Finally

[mhoward1]

Things are about to get more interesting:

http://c1385782.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/tfs-51402000_1556.jpg

http://s7d4.scene7.com/is/image/Turn5/42702?$s7product$

[vnmsss]

Go Marty! :cool:

K

[mhoward1]

Thanks Karen, it's been too long coming.

[riptide motorsport]

Cool!

[mhoward1]

TF parts came in.

http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/857858_10152555862265043_1011883589_o.jpg

http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/64742_10152556140980043_945794154_n.jpg

http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/858536_10152556918055043_799741925_o.jpg

http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/859817_10152556920920043_1282440188_o.jpg

http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc7/482478_10152556922210043_295648515_n.jpg

http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc1/860235_10152556925820043_79422532_o.jpg

http://sphotos-e.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/857535_10152556932685043_815204992_o.jpg

[avgjoe]

Is the nitrous bottle in the Ford box?

[timmy318]

Is the nitrous bottle in the Ford box?

lol :p!

[CapeCoralCobra]

Nice. You're going to like that cam. The heads look good, too, what size are the chambers?

[mhoward1]

Is the nitrous bottle in the Ford box?

Ford doesn't sell no2 do they? Hope not since I paid a higher price from summit.

;)

[mr-pantera]

Looking good Howard, we are still working on getting our motor back together. Do you think you will make VIR?

[mhoward1]

That's the plan. The car goes up to Steve Marcus this weekend to build out. I hope to have it back by the first week in march.

[mhoward1]

The Carnage..

http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/c0.0.403.403/p403x403/580497_10152617439385043_946100990_n.jpg

And a bit of bad news...this is the rear axle:

http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/c0.0.403.403/p403x403/33967_10152618814780043_519886416_n.jpg

the bearing had gone bad.

[mhoward1]

Yet more issue found. This is starting to get annoying.

http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/156069_10152643246575043_2032016241_n.jpg

[mhoward1]

http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/5276_10152643247650043_1072553464_n.jpg

[skullandbones]

Let that baby breath!!! Can you believe the difference in the size of the intake runners on the new intake? Was that a stock HO?

Thanks, WEK.

[mhoward1]

100% stock

[avgjoe]

I would suggest using only distilled water in the coolant; looks like you have some serious corrosion going on in there. Maybe a little extra Water Wetter? Did someone drop a Crayola in there? Might think about pulling the radiator and flushing, then flushing again. Good to see the progress. Almost ready to start mine after I figure out the HB fitment issues.

[mhoward1]

Yep I stored it with no coolant and not enough water wetter. 100% my fault on that. It has been flushed but there is still clean up to do.

[mhoward1]

http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc1/891981_10152643248435043_269837175_o.jpg

[johngeorge]

holy cow Marty, your engine is upside down in the last picture!!! :)

[mhoward1]

holy cow Marty, your engine is upside down in the last picture!!! :)

trying something radical.

;)

[mhoward1]

Hopefully on the dyno today

[David Hodgkins]

Cool! Video??

:)

[mhoward1]

Not yet.

[mhoward1]

So here is where we stand. The car cranks and sound great. But under load it won't rev past 4900 RPM, and is leaning out (15 to 16/1 A/F) no matter how much fuel pressure we run. Open to suggestions on why.

[avgjoe]

Do you have a fuel pressure gauge to watch? Been into the cell to check the sock?

[mhoward1]

Yes, and a air fuel gauge as well. Plenty of fuel pressure.

[xatudor]

Is it possible that the injectors are too small? IIRC, In theory there is a point at which the maximum flow through a hole(s) is reached and increasing the pressure wont make any difference. If you can access the computer to interigate the pulse width times you may find they stop increasing at the point that the air/fuel ratio starts leaning out.
Hope this helps.

[mhoward1]

Could be, but we put in the new 21lb injectors with the upgrade kit. It's the only ones we are allowed to use. Wondering if the distributor is a tooth off or a ECU issue.

[johngeorge]

Marty, your ignition system has to be working 100%. I assume new on your car is mass air and injectors, so those 'should' be OK. Focus on the old parts in the system - ECU, and distributor with new module I would change all those first. If it still has issues it might be the coil, and while your at it change out the TPS as well.

Unplug the O2 sensors too, they dont work at wide open throttle anyway.. and less confusion for the ECU with them disconnected.

[Jim Schenck]

Marty,

I agree with John, most likely cause is the distributor. A lot of cars that ran fine at the old power level were found out to have their distributor to weak and couldn't get to the new power level. The wide band will show this as a lean condition because a miss causes extra unburnt oxygen in the exaust which the sensor interprets as not having enough gas to have combusted it fully.

[mhoward1]

First and foremost a big thanks to Jim S from FFR for talking with Steve this past week trying to figure this out. Thanks to Steve for trying so many things to narrow the issue down. The bad news is we are still stuck on what is going on. The car is running very lean from idle on up no matter what we do. Plenty of fuel pressure and volume with the Hi-Per fuel pump and larger injectors. The MAS has been tested, as well as input into the ECM. We have a new Cap and Rotor on the Distributor and since we are seeing the issue even at idle it looks like the distributor itself s not the issue.

We are going too keep plugging away though, and I mainly wanted to say thanks to the guys spending so much time on this and give the updates for others who had asked. Open to other suggestions. Its frustrating but I hope we are getting there.

[Jim Schenck]

Hey Marty,

One thing I didn't think of before was to try running it with the original Mass Air meter. Since it is calibrated for 19lb injectors it should run rich, and depending on what it does you can eliminate some variables. Even with the stock meter you can run up to about 300hp at the wheels, you just have to be careful above 6000rpm that the engine doesn't lean back out when the meter runs out of table data. (you should still be fairly safe since the injectors are oversized)

[mhoward1]

Just forwarded that on to Steve to try.

