OST Micah

While I was waiting for the new parts to come in for the charge pipe and radiator I decided to do some turbo modification. The drive pressure (exhaust backpressure) was a lot higher that I thought it should be. For 32lbs of boost drive was 55lbs. The turbine housing is a 1.10AR and my turbo builder has suggested to go to a 1.25AR. To test if a larger AR would do anything to reduce drive pressure AND not spend any money I decided to hog out the divider in my current housing. I removed it from the inlet and the whole way through the housing. After reassembly and testing it doesn't look like this modification did anything for reducing drive pressure or requiring more fuel (making more power). Oh well, it was worth a shot. We'll get some data at the track if it makes it past the 60ft. I also machined a $7 shift knob off Amazon to fit my Stillway shifter since I didn't like the Stillway shift knob. Next on the list was the radiator replacement and fabrication of a new intercooler tube that had no silicon coupler. No pictures of this - I was short on time each night after work to get this done and didn't stop to take pictures. Next was to get the clutch disks out and replaced. Previously when installing the dogbox I had ordered a set of the same sintered iron disks I had been running because I switched to the 26-spline input shaft. I thought it was odd that they didn't have any markings or brand name on them like all my old disks had but installed them anyway. At the track I could not get the clutch to lock up using my normal strategies. After two track nights I reached out to the clutch manufacturer and ask their thoughts. They said they had to switch the material out because they were having trouble getting the original material and that this new material would not take to being slipped very well. So out with the first set of 26-spline disks and in with the correct material 26-spline disks. While I had the trans out I added an inspection/service hole. I've wanted one of these for a while. Now I can have a look at things and change the front cover shimming when needed (clutch wear). I hustled and got the clutch change done in a few hours on a Saturday. Hopped in the car and drove home. On the way home I did a 1-3 pull. When shifting from 2nd to 3rd the core plug in the back of the cylinder head popped out and dumped all the coolant. Thankfully I was only 30 seconds from home and coasted it there. Datalog showed nothing unusual and 2.5psi of coolant pressure. That plug has been in there since 1992 but I guess it worked its way out. Pulled the trans AGAIN and replaced the plug, JB welded it in, and made a brace. Also deleted the head drain I had added in during the bearing issue fiasco. I am currently changing my boost control plumbing to make it cleaner. After that is done I'll make another attempt at getting past the 60.

The holdups last year were drivetrain related. I had the car out right after getting the bearing issue resolved. Third launch and the car didn't move after releasing the clutch. It had sheared all the engagement teeth off the 1st gear. Thankfully no other damage was done. I set an aftermarket gear beside an OEM gear and found that the engagement teeth on the OEM gear were much larger and better supported. Looking through my bin of spare transmission gears I found that there are two types of tooth on the OEM first gears - the larger tooth and the smaller tooth. It looks like most aftermarket gearset manufacturers base their design on the smaller tooth. OEM large tooth left - Speedtek, OS Giken, etc or OEM small tooth right Decided to give that larger engagement tooth a try. Pressed the ring off an OEM gear and sent it to a transmission manufacturer here in the States. They did their "faceplating" operation with my synchro ring on the Speedtek gear. I reassembled it, took it back to the track and promptly destroyed the gear itself. I'll rebuild this and use it as a spare - thankfully just first gear and the countershaft are damaged beyond repair. Definitely disheartening but my welded on engagement tooth ring held up! Moved to Speedtek's dog engagement design as the gears appear to be much stronger. So far they have taken much more abuse at the track. Also scored a Stillway lockout from the Netherands for super cheap. It's for some other RB transmission so it took a bit of fabrication to fit but honestly a very easy job. I also had to heavily modify the gates as they were very different. Then for some reason at the last test and tune a silicon coupler below the throttle blew off and took out the radiator and fan. Thankfully it was in the burnout box and not down track. This car is really beating me up - I still haven't made a pass in it. Ran it through the gears many times on the street but it keeps biting me at the track. Currently in the process of replacing the radiator and remaking the throttle pipe to remove the coupler and use a cast 90 and a vband. I WILL get this thing down the track...

