kill waiting for the engine stuff so may as well try it. Best case I can order the Jakes kit in the future and save $2000 and rebuild it with upgraded internals---but for now I'm just shooting to have it good enough to run some rocks with my friends in 2 months.
Additionally I ordered some Branik 35 spline unit bearings for the front axle, though that's the extent I've gone down building the axles. Worst case I weld the rear and maybe the front, and run them stock, best case the engine and transmission work is cheaper and faster than I expect and I lock and regear and chromoly everything but I doubt I'll have time for that, main focus is get it driving.
I picked up two 40s from a friend in SLC for $200, about half tread but I had a 5th beadlock sitting in a box so now I have spares. This is roughly what I was thinking placement wise, but angled up a bit (parallel with C pillar) and then a replaceable mount coming off the back of the chassis. That thing is an utter bitch to get up there though, even with two people and it's at full bump. If I ever pop a tire I'll probably just leave it behind and say fuck it lol
Something I've been putting off is fixing the brakes, the reservoir was mounted at a hardcore angle to get the brake pedal angle "more right" and turned into being a bitch to fill. I cut it all off, cut new brackets, and welded it back up.
That meant I had to make the brake pedal not a POS. The easiest way I decided was to keep the top section with the pivots, and modify the bottom so I cut it up.
And turned it into this:
It's already WAY better. The big issue with the original is it's a 12:1 travel or something, and inevitably by the end of pedal you are tip towing the top of the pedal assembly. To fix that, my thought was make a round pivot that your foot is on, so the pedal just rotates under your foot versus pushing a plate essentially. I tried to machine some grooves in, which got kind of fucked since I didn't realize machining a 4tpi thread would be hard due to how fast the machine is moving--regardless I think it turned out pretty well. Still need to weld it up, and I plan to move that floor tube since the pedal sits too far up my foot to be comfortable if I rest my foot on the tube, so if I drop the floor a few inches which I have room to do, then I think it will be very comfortable and I can push the full travel without my foot running into the top of the pedal.
That wraps up my minimal progress on the buggy, hopefully get the engine together early next month and hopefully get in to a dyno (or create a super safe basic tune to start with), and hopefully have the transmission back together before then. With some luck maybe I can take something besides the can am to Trail Hero this year :D
WaterH
Well-known member
Looks good. I'm not sure I like the routing of the blue hose though. Lol.
snivilous
Well-known member
I got my limit straps in so hooked up the rear since the front CV can't handle the droop and remembering to hook up ratchet straps was annoying.
My welding needs a bit of work, but I think it'll hold. She's cooked but penetrated :D
It's strapped at 23", though the trailing arms and shocks could pull 26" if I'm remembering right. Hopefully I can use some of that untapped potential when it's flexing since the limit straps are pretty far inboard so the trailing arm mount is cantilevered past the strap a good bit. Originally I thought the double cardan was binding at droop, but I think the pinion is just sloppily hooked up and running into the carrier. Sounds weird, but there's tooth marks on the carrier and I had swapped the pinion flange out for a yoke and then just randomly hit it with the impact until it was snug since I won't be using these gears or anything--point being, the pinion is not torqued correctly and it obviously has run into the carrier so might be what's actually binding up at droop. If that's the case I might be able to pull a bit more travel out.
I have straps for the front axle, but I haven't made the front driveshaft yet so nothing is binding up there and I want to wait until the motor is in to hook up the straps since everything is super tight up front. I have tubing showing up for the front driveshaft this week so get that done and get the midship bearing fully mounted if it all works.
Today I started working on the center console, ie I cut a plate for it and figured out where I wanted the hand brake and shifter to go and got those mounted.
Additionally I flipped the front brake calipers since the bleed screw was on the bottom, now it's on the top so hopefully I can bleed them better. After doing that I found out the rear brake line had become a ground path at some point between the chassis and axle and had pin holed itself, which is part of the reason I started the center console since I needed to buy new brake lines to hookup the handbrake inline with the rear line anyway.
