The Lawn Dart

[Senor_Taylor]

Just an FYI, you should be fine to bring truck and trailer to my house. There's plenty of street parking where you could fit easily. Just leave it all hooked up.

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[Deceus]

Just an FYI, you should be fine to bring truck and trailer to my house. There's plenty of street parking where you could fit easily. Just leave it all hooked up.

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Good to know, probably shouldn't leave the gf and kid at home with a storm rolling in even with the forecast pushing it further south now. Seems I can't plan to do shit anymore.

[JPolen01]

Good to know, probably shouldn't leave the gf and kid at home with a storm rolling in even with the forecast pushing it further south now. Seems I can't plan to do shit anymore.

This hurricane looks like it's gonna be pretty bad even for those not taking a direct hit. Don't think anyone is going to blame you for bailing.

[Senor_Taylor]

+1

Good to know, probably shouldn't leave the gf and kid at home with a storm rolling in even with the forecast pushing it further south now. Seems I can't plan to do shit anymore.

This hurricane looks like it's gonna be pretty bad even for those not taking a direct hit. Don't think anyone is going to blame you for bailing.

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[Deceus]

So I bitched out of the race. I was driving the Ralliart to the store on Saturday in a light drizzle thinking I'd totally be fine if I as caught in this in the Demon. Then something happened I had completely forgotten about: my windows fogged up real bad out of nowhere. It dawned on me I have no functioning defroster in the Demon ... fuck I'm an idiot. I would've been so screwed.

It's becoming increasingly clear to me that I either need to weatherproof this car or face driving it 3-4 times a year and missing a lot of events every time there is even a threat of rain. I can pickup a decent heater and ducting for a defroster for around $200. Fortunately someone makes wiper arms for this car because mine have been missing for a while now. I just need to figure out the wiring for the motor and hope it's still functioning. If it's not that's another $200 to send it off for a rebuild.

Then there's the gaping hole in the hood with a scoop over it that doesn't come close to sealing it off. That problem may have helped solve itself because it tried flying off on 33 today when I was coming back from a grocery run. Apparently the epoxy isn't strong enough to hold the studs in the hood because they ripped right out. I'm going to have to fiberglass it into the hood and make it one piece or more accurately have soomeone else do it because it will without a doubt look like dogshit if I try to do it.

Ooooohhhh the joys. And here I was think about picking up a Holley distributor and setting up my timing through my EFI system to make it easier to tune. Not sure why bother at this point, by the time it's done raining every other day it'll be fucking freezing again.

[ViPER1313]

Rain-x outside, fog-x inside. If you do it frequently (as in right before you leave for an event) it’s magical. Done.

[Deceus]

Rain-x outside, fog-x inside. If you do it frequently (as in right before you leave for an event) it’s magical. Done.

Yeah the plan was to grab some rain-x and throw it on the night before. I wasn't aware they made anything for fog. I've never owned fog resistant anything that was worth a damn but that's always been for things going on my face and not the car. Probably not gonna go with the half-measure on this one because driving with your head out the window sucks ass. Not to mention stripping and reapply it every 30 days sounds like it'll get old real fast.



This sucker puts out 40,000 BTUs and 300 cfm for $185, not too bad.

[Deceus]

The club was hosting a cruise last Friday and I decided it was time to put this thing to the test. Going down 33 seemed a lot more daunting than anything I've done before because of how remote it is and just how bad things can get if some kinda freak accident happens (broken tie rod, losing a brakehose). I've been really wanting to hitup a test and tune at Eastside. So when someone mentioned it in the chat I threw out that there's only 2-3 events left this year. So, of course, the plan changed to now include both. Part of me wanted to use this as an excuse to skip out on the cruise but I didn't build this thing to sit in the garage.

Every went well actually. It's still puking a bit of oil out of the front of the intake and out of the breather. Definitely a sign of some high crankcase pressure. Not really sure what's going on but I'll be double checking my pushrods again. Hopefully I didn't bend another set. The valve guides may have burned up and the exhaust valves might still be sticking or maybe I have a ring or 2 that's still not fully seated. Not real sure but this definitely building a case to build a set of trickflow heads when they come out.



After a few introductions we were off. One brave freshmen even asked for a ride along.



