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My APS Car is alive again! Problems inside though.....

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Old Apr 22, 2009 | 10:30 AM
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Default My APS Car is alive again! Problems inside though.....

Ok, so after a few months since grenading my stock motor, I've been patiently waiting out the completion of my new motor. The quick and dirty is that it's a 377 LS3 from TSP, Patriot Stage 2.5 317's, Lingenfelter GT2-3 cam, ect.

Had some oiling issues, both the APS scavenge pump took a dump and I ended up with a massive oil leak. Turbowerx EXA pump fixed the scavenge issue, and the leak was the fitting at the oil distribution block for the turbo setup. So got those squared away and found a new issue that has me stumped.

Engine vibration. Bad. Like rocking the car at 1800 RPM on the jackstands bad. Balancer is a powerbond, was on the old motor. Clutch is a zero balanced OZ700, came from my old motor too since it only had about 4000 miles. Called TSP, verified motor was indeed balanced.

Car IS running rough, due to oil in exhaust burning off and the tune being pretty far out there. Could this combination be the cause of the vibration? I do have a squeaky pulley up front, but haven't had a chance to check belt alignment yet. Doubtful the crank pulley is backing off though as it's only got about 30 minutes or so of run time that I know of so far. Plugs have about 10 minutes on them tops, going to pull and check them tonight, expecting some fouling due to richness in tune. Burning some oil and smoking as it's still seating too.

Any ideas? I feel like I'm going to be chasing my tail on this one.
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Old Apr 23, 2009 | 08:04 AM
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Nobody with any ideas or experiences?
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Old Apr 25, 2009 | 06:44 AM
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Have you taken all the turbo piping and intercoolers loose and cleaned them all out? If I remember correctly when the scavenge pump goes out it will start to dump oil all in the turbo piping. I would also recommend running a stock crank pulley on your setup for numerous reasons I will not begin to discuss.

Last edited by GMCHammer; Apr 25, 2009 at 06:56 AM.
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Old Apr 26, 2009 | 07:55 AM
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Originally Posted by Fastbird93
Ok, so after a few months since grenading my stock motor, I've been patiently waiting out the completion of my new motor. The quick and dirty is that it's a 377 LS3 from TSP, Patriot Stage 2.5 317's, Lingenfelter GT2-3 cam, ect.

Had some oiling issues, both the APS scavenge pump took a dump and I ended up with a massive oil leak. Turbowerx EXA pump fixed the scavenge issue, and the leak was the fitting at the oil distribution block for the turbo setup. So got those squared away and found a new issue that has me stumped.

Engine vibration. Bad. Like rocking the car at 1800 RPM on the jackstands bad. Balancer is a powerbond, was on the old motor. Clutch is a zero balanced OZ700, came from my old motor too since it only had about 4000 miles. Called TSP, verified motor was indeed balanced.

Car IS running rough, due to oil in exhaust burning off and the tune being pretty far out there. Could this combination be the cause of the vibration? I do have a squeaky pulley up front, but haven't had a chance to check belt alignment yet. Doubtful the crank pulley is backing off though as it's only got about 30 minutes or so of run time that I know of so far. Plugs have about 10 minutes on them tops, going to pull and check them tonight, expecting some fouling due to richness in tune. Burning some oil and smoking as it's still seating too.

Any ideas? I feel like I'm going to be chasing my tail on this one.

...possibly toomuch fuel, washing the cylinders? Any smoke out of the exhaust? Do you have any way to scan the car? Something with a misfire graphic? How does the car idle in general? Like it has a miss, or is it only 1800 rpms plus? If so, while the car is running, pull one injector at a time, see if the mis is an better, changes, better worse, whatever. Start at stuff you would overlook or over see. Could be very simple, as easy as a ground. Everything on the back of your cylinder heads, ground wise bolted up? Remember, stupid easy stuff.

Sounds to me like you may have a ground issue, or an excessive fuel issue with the smoke and ****.

