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LTX and LSXPutting LT1s, LS1s, and their variants into Third Gens is becoming more popular. This board is for those who are doing and have done the swaps so they can discuss all of their technical aspects including repairs, swap info, and performance upgrades.
Had the tune touched up and got the car back on the dyno. The retune was performed by the same tuner on the same Mustang Dyno. There differences between last time and this time.
I Replaced the Granatelli coils and wires with GM LS3 pieces.
Engine is now broken in and running 5W/30 (first dyno run was with BTR break in oil)
Replaced the Spectre air filter for a much larger K&N unit
Ambient shop air was probably 30+ degrees hotter than first round (60 degrees vs 90's)
Everything else equal, sans leaky trans.
Car made 512 rwhp this time vs 503 last time. In cooler air the difference could be as high as 20rwhp. Power just rolls over a tick before 7k rpm, not bad for a 227/231 cam
We are speculating that my hard start condition is due to rapid voltage drop. I don't think this Optima RedTop battery has enough onions. The cranking loads are massive on this combo, especially with the high torque starter and rear mounted battery.
My - what a big air filter you have! LOL
I saw a diagram in this thread where you ran 1/0ga wire from battery to a junction block and then 2ga wire from there to the starter. Have you tried running 1/0 wire directly from the battery to the starter to see if that helps with starting the car?
I also have my battery in the hatch but did the wiring a little different. The piece where the crank wire connects is a Ford solenoid:
My - what a big air filter you have! LOL
I saw a diagram in this thread where you ran 1/0ga wire from battery to a junction block and then 2ga wire from there to the starter. Have you tried running 1/0 wire directly from the battery to the starter to see if that helps with starting the car?
I also have my battery in the hatch but did the wiring a little different:
This is actually a very good point. And would be very easy to do. I never thought of this. Good thing we have smart members here who remember more things about my build than I do.
@ShiftyCapone Could I please see a diagram again of the way your Car is currently Wired...
It's difficult to remember them all.
I really don't like to Post anything Negative here if I do not have to...
So I'm sorry, but I really do not care for the Design of the Circuits just Posted by Battmann
And @battmann I am sorry, I mean no offense to you.
There should never be a relay in the Battery Power Circuit to the Starter Motor.
(Unless it is an NHRA Remote Disconnect).
The Alternator Charge Wire should not have anything else on it's Power Line... Just the Connection to the Battery.
Also rarely is there any issue with this Circuit in terms of Power/ Amperage Demand.
The Circuit that is usually an issue, is the Circuit that Powers the Solenoid (I would use a Relay here, and a small 8AWG Wire with 40A Fuse in this application).
Using my Diagram below, you can substitute 0AWG instead of 2AWG if you like.
However, it really should not be an issue.
Like I said, Power to activate the Solenoid is usually the issue here.
A 40A (or Higher Rated) Relay and 8AWG Wire should be fine.
I would be more than happy to approve or recommend an appropriate Relay.
I have even used 6AWG or 4AWG depending on the application.
Here is how I have my car wired. The odd thing is that if I do not use the kill switch on my battery the car starts much easier. However, if I disconnect it then I get the hard start condition.
This is how I have my car wired. I thought my ECM was wired directly to the battery. I need to check that but I think that's what the PSI harness instructed. I do not have an inline fuse. Ignore that.
I get the car back tomorrow and will look into your checklist Vortec. I think I pass most of those and I think I posted the wrong wiring diagram that I went with. This may have been my rough draft. Why can't I remember this? Oh beer, that's why...
I get the car back tomorrow and will look into your checklist Vortec. I think I pass most of those and I think I posted the wrong wiring diagram that I went with. This may have been my rough draft. Why can't I remember this? Oh beer, that's why...
Hey, we all need a little "kick-back and Relax" (DRINKS!) Time now and then!
I went back and looked at my original Dyno tune, and although the HP increase was modest, I made around 15lb/ft more throughout the torque curve. That's way more than I expected.
I really don't like to Post anything Negative here if I do not have to...
