30x40 Attached Hot Rod Shop

[mlyonsdc]

Day 3 of groundhog day US131. There was a track delay due to the fog but we were one and done and on the road again


You dont see this everyday

This 6cyl Diesel Chevette actually took 2nd in Unlimited due to attrition which is crazy considering Unlimited is typically the fastest class.

On the road again to Milan

Milan went well we had another fog delay in the morning but were one and done again.

I ended up throwing the chute early. We had been playing with the tune up but I still don't think anything made a difference. The chute issue scrubbed off some MPH but probably didnt affect ET


On the road again another 200 miles to back to Columbus and we were really excited to get back.
Check point #1

Check point #2

The Camaro in the background is my new buddy Jason who we met up with on Day 2 drive and rode the rest of the drive with. He is driving a procharged 94 Camaro that runs 9.20s. It is also his brother Justin's car who is another Buick guy and his other bother Jim has the 1967 Firebird that won Superstreet PA BB with a 7.70 avg. Jason is building a 1965 TT LSx 1965 Olds Jet Fire that was supposed to be done for Drag week but wasnt so his bother Justin lent him his Camaro. Cool family Jim has really been instrumental in helping me with my on going saga and I have made good friends with all of them at this point

We made it look easy up to this point but Day 5 will be its own thread....

 

[mlyonsdc]

Well day 5 started off rough with a Microsoft update bricking my Laptop. I wanted to make a few changes to the tune for day 5 to see if we could get maybe an 8.70 out of the car which with the issues we have with the front half of the track was going to be difficult. I had to borrow a buddies laptop, made some changes to the tune and went to load the new changes into the ECU along with clean up the fuel table in the drive tune. I have a 4 position MAP selector in the car which you can load different tunes onto. For positions 1 and 2 I use for race tunes, 3 is the drive tune and 4 is a disable.


After loading the new tunes we headed to NTR for day 5 and we were excited and feeling pretty good. The car survived to this point and is doing remarkably well. We have all but wrapped up awards for the fastest Buick and 6cyl but we were also sitting in 3rd in SuperStreet small block PA with number 4 spot not far behind. The plan was to make an 8 sec pass early which would secure our #3 position in SS then use the rest of the day to play with the tune.

We get the car changed over and get in the lanes for the first pass Everything is going smooth I launch the car and it hits second I am like WTF the car is really slow. I get the slip and it was a 9.63@148. OK now I really need a laptop. I stop in the pits reload the parachute and drive over to my buddies spot to borrow his laptop. As soon as I go to plug it in I see what I did, I left the MAP selector on positions #3 for the drive tune. They are closing the lanes so without even hooking up the laptop I switch the selector to #1 position for the race tune and run back up to make another pass before they close the lanes.

Second pass, SAME THING!!!. OK now I need a laptop. I find another laptop to borrow and sure enough I have the drive tune on both the #1 and #3 positions. Most likely because I didn't cycle the ignition switch before changing positions and it loaded the drive tune on the #1 position. Stupid mistake. It is the last day and we do not to go anywhere so we are not in a hurry to leave and good thing since it was another 4 hours until they call all run and I can make another pass. This would've sucked if we had this issue and a 5-6 hour drive ahead of us still.

The break gave me plenty of time to make sure the tune was right and I made a nice and spicy one for the starting line to try and get the car to 60'. It is late in the day the sun and cars have been beating the track up all day and the surface prep was not the greatest at this point. Sure enough that hot starting line tune actually got the tires to spin #*&$#!!. I tried to pedal it and the car ran pretty good out the rest of the track but still a mid 9sec slip. If we turn in a mid 9 sec slip we have a chance of losing the #3 spot since the #4 ran a 9.35 day 1 but then a sting of 8.90s days 2-4 and if he hands in another 8.90 on day 5 we would lose our spot at #3.

So I make another hot lap back up to the lanes. I soften up the starting line tune and go to stage the car when I do the car lurches forward for a double bulb not giving me enough time to stage the car and build boost which it is having trouble doing for some reason. I scrub the run and get off the track adn the car is idling at 2200rpm for some reason. I get back to the pits and here the IAC motor bolts came loose and it blew out the gasket. Ray at this point is ready to load the car back on the trailer and go home and I am like no way. I manage to find two metric hex head cap screws that fit the IAC housing and we take the gasket off and glue the housing back on with this stuff and head back to the lanes without even letting it set up!


Run #5 it is time to relax an take a deep breath and focus. We have been printing 8.90 time slips all week but today has been a mess. We had about an hour left to get it done so we sat in the staging lanes to cool the transmission off which was smoking hot at this point and go over everything. The gasket maker sealed up the IAC motor and everything seemed ready to go. After cooling the car down some I head up to make a pass. The 60 was soft as I had that turned down but as soon as I got in second gear I am like hell yeah this car is on a rip! It hits 3rd then at about the 1000's hit mark it noses over and shuts off. I coasted to an 8.999!!!
DONE! lol We achieved the goal we set at the beginning to turn in an 8 sec slip at all 5 tracks and it was time to call it day. The car ran fine after I left the track and was driving it all over the place with no issues. I had figured it hit a safety of some sort which is also what my buddy Jim said it sounded like watching from the sidelines.

My buddy Sam was also there with his Buick G-body with a TT BBC that runs bottom 7's. It is a beautiful car and Sam is a long time Buick racer who I had been friends with for many years. He was on the struggle bus early and oiled down the track pretty bad on day 1 when a trans line broke. This resulted in him taking a 11 sec time for day 1 along with a week of ribbing over the track oil down that caused a very long delay. He ended up working his way back with a string of 7 sec runs to take 3rd in Super Street BB PA. Sam suggested we get a pic of the two cars which I came up with idea of flagging down one of the many professional photographers to due with then ended up on the starting line only after Sam assured the track manager he would oil it down again lol.


The drone coverage was a little over the top lol

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=992303836031014

The awards ceremony was pretty cool, they feed us Pizza and beer what more could you ask for lol!



In all it was a really good experience with as much struggle we have had with the car this year everytime we take it out we get a little closer to our goals and this race was no exception. The only issue we had other than all the stupid **** on day 5 was that the car is a slug. I realize 8s in a 3400# car is not exactly slow but it is relative to the power it made on the hub dyno and the performance we had with the car in the past. This car was running 8.70's in 2006!!

So what went wrong on that last pass? It was the boost safety which was set at 42psi. Apperantly that IAC housing was leaking all weak and I was wondering why I had to keep adding dome pressure and why it was so high. I was targeting 32psi on Day 5 and had the dome at 42psi so when we fixed the leak the boost went to 42 and triggered the safety. I thought the car was making a lot of power up that point lol!!

What's next? Well I said if we did well at Drag week I would take a break and we were SOO close lol! We got another invite for Sick Week and have some unfinished business in the Street Freak class!!