Managed to keep up with the Z pretty well. The driver came over and started asking about the suspension because he was so surprised to see me in his rear view mirror. The slower cars up front obviously helped with that. The brakes did well but I definitely need some form of a power booster. I'm probably getting 80% of my stopping power at the moment with the way it's setup now and it takes a lot of pressure to get them to really bite. It's great for modulation though I will say that, just not the best for a steep downhill turn.

We got back just in time to leave for the strip. Eastside was a bit of shitshow. Definitely getting there a little earlier next time but it was wild. No real tech inspections or concerns for safety were seen anywhere. I only had the faintest idea on what I was doing and they were stacking a ton of cars up. Burnouts are definitely easier than I was expecting but I didn't go too crazy with it because of how close everyone was. I tried leaving it in 1st but I hit 5k way too fast. I tried leaving it in 2nd but the engine died when I let off. Might be an EFI issue, probably a driver issue idk. Ran a 9.59 in the 1/8th doing somewhere in the neighborhood of 70-75 so I think that's like a high 14 second 1/4 mile time. Not great but definitely not bad for a street car. Definitely don't have any traction issues so it's time for more power.

[Deceus]

So my dad picked up a desktop dyno and ran my engine specs through it.



It seems real accurate based off how the car feels. It hits a wall right at 5000 rpms. My cam is technically good til 5800 and I was wondering why I wasn't pushing past 5000 very well. Dat low end torque though, 350ft/lbs at 1750 rpms does feel good. Peak torque is 402 @ 3500 and peak hp is 328 @ 5000. Probably getting about 275 to the wheels.

Heads are most likely the real chokepoint. A set of Edelbrock heads only picked 19hp on the desktop dyno though so it confirms what I already know: I'll need a new cam to go with any new heads to get the full benefit of it. If I go through with it, I'll being going more radical. I've settled on a XR280R-10 for now which will push my powerband to 2,500-6,500 rpm. The XR274 would probably be a better choice for the street and this block but the end goal would be to also build a 408 stroker shortblock and move everything over to that so the 280 seems like a solid choice.

Of course this is all in the distant future so long as I don't blow anything up. I am in the middle of my first job search in almost 4 years though and things are looking pretty good. Looking at cashing out over 2 weeks of PTO and getting a decent pay increase, so who knows? Tires and brakes first though.

[Deceus]

Second trip out to MBCA was a lot better. This was my first autocross without any real issues going into the event. (Other than the 40 degree rain) The car ran fine at the PCA event but was on the verge of overheating the whole time. The EFI definitely made a huge difference again here. Not even a hiccup and great response anytime I touched the throttle. Didn't see any sign of tires rubbing either. Didn't think it'd be 10 months before I made it back out here after that first shake-down run but I guess I can consider it money and time well spent now.

The morning rain gave me a chance to get a feel for the car on wet pavement too, so that was cool. It was a bit of a handful which was expected but not too bad actually. I didn't want to push it too hard and take out some timing gear or a fence so half my runs I wasn't able to really push it. My best time landed me between a 85 Corvette and 07 Mustang though, can't be mad at that.

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The scoop has made it's return as well. I couldn't stand the ugly ass hole I made any longer. This time the base is epoxy'd to the hood as well which should take a lot of the strain off the epoxy holding the studs in. It didn't fly off while I was hauling it at 80mph down 81 and doesn't seem to be flexing/bouncing around nearly as much as before. Still going to make it one piece with some fiberglass at some point over the holidays with the old man so hopefully it hangs on until then.

[Jake]

What do you think the cause of "almost overheating" is? I'd be a little concerned given autocross isn't exactly a long period of super-hard-charging.

[Deceus]

What do you think the cause of "almost overheating" is? I'd be a little concerned given autocross isn't exactly a long period of super-hard-charging.

It was 100% the result of the 1300cfm electric fan I had. That's just not nearly enough airflow for a V8 like this but it's all that will fit. The shroud was keeping it from cooling at speed too so it wasn't just issues at idle. It just slowly kept climbing up so it wasn't too far from working. Took both off and it has zero issues staying right at 180. I'll need to move to a 26" radiator and run dual 12s if I want to move back to electric fans which I will at some point. Gotta figure out if I'm pulling my heads first though, hopefully I'll be taking the valvecovers off tonight and getting some answers to my crankcase pressure issue.

All signs point to burnt up valve guides causing me to bend pushrods. I broke my engine in with my rockershafts oriented wrong so this isn't entirely surprising.

