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Madison Motorsports
The Lawn Dart - Printable Version

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+--- Thread: The Lawn Dart (/showthread.php?tid=11284)

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RE: The Lawn Dart - Deceus - 05-04-2018

(05-04-2018, 09:41 AM)ViPER1313 Wrote: JEFF M cant help you out? He has been inside a mopar trans or 2. At least he can get it on a lift for you.

He's about an hour away and balls deep in a number of projects himself so I try not to bug him. I think I have the issue worked out I just need to test it out. I was busy traveling all day today and getting crap for the little man's birthday party to refill the trans. I did reach out to him around the time of the show to look at the trans and exhaust on a short notice but he said their shop is/was slammed.

The trans is the only "black box" left on the car so that's a pretty big motivation to work through it myself. I learned enough that I think I have it handled for now. I'm hoping once this thing is running more consistently I can take it back up there on the occasional weekends for sure. Working with him and his friend Jason was probably the most fun I've had on the build ever and probably what got me through having to redo most of the engine.

RE: The Lawn Dart - Deceus - 05-05-2018

Sooooo it's fixed.

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It's wandering a bit so I'll need to double check the alignment and maybe give it a tad more toe in. I may just break down and take it to Firestone or somewhere to see if they can just get me a print-off of the current settings to double check my equipment. It's tough to get the tires perfectly centered with just toe plates. Finally got a replacement speedometer sending unit after sending back my old one like 2 months ago. I got that installed and it seems to be working as well.

I still need to take it to a muffler shop and see if they can get the X-pipe I have to work. If not I'll just throw down the money for the mid pipe that TTI has for these headers and finish it myself. In theory they should just slide on to the headers and they have a pretty sweet set of hangers that come off the rear seatbelt bolts for the mufflers. Either way, once that's done it'll finally be time to log some real miles. It sounds pretty cool from the outside with the mufflers on the headers but the drone is insufferable on the inside. I'm hopefully to have it out at the next SCCA or MBCA event since the EFI seems to be dialed in, so I'm sure they'll appreciate this thing having a complete exhaust.

RE: The Lawn Dart - Jake - 05-07-2018

Hooray! Glad it's back to being functional for ya. Sounds like little stuff to do now.

The Lawn Dart - Senor_Taylor - 05-07-2018

Woohoo! I hope it holds up!

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

RE: The Lawn Dart - ScottyB - 05-07-2018

whoa, so what's the deal, did you manage to get the bands in the tranny snugged up yourself? that was mighty quick for the final black box. awesome news either way. go leave some freedom stripes and report back.

RE: The Lawn Dart - Deceus - 05-08-2018

(05-07-2018, 05:24 PM)ScottyB Wrote: whoa, so what's the deal, did you manage to get the bands in the tranny snugged up yourself?  that was mighty quick for the final black box.  awesome news either way.  go leave some freedom stripes and report back.

Yeah everything was tight already when I dropped the valvebody. It's not normal for the adjuster to be that far in but it must've gotten tight just as I thought it had bottomed out. All I had to do was back it off until I had around 1/4"-1/2" of slack in the band strut (usually about 2-3 turns). I still couldn't tear this thing completely apart but I have a good idea how 2nd (front band) and reverse work (rear band) now. They're just operated by a servo being pressurized and pushing down a strut connected to their respective band. So if just 2nd or reverse is missing it's usually just a matter of a band being loose, worn out or broken. Haven't gotten too crazy yet because it's leaking fluid out of the front of the pan. Not surprising because I didn't torque any of the pan bolts to spec. I don't trust my 1/2" torque wrench to accurately do 8 ft/lbs since I almost snapped a valvebody bolt trying it. Waiting on a 1/4" in/lb wrench to get in tomorrow and it'll be time to terrorize the neighborhood again and call the muffler shop.