The motor as of right now


Maybe just maybe I can get things back together with everything working and making power again in time for Sick Week in January without having to show up on race day for test and tune! I will post more when I get it back together right now a little hint the issue is standing tall on the table and likely was not the TQ converter! I will know more soon and hope to make it back to a local track before they all close. We still have Street-N-Yeet in South Carolina on the schedule Nov 6-10th and if we have to use it for testing I may head down.

 

[Old Man Roger]

I don't see any smoked lobes on the cam? Was it just the wrong cam?

 

[mlyonsdc]

I don't see any smoked lobes on the cam? Was it just the wrong cam?

Nothing is hurt in the motor or trans for that matter. Remember all the issues I had when I degreed the cam and settled on installing it at 114.5 degrees intake centerline? Which was 2.5-3 degrees retarded from the old cam's installed intake centerline? It looks like that may have been the issue and moved the TQ curve of the motor significantly enough that it does not produce enough TQ in 1st gear which ends up laying over on the TQ conv.

I will know more and post more info once I get it back together with the other cam I ordered from Comp, if I can ever get FedEx to deliver it. I may also be regrinding the Bullet cam I took out. I also have my old Bradco TQ converter which I pulled out and pulled apart. I thought Brad was out of business but apparently he is still around and I tracked him down and sent the converter in for an update and to have the housing modified so it will fit the goofy pilot hole I have in my crank.

FYI the Bradco bolt together I ran in 2008 was pretty advanced for its time and still relavent today. Brad used a 258mm 10" core with a 17 blade air foil stator he made to fit that converter core. The one most advanced converter you can buy today is from Circle D employing a lot of that same tech into CAD designed billet air foil stators.

 

[Old Man Roger]

I don't pretend to fully understand how a torque convert works..lol

 

[mlyonsdc]

Since my last post I have been to the track to test 4 times with 3 different TQ converters and had the motor out for a cam swap and I am still not done.

I got the car back together with the Cam advanced 3.5 degrees installed at 111 degrees. A 2-step test looked great the turbo came up on the 2-step almost 2 seconds faster so we know the motor is accelerating faster at lower RPM. I hauled it out Dragway 42 make 2 hits and the car is actually SLOWER in the 60' than it was at Drag Week, WTF


So the yellow graph is the converter charge pressure. You can see the motor comes up and lays over when it couples until pressure drops out then it shifts. It was doing the same thing at Drag Week BUT the graph didn't look like that. It would spike up and then drop out.

OK out with the PTC converter and I put the Bradco 258mm in the car. Off to DW42 again. In 2009 when I ran this converter with a smaller 88mm turbo, I needed NOS to spool it. I installed the NOS when I was wiring the car but for some stupid reason I couldn't get it working at the track. It took an agonizing 16 seconds to get to a 4500rpm chip with both transmission dumps open, but we got there and I got some good data AND the car accelerated through first running its best 60' and 1/8 mile on lowest boost! Notice the converter charge pressure graph is WAY different than the PTC and dosent bottom out!

This converter is WAY tighter than the PTC with the 18-35 short window stator converter I ran at Drag Week and flashes at 6500 the PTC was flashing at 6800. Unfortunately the Bradco did not solve all the issues, it was to lazy down low and still slow in 1st plus its not really race-able and I should not need NOS to make this work.

After talking to Pete at Circle D he figured out that the PTC converter was actually flashing ABOVE the peak tq of the motor and blowing by all the mid-range TQ. I go and look and sure enough the motor makes peak TQ at 6800 and in that graph above the motor is laying over at 7k. SO, I decided to put the original 18 normal window stator back in, this is the stator we ran BEFORE drag week when we swapped out to the short window. This stator is going to flash 6300, the Bradco was 6500, and the short window was 6800. I at least now have a converter I can spool and race in the car again.

We loaded up and headed back to DW42 for their last test day for the year. They offer a VIP lane for $100 with a full radial prep, perfect! Unfortunately the temps never got over 50 degrees and the sun never came out so it was a total **** show. I was able to stick the hit on on two passes but the car would come loose at the 1-2 shift. I had some data though and the car did go another 1.33 60'

So we were left with a lot of questions. My buddy suggested checking out some of the east coast tracks they are closer and open later than here. So last Friday I look and MIR has their last TnT Sunday the weather looks like it is going to absolutely perfect and they also offer a full radial prep VIP tech card. So we load up and head down to Maryland!

We get there early Sunday and the weather really couldn't be any better 59 and Sunny and we are at what is arguably the best track in the country, very fast and very well prepped!

First hit off the trailer it goes 1.23 in the 60 and 5.41@128 in the 1/8, as soon as I let go of the button I knew it was gonna be a good day lol!

I was told I was leaking fuel and got a warning. We cleaned it up and thought may be some spilled when we put gas in it. I head up for a second pass and end up spinning bad off the hit. I got my second and FINAL warning sticker on my slip. Ray said it was oil I was leaking and I ran over it with my back tire. Knowing it was coming from the drivers side we investigate and find a loose vacuum pump fitting that was leaking. We fix it clean it up and head back for a third attempt.

We put a few more pounds on the Dome pressure hoping the get over 30 psi this time. The car leaves hard again and I decide to make a full pass which was a 8.49 with another 1.23 60'. Everything looks good so we up the dome pressure again this time hoping to be over 35 psi.
https://youtube.com/shorts/MAb17SXOnww?feature=share

Well finally some success! We did have a really good outing and we at least somewhat fixed the first gear issue but we now have more questions than answers. But the converter charge pressure looked WAY better this time!

You think I would be happy but I'm not the car is still a turd, lol! This pass was at 33 psi and on the dyno we made 1159 at 34-5 psi and to run 161mph at this weight we are somewhere around 1000. We are missing about 100 hp. Not to mention the last time this car was at MIR it was at World Cup race in 2009 and it went 170mph off the trailer and the same boost level.

Right now I am 8 weeks out from Sick Week and have a legit shot at winning the Street Freak class with the car as it sits. But I didn't build it to be an 8 second Buick V6 GN, I built it to be a 7 second Buick V6 GN!!

Stayed tuned I am sure the next 8 weeks are going to be an adventure!

 

[Old Man Roger]

I’m not sure how you didn’t red light, and tell your buddy not to turn the phone..lol

 

[PhantomEB]

I would love to get my hands on one of those torque converters just to play with in the shop?

would you ever see one tossed out? I see cheapest one would be at least 1500$ shipped up for a new one. That’s not a paperweight to tinker with!

 

[mlyonsdc]

I would love to get my hands on one of those torque converters just to play with in the shop?

would you ever see one tossed out? I see cheapest one would be at least 1500$ shipped up for a new one. That’s not a paperweight to tinker with!

There is no difference between a bolt together and a weld up tq conv. All of them are basically the same. A lot of them will have a sprag or mechanical diode to prevent the stator from reverse rotating but most race converters are spragless. There are certain core designs and turbines most TQ converter companies utilize. My PTC converter core is from a Nissan Pathfinder and 9.5" The Bradco uses a 258mm which is very common GM core and a 10" converter. There was a newer turbine from Toyota 140 that is 252mm and is really popular these days. For large very high TQ motor there is a 265mm Cadillac core that is popular.