In sad news, the invoice from AFR states the heads wont ship until September 30th... So my NEW plane is if I can find a junkyard engine for $500 or less to throw that in, keep it 100% stock and send it. I'm waiting on a few tools to show up next week, but have most of the stuff to rebuild the transmission, and once that's done I just need to install springs and would have everything needed to actually take the buggy out on the dirt and start seeing what issues there are. My primary concern is handling since my link setup is rather unique, and after playing with my Bomber RC which suffers immensely without a sway bar I'm worried I'll have the same issue. I'd rather figure out sway bar stuff or changing link geometry while I'm waiting for the big engine parts, than keep tweaking on small stuff and throw the big engine in and the chassis just falls over in a corner. There's a guy selling a Suburban for $800 nearby that I'm trying to get a hold of, throw it's engine (whatever it is) in as a temporary thing and start testing is my hopes... if anyone knows of a 5.3 or 6.0 in Southern Utah for under a grand let me know :D
My welding needs a bit of work, but I think it'll hold. She's cooked but penetrated :D
It's strapped at 23", though the trailing arms and shocks could pull 26" if I'm remembering right. Hopefully I can use some of that untapped potential when it's flexing since the limit straps are pretty far inboard so the trailing arm mount is cantilevered past the strap a good bit. Originally I thought the double cardan was binding at droop, but I think the pinion is just sloppily hooked up and running into the carrier. Sounds weird, but there's tooth marks on the carrier and I had swapped the pinion flange out for a yoke and then just randomly hit it with the impact until it was snug since I won't be using these gears or anything--point being, the pinion is not torqued correctly and it obviously has run into the carrier so might be what's actually binding up at droop. If that's the case I might be able to pull a bit more travel out.
I have straps for the front axle, but I haven't made the front driveshaft yet so nothing is binding up there and I want to wait until the motor is in to hook up the straps since everything is super tight up front. I have tubing showing up for the front driveshaft this week so get that done and get the midship bearing fully mounted if it all works.
Today I started working on the center console, ie I cut a plate for it and figured out where I wanted the hand brake and shifter to go and got those mounted.
Additionally I flipped the front brake calipers since the bleed screw was on the bottom, now it's on the top so hopefully I can bleed them better. After doing that I found out the rear brake line had become a ground path at some point between the chassis and axle and had pin holed itself, which is part of the reason I started the center console since I needed to buy new brake lines to hookup the handbrake inline with the rear line anyway.
In sad news, the invoice from AFR states the heads wont ship until September 30th... So my NEW plane is if I can find a junkyard engine for $500 or less to throw that in, keep it 100% stock and send it. I'm waiting on a few tools to show up next week, but have most of the stuff to rebuild the transmission, and once that's done I just need to install springs and would have everything needed to actually take the buggy out on the dirt and start seeing what issues there are. My primary concern is handling since my link setup is rather unique, and after playing with my Bomber RC which suffers immensely without a sway bar I'm worried I'll have the same issue. I'd rather figure out sway bar stuff or changing link geometry while I'm waiting for the big engine parts, than keep tweaking on small stuff and throw the big engine in and the chassis just falls over in a corner. There's a guy selling a Suburban for $800 nearby that I'm trying to get a hold of, throw it's engine (whatever it is) in as a temporary thing and start testing is my hopes... if anyone knows of a 5.3 or 6.0 in Southern Utah for under a grand let me know :D
snivilous
Well-known member
I don't usually have much to post, but there is a lot of cool shit happening right now! I got all my tools and parts in to rebuild the transmission, so today I pulled it and tore it down!
I bought this transmission holder and then made an adapter plate to the engine stand:
And an hour and a half after mounting it we're here!
