Red89GTA

I'd go back to the guy who balanced it and have him re-do it. If he will only epoxy it, then you can find someone that will. it will at least be in the correct location.

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

So lately I've been working on the drivetrain trying to get sorted the cluster **** that Rhode Island driveshaft created.

Now that I'm finally through that.. or at least it seems that way, I got to the misfire today. Turns out it was a little more than just a misfire. Cylinder 2 was barely firing, and 4 was misfiring. Cylinder 4 is due to a bad connection... which still isnt perfect but I put some tension on the connecter by the coil pack and cylinder 4 comes back online 100%. Drove the car and the backfiring studdering was reduced but not gone. So I get back to the garage after driving around in the pouring rain with the windows down because the whole car foggs up to the point you cant see under any window and sticking your head out the window or continuously wiping the windshield is the only way to see.

So now to get to cylinder 2. Which is barely firing. I change the plug first even though the plugs look good. didnt help. So I took the coilpack and moved it to see if the problem would follow and it didnt. So I pull the spark plug wire and replace it with an old one I had. Get a good look at the nice expensive MSD wire I just pulled and the boot was torn and the thing was messed up.. Start the car back up and bring it for another drive.. Looks like I'm finally back to a v8 instead of a v6/v7. Car is pulling way too hard for wet roads, no back firing, no backloading/stuttering. In fact now rolling around town in 6th gear is no problem with no stuttering. Car runs a lot better. Hopefully it doesnt give me any further issues.


The rest of the day was just putting the car back together. Getter the masses of wires throughout the car wrapped up, remounting the pcm and putting the interior/ gauges and stuff back in.

As the car sits it should be ready to run at the track. I just need to add another 1/8th" peice of flat stock to my homemade ghetto hockey puck differential mounts above the hockey pucks. Looking at my current setup if the hocky puck fails its possible, but highly unlikely the differential could bend the flat stock out of the way and come disconnected from the car.. Not really possible but when doing homemade engineering its always good to go with overkill as a game plan.
Heres what I'm talking about





I thought it was ghetto of course but it works fantastic. I havent had any wheel hop since. But seeing as I've been getting flamed like no other by everyone I promised I'de re-do it with some homemade polyurethane mounts instead of the hockey pucks

Things left to do before hitting the track.
-Get a helmet
-Get the panel that used to cover the stock fuel pump or make a panel from sheet metal
-Tighten hood pins
-Finish putting everything in the car back together
-Adjust rear camber to zero or as close as possible
-Mount the drag radials
-Make or find top radiator mounts
-Bleed the brakes again
-Adjust the fuel level sending unit for full/empty

And finally drive the car as much as possible to make sure any issues show themselves before the track including some top speed runs. I hope to run this week, but I said that last week too.. and it ended up getting rained out, as it probably will this week too but the car should be NHRA legal now.

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

Lol btw I forgot to tell you about what happened after the epoxied weight fell off the driveshaft. I brought it back to cape cod axle and the guy balanced the driveshaft again and then sent me down the street to get the weights welded on. Lol get it tacked on. So I get back to my house pull the driveshaft out of the trunk and look at the weight welded on there and notice the welds look cracked now.. just 10 mins ago at the shop they were fine.. Wtf.

So I touch the welds and the weight moves a little bit, I grab the weight between my fingers and I try to move it a bit and the welds shattered and the weight fell right off. LOL

So I bring it ight back and the next time they dont mess around. They didnt want to add too much weight in welding material to the driveshaft becaue it will throw off the balance but this time around the drill a hole in the weight and plug weld it, which is a lot stronger but the balance may not be perfect. That being said I didnt notice any vibration on the highway any more.

Just thought it was funny. just my luck the welds would shatter. At least it did it before I got the driveshaft on the car.

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

Unfortunatly the misfire came back today. I'm almost positive its right at the connector that feeds the coil packs on that cylinder bank. Cylinder 2 is pretty consistently misfiring and cylinder 4 misfires intermittently. It could be a bad ground too but I would think all the coils on that side of the engine use the same ground and if it went then none of the coils would fire but I'm not sure. I could prob hack that connector out and get some aftermarket connectors and splice them in but I really dont wanna hack up the harness any more than it already is.