The only real thing you can change is the stator. The stator design is the most critical part too. The blade angle length and shape all influence how the converter moves fluid and reacts and picking the right one isn't an exact science either. Just like camshafts there is a whole lot of spit balling to see what the motor and combo likes and is right were I am at now.

For now, the PTC converter is working well enough but is still no where near ideal. In 1st gear the converter flashes very well and comes up quick but at its flash point of 6300 it locks the motor down and pulls it backwards instead of continuing to accelerate through 1st gear in a more linear fashion. Which is what you would want to see and you see in the 2nd gear RPM trace.


The stator design in the PTC converter is a flat blade design which is known for doing this. In order to get the motor to accelerate through that point you have to apply more power to it, or change the stator design which I may do. For now though I am actually changing camshafts again before I mess with the stator again. I have a new profile with a much tighter LSA with less intake duration and only slightly less exh duration on an asymmetrical lobe profile with an aggressive ramp speed. This cam should hit a lot harder down low and give up very little on the topend so we will see.

This combo is not an easy to sort out, obviously. You have a cam, converter and turbine wheel that all ahve to match exactly right to make the majic happen. We had that in 2009 but changing any one of the three like we did really has a big impact. I started with the converter, then the camshaft and now it looks like the turbine wheel is also a mis-match. I am working with Harry at HPT turbos on this right now and he has been taking the time to help me which is pretty awesome considering he is a wealth of knowledge and has built or been involved in some of the fastest turbo cars ever built. I have known him since the very early days at Precision Turbo Engine when it was a pole building in Chicago and I was in my 20s hanging out there when I was in college.

 

[mlyonsdc]

Right now I have the motor out and apart. I actually lost ring tension on the #1 cylinder due to a mis-hap that was 100% my own stupidity. I inadvertently had a timing table for wheelie control active with a cell that added a **** ton of timing to the motor and I somehow managed to activate on the 1st pass at MIR. I found it and we inspected the motor and everything looked fine and really it was as we made 3 more passes including the 8.36 pass without incident. When I got home and looked at the EGT's though it was evident #1 was not happy and on its way to a really bad day. Fortunately I lifted in time before we got to that point. Care to guess which EGT is #1 lol!

Sure enough the #1 spark plug wasn't happy either


I bought this borescope on Amazon and was excited to actually use it. The pictures are amazing.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0D3XDGN6M/?tag=atomicindus08-20

It works quite well and the piston, bore and valve all looked mint.


I ran a compression test and the #1 was down to 130psi which it was recently 150psi so I knew it was hurt. I leaked it down and sure enough it was only 65% while the other 5 were 90-92% and the same as the previous leak down I did in October. So its back out with the motor.

I was planning to pull it anyway to do the cam swap plus I have been chasing the oil pressure issue in 3rd gear that has been plaguing the motor since we 1st put it on the dyno. With close to 1000 miles on it and around 30 passes I figured it was worth a look see before we haul down to Sick week.

The #1 cylinder just lost ring tension, the piston, valves etc all checked out fine



The main bearings didn't look to happy though, especially the ones in the caps.


At first glance you would think its the oiling issue in 3rd gear which looks pretty bad on the datalogs

I have been aware of this issue since early on and have been trying to fix it. I am running out of oil in the pan but with the way my system is set up the Oil accumulator catches this BEFORE it reaches the motor so the bearings still have plenty of oil and the pressure never drops to lower than 45psi and that is usually only very brief. Plus the rod bearing all look pretty mint if the issue with the mains was related to loss of oil you would certainly see it on the rod bearing too.


Since the heavy wear on the main bearing is on the cap side and is mostly on the #3 and #2 caps it appears the things are moving around or the clearances are to tight. I am at 3.5 thou on the mains which for a 2.5" main journal diameter is about a wide as you would want to go. It appears the issue might actually be the motor mounts! I don't run a mid-plate with this motor and the motor mounts pulling on the block side skirts appear to be the issue. What is interesting in the center two caps on this block are not cross-bolted like the original block I had in the car earlier in the year. We did not see this kind of wear on those main bearing, but then again we did not have as many passes on it either.

I am addressing the oil issue and have a solution we are investigating. I am fairly certain on what the issue is and how we plan to fix it. I do really need to add a mid-plate to this motor but I don't think I am going to get it done before Sick Week. I will post more we have a lot to do in the next 52 days before Sick Week. The motor is getting a new cam which we will only be able to test on the dyno which we will hopefully be able to do at the end of this month. I also have some exciting upgrades I will post up.

I am planning to go down early again to test before the event. I am excited we have come a LONG way since this time last year and hopefully everything will finally come together for us in Florida!

 

[zmotorsports]

How do the cam bearings look? I would think if the cam bearings and rod bearings are looking good it has to be something other than an oil supply issue as they are the last in the circuit.

 

[mlyonsdc]

How do the cam bearings look? I would think if the cam bearings and rod bearings are looking good it has to be something other than an oil supply issue as they are the last in the circuit.

Cam bearings are fine and I agree with you I don't think it is a problem with oil starvation. I am pretty sure its the caps moving around due to not having a mid-plate. I can't see it being not enough clearance with 3.5 but I can go wider as it is 3.5 with a .001 bearing! I may mix a set and take it out to 4. I am taking it out to my machinist tomorrow to discuss a plan. The oil issue in 3rd gear is the oil getting trapped in the valley. The BMS blocks are meant to be dry sump blocks with scavenge systems they do not have enough drain back to the pan. A lot of race teams would epoxy the valley to make oil drain to the rear. I think we are just going to drill some holes in the valley. I am also going to squeeze another 1/2qt in the pan. I really need a larger volume pan but I am really limited in what I can do with that due to the crossover location.

My block oil gets trapped in all of those recesses

Here is a factory block which you can see has plenty of holes for drain back

Here is a roller cam bearing block I had that had the centered epoxyed.

 

[zmotorsports]

It will be interesting to see what your builder recommends. Please keep us posted after the discussion.

 

[mlyonsdc]

It will be interesting to see what your builder recommends. Please keep us posted after the discussion.

The bearing problem was definitely a clearance issue. I know the first set of main bearings I tried were 3.5 but I think I ended up using a +.001 bearing Speed-pro bearing since the original Clevites in this motor were plus one which put me at 2.5 and Clevites are usually tighter than FM. I just went back to a STD FM bearing which put the clearance back to 3 and should work well. I debated replacing the rod bearing which looked good but my machinist suggested a little more clearance. I had a +.001 Clevite H bearing in them and made a split set which moved the clearance out to .003 on the rods too.



The oiling pressure issue in 3rd gear is NOT causing a bearing issue but is an issue that still needs addressed. The oil is definitely getting trapped in the valley. We removed the epoxy screen that was in the front which made a big difference. I moved to a bushing lifter from the Comp needle bearing lifters after HuH. So if I have a lifter failure it is more likely to be contained and not send parts into the front cover and timing set so we just eliminated the screen and restrictive epoxy.