Have a chin spoiler to throw on and need to roll the rear fenders. I want to test fit the 18s from the Ralliart to get an idea of what kinda backspacing I'm going to need to get on my squared setup. That car is actually up in Winchester right now getting looked at by a decent Rallyx shop there. I'm expecting to hear the turbo needs to be replaced at this point but we'll see. I suppose I should look into getting a rear swaybar before the next Autox event as well. The driver side rear tire took a few good hits at the one event I ran last winter. With the fenders rolled and new setup not having the sidewall bulge it should be fine but overkill is better than blowing out the sidewall of an expensive tire.

RE: The Lawn Dart - Deceus - 05-17-2018

So finally decided to back the car out and clean up the mess that was made from the transmission pan dripping. Everything is still shifting fine but noticed little rainbow "footprints" everywhere I drove the car on the wet pavement.

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I checked where it had been sitting the longest and was able to tell it was tranny fluid. I was both relieved it wasn't my oil pan and pissed off the trans pan wasn't sealed right.

I don't know what it was but I just didn't feel like dealing with it. I had no delusions of dragging this thing and a trailer to hyperfest so I had no real reason to mess with it for a bit. I just knew it was going to be a huge pain in the dick somehow. But being stubborn as I am, I figured it didn't hurt to at least look. This day isn't going to ruin itself after all. It seemed to be a small leak coming from one side by the looks of it and I could tell right away what it was. One of the bolts holding the shifter bracket in place striped out the first few threads when I was reinstalling everything. I threw in a longer bolt since the original bolt seemed to be barely holding on by those threads alone. Turns out torquing down a bolt with only 2-3 threads engaged in an aluminum housing is a bad idea, who knew? This seemed to solve the issue because I was able to torque it down like all the others when I was reinstalling the pan with however many threads weren't stripped out. I couldn't see it from the bottom but the bolt was actually long enough to hit the neutral saftey switch so I didn't actually have it torqued all the way or at all maybe.

Checked the bolt bin and found a shorter bolt that would be perfect. This was going to be a good day after all. (Narrator: It was not going to be a good day.) Got the old bolt out and the new bolt in. Of course that was a challenge because it's one of the 2 bolts right next to both a header and torsion bar instead of one of the 12 or so out in the open. I got the ratchet on it and it didn't feel right. I could tell the threads weren't going to hold much but it's only 10 ft/lbs. I didn't exactly have a lot of options with the car on the ground. Either the threads held or I destroyed the rest of them, either way not tightening it down wasn't an option. Spoiler: they stripped. I got maybe 5 ft/lbs on the bolt and it just spun. No problem I'll just slip a 1/4" bolt through to a nut and fix it that way ... except this is the ONE bolt (of 16) with a massive neutral safety switch hanging right over it just low enough to keep the nut from being where it needs to be.

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Odin's fury has taken over at this point, no turning back now. This car was getting fixed or I was off to Valhalla trying. Fuck it, I'm not using that switch anyways and there's both a neutral safety and reverse light switch built into my shifter. I got it out and busted out the calipers to figure out what kinda plug I was going to need. I'd need a 3/4"-16 bolt .5" in length, so I got to searching. I figured it was going to be some kinda special order from fastenal and thread sealer but I saw some oil drain plugs pop up and got the crazy idea that I may actually find what I need at Advance Auto. As luck would have it, the store 20 minutes away had one in the exact sizes I needed.

I get there and the guy asks me what car I'm buying the plug for. I told him to forget about it and gave him the part number for it. I told him the website said it was in there little self-help section. He says that doesn't really help him because he sent all that stuff "back" today. I figured he was fucking with me but I could tell he was serious. Sure enough the whole rack was empty.

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I wanted to tell him to just look up the damn part number but I unfortunately would rather leave empty-handed than be an asshole. I guess he kinda sensed my frustration and figured it didn't hurt to do what I asked to him to do from the very start. Sure enough it was behind the counter somewhere and I was off to finish this little battle.