Fucking insane! I have to give a shoutout to this dude's video, I followed it to the Tee and he made it wickedly easy:
Props to you my man or I would have never attempted this. When I first watched that video, I went fuck yea I can fix this myself. To recap, I lost reverse after using it once. From what I read it was common if you ran it low on fluid to have the forward clutches seize up, and that makes reverse and neutral now become forward "gears" which is what I experienced. I had run it low on fluid, it was hard to get the level right with the rear mounted radiator and the aftermarket dip stick and everything else, so it all seemed plausible. The forward clutches sit in a basket which is easy to get to and easy to replace them, so that was my intent ultimately for tearing it down. Lo and behold!
That is the forward clutch basket, it is discolored which in dudes video he says is bad and it got cooked. BUT:
That spline is supposed to engage the forward clutch basket! The female splines are totally gone! Now to be fair, I have not checked the clutches in the basket yet (I literally just came in after tearing it down) so there could be/probably is more issues. But holy shit! Massive failure in the subassembly everyone referenced, but in a way I had never heard of! I don't know how this happens, I can't believe running it low on fluid would annihilate the splines like that. I have a friend who had an interesting theory that the drivetrain was beat on hard and reverse was essentially gone when I got it (I only used reverse once and was idling during my two test drives, then it never worked again) and could explain why my pistons detonated prematurely. I find that a bit of a stretch, but it is crazy that two massive failures happened and I didn't even drive it half a mile. To be fair, I have literally ZERO idea what this spline does or the forward clutch basket, or honestly anything in the transmission. Maybe this is a common failure? Maybe it can fail and no one notices? This thing is so fucking complicated it's insane, but actually pulls apart really easily. Anyways, super cool and obvious failure straight away which makes me happy!
I bought this transmission holder and then made an adapter plate to the engine stand:
And an hour and a half after mounting it we're here!
Fucking insane! I have to give a shoutout to this dude's video, I followed it to the Tee and he made it wickedly easy:
Props to you my man or I would have never attempted this. When I first watched that video, I went fuck yea I can fix this myself. To recap, I lost reverse after using it once. From what I read it was common if you ran it low on fluid to have the forward clutches seize up, and that makes reverse and neutral now become forward "gears" which is what I experienced. I had run it low on fluid, it was hard to get the level right with the rear mounted radiator and the aftermarket dip stick and everything else, so it all seemed plausible. The forward clutches sit in a basket which is easy to get to and easy to replace them, so that was my intent ultimately for tearing it down. Lo and behold!
That is the forward clutch basket, it is discolored which in dudes video he says is bad and it got cooked. BUT:
That spline is supposed to engage the forward clutch basket! The female splines are totally gone! Now to be fair, I have not checked the clutches in the basket yet (I literally just came in after tearing it down) so there could be/probably is more issues. But holy shit! Massive failure in the subassembly everyone referenced, but in a way I had never heard of! I don't know how this happens, I can't believe running it low on fluid would annihilate the splines like that. I have a friend who had an interesting theory that the drivetrain was beat on hard and reverse was essentially gone when I got it (I only used reverse once and was idling during my two test drives, then it never worked again) and could explain why my pistons detonated prematurely. I find that a bit of a stretch, but it is crazy that two massive failures happened and I didn't even drive it half a mile. To be fair, I have literally ZERO idea what this spline does or the forward clutch basket, or honestly anything in the transmission. Maybe this is a common failure? Maybe it can fail and no one notices? This thing is so fucking complicated it's insane, but actually pulls apart really easily. Anyways, super cool and obvious failure straight away which makes me happy!
arse_sidewards
Red Skull Member
- Joined
- May 19, 2020
- Member Number
- 71
- Messages
- 8,555
I know you have to care about weight everywhere but man the hours you had to put into the brake pedal and limit strap tabs when a close pipe nipple would have done the same job and thicker plate wouldn't have needed those washers welded on just makes my head hurt. Fuck that. That's why I don't build race vehicles.
snivilous
Well-known member
Honestly saving any weight is just a nice byproduct at this point. I just want it to be cool and unique and doing little details like that I think makes it stand out and is fun. Same reason I learned TIG and now try and do that as much as possible. Lots of time could've been saved everywhere, but I can go to each spot on the chassis and there's a little story and reason why it's done that way and little details.