I don't believe I posted pictures of the second oil pump pickup I added so here they are. Data shows it gets oil pressure up to the relief pressure much earlier in the RPM. Is that important? Not likely... This was just another attempt to fix the bearing issues. I also heavily opened up the inlet to the pump since it now had to flow oil from two pickups. I believe the diameter increased about 1/8".

I did not go to GTR Festival. It's quite a long drive and the car wasn't dialed in yet. I also wanted to see how the racing portion went before going. From what I can tell the classes were not heads up, index, or bracket - just whoever has the quickest ET wins. Never heard of that sort of thing before and maybe some people like it but it's not my cup of tea. I don't suspect I'll go if that is how the racing is done. I did get the car out three times and had issues each time. Some were my error - haven't raced the car in over two years - and others were parts. Had trouble getting the clutch to slip correctly and remembering how it was set up in the Haltech. Broke some drivetrain parts as well that couldn't be fixed in a couple days to get back out. Season definitely didn't end the way I wanted but at least the bearings are still fine! Not a fleck of material in the filter. Really hoping next year is the year I can actually test this car properly.

A year of slogging through this bearing issue and finally fixed. What a nightmare. The oil pressure increase did not fix the problem. If you would like to read all the details in case you ever run into a similar issue visit my thread on Yellow Bullet. https://www.yellowbullet.com/threads/continuous-rod-bearing-issues.2689569/?post_id=74193031&nested_view=1&sortby=oldest#post-74193031 In the end the rod bearings themselves were the issue. I had switched from ACL (first engine) to King because that was all we could get at the time and I thought nothing of it. Put the ACL's back in after a year of taking the pan off multiple times to change many things. Issue resolved. Can't believe it was just the bearings themselves all along. It has now been about two years since I drove the car on the street or had it at the track. At some point I had installed all solid and spherical bushings in the rear but had never aligned it since it just went on and off the dyno. Alignment was the first thing to do. (Old photo but same concept) Then I took the transmission out and went through it. This was my first gearset install and I've done about 15 since this one and learned a lot and wanted to apply some of these tweaks to mine. The aftermarket shift forks take very well to some modification and I wanted to make that change. Shifts are now super smooth and no having to find the gear. I also recut the 5th and reverse shift sleeves - always wanted to try this and see how well it works. It works very well! No grinds or having to do a second attempt going into reverse and 5th is perfect. Before During After Going back in In rummaging through my spare trans parts box I found the only parts I've ever broke on a stock trans; the 3-4 shift fork - twice!

Here we go again...

Pump relief access bung added. Welding didn't go so hot on this one. Two -10 bungs added to the side: upper for head drain that will be going on, lower for external relief return. This lower bung has a 1/2" tube welded to it prior to being welded to the sump. This tube gets the relief return oil as close to the pickup as possible. Hopefully this replicates the factory relief return well enough. Sump is now completed and the engine can start going together.

Oil pump porting. Spool spline drive gears Backing plate bolted back on with torx-head bolts. These get harvested from Gen3 Hemi oil pumps before throwing them away. Modified for an HKS trigger kit. The threaded relief cap that was used to find center on the oil pan is reused here. Took the spring out of the pump, wound a long bolt into the threaded cap and snugged it up tight. Then welded it in place and cut off the excess. This blocks off the relief entirely so the external relief can do the job instead. In case this doesn't work, I'm adding a 20an bung to the pan just below the cap to access this.

Thanks, Duncan. Running an N1 pump with Spool spline drive. I'd love a bigger pump but if I put trash through it the cost of another would hurt even more than the cost of the first. If the N1 simply cannot make the pressure (I know it can with slightly less bearing clearance on other builds) then I will bite the bullet and get a Nitto pump. Another reason I'm making sure the sump can be removed in-car. Thank you for the insight. Yes, we are running larger clearances as the crank was touching the mains with stock clearances (first engine teardown). I think the larger clearance is likely why the bearing issues occurred. The first engine had stock clearances and 80-90psi oil pressure at high rpm and 10-40 oil. The second engine had around .0023" main bearing clearance and 75-80psi oil pressure at high rpm and 20-50 oil. When I rebuilt that engine this Spring it had .0028" main bearing clearance and 65psi oil pressure with 20-50. As the clearance went higher the pressure went much lower. Most of the people involved in this (including myself) are V8 engine guys and 70psi or even 60psi of oil pressure is no problem for those engines even running into the 8s at 4400lbs. But I am guessing that for our little engines and tiny rod bearings it's just not enough. That's why each engine lasted a shorter time with less oil pressure. This new engine has .0022" mains and I will not run it up if I cannot get 90psi+ oil pressure at high RPM. For oil it was broken in on Lucas 30wt break-in oil. Drained, filter cut, and 20-50 was used. Never got to try the 40 and 50wt. Going to use 10-60 this time after break-in. Maybe 10-60 with some 40 or 50wt to get the cold viscosity up if needed.