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In theory this should be fixed now. I sure wasn't going to test it at 9 o'clock at night

RE: The Lawn Dart - Deceus - 05-29-2018

Turns out a majority of the leak was coming from a loose fitting for one of the transmission cooler lines. I must've forgotten to torque it down after throwing them back on when I was messing with the trans. It's not leaking a drop now. I am however running into cooling issues with the low profile fan and the hotter temperatures outside. Probably going to have to move to dual 12s so I can get a shroud in there. It's only climbing when I'm stopped so it's definitely just an issue with airflow. I may try to ditch the foam spacers that came with the mounting hardware. I'm thinking it might be sucking too much air from the sides of the fan instead of through the radiator. This weaker low profile fan probably needs all the help it can get. Wasn't bad enough to keep me driving to the car show with my dad this weekend. Trailered it down to Newport News and hung out with my parent's for memorial day. Was pretty uneventful minus the wall of water I got to drive through on the way home.

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Moved the car to the backyard for the night because I'm paranoid like that. I'm sure it felt right at home back in it's natural habitat. I joked with my dad about just leaving it there for a few years so we can start the whole process all over again. (haha ... no)

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As nice as it is getting to take it out, I'd really rather be racing it. Gotta tackle this cooling issue and get the exhaust finished first. I'm hoping to make it to the June 10th MBCA event in Winchester but that maybe a stretch since I have to move into my new house. I'd also really like to NOT do it on my drag radials. Been pricing out a set of 18s wrapped in something like a BFGoodrich Rival-S I can throw on for autocross/hyperdrives.

RE: The Lawn Dart - Jake - 05-31-2018

Looks good!

Re: cooling issue - the fan can probably move enough air as-is, provided you have all the right ducting. Who knows what Chrysler did back in the day when it was new, but ensuring you have all the air being funneled properly will lower temps quite a bit.

I noticed a 10-15* drop when running at full-tilt in the racecar once I made a scoop to channel air through the radiator instead of "kind of near it."

RE: The Lawn Dart - Deceus - 06-01-2018

(05-31-2018, 10:32 AM)Jake Wrote: Looks good!

Re: cooling issue - the fan can probably move enough air as-is, provided you have all the right ducting. Who knows what Chrysler did back in the day when it was new, but ensuring you have all the air being funneled properly will lower temps quite a bit.

I noticed a 10-15* drop when running at full-tilt in the racecar once I made a scoop to channel air through the radiator instead of "kind of near it."

Yeah a shroud is a big part of that. Instead pulling air through 16" hole I should be pulling air across the whole radiator at idle. I figured the massive 4 row radiator would let me get away with it but I guess not. Not having much issues with it at speed so that's good. Won't have time or energy to mess with it for a while though, have too much shit to move to the new place.

RE: The Lawn Dart - Deceus - 06-12-2018

Finally starting to get settled into the new garage. Got a new mobile workbench toolbox so no more relying on a small 4 drawer cart + 4 drawer chest to hold everything I own.

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Need to figure out why my camber is over -4 degrees now but I'm guessing it's a mix of everything settling after some driving and possibly the cam bolts wandering since I didn't put a torque wrench on them. The driver side tire was squeeling a bit the whole 5 minute drive I took it on to get to the new place so it's been parked this whole time. The rain hasn't been helping either, seems to be every weekend. Didn't have the drive to tow it down to Danville or Winchester last weekend but I am itching to race it again. Gonna hold off on trying to get an extra set of wheels because of how expensive it ended up being but that's definitely in the future at some point. Leaning towards a set of these:

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RE: The Lawn Dart - Senor_Taylor - 06-12-2018

That garage space <3

RE: The Lawn Dart - Deceus - 06-30-2018

Finally had time to fuck with the car today. The good news is I think I solved the cooling issue and the alignment feels ALOT better now that the camber isn't -4 degrees. The bad news is the push through ties for the radiator must've rubbed a hole in the radiator while I was busy cutting off the rubber spacers keeping it from laying flat. Soooo I guess it's time to bite the bullet and just order a damn 3 row so I can pickup .75" of clearance and use a legit shroud with the low profile fan. Lesson learned: I can't do anything the easy way so don't even try.

