SIZEMOREMK
02-16-2015, 08:30 PM
Hello all, welcome to my looong build description!
I am doing a round of mods to my Marauder in conjunction with an engine build and was looking for a critique of my plans here.
Current plans:
All forged rotating assembly
Teksid block .020 over
9.5:1 CR
Paxton Novi 1200 with intercooler
8-rib swap
18% OD IW damper
3.33 SC pulley
Jerry's extra idler between Alt and PS pump
3.2 metco alternator pulley
valve job
stainless valves
aftermarket valvesprings
aftermarket intake cam .214 duration .470 lift
60lb injectors
Already has Ford GT Pump and KB Boost-A-Pump (I won’t be surprised if we end up having to do something about the single GT pump)
4.10 gears (already in the car)
Tranny refresh with a couple extra clutches via Jerry's bulletproof 4R70W article, and some other stuff found at clickclick racing. (Got a few AODs/4Rs under my belt with good results).
Factory Converter rebuilt and loosened up.
I am having the work done at a local speedshop this time, which that alone is something I'm not really very comfortable with as I have always done these things myself in previous cars/trucks. I just have too much going on and the extra cold weather this year helped the decision to just take it to the man.
At first I was going to haul it to MO's, but decided to try out a local guy that had a little bit of a good reputation with the cobra guys. This was no reflection on my previous dealings with MO's, I feel like he and Jeff went above and beyond with the work they did with my car last year. I really hope I don't regret choosing this guy over MO's, but I really liked the idea of having a local source for this stuff. I would not be surprised if the car ends up at MO's to be re-re-tuned anyways.
Shop says we should be able to reasonably target 15-17 PSI for daily, but not sure if the NOVI 1200 will get there, nor if that is a good idea for a daily driver with 9.5:1 compression. The shop says we can get an idea about where its going when he gets it on the dyno; then I also have the option of machining the 18% damper down to reduce boost if we need to. According to the vortech impeller speed calculator, the 18% with a 3.33 should spin the blower to 55,000 RPM, which is not too much over the 52,000 max that tons of people seem to ignore.
Most all of this came in a package deal, where the guy was moving to an LS in his cobra after a piston to valve clearance issue. The owner basically screwed up degreeing his cams and badness generically ensued. So valves were replaced, heads reworked, pistons/rings replaced and block machined. Also came with new timing set, billet oil pump and an aftermarket oilpan (if it will fit), the 8-rib swap, and 18% IW OD damper. Got all that for about $3600 (but did not include machining the block and engine assembly). Maybe not the best deal in the world, but not too bad. Would have gone with 8.5:1 or 9.0:1 CR but the deal already had new pistons at 9.5:1. I've been down to see all the parts and everything seems legit.
As for the cam, I had some reservations about the combo, being I could see no FI type cams with such specs available from the usual sources with that much intake and ex split. But the shop seemed confident about the cam selection, and says that this cam combo made close to 800 HP in a blown cobra, and close to 900 later after swapping to turbo, etc. Then when you think about it, this doesn't seem all that far off from swapping to 98 intake cams.
Previous details on the car:
The car has the Paxton Novi 1200 at 11-12 psi (they said 12 when it was dyno tuned),39 lb injectors, Ford GT pump, KB boost-a-pump.
Was 6-rib, with 3.25 pulley and stock damper never seemed to have belt slip that I could tell.
Tuned conservative for daily driver duties.
Stock converter, stock tranny, 4.10s.
2 widebands units; one an old PLX WB, and a 1 was a newer innovative unit. They both agreed with Jeff's wideband at Mo's when it was last tuned.
SCT iTSX, this is the Bluetooth SCT programmer that does about the same as an XCAL3, but allows scangauge type functionality through a phone or Ipad.
This car made 424HP, 380TQ at MO's last spring, but I have always felt that the car was not as strong as it should have been for this combo when seeing numbers for other similar combos. I was always suspicious of the lack of power down low in particular. Of course this was with a stock converter, but with the 4.10s, it dumbfounded me that this car would not break the tires loose from a dig (unless it is cold, like below 40* or so). I have really suspected that the rings may not have had the best seal, but never did a compression test either.
This round of mods was completely unplanned due to some burnt pistons in my MMR 600 with 9.5:1 (which was cast crank with forged rods/pistons).
