I'm thinking about a clear bra for the bumper eventually. We'll see.
So, the day at the dyno was filled with some good, some bad, and some ugly.
The good:
- Kris got a pretty good grasp on the idle and drivability. We took it for a drive around town with me driving and him in the passenger seat plucking away at the keys on the laptop. The car idles like a champ at around 900RPM. Cam pulls a whopping 7mmHg of vacuum at idle, so I'm glad I have hydroboost brakes. I left last time with the car breaking up between 2500 and 4000RPM. All that is gone now. She pulls pretty clean through the RPM band. Big thanks to Kris for taking time out of his Sunday to get this thing drivable for me. He took it from an engine that wouldn't fire to a near 700hp monster that cruises down the road at 2000RPM with great drivability.
- The engine temp is spot on. 180 when cruising around and 200 when idling for a while. It may creep up a little higher on the hotter days, but that's okay. I can always mess with the restrictor in the water neck if need be.
The bad:
- The car won't make more than 15lbs of boost. I had the boost controller turned all the way up to 30psi, and it still wouldn't budge off 15psi. I researched it a little, at things seem to be pointing to a bad diaphragm in the wastegate. I need to troubleshoot the AMS-500 boost controller to make sure there isn't anything wrong with that. If that checks out okay, I'll open up the gate and see what may be wrong with it. Because of it not making any more boost than last time, the power output was not much more. 679HP/657ft-lb. Timing and AFR are still relatively conservative. It's not a race car, so I don't need every last ounce of power. I would still like to crank the boost just to see what I can get out of the car. Purely for giggles.
- The 25A fuse for the fuel pump blew on us once. That makes me nervous. I'll give Fuelab a call this week to find out what could cause a current spike like that. I can't have the pump randomly blowing fuses when on the road.
The ugly:
- The rings are shot. She's smoking like a chimney through the breather and on deceleration. Switching to the 20w-50 didn't help anything. The engine will be coming out this winter. I'll use that opportunity to upgrade to MLS gaskets and wrap the rest of the turbo piping. I can still enjoy the car for the last few nice weeks we will have up north here. I may also look into a twin-disc clutch. I didn't mind the SPEC stage 3 too much with my old combo, but it's quite a b*tch now. I do need to re-bleed my hydraulic setup, but the clutch is still very on/off.
Here are some cell phone pictures from today.
And a dyno video from the back side this time. I stopped it before the smoke engulfed the camera. The Magnaflows sound great in person. The car is rather quiet and unassuming considering how much power it makes. I like it that way.
View: http://youtu.be/RVPwWYOFIdM
I'm going to drive the hell out of the car for the next week or two, and then she's back on the lift so I can go over everything. Check hoses, tighten bolts, etc. The engine will come out eventually so it can be sent off for rings. I also need to finish up the interior over the winter. It still needs a trunk floor, sound system, and alarm. I'm very happy with where the car is right now. Still some things to work out, but that's just how it goes when you build it from scratch.