With that said, I think it'll still be one of the lightest home made Ultra4s and hopefully come in around ~4000lbs. Solid 2000lbs lighter than my previous 4500, all while using junkyard tons and an ironblock. Can't complain about that 😁
WaterH
Well-known member
Sucks about your tranny. I have rebuilt several auto's (successfully) and I still don't really understand them. All of mine had burnt clutches. (No spline or gear damage) I guess you buy every part in there separately?
Ps I love the tranny stand. I did all mine in a garbage can.
Ps I love the tranny stand. I did all mine in a garbage can.
snivilous
Well-known member
I haven't looked at my rebuild kit yet, it sounds like the fucked area might be a replaceable bushing thing according to one dude. Otherwise it looks like that clutch basket thing is like $140 for a new one. On the ones you rebuilt, did you fix parts that were broken or just replace everything? I'm unsure if I should replace every possible thing, or say, this part is fucked, these clutches are burnt, this o ring is easy to reach, cool replace those and move on. There's some many things that can be pulled down further, I can understand why it costs so much for a built one, since I don't know if I feel like tearing every possible thing down to clean and check. Instead, just replace the common and easy to reach parts. What's your thoughts? This dude I talked to also recommended swapping out the torque converter for a new one every rebuild, even if it's a cheap converter--I don't know how much that matters, I was going to get a new converter for the big engine and just run the stock converter if I find a temporary donor, I don't see how the converter would mess up the rest of the trans?
This it the tranny mount, there's a version with a sleeve at the root for like $50 more to bolt it to a table. I didn't trust any of my tables to have 150lbs cantilevered off the end, so the engine stand seemed like a good option and then I can easily rotate it around. When I did the transgo valvebody kit I had the tranny laying on the table and spewing it's guts everywhere, so I know your pain of working on it awkwardly lol
WaterH
Well-known member
When I did them, they had two kits. One that was just seals and few other stuff and one with all the clutches. I got the latter. I only replaced the parts in the rebuild kit. I didn't see anything else bad. They were all Ford trannys.
snivilous
Well-known member
I don't know if I'm actually making any real progress, but things have been happening! I finished rebuilding the 4l80, the clutches I got turned out to be wrong but the company sent me the correct ones so that was nice. I think there was one clutch pack that wasn't utterly fucked, this is one of the overdrive clutch pieces compared to a new one. This clutch used to have material on it, it was literally worn all the way through the shim stock in places!
Tranny back together and ready to rock:
My neighbor then told me that his brother's neighbor had a suburban he was trying to get rid of, so $500 later it was driven to the house!
The machine shop is painfully slow, but apparently they do really good work so I'm fine waiting, plus the AFR heads I ordered have an end of september ETA, so the plan was to swap the 5.3 from the Suburban in so I can keep doing (fun) stuff. Throttle pedal, exhaust, passenger header, I now have springs for the coilovers so could start playing with the handling, etc. I was also hoping the 4l60 would give me a spare trans, but I didn't realize it's completely different in every aspect compared to the 4l80.
Pulled the engine, that was a complete bitch, and then lots of degreaser later and a little scrubbing and power washing and she was ready to go! Except not, the 5.3 can bolt to the 4l80 but everything power wise doesn't line up. This was a week and a half ago and I was about to leave for vacation, so put in an order on Summit. The 4l60 converter doesn't work with the 4l80, and the 4l60 is a 3 bolt torque converter - flex plate vs a 6 bolt for the 80, so a different flex plate that is spaced and has the 6 bolt pattern is needed. Was pretty cheap surprisingly; also got new spark plugs and wires, and I think that was the extent of money spent on the 5.3
Came back from vacation at 11pm on Saturday and had a box of parts, and with some help on Sunday from RPS1030 and my neighbor got the 5.3 fully dressed and dropped in and driving!