We also drilled four drain back holes in the cam tunnel and valley. We tested it on the stand and primed the engine with no intake on and it really seemed to make a big difference. While its not ideal dumping oil on the cam and crank nobody seems to think the extra windage it will create will make much of a difference on this motor.


We also looked at the oil pan. I can cut the bottom of the sump off and extend it an inch to give extra capacity but it is going to be a lot of work as I would have to re-do the pick up and baffle.




We also tested the pan on the stand and found we can get just under 6qts in the pan before it starts backing up the turbo oil return line. 5qts would take us to the shelf below all the oil drain backs. For now I am going to run it on the dyno with the new drain backs in the block and extra 2/3's of a qt of oil in the pan and see how it goes. If we still have the issue it is not a big deal to pull the pan off when its in the car still.

We have a punch list of updates before Sick Week. The biggest addition is going to be the Gearvendors overdrive. This will be a game changer in Florida were you are putting you life at risk driving less than 70mph on the highways!! We were at 3k rpm running 65mph for Drag Week the GV should put us at 2100rpm at 65mph which should make 75mph no problem!

I am also updating the front suspension. I have a set of billet TRZ spindles I bought awhile ago and have been waiting to install along with longer wheel studs and a set of TRZ bearing mount front coil over brackets. I also just bought a new set of TRZ UCA's which are flat and should give us the clearance we need on the passenger side UCA which is still hitting the downpipe. I got the passenger side one un finished with no center support which we may have to customize to clear the cross over like we did with the Trick Chassis UCA on the car now. Which I also have on backwards which is why the caster is so severe. So we are fixing all of that stuff too. We are probably not going to install the upper coil over bearing mount as I may have to buy a new front shock and it is a lot more fab work.


I slowed the video down to view he suspension and it is spot on with rear extending slow front end rise and a 1.24 60' with no air under the tires. This quite the change from 2009 when the car was a wheelie machine.

https://youtu.be/tNjOj3Ui-gs


The motor went back together pretty smoothly and is ready to go back in the car.


I also pulled the rearend 3rd member and took to my guy who also built me a new chrome moly driveshaft to work with the new Gearvendors Overdrive we are installing. When I told him I run a large pinion pro-gear he was kind of shocked I ran it on the street for 1000 miles. So I pulled it and took it to him to inspect. It is mint he was surprised to see so little wear. The backlash was a little loose .018 so he tightened it up to .008 for me. I am having him build me a second 3rd member too. He offers a large pinion street gear which I didn't know even existed. Right now I have a 3:60 gear which was the ONLY option available when I ordered my 3rd member. Ideally I wanted a 3.40 gear which is going to work the best but the large pinion street gears he offers are only in 3.25 and 3.50. I need more data before making a change. I would like to have one 3rd member for 1/8 mile and one for 1/4.

There is a lot going in this pic lol!


I should have the car running in the next couple of days I got the motor in and along with the trans and the new driveshaft which was spot on. Ray has time over Christmas and wants to bring it down to his shop to do the fab work since he has time. We have dyno time scheduled for January 10 and if all goes well I will be leaving for Sick Week on Wed January 22. Hoping to test somewhere Thurs/Fri/Sat and then heading to Bradenton for the US Nationals ProMod finals. The first race in that series, the Snowbirds, was the greatest thing I ever watched in Drag racing and right up there with one the greatest wins in sports period.

 

[mlyonsdc]

I haven't mentioned this project since page 3 in 2022 but it is looking like things will be happening with it in 2025.

I want to make it back to the Musclecar Challenge in Sept at Pitt Race. The T-type is a Pro-touring build which I would like to do more road racing with. If you have been following you may remember I melted the trans and caught the car on fire at the 2022 Muscle Car challenge and have not been back since. I did the Street-N-Yeet event in November that year and really haven't done much with the car since. Other than drive it, which I do often in the summer. I have a motor in the car that is capable of making the same power as the motor in GN which is really over kill for a car that will probably never need more than 300 on a road or auto x course. I am pulling the motor and building a new stock block motor with a smaller cam and more responsive turbo.

My original plan with the car was a 9 sec capable car that was just as impressive on the road course and Auto X but the 200r4 trans is not the right choice for that combo.


A good friend of mine did the swap on a GN earlier this year and changed his mind and sold me EVERYTHING I need to do the swap on my T-type. I won't be starting on this for awhile. After Sick week I am taking a break. I need to scrub the shop re-paint it and get the house ready for my daughters grad party in June which we are hosting at the house. I have everything to build the new motor and probably trading the current motor to a buddy who can use it for what it capable of doing.

 

[mlyonsdc]

Dyno went well

FYI that is an 1/8 mile pull off the tbrake on a hub dyno, not very peaky lol!!

How much boost? Lots and how much is left LOTS!! Seriously, there is still a lot more left in the turbo but I am starting to worry about the BMS crank making an exit. We are north of 1600 crank HP calculating a 22% drive-train loss and it may be even higher than than with the Gearvendor installed. The real story isn' the big number but the area under the curve. The motor picked up over 300 HP down low in 1st gear with the cam swap!

We also made a few upgrades with some street car ****. Added cup holders, and Rugged Radio intercom system


Street cars need an overdrive too


Ray fabbed up a nice 6" air inlet pipe and filter. We also re-did the IC pipes if you look at how nice and tight the inlet pipe is now and it also doesn't hit the hood anymore!

We also have all the material to build the 4" over the axle exhaust system but we are running out of time to get it done.

We still have a To Do punch list but it is getting smaller and it is all starting to come together. We leave in 12 days and will have 2 full days plus tech day to test at SGMP which we will definitely need!

 

[Old Man Roger]

Parachutes and cup holders, sounds like a band name..lol

 

[Chrisdrz]

How did Sick Week go? Saw a Grand National in some YouTube videos not sure if it was yours?

 

[mlyonsdc]

How did Sick Week go? Saw a Grand National in some YouTube videos not sure if it was yours?

It started out great turned into a **** show, then we started making a come back then broke down in a swamp at night 400 miles from the truck and trailer. Good times lol!

There were four black turbo V6 buicks. The 2 fast ones were my buddy Tommy and I. To tell the difference I was the only GN in A group and the Tommy was in B group which is on the windshield. Tommy is the guy who bought my 1st 25.3 GN back in 2015 and went 7's with it. He sold it and then 65 project GNs later he has a really nice 8 sec GN with stock interior and an aluminum TA motor. I posted a video of my old car he finished and raced making a 7sec pass a few pages back.

The other GNs there were JD who broke on Day 1 and then the guy with a highly modified GNX yes real GNX with 8k miles on it, it was pretty cool and he was the original owner.

None of us made it to the end.

JD munched his motor day 1 and he actually drove his car up from Bradenton where he lives. So Tommy lent him his truck and trailer to tow his car home which was really convenient especially after Tommy broke at Bradenton lol!

