70 duster: updating, and a no-dough pro-touring makeover
So the previous total was 6776.15.
For this update, I will not include the new set of tires I put on, as those are now a wear item.
40 for the throttle body adapter
45 for some welding
11 for the pilot bearing
Sacrificial tranny cross member was free
New total is 6872.15
So as I said in my last update, Ive been laid out most of the summer. At the beginning of summer, before I blew out my knee, I went down to run to the old south. My best friend and I were there most of the day, just hanging out. I unfortunately didnt have the money to enter, but it was nice to be there with so many of the PT guys, especially at my home track of Carolina Motorsports Park. Definitely an attendable event next year. Dustin drove most of the way down, just because.
on the way back, I had a couple of bone jarring impacts due to south Carolinas wonderful roads, and a set of railroad tracks that the city forgot to mark as under repair.
These impacts, coupled with excessive inside shoulder wear, broke belts in both front tires.
My local tire guy, Freemans tire and wheel, stood behind his tires even despite the excessive wear and the fact that he KNOWS I autocross/beat on this car. Was able to give me the replacements at his cost. I will recommend him to anyone within driving distance.
The tires were pretty badly worn, and the picture kind of sort of shows how theyre abnormally shaped. It was MUCH more dramatic in person. And really kind of cool to see.....
Due to the tire wear, Ive decided to go back to a little more sane alignment settings. Also hopefully going to make it stick a little better in the process. While Im at it, I need to finally get my front sway bar mounts that I bought a long time ago installed. Pretty far down on the list of priorities in my life at the moment, though, if I have to be honest.
After blowing out my knee, and then the heart attack (electrically induced. Im only 30...) the car sat with the new front tires on for a few months. No cover, dirty, etc. it was also having hot start problems and hesitation problems on the way to and from CMP, so I decided that one of my next focuses should be the EFI conversion and five speed swap. The EFI conversion will be much more than just that, as Im also swapping to a hydraulic roller for less maintenance and more manifold vacuum, rewiring the car, and doing a little gauge cluster work in the process. The 5 speed swap will include new carpets and removing the 4 speed hump for better leg room, as well as reworking my seat brackets and installing additional chassis bracing.
None of this happened due to me being laid up, and then building my daily driven ACR. I paid my welding instructor 45 to finish my intake for me, and scored a magnum to 4bbl throttle body adapter off of dakotar/t.com for 40 bucks. One of my corvette buddies also gave me a set of LS1 injectors left over from his c5 race car for my swap.
When we welded in the bungs, we did some quick and dirty math for the height to install them at, said screw it, and build a very rough jig with a piece of angle iron and a pair of c-clamps. we set the full length bungs on the angle iron that was clamped to the head mating surface, and welded them in. in the process, we made some lumps on the inside of the bungs where the O-rings sit, as well as effectively blocked the entire port.
I worked a little bit before the power outlet tried to kill me on getting the bungs cut to length. Never made much progress. In the last week, I have though. Wound up drilling a hole through the portion of the bung sticking into the runner, then using a spiral cutter bit in my dremel to cut through it. This gets the majority out. Then, using a carbide burr and plenty of WD-40, I ground the remaining stump flat with the intake port roof. Finished it up with some sanding rolls from harbor freight.
to take care of the lumps in the O-ring side, I very slowly and carefully ground them down with a tiny little sandpaper roll on the dremel, then finished it with a 120 grit sanding roll in the drill to make it round again. Worked like a charm.
our method of setting the installed height of the injectors was not scientific, or even that well thought out, but by sheer dumb luck, the injector is almost flush with the roof of the intake port, and angled right at the backside of the valve.
Now I only have 7 more to do, then some massive port work on the rest of the manifold. I want to knife edge the plenum to runner walls, port the plenum to carb flange, and port match further into the port than the 1/4 inch or so that I had done previously. ill then go on to porting and polishing the magnum throttle body unless I find a cheap 1000CFM 4bbl one before then.
On the tremec swap, I actually have been using the archive from moparts for my reference.
http://www.moparts.org/Tech/Archive/clutch/25.html
Asking some questions, the guy that did it in the 440 cuda PM'd me, and I met him over in charlotte to look at how he did it. Very nice guy, and I spent a few hours talking with him. He even gave me a free trannny cross member to cut up. I believe that I will do my t-bar cross member a bit differently than he did by sectioning in extra material to the factory stamping. I will also further reinforce that area with torque boxes, and spar from the sub frame connectors to just next to the t-bar anchors.
So thats about where I stand at the moment.
We, as a family, drove the car to the millingport corn maze for my birthday last Sunday. Had a very good time there, and my 3.5 year old got to be the line leader for the maze (led me and mommy around for a couple of hours. it was a HOOT! Id recommend y'all to travel over here and go to it next year. For 7 bucks a head, its 4 hours of good, quality, family friendly entertainment.)
Brother Dustin and I have also instituted what we call "fun car Fridays". Were driving our pleasure cars on Fridays to work and then out and about afterwards. He went to a cruise night tonight that I had to pass on, due to trying to get a customers 02 Trans am finished up. But for the last month or so, Ive been driving mine every Friday. Sometimes to the site in Lexington, where I make sure to get smiley's bbq (id recommend the skin sandwich. its artery clogging manna from heaven), sometimes to concord, sometimes just around Albemarle, sometimes to charlotte. Have a good time getting looks from people, getting compliments, and leaving work at full throttle. Still really have to fix the carb, or get to the EFI. Hasnt fixed itself since the start of summer....
So anyway, thats the update guys. Im grateful to be able to give on.
