IHI

iTrader: (1)

I left this am and got on the road late at 6:15am, arrived at shop in MN (3hrs north of me) to dyno at 9am.....it is now 2:44am and I am just getting home...kinda tell you how the day went

Shop that did my last engine did this one, once it was bolted on the dyno it fired right up, and we noticed right away oil psi was rather low at idle 12psi. Started to ramp up the rpms to see if it went up, which it did, but not at the rate to keep up with rpm and the oil psi stopped gaining and started falling once it reached 40psi. Drained oil which looked great, pulled pan, pulled oil pump, noticed by-pass was sticking wide open....took it apart, honed it, freed it up and installed new spring (thinking when whomever welded the pick-up on got it too hot and warped the passage) put it back together. Also noticed a ton of crap in bottom of pan...basically the same crap that was in there when I dropped all the parts off to the shop which he was supposed to jet wash and clean out. Also took oil pump apart...same fricken used oil pump that was in the motor initally that see debris go through it..rotors were hashed, casing was hashed. Drove 45min round trip to get new pump, swapped bottoms (special pick-up that is made for this oil pan). Installed, fired up, same thing little to no oil psi.

Next we pulled the oil psi port to blow air into the motor to see if we could hear air bleeding out, like a plug was missed. We heard air, but could'nt track down exact location. Pulled dizzy, inserted drill adapter and started to spin it, oil was coming out of all the mains like a fricken waterfall...literally. pulled the rear main cap, the guy installed standard bearings on a 10 under crank By now it was 5pm after all the jacking around, found 1 shop 1 hour away that had 400 crank bearings 10 under, so we goes and get them. Come back, pull and swap all the mains out, and put back together, bolt back onto dyno.

Long story short, this dyno is very conservative...the guy I race with said it will basically tell you exactly what is going to the ground....not flywheel...so it's a very stingey dyno, which is fine. Told me to take the numbers and multiply by 11% or .11 to get a darn near exact flywheel rating based off all the engines they do..so doing that I only managed 608hp @ 6400 and 568tq 5100

Was really hoping for 625, but I think my bumpstick is just waaaay to conservative, and even I questioned the specs initally, but trusted them based off last stick they ground for me. Best numbers were with the E85, but 110 gas was not far off, I will post better numbers later when I get time...fricken tired right now, and want to drop it in the car tomorrow. But dyno guy was pretty disappointed tq numbers did'nt jump up like he thought theys would/should and blamed the stick and offered to orderd a new grind for me to try, but it's a bracket car so I dont care to go through the trouble as I should be able to run mid 10's....just not low 10's like I wanted.

I did'nt bother to try the QF stuff I bought, basically got talked out of it, and after seeing the nubers as we tuned I saw no need to go there...plus it was too late since shop is in town and it was noisey with muffler outlets on side of building....if we would'nt of had such a disaster we would've tried the metering blocks, but we did'nt so we went with how he tunes them, and dynoing seems to be a very precise way to hit the mark as opposed to time slips...motor idles great, no flat spots, but we'll see once it's in the car. I can tell you this, once we switched to E85, the engine sounded COMPLETELY different....very very crisp/snappey/repsonsive...literally day and night you'd have to hear, but I was smilin ear to ear...man it sounds nasty on that stuff over race gas!!!! just wish it'd back it up # wise E85 tases like crap too....I filled a jug from one of two drums I bought that were in the back of my truck at that point in the night....initally tasted like vodka until the gasoline hit and man...nasty!!!! guess some indian said you can drink it if you filter it through bread??? LMFAO!!! I dont wanna know or find out...mouthful was enough for me.

Definatelly a stroker....we're over 500ft lbs from 4200-5000 and it does'nt drop but below 470 until it's in the 6000rpm range...nice towing engine. just sucks hp was down so much, shoulda opted for a different cam grind, but I have 3700 lbs to move out, so the extra grunt will help.

Sorry for the long post, long frustrating morning, afternoon, evening, night

xpndbl3

iTrader: (5)

sounds like a fun night josh, hope it runs alright for the first few months, that's when I'm super nervous about fresh components.

IHI

iTrader: (1)

After last night, and the first few solid pulls...I have no fear about the longevity....call it frustration, but everything looked completely perfect inside aside from the fact of the low oil psi at first. Mains/Rods looked new yet (well mains shoulda, nothing was touching them, but there was nothing to indicate issues during/after we were done so I'm confident it'll run like pretty good for a long time, esspecially since it'll get short shifted like my last one. Just disappointed with total output. Had my heart set on at least 625hp, but it was'nt to be...so I'm falling back to my "I hope it runs at least 10.5?" so that's my last ditch satisfaction LOL!! Rest of my combo should compliment it well and make it work good. I could easily swap cams and be at or above my inital power wants, but this should make for a fun driver....cant wait to fire it back up again, that E85 gave me instant wood with how it changed the sound of this thing...sounds killer

What a fricken day/night....I will never understand how a person could charge that kind of money to build something and pull sh*t like what he pulled.