My biggest concern is that I don’t know the root cause of the failure. My current assumption was that I had a leaky headgasket, created an air pocket, overheated and ruined my motor before I caught it. This was probably because I failed to check my gauges often enough during that morning commute, something I am usually pretty good about. When they tore the motor down, there was evidence of detonation on the bearings along with the burnt pistons. So what came first? Undetected detonation caused the HG failure? Tank of bad gas? Fuel pump going south?
I made a huge mistake in getting too comfortable with the car, as everything seemed to be just right as far as road manners and such. I started kinda ignoring the WB gauges, failed to monitor the fuel pump DC, etc... I hope to remain more vigilant in the future.
Anyways, didn’t mean to go on quite so much, just wanted to give some history.
In particular there are two potential options, which I would appreciate some inputs on:
I had another thread some may have seen from a few weeks ago about a potential intercooler re-build...
Basically, the shop is recommending a re-done intercooler setup since my ice-vex is on the smallish side, last year when I bought the car, Dennis Reinhart said the same thing.
So option #1: For another $700-800 he wants to fit up a bell intercooler core with custom tanks and re-work IC tubing for as big a unit as he can reasonably fit in there.
Option #2 is Methanol injection, which I already have the kit in hand. It’s a Snow kit driven by MAF voltage form a previous car. I just hooked it all up in the garage and tested it using an old PC, so I was able to hit the MAF input with 3volt and 5volt sources and it all seems to work well.
I do not want to tune the car such that a failed meth pump or solenoid runs lean or has too much timing and blows another motor; I don’t trust it that much.
I used this meth kit in this manner on my old Tbird SC (really crappy IC) and it seemed to do a good job of lowering IATs (as proven in datalogs). That was using windshield washer fluid... I can’t say it actually equated to X amount of power gains, but it didn’t run too rich and I would assume it pulled less timing as a result of lower IATs.
I believe I read where at least one other guy here uses his meth setup for this purpose and is tuned to not blow up if the meth fails.
The guy at the shop thinks the meth won’t really help if I don’t tune for its ability to advance timing with it. I don’t get the impression that he is hurting for business, so I really don’t think he is just saying that just so I'll buy his custom intercooler...
I would have bet that the meth kit with a small jet/nozzle would have pretty much made up for the smaller intercooler.
I'm trying to lean away from his custom IC, but I do have to wonder if perhaps he would spend a little more time getting the car "right" if he feels the need to show big gains from his custom intercooler?
Thanks for reading through all that!
Thoughts?
I am doing a round of mods to my Marauder in conjunction with an engine build and was looking for a critique of my plans here.
Current plans:
All forged rotating assembly
Teksid block .020 over
9.5:1 CR
Paxton Novi 1200 with intercooler
8-rib swap
18% OD IW damper
3.33 SC pulley
Jerry's extra idler between Alt and PS pump
3.2 metco alternator pulley
valve job
stainless valves
aftermarket valvesprings
aftermarket intake cam .214 duration .470 lift
60lb injectors
Already has Ford GT Pump and KB Boost-A-Pump (I won’t be surprised if we end up having to do something about the single GT pump)
4.10 gears (already in the car)
Tranny refresh with a couple extra clutches via Jerry's bulletproof 4R70W article, and some other stuff found at clickclick racing. (Got a few AODs/4Rs under my belt with good results).
Factory Converter rebuilt and loosened up.
I am having the work done at a local speedshop this time, which that alone is something I'm not really very comfortable with as I have always done these things myself in previous cars/trucks. I just have too much going on and the extra cold weather this year helped the decision to just take it to the man.
At first I was going to haul it to MO's, but decided to try out a local guy that had a little bit of a good reputation with the cobra guys. This was no reflection on my previous dealings with MO's, I feel like he and Jeff went above and beyond with the work they did with my car last year. I really hope I don't regret choosing this guy over MO's, but I really liked the idea of having a local source for this stuff. I would not be surprised if the car ends up at MO's to be re-re-tuned anyways.
Shop says we should be able to reasonably target 15-17 PSI for daily, but not sure if the NOVI 1200 will get there, nor if that is a good idea for a daily driver with 9.5:1 compression. The shop says we can get an idea about where its going when he gets it on the dyno; then I also have the option of machining the 18% damper down to reduce boost if we need to. According to the vortech impeller speed calculator, the 18% with a 3.33 should spin the blower to 55,000 RPM, which is not too much over the 52,000 max that tons of people seem to ignore.