Well it's been a while since I've updated as it's been a struggle. Last November the few month old engine was torn down due to a rod bearing noise. The engine never lost oil pressure and on one partial pass on a brutally hot day oil pressure dipped to 58psi. It made no noises after the pass and there was nothing in the oil. Oil pressure Engine Protection was set to trip at 55psi. Later that week I tested a launch out on the street. It was about 38F out and I let the car warm up a bit but maybe not enough. Immediately after the launch I heard a light rod knock. Related to the short time of 58psi at high RPM or the potentially cold oil? While the crank was being repaired the head and cams we done as posted on the last page. Got the car on the dyno shortly after the last post. Did some light and medium load driving and all seemed well. Oil pressure was a bit lower than I would have liked to see but I chalked it up to the now larger main bearing clearance as they were the only bearing available at the time. After two partial WOT hits on wastegate pressure the oil was drained and the filter cut open. Nice and clean with no bearing material. Fresh oil in and two more partial WOT hits just to watch oil pressure and changing gears to see if time, load, or RPM related. Again, a lower than I would like so I got some 40 and 50 weight oil to try - just to troubleshoot and see if it helped. Drained the oil and several large chunks of bearing material came out of the sump. This was seriously disheartening. Really frustrated with the car and myself at that point. Pulled the engine again a few days later to see where I was. 4 of 6 rod bearings were completely squeezed out of the rods like they were made of play-dough. Freshly repaired crank was beat up but likely repairable again. Bought a new crank to be safe, two new rods, and new rod bolts for all (old rods and crank are said to be fine by our builder so they will go on a shelf for a rainy day). New oil pump gears, new oil pump housing purchased as well. The old ones were beat up at this point. After tearing the engine down and sending it out the our builder I pushed the car into the storage building and took a break from it. Did house projects, built a garden, got chicken coops and chickens - just got my mind off of it. Yesterday the shortblock arrived. It was a bit unexciting as I had started to forget about the car which was nice. But back to work we go. This time I will be blocking off the relief in the oil pump and running an external adjustable relief. I will set the oil pressure to give the engine all the pump needed - looking for 100psi of oil pressure at WOT. I will also make the sump more easy to remove by modifying the area that covers the rear bolts. This will be to change the oil pump should I need to and to check or replace the rod bearings on a regular basis. I'll also be adding a bung at the front of the sump to be able to access the pump relief should this external relief not work. Lastly, I'm adding a ClearView filter to keep an eye on the oil without having to cut the filter every drive, dyno hit, or pass. Sorry for the wall of text! I'll be chipping away at this over the next several weeks. Marking center of the relief on the sump.

Thank you! Yes, there are a couple really nice hats out there. If this was a customer car I would be purchasing one of those. I'm just too stingy and if I can make a decent version myself I will at least give it a shot.

While I'm waiting for a free spot on the dyno I figured I may as well do something productive with the car. Last year fuel pressure was dropping out on ethanol (fine on gas). It wasn't plummeting and still had pressure enough that I could run the car but it wasn't right. The car only has -6/HICAS lines for supply and return so the first test will be replacing the supply line with a -8. Hopefully this takes car of the issue but if not, I made provisions for a third pump to be added. This is what I started with. Sort of nice, but how the wiring came through the hat was not up to snuff. Milled out the underside to get a nice flat surface for the bulkhead nuts. Drilled out the factory wiring connector and potted it with three sets of pump wires. Currently only have two pumps but just in case. Also filled in the hole where the wires previously exited. What it looks like in the tank. This y-block is much less restrictive than the setup I cobbled together before. Installed. No sheetmetal cut or bent to fit 8an. And the steel cover fits with no spacers or modification. 1/2" hardline made up to fit in the HICAS slot. No pictures of the engine bay lines but nothing looks too different there. We'll see what happens!

