SuperSlow's slow FC build

[SuperSlow]

Autometer sent me out a resistor that fixed my tach issues once I soldered it in. Now all my issues should just be in the tune which I now have a new one to upload and test.

Exhaust project is going pretty well so far. Everything is fitted and tacked, just have lots of welds to lay.


Cant really tell here but the cutout sits about 1.5" higher than the ladder bar cross member, should be fine.
Had to wedge out this part as I only bought a couple bends.

First can sits right next to the passenger ladder bar, shoots up and over the axle from there. Have something like 1/4" clearance to the frame rail at its highest point.

Love the hks muffler. I have it sticking out of the back about 3/4", I'll get some pics of that once the car is back on the ground.

As usual, some of my welds are nice and pretty while others.... not so much. Here is one of the not so good looking welds

Most of the pipe to pipe welds look like this more or less but the flange to pipe welds all came out great. Of course I don't have any pictures of those though.

Inside one of the flanges.

On a side note, last time I took the car out I made several 0-60 vbox runs. Stayed right around 5 seconds everytime with the fastest run being something like a 4.96. This was on 10lbs peak, launching on 10lbs at 4500rpm and shifting at 6k. Plan on moving the ladder bars down to the bottom hole and trying again. Should be able to cut the times down pretty significantly once I can get her to hook and shift at 7k.

Plan on doing a lot more testing later this summer when the car is exhausted and inspected.

[1320king]

what did you do for your e-brake setup?

[SuperSlow]

I  used wilwood spot calipers and a lokar cable kit connected to the factory cable. You can see where it connects in one of the pictures above.

[SuperSlow]

Finally finished the exhaust after about two months haha!
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FgYSCoRe2IU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I'm super happy with how quiet it turned out, the revs in the video are around 3k rpm. It is even quieter than before with the cutout open, despite the fact that I had a 4" bullet muffler on it before this. Cutout is before the bullet and HKS muffler, 4" to 3" after the cutout.

The flange welds look awesome but the pipe welds are hit or miss, as usual  . I did learn a lot more on the tig tho so that feels good. Pics:

This piece comes right off the dp at the front corner of the passenger floor board.

Had to snake it around a bit, could be why it sounds quieter?

The Ugly. Not sure why, but I couldn't get a good looking bead on any of the 4" stuff that came with my turbo kit.

This piece has some decent looking welds, comes in right behind the transmission cross member.


I only bought one piece of pre-bent piping that had one 180 and a 45 so I had to wedge this part out. Took a while to weld up but it fits nicely.

The bullet hooks up to the mid pipe right next to the passenger side ladder bar and shoots up over the axle from there.

The good, bad and the ugly all in one place.


This is where things got tight, took me a long time to finally decide how I wanted it. I have about 1/4" of clearance from the anti-roll bar link and a little more between the muffler and the fuel tank so I'll have to keep an out on those two spots. Has about 1" of tire clearance so I am happy.


Ground clearance isn't great but the suspension cross member is still significantly lower than the exhaust.


Because it wouldn't feel right without at least one blurry pic.

Aside from the exhaust, I got a new rendition of the tune uploaded and it still is hard to start  . Also put a really small spring in the wastegate and that seems to be working out well. Without any adjustments to the boost or launch controllers I was able to build 5psi on a test launch. Spun through first and hooked second just like before, so I need to bring the rpms down a bit as well as adjust the ramp rate on my EB2. Hoping I can get some sub 4 second 0-60 times without touching the suspension.

[SuperSlow]

Have an appointment with the tuner to finalize the tune this Saturday. Pretty excited to finally get everything lined out.

Going to change the plugs out and not fire the car until it's in his hands. Not sure if I am going to change the oil or not since it's pretty fresh with maybe 200 miles, thoughts? Anything else I should do to prep the car? It's been a real long time since I have been to a dyno.

[SuperSlow]

Just went and did some last minute testing before I swap the plugs and my damned alternator goes out on me  . It started making a loud squeak right after a 3rd gear pull.

After I got home the car quickly overheated. Fan wasn't working and I hadn't noticed until it got to 250. The fuse is still good, I'm hoping that the power surging from the alternator caused the relays to go bad  .

Pretty annoying but hopefully she's just getting all the bugs out now before we hit the dyno.

[SuperSlow]

Made it to the dyno yesterday and had a somewhat rough time with the car.

It has a lot of break up past 5k rpm so I have some work to do.  Driver's side bank isn't getting shit for spark which is probably why the car is so hard to start. Going to buy some new-used coils off ebay and go back to the valve cover mounted coils with stock wires. Might need to figure out some kind of heat shield for the passenger side but that shouldn't be to big of a deal.

Pos dmh cutout also shit out on me. It has some scars on the flange from scraping the trailer but that shouldn't have caused the motor to go out. Going to be giving them a call sometime next week.

