Joining the weather channel.....minus 17 actual this morning...2nd full day
without hitting even ZERO as the high....oh yah' wind chills of 40-50 below

 

38 here in the morning near Tampa. Getting to 60's now. Great racing weather. Low 55 tonight!

 

Alright, it has thawed out now. Got up to 48 today.

I did order some Bosch 13111 Oxygen Sensors... mainly cuz the old ones looked terrible when I finally dislodged them from the stock exhaust piping. I'll see how they do or if I need to go grab some NGKs.

I also ordered some DEI spark plug boot covers. I got all the spark plugs to stop touching the Kooks headers, but I wanted to have something that could shield them from the heat. The DEI covers should do the trick.

I also ordered some BMR stuff... Adjustable Torque Arm and 4L60E trans relocation bracket. The bracket came, but I'm still waiting on the TA. Not a big deal just to fire the motor, but something I'll be watching.

Also, I've been looking at rearends more closely. Strange S60 TrueTrac or Moser 9" TrueTrac looks like the choices for now. The Strange 12-bolt was also on the table, but it's more expensive than the S60 and about as expensive as the Moser 9"... The 9" would weigh less, eat less power, and be more than enough for an auto car. So I'm probably leaning that way. Tho the 12-bolt would be even lighter and probably more than enough. The other option is the MWC Fab 9... but to get POSI with that, it's quite a bit more than the POSI Moser 9"...

 

I have to say after 25yrs of torture nothing but soft rubber being turned by a 496cid in a 69 Chevelle SS auto w/3:90's and 4000 stall and sticking at most tracks and a briefcase of slips. 12Bolt GM.

 

I'm dying to hear a video watching this thing run.

Who's tuning her?

 

Geoff @ EPS gave me a baseline tune to fire it up and check it out mechanically. He said I could even drive it around a bit...

 

My MWC 9" S-trac weighs 20lbs more than the stock 10 bolt, with the aluminum center upgrade they would be about the same. I've been doing quite a bit of weight reduction and having a lot of BMR/ UMI etc parts over the years MWC suspension is by far the lightest i've seen...it's not even close.

 

The Moser M9 is also light, but I'd rather have Eric @ MWC set up his housing vs. Moser.

Until the stock 10-bolt explodes, I'm not doing anything. Hopefully it'll last til the summer...

 

Alright, here's an update. Got the wiring harness hooked up last week but haven't had a chance to mess with the car since Thursday. Tonight, I took the time to go out and pull the plug wires and replace the OEM heat shields. I wasn't getting any protection for the wires and they were dangerously close to the headers. I bought new OEM heat shields with the FireCore50, but they seem to work better with OE exhausts or shorty headers. The wires needed to be shielded out and away from the block where the Kooks headers are.

So, I bought some DEI sleeves. They were only about $15 more than the OEM heat shields, so I'd definitely recommend them.

The only problem was the FireCore50 boot. On it is a very large, elliptical shaped, reinforced push area. It's much larger than the boot and the DEIs would not fit. I had to trim this boot "grip" on the FireCore50s to fit the DEI sleeves. I guess I could have gone up one size from .750" diameter, but they fit the boot perfectly... just where you have the grip to press on is shaped weird and is HUGE. It allowed the OE heat shields to install perfectly however and rest against this boot "grip" area.

With the OEM heat shields in place, I couldn't get the wires to "snap" onto the spark plugs. With the DEI in place, I was able to easily snap the wires into place and then position them away from the headers.

See the attached.

FireCore50 boot:



FireCore50 with OE Heat Shield:


Trimmed up:


Here are the pics showing how well the DEI sleeves cover the boot and the bottom half of the wire from header heat. Seeing as how these are good for 1200F, I feel pretty confident I won't cook my plug wires.

 

Granatelli's FTW.

 

I'll take the FireCore50s over the Granatelli's any day.

 

I agree Jake. The Ganitelli's added "horsepower" is like the the TB spacer adding HP. It's a nice thick wire, but there is no benefit from the "0 ohm" feature. Ask me how I know.

 

So, I started it up tonight. Just let it run for a few seconds to check oil pressure and make sure things were okay. Plan to run it more tomorrow during the day due to the open headers. Will check for vacuum leaks and the like.

Woohoo! It runs though and built pressure... 80psi at idle cold

 

Congrats!! Sounds nice!!


The hard work paid off!

 

sounds WICKED

 

That's one mean bird!!!

 

Happy you got her running, sounds real good

 

Sounds great Jake! Tune time!

 

It has the baseline tune. So I plan to go around the neighborhood once I get the suspension put back on...

I developed a problem with my daily driver tho. It started knocking and ticking when cold. It's a VQ35 in a Nissan, and they have a problem with the rear seal failing and causing that issue along with a 30psi drop across the RPM range (which I've also noticed). So, I need to get the Trans Am running so I can tear into the Nissan and see if there is any damage. Blah.

 

If its not one thing, it's another...