DIGGLER

iTrader: (1)

my advise- buy your own bore dial indicator, mic's, feeler gauges, and all the other tools to put a motor together. do it yourself.
its become apparant to me that 90% of the shops out there simply dont care enough about peoples engines to get them right.

that guy didnt even check the tolerances on your bearings.... on a 600hp motor you need to do that. with ANY motor you need to do that. reused a trashed oil pump-didnt even pull the cover off to look inside. they just dont care man. its happened to SEVERAL of my friends, even high dollar race motors.

the only thing i do nowadays is get machine work done by a guy i know fairly well and trust, and assemble everything myself. checking all tolerances. engine builders at our level basically slap **** together, see if it turns, and call it a day, and then charge you $800 or whatever for assembly. once you have a promod or nascar engine things might be different.

GofasterFirebird

iTrader: (3)

Could you put the engine specs in the post? 608 is pretty good. Impressive results.

Does your car still weigh 3557? Even with the skinnies, hood, etc? I should have mine weighed as well.

IHI

iTrader: (1)

Had to come in and to "take care of business" LOL!! Just got done swapping convertors in the S10, put the one I ran for the past two yrs back in the truck, and we're gonna put the one that was in the truck in my car...soft hit convertor to help my small tires work a little better...I hope.

Diggler: this guy did an outstanding job on my last motor, so naturally I trusted him...my bad. This is the first time I had a motor assembled, all my other motors I'd just buy whatever they had on the showroom floor and go and never ever had problems.....this is why I did things that way. We'll see what happens on the next one, but I will dig out my invoice later to see what I was charged for and take matters from there...gonna start dropping it in the car here when I'm done with this post.

GofasterFirebird: combination obviously sucks. I "should've" had the heads flowed to see if they did what they claimed, but I went with some inside info from a trusted person at Brodix that said these Brodix KC T1 100% CNC 227 heads flowed almost exactly as aadvertised since Brodix outsources the cnc aspect on these heads....the cam looking back should've been alot more aggressive...I have alot left on the table a simple bumstick swap could fix, but it'll do for now.

Specs:
Dart lil M block 427cid
13.5:1 slugs....but after the measurements came out to 12.48:1
callias crank
manley 6" H beam rods
JE forged pistons
Bullet solid roller 261/266 @.050 .626/.626 on a 108LSA
Brodix T1 KC 227 100% CNC heads w/ Jessel 1.5/1.5 rocekrs
Super Victor that I touched up and blended/gasket matched w/2" open spacer
Holley 950HP

It works, but I'm still disappointed....if it does'nt run at least 10.5? it's coming out and cam is getting changed. Would like to eventually juice to low 9's
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Had to come in and to "take care of business" LOL!! Just got done swapping convertors in the S10, put the one I ran for the past two yrs back in the truck, and we're gonna put the one that was in the truck in my car...soft hit convertor to help my small tires work a little better...I hope.

Diggler: this guy did an outstanding job on my last motor, so naturally I trusted him...my bad. This is the first time I had a motor assembled, all my other motors I'd just buy whatever they had on the showroom floor and go and never ever had problems.....this is why I did things that way. We'll see what happens on the next one, but I will dig out my invoice later to see what I was charged for and take matters from there...gonna start dropping it in the car here when I'm done with this post.

GofasterFirebird: combination obviously sucks. I "should've" had the heads flowed to see if they did what they claimed, but I went with some inside info from a trusted person at Brodix that said these Brodix KC T1 100% CNC 227 heads flowed almost exactly as aadvertised since Brodix outsources the cnc aspect on these heads....the cam looking back should've been alot more aggressive...I have alot left on the table a simple bumstick swap could fix, but it'll do for now.

Specs:
Dart lil M block 427cid
13.5:1 slugs....but after the measurements came out to 12.48:1
callias crank
manley 6" H beam rods
JE forged pistons
Bullet solid roller 261/266 @.050 .626/.626 on a 108LSA
Brodix T1 KC 227 100% CNC heads w/ Jessel 1.5/1.5 rocekrs
Super Victor that I touched up and blended/gasket matched w/2" open spacer
Holley 950HP

It works, but I'm still disappointed....if it does'nt run at least 10.5? it's coming out and cam is getting changed. Would like to eventually juice to low 9's

Car will weigh 3675 when it's all said and done this time round (race ready w/me)

Sonix

iTrader: (1)

haha, kinda ironic, you and xpndbl3 talk about using good shops to put together your engines because you don't trust yourself to put it together yourself. Wrong bearing size? That seems like a goofy mistake to make, that's something you should be able to feel. That's a crappy dyno day when most of it is spent dinking around fixing things, makes for an expensive day eh?

608HP NA is still pretty damn good. That cam seems massive, but I guess when you've got a high CR, high RPM, big cube engine, it's probably not too bad. You'll have to let us know if you can (will?) drive it on the street at all.