Tommy took a completely new car to the event and of course had a **** show of a time. The valves were not the correct ones and ended up tuliping. The problem started in SGMP but he managed to get a decent pass and made it to Bradenton where I believe he went 9.30 then it was over. Good thing too since the valves ended up looking like soup bowls and had he continued it would have for sure drop a valve and tore up the motor, again!
Tommy's ride, and he is totally hooked on drag-n-drive now lol! He also has a Buick V6 S2 methanol motor in a 25.2 C7 Z06 Corvette he has been 4.70s in the 1/8th with.



The blue Regal behind him is another buddy of ours who won the Street Race 275 class. His car is a budget build with a junkyard 5.3 and twin 68mm Wuhaun whistlers. Very cool build and he has a blast with that car and races it a lot.


We signed up the TnT track rental on Saturday and Sunday before the event started. We got there Saturday it was a nice crowd but not crowded. We made several hits on the car starting out really soft and ending the day with a 5.20@136 on a 1.22 60' on a still REALLY conservative tune. We were creeping up on the starting line tune up since we didn't know what to expect making 5 hits on the car all in the 1.20's with no traction issues at all, All 5 passes clean A to B passes. It was a good day we put the car away and figured we would work on getting the 60' in the teens then start laying the power to it and we had another test day plus testing on Tech day Monday.

The next day we started with the rear shock setting trying to slow them down a litte. We made a nearly identical pass but the car slowed down some and we didnt change anything other than the shock settings. Here was had 9.5 psi of crankcase pressure! It seemed my vacuum pump experiement was not working well and it was pulling to much oil out and when it did crankcase pressure would build. We disconnected it and crankcase pressure went to zero going down the track.

That first pass that day was the last clean pass I had at SGMP! We spun bad on the next 4 attempts, some of it our fault a lot of it was the track was just **** that day. The did open the tech lanes on Sunday and we got tech which was really nice as it is usually an all day adventure to get through on tech day.


Tech day was a total washout. It literally rained the entire day non-stop all the way into the following morning. I also suspected I was close to the end of the life cycle of my tires too so we hit up the Mickey Thompson trailer for a fresh set. I had some wiring to change around for the GV overdrive and we tested that for the first time it worked really well.

Day 1 SGMP

They re-arranged the run order so to D group then C then AB radial and then AB slick, D and C group is like 85% of the cars there. Day 1 is always a mess, everyone seems to show up to this race with a car they just finished and nothing sorted out with me not being any exception. Problem is a lot of them break and make a mess that needs cleaned up so it usually makes for a really long day. To make matter even worse they didn't call the first group to the lanes until 11:30am due to the track still being wet from all the rain.


I think we finally got called to the lanes around 3pm. I was about the 10th car in line and figured I would have a good track. We totally neutered the starting line tune-up and just wanted to make a clean pass. I got a good burnout on the new tires staged and instantly spun, F^%#!!! I lifted and got back on the throttle and at least made a pass and mustered a 10.32. Ray said when I was pulling up there was clumps of glue coming off the track, whatever it was it was a mess


Ok now we wait for all run and since we were next to the last group we figured it wouldn't be long, but it was and they ran out of sunlight and time so that was it. I had to hand in a 10.32 and Cooper Boggetti handed in an 8.52 to lead the class. Cooper's car is a 2Jz in a 4th gen that runs in the mid 7s but he was not legal to run that fast and was limited to 8.50. We were still optimistic especially if we get the car in the 7s or even low 8s for the rest of the tracks we should still be ok. Plus everyone has to finish right!

It was dark out when we finally got out of SGMP at about 6:30 to start the 320+ mile 7.5 hour trip to Bradenton. At least we weren't alone as everyone was having traction issues and most were waiting for the all run that didn't happen. We hit the road and used the overdrive along with the new rugged radios and OMG did those two additions make all the difference. We were cruising at 75mph and 2500 rpm listening to music and carrying on conversation, what luxury lol!

We made the only checkpoint which was a new drag strip that just opened. I would have liked to hang out a bit but it was late and we just got back on the road


The drive wasn't to bad we had an issue with fluid venting out of the GV which made quite a mess. We also put pump gas in the tank for the first time and the fuel injectors weren't super happy with that but it was managable. Right before we got to Bradenton we were abel to fill back up with E85 and the car ran noticeably better. We made it the hotel at about 1:30am and were back at it by 6am and little did we realize that was the most we would sleep until we got back on Friday!

We got to Bradenton late because when we came out that morning for some reason the battery was dead, like completely dead. We had to wait around to charge it and finally got the car fired and off to the track. Once we got there we had to swap over and also clean all the trans fluid off the underneath from the GV, We think it was just over full as we cleaned some of it at the gas station the night before and it wasn't that bad when we got to the track.

We took even more out of the starting line tune up as all we wanted to do was make a pass. We made it to the lanes in time and were hoping for a one and done but I ended up double bumping the t-brake while staging and left to early to get a time slip. So here we are waiting for all run again.


While I didn't get a time slip on that first run the car was REALLY lazy going down the track, I know we took a bunch of power out of it but I was like it is really lazy and the VPS said it was an 8.68 pass which isnt great. While in the lanes to make another run I remembered we forgot to take the air filter off!!!

Second pass went much better

 

[mlyonsdc]

Finally a decent rip, not super fast but I'll take it. It moved us from 18th to 4th in one pass lol!


We handed that in loaded up and got on the road again feeling pretty good. Orlando was next which is also a really good track and we were excited we finally got the car down the track.

We made the first check point and everything was going well


After this point we headed across the state on Rt 60 which goes through a forest preserve and is nothing but a two lane road surrounded by wetlands. Everything was going well until the car started running rough losing power and I pulled off the road and it died. We saw smoke and smelt gas and were immediately concerned. We were parked in swap grass of some sort and it was pitch black with traffic blasting by at 70mph, not a good scene. We look the car over and can not find anything wrong so we try to start it it started to crank them just stopped dead like it locked up, not good! A few racers stopepd to help and these guys in particular I can not thank enough


These guys weren't leaving us were we were and decided we were going to somehow tow the car at least an area with a shoulder. We couldn't find the tow hook for the car so we cut the safety chain off the trailer put a bolt through it in the tow hook mount then made a Harbor Freight ratchet strap into a tow strap tied to the bumper that 57 Chevy wagon those guys won off of Mike FInnegan. The ended up towing us about 6-8 miles to a Ractrac gas station that half the Sick Week field was at. I am still looking for a pic of us getting towed in my a 57 Chevy Gasser while towing a trailer!

We got to work on the car as we were still in the race as we only got towed to safety which is allowed. We figured out that at least 3 of the injectors were stuck open and hydro locked the motor. We tried to fix it we tested the injectors and they all pulsed normal, we cranked it over to get the fuel out and put new plugs in and it did it again this time blowing the 250 amp fuse for the starter. We worked till my buddy Murray showed up around 1am with his truck and trailer and we threw in the towel. He drove down from Ocala so we loaded up and 32 hours later we were back home.