So I'm sorry, but I really do not care for the Design of the Circuits just Posted by Battmann
And @battmann I am sorry, I mean no offense to you.
no offense taken. i'm not an electrical expert. the design i used was based on information / research i did over at LSItech.com
i don't want to sidetrack this thread so i'll send you a PM to ask why you don't like the configuration i used.
That's definitely thoughtful, but it's a very quick answer.
Starter has two circuits:
1. High-power motoring circuit (starter solenoid B+ terminal). Battery cable should get an uninterrupted run to starter B+ terminal.
2. Solenoid control circuit (starter solenoid S terminal). This throws pinion gear and turns starter on/off. Start Relay supports this circuit and should be wired in parallel with battery cable.
You won't be able to measure resistance in the cranking circuit with a multimeter unless there is a pretty big problem. A practical workaround to that is to measure voltage losses in the cranking circuit. Disable fuel and take two voltage measurements while cranking (starter at rolling speed):
1. Voltage across Battery posts (literally at the battery).
2. Voltage across Starter motor (starter solenoid B+ and the case).
Difference in those readings is your cranking circuit voltage losses. The pass/fail criteria depends on starter current, but if you can tell me the voltage numbers then I will have a general idea where you stand. That might at least rule in/out if you have a cranking circuit problem.
I wouldn't spend any money on batteries until you know that. Warm weather engine starting is really easy, doesn't work the starter very hard and don't need much of a battery to support that.
You won't be able to measure resistance in the cranking circuit with a multimeter unless there is a pretty big problem. A practical workaround to that is to measure voltage losses in the cranking circuit. Disable fuel and take two voltage measurements while cranking (starter at rolling speed):
1. Voltage across Battery posts (literally at the battery).
2. Voltage across Starter motor (starter solenoid B+ and the case).
Difference in those readings is your cranking circuit voltage losses. The pass/fail criteria depends on starter current, but if you can tell me the voltage numbers then I will have a general idea where you stand. That might at least rule in/out if you have a cranking circuit problem.
I wouldn't spend any money on batteries until you know that. Warm weather engine starting is really easy, doesn't work the starter very hard and don't need much of a battery to support that.
Yeah, I wasn't going to give in just yet. I also want to see what the amperage draw is for the starter I am using. If it is over 96 amps, I am taxing 2gage wire for sure. The thing that gets me is the whole power disconnect. Car starts pretty normal unless I exercise the kill switch. The ECM must not like that. Maybe there is a reboot or something that causes delay. I will get around to these tests but as always, work and kids dictate pace.
Car starts pretty normal unless I exercise the kill switch. The ECM must not like that. Maybe there is a reboot or something that causes delay. I will get around to these tests but as always, work and kids dictate pace.
By "hard starting" do you mean low cranking speed, or just long crank time to run? If starter is making cranking speed then it has done its job.
Originally Posted by ShiftyCapone
I also want to see what the amperage draw is for the starter I am using. If it is over 96 amps, I am taxing 2gage wire for sure.
Continuous current rating of cable is ignored when it comes to starter cable sizing. It is normal for the starter to draw a lot more current than that. The starter is an intermittent device so cable won't overheat, it's really about getting cranking circuit resistance down to low enough levels that the starter performs as advertised. This is why I asked for voltage losses during crank. Most times the offender is not an undersized cable, it is one of the connections or poor ground return.
It's actually more complicated than that in reality. What engineers really do is look at specs on the starter drawing for minimum allowable circuit resistance of entire circuit (this includes battery internal resistance). They use this to size both battery and cables. These guidelines are put in place to make sure the in-rush current of the starter does not go too high. For the OEMS, the cables are usually large enough and what they're really worried about is limiting the starter in-rush current. In your case, the problem might have to be tackled from the opposite side where you're trying to reduce voltage losses.
By hard start I mean length to fire. Car turns over fine and at normal perceived speed without any sounds of struggle. I did have some fueling issues during start that the tuner worked out. I have the car at home and it did start right back up even with the fans on (I will get a fan controller so I am not pulling power to the fans when trying to start). I will remove the load from the fans at startup and dig around a little.