[Mark Dougherty]

marty
any way the fuel rails could be plumbed backwards. meaning flowing the wrong way? I have seen this before.
also the mass air has to be plugged in tight. we have found that the mass air meter has a adaptor on it, and does not always click in.
I had 1 challange car did the same thing after the change over and it was the computer. ran fine except for a miss above 4,000
after unplugging the computer I found a ground tab melted off in the harness plug from it. Changed computer, problem gone.

[mhoward1]

OK, Now we are in WTF land.

We put on a new MAF. The car started and idled fine. Did a single Dyno pull to only a lower RPM to make sure things looked good. The mixture ran a rich 12/1, then on the way down it went lean AGAIN and now has stayed there. We have swapped the ECU, O2 censors, temp sensors, etc. This is really becoming a PITA.

Any other ideas out there?

[Jim Schenck]

Marty,

Do you have a new O2 sensor harness installed? (the factory harnesses don't all interchange between years even though the plug is the same) What wiring harness do you have? Other things to check: EGR, it is plugged in? Bap sensor, plugged in but should not be hooked up to vaccum. TPS, the throttle position sensor is as critical as the Mass Air meter, do you have a backup you could try? Air and Coolant temp sensors only make small adjustments but you can uplug them and it would go to a default rich mode. Test the Dyno? has the wideband been working on other cars? Mass Air meter plug? (besides the meter that is one thing that you touched to make it run right for even a little bit.

[mhoward1]

We are now chasing to see if all this is because of a voltage issue. The EECs can go into a lean mode if insufficient voltage is detected. We are going to review the codes and see what comes up. We have tested the O2, TPS, and MAF readings and they are all reading OK, but maybe the signal isn’t making it to the EEC. The 10 pin connectors are known to be problematic. Fingers crossed for tomorrow.

[tcoon]

My money is on the computer. I went through three before I found one that worked. Remember these are 20 years old, and never meant to function at this level...for my car the A9P worked best...

[mhoward1]

Could be but computer #3 went in yesterday.

[FFRSpec72]

Marty, any update ?

[mhoward1]

No change as of Friday. Took the weekend off and Steve is planning to dive back in tomorrow. He's going to check the ten pin connections, recheck the EEC codes and other EEC wires.

Really hope this is up and running before Road Atlanta and CMP.

[FFRSpec72]

Well? Are you going to have to race @ only 4K RPMS ?

[mhoward1]

lol, it's not even right at idle. 14/1 air/fuel ratio at all RPMs is a recipe for disaster.


Car goes back to the Dyno today to see if any of the changes have worked.

[mhoward1]

https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10200893281243982

[avgjoe]

I was at the dyno on Monday and after making a bump up in timing the next run the A/F was max lean, idling like crap then when I hit the throttle it went full rich, bucking wouldn't goe above 3500 rpm. I thought it was gonna come off the dyno. We verified all the connectors were tight and just for giggles I pulled the AFM plug and reseated it and it ran fine after that. Those adapters for the AFM are pretty flakey. I'm going to get the correct pig tail and solder it in.

[mhoward1]

Good news...We have a nice strong MAYBE now.

[johngeorge]

What does that mean?

[mhoward1]

It means that there is a 90% chance the issue has been found. An update is coming soon.

[Steve Marcus]

Problems solved. Marty has a hot rod now!

[mhoward1]

Yep, I am very happy with the results.

[johngeorge]

Nice! so, what was the issue and what did you do to solve it?

[Steve Marcus]

Antibiotics, John George

[avgjoe]

Very helpful. Thanks for the advice.

[Steve Marcus]

Very helpful. Thanks for the advice.

I hope that was in good humor. Considering all of the time and effort to finally get a good result, a little good hearted poking at John just seemed right. Sorry if I offended you avgjoe by not blurting out the response that you were looking for.

[avgjoe]

All in good fun; that's what we do here.

Despite the few posts on this board and your absence, I know you've been around the Challenge Series pretty much from the beginning.

Joe

[Steve Marcus]

Thanks, just didn't want to take it the wrong way. Yes I have been around from the beginning. As a matter of fact I built the first Challenge Car and quite a few since. Now having completed this upgrade for Marty I think that I have learned something new that can benefit all of the racers. One thing is though...as most of you that are on this forum this is your hobby, for me it's my business and it's how I earn a living. It is sometimes difficult to give everything I know just out there to the public. Marty has put his trust and confidence (not including his money) to make his car competitive and probably really does not want me to release everything. I'm sure you all understand this.

[fastthings]

I'll take a stab, not knowing any of the background. I recently had an issue with a new start up on a Scirocco build I'm doing with my son. The car ran, but not good. Timing made no sense, I had to turn the distributor to angle I knew wer'nt right just to get it to run crappy. The laws of jetting a carbs made no sense, I could put in a leaner jet and mid range would be veyr lean, then top end would get so rich it would die. Any way, made no sense.

I was running MSD stuff. I ran across a guy that had upgraded to the newer digital MSD. His timing was all wacked out, would't run. He found out he had the hall effect sender wired backwards, swiched it and ran good. Well I went home and found the same was true with me. I happened to have multiple dist, and plugs. I choose a pair that had the red and black opposite of each other. Switched them and now things make sense, it runs good now. Except now we will goto Electromotive XDI, after a few upgrades and dual carbs, the stock dizzy will not even come close to giving us enough timing, it's going to rip.

So any way, I read threw this thread real quik and I thought you should hear what happened to me. You know it's something little like that. Just hard to find.

Good luck,
Gene

* Sorry, I wrote this before I saw a second page. Carry on.