Aftermath:

I am still not 100% sure what went wrong but I suspect it has something to do with running pump gas. I got the car home and took the injectors out pulled them apart cleaned them and found nothing wrong with them. I pumped the motor and it was fine so I took all the pump gas out put the race E85 back in along with the race tune and the car fired up like nothing ever happened. Ran fine no issues I can see or find. That stung a little, no a lot, like I am still pissed about it.

The theroy is the short duration PW from running pump gas coupled with the motor only running at 2400rpm in overdrive plus the additional heat pump gas makes ended up overheating the injectors and the coils locked up. But was dosen't make sense is we tested them at the gas station and they pulsed fine and were no longer hot and it still hydro locked the motor. So now I suspect it may have been the drivers in the ECU itself, IDK.

I have a few ideas we are working on, I am going to switch to the AFIS injector and also go to an injector driver which I really should have with this type of injector which a low impeadance 8/2 amp peak/hold injector. It is just to hard on the ECU with injectors this size. The BA are 225s and these AFIS are 250s.

I am making a few other changes and updates I will post about. We are going to Sick at the Rock on April 10th mostly to test but they are doing a Sick Street car Challenge and giving out a bunch of prize money, $1000 for fastest Buick with a Buick and $1000 for fastest 6cly which I have my eye on lol!

 

[Chrisdrz]

That’s a tough break for all your effort that you put in. It seems like the first day everyone only getting 1 run changed the way the whole week played out for a lot of people. Keep at it seems like you have a real good car once you get the bugs worked out of it. Good luck at Sick at the Rock.

 

[mlyonsdc]

That’s a tough break for all your effort that you put in. It seems like the first day everyone only getting 1 run changed the way the whole week played out for a lot of people. Keep at it seems like you have a real good car once you get the bugs worked out of it. Good luck at Sick at the Rock.

Thanks, That 1st day definitely changed a lot of things for a lot of people. What bugs me is I had the class covered by a pretty good margin even with the 10.32 slip. If I would have avg just 8.30s the rest of the week I would have won, coulda shoulda woulda, it is easy to reflect on this now but a whole different scenario when your exhausted at 1am broken down at a gas station in the middle of no where!!

I said I wasn't going back to Sick week but we will see, I should get an invite this year as my 8.32 was the 52 on top 100 quickest times run list. Sick Week is tough race to make due to the weather in Ohio you can't do **** to prepare for the race prior to going and once your down there the days are still really short and your doing everything at night for the most part.

The mistake we made was doing something new during the event. We never ran pump gas before that, always intended to try it and test it but never had a chance. We had a long stretch across the state and no pump E85 stations and we only had race E85 in our cans which we needed for the week. We really felt we had the drive part well sorted out, especially after Drag Week.

Right now I need to really test the car and finally get it dialed in that is why I am going to Sick at the Rock. After all the issues we had last year it wasn't till after Drag Week we really started to get things sorted out at the last open track day of the season in Maryland.

I am signed up for Drag Week, I got an invite back since we took 3rd in Super Street. I am looking forward to it too. The only issue is they don't have a class I can compete in, the Diehl brother won my class knocking on the 6's and I just won't have anything for that. A turbo LS Monte took 2nd with a 7.7x avg which is also pretty stout so I was a distant 3rd. We shall see the primary goal is to still just finish!

 

[mlyonsdc]

Look Squirrel lol!

 

[mlyonsdc]

For all the time I spend drag racing and building a drag car Pro-touring with road racing and auto-x is really what I want to do more of and with this new addition I it looks like I am heading down a completely different rabbit hole!

It is no surprise that this care is in my garage. I have had a feeling for awhile I was going to end up with it, it is actually in a pic way back on page 2 lol! I have a friend Chuck with a pretty serious car collection that consists mostly of very very very nice mid-year corvettes and of course Buicks. He is getting older and is slowly downsizing his car collection. In 2021 he called me about selling some of his cars and even a few of his Corvettes I ended up with 3 of his Buicks 2 Grand Nationals and a 1967 California edition GS with a 455.

GN #1 went to Ray and he still has

GN #2 I traded to another friend for a 8k mile 86 GN he had


All 3 of these which ended up going to good friends of mine. I really wanted to keep the 67 GS but my buddy Lonnie wanted it really bad so I sold it to him and made a few bucks on the deal. Which he likes to still ***** about when I talk to him about it but then refuses to sell it back to me lol.

Both of the GN's were typical cars from my buddy's collection. Projects that he started, threw a **** ton of money at had half *** mechanics work on and never completely finished and he never even drove them. The one GN had nice paint was a clean car and he has a bunch of REALLY killer parts on, Ray ended up with this car and he swapped the drivetrain into his GN and put his in this car and gave it to his brother-in-law who still owns it.

Ray and I were also supposed to get the TurboLark and help with finishing it for him this spring. We have been talking about this since we got the other 3 Buicks from him in 21. This has been an ongoing project of Chuck's since 2008 which I have been familiar with since then. The shop that did the majority of the build did really nice work but ended up retiring before the car was completely finished. It had bounced around to a few different shops which ended up just being a waste and making things more complicated. Chuck decided he was done with Buicks all together and called again making me an offered I couldn't refuse. I got the 67 Turbolark and his 87 Turbo T with 41k miles which he bought new. Ray actually pulled that car out of storage last year after a 15 year hibernation and completely serviced it and updated a bunch of stuff on it.

Here are a few pics of Chuck's Corvette collection from back in 2021. The Corvette's are ALL top notch NCRS or Bloomington Gold cars none of these are projects unlike his Buick collection! He keeps telling me he is going to sell me one but it hasn't happened....yet! Honestly the price of some of these are out of my league anyway.

The 63 Split window which he sold my Ttype back in 2016 to make room in his garage. This is his crown jewel, its not a fuelie but is all original full pedigree with documentation.



A couple of 1967 427 4-sp Roadsters, the black one has AC with a manual trans and is apparently pretty rare and valuable. I guess the silver one is just your run of the mill 67 4sp 427 roadster lol!

This is a 1968 unrestored with 9k miles.


This was my favorite, a 1968 L88, number matching certified documented etc etc

 

[mlyonsdc]

More pics of the L88

A 53 Gasser he had built by the same shop that did the Turbolark



One of three mid-year C2 roadster 4sp 327 cars. I may end up with one of them at some point.



Another favorite is the 1967 Chevelle with a Corvette 427 and 4spd in it.

 

[Old Man Roger]

The Chevelle looks more like a 66, hard to tell from the angle though.

 

[82355]

An L88 only has a single four barrel Holley. The tri-power was available on a couple of 427's (L68 and L71). That being a 435 horsepower unit is the L71. The aluminum head option is an L89. It is a very valuable car, but not an L88. They only made 80 L88's in 1968. They made 624 L89's.

Very, very cool just the same.

Martin

 

[82355]

The Chevelle looks more like a 66, hard to tell from the angle though.

Look at the grille, where it meets the fender, you are correct, it is a '66. Very similar looking cars.