Been sitting about 3 weeks now. Stinks but customer cars come first. I shined it up a bit though one evening. Really anxious to get it on the dyno.

No real updates. Just waiting on a free dyno slot and some free time to tune the car/test on the dyno. Tweaking the startup and idle when moving the car around the shop.

Fired it up a few days ago. No issues! A couple things to tidy up and then on to testing.

Thank you and good looking out. It is indeed the angle. There's a couple inches between them. However I do need to stop being cheap and buy a factory terminal cover. Weird how those non "go-fast" parts seem expensive but "go-fast" parts not so much.

All back together after a few days working after hours. Car sounds completely different. Bay and car are dirty but I'll clean them sometime soon. Going on the dyno at some point to do some testing and tuning. Lots of customer cars to do first though so it'll be a bit.

Thanks! Well there's a couple reasons there. First, I wanted to try high lift cams (for power and to remove more on the exhaust stroke). I also wanted to have a fixed cam because at high RPM the cam would move around several degrees. Maybe that was incorrect PID tuning or maybe it was the cam gear not able to properly lock. Either way, I wanted to eliminate that. Cam advance at high boost/RPM can probably really increase cylinder pressure. I'm really just trying to do everything to eliminate detonation. I will miss it though. Definitely made the car more drivable. Sorry for only a few junk pictures. I was trying to get this thing done. Added a Supertec billet backing plate. Another effort to increase oil pressure. Maybe the factory ones flex? Who knows. Worth a shot though. Degreeing the JUN cams with a set of vintage JUN cam gears. I like the old school stuff. Got one of these on a motor I bought and another from a friend. Motor complete and ready to go back in the car. Just ran out of time tonight.

Head is back from the machine shop. Got it assembled and buckets shimmed up. Torqued to the block for shimming as it does make a difference. The rest will be going together ASAP.

This winter I took the car apart again. Saw some things I wanted to change. First was to get rid of the VCAM and try a set of high lift cams. It'll be a good test to see what a set of big cams will do over a set of drop-in cams. Tomei Japan +1mm buckets and stud kit as well. I also decided that if I was going to add lift it would make sense to do a pocket port on the head. Exhaust side too but hard to get pictures of that since it's all black with carbon. Then I port matched the head to the intake. Really far off. Had to open it up a lot. Then the valves were unshrouded and the chamber opened up. I was having trouble putting timing into it at 35+psi. Hopefully this is why. We did something similar on one of our Gen3 Hemi motors and it worked very well. Head is done for my part. Going to the machine shop for cam clearance and valve job. Next I pulled the oil pump apart to inspect and port. The screws had been installed with loc-tite by the machine shop a couple years ago and I had to use the torches to get them out hence the burned oil; not from the motor. Pump outlet Pump suction Backing plate installed with torx-head bolts this time for servicability. Going to be putting it back together as soon as the head is back from the machine shop. Looking forward to testing the head changes and the open chambers.

Awesome build! Sounds like a lifted head or gasket not sealing somehow. To exceed that cap pressure you'd have to really be running that motor hot and I don't suspect you are. A lifted head or bad head gasket seal will push coolant like that at operating temp and pressurize the system. When the motor cools the pressure is still there because it wasn't caused from heat in the first place. Are your rad hoses rock hard after you romp on the car a bit?

