Ezrider

690 tq sounds like a lot of fun, must be running a pretty small camshaft? i would have expected a higher hp number with a aftermarket head? or is that on a chassis dyno? hows that 700 holding up behind 690tq? i fully expect to grenade my 700 at some point. its a late 700 from a 92 chevy half ton and was rebiult about 6 years ago. but no idea what they put in it for parts or if they beefed it up at all. the suspension on the jag works amazingly well it grips up pretty good on a mediocore tire on a non prepped surface, im sure it would have no problems dead hooking more power than im making on a drag race tire on a prepped surface. but i don't really intend to actually take the car to the drag strip more than once or twice per year. last go fast car i did was a 5.0 mustang nothing special some edlebrock heads and a cam was never as fast as it should have been cause it had a blown out posi bone stock suspension and a 5speed and a bit of lack of driver skill and it would pretty much just blow the tires off. it was better at making lots of tire smoke than actually going that fast. it would only run 13.2's on street tires with pathetic 60' times. i did get it in the 12's on a dot drag tire but even had trouble getting it to hook up then. id kinda like to have a project for suitable for a big block iv always done small blocks only big blocks iv done were stock or really close to stock for pickups. seems like making 550+ on a big block is like building a 350hp small block, doesn't take a lot to get there. many years ago i had a 72 caddy sedan deville with the 502 bone stock smog era california car, huge barge of a car and that engine motivated that car pretty good. that's one car i wish i still had, bought it from a old couple who bought it new garage kept its entire life neither of them had a drivers licence for 10 years before they sold it only had 30k original miles on it car was flawless.

cool truck, if i had enough space for more projects id probably have something like that as well. of course if i had more space for projects id have more unfinished projects....lol that truck looks about perfect for a play toy.

that sounds like a cool project i bet that thing is a tq monster. headers are probably still a ways off project on this one but i had been looking at some of the universal header kits. the 2.5 inch rams horns with just a little cleanup look like they should flow pretty darn good, as good as any shorty block hugger header. so the headers are not high priority at this point but would certainly add a nice touch and a long/mid length header would certainly help when i get to it. i would almost think there has to be a decent production header that will work its just no one has found/made it public knowledge. i bet if someone could pull the car in a big warehouse of headers you could find something, its tight on the drives side and the steering falls in kinda a weird spot but iv seen worse to deal with.

there ok at low boost with safe compresion ratio's there actually take more abuse than a hyperutectic forged is ideal, but 9.4-1 5-7psi should be plenty safe. just have to be a little more careful they wont take the abuse a forged pistion will. at the levels i plan on running it should be ok. 15lbs of boost pushing 700+hp it would be a ticking time bomb but ill probably be round about 500hp or a little less. as long as timing and a/f are kept in check and doesn't see too many drag strip passes should be fine

yup i think i started watching roadkill during some point in there second season. probably subconsciously influenced my build to a certain extent. my engine combo is mostly based off cheap and good with what i had, magazines say the vortec head lt4 hotcam combo makes 400 flywheel horsepower. with flattops, i would have used flat tops had my block needed boring i might have even biult a 383 at that point. but the standard bore just needed a hone and cleanup re-ring and bearing. so figure 4% less for for 1 point less of compression then take real world into account. its probably a honest 360-370 crank hp witch wont be enough to get me into the 12's but considering i have probably 1800ish in the entire engine package currently drop a weiand 142 or similar on it for roughly 2500 should put me well into my 12 second goal for a still cheap engine. at a pretty modest boost level that should be plenty safe plus roots blowers are fun on the street. iv got a couple other blocks laying around too so i could still build a forged 383 block and swap the blower setup to that and drop it in over a weekend if i wanted to later on

i had looked at the sanderson headers, to me they don't look like they would flow much if any better than a cleaned up set of 2.5inch rams horn's i may still buy a pair at some point. but a set of new re-production 2.5 inch rams horns are pretty cheap 30 mins each with a grider and they should flow pretty darn good. i guess i should also mention the heads got a tiny bit of port work done on the exhaust side, this vortec 350 engine came from a 3/4 ton truck had the 906 heads, the valve seats got blended and the valve guides got profiled on the exhaust side only. i wish i knew someone that had 100's of sets of headers laying around, there has got to be a decent set of headers that will work or even a combination of two sets. i may even build a custom drivers side mid length headers at some point. then i would think i could find a off the shelf header that would fit the passenger side.

