Just got the phone call I have been waiting eagerly for today -1 Bad Merc is up and running! For those of you who dont know the saga, you can go and read about my past adventures trying to supercharge my car. The title is the same except for 3rd edition which I just added.
To give you a brief idea what has happened, I bought a Trilogy supercharger and had it put on my stock motor. I barely got the car home and I had a major rod knock even though I had only 20,000 pretty easy miles on the car. We guessed the main bearings went because my wife would drive the car to the train about 5 minutes away and the car did not really warm up thus inducing premature wear. My cousin was a Ford Master Mechanic for years and when the motor went bad he stepped in and talked to some people and we were able to get the motor warrantied. This was great but we had to return the motor to stock (remove everything, Trilogy, PD coated valve covers, headers, cut-outs, etc>) dimensions. The dealership pulled the engine apart and could not find out why the bearings went bad-as it was all of them! Oil pump did not let loose and their was no detonation as I always ran 93 octane. New motor put in June of last year, my cousin put on the Trilogy and other parts but we had problems with the tune/tuner. Could not get the car to shift right and sometimes the speedometer would go away. Could not really drive the car like this as it had no real tune so I put it away for the winter. I had run out of money by this time.
Our story picks up earlier this year as I tried again to get the car sorted out so I could make the Kentucky run. Bob Kurgan was gracious enough to send me a rich base tune that worked in the computer so I could get the car up to him in Rockford to tune it on the dyno. Took the car earlier in the day to get some parts and as I was returning home (never took the car over 50mph) I watched in amazement as my oil pressure gauge went to zero! Not again I thought as I heard the familiar rod knock sound! Needless to say their went motor #2!
Now I was stuck as I had no money, a car that I have driven for maybe two hours in two years-and supremely ticked off would put it mildly. I had pricing from when the first motor went to build a stroker motor so I had a rough idea what it would cost. I was tired of the going to different places to have it done and I leaned on some of the membership here -Thanks Tallboy, Mike and MikesMerc- for their advice on what I should do. They all told me, along with some other friends, to talk to Lidio.
I have been in conversations with Lidio in the past and he was always cordial enough to talk to me about the problems I had and make suggestions. I finally picked up the phone again and called him and told him about engine #2 and all the stuff I had been going through. He knew I was a member that was really down and during our conversations he offered to build me a motor! I told him I was laid-off and I was in the process of selling my 32 REO Speedwagon Coupe (which I did) and could probably come up with only x-amount of money. Knowing my budget he assured me we could do something and he recommended the smaller aluminum stroker motor-with the crower cams. Sounded like a good idea and to cut to the chase I towed the car up to Lidio's and dropped it off in Mid May.
We had some delays on getting pistons and some other parts but a couple of weeks ago Lidio pulled the 2nd motor out and did an investigation and found out that all the bearings were gone in this motor too! Lidio then advised he had found sand in the oil panWe have now deduced that when I had the valve covers sandblasted and powder-coated that sand got stuck in the little crevasses and probably under the rubber and when the hot oil hit it caused them to break loose and go into the motor. This sand then ground down the bearings and toasted them in no time! Now how it got into the second motor I am not sure as my old oil pan could have been used or the PD valvecovers still had some sand residue which took out the second engine. I hope this serves as a warning to everyone to clean the crap out of your valvecovers after having them coated. It's hard to believe that such a simple little thing like this could take out two motors- but it did and cost me big money.
Now we jump too today when Lidio called me and advised me the new motor made 445 HP on 93 pump gas at the rear wheels on the dyno. He then opened up the header dumps, ran it again and I gained another incredible 20 hp to max out at 465HP! For some reason this motor likes the open exhaust as Lidio was a little bit surprised it gained so much. This motor should make alot more HP when Lidio puts the tune on it for race gas. It seems that I am running out of air way before I need to worry about stressing this motor.
This is not the big bore 5.3 motor or whipple equipped car but a really healthy aluminum 4.6 Trilogy set-up stroker motor. Of course I would have liked to go bigger but due to budget restraints this turned out to be a fantastic bargain for the HP. Plus the car has that nice Rump, rump sound that we all like to hear. Lidio did take a movie of it, uncorked and on the dyno but he is pretty busy and will email to me so I can post it up. I might have to grab Justbob to come over and show me how
I would like to also take a moment to thank some other people who helped me with the car - Zack, Bob Kurgan, Justbob, Richy04, my cousin and my Dad (who had to listen to me complain and _itch for the past year!).
I would really like to say a big thank you to Lidio at Alternative Automotive for taking care of me and building me a car I always dreamed of. After all the problems I went through the past two years it is nice to finally see the light at the end of the tunnel!
I will have the car for the July 2 run to Dukes and for the Chicago Heights Car Show and Burnout on July 3rd. It feels great to say that
Now my last problem hopefully is to find a way from the Detroit airport to Lidio's on Friday. Does anyone feel like a roadtrip to Lidio's? Just let me know -gas and lunch would be on me of course!
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Originally Posted by Motorhead350