When the car was running on all 8 it was runnin pretty good otherwise it was sputtering and backfiring under any load. I got the drag radials on hoping for some more traction, but I still cant mat it to the floor in first even rolling without spinning the drag radials. That surprised me a little. It spun first, seemed to clean up the tires a bit and I hit second and it stuck. I felt like I was starting to push the car a bit.. and then reviewed my max values for the day. I never hit 100% throttle position so I never actually hit WOT and although I thought I shifted close to redline, max rpm for the day was only 5700.. still leaving a lot on the table power wise.

Did get a few things done today, although I admit I spent too much time just enjoying the nice weather and driving the car around the cape. I did get the hoodpins tightened up, I did clean up the wiring just basically wrapping things up and getting the harness protectors on and wrapping/tucking wires throughout the car so thinks look at least a bit organized. I got some more flat stock and made a second det of diff mounts to make absolutly sure my hocky puck mounts are going anywhere. The diff is now held in place with a 1/4" of steel on either side and a huge fender washer. Its deff not going anywhere

Was a great day down the cape though, skys were clear all day and I ended up driving the car around for about an hour and a half. Knock on wood everything except for he misfire seems to be working well. I need seat time with this car. Its not stupid fast, its just stupid powerful for the amount of control I feel I have or dont have. This thing is getting sideways whether you want it to or not and I'm not going WOT yet, I'm not powershifting I'm not launching the car. I'm basically driving semi agressivly and still find myself saying wow this is gonna be an adjustment to get comfortable in this thing.

It wierd I'm kinda scared to push the car too hard yet before getting more seat time but I already wanna make it faster. ;D

custom95

iTrader: (1)

awesome thread, i hope you get all the gremlins worked out.

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

Ha HAA fixed my misfire. It was a connector on the harness the whole time creating a loose connection and thus my car running on anything from 6 to 8 cylinders. 2 wires feeding 2 of the coil packs were loose so I just cut those wires on both sides of the connector and used a connector I had laying around, that used to feed the coils for the rotary.

Car runs 8 cylinders all the time. car runs smooth and strong. Again I kinda spent the whole day driving it around again but today I really enjoyed it for the first time ever. Car has enough torque I can cruise around town at 35/40 in 6th gear or I can start it in 3rd easily. When using the right gear the cars deff not sluggish either. I did some 50-100 sprints starting in 3rd, shoulda started in 2nd if I really wanted to get the best jump, but even starting in 3rd this thing was moving out. I went through all of 3rd, then on a couple runs got up to the top of 4th. Looking down at the speedo quickly was somewhere around 110. I did it again and this time got it into 5th and a got a quick glance at the speedo in 4th and it was around 95, than I shift it into 5th which seemed like a second later, and it read 119mph. LoL I let out a YEE HAW after that one but got on the brakes quick.. That was way more than fast enough for shake down runs especially when I need to bleed the brakes again.

Looks like at the track if I'm doing things right based on what other ls1/rx7s have run I'll deff have to shift into 5th at the end of the track, which worries me, today at the top of 4th I tried shifing into 5th and put her back in 3rd.. woops, got the clutch back in quick enough though that it wasnt too much of an issue but it coulda been real bad and I grinded reverse again today trying to go into 5th.. So 5th is a hard gear for me, and I'll run quicker 1/4 mile times if I can get some larger tires out back and cross the line at the top of 4th.

Like I said other than getting the misfire taken care of I didnt get too much other stuff done. The only other thing I got done was I got some sheet metal from home depot and made a panel to cover the hole in the back of the car by the fuel cell.

Gotta say this is the first time I really enjoyed the car. believe it or not its been somewhat painfull up untill now. I just cant wait to get some warmer days, some more seat time and then some time at the drag strip, autox, circle track, hill climb hell I just wanna race it in any type of racing I can do so I can get better behind the wheel.

Overall really good day

Flyby and burnout vids coming soon

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

First WOT vids

I am downloading them from a friend right now, at the same time uploading them to streetfire now and I'll post them as they complete upload

First WOT vids

I am downloading them from a friend right now, at the same time uploading them to streetfire now and I'll post them as they complete upload

This vid was the first one we shot. It was early in the day and only about 45 degrees outide. Just before my buddy got the camera on I had rolled quickly into 1st during a slow roll and just blew the tires off. Up untill this point I was always spinning 1st and 2nd. This was the absolute first time ever I got 2nd gear to stick and we got it on camera on a back road heading out to the highway. Going up hill, going through 2nd, 3rd, and some of 4th.

http://videos.streetfire.net/video/L...h-a_645951.htm


First Flyby. Didnt launch the car at all just quickly rolled into 1st gear off the line and thankfully the tires stayed put.

http://videos.streetfire.net/video/F...the_645907.htm

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

This is the new top speed run. I didnt know Jose was recording I just knew he wanted to go fast again when I heard him say the guy moved over for me.

