ooooweee, fired up the jbl this morning

[vector1]

finally got some nice weather and went for a spin after the r & r.

i don't know how you guys run your cars with hi hp engines, mine prob only puts out 500ish and accels fast enough.

here's some things i did and found out.

i had to fix the tb and tranny leak so i pulled the motor and redid some stuff.

i wrapped the headers which i think should help.

for you guys running an avaid dry sump pump--i had a leak at the front seal, the way they are made the output shaft or input shaft, depends how you look at it, has an o ring inside, then bearing, then seal. the seal is like a double lip design cept the way they are installed the half lip (kind of a dust cover) is inside with the full lip pointing out. i talked to john at avaid about it and he agreed there is a prob with leaking or mist out the front of the pump. i pulled the seal and reinserted another same type with the lip in and din't have a leak after the run this morning. the seal is a b**** to pull so you better have another one handy. they are installed dry and i had to cold chisel and work to get it out. when putting another in i would suggest anti-seize. heaven forbid the bearing should have to come out, i don't think it will.

i also changed the oil to a 5w30 mobil brand. i had initially used 10w30 then switched to 20w50 to try to up the idle pressure and felt the 20w stuff was too thick, more blew out the front seal and from what i have read volume will keep the bearings cooler, especially with the al blocks and tighter main clearances. i reasoned the al block vettes are using the 5w stuff so tried it this time and the pressure seemed better, time will tell if i have to change back to something thicker. i did notice aeration bubbles in the sight tube moving to the top so maybe the thinner oil will deareate a little better. i am running a 19/28 pulley ratio, which is pretty high.

when i reinstalled the tranny i went with the dexron stuff for breakin. when i purchased the tranny the guy said to go with amsoil, no breakin required, but after reading a post here in the tranny section decided this was the way to go. a different race tranny i had purchased required breakin and i always wondered why the tko wouldn't.

fms makes a good valve cover gasket. i had initially purchased a $15 set made of neoprene, but this stuff squishes out and leaks. the fms is approx $45.

i installed a mocal oil to water heat exchanger in the output line, will have to see what this does to water and oil temps, but the water temp today didn't get over 160 with a 195 thermostat, bout 60 outside air temp. there is an hour meter and i don't figure to run the oil for max amount of time/miles and will change sooner.

i have a diff set of valve covers without the breathers i might use after the engine is good and broke in, can't break it in with vacuum.

still need an alignment, i changed the rack to a 16:1 and above 70 gets kinda hairy. also have to watch the speed!

get a good tune, mount the hood, and i think it's a go this time. here is a pic of the finished engine.

[john chesnut]

Congratulations!!! I really like the JBL. Have fun. John

[Richard Hudgins]

Vector 1,

The suspension geometry is designed for the 20-1 ratio. The 15-1 is way too quick!

I know the car feels like you have to turn the wheel a lot at parking lot speeds and will make you think you need a quicker ratio.

However, once you get rolling along this feeling goes away and the steering becomes quite quick due to the suspension geometry and dynamics of the chassis.

You will never be pleased with the quick ratio rack and it is actually dangerous as the steering inputs required with a 15=1 rack are way too small for you to be able control the car effectively at speed.

To make that rack work you would have to change the roll axis drastically which would require that you change the pickup points both front and rear and you would have to change the scrub radius and Ackerman as well.


Please change the rack back to the original 20-1 unit supplied by JBL as this is the ratio that I designed the chassis to use.

Nothing else will work!!!!



Glad you have that thing running finally.

Remember to get some heat into the tires before you use the throttle in anger!


PS: I would really like to see some photos of your dry sump system and the plumbing solutions that you came up with.

[vector1]

oh mmmaaaannnnn! come on dad!! lol

alright richard, you got me there. i have the other rack but i'll have to get the mounting spacers as i plugged and offset drilled these to mount the rack.

me and the neighbor did scare outselves a little when we hit 80 and the car started to wonder with oncoming traffic, but i thought it was the front or rear alignment that might be out.

i can replace the rack easy enough.


in addition to the first post for all you efi guys, we were trying to datalog off the efi and weren't getting any data. the neighbor is a computer head so he suggested shortening the datalog cable because of intereference and it worked. suggestion was to either use a shorter cable or shield with aluminum foil in the future.

thanks for looking out after me richard!

the dry sump after the initial iteration is really not that difficult.

the tank is from oval craft, they still make the tank although it is a little shorter and wider, so i don't know how it would fit in the footwell. can't be scared to cut into the metal here.

the pump mounts with enough clearance, although some modifications had to be made on the mounting holes of the brackets.

all lines are -12.

the scavenge lines fit easily enough, although if i had to do it again i would put the screens inside the pan, there should be two on the right, one leading to the rt. front and the other to the rt. rear, the other line should scavenge off the left side for plumbing purposes, all mine scavenge off the rt. side and things are tight, hence one line had to run to the back and up the left side, although it does have a scavenge tube inside the pan running to the left side.

the scavenge off the pump goes through the oil/water exchanger and then to the tank through a 60 mic screen.

the pressure is fed off the bottom inner side of the tank through a hole in the trans tunnel to the pump, out the pump to a cannister filter mounted on a plate bolted to the inner frame rails, out the cannister to the pressure port on the engine.

everything is pretty compact and looks complicated, but it is not difficult to pull the drive train or work on things if the need arises.

there are 45, 90, 60, and 120 degree fittings uses, one just has to use the imagination, and a little help from our friends.

if i had to do it all all over again, i would not use the electric water pump, it messed up the location of the alternator too much, making extraction slightly difficult to hook/unhook the wires on the back. it could be located on the upper left where it belongs because of the oil pump location. it could be located on the pass. side, but working on or removing the pump would entail removing the alt.

hope this answers some of your question.

by the way, noticed on the newer chassis, the fuel tank is offset to the rt. with batt. and halon on the left. weight distribution?

take care.

mark

[Richard Hudgins]

Mark,

I will send you the drawing for the spacers. Easy to make at any local machine shop.

And much quicker than getting them from Dave.

[Tim Brewer]

500ish IS a high hp engine, be careful.

[WildBill3]

Vector1 Nice job it's lookin sweeeet!!

[vector1]

thanks guys, for the encouragement, direction, and drawings!

i was going to add one more thing, the dart block has 1/4" pipe plugs in the side leading to the water jacket. these are to be plugged so i purchases plugs, aeroquip brand, and these would screw all the way through so i rtv'd them. one i redid and it got to leaking so i inquired at keith craft and they said they use reg. pipe plugs. so i had a thought and went out and measured the aeroquip unit and i had an unknown brand i measured and the aeroquip was smaller in dia., put the other one in and it only went in half way tightened down. so there are different size plugs.

--wild bill, what do you do for track days? i plan on trips to hallet for the hst or comma races but there should be something around kc.

33 deg. outside today, looks like i'll mosey on out and clean up the shop. somebody forgot to take out the groundhog!

[Richard Hudgins]

Mark,

Quote, "by the way, noticed on the newer chassis, the fuel tank is offset to the rt. with batt. and halon on the left. weight distribution?"

The tank is a larger unit, 22 gal as opposed to the 16 gallon as standard.

The only way to make it fit with the battery and fire bottle was to offset it.

And the offset toward passenger side was for weight distribution purposes.