July 2007

Ace's S14 in Action @ Pocono

Took the turbo car up to Pocono on the 22nd for some HPDE fun. We were on the Double Infield Configuartion, which consists of the Front stretch backwards, north course infield, nascar turn 2 and back straight, South Course infield (no hairpin tho) and then back on the front straight.

The car ran awesome, and pulled strong all day at 14psi. Now that I'm up a level, I really see how I need R compounds to even play around with the big boys..even at 14 psi (we'll say 300ish whp) the car works phenominally on the circuit. More stick time is needed here, but the car is finally becoming more and more complete.

It was the first even with the Rear cross brace, and I certainly think it was worth every penny. I can't say the same for the Silly rear c pillar brace, as that's proven to be nothing more than a fancy shiney bar that blocks headlamps from people behind you at night. However, I've concluded that it may make for an excellent incar mount, so stay tuned!

Only thing to go wrong: Cracked my front lip. I think I know where (dipped it off corner like a dumbass) so I'll hafta take it off and plastic weld or fiber glass the bitch...for now it's got blue tape on it hehe.

I also need to look into a 4 pt roll bar of some sort!

Ray's car did well too, much like it always does. Neat to see the little thing get so many compliments from people that have no clue what it is.

Pete came up for a ride, seemed to enjoy himself in the Turbo Sentra. Sherry showed up as well, and took a few rides in the turbo Sentra herself.

The 240 lives again, now I need to save my doooolars for tires :D

Nitrous Kit on GTO

Corey was installing a nitrous kit on a friends GTO today, so me and ryan stopped by to help him out, Many other people were on the scene to help and to watch and just talk about stupid shit haha. They managed to get halfway done i would say. Check out the pics of the progress so far, all thats left is to install the noids and start connecting all the power wires that are run and start testing things out.

Coolant Leak Found

After fixing everything he thought was a coolant leak last night, the turbo rusty was still spitting coolant. Ryan Figured out it was the lower intake manifold and pulled her off. Well its clear to see where the collant could have been coming out of, and having no intake manifold gaskets around, Ryan thought of trying something we were contemplating for a long time.... Can RTV be used for a ford small block lower intake manifold gasket, hell, why not give it a try! So we will see how it works.

Tstat and coolant fix

Installed a 160deg thermostat and fixed the hose that sprung a coolant leak at island. Also RTV'd that tstat housing because it always leaks. Should have known not to trust a gasket.

Island July 22nd

Me and Ryan and Eric went to island today, Ryan was gunna make some shakedowns since the car was just rebuilt and the new suspension pieces are installed, and i wanted to take the bike and make some passes on the nitrous and get used to it. On Ryans second pass a coolant hose came off so he called it quits, i made about 5 passes i think, sprayed the 20 and the 30 today and the bike really picked up mph, for some reason the bike was running slower, even on motor only. It was a pretty hot day and im guessing the air just wasnt right. my best was a 10.60 at around 135, my all motor mph was a 128, kinda lacking. I will have Video up shortly, but here is the pictures for now.

Dyno at Franks day 2

Pulled out the platinum plugs, and installed some cheapo coppers. Reset the timing in the car, and it felt much stronger. Now that that car is running good, we might throw the platinums back in when the coppers foul out. For whatever reason i just feel nervous with them in the car. Either way we took it up to franks again and beat it up for a little bit, got the air fuel real safe so ryan can beat the hell out of it, and it made 560rwhp and 570ftlbs on 13.5psi and 16 degrees of timing on pump gas. Here is some video from today.

Turbo Rusty Shakedowns

Trying some platinum plugs in the new motor, car took about 10-15% more fueling, we are suspecting the platinum plugs are burning hotter, exhaust gas feels really hot, much hotter than before. So for tomorrow we are gunna toss in the set of coppers that the car has always run on and check it out again. At 10psi before the car made an easy 510rwhp, 440 now seems low, and ryan says the car feels flat, wich when it feels like that the plugs are usually done. Here is some quick video of 2 runs tonight, and there may be some more tomorrow.

Rusty Is Done

The car is complete and Ryan even put a few miles on it, we had to rebleed the brakes, they were a bit spongy, and he also had to adjust the clutch a bit, but other than that the car is sound. We painted the anti rollbar mounts and tried to straiten the rear end out a bit, it still sags to the right a little, either something is damaged or the frame is bent a little. Either way here are some pics of the wheelstuds and the completed engine bay.

Motor done, Rusty running!

Well, Its running tonight... we finished the motor, isntalled the clutch and bellhousing, installed the motor, hooked everything up, wires, hoses you name it, jammed in the tranny, finished the new brake lines on the rear, put in the new rear with the team z uppers and anti roll bar... filled her up with oil and coolant and double checked, and fire it up on the first try!

gunna bleed the brakes tomorrow and set the pinion angle, and weld the anti-rollbar to the axel tubes. hopefully it gets out for a nice ride!

