So far so good... baseline runs were great a bit of fine tuning tonight after work and then ready to bring home and re-install. I have removing and installing my motor down to a science, LOL, but I don't want to make a habit of it..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8GDi...ature=youtu.be


I am planning to get out before our track closes for the season and redeem myself from the E85 nightmare I had this spring. If all goes well this weekend is the goal, weather permitting. This will be a great way to end the season and be ready to play next year !

I need to decide over the winter if I will have the time next year to bracket race again. I will have to balance that with family time and getting some projects done around the house... but once a month to bracket race should be feasible, and honestly I can use a break from the house.

 

Awesome what did it make?

 

669 HP @ 6700
569 TQ @ 5700

110 race fuel


We switched to C12 (112 octane) just to see and lost 5 HP & 5 TQ. It wanted some more main jetting, so we called it good for baseline. At the track I will use C12 and make a pass, jet up and see if MPH (HP) improves, if it does add some more jet until no MPH improvement.


We feel in the chassis the C12 fuel will give us an added margin of safety than the 110 from detonation. We are in the safe zone, but on the edge using 110 with 13:1 compression, but still a lot safer than playing with 98 octane E85.

At the track the difference in cost between 110 & 112 is only 50 cents per gallon, I call that cheap insurance.

 

sounds healthy! i understand about balancing life man. i just finished up college and moved to MD (from GA) and the change has been interesting to say the least. the car has only been out 3 times this year total. plan 1 more before the end of the season thankfully. keep us posted man!

oh, any idea what minimum c/r would benefit from 110 over 93? i'm at 11.2:1 and don't have any detonation issues (lsx, smaller 4.030" bore, detonation isn't really a problem). but i'm wondering if i'm leaving some on the table with the pump gas.

 

Not knowing anything about your cam I would say you are at the edge of safe limit with 11.2:1 static compression and 93 octane.

On my 383 combo it ran just fine on 93 octane but it had Dart cast iron heads so CR was 10:1 .. It did run better at the track with 100 octane unleaded.

with alum heads you should be fine at 11.2:1, you could also make a 50/50 mix at the track with 100 unleaded to see if it makes an improvement. read your spark plugs, and don't 'get too aggressive with timing. You may not always hear / feel detonation

 

I had to scrap the track outing. On start-up the engine started puking oil.
The oil filter mounting bracket had cracked in half ! A GM part... go figure.
The filter was only installed hand tight... and I did not whack the filter against anything when I installed the engine in the chassis just bad luck I guess.

The repair was easy enough... but we lost time making the parts run. Refilling the oil... cleaning up the mess... you get the picture.

By the time that was all done & the car loaded we were not going to have enough time. to drive 45 minutes to track for test and tune... SO hopefully this Saturday will be nice because the car is loaded and ready to roll out !

On a positive note: The engine fired cold (50 degrees ) on the first crank, I only had to set the idle mixture screws 1/2 turn out from the dyno room and set the idle speed screw in 1 1/2 turns.

The engine Idles 1500 in park, 900-1000 in drive. anything less and it starts to load up.

I ran it for 20 minutes and made sure nothing else leaked LOL.. I had to tighten a fuel fitting at the carb, the water neck pissed a little coolant. I need to tighten the allen bolts.. or re-dress the gasket.

I let is run until water temp got up to 170. The primary fan kicked on, the temp dropped to 160 and stayed there, the primary fan cycled on and off. The 2nd fan never came on, of interest the stock temp gage is pretty accurate!


My builder gave me a new filter bracket, he said he never seen these break, I am the first. The GM part is an aluminum casting, Moroso makes a billet bracket for 32 bucks... Guess what I am replacing at my next oil change? LOL.

Better to have this happen at home in my garage than at the track.... a Bag of oil dry and the floor is clean, at the track this could have been ALOT worse. I actually don't want to think about what could have happened.

