545" High Riser Build

[jayb]

Jay, are you going to try to go back to SEFI, or stick with the batch fire?

I doubt you'll find any peak power, but you may find some drivability.

Actually I'm not convinced anymore that SEFI offers any big drivability advantage.  A few years back when I switched from FAST to ems-pro I was pretty concerned about that, because my FAST setup was full sequential and the ems-pro was bank fire.  But I noticed absolutely no difference in drivability from one setup to the other. 

I'd still like to go full sequential for the individual cylinder power tuning advantages, but it will depend on whether I can get a reasonably priced high impedance injector that will fit my setup.  The ones I was trying to use are Injector Dynamics units which are big bucks, and I don't want to buy another set of those if I can avoid it.  I'm going to buy one replacement for the stuck one, but I plan to use them on the big SOHC engine, not the high riser. 

[Kerry j]

Wow! That's awesome, the sound gives ya the vapors!

[cwhitney]

Looks and sounds great! AWESOME job Jay!

[WConley]

I think the Mr Bill doll is holding it back!!

Sounds wicked though...  (I think Mr Bill has permanent hearing damage, and no fillings left in his teeth!)

[cdmbill2]

Jay, great work on HR and over coming the usual teething issues. You may have an intake leak, but I found that my dual four barrel TB's are hyper-sensitive to adjustment with large variations in speed with tiny, tiny changes in the adjuster. The linkage bewteen the two TB's exaserbates the changes.

Like you, I have yet to see a big change in power with the sequential and phasing work which we haven't really touched yet.

Scott may have mentioned the VersaFueler injector driver box I found which allowed me to re-use my low impedance RCI 1000 injectors on the MS3X in full sequential mode.

I sent you an e-mail regarding the Peterson Wide-vac. How are you measuring crankcase vacuum? I was a bit taken aback today when I logged my crank case vacuum off the GM 1 bar MAP sensor and saw almost 12" at low load, nowhere near high Rpm.

Coming in at 1.6 HP/cu. in. I thought you would see more too. Even so that 851 number has me quaking in my Simpson boots. How much does that Mach ! weigh?

[jayb]

The Mach 1 should weigh about 3600 pounds with the driver.  Go ahead, Bill, dig out the dream wheel and see who's faster 

The big dyno thrash always leaves open questions and stones unturned.  Last night I started looking at the induction system stuff in preparation for removing the intake and testing it for leaks.  First thing I found was that the plug that covers the hole for the idle air control motor in the rear throttle body had unscrewed itself and was laying on the top of the manifold.  Fairly major vacuum leak there.  Then I found that all four idle adjustment screws on the throttle bodies were open quite a bit more than I expected.  I hadn't even looked at this on the dyno, so that was another major reason for the high idle.  I'm still going to leak check the intake, but I'll bet that those two things are the primary reasons for the high idle.

I'm measuring crankcase vacuum with one of the spare pressure/vacuum sensor inputs to the dyno.  I have a GZ Motorsports vacuum relief valve on the engine, and I'm a little suspicious of that thing, and may try running without it just to make sure it is not leaking vacuum early and causing the problem.  Other than that I'm not sure where to go with the vacuum leak, but I imagine pressurizing the crankcase and spraying a soap solution around the gaskets will help me figure it out.

Since the engine can stay on the dyno for the next week and half while I'm waiting for my converter, I have a few more HP tricks I'm going to try, including increasing the plenum volume and using a different cam.  We will see what happens...

[cdmbill2]

Jay, the math gives the edge to the Mach 1 over the prom queen's ride.

I had some of those same post dyno 'discoveries', my favorite being the disconnected IAT sensor I had on the chassis dyno at Westech last year.

Those throttle balde set screws are exactly the ones I was referring to when I mentioned idle speed and sensitivity. It sgood that you'll have some additional dyno time to get that sorted. The dual quad TB's add their own special tuning challenges.

I looked at the upper RPM torque band with the slight sawtooth and I think additional plenum volume will help pick up a bit at the upper range. Not sure you'll benefit  at the track twisting it past 7500, it'll be interesting to see it in person for sure.

I had to change valve cover gaskets to get a good seal on mine. I had Earl's Pressure Masters that leaked at the bolts. I changed to Cometic's and they have been solid for a year of dozens of off and ons.

My odd Crankcase vacuum/MAP reading was becuase I hadn't fully tightened the fitting for the vacuum hose after adding the MAP sensor fitting to the VC. Sheesh.