Took the car to a local airport event to shake down the new setup. Just wanted to make sure everything was working as it should. Good thing as there was a pretty oddball issue. Truthfully it had been noticed a few weeks prior but was inconclusive on the cause. During tuning I had to add an enormous amount (about 30%) of additional fuel. There were no significant parts changed; just a refreshed motor and new turbo manifold so I knew something was wrong. Replaced the fuel pumps, cleaned the fuel filter. inspected all lines, etc. Nothing made a difference. Took the regulator apart to inspect, used shop air to ensure it was adding pressure 1:1; no issue there. I was stumped but the car ran well so I went racing. At the event I turned up the boost from gate pressure and fuel pressure was falling out dramatically. Tried to make the car run just to have fun at the event but no dice. Got some decent photos though. Got the car back home and starting thinking it over and reviewing logs from last year and this event. I ended up grabbing a large return orifice fuel regulator from another car and adapted it to test on mine. Boom, fantastic fuel pressure. All fuel added had to be removed. Ordered up my own regulator of the same style. I still have no idea why the regulator worked with the same pumps for 3 years and at the same power level for 1-2 years without issue but this season it no longer could flow enough. It must have just been on the edge before and something tipped it over. With that problem solved the car went to a track rental to try to dial in the clutch again. Hadn't gotten a handle on it last season. Thankfully, with a new launch and clutch slip strategy, the clutch was sorted in a couple launches. Unfortunately, I could not get the car to go into 3rd gear at WOT. Reduced all torque from the motor on the shifts and still nothing. Did manage to get one pass out of the car on lower power (see the low MPH) and the clutch was dialed in so I called it a win for the day and for a new setup. Drained the fluid later and found broken 3/4 shift springs so that'll be corrected this weekend. Car now does consistent 1.39-1.40 60fts every time the track holds it. And all I have to do is dump the clutch and let the slipper do the work. Super happy about that. Aborted pass due to missing a gear but the 60 was great. Complete pass Pass of the slip above

I didn't notice that. Definitely looks that way. I love the sleeper look myself but you gotta do what you gotta do for the track. Nothing crazy to update. Just been enjoying the car, driving it, cleaning it. Stuff I don't normally get to do. But the other day I decided to start tackling my power steering issue. Ever since I got the car at port the steering has had very minimal power assist. At idle it has none. Around 3000rpm it starts to have a bit. Fine for driving but really annoying when parking. The worst is when staging on the prepped surface of the track and having to shift the car over in the lane. Two years ago I installed a used pump that was said to be working. There was no change in steering feel. Figured that meant something else was the problem. Played with bleeding, refreshing parts of the pump, etc. Nothing changed. I just lived with it and always worked on it in the back of my mind. Every now and again try something on the car. Always the same result. Yesterday I thought I had it figured out. A clogged high pressure line. Test fitted another and again no change. Blew the rack, lines, and gear assembly out with compressed air looking for a clog. No change. Next I read through the service manual and decided to test this "good" pump. Rigged up my own tester with a nitrous pressure gauge feeding to the Haltech through the EMAP sensor wiring. With the high side open there was 80psi. With the high side blocked only 200psi. FSM says 900psi. So much for "the pump worked great". Now I know there are a few aftermarket pump kits out there and I have nothing at all against the people that sell them. I just prefer to do my own work and/or spend as little money as possible. Their kits are very nice and well worth it if you cannot make it work on your own or don't want to modify the actual pump. Online pictures showed that the 2004 Sentra pump looked extremely similar to a cut down single stage RB26 pump. Got one locally to measure and compare. Amazingly, the two pumps are almost identical. Kind of bizarre how close they are. Only a few modifications needed to fit the Sentra pump. 1. Backing plate needs milled down just like it does when converting an R32 GTR dual stage pump to single stage. 2. Pivot bolt hole needs to be drilled out. GTR pump is .413" ID for the shoulder of the bolt. Sentra pump is threaded for an M8 bolt. 3. The body of the pump is larger. This means the plate that bolts to the front of the pump and grabs the adjuster slide does not fit around the pump body. Nor do the bolt holes line up. Fill the bolt holes (weld), open up the cutout in the bracket to fit around the pump body, and redrill the holes in the new correct location. Other than the above it's a straight swap. Pulley lines up with the crank drive (R32), pump inlet and outlet are the same as before, pulley splines and fitment on the pump are the same. Really wild. I now have working power steering at idle! Been years in the making. Pump even looks the same. Backing plate notched like the previous pump.

Drove the car to and from work nearly every day last week. Switched it over to street mode in the evenings. Front half of the cage out, headlight in, other set of wheels on. No issues and just having fun driving it.

Some more progress. Got it on the dyno and tweaked the tune for the new motor and dialed in the idle control with the DBW. Gate pressure (24psi) and pump gas timing only. Going to enjoy it for a bit before going back to the track. A few things to do yet and I'll get it out of the shop.