The scan gauge gets its speed reading from the PCM. The PCM is set up for a slightly smaller tire so even though we hit an indicated 129, it was actually closer to 135.

In the begining look at the speedo, before I hit it we're doing 34 and then I hit it and within about a second the speedo was reading like 55. Passing power is pretty good

http://videos.streetfire.net/video/L...3rd_645961.htm

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

Today I took the car out for its first extended trip. I drove it an hour today from where I have it garaged on the cape to my place just south of boston. Then I drove it 45 minutes to a car meet along some great country back roads. Sun was setting on the way to the meet, weather was the warmest of the year about 60-70 degrees all day and it was clear and sunny all day. Car performed great, temps stayed within between 182 and 192 no matter what I did.

Car really came into its own today. I really found driving the car kind of a pain in the *** up untill this point. Driving twisty country roads with the sun setting just cruising in 6th was fantastic, and then coming home from the meet the crickets were chirping the stars were out. We were perfectly warm with the widows down.. It was really great. This thing is a great cruising car. The suspension is softer than my daily driver.

Only complaint of the day was that the driveshaft is still not perfect. I need to get under the car and grind some weight off untill its perfectly smooth.

Weather beng nice for once was great. Just makes me feel better, because I made this as a weekend, sunny day car and the first time it was actually nice out the car was just fantastic. Most of the issues driving it before this were partially due to how shitty the weathers been in new england.

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

Cars been running great I've done some 2 and 3 hour trips with it and its been dead nuts reliable up untill yesterday. Seems like issues come in groups. Yesterday I drove it to a family party and as I was on the brakes at slower speeds I hear grinding coming from the rear. Ehh whatever.. just another thing to look at.
Going out there the car felt strong I actually got some decent wheel hop for the first time semi launching it from a stop.

As I'm driving back from the party the car stumbled a few times getting on the highway and back fired once or twice. I didnt think much of it, but driving it around today I am getting it more consistently again. A couple times it sputtered pretty hard and actually slowed the car down, I put the gas down a bit and there was a lag before the engine responded.

Dont know if I'm down a cylinder. I looked under the car and nothing looks obviously melted. I am not lookin forward to pulling things appart again but it looks like I might have to.

Would be nice if the PCM was a little quicker at picking up issues.. It hasent even pulled a code yet.

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

So I hit the track today finally and even though the car was less than perfect I still think I did pretty well.

This was the first time I've run this car at any track, its the first time I've run any manually shifted car at the track, and the only other time I hit the track it was in a 15 second auto and I was doing 1/8th mile. Only been driving stick since I got the car running (a few months ago). I knew how to drive stick before but never owned one. I've prob got 50 hours total driving time on this car.


I just got my helmet yesterday and I've been having cluth issues. I didnt think I'de pass tech. I got there about noon and I guess that morning they had a car flip at the end of the track so they were super ****. They pulled my lugs to see how many turns of engagement they had. They looked over my firewall and the guy had me plug any holes with random **** I had in my car. I stuffed a spare spark plug wire into one hole.

They only run test and tune for a short time I was kinda pissed its more expensive to run test and tune on Sat but most of the day they are running bracket racing ect so they street guys get screwed. I only got 2 runs in and then it started raining. It was very humid all day.

First Run
Didnt touch the tires, didnt change anything from how I drove up there. The rear tires were about 25psi
Drove around the waterbox and didnt do a burnout barely launched it, left at like 2k rpm and wheelhopped like a like a basted. I never get wheel hop on the street.

Went
R/T - .414
60' - 2.182
330 - 5.576
1/8 - 8.269
MPH - 91.71
1000 - 10.552
1/4 - 12.492
MPH - 111.49

12.5 for my first run EVER in a real car is pretty awsome. Clutch on this run suprisingly was pretty decent but still slipping.

Seond run
This time same thing no burn out but I just walked it off the line and she wheelhopped but not as bad. Hit the limiter at the top of 2nd then the clutch wasnt fully disengaging so I missed 3rd. Muscled it into 3rd and crossed the line right at the limiter in 4th.