Martin

 

[mlyonsdc]

Good eye for details guys!

Martin you are correct it was an L89 my mistake. I am not sure on the Chevelle but it can definitely be a 66.

Did anyone pick up on My Skylark being a 66 with a 67 front clip? lol!

I think he sold that 1968 L89 unfortunately I did not get a shot at it,I think it went cheap but still not my kinda cheap lol! I will be up at his place again in April to pick up his last Buick and the rest of his parts so I'll see what he has left.

If you have been following along I have a lot of cars come and go, honestly I wish I could keep them all but I just don't have room and time for them. I do like projects though and Ray is the same way. We are both constantly finding new projects finishing them and moving to the next one. Probably a common trait with this group considering it this is a forum dedicated to garages lol! The Turbolark is one that I am planning to keep and do a pretty big build with and it will be a really killer piece when done. But for now it is going to be last on a pretty extensive project list and busy schedule so it is going to be on the back burner for awhile. Maybe next winters project.

Next up is Sick at the Rock April 10-12. This is going to be a long MUCH needed 3 day TnT for the GN on what should be a well prepped track. We are planning to have a relaxed weekend and flog on this car till it runs in the 7s or high 4's in the 1/8.

Since Sick Week I have been working through the punch list of stuff and decided to tackle the front suspension along with the UCA clearance issues. As you see even with the mods the A-arm was still hitting the crossover. It self-clearance and forturnately didn't crack the pipe but it still needed fixed


I purchased TRZ flat UCA with an unfinished passenger side since I was not sure if the travel limiter would work. I also had a set of the billet TRZ spindles I have been wanting to install. They are stock ride height and work with the wilwood brakes so should be a direct bolt on LMAO!


The new flat style UCA had plenty of clearance which was awesome. It limits front travel which is fine for a drag radial set up and we have no intentions of doing anything no--prep


I was able to put the travel limiter in the same location and just needed to shorten the bolt to clear even at full articulation.

The new spindles are **** but NOT a bolt on lol

As much as I tried to make them work the Wilwoods with the vented rotors just won't fit. I was going to re-engineer stuff but just decided to go with a brake kit that they recommend as a direct "bolt-on" so I got the new Strange EVO's


The new EVOs were a good looking brake kit, and I was able to add a front wheel speed sensor on the left side which was pretty slick. Nothing fit and I had to make spacer clearance parts etc but it all went together nicely


The new spindles and brakes saved 9 pounds a side over the already lightweight Wilwoods with stock spindles!


The forged billet Magnum wheels with light bias ply tires are also 8 pounds lighter than the Pro-star with a radial front runner, this combo ends up being 34 pounds lighter and it is all unsprung weight! That wheel tire is going to race only set up not for the street.


We have a few other projects we are wrapping up and I will post on before we leave for Rockingham

 

[Old Man Roger]

Like you, so many cars have come and gone. 66 Chevelle is the one I regret selling the most.

 

[82355]

I don't know Buicks like I do Chevrolets, so I did not notice the different front clip. There are a lot of cool cars in his collection!

Those are some crazy looking rotors on the GN.

Martin

 

[mlyonsdc]

This is like the last piece of this on going puzzle. The list of things I want to do to finish the car are getting really short!

Super happy with how it turned out, Ray did the whole job while I was on vacation with the family.

We are as ready as we are going to be for Sick at the Rock. Got the alignment done and went over the car today we roll out Wed night. All we need now is a 7 sec time slip!

 

[mlyonsdc]

Its been awhile since the last post which was right before Rockingham. We took the car to Sick at the Rock pretty much exactly like it was at Sick Week. Still not 100% sure what caused the injectors to lock up on us like that. It was cool event and we had a lot of fun. Car ran pretty decent and we had a lot of fun.

About 4 hours into the trip I remembered I didn't grab my race duffel bag with helmet, fires suit etc. No problem it is North Carolina after all, found a speed shop on the way that had everything. I needed a new fire suit any way and the new helmet fit me a lot better.


Race went well they had a TnT thursday and we got there late since we had to make a stop but made it in time to make a few shake down passes and get some data.


Friday was a wash out due to water on the track and rain. We got to do the drive part which was really cool 50 mile loop. Very laid back and fun. No trailer need for this ride!



Since Friday was a wash we had to turn in 2 out of 3 runs for the day on Saturday. We manged a 5.19, 5.15 and another 5.19. We turned it up for the the last pass and starting really blowing through the TQ conv, It was an issue we saw on the dyno and was way worse on the track like 17% slip.

This is the 5.15 pass and video

https://youtu.be/5XcdQVVA5hw


We turned in the two 5.19 passes since we had a shot at most consistent with a .0027 difference but we ended up 3rd on that category lol!

We did take some of Tom Bailey's $$$ home!

All in all it was a great event the short drive was fun and it was a pretty good time.

We came home with more questions than answers. While 5 teens was fun we are expecting 4.90s. We also have some data that may be showing the fueling issue that has been plaguing us. I broke down and bought a Holley injector driver and put the AFIS 250# injectors in the car and we took it back to the dyno. The theory is one of two things the 8/2 injectors coils overheated and locked up or the Holley ECU injector drivers locked up. The Holley is known to have some difficulty in controlling large 8/2 low impedance injectors so both issues had merit. We found a lot of small issues on the dyno and made a lot of fueling corrections that netted us gains. We also really cleaned up the ignition and EGTs and things were looking like the car was going to rip the next time out.


Since I had to take the dash apart to install the injector driver I cleans some stuff up and finally made the panel for behind the display dash which really cleaned up the interior.


Everything was going well till it wasn't lol!. Our original plans were to take the car to the Buick Nationals in Bowling Green May 14 which never happened.

 

[82355]

You keep going to events your windshield is going to look like a Fig Newtons advertisement!

Martin

 

[mlyonsdc]

You keep going to events your windshield is going to look like a Fig Newtons advertisement!

Martin

Lol, right! Funny thing is I sit so low in the car that I really don't notice them driving. They will all be coming off by the end of the year for next season.

I am signed up for Drag Week but don't think I am going to make it. I am kind of re-thinking some stuff and making changes. Remember the main bearing issue last November? Well, that issue was never resolved even with the increased clearance it was still not enough.

After I got the car back together we put it on the dyno to re-adjust the tune for the new injectors. We also tested different fuels and made a bunch of pulls tweaking fuel injector scaling and playing with ignition dwell times for the coils. We didn't run the car on kill but made all of pulls at 30-35 psi which is still north of 1000rwhp. We did pick up some power with the changes and were excited to get back out to test in early May. 3&4 are slightly rich 1&2 lean and 5&6 perfect BUT #6 was also our hottest EGT and #1 was cold for some reason. #5 is the only one that seemed to be spot on.


We went to an event at DW42 for the B3R event with the changed we made on the dyno and I also did another stator swap tightening the converter we were hopeful to see at least a 5.0 pass. We made a couple hits on the car which showed a lot of promise with the first pass running 5.21 with the traction control pulling 2-5 degrees of timing the entire pass. We were on the right track but the last pass I noticed the oil pressure was dropping under power.