I was hoping to keep the 5.3 as a fairly stand alone engine that I would have in parallel with the 408 I'm building, but it turned out that it was gonna be a lot easier to just use the long block and swap over the supercharger. The supercharger is kind of it's own little unit that has fuel rails, injectors, injector harness, the dual feed lines to the fuel Y block, and the dual returns to the regulator, so literally the whole unit just drops straight onto the heads and the fuel system is done essentially. Likewise, my accessory brackets are specifically designed with the blower in mind so I wasn't sure if I could reroute them and make it still work. By keeping the blower, everything I learned from the 6.0 before pulling it out applied directly to the 5.3. I have a lot of random parts laying around, so eventually the 5.3 will get built when it gets pulled for the 408, but for now it's a 100% stock long block with a 1.9L LSA supercharger on top. I updated my 6.0 tune for the 5.3 and adjusted the timing down a ton, what was 22deg of timing at WOT is now 13deg and I figured out how to get the knock sensors working so those are correctly turned on now!
Upon fire up it made a horrible noise, literally sounded like a wrench was attached to the torque converter or a socket was in the supercharger. It was the loudest knocking I've ever heard from an engine, so I called my neighbor over to help figure out what the hell was happening. After pulling the blower apart and checking both valve covers (I didn't pull the pan, covers, or even check compression before installing the engine since it drove to my house a week prior and I never modified anything) it seemed like nothing was obviously wrong... the knocking was intermittent and much louder than a rod knock, after testing some things and revving the engine up a bit the noise started to slow down and go away! My neighbors theory is one of the lifters was loose and since I have a rear mounted oil cooler, it takes the engine a minute to fully build oil pressure when the system is drained. After the engine was run and revved up (oil pump is a bit on the weaker side too it seems like) the sound went away as the lifter pressurized.
To further confirm that theory, the following morning (Monday, yesterday) I fired the buggy up and there was no sound at all and I drove it probably a mile around the neighborhood and the engine ran and sounded great!
My biggest concern was handling, a handful of people have said that my "excessively" triangulated rear links would make it handle horribly, and my previous 4500 car had super shitty link geometry that made the body fall over just crawling around a corner so I was super worried about that. I had ordered springs a few months ago but it took awhile to get them, and by that point I had already pulled the 6.0 out and sent it out for work. This was the first trip with springs, and honestly all I really cared about was going around the corner at the end of the block and seeing what happened! Turns out it can take a corner! Granted, the front axle doesn't have shafts and the rear is fully open and who knows how slow I was actually going, but the chassis stayed level enough I considered it a win! I'm sure it's nothing special, and will probably need a sway bar, but the fact it drove like a normal vehicle where as my last build didn't is awesome!
However there was a caveat to all this: the transmission is not fixed whatsoever. Reverse and neutral still act like forward gears for some reason, so obviously changing all the clutches and some seals and bushings did not fix the issue. At this point there's a few near term options, have a professional tear it apart and figure out where reverse and neutral went, or get a junkyard transmission. For the moment not sure what I'll do, I'll cross that bridge when I have time.
The suspension needs to be dropped probably two inches in the rear, the tune needs to be tweaked so the throttle isn't so laggy, and a handful of other basic tweaks to try and dial in what I have right now. Then I can start picking away at the other remaining big tasks, like building a floor! I have to resist not taking it down to 3 peaks where the WE Rock/Supercrawl events are (literally a straight shot down the road from the house) until everything is a bit less janked together. But it's running (again), and even if it has no reverse, it finally is sitting under it's own power and can go around a corner and it's awesome!
Tranny back together and ready to rock:
My neighbor then told me that his brother's neighbor had a suburban he was trying to get rid of, so $500 later it was driven to the house!
The machine shop is painfully slow, but apparently they do really good work so I'm fine waiting, plus the AFR heads I ordered have an end of september ETA, so the plan was to swap the 5.3 from the Suburban in so I can keep doing (fun) stuff. Throttle pedal, exhaust, passenger header, I now have springs for the coilovers so could start playing with the handling, etc. I was also hoping the 4l60 would give me a spare trans, but I didn't realize it's completely different in every aspect compared to the 4l80.
