Yes it was. I cleaned all the lines before assembly and checked oil flow. I really don't know what happened.

 

Sorry to hear about the issues, did you ever find out what happened to the turbo?

 

Chris, I didn't spend a lot of time looking into it. I called my buddy who is a Precision dealer and he tried several times to get through to them but with the whole Wuhan virus deal they seemed to have laid off a bunch of their staff and we never did manage to talk to anyone other than a secretary once. I suspect even if I managed to send the turbo back to them for repair it would have been a case of get in a very long line. I called Forced Inductions to see if they could help and they said only Precision can rebuild a ball bearing unit and that they were having trouble getting anything from them. Since the PT8285 and the 388" were sitting here anyway and I didn't want to spend the coin required to buy another turbo it was just easier(cheaper) to put the other combo in.

Interestingly enough though when I took the turbo off the car there was extreme axial shaft play and it would barely spin. I went and moved it a few weeks after it had been sitting on the exhaust housing outlet for a while and now there is minimal shaft play and it spins OK, just a little rougher than it should. The wheels are fine and I don't want to chance putting back on and blowing it up completely. Maybe this winter I will manage to get an RMA and send it back.

 

Today I pulled the 388" and started getting the parts switched over to the 327". Based on what the Bullet Cams rep told me I decided to check the seat pressure of the valve springs and the distance to coil bind. The installed height was 1.85" and coil bind on those springs is 1.100". With 1.6 ratio rockers giving .512" lift at the valve that leaves around .238" off coil bind which seems to be too much. The seat pressure was 145# so I added .090" of shims to get to 180# on the seat which should be lots. I also changed to the rockers to the new Scorpion 1.72 ratio ones I bought for this engine. That takes the valve lift to .550" and combined with the shims takes distance to coil bind down to .110" which should help prevent spring surge and bad harmonics.

These 11R heads have mostly LS valvetrain parts. 8mm valves and 1.27" diameter springs. It should be a really light stiff valvetrain. I hope it works as well as the LS stuff does. Supposedly the redesigned combustion chamber is supposed to be as good or better than the LS according to TFS.

Normally I wouldn't be in a hurry to change things at this time of year since winter is right around the corner for us but I am hoping to get a chance to check the turbo spool with the Next Gen 7875 and the 1.25 A/R hotside. If it spools OK great, if not then I can get smaller housing from VS Racing and install it this winter.

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The 327 is in and everything fit like it was supposed to be there. I thought there would be some changes with the new turbo's larger footprint but it worked fine for a change. I had oiled the cylinders good last spring since I didn't know how long the engine was going to be sitting so there was lots of smoke on startup but everything cleaned up in a couple of minutes. I haven't driven it yet maybe later today.

I got a lesson in how old these cars really are. Went to the parts store to get new upper and lower rad hoses to start changing out the old hoses and they didn't have any, had to be ordered.

 

I took it for a quick drive and tested the spool on the trans brake. It was better than expected for a 1.25A/R. 3# at 3300 and 6# at 3500. That should work fine. Now I just have to wait 6 more months to actually drive it again.

 

The bad weather cleared out today so I took the car for a drive. The lifters were really loud so following the advice of the good people at Morel I changed the oil from 20W50 to 10W30 to see if it made any difference in lifter noise and oil pressure. The lifters were noticeably quieter but the oil pressure was much lower. The 20W50 was 45 lbs at idle hot and 75 lbs at 6000 rpm hot. The 10W30 was 20 lbs at idle hot and 52 lbs at 6500 hot. My engine builder doesn't think that is enough pressure at higher rpms. Maybe 10W40 will be a reasonable compromise.

Another thing I noticed is that the 327 is loud, really loud at idle and driving around compared to the 388. I noticed this last spring when I changed the engines. I don't really understand why. The only setting I changed in the FiTech was the displacement and the exhaust is the same one on both engines. The compression is roughly the same too. Strange.

In less good news when I was talking to my (former) engine builder he told me that due to COVID and landlord issues he has permanently closed the doors of his shop. This sucks since now I have to find another shop that is trustworthy. There are shops here that do race engines but at least a couple of them are either very poor quality or crooks or both and I don't need to deal with that again.

On a much better note the car hauls ass on 12 lbs. Merging into traffic is very enjoyable!

 

I got to take the car for 1 last ride in 2020 last week. The weather cleared up enough to take it out. Only 1 small glitch, the boost controller was still set for the 388" and I saw 21#!!!! on the boost gauge while merging onto the freeway. It pulls really hard at 21#. I got out of the throttle immediately and there doesn't appear to any damage from running that kind of boost on 94 octane gas. On the plus side my IAT gauge was showing 40F at the time so that probably helped prevent detonation. Now it is a 5 month wait until the snow clears.

 

How's the converter working with all the updates we did?

 

Unfortunately I never got the chance to run the 327 at the track due to the turbo dying but it runs good on the street. The new stator for the 388" works great. Thanks for getting them sorted out.

I am sorry to hear you sold the Comet, I was looking forward to seeing what it would do.

 

I'm glad to hear the converter is performing satisfactorily so far. Looking forward to results next season!

 

The local speed shop had a 15% off Boxing week sale and I had been giving serious thought to replacing the FiTech with a Holley Super sniper. The price they gave me at 15% off was too good to pass up so I bought one. It is the black one p/n 550-513. Mickey Thompson tires were also on sale so I bought a new pair of ET Street Rs as well. Just doing my part to stimulate the economy.

 

This is how the car looks right now. I am tired of the constant starter issues so I dug out my old block plate, trimmed it so the converter bolts are still accessible and test fit it. It doesn't seem to have moved the starter at all compared to not having it but time will tell. If this doesn't work then I will have to get the old starter rebuilt since it never caused any trouble for almost 20 yrs on 3 different blocks without a block plate.

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That type of startet you have in there, allows adjustment by loosening the allen bolts and pivoting it to go deeper or shallower in the flywheel. I don't use them, I use a 99 buck Oreilly high torque starter from a 92 to 93 stang. Never had an issue.
Also, PA trans sells a block plate that is really nice.

 

I found a little enthusiasm for working on the car today. It helps that the weather is better e.g. not -35C. I changed the oil in the 327 and the front seal in the TH400. The engine is sitting back in the car and bolted to the transmission now. I just have to put everything else back on. Maybe I will start on that tomorrow.

 

The weather warming up a bit does help motivation, doesn't it?

 

Yes it does. The garage floor is very cold at -35C even if the temp 2' off the floor is 70F. It will be another month at least before the car comes out.

 

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My backordered Holley SuperSniper finally arrived. That was a long wait, 3 months.

 

I called VS Racing to see about getting a .96 A/R open housing for my NextGen 7875. I am hoping that it will allow me to run the rear exhaust that I built last year for the PT7675 with minimal rework. The 1.25 A/R divided housing I have now has a larger distance from the turbo shaft centerline to the exhaust flange than the PT7675 did and it also has a 4" opening that won't work without a lot of rework. The VS Racing .96 open housing has a 3" outlet like the Precision did. They told me that I would lose up to 100 hp with the smaller housing compared to what I have now but it might be worth it to get rear exhaust again. Hopefully it will be here next week.

 

The new exhaust housing for my Next Gen 7875 arrived. It's dimensions are identical to the exhaust housing on my PT7675 as near as I can measure.

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