He fixed my decell issue. My MMS RPS flywheel is pretty light and the air idle needed to be tweaked to keep the car from nose diving when pushing in the clutch at a higher rpm (highway speeds). It's fixed now, and is pretty common with the NW 102 throttle bodies. Car rips, even in this heat. He also showed me that the operating system on my ECM only has PWM fan settings. So I can't treat them as binary in the ECM when temp is achieved. Again, fan controller will fix this.
All in all, my journey with this thing continues. It can be frustrating, but one WOT pull in 2nd gear eliminates that.
By hard start I mean length to fire. Car turns over fine and at normal perceived speed without any sounds of struggle.
I would datalog to see how many msec pass before timing syncs up, fuel injector pulse width begins to happen, fuel pressure builds, and time for throttle body opening to crank position. I always pause after key on to let fuel pressure build and then go into crank position. Seems to shorten crank time a lot. And what I found with my engine is it starts a lot faster if I give it lots of air, I let the engine rpm flash up more like European cars.
I tried to avoid learning how to tune but found that was an impossible expectation. I had to learn in order to work out fine details of starting and drivability. The tuner just doesn't have the seat time I do to find and work out all those kinks.
I would datalog to see how many msec pass before timing syncs up, fuel injector pulse width begins to happen, and time for throttle body opening to crank position. My engine starts better with lots of air, I let the engine rpm flash up more like European cars.
Interesting. I can ask my tuner. Although I'd expect he knows this since he does LS stuff daily.
Interesting. I can ask my tuner. Although I'd expect he knows this since he does LS stuff daily.
I wouldn't assume that. Tuners do general power tuning all day but often don't excel at detailed problem solving. That's been my experience. Some do, but you gotta find them and they're often not in your own backyard.
Honestly, Shifty, I'm not sure your tuner is very good? Your torque curve is still in need of smoothing, they didn't sort out mid-range rpm's yet. My local shop would never send somebody home with a curve like that. I would not hesitate to shop around if I was in your shoes. I tried a couple different tuners to learn if my tune was any good, and what I learned is one was an idiot, another had a reputation (nationally known) that far exceeded reality, and the first little shop I went to was by far the best.
I wouldn't assume that. Tuners do general power tuning all day but often don't excel at detailed problem solving. That's been my experience. Some do, but you gotta find them and they're often not in your own backyard.
Honestly, Shifty, I'm not sure your tuner is very good? Your torque curve is still in need of smoothing, they didn't sort out mid-range rpm's yet. My local shop would never send somebody home with a curve like that. I would not hesitate to shop around if I was in your shoes. I tried a couple different tuners to learn if my tune was any good, and what I learned is one was an idiot, another had a reputation (nationally known) that far exceeded reality, and the first little shop I went to was by far the best.
Well I wondered about that curve. Is it the tune or just the smoothing options in the software? He is pretty well known locally, not saying he's the best or not, and multiple shops use him. There is another shop up north but I am not sure if I want to dole out more money. Maybe I can ask them to at least look at my curve.
Well I wondered about that curve. Is it the tune or just the smoothing options in the software?
Transients like that is usually the tune. You might get inflection points in the curve due to nature of engine (like an LS7 always does), but the curve will have a predictable shape before and after that inflection point. My guess is the torque curve can be raised in that area if smoothed out.
And if he didn't do right at full throttle (the easiest thing a tuner can do), then my guess is it maybe could drive a lot better part throttle too because that takes more skill. I know you've complained a bit about lack of torque cruising. It might be your jaw will drop at the difference if somebody else got a chance to tune it.
Transients like that is usually the tune. You might get inflection points in the curve due to nature of engine (like an LS7 always does), but the curve will have a predictable shape before and after that inflection point. My guess is the torque curve can be raised in that area if smoothed out.
Makes sense. I suppose its worth a few horse torques. Its unnoticeable in the seat of the pants meter.