My TTI X-pipe gets in tomorrow so that'll be fun. Hopefully that goes on without any issue. Just to end on a positive note: it's amazing having a garage on the basement level with a door that never gets direct sunlight. It almost feels air conditioned and I had no problems working in it mid-day while it's 90+ out. Can't say the same for the retaining wall outside I have to rebuild...

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RE: The Lawn Dart - Deceus - 07-10-2018

Put in a long day on Sunday. Had to rip out the back half of my interior to get my fancy muffler hangers in place. The stock seatbelt bolt holes were way too low and must've been placed different on the fold-down rear seat cars. Of course I only found this out after struggling for a good to get them to thread into undercoating clogged holes. Ended up just busting out the big gun and running them in after getting them started from the bottom only to have to drill my own holes anyways.

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After that ordeal I just decided to paint everything and call it a day. Was struggling to get the x-pipe mocked up but apparently the only way to assemble it is back to front so I'm going to have to do something I was really hoping to never repeat: dropping and reinstalling the collectors on the headers. I'm hoping to get away with leaving the driver side one connected because the top bolt is a HUGGGEEEE bitch to get to. Picked up some better quality collector gaskets and some replacement trans cooler line adapters for the new radiator.

Everything is ready to go in, seems today is the big day. A lot going on this weekend car wise too. I think I'm bailing on Carlisle because big car shows really aren't my thing especially going solo. I'd really only be there to pick the brains of some of the vendors and maybe pickup a hydroboost unit. Would be nice to sell some stuff too but spots are $100 and I'd have to stand there and haggle with everyone trying to get the deal of the century half the time and I'd rather be sodomized with a hot curling iron. C&C Harrisonburg Saturday, PCA Autocross Sunday and a cook out meet on the way back. If today goes smoothly I'll reserve a trailer tonight.

RE: The Lawn Dart - Deceus - 07-10-2018

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Didn't get into the garage until almost 9 but made some good progress once I got rolling. Just need to trim the passenger side a bit to get the collector back on and the exhaust should be good to go. Was going to mess with the radiator a bit but realized I have the car up too high at the moment to use my prop rods without the hood hitting the beam it's under. So that'll have to wait until the exhaust is complete and the car is back on the ground.

Only part I'm worried about is my little adapter for the upper hose got destroyed yet again. It's a thin little sleeve that reduces the 1.625" adapter to 1.5". I'm hoping I can just get away with cranking down on the hose clamps since it seems to be too tight of a fit anyways. If that doesn't work I'll probably try a thin layer of silicon. If that doesn't work I'll probably try setting the car on fire and pushing it off the overlook at the top of Massanutten.

RE: The Lawn Dart - Deceus - 07-13-2018

Radiator was a much bigger pain than expected. It's basically the same width as my 4 row somehow but I got in yesterday. Had to remove the cap on the water pump pulley but figured that wasn't a big deal.

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Fired it up and heard some clanging in the engine bay, turns out the cap bolts were holding the pulley on a well. The other 2 are held on by a bolt+washer in the middle. That's what I thought that metal piece in the middle of the pulley was in the shitty lighting. Tore up my serpentine belt in the process but not much else since I caught it so fast. Had to drive to Luray and back to get a replacement.

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Threw the bolts back in this morning and of course they were barely touching a part of the fan. Tired let the situation solve itself by reving the motor and hoping they cut their own path since they were really just grazing the fan. It was mostly just bouncing around and making a lot of noise so i shut it down and tried removing just the shroud to remove the bolts. No dice, of course so the radiator came out ... again.

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At least my motor will now get a third rinse, the water is still coming out pretty brown so I've just putting in fresh distilled water each time. Got some bolts with a shorter head in there now but need to put everything back together. Looking good for the weekend events though, just need to hope there's no surprise once I actually get to driving this thing. Definitely need to roll the rear fenders before Sunday but other than that, everything should be good to go.