That is fantastic - you've tasted E85. hahahha, that's awesome. I wish we had that stuff up here, you guys are really lucking in down there. (engine wise, not beverage wise )

87_TA

Sorry about your luck!! glad you got it sorted out though - still sounds pretty stout, needs a little breaking in to I am sure, though its probably built loose anyway....
I agree with the above statement, not sure if anyone recalls my 496 saga - builder who was almost family being I trusted him with everything, talked me into letting him assemble being a High HP build, He said "let me do it, if anything goes wrong its on me" Find metal powder in oil and psi was down slightly, show him - he says its normal - run it.. next pass it tried to seize..
Spun # 7, was obvious he never checked clearance on all bearings!! he tried to say detonation caused though there was nothing on plugs, piston or head gaskets.. after months of fighting! buying new, pistons,rings,6 rods, and crank - I took the engine from his shop to another machinest who found
3 of the wrist pins he assembled in piston would have seized.. Anyway - new guy machined, I assembled - been great since.. and feel better about it.. The guy was a good machinest - got pro endorsments from harley for having fastest street harley - was never at shop anymore, let floor boys do all work.. blah,blah,blah..
He ended up paying for parts..

DIGGLER

iTrader: (1)

absolutely. the past 2-3 years has been a rude awakening for me. a couple of BIG name engine builders, a car builder, and a VERY well known tuner for the LT1/LS1 cars has totaly let me down. the car builder and the tuner guy is in held in high regard by a couple hundred guys each. whatever those guys say is considered gold, and i was the same way towards them until a couple of personal bad experiences opened my eyes. it really makes you realize that everyone is indeed human, they are by no means perfect, and dont know everything.

bottom line: do your own stuff. if you dont know how, learn. lol

EvilCartman

iTrader: (1)

Man sucks about the bad luck :/ The guy who built my engine will never get my biz again after the crap he pulled on a friend's engine. He built one engine for another friend probably 3 years before I had mine done and it's been great. Mine has been great too for all the pounding I do on it. This last engine though for the friend, he screwed up big time. Basicly taking short cuts to kick the engine out of the shop.

IHI

iTrader: (1)

Well, got to make some time in the car again doing some street driving this afternoon after I bolted the exhasut back up....sure sucks cuz man that sounded good open headered LOL!!

Fuel system I have to install a bigger return line, I had it all done and then when I recieved the A1000 pump and A1000 reg, the reg said to run a -10 inlet line (I was covered there) and a -8 return....I only had a -6. I called and talked to Aeromotive and he said I "maay" squeeze by, but said what would happen is the regulator will platuea and not allow it to cut psi enough since it's taking in more than it can give back at idle/low rpm....at idle I can get it below 18psi...I'm thinking guage may be goofy too since it's not bleeding out the vents/squirters like it's done with past pumps I could'nt get turned down due to bad regulator. I may try to run my old reg in series for now and see how that works out since psi is still getting returned to the tank via first reg, so the only thing dead heading is maybe 12" of line total...we'll see.

Have to fine tune tranny shifter cable, it does'nt feel as solid as it used to when clicking into gear, reverse I have to rev it a bit to catch and go into reverse, and when I apply the trans brake and give it gas, it bumps forward an inch or so before setting....so hoping cable is just a touch out of adjustiment and will fix it all.

Too hard to tell about new motor...sounds good, streetablity is a bit nastier than what I'm used to...it stays cool, but just cackles too much for my taste at typical low rpm driving...blame that on the larger cam than I used to have. Hard to tell about pwr too, just a tire fry'er...more so than my last engine, but I installed a 8" race convertor this time so there is no way to compare apples to apples...ya stand on it, it goes immediately to the shift light, bang the next gear and split second later (literally) it's on the shift light, same pulling 3rd gear....just a constant shift light in my face blazing my slicks. I got it to dead pretty good on the hwy off the tbrake and it snaps the frnt end up quicker and holds it at full extention until I let off, so I guess it is a bit better than the last one, still going to wait to see what the track tells me next weekend. Think I'll just go out on Sat., enter trophey class so I can T&T on a race prepped track vs paying the same money for a fri T&T and a crap track...still thinking I'm gonna run out of rpm if it runs like it should so I'll be leaving ET on the table.

E85 is hard to start (much like pure methonal) and it takes awhile for it to warm up before it'll idle all by itself....I have 110 gallons to burn through so we'll see what I can figure out, but at least I can easily convert to race gas and not leave much performance on the table.

I have my sheet in front of me:
565 ft/tq @ 4900
608 hp @ 6200

it's above 500ftlbs from 4400rpm-6300rpm so it has a nice big fat tq curve which should help my even heavier car get done the track. I'm sure it's start even sooner than 4400, but that is where we started taking recordable data from but at 4400 it was already at 552ftlbs

Was hoping driving the car would make all the wrench time seem worthwhile, but I'm tired, beyond stressed since this thing fought the whole way...taking tomorrow off from it and spend time with the family and take a mental breather and hopefully get some perspective back LOL!!

5678TA

nice one.. 608hp is good enough but i guess that cam is kinda small considering your 388's cam was just a tad bit smaller.. surprising you're not in the .660" range..

xpndbl3

iTrader: (5)

Josh my camaro has been stressing me out lately as well so today it came off the trailer and went right into the garage, didn't even want to wrench on it even though today was beautiful out and sunny. Got a nice video of me frying the tires on the thirdgenfest board down at the bottom of the forum page if you want to see what my little SBC did at the car show.