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 Back in a Formula Again 
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Joined: Wed Sep 03, 2014 8:59 pm
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Location: Barrie
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
Way back when I had my issue with my RF flex hose being pinched off due to rust in the crimped on sleeve in the middle of the hose, it went through my mind to change both flex lines, but decided to just do the RF and ensure that was actually the problem before doing the LF.

Later that same summer the car developed a rattling noise anytime the RF wheel would hit bumps. Investigating I found the caliper pin bushing O-rings to be worn allowing the caliper to rattle around going over bumps. The same thought went through my mind......I should do both sides, but once again decided to drive the car to ensure that actually solved the problem before going to the bother of doing the LF. After those 2 repairs the car braked straight, didn't rattle anymore........it drove well......and I completely forgot about doing the same repairs to the LF!!

Well wouldn't you know that over the course of the last couple weeks, the car has now developed a slight pull to the right under braking, and has now developed a rattle every time the LF wheel hits a bump. :stick

I can't even be annoyed about it......I knew better!

Guess I know what I'll be doing tomorrow. :roll:


Sun Aug 14, 2016 1:10 pm
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
Well today's brake repairs that should have been done last year went uneventfully. No more rattles, car stays straight when the brakes are applied.....all is good again.

While cleaning up my tools and putting stuff away, this caught my eye again for the 1000'th time and finally irritated me for the last time!

Image20160815_155129 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

After about 45 mins of messing around the hatch lines up with the car again. I had forgotten how HEAVY the hatch is with the hatch supports unbolted!!

Image20160815_165204 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

Not perfect, but far better than it was. That's about as good as I could get it without another set of hands to assist me.

So, productive day....couple more things scratched off my list!!


Last edited by auto_god on Sun Jul 23, 2017 7:01 am, edited 1 time in total.



Mon Aug 15, 2016 5:19 pm
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
Had a day today that I didn't have anything that I HAD to do......so I spent this afternoon with my polisher and some compound, followed up with some wax!

Image1472421627244 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

Funny how they always seem to drive better when they are all detailed out and looking good! LOL!


Last edited by auto_god on Sun Jul 23, 2017 7:03 am, edited 1 time in total.



Sun Aug 28, 2016 7:19 pm
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
Out of curiosity I decided to put my backpressure gauge in the rear O2 sensor bung to evaluate how effective my Jegs catback is. I didn't really have any reason to suspect it wasn't flowing as it should, but as I've said before, I like to prove things to myself with tests & data.

Click on image for video.

Image20160829_111042 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

Truthfully, even if the test had shown there was an issue, I really didn't have any intentions of changing anything, but now I know my catback is up to task!!

I was actually slightly surprised by the zero psi reading, so much so that I took the gauge in the garage after returning home to ensure that it was actually functioning (it was functioning normally)


Last edited by auto_god on Sun Aug 06, 2017 7:09 am, edited 4 times in total.



Mon Aug 29, 2016 12:04 pm
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
Another project crossed off the list this weekend.

Image1472835722142 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

Image20160904_120339 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

So nice to not have fabric flapping in the wind anymore!!


Last edited by auto_god on Sun Jul 23, 2017 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.



Sun Sep 04, 2016 7:52 pm
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
Looks good. At least your backing was still in good shape.

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Sun Sep 04, 2016 9:25 pm
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
88GTA wrote:
Looks good. At least your backing was still in good shape.


I don't know if I would say "good" shape......had to do some fibreglass work down the center bar area to bring it back to life. It was falling apart around the dome light area.


Mon Sep 05, 2016 6:13 am
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
More small details taken care of.........

Sun visors now upholstered in the same material as the headliner.

Image1474313045140 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr


Last edited by auto_god on Sun Jul 23, 2017 7:18 am, edited 1 time in total.



Wed Sep 21, 2016 7:42 am
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
auto_god wrote:
Performance wise I don't have anything further "planned" .......never say never though!


Well.......that statement was right on the money!

All summer I've had a persistent oil leak from the back of the motor that I was finally able to locate with my inspection camera. Turns out my intake manifold that I put so many hours into porting has a crack at the very back of the base. :evil: .......so it is coming off once AGAIN this winter when I park the car for the season. Given the amount of time I put into porting this one, I've made the decision to have the crack welded up rather than put another base on.

Now that I've given in to the fact that the manifold is coming off again this winter, I've decided that once the manifold is off, it really isn't that much more work to pull the heads off and put the ones I've been porting in my spare time on.....so I've been working away getting my spare heads ready for this winter.

Now I don't claim to be an expert head porter (or even experienced for that matter), but given what a stock 083 head looks like, I felt it would be really difficult to make them worse!!

My stock 083 heads when I brought them home. That bowl area is brutal!!

ImageWP_20141204_001 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

The exhaust side was no better.

ImageWP_20150218_008 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

I would have a hard time believing this shouldn't work better!

Image20161113_075904 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

Not quite finished around the guide in this picture, but you get the idea how the exhaust side is.......

Image03000186 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

All I have left to do is finish lapping in the valves & they are ready to go.

So........guess I'll find out next spring how effective all my grinding away was!


Last edited by auto_god on Sun Jul 23, 2017 7:27 am, edited 2 times in total.