[Deceus]

Finally got some footage from the cruise from my passenger.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzqjreYd9-o


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=homTqdMEh7M

Haven't had the time to crack open the valve covers or do a compression test since I've been cramming for my next job interview. I did make it to the MAAP show before Turducken but won't be driving the car too hard until I find out what the issue is. Last thing I need is to drop a valve.


This pic makes me want to Plastidip the car this winter instead of doing anything else lol.

[Deceus]

Well the pushrods all spun freely so I doubt any are bent. I'm thinking my rings might be seated which is what I figured after my leak down test the first time. With cylinders 4 and 5 I'd get a bad reading (30%), spin the motor back around and then get a good reading(95%). Ordered a compression tester and will see if 4 and 5 are acting up still. I can add oil if they are to see if I can rule out the valves. I'm thinking I may just be floating the valves a bit. I shouldn't be since I don't really run it past 5k but all signs are kinda pointing to that idk. We'll see...

[BLINGMW]

Sounds good! 

[Deceus]

Finally got around to running a compression test on all cylinder. Was pretty quick and easy with a remote starter switch. Everything came back good, all cylinders were between 135-145 with one cylinder showing 150 on the dial. I reached out to the main Mopar site I visit to hopefully gain some old man wisdom but didn't really get any.

I got to thinking it may be related to a combination of a lack of any kind of baffling in the oil pan along with the oil not making it back to the pan quick enough. I do have a windage tray and high volume oil pump but didn't do any kind of real oiling mods to the block when I had the chance. This checks all the boxes that explain why the issue only seems to happen intermittently at high RPMs. A 4 quart pan is pretty small for this kind of application especially when half the oil is going to be slammed one side most of the time.

Another good possibility is I did in fact burn up my valve guides to some degree and they're sticking a bit near redline. I'm not as sure about this theory but it seems likely due to the fact I broke-in my engine with poor valvetrain oiling since the rocker shafts were on backwards. If things got bad enough to bend 6 pushrods, I wouldn't be surprised to find more damage.

The last possibility is that my rings just aren't seated as well as they should be. The symptoms suggest this but the compression and leak down test results don't really support this.

Sooooo basically I'm stuck with a bunch of bad guesses until I at least pull a cylinder head. I'm thinking it's probably best to just pull the entire engine and go through it over the winter. I'm not making any refrigerator bowls since the car is far from track worthy safety-wise and autocrossing is over except for MBCA. We'll see, all I'm really missing is an engine stand to make it happen and I could have it out in an afternoon for sure.

[Deceus]

Well the trigger is pulled. Ordered the engine stand and new head gaskets today. Pulling the engine means I'll have room to fix a lot of things in the engine bay I wanted to tackle this winter anyways.

Current To Do List:

Brakes
-new brake lines in the engine bay
-hydroboost unit
-move the handbrake to it's own dedicated line*
-add a linelock*

Repaint engine bay
Clean up wiring harnesses and reduce interference

* wishlist items

I'm not sure what exactly I'm going to do with the engine but a road race oil pan is definitely in the future. I'd like to add some roller rockers while I'm at it for ease of mind but those are going to be optional.

[Deceus]

Put the old man to work on the hood scoop over Thanksgiving. Shouldn't have any sort of issues out of it in the future and the big ugly gap is gone. Just need to put the finishing touches on it and paint it.





Bought his 360 block off of him as well. Not committing to building it until I have my 318 apart. It really wouldn't need much more than machining, a rotating assembly, cam and heads to be a good +100-150hp swap. If the issue is just the valve guides I'll probably fix the 318 and run it. If it's not the heads at all and somewhere in the block then it's getting parted out. The cylinder walls on the 318 block had some imperfections but I was told by the machine shop they likely wouldn't cause any issues, they may have been wrong there. We'll see I'll probably start getting it ready to come out tonight after I get some good footage of it running in case I do end up selling it.

[Senor_Taylor]

When will the pain end.

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[Steve85]

I did this a couple times too, and now couldn't be happier with my reduced power (but obviously room to grow) and superb driveability by going with a modern gen swap. Worth a look at this point. I'm not sure if the dodge motors are anything like the LS where you can pull a dime-a-dozen truck motor and swap cam and intake and pretty much have the car engine on the "cheap"?