I don't recall your cam specs, but I we ended up with a 113 lobe sep on the 588" tunnel ram vs a 109 on the prior 582" version with a single 4 bbl TB.

I think you are going to find more power.

[jayb]

Jay, the math gives the edge to the Mach 1 over the prom queen's ride.

I would say not by much, if any!  And since the car has not been driven on the road or track since 2007, I think there will likely be tuning and traction issues for me to solve.  Regardless, it would be really cool to see two Fords fighting it out for the top spot...

[cdmbill2]

Well, as a data point the barge went 10 teens at Tuscon last Saturday in 6000' DA's. I rolled over the track's scales in Drag Week trim and hit a nice fat 4051. It was 4153 in full street trim with the complete exhuast system and full 20 gallon gas tank. I hope your prediction of an all Ford final comes true but there are a lot of fast cars out there this year.

Like everyone who follows your terriffic efforts I'm bummed about the 519' SOHC in the Galaxie, but glad everybody is home safe and in one piece.

[My427stang]

Jay have you tried increasing plenum volume on an EFI manifold yet?

I am wondering how much is enough to see a change.  In my case, a ported Victor EFI manifold and no spacer under a 4150 style throttle body, I think the motor may like it, but I only have .750 of room until the air cleaner hits the scoop.  Think a 1/2 inch spacer would have enough volume to matter on a dry plenum?

[Joe-jdc]

I would put a 1" open spacer under each TB, and do one pull, if it needs more plenum, you should have an indication with the spacer change.  I recently did a day long dyno session, and ended with a 3" combination that worked on a single 4V dual plane intake that made 585 HP.  1" open on bottom, 2" 4 hole tapered CNC on top.  One spacer lost 15 hp, and other combinations varied in between---just have to try and see.  It sure would be a quick way to test if it needed more plenum.  Joe-JDC.

[jayb]

Too late Joe, I already made the whole thing LOL!  See the black plastic piece sandwiched between the manifold top and manifold base in the photo below:



I'll find out if it does any good tomorrow night...

[Joe-jdc]

Did you get the radius into the runners that I mentioned in an earlier post?  May be a moot point now, but it sure seems to help on every one I have seen.  Hope everything works for you.  Joe-JDC

[jayb]

Yes, I did do that radius as you suggested Joe, quite a while back in fact.  The manifold looks pretty good on the inside.

Tonight I ran the last pulls on the engine, this time with the 1" plenum spacer installed.  It didn't really do much good; here's the before and after data.  The red lines are without the spacer, and the black lines are with it:



Given no real advantage, I'm going to remove the spacer because that will keep the intake setup from sticking out of the hood so much.  I also did some investigations on the crankcase vacuum over the last few days, including pressurizing the crankcase, and didn't find any real significant leaks.  The ones I did find I was able to seal up, but even after that I'm still pretty far away from where I want to be for crankcase vacuum.  The peak I saw on the dyno runs tonight was about 8 inches, and that was sporadic; during most of the pull the vacuum was only about 4".  This is actually pretty disappointing, because I was counting on the Peterson pump to deliver 14-15 inches of vacuum in the crankcase.  There's 20 HP there for sure, but I'm not seeing it.  Either I have a vacuum leak I don't know about, or that pump is not working like it should.

The major issue I see right now with the engine is the idle speed.  I fixed several problems in this regard over the last week and a half, including a throttle linkage issue and a couple of minor leaks in the intake manifold, but despite this I've been unable to get the engine to idle down much below 1500 RPM.  It just flat dies at 1300.  This is a lot different than the other EFI engines I've worked with, and the cam is not a lot more aggressive than the one in my big SOHC, which idles at 800 RPM.  Maybe it is the intake manifold, or maybe I have more tuning to do, or maybe the engine will idle better on pump gas.  Or, maybe its just going to be a high idler, which will make it real tough to live with on the street    I'll do some more tuning on the engine in the car and see what happens.

After running on the dyno tonight Steve and I got the motor off the dyno.  Joel and I will be assembling the trans to the engine tomorrow night, and Saturday morning it goes into the Mach 1.  I'll post some photos of that in my Drag Week blog later this weekend.

[jmlay]

I am sure you have tried this already but sometimes I look beyond the basics. Possibly the blades are not sealing to the throttle body bores well enough or there is some other vacuum leak in the manifold or gaskets. Have you covered the throttle bodies to see if the idle drops?