Pulled the engine, that was a complete bitch, and then lots of degreaser later and a little scrubbing and power washing and she was ready to go! Except not, the 5.3 can bolt to the 4l80 but everything power wise doesn't line up. This was a week and a half ago and I was about to leave for vacation, so put in an order on Summit. The 4l60 converter doesn't work with the 4l80, and the 4l60 is a 3 bolt torque converter - flex plate vs a 6 bolt for the 80, so a different flex plate that is spaced and has the 6 bolt pattern is needed. Was pretty cheap surprisingly; also got new spark plugs and wires, and I think that was the extent of money spent on the 5.3
Came back from vacation at 11pm on Saturday and had a box of parts, and with some help on Sunday from RPS1030 and my neighbor got the 5.3 fully dressed and dropped in and driving!
I was hoping to keep the 5.3 as a fairly stand alone engine that I would have in parallel with the 408 I'm building, but it turned out that it was gonna be a lot easier to just use the long block and swap over the supercharger. The supercharger is kind of it's own little unit that has fuel rails, injectors, injector harness, the dual feed lines to the fuel Y block, and the dual returns to the regulator, so literally the whole unit just drops straight onto the heads and the fuel system is done essentially. Likewise, my accessory brackets are specifically designed with the blower in mind so I wasn't sure if I could reroute them and make it still work. By keeping the blower, everything I learned from the 6.0 before pulling it out applied directly to the 5.3. I have a lot of random parts laying around, so eventually the 5.3 will get built when it gets pulled for the 408, but for now it's a 100% stock long block with a 1.9L LSA supercharger on top. I updated my 6.0 tune for the 5.3 and adjusted the timing down a ton, what was 22deg of timing at WOT is now 13deg and I figured out how to get the knock sensors working so those are correctly turned on now!
Upon fire up it made a horrible noise, literally sounded like a wrench was attached to the torque converter or a socket was in the supercharger. It was the loudest knocking I've ever heard from an engine, so I called my neighbor over to help figure out what the hell was happening. After pulling the blower apart and checking both valve covers (I didn't pull the pan, covers, or even check compression before installing the engine since it drove to my house a week prior and I never modified anything) it seemed like nothing was obviously wrong... the knocking was intermittent and much louder than a rod knock, after testing some things and revving the engine up a bit the noise started to slow down and go away! My neighbors theory is one of the lifters was loose and since I have a rear mounted oil cooler, it takes the engine a minute to fully build oil pressure when the system is drained. After the engine was run and revved up (oil pump is a bit on the weaker side too it seems like) the sound went away as the lifter pressurized.
To further confirm that theory, the following morning (Monday, yesterday) I fired the buggy up and there was no sound at all and I drove it probably a mile around the neighborhood and the engine ran and sounded great!
My biggest concern was handling, a handful of people have said that my "excessively" triangulated rear links would make it handle horribly, and my previous 4500 car had super shitty link geometry that made the body fall over just crawling around a corner so I was super worried about that. I had ordered springs a few months ago but it took awhile to get them, and by that point I had already pulled the 6.0 out and sent it out for work. This was the first trip with springs, and honestly all I really cared about was going around the corner at the end of the block and seeing what happened! Turns out it can take a corner! Granted, the front axle doesn't have shafts and the rear is fully open and who knows how slow I was actually going, but the chassis stayed level enough I considered it a win! I'm sure it's nothing special, and will probably need a sway bar, but the fact it drove like a normal vehicle where as my last build didn't is awesome!
However there was a caveat to all this: the transmission is not fixed whatsoever. Reverse and neutral still act like forward gears for some reason, so obviously changing all the clutches and some seals and bushings did not fix the issue. At this point there's a few near term options, have a professional tear it apart and figure out where reverse and neutral went, or get a junkyard transmission. For the moment not sure what I'll do, I'll cross that bridge when I have time.