I had a good experience overall and the car did seem to make good power all things considered. It put down 503hp at either 7.7 or 9lbs (wasn't paying to much attention as I don't really care about the peak numbers) and didn't show any signs of running out of steam when he let out at around 6200.

[SuperSlow]

Got my zbrown style hood cutouts done.

Not sure if I will keep the stainless look or paint the mesh black. Thoughts?

Also just finished up swapping to btr dual valve springs and got the engine harness pulled out and rearranged.

Waiting on plug wires and a 7 circuit box from painless to arrive before I start back with the wiring and coil rerelocation.

I noticed that I am getting quite a bit of oil in my air intake and charge pipes so I probably had my catch can routed wrong. Redoing some valve covers at the moment as well as I had welded the vacuum port directly above the oil passage of the intake rocker on cylinder 6 and it wouldn't have worked with valve cover mounted coils anyway. Probably going to paint them wrinkle black or something.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to route everything for a vacuum block? I would like to run vacuum off the back of the intake as a primary source then hook everything up to that, even the brake booster.

[SuperSlow]

Well I just got everything put back together and everything seems to be doing great. The car drives much better now, no more bucking at low rpm in 5th and 6th gear and it starts every try now so I am pretty happy about that.

AFR held around 12.0 or so under boost. Boost surprisingly staid at 8psi without touching the controller. Temp staid at around 190. Forgot to charge my laptop so I couldn't get a log.

Plan on trying for an inspection on monday. I'll update with some pictures later this weekend.

[SuperSlow]

Been driving the car for about a week now that it is inspected and tagged. Basically daily driving it when there is no rain, learning how to drive it.

The car has been leaking oil so I am thinking about pulling the engine out next week. Not sure if it will be easier to pull the engine and transmission together or just rent a transmission jack and do the job from my back. Thoughts?

I just replaced the pos DMH cutout with a Badlanz unit and immediately proceeded to bend the butterfly on the first outting with it installed . They say that the cutout only works with their y-pipe for good reason lol. Hopefully with some more grinding it will work out as it only seems to be a problem when the exhaust is hot.

Should be able to straighten her out good enough to roll with.

Still need to have the tune finalized. Afr goes crazy when cruising at a constant speed but stays in the low 12's/high 11's under any kind of boost. I also haven't seen any knock retard so I feel safe enough to play around a little.

Vbox times are pretty much the same as before. I ran a best of 4.48 0-60 earlier today. This is with the 2-step set at 2500 rpm, pulling 3 degrees (makes ~2lbs), a quick clutch slip (but not a dump) and about 8 lbs of boost with the cutout closed. No burnout or prep. The tires usually break loose on the hit then it's a pedal game trying to stay in boost while gaining traction. Once out of boost the car hooks immediately, no matter what speed I'm at. Next time I'll try -1 degree instead of -3 and maybe try to slow the ramp rate. Haven't touched the suspension yet.

The only 60-130 time I have gotten was an 8.73, cutout closed and again on about 8 lbs.

Here are a couple pics of the car:

[SuperSlow]

Going to go ahead and drop the transmission on Monday and replace the rear main. The leak has been steadily getting worse as I drive the car, kind of thinking I may not be evacuating all the pressure out of the crank case. I am running the mighty mouse pcv system ran as shown in the attached diagram for forced induction. Here are some pictures of the actual setup on the car:






Any help is much appreciated, would hate to have to do a rear main again just because I'm not evacuating the crank case properly.

On a side note, I have an appointment to finish the tune out next Saturday  .

[largeorangefont]

How hard have you been running the car? If not very hard it may just be a leak.

I am not boosted, but run a -10 from each valve cover and a -6 from the valley to a vented can.

[digitalsolo]

I ran a -10 from each valve cover to a Moroso breather tank with a K&N filter on top of it.   Never had any trouble, but you could see a slight film around the breather after a few hard runs.

[SuperSlow]

I haven't been running it too hard, mostly 3rd gear pulls at 8-9lbs. The valley cover is not vented. Now that I think about it though, I did run the car for a bit with the catch can setup incorrectly (according to the MM instructions) so the leak could have been caused by that.

I ran a -10 from each valve cover to a Moroso breather tank with a K&N filter on top of it.   Never had any trouble, but you could see a slight film around the breather after a few hard runs.

Damn, thats a pretty simple setup. I might have to switch to something like that, would look a lot cleaner too.

[SuperSlow]

Well it looks like the leak is coming from the back of the pan and not the rear main. It is seeping out where the pan meets the rear cover. Hopefully I'll have time to pull the motor next week and replace the pan gasket.

Just sucks that oil is getting on the top clutch disc so I am not driving it until I get the leak fixed. Still going to hit up the dyno this weekend and have it tuned.