Hope you get your issue handled man.
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Old Apr 27, 2009 | 11:58 AM
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FYI

I put a zero balanced alum flywheel/clutch on my stock Zo6 and got a vibration.

They had to put the stock flywheel back on (had weights from the factory, rare but true)

I don't know what to say if you bought a TRUELY balanced internal assembly.... the factory ones aren't perfect. Are you using a stock crank?
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Old Apr 27, 2009 | 12:18 PM
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The zero balanced clutch and pulley were BOTH installed and running on my old motor though, which is why I'm counting them out for the time being.

Think I found and corrected the problem (though the car is still down for "other" upgrades). The LS2/3 blocks have an extra stud boss on the block that hits the LS1 motor mounts. My motor mount was not flush on ANY point on the block. Two bolts I could see were showing threads between the flange and block. Pulled the mount and found abrasions and scuffs where it was riding on the stud boss on the block. Notched the mount and it sits flush now. Hoping to fire the car back up tomorrow night.

Car is running on the lean side of things, induction piping is all clean (had it off yesterday and was checked prior), tune isn't THAT good but is driveable. If you were to sit and ride in it you'd say it's not tuning related either. Becomes EXTREMELY pronounced the higher you get in RPM (4K was bad).

Plugs I pulled and put right back in. They were spotless. Car idles fine, little pop every now and then, but even with a smooth idle you can feel the vibration. Motor feels like it's running fine, just feeling a vibration in the car. The last time I fired the car up it was smoke free. Had to burn off everythign that was in the exhaust and it looks like the rings are seating now too because it was idling smoke free.

I'll update this tomorrow night if I get the car running. Wednesday night for sure.
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Old May 1, 2009 | 12:56 PM
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Got it all back together on Wednesday. Good news is that the new inlets to the turbo's should provide resistance free induction. Bad news is

THAT THE DAMN VIBRATION IS STILL THERE!!!!! Having a tuner look at it today or tomorrow as he wants to see (or rather feel) what's going on. More to come.
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Old May 6, 2009 | 08:40 AM
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Update: Didn't make the tuner. Started dumping buckets on friday as I was heading home to grab the car.

Saturday removed steering rack and crank pulley....no change.

Sunday started process to pull drivetrain. Got it apart last night, pilot bearing is fine. Next step is to pull the clutch for a spin balance (though I'm not expecting much here). While that's happening I'm going to go through the TQ tube and make sure the bushings are ok as a preventative measure, though it wouldn't have an effect on my vibration given the clutch in or out nature.

Oh.....and my drivers side turbo is DEFINITELY leaking oil. No downpipe shows it coming right out around the bottom of the impeller. Dammit.
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Old May 6, 2009 | 12:08 PM
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That sucks to hear the turbo's got the drips..

If all else fails there's a FEW chassis vibration detectors (I know of one in Ohio) that can pinpoint where weight would need to be added by running the whole car. Sounds crazy but true. I found that lead when I was talking to a powertrain engineer for GM while asking about my vibration. That's when he told me to find the old flywheel (lucky the shop still had it in the scrap pile) because every engine was test fired and some got weights (dowel pins) to balance the vibes.

Good move checking/replacing the t-tube bearings. The front one failed on my car which made me get the clutch/alum fw... and the rest of the story has been said.
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Old May 9, 2009 | 04:47 PM
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Originally Posted by ~JOSHUA
That sucks to hear the turbo's got the drips..

If all else fails there's a FEW chassis vibration detectors (I know of one in Ohio) that can pinpoint where weight would need to be added by running the whole car. Sounds crazy but true. I found that lead when I was talking to a powertrain engineer for GM while asking about my vibration. That's when he told me to find the old flywheel (lucky the shop still had it in the scrap pile) because every engine was test fired and some got weights (dowel pins) to balance the vibes.