The suspension needs to be dropped probably two inches in the rear, the tune needs to be tweaked so the throttle isn't so laggy, and a handful of other basic tweaks to try and dial in what I have right now. Then I can start picking away at the other remaining big tasks, like building a floor! I have to resist not taking it down to 3 peaks where the WE Rock/Supercrawl events are (literally a straight shot down the road from the house) until everything is a bit less janked together. But it's running (again), and even if it has no reverse, it finally is sitting under it's own power and can go around a corner and it's awesome!
snivilous
Well-known member
More updates since the last post! I couldn't handle messing with it a little today and driving it again and actually paying some attention to what was happening instead of worrying if I was going to die the whole time, so we bled the brakes again using the method of putting a hose from the bleed screw into a cup of brake fluid and pumping them and got a LOT of air out of the rears. I also opened up the front bypasses, which are carry overs from my 4500 and which had all the bypass tubes closed for short course racing so opened those up to soften the ride and see if the body roll got worse, and then finally adjusted the enrichment on the tune since it was really throttle laggy before so just arbitrarily increased the enrichment curve. Then went for a drive around the blocks again!
And man is it fucking awesome! This thing is always ups and downs, and right now it's on high point of upsides! I'm only going around corners in a subdivision, but the corner at the end of the street I drove into really as fast as I'd be comfortable in with most vehicles and it stayed super flat through it, that's not saying much I know but still impressing me. It also has quite a bit of torque roll when accelerating, like it literally has more torque roll than body roll and from my data log I haven't even blipped it to 50% throttle yet (and this is the small engine with really conservative timing and no tuning!) so I admit I'm slightly worried about it being a handful at WOT, I think it'll all depend on how much the axles steer as the front left lifts. I must admit I didn't pay much attention to the nose lifting from anti squat, at a minimum it wasn't enough to really notice where as the torque roll I could definitely feel the chassis lean over as the power came on. The bypass changes I didn't really notice, but I was on pavement so not much to say there. The final thing is the brakes are WAY better. Prior to this they've always been spongy and I've been worried since this is my first full manual setup. It'll take some getting used to pushing that hard, but I think I could lock up all 4 on pavement if I needed to, and the brakes actually feel pretty good--but again, I don't know if I even got up to 30 or 40mph. The one thing that is a little disconcerting is the ass lifts a LOT when braking hard, the nose doesn't seem to dive, but the ass comes up and then you stop and it considerably settles down a few inches. Granted, I don't have the spare hanging off the back and the fuel cell is empty and the ride height is still a couple inches too tall, so all my friends think it'll tame down a bit and maybe it's just an unavoidable side effect of trailing arms.
Also the transmission still doesn't have reverse, and then the dip stick ended up falling out of the transmission so it ended up dripping fluid for who knows how long. But I've come to accept the trans is something I can't fix, so best to just ignore it and not worry.
There's so many things on this--manual brakes, tube chassis, full hydro, trailing arms, V8--that I've never had in an offroad vehicle, that my basis of comparison is literally nothing. So for all I know it sucks in every aspect, but the fact I can drive it down the street and it even remotely acts like a "normal" vehicle to me is a huge win and makes me really excited and is really motivating. It's fucking awesome! Almost exactly 3 years since I started this project!
And to remind future me of what I did to make this run at all, here are a bunch of photos of all the janky shit to make this thing functional. Could probably throw all the following pictures in the ghetto fab section, but I'm not acting like everything is perfect.
After the water jacket conversion for the hydro reservoir, I haven't built a new reservoir mounting bracket so it's bungee corded to the old bracket:
The battery tray is literally welded to the passenger hood area, and is a complete rats nest of wires:
The passenger exhaust is an ebay header with 4" extensions off the flange to make it clear the cooling tubes, and dumps at the passenger foot well:
I will run two fans, but right now I have one which is literally laying on the radiator. I also forgot to turn it on today until about 10 minutes into the drive, but the temperature only got to 212 by then and the fan instantly brought it down so that at least proved the cooling system works, even with half the fans. I also have a welding blanket draped over the radiator cap area, I've worn all my fire/race gear driving it, but still wanted protection in the event the coolant blows right over my head.