And if he didn't do right at full throttle (the easiest thing a tuner can do), then my guess is it maybe could drive a lot better part throttle too because that takes more skill. I know you've complained a bit about lack of torque cruising. It might be your jaw will drop at the difference if somebody else got a chance to tune it.
Some of that is just the low RPM cruising and crud rear gears. He street tuned part throttle and then WOT tuned on the dyno. In fairness this was his first time he could actually drive the car on the street since the last few times I was hemorrhaging trans fluid all over his shop and he was limited in what he could do. I think he is annoyed with me. The part throttle stuff is way better this go around. Especially, after he tweaked decell tip in. Drivability is very good. However, more power is more power.
Street tuning part throttle is very difficult and time consuming. My local shop does this on a Mustang dyno in roading mode and uses the electric motor to hold engine RPM constant while he walks around the fuel and timing maps to dial in peak torque at different loads. Then changes RPM and repeats. It's all done in about 20 minutes. My jaw dropped when I drove away that day. The difference below 3K rpm was amazing.
By comparison, my buddy street tuned his engine and did a good job but it took months and a lot of luck avoiding speeding tickets. It's hard to tune in low gears because the engine doesn't load much and things change so fast. At some point you gotta load the engine in a higher gear and that means speed.... lots of speed.
Street tuning part throttle is very difficult and time consuming. My local shop does this on a Mustang dyno in roading mode and uses the electric motor to hold engine RPM constant while he walks around the fuel and timing maps to dial in peak torque at different loads. Then changes RPM and repeats. It's all done in about 20 minutes. My jaw dropped when I drove away that day. The difference below 3K rpm was amazing.
Sounds like I need to go to your guy. That is great attention to detail. My guy did a lot of part throttle on a mustang dyno as well, then street drove it. The problem is, I could burn through thousands of bucks in dyno time and still get the same thing. The juice is worth the squeeze only if you can get the best person.
The problem is, I could burn through thousands of bucks in dyno time and still get the same thing. The juice is worth the squeeze only if you can get the best person.
That's why I ended up having to learn to tune fine aspects of drivability myself. Shop has higher skills and short time. I have lower skills and lots of time. Time consuming things fell on me.
The most helpful thing that ever happened to me was getting to see an example of a really good tune of a similar engine. I immediately saw how they handled some things I was struggling with and I adopted their methods and things got better.
That's why I ended up having to learn to tune fine aspects of drivability myself. Shop has higher skills and short time. I have lower skills and lots of time. Time consuming things fell on me.
The most helpful thing that ever happened to me was getting to see an example of a really good tune of a similar engine. I immediately saw how they handled some things I was struggling with and I adopted their methods and things got better.
I've been telling myself this for years. I need to just bite the bullet and get HP Tuners and be done with it.
Here is the Finished 00AWG (2/0 AWG) Power Cable with the Main-Fuse, that I posted earlier:
The rest of the Positive Cable gets High-Temp Insulation over it, as it passes right near the Exhaust System
(Bottom Right Corner of the image: Black Silicone over Fiber-Glass).
I decided I hated the way my front accessories looked and more importantly I hated my AC lines. I swapped the Holley high mount for the mid mount and will be running new AC lines soon. I bought the vintage air sure fit condenser system and will be ditching the OEM condenser and relocating the drier closer to the condenser. More to come but here is a picture. I'll go into greater detail when I make my new AC lines and install the VA unit.
The Vintage Air sure fit condenser kit is a really nice piece and fits really well. Very easy install and I like how its held in with upper and lower brackets rather than just piggy backing off the radiator rubber supports. The Holley Mid Mount kit is completely installed now with a couple of observations.