So the previous total was 6776.15.
For this update, I will not include the new set of tires I put on, as those are now a wear item.
40 for the throttle body adapter
45 for some welding
11 for the pilot bearing
Sacrificial tranny cross member was free
New total is 6872.15
So as I said in my last update, Ive been laid out most of the summer. At the beginning of summer, before I blew out my knee, I went down to run to the old south. My best friend and I were there most of the day, just hanging out. I unfortunately didnt have the money to enter, but it was nice to be there with so many of the PT guys, especially at my home track of Carolina Motorsports Park. Definitely an attendable event next year. Dustin drove most of the way down, just because.
on the way back, I had a couple of bone jarring impacts due to south Carolinas wonderful roads, and a set of railroad tracks that the city forgot to mark as under repair.
These impacts, coupled with excessive inside shoulder wear, broke belts in both front tires.
My local tire guy, Freemans tire and wheel, stood behind his tires even despite the excessive wear and the fact that he KNOWS I autocross/beat on this car. Was able to give me the replacements at his cost. I will recommend him to anyone within driving distance.
The tires were pretty badly worn, and the picture kind of sort of shows how theyre abnormally shaped. It was MUCH more dramatic in person. And really kind of cool to see.....
Due to the tire wear, Ive decided to go back to a little more sane alignment settings. Also hopefully going to make it stick a little better in the process. While Im at it, I need to finally get my front sway bar mounts that I bought a long time ago installed. Pretty far down on the list of priorities in my life at the moment, though, if I have to be honest.
After blowing out my knee, and then the heart attack (electrically induced. Im only 30...) the car sat with the new front tires on for a few months. No cover, dirty, etc. it was also having hot start problems and hesitation problems on the way to and from CMP, so I decided that one of my next focuses should be the EFI conversion and five speed swap. The EFI conversion will be much more than just that, as Im also swapping to a hydraulic roller for less maintenance and more manifold vacuum, rewiring the car, and doing a little gauge cluster work in the process. The 5 speed swap will include new carpets and removing the 4 speed hump for better leg room, as well as reworking my seat brackets and installing additional chassis bracing.
None of this happened due to me being laid up, and then building my daily driven ACR. I paid my welding instructor 45 to finish my intake for me, and scored a magnum to 4bbl throttle body adapter off of dakotar/t.com for 40 bucks. One of my corvette buddies also gave me a set of LS1 injectors left over from his c5 race car for my swap.
When we welded in the bungs, we did some quick and dirty math for the height to install them at, said screw it, and build a very rough jig with a piece of angle iron and a pair of c-clamps. we set the full length bungs on the angle iron that was clamped to the head mating surface, and welded them in. in the process, we made some lumps on the inside of the bungs where the O-rings sit, as well as effectively blocked the entire port.
I worked a little bit before the power outlet tried to kill me on getting the bungs cut to length. Never made much progress. In the last week, I have though. Wound up drilling a hole through the portion of the bung sticking into the runner, then using a spiral cutter bit in my dremel to cut through it. This gets the majority out. Then, using a carbide burr and plenty of WD-40, I ground the remaining stump flat with the intake port roof. Finished it up with some sanding rolls from harbor freight.
to take care of the lumps in the O-ring side, I very slowly and carefully ground them down with a tiny little sandpaper roll on the dremel, then finished it with a 120 grit sanding roll in the drill to make it round again. Worked like a charm.
our method of setting the installed height of the injectors was not scientific, or even that well thought out, but by sheer dumb luck, the injector is almost flush with the roof of the intake port, and angled right at the backside of the valve.
Now I only have 7 more to do, then some massive port work on the rest of the manifold. I want to knife edge the plenum to runner walls, port the plenum to carb flange, and port match further into the port than the 1/4 inch or so that I had done previously. ill then go on to porting and polishing the magnum throttle body unless I find a cheap 1000CFM 4bbl one before then.
On the tremec swap, I actually have been using the archive from moparts for my reference.
http://www.moparts.org/Tech/Archive/clutch/25.html
Asking some questions, the guy that did it in the 440 cuda PM'd me, and I met him over in charlotte to look at how he did it. Very nice guy, and I spent a few hours talking with him. He even gave me a free trannny cross member to cut up. I believe that I will do my t-bar cross member a bit differently than he did by sectioning in extra material to the factory stamping. I will also further reinforce that area with torque boxes, and spar from the sub frame connectors to just next to the t-bar anchors.
So thats about where I stand at the moment.
We, as a family, drove the car to the millingport corn maze for my birthday last Sunday. Had a very good time there, and my 3.5 year old got to be the line leader for the maze (led me and mommy around for a couple of hours. it was a HOOT! Id recommend y'all to travel over here and go to it next year. For 7 bucks a head, its 4 hours of good, quality, family friendly entertainment.)
Brother Dustin and I have also instituted what we call "fun car Fridays". Were driving our pleasure cars on Fridays to work and then out and about afterwards. He went to a cruise night tonight that I had to pass on, due to trying to get a customers 02 Trans am finished up. But for the last month or so, Ive been driving mine every Friday. Sometimes to the site in Lexington, where I make sure to get smiley's bbq (id recommend the skin sandwich. its artery clogging manna from heaven), sometimes to concord, sometimes just around Albemarle, sometimes to charlotte. Have a good time getting looks from people, getting compliments, and leaving work at full throttle. Still really have to fix the carb, or get to the EFI. Hasnt fixed itself since the start of summer....
So anyway, thats the update guys. Im grateful to be able to give on.