 

crazy!

i'll try the hi-test stuff at some point. when i refreshened the engine over the winter we actually lowered the compression from 11.5:1 to 11.2:1 (i was having a very slight piston/cylinder head contact issue) but no signs of detontation on the pistons, in the chambers, or on the plugs, ever. lsx have been known to go to 12:1 on cat **** pump gas, but i'm curious about race fuels and if there is anything to be gained as i'm after a very specific mph goal.

 

If you don't need the additional octane of race fuel to protect you from detonation I would not spend the money.

However if you are "conservative" right now with timing and your fuel curve is on the "rich side" to keep it safe from detonation there could be a performance advantage trying a higher octane race fuel because you could increase timing / lean the mixture and still be safe from detonation.

It really depends on the cam / heads / load on the engine.

I have a dual pattern cam but it's a tight spread between intake and exhaust so not much compression to bleed off. It certainly did NOT like VP's C85 (E85) which is 98 octane.
Switching to 112 we are talking 14 whole octane number difference!




IMHO if your engine runs good on 93, enjoy it! If you think there is a gain to be had using 9$ /gallon race gas that is a decision you have to make.
My motor was built to run on race gas so I have no choice.

If you go that rout on your next refresh you can bump CR up to 13:1 to take advantage of the additional octane. but you will give up street-ability so if you like to drive it on the street you may want to leave it be because you can buy 93 anywhere... not so much with race gas.

Your engine also could be a good candidate for E85, but I will not steer anyone that direction UNLESS they do their homework and are prepared to face the consequences. I tried and failed, but I won't discourage anyone.

 

i've done a lot of research on e85, not sure i want to go that route or not. i've been keeping up with it's usage in motorsports since about 2003.

keep us posted on results man, i don't mean to hijack your thread! i hope this thing ***** and gits for ya!

 

Thanks, I am watching the weather all week. I need to end the year with a positive result to get past my E85 fiasco, it cost me the whole season.

Next year I will have 6 months to plan race dates.


as an aside how much time did you have on your LS motor before you refreshed it? I am thinking mine should be good for 4-5 seasons before I need to go thru it but I guess that depends how much I abuse it.

 

2 seasons but i had a premature failure of the thrust bearing do to a converter pilot bushing failure.

 

Is that why you switched to a manual trans?


I ran the 700 for many years but it was not going to live long behind this new combo so I swapped to a 400 w/ manual valve body & trans brake.

I would have liked to finally put a manual in this car but IMHO I think the 400 can take a lot more abuse before it need to be refreshed.

 

It was the reason i justified the swap, but it had been in the back of my mind for a while. Manual transmission drag cars are NOT for everyone, but i've enjoyed the hell out of mine so far. the t56 also has double overdrive, hopefully making events like DragWeek a real possibility for me (we are in the planning stages for 2014 to run in one of the N/A classes with my car)

 

If you can enjoy the best of both worlds go for it !

in the back of my mind I did not build a street /strip motor this time, sure it will run on the street, but idling at 1000 rpm on race gas is not the best combo for a "street" car.

Solid roller lifters also have a shorter lifespan on the street. At the track they will last many season before they need to be rebuilt.

Definitely a trade off... but it's not a daily driver anymore so I chose to go this route.

I know what it takes just to get the car ready for a weekend of racing.. and the surprises that happen, add in having to drive from track to track...I have a lot of respect for the guys that can pull off drag week, just surviving it is an accomplishment let alone finishing at the top of your class.

 

Denied 2 weekends in a row but this weekend finally looks good to go !

 

nice! we are headed out on sunday as well

 

Good luck today Godspeed and stay safe!!

We had a great outing yesterday! 10.83 @126.83 and a couple of 10.90s The track was slick and a strong crosswind but almost 7 mph faster than E85 and NO signs of detonation!

spark plugs looked great, maybe a tad rich . Next season I can fine tune

 

nice man! our cars would be a good race. i went 10.87 @ 127.15 today

 

Excellent. Congrats !

I agree, this would be a really nice index race to see. Our cars seem to perform pretty similar.

I am going to see what class I can race my car in next season.