Lawless90

Member
May 15, 2017
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Hey all, this is my first post and it's going to be my build that I will be doing soon, I keep getting told by my friends that I need to post my builds so they could potentially help others with my findings and tricks i've learned.

So a little about the car(3rd fox), it has a slightly cracked block right now (under warranty). But I came into a lightly built 302 that I thought I would drop in it and see what I can do with it, and save the brand new engine for a rainy day lol.

As she sits now it's pretty mild I'd say lol
tremec tko 500 trans, McLeod twin disk, 302 bored .040 over, ported stock heads w/ behive valve Springs, arp head studs, felpro gaskets from the oil pan to the lower intake, trick flow upper/lowet track heat intake, deca 60lb injectors, 75mm pro-m mass air meter calibrated specifically to those injectors, trickflow billet aluminum delete/spacer, bbk 75mm throttle body, 3" cold side polished aluminum pipe for everything, 4" thick x 16" tall x 32" long intercooler, turbo manifolds/crossover pipe ALL titanium heat wrapped, msd wires with titanium sleeves at the hot ends, accel coil, new pro-m efi engine harness w/ ecu, eldebrock high flow water pump, SVE 4 row radiator, SVE 3 ply silicon hose kit Ron Davis fan, Mallory high volume oil pump, oil filter relocated to fender apron, battery relocated to trunk.

I'm planning on pulling the engine and repainting the bay (just painted it), ive decided I'm going to go with anodized blue in the bay, and accent it with anodized purple, then the exterior I'm looking at 3M carbon fiber wrap.

Long post for my first one, (not sure if this is even the right place to post it), but ill try to be picture heavy and answer as many questions as I can to help!
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Welcome to Stangnet.

You posted in the right place.

That looks like a fun build, I'm looking forward to seeing your progress.

We have a decent sized turbo contingent here that'll be able to help out should you have any problems. Just get ready for a few jackstand jokes though.

If you need any help with paint and body, let me know, I've been a car painter since the seventies.

To get my attention, or anyone else's while you're here, just put an @ sign before our user name. That'll send us a notification.

Like this @Boosted92LX @90sickfox @hoopty5.0 . These are some pretty seriously experienced turbo guys. They'll probably enjoy this thread as well.

Good to have you with us.
 
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Hello welcome to Stangnet, I help with tuning advice most of my experience is megasquirt related but i have a lot of general tuning knowledge as well. If you need/want any help just hit me up.
 
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Thanks for all the support guys!
I'm getting 2 wisdom teeth removed today, so I won't be doing a whole lot of work this week. Powertourque has been really dicking me around with my warranty claim. The engine blew a head gasket with in the first 75 miles it was installed. Afrs weren't bad, and I pulled timing with my pro-m ecu just for safety. The car never even seen boost. So I'm going to put a bunch of fuel/timing/boost into it and split the block so they can't tell me to repeatedly replace head gaskets (I'm on the 3rd set), it's also studded so I know my heads aren't lifting when it seen boost on the last 2 sets. I'm also only making 6 lbs on my 66mm till the is tune is perfect.

Anyone happen to be around/near the Clarksville, TN area?
 
If your spitting head gaskets then the issue is likely tune related, I can help you with timing curves and afr numbers it's all about the tune.

A well built engine usually doesn't just come apart
 
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Well at idle the engine has bubbles in overflow tank, after purging it of air multiple times. And have my base timing set at 10 like standard, but my total timing only goes to 24, no knock, no evidence of details, clean plugs. My afrs are 11.5-11.8wot and they stay around 14.4-14.7 cruising and part throttle.
 
If you've blown the head gaskets 3 times its got to be something causing it. Have you had the heads checked ? Not uncommon to warp a head.
 
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Yeah I've had them checked each time they blew, shop said the heads were great.
I think there is small crack in the block in one of the water jackets. No smoke, no coolant in oil, but it keeps getting air in the cooling system and is oveheating. A big SVE radiator, eldebrock high flow pump and a 160° t-stat shouldn't get up to 220.
 
This was the first one, I'll upload a pic of the 2nd set when I get home, and I'll try to be picture heavy when I tear it back down.
Oh and I know it's not backwards gaskets or some stupid :poo: like that, ive built plenty engines. My last fox was my daily, 306 with a 150 running deep 10s, more reliable than a new car. Never had any problem except with bn using cheap used t5s at swap meets lol
 
The first time yes, after that I just used a true machinists straight edge and feeler gauges, everything was well in tolerance.
I don't think the sealing surfaces or clamping force is the issue. As I said before, I think a water jacket is cracked causing hot combustion gases to mix with my coolant(it failed a block test)(blue fluid looked like piss in minutes lol).
Air in the cooling system will cause hot spots, may not be getting hot enough to cause warp, but causing gasket failure for sure.

Weird thing is, riddle me this one...
No coolant in oil, no smoke.
Pressurized cooling system to 30psi, didn't go down at all in 10-15 minutes.
Used my block test kit, failed for combustion gases in cooling system.
 
That gasket doesn't look good. Is oil mixing with coolant or coolant mixing with oil ? If not then it has to be leaking air from the combustion chamber into the coolant.

Edit; just saw...no smoke and no mixing.:thinking:
 
Yeah tell me about it man, like I said that was with probably 75 miles on the car being BABIED.
I'm ready to tear the thing apart and find the culprit.
It will idle for an hour and never go over 165, but as soon as any load gets put on it it pushes my coolant out.
 
Using just a micro squirt is asking to have problems, it's best to build a breakout board for something like that so you can expand the circuitry to protect the module.

I can daily my car and it's tuned using a megasquirt

They all tune very similarly. All kinds of ems here from MS to Holley