[s-cars] Driving Impressions... LONG

[Joe Pizzimenti]

Hap, couple things:
Good luck with that crank.  I don't know of any machine shops that can
balance a crank to 8000 RPM.  The best I've seen is 3000.  I would have just
left it alone.
I had bad luck with Wiseco pistons.  The alloy that they use in some of
their pistons requires some odd machine work.  The piston expands so much
that you're getting nasty blow by until the oil is up to temperature.  Also,
the piston that I was using didn't have enough material under the wrist pin,
so I cracked it there.  Such is life.  I've since moved on to Arias, which
is a tiny bit heavier, but a lot more reliable.
You should have 3" intake plumbing by now, anything to fight compressor
surge.
I'm surprised at how small your injectors still are.  I run 880cc injectors
in my car now and it's a much smaller turbo than what you're running.
With the AEM without a MAF, the tune doesn't "learn".  It is what it is,
nothing more, nothing less.  It does take time to get the hot and cold start
and part throttle perfect, but once you do, it's as good as a stock car,
maybe better.
Let me know how that ignition works out for you.  I'm using Chrysler 300M
coils with an M&W box.  I melted 2 AEM boxes before I gave up on them.  Just
not reliable enough.  FWIW, M&W makes the boxes for Motec and I've had good
luck with them thus far.  The MSD is okay, but a low load, it's really hard
to dial in and make it drivable.