R/T - .300
60' - 2.045
330 - 5.470
1/8 - 8.620
MPH - 83.03
1000 - 11.110
1/4 - 13.130
MPH - 112.43

I couldent believe the trap was better in the second run. I really must have been short shifting a bit the first run.

All in all the car stayed together and other than the clutch sticking performed flawlessly. For not having touched anything and just rolling onto the track I think there a good bit left in her especially with a fresh clutch.

I met up with a local F-body group who said they got the first run on video so if they upload it I'll deff share.

Shawn MacAnanny

iTrader: (12)

Why do you think your clutch is slipping?

Not bad times at all man

x Wild Bill x

Hey Sciff5, just wondering what the local Fbody group was, I am close to the cape and know of no other real Fbody guys. Glad to see you got the car running, do you go to the cruise ins at the Cape Cod Voch. Tech?

Bill

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

I actually saw my tuner at the track. He was running his 11.5 bracket car and I talked to him about the clutch sticking when I'm power shifting. How it sticks closer and closer to the floor the more I hammer it. I didnt even get my sentence all the way out and he described exactly what I was dealing with and said my stock clutch is on its way out. I thought it was the fluid boiling, or a bad slave/MC or something but don seemed pretty sure and fortunatly and unfortunatly hes usually right.

Fortunatly, because it shows he really does know his ****
Unfortunatly, because hes usually the bearer of bad news

LS2-Zx2

I love the LSx FC's. i like the FD's to but theres a certain charm of the FC's

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

www.nefbody.com

They are a good group and they are mostly in mass/ri

I hope to be doing some of the cruise ins at cope cod voch. When do they start and what day is it again?

I went a few times last year but the car was still appart

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

Today I bled the clutch again to be sure its not just air in the system. Then went out and did some simulated quarter miles passes just to find out it made no difference. Clutch pedal is still sticking when hot

So I got the car up in the air and started the long process of pulling the tranny. Got the exhaust off the driveshaft out and the tranny mount out also started in on the tranny bolts. They are gonna be pretty easy to get to other than the top bolts are gonna be a pita

x Wild Bill x

Just checked the website, cruise ins start June 2nd and they are every Tuesday night. I'll go check out the other site, thanks.

Good luck with the clutch.

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

Got a vid of the pass

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arLMF...e=channel_page

My car looks like a stock honda compared to whatever the **** was in the other lane. It ran mid 9s at 140

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

Pulled the tranny finally after disassembling for a couple days. Measured to make sure I didnt need a spacer behind the slave cylinder and I didnt as the clutch manufacturer said I wouldent. I put everything back together and bled everything and the clutch wont fully disengage. I started the car in reverse with my foot on the clutch and it took off on me and went flying out of the garage. Luckily I had the wheel straight so I didnt take out the side of the garage. Got on the brakes and the engine stalled thankfully.

Pretty nerve racking. Anyway people have been suggesting everything from different clutch bleeding methods, to my clutch being stuck to the pressure plate due to loctite getting on the face, to a run of clutch disks that were a big too big, to a hydraulics issue where my MC isnt moving enough fluid. I'm going to check all of these and hopefully something works. This will be the third time I've dropped the tranny


In better news I got my helmet. I ended up getting an HJC AR-10
Prob the best budget SNELL SA2005 helmet you can get for 300$ or less




I also have 27/10.5/15 slicks in the mail that I am planning on mounting on 15x8 Jeep canyon wheels (which I can get locally for 80-100 for both) they are aluminum 5x4.5 bolt pattern and 5.5" backspacing. Perfect for the Rx7s. I need to roll the rear fenders a bit but I hope thats all I need to do to make them fit. They are a pretty tall tire for a small car.

For the front runners I am going to be running 2 spare rims. Rx7 spares are alloy as well and very light/strong (made by enkei) with some bias ply kenda motorcycle tires which have a weight limit of about 850-900Lbs each and a speed rating of 130mph. Should be good for my use with just the stock motor and spray. Once I get a cam though I'm sure I'de be pushing that 130mph barrier.

Looking to land in the 11s within the next few times out, eventually pulling a half a second off my 60', which would land me mid 11s with a pretty much stock ls1 on a pretty much stock tune. Once I get the ***** to launch at 5k and get a handle on the slicks I'll throw on the nitrous and go for 10s by the end of the season if it stays together (knock on wood). Taking half a second off the 60' should be obtainable, people have gone 1.5s on these tires in manually shifted cars and much faster with autos.