422 LSX w/ Twin PT76's on KYTP kit
09-22-2011, 11:35 AM
#81
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It turns out that when he had the cold side plumbing enlarged, the welder took off all the ground for the battery. We have a bunch of grounds on our cars and Steve has all the wiring hidden really nice. Well when he reconnected the grounds, the main ground for the Holley computer fell back behind the battery. When he ran the car down the track, he's pretty sure that computer found ground thru the EGT module. After 2 weeks of banging his head against the wall, tracing wires, swapping ECUs and the main harness, he stripped it back to the bare bones and figured out the short that was killing all the 5V sensors on the launch.
So fast forward to yesterday, we finally got the car out to the track. On the second pass at about 1/8 mile, one of the trans cooler lines either split or came apart at or near the transmission, hit the exhaust flames and turned the fire chicken into a full on pheonix. Right rear quarter was fully engulfed. By the time he got her stopped, the fire had come in the car and the passenger seat and headliner were on fire. He grabbed the laptop off the passenger seat and tossed it out of the car as he was getting out just in time for the rescue crew to run it over. So, like they say, when it rains, it pours. The good news is that the dash and everything forward did not get any damage. Looks like he will just need a headliner, center console, passenger seat, passenger door skin, and the molding pieces on the passenger side for the interior. Exterior will need a rear bumper cover, tail lights, rear hatch and a full paint job. I'll post video and pictures in a few days.
So fast forward to yesterday, we finally got the car out to the track. On the second pass at about 1/8 mile, one of the trans cooler lines either split or came apart at or near the transmission, hit the exhaust flames and turned the fire chicken into a full on pheonix. Right rear quarter was fully engulfed. By the time he got her stopped, the fire had come in the car and the passenger seat and headliner were on fire. He grabbed the laptop off the passenger seat and tossed it out of the car as he was getting out just in time for the rescue crew to run it over. So, like they say, when it rains, it pours. The good news is that the dash and everything forward did not get any damage. Looks like he will just need a headliner, center console, passenger seat, passenger door skin, and the molding pieces on the passenger side for the interior. Exterior will need a rear bumper cover, tail lights, rear hatch and a full paint job. I'll post video and pictures in a few days.
Holy crap man. I'm glad he is ok. It sucks there was so much damage to the car. You are looking at the bright side though. All of the expensive stuff is up front! Was all of his tuning data on the laptop? Most laptops are tougher than they look. While it might be junk it's worth popping the cover off the back to see if the hard drive is in one piece. If so, he can salvage his data.
09-22-2011, 12:06 PM
#83
There were a few videos and some log files in the laptop but that's about it. I will be trying to get the stuff off his laptop (dicking aroud with computers and networks is my day job) but it's not the end of the world if it is completely destroyed as the tune is in the ECU and everything still works/runs.
09-22-2011, 12:34 PM
#84
Here's the pass. It's still processing so the quality will be a little poor until it's done.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn11-vxyRpo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn11-vxyRpo
09-22-2011, 04:44 PM
#89
Yep. All electronics escaped unharmed. One of the fuel pumps got scorched pretty good and there are some melted wires and fuel lines but all in all it's not that bad. Things are actually coming together pretty quickly. One of our friends has an extra hatch. He just ordered the rear bumper cover and tail lights. Car has a date with the paint shop end of next week. He's on the fence regarding whether or not to abandon the street car thing and gut the interior, pull the stereo, speakers, subwoofer and stock seats out. Could shave a couple of hundred pounds off the car pretty easy.
09-22-2011, 10:07 PM
#98
Yep. All electronics escaped unharmed. One of the fuel pumps got scorched pretty good and there are some melted wires and fuel lines but all in all it's not that bad. Things are actually coming together pretty quickly. One of our friends has an extra hatch. He just ordered the rear bumper cover and tail lights. Car has a date with the paint shop end of next week. He's on the fence regarding whether or not to abandon the street car thing and gut the interior, pull the stereo, speakers, subwoofer and stock seats out. Could shave a couple of hundred pounds off the car pretty easy.
I'd consider the car to look like a street car, but those two issues make it a little rough to justify.
I think that there could be a nice balance of the streetability it has now with taking some weight out of it: A nice aftermarket seat with the driver's seat solid mounted and a manual passenger seat would drop probably 40-50 lbs, lose the sub, etc... If you guys would like any ideas on where to pull weight out to make it look stock I have tons of ideas and have done quite a few of them myself.
