Sprocket's Competition

[j2k4]

I doubt my bosses' Bullitt would be cool enough for him, but it's for sale - 475 RWHP, and pretty mildly tuned, to boot - 36K.

Lemme find the link...here you go...

http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.js...standard=false

[clocker]

Thanks, Kev.
I'm going over there this afternoon for a while and I'll mention that.
And threaten to kill him if he even considers it.

Somehow Sigfrid managed to eke out a couple of work hours during his wife's birthday weekend.
Not sure how, not gonna ask.

We're going to address as many of the issues raised by the tuner as possible.
I have the stock throttle body cleaned up and ready to install.
We have new O2 sensors and PCV valves.
Not sure what else...

I should get a chance to drive her and see what the tuner hath wrought.

[j2k4]

Again, 'bated breath, etc.

[clocker]

Well, yesterday's work session has come and gone and I'm somewhat underwhelmed by our results.

Installed the new O2 sensors (15 minutes...most of which was undoing the electrical connectors designed by Satan) and the stock throttle body.

The "Check Engine" light (or, more properly, the "Malfunction Indicator Lamp"/MIL) now stays off, so the ECU is apparently happy with the O2 sensors.

As far as I can tell, swapping the throttle bodies did nothing for our irregular/hunting idle issue.
A common cause for this is leaks through the throttle shaft seals but after an inspection of the area, I'm not willing to get into those...made no sense to me and I'm afraid I'll screw it up.

We might have a bad TPS (throttle position sensor) or Idle Assist solenoid but I'd have thought the tuner would catch that.

The car will now rev freely past 4k RPM (not easy to do in a residential neighborhood, BTW) but still vibrates too much.
We think the culprit might be the main crank pulley/harmonic balancer which is the unit from our first 383 stroker motor.
I wish I knew more about these engines because we seem to be chasing down issues mostly related to our bastard build motor and neither Sigfrid nor I are very savvy about how much mix/matching is allowable with these things.

At any rate, this week I'm going to attempt harvesting the balancer/pulley from the same junkyard donor that gave up our new intake manifold.
If I can get it- and that's a fairly emphatic "if"- we'll try it out and see what happens.
After that, I'm out of ideas and we'll need to buy some expert help.

Despite the above quibbles the car does seem to run better.
She averaged 18 MPG last tank but there was the tuning session and lots of acceleration "testing" during that time.
This next week of daily driving should give us a more accurate indication of the mileage to expect.

As darkness fell and the temperature dropped, we retired to the patio and imbibed adult stimulants and talked.
We are both very pleased with the dramatic improvements since the motor was properly mounted a few months ago...she actually started to behave like a normal car.

However, the gap between a "normal" car and a "great" car has never been more apparent and after all this work and money, we want a great car.
We are probably about $10K away from achieving this level- and that does not include any bodywork or paint.

Sitting in the driveway is Sigfrid's 2009 RX-8, the best handling car Sigfrid has ever driven (and he has more experience than most).
It's in perfect and unmolested condition.

There is a kit available to mount an LSx series V-8 into it.

It is so very tempting.

Sell off the Beast- almost certainly at a substantial loss, which, emotionally at least could be written off as a "learning experience"- buy a new crate engine and graft it into the Mazda.
There are significant but Byzantine subplots to this plan which I'll not go into but the fact is, we both are tired of fixing things on the Beast that have nothing to do with the swap and should never have been touched in the first place. The carnage seems endless.
The latest example of this is the door sill switches. Every car has 'em, they're the little plunger type things that the door depresses when closed - they're what operate the courtesy lights and are also tied into the security system.
Ours were not removed- which involves one Phillips screw- oh no...ours were gutted and left in place.
The wire for it was cut back to the main harness in the sill.
I cannot imagine a rational explanation for doing this.

We've bandied this idea about for a few months and it's becoming increasingly logical and attractive.
I'm on board.

[j2k4]

I would lay odds the vibe problem is your balancer/damper - the 383 is a crank/block swap and requires different balancing than the stocker.

If I recall correctly, it's a combination of 350/400 CID parts; one is internally balanced, the other externally.

Get one for the engine/displacement you are using, pronto.

[clocker]

Wilco.

[j2k4]

Also-

IIRC, the 350 crank was used in the 400 block to make a 383, and - though I think it would be a massive stretch - the 400 flywheel was peculiar to the 400 (because of the balance issue), make sure you don't have one of those, fucking things up...I assume/hope you have a removable bell-housing cover.

This is unlikely, as you said the 383 was pro-built, I think, but.

[clocker]

The flywheel came with our new engine, so I assume it's correct.
The front crank hub/pulley are remnants of the 383 and I have no idea whether they are suitable or not.

Everything about the car was represented as "pro built" and we've seen how that turned out.
Maybe they meant "professional accountants" or "professional hit men" and Sigfrid just assumed professional mechanics had been involved.
An easy mistake to make, I'm sure you agree.

[j2k4]

Well, he's a great guy, but, hey...he's young and impressionable.

[clocker]

I snagged the front pulley/balancer off the junkyard donor car yesterday...not an easy task with hand tools and no puller.
There was blood.

After that was accomplished, I did my usual stroll to see what might be new.
Spotted a Subaru WRX with the engine pulled but an intact brake setup (sadly, no calipers).
A bit of backstory...
This car comes with the largest bore master cylinder I've seen on a junkyard car, 1 1/16" bore. I pulled one of these last year (just the master cylinder) when I first began my brake experiments, loved the pedal feel, hated the performance. Tried it again a few months later with a different booster but got similar- unsatisfying- results.

This MC confused me because it contradicted my expectations so dramatically.
I finally decided that I'd have to try it again but only if I could use the whole original setup, which meant I needed the booster unit.

Removing the booster from the Subaru is a daunting task, it almost seems that the chassis was built around it.
I'd hate to be the Subie line mechanic tasked with replacing a booster in a completely assembled car...I had the double advantage of an empty engine bay and complete disregard for anything else in my way and it still took nearly two hours to lever the booster out of the car without damaging it.
Absolutely nuts.

At the time I was thinking of trying this in the Beast but given her uncertain future, I'm going to put it in my car.
If it works out, good for me, if not, no harm no foul.
Besides, I haven't done anything nice for my baby lately as I've focused all my attention on Sigfrid's project.

Time to play in my own sandbox for a while.