over 4th of july i got the engine stabbed in the car with a 700r4 and the car moving under its own power again. a lot of fiddling and tuning on it sense then and finally getting it dialed in and running great. got about 400 miles on it so far, runs great no blow by has not yet burned a drop of oil its almost running good enough at this point you could daily drive it if you wanted to. still need to drop the trans again and stuff a higher stall tq converter in it (trans was picked up off local classifieds and came with a stock converter, didn't want to put my new 2800 stall converter in a unknown trans right off the bat) even on a stock converter it will run a flat 5.0 0-60 on the street on a 235 50 15 all season tire.

some may remember this car as i have posted pictures from some previous projects iv done with it in the past. its a 93 jaguar xjs convertible. so last fall i parked it one day was running perfect turned it off with the key and never did get it to start again. electrical issue. being iv always been disappointed with its power and the fact have a few late 90's vortec 350 4 bolt main rebiuldable cores laying around i figured id slap together a cheap "preformance" small block for it. upon tear down, found everything to be serviceable no machine shop work needed. just a hone re-ring new cam and crank rod bearings, re-used the stock cast pistons, installed a gm preformance lt4 hot cam, used comp cam tools to do the necessary valve spring seat and guide cutting pinned the rocker studs. installed new valves lapped into the seats, new valve springs to match the cam. there was a very small bit of warpage on the head that was shaved by gluing sand paper to a sheet of glass witch actually worked. after little time heads measured dead true. future plan as budget allows and after everything is ironed out with the swap is to add 5-7 psi of boost via a small weiand supercharger. to take advantage of the 9.4:1 compression ratio goal is sub 13 second 115+mph 1/4 mile street car. car is deceptively heavy at roughly 3800lbs

well got the truck back today. seems guy 2 thought guy one had already done the overhead after having things back apart but guy 1 had not done that. so they ran the overhead jakes still seem a little weak for being bobtail but a lot better than they were. i don't drive bobtail much so i guess im not sure if they are normal till i get a load on it but they feel better anyway.

got the truck back today for a total of 2 miles, jake's still are not working properly turned around and threw them back the keys.

that had to make quite the racket

well in there defense they asked me if i had yet contacted the dealer who left the metal in my engine my answer was no, because i had called them first. Their reply to that was essentially that they can't help me, that the issue needs to be resolved between me and the dealer. had my answer been yes and they refuse to do anything i may have gotten a completely different answer. my next call was to the mack dealer and at this point they have not denied any responsibility said that my truck should have never left like that and has authorized the home dealer to pull all the covers off and oil pan, and to also inspect the rods and mains. clean and inspect everything and then we will go from there based off what is found. they have not resisted anything yet. if there is a dispute on anything i will probably go back to the customer satisfaction number again. they did take my information down vin of the truck my company info phone number ect. so i image it is recorded somewhere that i have contacted them.

yeah im very close to the driven to murder part. prior to this whole ordeal i have been really happy with my Mack. to the point i was thinking in maybe another 5 years or so i might treat myself to a bran new ch. right at this moment i would not even consider owning another mack. if we can get this thing right i see no reason why it should not give me at least another 5+ years of trouble free service outside of your normal old truck stuff. i would hope by this point they will be using a microscope on everything they touch and be sure that its right when they are done.

well the customer satisfaction number, gives no satisfaction. i called them first this morning, they essentially told me there is nothing they can/will do about it that i just need to handle it personally with the dealers involved. then called the dealer that left all the metal in my engine and they didn't even try to deny it told me to get it over mack here and we would have to do the process again in reverse this time. Mack here is basically going to pull the pan clean it inspect everything and then go from there. and also diagnose the poor jake performance issue.

honestly a picture would not have really showed much, sitting in the oil in the bottom of the head just looked like a couple small pieces oily grit. the casting texture of the head helped in blend in more as well. it really wasn't till i started cleaning it out that i even realized just how much was there. guessing by how much i pulled out that was still in the top of the head i would imagine there is still a fair bit of evidence that washed down into the oil pan. i should also have the rag i was cleaning my magnet off onto. all the low spots of the casting where the oil tends to collect were just full of magnetic particles. as well as the top of the allen head plugs ect. i think i defiantly need to phone at this point. i don't even know what to say a big part of me just wants to figure out whats up with the jakes and get on the road, but really to leave all that metal in the head and send it out as a done job is just beyond me. how much of that washed down the push rod tubes and over my new camshaft what kind of long term problems may come of that. how long may it take for them to show themselves if there was any ill effects i dunno.

i do believe the customer satisfaction number will be hearing from me first thing Monday. what makes this right though i don't know i just want my truck to be right, iv already had a ton of down time this year, 2 weeks plus waiting on a replacement engine and install of said engine does not sound very appealing to me either. you're probably right that i shouldn't have cleaned it up but its kinda instinct when you see something like that to try to get it all out right away.

