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Kenny's 1990 740 GLE, goin' for 9's

What converter and rear do you have in this?
I wonder if going to a shorter rear end and higher stall would get you something. It sounds like it leaves really gently (intentional to save the 1031?).
I mean, a 1.79 60' isn't bad for a car that has a large spoolie boi.
 
revmax... I don't even know what the rated stall is, I can make it do whatever I want though and it takes it like a champ.

rear end is welded volvo. 3.54. nothing special. I didn't take it easy on purpose, and on the 10.7 run it hit 29psi on the launch limiter dropping to 23 on the launch... it just left soft probably because it was filthy nasty rich right there. I'll have to play with the dyno to see if I can stall it up, I think it's got a hold on start that I could use to mimic the load it gets, but I bet it's gonna want to spin on the rollers...
 
this was a total rush job/shakedown day. First time I've driven the car on the street was this morning at 10:30 right before I loaded it on the trailer. It had some sit-up-itis that reared it's head at the track.. the switch I was using to enable/disable launch control (basically, a burnout switch) was faulty, so I ended up re-running the launch control through the button on the shifter.. a great impromptu idea unless you forget to take your damn thumb off the launch button. Did that twice, ran an 11.3 and an 11.4 respectively by hamming it up. On the 11.4, it hit boost cut (??) briefly on the 2-3 shift..
being the nice guy I am to my equipment, I simply added timing right below that point and raised the boost cut limiter so it wouldn't do that again (I did also pull a very small amount of duty cycle out of the bias table). Lot of little things to sort out. the mph was good enough to cut another 3 to 4 tenths off the ET, but gotta get the short time down.

The track was not great, fortunately that wasn't really an issue for me until the last pass where you can see it walk around in first gear. It was still a great day at the track, don't get me wrong at all. Car didn't break, I had a good time with friends, saw some neat stuff (guy down south had a don't BS me build 4.8 RCSB truck and was trying very hard to convert his 4L60 into 4 neutrals), a veritable flock of 5.0's was there... the only downside to the day was I had exactly 1 opportunity to race someone else... and no one wanted to try. after the first pass, they stopped running cars in the other lane.

Oh well. I'll get things sorted and dialed in better and hammer down on it a little more in January (track's closed til then I think)

Best part of the day.. everyone asked if it was LS swapped. It doesn't sound like a v8 at all, wtf....
 
Drop tire pressure? It black tracked for quite a ways downtrack.
Screen door shocks for the front?
Needs a narrow rear axle and tubs so you can get rid of the stink bug attitude and transfer more weight.

Lean out launch, it stumbled bad. Would it be better strategy to have the AFR's right and control power with timing on the launch?
Trans brake?
3.54 Rear gear seems high for the tall tire. What was trap RPM?

Are you data logging runs?
 
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fastest not-running to 10 second volvo build ever.

:lol:

Drop tire pressure? It black tracked for quite a ways downtrack.
Screen door shocks for the front?
Needs a narrow rear axle and tubs so you can get rid of the stink bug attitude and transfer more weight.

Lean out launch, it stumbled bad. Would it be better strategy to have the AFR's right and control power with timing on the launch?
Trans brake?
3.54 Rear gear seems high for the tall tire. What was trap RPM?

Are you data logging runs?
That's a lot to unpack (and some of it was addressed above) lol

It didn't spin off the line, that last pass was as much a case of the track going away as it was anything... the previous 3 runs were absolutely uneventful.
Launch was waaay rich, didn't get much time to play with everything as it was a shakedown day, not a max effort day. Several things stopped working since the last time the car went to the track.. most notably several switches on the dash that control things like launch control. So... it didn't hit hard off the line at all. No trans brake. not going to worry about that right now, would really like a forward pattern brake because I really like my shifter, but something is probably gonna have to give in that department at some point.

gear ratio is about right for the target, just not for the current state of affairs. 129mph trap speed, going through the traps at 6800 or so. When it was trapping 142 on the previous setup, it was up in the 7's, so there is that.


link to the post with the rough engine specs:
http://forums.turbobricks.com/showpost.php?p=6011174&postcount=3079

trans is as before, th400 with looped gov pressure (i.e. full pressure all the time), modified booster valve and higher line pressure spring (tci spring). it's nothing crazy, basically stock with select modifications done as per the article on nastyz28/crankshaft coalition wiki.. dual feed mod, 4L80 drum and sprag, I think it's running a 6 6 and 4 clutch count.

to launch it, I load it up in 3rd where I can lean on the converter without really working the brakes too hard, and hitting the launch button (previously the brake switch, currently the button on the shifter.. I have a tendency to not let go of that though, so we'll be putting it back on the brake switch after I replace the inline kill switch), and when the desired criteria are met, drop to 1 and let fly. This has the added benefit of pre-loading everything ahead of time vs the ever destructive neutral-bomb that one seems to get from a trans brake or manual transmission launch with a tight clutch.