Here is the driving area, hard to see much, but there's wires running everywhere, no floor, and there's no throttle pedal since the throttle is a piece of tig filler wire that I pull on:
Anyways, that shows that everything isn't roses, but just more tasks temporarily working to make it drive, but I think that's okay since it's awesome! Maybe with a lot of luck I can take it to trail hero even in 4 weeks. Knock on wood.
And man is it fucking awesome! This thing is always ups and downs, and right now it's on high point of upsides! I'm only going around corners in a subdivision, but the corner at the end of the street I drove into really as fast as I'd be comfortable in with most vehicles and it stayed super flat through it, that's not saying much I know but still impressing me. It also has quite a bit of torque roll when accelerating, like it literally has more torque roll than body roll and from my data log I haven't even blipped it to 50% throttle yet (and this is the small engine with really conservative timing and no tuning!) so I admit I'm slightly worried about it being a handful at WOT, I think it'll all depend on how much the axles steer as the front left lifts. I must admit I didn't pay much attention to the nose lifting from anti squat, at a minimum it wasn't enough to really notice where as the torque roll I could definitely feel the chassis lean over as the power came on. The bypass changes I didn't really notice, but I was on pavement so not much to say there. The final thing is the brakes are WAY better. Prior to this they've always been spongy and I've been worried since this is my first full manual setup. It'll take some getting used to pushing that hard, but I think I could lock up all 4 on pavement if I needed to, and the brakes actually feel pretty good--but again, I don't know if I even got up to 30 or 40mph. The one thing that is a little disconcerting is the ass lifts a LOT when braking hard, the nose doesn't seem to dive, but the ass comes up and then you stop and it considerably settles down a few inches. Granted, I don't have the spare hanging off the back and the fuel cell is empty and the ride height is still a couple inches too tall, so all my friends think it'll tame down a bit and maybe it's just an unavoidable side effect of trailing arms.
Also the transmission still doesn't have reverse, and then the dip stick ended up falling out of the transmission so it ended up dripping fluid for who knows how long. But I've come to accept the trans is something I can't fix, so best to just ignore it and not worry.
There's so many things on this--manual brakes, tube chassis, full hydro, trailing arms, V8--that I've never had in an offroad vehicle, that my basis of comparison is literally nothing. So for all I know it sucks in every aspect, but the fact I can drive it down the street and it even remotely acts like a "normal" vehicle to me is a huge win and makes me really excited and is really motivating. It's fucking awesome! Almost exactly 3 years since I started this project!
And to remind future me of what I did to make this run at all, here are a bunch of photos of all the janky shit to make this thing functional. Could probably throw all the following pictures in the ghetto fab section, but I'm not acting like everything is perfect.
After the water jacket conversion for the hydro reservoir, I haven't built a new reservoir mounting bracket so it's bungee corded to the old bracket:
The battery tray is literally welded to the passenger hood area, and is a complete rats nest of wires:
The passenger exhaust is an ebay header with 4" extensions off the flange to make it clear the cooling tubes, and dumps at the passenger foot well:
I will run two fans, but right now I have one which is literally laying on the radiator. I also forgot to turn it on today until about 10 minutes into the drive, but the temperature only got to 212 by then and the fan instantly brought it down so that at least proved the cooling system works, even with half the fans. I also have a welding blanket draped over the radiator cap area, I've worn all my fire/race gear driving it, but still wanted protection in the event the coolant blows right over my head.
Here is the driving area, hard to see much, but there's wires running everywhere, no floor, and there's no throttle pedal since the throttle is a piece of tig filler wire that I pull on:
Anyways, that shows that everything isn't roses, but just more tasks temporarily working to make it drive, but I think that's okay since it's awesome! Maybe with a lot of luck I can take it to trail hero even in 4 weeks. Knock on wood.