The comeback (just in time) kid!

Working for NOS Energy at the 12 Kours of Sebring

2 weeks ago I was working during the 12 Hours of Sebring, putting around on a golf cart, watching all the fun. All I could think about was what I needed to be doing; working on my car. However, I was waiting for the phone call to tell me the motor was finished in assembly. Friday I get a call from the shop bulding it, F.A.P. Machine.  There was a small problem, but the motor wouldn't be ready until Monday night. All I'm thinking about is the big Indy Grand Prix demo next weekend, and how 3 days probably won't be enough time to make it. There are 10 spots available to drive this huge demo, but 11 on the list with 5 more backups. Others are also preparing, but I have the least chance- not even having a motor yet. I got another call and learned I've been moved from a primary spot to a back up, considering the situation. Its hard to keep the faith, but I finish off working throught Saturday night and get home at 8am Sunday super exhausted and in low spirits.

5 hours later I took the car to my friends welding shop, who did the cage in my car as well. We spend the day measuring and fitting crash bars on the front and rear of the car. These replace the factory bumpers (which I never had on) and can save a lot of damage. The work this guy does is amazing and constantly gets praised for the quality of welds. It took a lot longer than expected, but it looks great.



Dan Chilton Welding

 

Dan making nice smooth edges, less lawsuits this way.

















 I wake up Monday morning to the buzz of my phone somehow, at 8:30am, its FAP telling me the motor is ready to go! I throw on some clothes, brush my teeth (I think) and go pick up the car/trailer and head down there. Get my nice new motor and make a beeline for All American Street Car Performance. The look of the TrickFlow heads on the motor really makes the motor shine.

My cousin helped all 3 hellish days.

As soon as we can, we get everything unhooked and into the shop, my cousin is joining me for the build quest. Monday we prep the motor for install with the new-to-me LS6 intake and larger injectors to accomodate the air flow through the TrickFlow heads. Next, Shaun taps the oil pan to put in a fitting for an oil temp sensor. We hook up the flywheel and Exedy Hyper Twin clutch, throw on the transmission and decide to try something different. We have always gone straight in from the top, and fought with the headers... so this time, we put the setup on jackstands under the car, and lower the chassis onto it. On top we attach an engine cradle, and bolt up the transmission properly. Call it a night and head out.

First thing Tuesday, we raise her up and start going for the crossmember to mount up... OH MY GOD WE ARE SCREWED. The way the crossmember surrounds the oil pan, we have a conflict with the new fitting. None of us thought about it at all. Frustrated, and without a good plan, I start working on the rear drive shaft upgrade. I bought some DriveShaft Shop 2.9 Axles for this build so I could not worry about the stock axles snapping with the new torque the TrickFlow kit would supply. The axles look really nice, and are definitely stronger on appearance, but they are quite a bit of work to install. We get them in while Dave is grinding down some excess metal to clear that fitting. End of the day all we really accomplished was the rear axles. Now Tuesday night, we are supposed to check in Thursday before 11:00AM.

LS6 intake with the larger injectors installed.

Wednesday starts early and I get crackin'. The crossmember still isn't playing nice so we decide to stop joking and John takes a torch to it, and hammers in a nice 'clearance' zone. Perfect. Throw that cursed thing up and it fits well. We get the headers up and in and its time to do the exhaust. John is doing 2-bolt ball flange setup instead of solid welded. I run to NAPA for the parts and of course, they give me the wrong size. I return and AWESOME deal, they don't have the correct size. We take the smaller ones and my cousin spends a good hour grinding out the diameter to fit the piping. Finally, motor is in, exhaust is done, now for wiring and lines. Takes a good amount of time, but it all goes in at about 9PM. Filling the coolant up so we can try to fire the motor and it starts dumping out! There was a passage on the new heads I didn't know I had to block. Luckily (unluckily?), Shaun reminded me that I had broken a coolant temp sensor on the last motor, that was sitting in the corner of the shop. We get it, screw it in and voila, we can fire it.

Fires on first try with an incredible growl, but it won't idle. We still need to get this badboy tuned. I get it to idle with slight throttle to break in some seals. Time is extremely short but, smart guy that I am, I had already cleared a late drop off with the IRL event coordinator, and scheduled a dyno time on Thursday at Proven Power with Jeremy Formato (http://www.fasterproms.net/). I goto bed nervous as all hell.

Thursday we drained the oil and replaced with the actual stuff we are running: Mobil1 15w50. Load her up on the trailer and head of for the dyno. I arrive at Proven Power and am watching a 580rwhp Vette run on the dyno and get excited.  Get my car off, and wait my turn. Jeremy comes out and decides to do some intro tune to get it to idle while another car takes its turn on the wheel of doom. As it is always more fun to have a problem, the diagnostic port he needs isn't letting him access the PCM. After an hour of playing and looking up diagrams, the right guy came and held it in a magical way and it worked!

Proven Powers dyno where we made 400rwhp and 395trq on Fromato's safe tune.

I loaded up and headed to drop the car off at the Indy Racing League's Honda Grand Prix of St.Petersburg.

Made it.