You cannot use a straight stub thermostat housing as it will crash into the back of the tensioner. You have to use an angles one, either Holley and or GM. I went GM. I ditched my AN hoses for a combo of AN and traditional coolant hose. Its not as "pretty" but with some nylon sleeve and heat shrink clamps it turned out pretty decent. I am also impressed with the tech flex thermo sleeving that I used on my AC lines. Combined with black fittings from Resto Mod Air, I obtained the look I was going for. I cut a section out of a 1.5 ID hose, sleeved it and heat shrink clamped it in place. It does attach to the rad via 16an fittings. Same for upper, I cut a section from a gates 1.25 ID hose and sleeved and clamped it. Connects to the radiator with AN fittings and a Meziere barb to AN adapter. Everything is super dirty but I like how it turned out. I am not thrilled with where I had to relocated the coolant reservoir but it works and matches the relocated PS reservoir on the other side. New drier location with binary switch (may do trinary later) VA Condenser Resto Mod AC fittings jacketed in Tech Flex and secured with heat shrink clamps.
Good news. After years of issues, my AC finally works. It did take quite a bit of time to get the compressor to see enough pressure to kick on and suck in the refrigerant, but I used a small 12 volt battery to jump the AC compressor to speed it along. Relocating the drier to the nose of the car and ditching the trinary switch for a binary unit seemed to do the trick. If your ECM is configured for PWM fans, it will not send the trinary a ground signal in the traditional sense. I wish the discharge and suction ports on the AC compressor were positionally switched so that you don't have to fight crisscrossing AC lines. My new lines look a million times better, but the routing is still less than appealing.
Engine bay needs a deep cleaning as I've spilled coolant, oil, AC dye and all kinds of stuff all over the place.
I also continued my home made console journey by securing the VA control panel. Since I do not have a radio at this time I fabbed up a storage cubby out of sheets of ABS. It fits perfectly in the console and I can at least throw my phone in there now while driving. I originally wanted to use a NOS RPM switch to provide a high RPM cutoff for the AC compressor. The electrical gurus at Holley and VA couldn't quite figure out the best way to do this and combined with my initial AC functionality issues, I ditched this effort to eliminate another root cause variable. I have since reused the switch, but this time to illuminate an LED shift light. I bought a generic one from Amazon and have the RPM unit send 12v to it at whatever RPM I want. The first LED I bought was too dim, the second one caused retinal immolation and sunburn, so I wired in a resister to tamper it down a bit. It sits next to my fan switch which is not in the image pictured. I considered putting it in the A pillar but was leery of reflection off the dash especially at night (p.s. I've never driven this thing at night).
Much cleaner look, although still want the surefit VA panel. ******* storage
Overall the car is in good shape for the 10's of miles I will put on her this summer. In the meantime, I bought two of the smaller spintech 9000 series mufflers that "should" fit in the tight places where my current bullet mufflers reside. Sine they are small (4x6x9) they likely won't quiet the system down much, but should help drastically reduce cruising drone which is my ultimate goal. If it works, I can then entertain putting a radio back into the car.
The plan this summer is to leverage any mistakes Chuck! has made in ordering his Trick Chassis 9" before I order mine. I want to see it mounted in his car and verify any width adjustments I may need to make.
Fantastic work! Just spent more time than I should be at work looking through the thread. Can tell you've got a lot of passion for this car, and I can only hope to be as successful in my resto-project as you have been!
Fantastic work! Just spent more time than I should be at work looking through the thread. Can tell you've got a lot of passion for this car, and I can only hope to be as successful in my resto-project as you have been!
Thanks for the kind words. There is still much work to be done. Just need to win the lotto if you know what I mean. I've learned so much with this build and it's ben very fun.
Small update. I went ahead and bought some small Spintech mufflers that fit in place of the bullet style race mufflers that i've been running for the last few years. My goal was to reduce and or eliminate any cruising drone. Welp, with the new mufflers the car sounds exactly the same and maybe even louder at WOT. Didn't see that coming. the verdict is still out on the drone as I need a highway run for that and I was chasing rain on the way home from the shop. I "think" the drone has been reduced but i'll report back after a highway run. They tuck in nicely.
Small update; Since the short drive home from the muffler shop I decided that the drone level of the exhaust was better but not as reduced as I wanted. I added a 15" Borla resonator on one side of the dual exhaust in place where the OEM muffler would reside. Fits perfect. That seemed to help a lot and the drone was drastically reduced from every RPM to just a narrow range. I'll keep tinkering and try to find a space on the other side of the exhaust to put a complimentary resonator.