Good move checking/replacing the t-tube bearings. The front one failed on my car which made me get the clutch/alum fw... and the rest of the story has been said.
I may need contact info for the Ohio place, and will have to see if I can't find something closer. The only catch here is that for the flywheel to be accessable, the lower bellhousing cover has to be removed, and that entails dropping the down pipes on the turbos which means dropping the manifolds. Not at easy job. Plus, it owuld be more of a band-aid than anything by adding external weight to a motor that's supposed to have been internally balanced.

Had the clutch checked on Friday, it went on the machine, got spun, and came right back off. Came out almost perfect zero balanced from Tex. This was the flywheel/pressure plate assembled and spun, and the disc spun separately since it's independent.

Going to put the clutch back on the car tomorrow (maybe tonight if I'm feeling froggy) and test run with the tq tube off. The ONLY thing I'm seeing that's wrong at this point.......I think the pic says it all. The pilot bearing is WAY too far into the crankshaft according of everything I've found:

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Old May 9, 2009 | 07:34 PM
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it should be flush, not pushed back like that, no?
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Old May 9, 2009 | 09:06 PM
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Originally Posted by MetallicaMatt
it should be flush, not pushed back like that, no?
As far as everyone plus the books say, it should be flush. However, I doubt this is the root cause of the issues I'm having. I'm leaning more and more to have gotten a bad motor from TSP, but won't confirm that until I run the motor without the TQ Tube on the car tomorrow hopefully. IF I can get the motivation to work on it because frankly I'm rather disinterested in it right now.
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Old May 9, 2009 | 11:23 PM
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I know the feeling!

good luck!
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Old Aug 31, 2009 | 08:45 PM
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Well, thought I'd update this for the non CF guys. A set of Pfadt motor mounts solved my problem. I had to install/remove the drivetrain three times in July, and right after getting it in place the last time (Friday the 24th), my wife had our baby boy on the 25th so I got backed up there obviously. About a week later I was OK"d to work on it again and had noticed that I had a new turbo manifold to tranny tunnel clearance issue, and ruled it down to a squashed passenger mount that was tilting the motor up on the drivers side. New mounts in, all is well. Having it tuned on Labor Day and can't wait.
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Old Sep 5, 2009 | 07:56 PM
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Originally Posted by Fastbird93
Well, thought I'd update this for the non CF guys. A set of Pfadt motor mounts solved my problem. I had to install/remove the drivetrain three times in July, and right after getting it in place the last time (Friday the 24th), my wife had our baby boy on the 25th so I got backed up there obviously. About a week later I was OK"d to work on it again and had noticed that I had a new turbo manifold to tranny tunnel clearance issue, and ruled it down to a squashed passenger mount that was tilting the motor up on the drivers side. New mounts in, all is well. Having it tuned on Labor Day and can't wait.


Best wishes on your session man. Congrats on the baby boy.
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Old Sep 7, 2009 | 10:42 AM
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No dyno for me today. Tuners kids soccer games (he's coach too) got rained out on Sat, pushing EVERYTHING back a day and I was a late addition so I got bumped for the time bieng. NOT happy though.
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Old Sep 14, 2009 | 10:11 AM
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On the rollers today!!!


Although I'm expecting the following when I call in later for an update:

"Hey, I got what I can done, but when I put the boost to it you got a nice smokeshow out the back. Turbo's are shot."
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Old Sep 14, 2009 | 06:01 PM
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And to think, the last I saw that car it was driving great. What have you done? Hope you get it sorted soon. Dave
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Old Sep 14, 2009 | 07:37 PM
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Originally Posted by 405dave
And to think, the last I saw that car it was driving great. What have you done? Hope you get it sorted soon. Dave
Dave!!!! Car got a new 377 forged shortblock, Patriot STage 2.5 317 heads, Lingenfelter GT2-3 cam, ported TB, Lonnies Double Pumper fuel system, 97-98 rail conversion, manual boost controller, and a new lease on life:

End results??? More than I thought I'd end up with, especially for a stock sounding and stock driving car:

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