Most all of this came in a package deal, where the guy was moving to an LS in his cobra after a piston to valve clearance issue. The owner basically screwed up degreeing his cams and badness generically ensued. So valves were replaced, heads reworked, pistons/rings replaced and block machined. Also came with new timing set, billet oil pump and an aftermarket oilpan (if it will fit), the 8-rib swap, and 18% IW OD damper. Got all that for about $3600 (but did not include machining the block and engine assembly). Maybe not the best deal in the world, but not too bad. Would have gone with 8.5:1 or 9.0:1 CR but the deal already had new pistons at 9.5:1. I've been down to see all the parts and everything seems legit.
As for the cam, I had some reservations about the combo, being I could see no FI type cams with such specs available from the usual sources with that much intake and ex split. But the shop seemed confident about the cam selection, and says that this cam combo made close to 800 HP in a blown cobra, and close to 900 later after swapping to turbo, etc. Then when you think about it, this doesn't seem all that far off from swapping to 98 intake cams.
Previous details on the car:
The car has the Paxton Novi 1200 at 11-12 psi (they said 12 when it was dyno tuned),39 lb injectors, Ford GT pump, KB boost-a-pump.
Was 6-rib, with 3.25 pulley and stock damper never seemed to have belt slip that I could tell.
Tuned conservative for daily driver duties.
Stock converter, stock tranny, 4.10s.
2 widebands units; one an old PLX WB, and a 1 was a newer innovative unit. They both agreed with Jeff's wideband at Mo's when it was last tuned.
SCT iTSX, this is the Bluetooth SCT programmer that does about the same as an XCAL3, but allows scangauge type functionality through a phone or Ipad.
This car made 424HP, 380TQ at MO's last spring, but I have always felt that the car was not as strong as it should have been for this combo when seeing numbers for other similar combos. I was always suspicious of the lack of power down low in particular. Of course this was with a stock converter, but with the 4.10s, it dumbfounded me that this car would not break the tires loose from a dig (unless it is cold, like below 40* or so). I have really suspected that the rings may not have had the best seal, but never did a compression test either.
This round of mods was completely unplanned due to some burnt pistons in my MMR 600 with 9.5:1 (which was cast crank with forged rods/pistons).
My biggest concern is that I don’t know the root cause of the failure. My current assumption was that I had a leaky headgasket, created an air pocket, overheated and ruined my motor before I caught it. This was probably because I failed to check my gauges often enough during that morning commute, something I am usually pretty good about. When they tore the motor down, there was evidence of detonation on the bearings along with the burnt pistons. So what came first? Undetected detonation caused the HG failure? Tank of bad gas? Fuel pump going south?
I made a huge mistake in getting too comfortable with the car, as everything seemed to be just right as far as road manners and such. I started kinda ignoring the WB gauges, failed to monitor the fuel pump DC, etc... I hope to remain more vigilant in the future.
Anyways, didn’t mean to go on quite so much, just wanted to give some history.
In particular there are two potential options, which I would appreciate some inputs on:
I had another thread some may have seen from a few weeks ago about a potential intercooler re-build...
Basically, the shop is recommending a re-done intercooler setup since my ice-vex is on the smallish side, last year when I bought the car, Dennis Reinhart said the same thing.
So option #1: For another $700-800 he wants to fit up a bell intercooler core with custom tanks and re-work IC tubing for as big a unit as he can reasonably fit in there.
Option #2 is Methanol injection, which I already have the kit in hand. It’s a Snow kit driven by MAF voltage form a previous car. I just hooked it all up in the garage and tested it using an old PC, so I was able to hit the MAF input with 3volt and 5volt sources and it all seems to work well.
I do not want to tune the car such that a failed meth pump or solenoid runs lean or has too much timing and blows another motor; I don’t trust it that much.
I used this meth kit in this manner on my old Tbird SC (really crappy IC) and it seemed to do a good job of lowering IATs (as proven in datalogs). That was using windshield washer fluid... I can’t say it actually equated to X amount of power gains, but it didn’t run too rich and I would assume it pulled less timing as a result of lower IATs.
I believe I read where at least one other guy here uses his meth setup for this purpose and is tuned to not blow up if the meth fails.
The guy at the shop thinks the meth won’t really help if I don’t tune for its ability to advance timing with it. I don’t get the impression that he is hurting for business, so I really don’t think he is just saying that just so I'll buy his custom intercooler...
I would have bet that the meth kit with a small jet/nozzle would have pretty much made up for the smaller intercooler.
I'm trying to lean away from his custom IC, but I do have to wonder if perhaps he would spend a little more time getting the car "right" if he feels the need to show big gains from his custom intercooler?
Thanks for reading through all that!
Thoughts?