RE: The Lawn Dart - Deceus - 07-16-2018

The weekend was mostly a success. The plan was to wake up early Saturday and get to Firestone to get an early alignment in before Harrisonburg C&C. It wasn't bad but I could tell the toe was off a bit. A one hour wait turned into 2 and I just bailed. Picked up my u-haul auto transport and they were finally done a little before noon. Seems my toe in was little more than I thought it was. About a degree on each side. I did at least swing by and say hi to some people at the meet without the car.

Sunday was supposed to be the PCA autocross then Carbs and Cars hosted by VVC but rain kinda ruined those plans. I got 3 runs in the morning and bailed right before my second heat was supposed to start because a bad storm seemed to be moving in real fast. Definitely made the right call because I ran into a few really bad lightening strikes shortly after heading out. I should be bummed but I'm just glad I got 3 good runs in without any incident. Well, except for the time the car wouldn't start back up after I parked it in grid before the first run. It seems I have a bad ground on the fuel pump because I nicked it putting the radiator in. I didn't cuss, I didn't panic ... I just kinda pleaded for a bit and popped the hood to think of anything I fucked up in the last day or 2 that could've failed so suddenly and intermittently. Just wiggled the wire a bit and it was good to go. Had some heating issues but the heat index was definitely in the triple digits and it only passed 200 after my 3rd run. Was keeping the engine off with the fan on in between runs so that helped a good bit. I'm hoping once the block is done being flushed it'll cool a bit better. Had issues with a hot start as well but I think some settings on the EFI and some heat insulation on the tank for the fuel pump will likely solve that. Forgot my prop rod so leaving the hood down between runs was likely causes some bad heat soak.

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RE: The Lawn Dart - ScottyB - 07-16-2018

man, seeing you flail the demon around, after all the work you've gone to, feels like a victory for me, and all i've done is sit here and read about it.  awesome job!

RE: The Lawn Dart - Deceus - 07-17-2018

Took the car to lunch and hit 220 coming up the driveway so something has to happen with my cooling system. Gonna start with double checking my timing and maybe backing it off a degree or 2 since I am basically running the max most people run these things. Gonna swap the thermostat out for a high flow unit since I'm pretty sure a cheap AutoZone special is in it at the moment since the good one I had on hand wouldn't fit the second housing I bought.

Going to move to an external trans cooler as well. High stall converters generate a lot of heat and I'd rather have my coolant and trans fluid going to separate places. Figured now is a good time to wire in a transmission temperature gauge as well to make sure whatever I go with is doing the job. Fragola makes a fitting that makes that real easy. Currently looking at a heat sink unit from Summit with good reviews. Can basically mount it anywhere with at least a little bit of airflow and it'll do the job. Much better than blocking the radiator. Just gotta find a decent place to mount it.

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Going to cover the surge tank for the fuel pump in a starter heat shield wrap. Just seems like a good idea and may help with the hot start issue. With everything paid off, I'm currently resisting the urge to just throw a set of 18s and Rival S's on the Visa. Definitely need a better set of shocks as well if I'm gonna run at Verona. The back straight on that PCA course had my entire front end tap dancing the last half of it. Felt like I was re-entering the atmosphere.

I should be able to do alot of this without ever taking the car out of commission for mare than a morning/afternoon.
Forgot to mention the long-term fall back plan here is to go with dual 12s and run some monster fans since I won't have to worry about clearance with the water pump. I can easily double the CFM of my current setup with that but that'll end up being over $400 for the fans alone and I have to hope Champion will give a new shroud given the amount of trouble I've had with their stuff. Every one and their brother is telling me to "just" go with a mechanical fan like Ma' Mopar intended but I'm not interested in opening that can of worms OR sacrificing the 10-20 horsepower that'll cost me. Just waiting to hear back from the guys that sold me the PowerSurge on what he thinks about the heat insulation wrap situation. Looks like another busy week if I wanna run with SCCA with weekend.

The Lawn Dart - ViPER1313 - 07-17-2018

1989-1993 Taurus SHO cooling fan. /end of issue. Make it fit.

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/ford-taurus-cooling-fan-wow.486504/