Joe, sharing dakine btdt not from Evahboosht, Pizzo


On 9/7/06, CaptMagu at aol.com <CaptMagu at aol.com> wrote:
>
> s-heads
>
> From time to time I've provided you guys with an update on the results
> from
> modifying my car. This is just the latest installment. The latest round of
> mods
> started with the engine and ended with the suspension.
>
> Engine mods included a slight bore to 83mm from the 81.5mm stock. A new
> 92.8mm Euro stroker crank was sourced from VAG and went through a series
> of knife
> edging and balancing along with all the other appropriate parts. That
> brought
> displacement to a 2.51 liter figure. A beautiful set of coated Wiseco
> forged
> pistons were next. All new bearings and the like were used to reassemble
> everything. An equal length Stainless Steel tubular manifold was matched
> to my
> one-off GT 35R turbo. Also added was a Turbo XS Pro-Gate 48mm wastegate
> that I had
> sitting around for a couple of years. Next was an HKS Type II Racing BOV
> to
> evacuate charge air when required. Dave Jones was concerned about my 2
> 1/2"
> charge air plumbing so we went to 2 3/4". Brendan Rudak did some custom
> modifying
> of their new cast end tanks so that they could be welded to my 4" thick
> FMIC
> core.
>
> The custom downpipe is a full 3 1/2" from the turbo back. 3R welded a 3
> 1/2"
> V-Band clamp to my turbine section to get me a full 3 1/2" turbo-back
> exhaust.
> We also added a new Aeromotive adjustable FPR and we upped the injectors
> from
> 440cc to 550cc. Speaking of fuel, we added a second Bosch 044 fuel pump to
> replace the stock pump in the tank. Since the turbo mounts so far out and
> since
> we don't use a MAF we were able to mount an HKS mushroom filter on the
> inlet
> of the turbo. Once thse items were in place all new custom chage air
> plumbing
> was fabricated to match up with the 034 cast intake manifold. This mani is
> not
> intended to be used with the AAN in an S-car so there was lots of
> fabricating
> required to make things fit and work. MY Big Bore Throttle Body was
> mounted
> and everything else buttoned up to look pretty stock to the untrained eye.
> Stock
> except for the polishing. I sent as many things as we could pull off of
> the
> engine at this point to be polished including the motor mount housings and
> the
> water manifold under the intake manifold.
>
> To keep the SW issues at bay we went with an AEM stand alone EMS. This was
> not an easy mod because it required an almost total rewiring of the
> electrics
> from the fire wall forward. The challenge was compounded by some
> electrical
> glitches that were buried somewhere in the stock harness. In addition, the
> AEM
> stuff did not communicate very well with things Bosch so we replaced
> almost all
> the sensors and things like that with new non-Bosch stuff. The good news
> is
> that 13 years and 170,000 miles of heat and wear were done away with and
> along
> with a new engine, I have a new electrical system. The stock coils were
> replaced
> with Hyabusa motorcycle coils and the POS were replaced by an MSD CDI.
> After
> getting the car fired up and some baseline dyno runs I was tasked with a
> conservative break-in. After the first 2,000 miles Dave raised the boost
> to 12 lbs.
> We then discovered a coil problem as boost was coming on we would lose one
> or
> more coils. Sound familiar? There was definitely an electrcal hardware
> issue
> raising its ugly head and everyone including AEM was thinking it was the
> MSD
> CDI. AEM had one in the works, but it just wasn't ready for prime time.
> The car
> was very driveable, I just had to be gentle with the boost in the lower
> gears
> and keep the boost at 12 lbs which is where Dave wanted it anyway for the
> break-in. Now lets talk suspension.
>
> While all this engine work was going on I finally got my S6+ 28mm front
> bar
> mounted. In addition, Dave Stone finally released his beautiful coil-over
> Susupension System with Caster/Camber plates using dual adjustable Koni
> shocks.
> Thanks to Brian Billotti, I was able to nail the spring choice from the
> getgo at
> 450lb fronts and 500lb rears using Hypercoil. The suspension finally went
> on
> over the Labor Day weekend and we also got a little present from AEM as
> they
> finally release their 8 Channell Twin Fire Ignition Module. It was driving
> me
> crazy that the car was ready to run but we had to trailer it to be
> alligned.
> Tuesday morning I arrived at 3R with flatbed in tow and off it went to be
> alligned. The car came down from the allignment hoist and I was itching to
> drive it.
>
> Oh my goodness. This car really is insane. I've put almost 300 miles on it
> in
> the last 2 days and it keeps getting better and better. The AEM EMS has to
> learn just like our ECUs. I had to swing by 3R to get Dave to tweak the
> timing
> but other than that it is just SOOOO Sweet. The car pulls like no other I
> have
> driven. I was stopped at a light today with 2 cars on my left in a
> left/straight ahead lane. There was one car ahead of me in my lane with a
> very quick
> merge ahead from 2 to 1 lane as you enter a freeway. The light changed as
> I eased
> out behind the guy in front and both cars on the left turned left. When
> things
> opened up I opened the Green Monstah up. In 2nd gear at 3500rpm, I floored
> it
> and spun all 4 tires. I thought the guy in front that I was passing was
> going
> to pass out. Quattro is a great thing. In a 2 wheel drive car I would have
> been sideways.
>
> The suspension is simply amazing. I wasn't slouching before either. I had
> custom valved Bilstein Sports (+10% bump and +30% rebound) with Eibach
> Pro-kits
> in the front and Ground Control Coil-overs in the rear with 400lb Eibachs.
> Its
> real close in firmness to my Bilstein/Eibach set-up but the car stays much
> flatter in a turn. Some of it might be the 28mm front bar but I drove it
> with
> this bar and my old suspension and I didn't notice anything like what I
> have now.
> Another plus is the virtual elimination of bump steer. It has a very
> streetable feel but come track time we'll tighten things up even more for
> some real
> turning power. The turn-in is sharp and precise. Its going to be fun to
> compare
> the 2 side by side when we get my old suspension installed on Jeff
> Schroeder's
> car.
>
> What's next you say? Well, we still have the Nostradamus thingy to work
> out
> on Tuesday. After that comes the Stassis Torsen Center Differential. I'm
> also
> exploring Status Racing seats to see if they will do any custom colors.
> The
> adjustable carbon fiber Spa seat in leather weighs about 15 lbs. Our seat
> weighs
> about 65 lbs. Yah gotta love losin 100 lbs without a diet. I told you guys
> this was gonna be long but I've finally exhausted this edition of the
> saga. See
> yah!
>
> Hap, wit moh dakine ramblins not from Evahboost, Maguire
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