Topend assembly

top end of the motor assebled tonight, rockers, pushrods, valve covers, lower intake manifold and the head studs are all in and ready to rock. One pic of it as it sits, ill be putting another video up shortly.

Assembly Video!

Engine coming together

Around 3 today we installed the 3 inch hardened extended wheel studs in the rear axels, had to open the diff and slide em out to fit the studs in, started to pull them with an impact and a nut and i told em to forget it and ill just hammer them in place hahah. So i picked up a big hammer and slammed the things in, it worked really well. Buttoned up the diff and decided to leave it out till we can replace the rear brake line, that should be in tuesday. Started working on putting the engine back together... take the old piston off the rod and install the new piston and neck pin, and then use the ring compressor and pop it into the engine, It dropped in amazingly easy. Tq'ed the connecting rod down and then cleaned up the pan and bottom of the block and put the oilpan on, then got to work on the top end, put in the head studs, and then dropped in the lifters, next i took the tape off the heads and cleaned them up and dropped them in place. Ryan Tq'ed them down and we covered it for the night, All went well, gunna toss on the intake manifold and then accessories, and install the studs for the headers and bolt on the turbo kit etc, then it will be ready to drop in, if we pace ourselves and do some nice work every night it will be easily done by friday. Here are the pics.

speed install

Saturday night racing

Everyone was all ready and waiting for a big race tonight, two of the heavy hitter supras in the valley were challenged by a man with a twin turbo cobra. They got their race gas in the morning, had the cars all ready by night time. Well... no twin turbo cobra in sight, im pretty dissapointed because i was the middle man to setup this event, and i couldent deliver. I guess a 800whp cobra thinks a 700whp supra and 800whp supra are a waste of time. Well by not showing up, you made yourself look bad. The racing continued anyway with dave and costsas, Dave running in the neighboorhood of 600whp 700ftlbs vs Costas around 700whp 600ftlbs, The name of the game was a highway roll from 55-155, costas edged him off by 2 cars both times. Pretty damn good race i would say, and Daves 250shot is on the way. I cant wait to see more action, here is video from tonight.

Angle #2 Trans am

Island friday night racing

The day started off with corey headed to island dragway early to replace his axel, me and ryan were gunna headup later with the truck and trailer, because well lets face it, corey is gunna push it till he breaks another axel hahaha. AJ was on the scene filming from the burnout box with art. Donovan and his friend were representing the trans am crew. Donovan Just installed his tq arm relocation kit today so he could come and race, the stock tq arm was breaking repeatedly. He ran a few 10.95s with the tranny having trouble shifting out of 2nd... it doesnt like the nitrous shots over 175hp. His friend was running 12.2s i believe, no nitrous and im not sure of the mods, ide say cam and converter along with intake and exhaust.

AJ was up in the box filming all sorts of random things so the video today is nice and long, people were asking where they could get a copy of the video so he was saying get on sloppy mechanics.com it'll be on there in a day! So there is more than just sloppy cars and bikes in this video. Here are the pics for the day.

Van Line Locks

Today Me and my dad installed the line lock kit on the van, its all ready to go just need to bleed the brakes and "test" the system by doing a nice smokey burnout! Here are the pics

Anti-Rollbar install and Uppers

While the motor is still apart, as the piston should be in tomorrow to put the motor back together... I posted up pics a few days ago showing the Team Z anti-rollbar and the adjustable upper control arms. Well might as well drop the diff and install that stuff while its out, pull out the stock wheel studs and get some extended hardened ARP wheelstuds. Here you get a nice picture of the install process. It was very straitforward, take out the piece of junk uppers and replace them with the Team Z uppers, and then jam the anti-roll up into the frame and weld it in place, when the rear is ready to go back in, we will line up the lower part of the anti roll bar and weld that too the axel tubes. Here are some pics of todays events.

Shelby GT Tune

Timmy was tuning a shelby GT today on the dyno, it just had a set of headers installed as far as i know, stock exhaust still wich is very loud! It picked up 20 hp to the wheels, and another 5hp with a timing advance. I was snapping a few pics of it i took two of troys cobra. Here are the pics and video

Crash on camera

This is an odd one, but this is the story as i was told. Apparently no one was at the shop but one of troy's guys washing his car. Apparently this man was trying to teach his girlfriend how to drive 5spd, and she stopped in traffic for about 20 min not moving at all, then winged out a u turn and crashed thru a fence and got lodged under a tractor trailer... Please Enjoy the video.