The car survived another hot rod power tour and internal temps of the car were not as severe. A full interior does wonders, although I need to insulated the firewall a bit better. The vintage air unit, although fully functional, doesn't have the kahunas to keep up. Even on the highest fan setting its just barely noticeable. I figured I wouldn't be able to run with the windows up but it should prevent fogging if I had to when raining. Moderns cars simply have 3X the volume output per vent than this system. Kinda disappointing to be honest.
I somehow lost a control arm bolt and lost the bushings to my UMI offset LCA's. Luckily I was only going around 20mph when the arm fell from the perch, it was also the rear mount so it dragged rather than catapult my rear end. I was able to find some of the parts in the the roadway and then cobble some washers from a hardware store to get back on the road. Time to call UMI. Additionally, on one long leg of the tour I achieved almost 23 mpg but still had a few stalling conditions when transitioning from slight engine load to idle (clutch in).
As far as operating temperatures things were much better. The removal of the underhood insulation combined with the hood louvres and normal sized coolant hoses (removed the -20an lines) dropped my coolant temps by a solid 10 degrees. Idling in traffic with temps in the upper 80's I never broke 210 deg. Running down the highway I'd constantly see temps in the 190's. Very happy with that. Oil temps still hovered around 240, and although not that bad, I'd like to get them down to 220 or so. I maybe have to revisit my improved racing oil thermostat and explore putting a dedicated fan on the cooler.
One area that I am still struggling with is steering. My stock steering column is very low mileage and I have the bevy of upgrades to go along. All new everything with the DSE shaft, and Sweet Manufacturing gearbox. Steering is still sloppy and wandering. I do not like it. It is super disappointing and I need to dig into it this summer. I don't remember the car being this sloppy when I last drove it with stock parts 20 years ago. I suspect worn joints in the Borgeson (DSE) shaft. There was a period when I manually steered the car to get it around my garage before my first fire and it was incredible difficult. I may have over stressed the joints and introduced slop. I also get a "gritty" feel in the wheel which I didn't have before. It could be just something I've never noticed before or something going on with the pump (new) or gearbox.
I know for sure that I need a larger capacity battery. When hot, the car does not want to turn over unless I turn off all power draws (fans, HVAC, etc). The 720 CCA's don't seem to be enough. When ambient its okish, but when hot, the car struggles to turn over. Hot starter could also be to blame but turning off all power draws during start typically gives it enough juice to fire.
All part of the journey. I'm at 5200 miles on this build. Ford 9" next, 10 bolt got an extension on death row. Paint will come when my small humans learn to not use the car as their bicycle backstop.
Last edited by ShiftyCapone; 06-17-2024 at 11:01 AM.
Nice update. Thanks for sharing.
Always glad to hear feedback on how things do/don't work.
I'm not drawing any conclusions here.... but I've noticed by my own observations that many of the aftermarket performance parts companies are kind of clueless when it comes to knowledge of bolted joints. Curious what hardware UMI was using with that control arm?
Many years ago I had a South Side Machine control arm come off my '68 El Camino while driving down the freeway. That's one of those moments when you realize you have little control over whether you live or die.
Nice update. Thanks for sharing.
Always glad to hear feedback on how things do/don't work.
I'm not drawing any conclusions here.... but I've noticed by my own observations that many of the aftermarket performance parts companies are kind of clueless when it comes to knowledge of bolted joints. Curious what hardware UMI was using with that control arm?
Many years ago I had a South Side Machine control arm come off my '68 El Camino while driving down the freeway. That's one of those moments when you realize you have little control over whether you live or die.
It was the stock OEM bolt (10.9) and their bushing kit. I guess it must have slowly backed off over the years. I did go around and check all the others. Some of the roads on the tour were just brutally hard on these cars.
07-25-2023, 12:57 PM
that's why we have build threads! LOL!