On the last run I had 35psi going down the track! It made 45psi at idle and ran fine, really had no idea other than the data log. I went back and started looking we had 80psi on the Dyno but it was progressively getting worse after that. It was kind of funny because Ray and I were sitting there and I was looking at the datalog not saying anything until Ray said what are we doing you ready to make another pass and I didn't even look up and said no we have no main bearing left and he looked at me absolutely stunned because the car just ran a 5.28 and was still running!

I literally had no #3 main bearing left. Nothing but a steel shell in the cap and a small amount of copper on the block side!


I really can't believe we were making 5.20 hits like this and drove the car 75 miles on the street for the drive portion at this event! I know this much I will never NOT run a belt drive oil pump that's for sure. The ONLY thing that kept this motor alive was the fact that it had a lot of oil pumping through it.

Me at a check point with no ,ain bearings lol


The rest of the motor didn't look horrible, #2 main is the thrust bearing it was ugly too and got hot #1 and #4 weren't pretty but still intact. Only one rod got tore up #4 mostly from **** from #3 main, the rest looked good other than trash going through them. The crank was toast, it had some heat cracks in the #3 main journal and #4 rod bearing which was expected. My machinist said there was also some torsional cracking around the oil holes on the mains which he is pretty much telling me we don't have enough crankshaft for what we are doing. Which I knew adn TBH when it was making over 1300 on the hub dyno I was cringing and waiting for that crank to come apart. I actually took a set of main bearings with us to Sick Week as I knew it was still an issue. I just never checked them and between Sick week and early May we had over 50 high power pulls on the motor. I should have checked them earlier, I probably would have been able to roll a new set in and rock on.

So I am going to put the Billet Crower crank from the original motor in this block along with the better Crower billet rods and Racetech pistons. The original block was cracked and we repaired it but have been hesitant to use it since the crack was so close the deck surface which is what caused our issues at the 2024 Sick Week. If the BMS crank can be repaired I may throw that rotating assembly together in the original block as a back up.

So we missed the Buick Nats at Bowling Green but I got the motor out and to my machinist who was back up as usual but he got it done and I am putting it together now. The best I can get with the Crower crank is .003 on the mains. I did find a race bearing that King makes that will work and they have it in a X size but I can't get them till October so this is what I will at least start with.

To fix the issue I am also putting in a mid-plate which is long over due. Ray got creative and somehow made it all work and it attaches on both sides of the frame. I can also add a driver side motor plate but it will take a lot more fab, it would be almost impossible to get the passenger side with the header turbo arrangement we have now.



Drivers side was pretty easy


Passenger side was a little challenging


I am also changing oils to HPL Synthetic straight 50w. So we will see what happens with that.

We have been also making some other changes to possibly race Limited 235. This all started with me wanting to go down South this winter to at least watch the Winder Series of ProMod races and considering doing one of the Radial Outlaw series races in conjunction. Plus my car fits the class pretty well and if I can run 5.0s with the spec turbo I could be pretty competitive. I had an extra set of dbl beadlocks from Mac Fab so I pick up some tiny 235s to test.



I also picked up the spec turbo it has the same size turbine wheel and should have been a straight swap for the NLX88 on the car but NOO the housing flanges had to all be different!! We ended up making a new alum downpipe and IC pipe it was a nightmare but it is on and I can swap back and forth it need be.



We are bringing the car back out this fall with a bunch of changes, stronger crank, oil and oil pan upgrades, mid plate, new smaller 76mm turbo and 235 tires. While I have been quite we have still been busy!

 

[Old Man Roger]

Busy is an understatement.

 

[rattle_snake]

I really like how clean the car itself is, and the level of the fabrication work. It's good to see it out being enjoyed and laying down impressive numbers.

I had not heard of a 235 class. That's crazy. I thought the 10.5 was already sketchy enough.

 

[mlyonsdc]

Busy is an understatement.

Lol, I've been REAL busy!

I finished the deal with my buddy Chuck with the Corvettes I posted about earlier I and bought his last two Buicks along with all his spare parts which was extensive. The 67 which I posted about above and his original Turbo T that he bought new. The car was an absolute cream puff with 42k miles and very tastefully update with mild mods mostly stock.


As you can see most of his Corvettes are gone. He still has the 63 split window the 2 67 427 roadsters and one 66 327 roadster, the rest have been sold. He still have the 66 Chevelle and was talking about doing something with it. Still one of my favorites.


I had the Turbo T less than 48 hours and sold it a friend who is also my tuner. He is a younger guy and has been tuning my car and an army of Turbo buicks we have sent his way and now wants one. He was at the Buick Nationals this year and is totally a Buick guy now lol! He is 2 years younger than the car lol!

I got a **** ton of parts alot of rare NOS stuff, I have been busy just inventorying everything and figuring out what all I have at this point.
This wasnt all of it either this was just the third haul!!


SO to make things even worse I sold the transmission out of the Ttype. It was a fully built 200r4 and I had two of them plus a 3rd in the 67 GS which I plan to swap to a T56. The back up was actually the original trans for my Ttype and the guy who bought it live in Arizona so I decided to pull the one in the Ttype.

That is a can-o-worms since I have a laundry list of stuff I have been waiting to do to that car. So out comes the motor and a bunch of new stuff. I am going all in on a tire firing, dyno queen show machine lol! Everything was still a mess from the fire and really needed stripped apart cleaned and updated. When I originally did this build I tried to keep the car as original looking as possible. Now I am going for the performance show-n-shine.


Several updates in the pics. Biggest was I upgraded to a HPT F3 7170 turbo which is really going to wake things up. There is a 72mm TB new fuel rails better regulator etc. I will post more about the updates in a later thread once the car is back together. I am not in a hurry to put this one back together although I miss driving it, I did drive it most days the weather was nice.


Right now I am actually ready for a break. I actually picked up another motor for the race car with an aluminum TA block another billet Crower crank and rods. The plan was to swap it in the GN and go but it never works out that way. The block take 50# off the nose of the car which along with the 50# for the Gearvendor will take us to 3350 without any other mods. We need to be 3275 for Limited 235 which should be doable with the new block.


The TA aluminum block weighs 98 pounds and has made over 2k hp on a few builds I am aware of, it is the same block Fiscus runs in Ultra street with his 3100# Mustang running 4.40's with a 76mm turbo!

98 pounds!

My machinist has been back up on my stuff for awhile. I had 3 motors there to begin with and knew when I dropped the GN's motor when he got to it he was going to have Buick week and stamp all of them out, which he did, and I got 3 back within 2 weeks!

I now have 4 builds going together at the same time in my shop. Its kinda nuts right now, two motors are for friends two are mine. I have really gone down the garage build rabbit hole lol

 

[Old Man Roger]

I don’t know how you keep up, and I’m with you on that 66 Chevelle. It‘s literally my favorite car.