It's looking like it's going to come to that. I popped the valve covers today to see if I could see anything obvious for poor Jake prefomance. I did find something quite alarming right away. There was still tons of metal debris left in the engine from drilling out the stud I was pulling it out with my fingers to start with curly Q's 1/4 inch long and lots of smaller Ferris debris I cleaned out with a magnet. As far as the Jake elecrical continuity is good solinoids are functional. Ran the engine with the valve covers off oil flow to the top end seems normal to what I have seen in the past. The only thing that seemed different that what I have seen before is when manually activating the Jake rather than the oil shooting out the top of the control valves on the top of the Jake housing it's shooting out the two ports closer to the center of the housing on the side facing downward at a angle. I guess I don't remember last time I did that there being much oil coming out there but I remember the oil shooting out the top of the housing from the control valves near the pins. I didn't check the entire top end lash settings but I checked a few everything I checked was proper.

jake is weak everywhere in the rpm range no better at high rpm than low, it sounds like its hitting on 5 rather than 6cyl, feels like its hitting on 3 but there is a distinct sound change between the stages, so both solenoids are activating, jake stays in till the ecm kicks it out at 900. oil psi is normal. not sure what could have been done. that would have affected the jake oil flow. i suppose ill probably pop the valve covers check the top end set and make sure everything looks right this weekend, i can't keep taking downtime for this shit. have lost 3 weeks worth of loads over this valve train in a short time already between the cam job and then this. jake was working normal prior to the yoke guide broke.

well quick update, sitting at my unload location now, waiting for the guy to come in just to unload me (witch is awesome of him) truck is running good but the jakes are not working worth a ####. making all the right noises but no holding power what so ever. didn't really notice it bobtail to my trailer but once i got hooked up you could really tell. flat ground at 98k only slows you down like 15mph-20mph in a half mile. at that point i wasn't turning back around. so i guess we will have to cross that bridge yet. otherwise the engine is running smooth with normal power.

drilled and taped a hole in it and pulled it with a slide hammer.

they dropped the pan on i think it was tuesday and inspected the cam and lifter, all is ok there. a bunch of the pan bolts were stripped out and a couple of the bolts had fallen out but we are on the home stretch now, i think he has got most the top end back together now, so we still have pan bolt holes to fix and slap the pan and oil pump back on. i will find out exactly where we are at quitting time today and if it looks like i can be out of here before noon on friday ill try to see if i can make arrangements for a friday unload (they normally only receive mon-thursday) but if i can get out of here by noon i would have time to go fetch my trailer and make it to my unload destination before 5:30pm

update, they were successful in extracting the broken guide pin this morning they say they will have a tech on my truck most of the day today so they should finally be able to make some substantial headway today. yesterday they only spent an hour or less on my truck due to being short staffed. let the guy know who is handling the claim that they were successful in extracting the stud and he asked if they were now able to get a cost estimate together and sent to him. so they are going to do that and then i suppose it will be time to get down to brass tacks.

i think its better to make a attempt to extract the stud everyone involved is agree'd to give it a try. so that's what we are going to do, then we will go from there. if they are successful i am no worse off than i was when the truck went down and will save a good bit of time and get me on the road sooner and im ok with that. if they are not successful then we will go from there. i know they checked cyl head availability this morning and one would have to be flown in from the states if we have to replace it. we have gotten the oil pan pulled, half the pan bolts were stripped and some were missing, cam and lifter appear to be ok. so a little bit of good news.

if i really wanted it i would just buy it. then listen to the lecture about how i have too many vehicles as it is then go about my business. if it is somthing she likes then my lecture is shorter.....lol

i say that because if the bill was 100% on me i would want to try to save the head, if i was on there end of it i would want to see a attempt made to save the head. i think it is reasonable to everyone involved to at least make a attempt. and then go from there. and no 245k miles is not new but i see no other reason besides the the failure of the yoke guide that the heads would otherwise need to be replaced at this time.