I will probably make the jump to an 8.8 in the wagon (well, both of them), and at that point I'll start looking harder at a transbrake, and depending on where I am with engine development, a switch to a glide. Maybe not though, kinda all depends. The th400 is likely going to need some love in the long run (nothing terribly serious, but costly enough to consider a couple of options.. I rather like it TBH) if the rpm range is going to keep climbing up.. as it sits now I may play with it on the rollers to see where I really should set the rev limit, it wasn't dropping off hard at 8100, and if I can run it a little higher at the track, it may run out a little better up top.


with the 'off season' (~ month til the next sunday test & tune probably), I'll be going through and cleaning things up in the harness, wiring up some additional sensors that I should've hooked up a long time ago, working on the launch part. Don't need a track for that, can use the driveway or somewhere else with a clean surface. It's probably already fixed (it was sitting in a range on the map outside of where it was hitting on the dyno, and I just didn't go back and extrapolate across ahead of time), so we'll see on that one.

When I get to a point where it's a traction issue on the launch I will invoke one (or more) of the strategies to control power, probably wheel speed differential with a primary control being timing, it's hard(er) to add boost after you've pulled it back, and playing with the afrs can potentially create other issues, so.. that leaves timing. (and nitrous I suppose, but I'm not spraying it currently, and pulling timing on the spray works well too)
 
So, as hinted in the 940 thread, while the 940 is down and busted (heh), I'm gonna test out the 78mm turbo on the gold car. More for s&g than anything else, but also to see how it responds, may help narrow down the field of hx-52 replacements (not that I've exceeded the capability of the 52)
 
Catching back up on this car and your work has been inspirational. I recently got my s10 going again with a little bit more power but I think I'm gonna have to do a 16v in it.
 
Had to clear out some other stuff to get back on my own projects. Got the hx-52 off, the 7875 won't fit (interferes with the front wastegate.. same as the hx-52, so... time to change things up a bit), so I went ahead and yanked the exhaust manifold for re-fitting as well. Haven't had a chance to get back out to the shop after that, perhaps tomorrow since it looks like we're getting forced into a day of vaykay.
 
Well that was a bust. If I had to run the turbo, I'd figure it out, but for the sake of experimentation, it was going to be too much work. Even after moving the front wastegate around (twice, because stupid) it was very much in the way of the return line, and the way turbonetics sets up that turbo, you can only clock it like every ~60 degrees, so it was either point straight at the gate port, or waaay off at an angle.

It did give me a chance to move the front gate around though so compressor housing clearance shouldn't be an issue anymore, I braced the gate ports, so hopefully they won't crack anymore (at least, not from the gates hanging off of them), fixed a crack on the rear port that was invisible until the turbine housing was removed. If I have time tonight I reckon I'll put it all together, retune for 30psi on the holset and see if I can fix the sluggish launch. That may or may not take place this weekend, kinda depends.

no pictures, I did my usual poor job of documenting things in the heat of combat (and I didn't have much time to do work, so photos took a distant back seat to actual work :-/ )

Hope everyone else had a great xmas/holiday. My girls did.
 
Got the car back together, need to check trans fluid levels and shifter linkage, it was doing some strange stuff on the short drive I did yesterday (wouldn't go down to 1, so I'm thinking it's more linkage related. didn't seem to be slipping. but then, I haven't messed with the linkage in a long time, so it shouldn't have changed).

Pulled fuel out at higher loads and lower rpms (on the street it'll make close to 2bar well before 5000 rpms in 3rd), went from being sluggish and fairly predictable below 6k to spinning tires around 5k. To be fair, it was wet, but it was wet both ways. Pending transmission issue resolution, it's close to being ready to hit the track again when it opens.
 
transmission fix was easy. turns out there was (and is once more) a lock nut that holds the shifter position switch lever - it's the best I can come up with - to the hurst shifter, it rattled off after a decade and fell down underneath the assembly and blocked it from going into low. fished it out, put it back on, good to go.
 
pumped out the old e85 (actually didn't seem to be too bad, maybe I got everything sealed up well this time) and put in 10 gallons of fresh stuff, and set to play with it. had problems with the car behaving on the roller from the outset, felt like the straps weren't on correctly, re-positioned those (never had to do that, should've been clue number 1), pulls were odd even for this car, seemed like it was "hanging" randomly during pulls..

turns out it was hazing the driver's rear tire the whole time. pile o rubber on the dyno behind it. not enough for like a full burnout where I would've smelled it.. I had hold on start ticked on to get better infos and thought perhaps that was causing some strange behavior.
the absence of rubber behind the passenger tire seems fairly convincing as well. will check later and see what happened. I guess I should've really noticed when it didn't seem so.... difficult... to turn around on the gravel ahead of the session. lol
 
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