Sun Nov 13, 2016 10:33 am
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
Well, got some ambition up last night and went out and pulled the intake manifold off.....AGAIN!

After cleaning up the area that appeared to be cracked when viewed with my inspection camera I discovered........that it is not. :( Turned out to simply be a bump in the casting. Oddly enough that bump is not present on the manifold this one replaced.

Imagereceived_10158076877235556 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

So with that being ruled out as the source of my oil leak, that only leaves 2 possible sources of the oil leak. Either I have not been RTV'ing the manifold sufficiently when installing it (unlikely given that the front of the manifold was leak free), or the oil galley plug that is right there is leaking. Either way, the manifold was going to have to come off as it turns out. Once the manifold was off my efforts to remove the oil galley plug with conventional means (wrenches) were a complete fail. It ultimately took an 8" pipe wrench on the thing before it final came free......luckily it didn't break off in the block or damage any threads. I'll be installing a different plug so that if it does need to be removed in the future for any reason, I'll be able to do it without removing the manifold.

Hopefully I'll get some time this weekend to get at least 1 head pulled off so I can take some measurements & order some parts!


Last edited by auto_god on Sun Jul 23, 2017 7:29 am, edited 1 time in total.



Sat Dec 03, 2016 7:30 pm
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
Got a few free hours this afternoon so I took advantage of it and completed pulling the head off bank 1 today!

I was relieved to have my first full look inside the cylinders and find nothing out of the ordinary! Looking over the old head revealed no marks indicating the rockers hitting the rocker studs, no markings on the valve tips indicating valve float (despite a couple of accidental trips to 6500 rpm!), no marks on the valve seals from valvetrain parts hitting them.....all in all it looks like the time I spent measuring everything last year ended up resulting in a package that works pretty well!

After I swapped my springs/locks/retainers & shims over from the old head to the ported head, I pulled some valves out of the old head to snoop around. Turns out some of the valve guides are getting tired, but the interesting thing on a head pulled off a recently running engine is the flow patterns you can observe through the bowls.

Imagereceived_10158094211590556 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

You can clearly see where the majority of the airflow occurs around this valve (clean metal). You can clearly see where the valve guide blocks airflow (strip of carbon in the middle of the clean metal areas), and you can also infer from the carbon buildup on the short side radius side of the valve that this side of the valve flows very little in comparison. Luckily I spent a considerable amount of time & effort putting a nice smooth radius on the short side of my ported heads to hopefully improve that situation, as well as narrowing the valve guide. It would appear that the short side radius is where the big gains are with these heads.........time will tell in a few months!


Last edited by auto_god on Sun Jul 23, 2017 7:31 am, edited 2 times in total.



Mon Dec 05, 2016 8:15 pm
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
Since I've had this car and started modifying it, I've had to rely on the internet with regards to what the compression ratio is supposed to be with this motor. As I've found many times before this info can vary widely, so now that I have a head off and can take measurements to determine the compression ratio myself I've decided to do so and have been taking measurements the last 2 evenings.

Most common information I've come across is that the L98 in the F bodies should be around 9.3:1.

My measurements suggest otherwise.

My measurements.

083 Head Chambers - 64 cc.....exactly what they should be.
Deck height - pistons measure .028" down in the bore.....again, right in the ballpark of what I expected
Head gasket - 4.10" diameter by .028" thickness
Piston cc - pistons are flat tops with 4 valve reliefs, each relief measured 1 cc for a total of 4 cc.

Sooo.....if I plug all this info into a compression ratio calculator (I used several to confirm the results are actually correct)

Image

Well that is not what I was expecting at all! :?

I can't confirm whether this motor has been apart before or if it is actually stock or not, but nothing I saw during disassembly gave me any reason to believe it isn't all original.


Wed Dec 07, 2016 9:41 pm
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
interesting. My owner's manual says it's supposed to be 9.5:1 for both the LB9 and L98.

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Thu Dec 08, 2016 3:32 pm
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
lb9 GTA wrote:
interesting. My owner's manual says it's supposed to be 9.5:1 for both the LB9 and L98.


That's honestly where I expected my results to wind up. After getting the results I did I actually went back and re-checked my measurements several times to ensure I hadn't screwed something up (which is why it took several evenings), but the results are what they are.

At this point I'm actually pleased my Lunati cam is slightly larger than what I was planning to use originally.....had I used that cam my dynamic compression likely would have been high enough to turn my motor into a knock retard horror show. As it is now, my dynamic compression appears to be right in the sweet spot.

Going forward I'm thinking I'll select a head gasket to tighten my quench up some from the .056" it was at. With that much compression, I think a reasonably tight quench will be necessary to fight knock retard, despite the fact that a thinner head gasket will increase compression further.

At the end of all my measuring I'm pleased I spent the time to do it (especially checking the piston cc's), as the results are definitely going to influence my parts selection.


Thu Dec 08, 2016 5:19 pm
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
Well the ported head has gone onto bank 1 without issue. Spent today pulling the head off of bank 2. All went uneventful, but when I pulled the center head bolt out between cylinders 4 & 6, I was greeted with this..........

Imagereceived_10158177374765556 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

It appears as oil & coolant have been mixing in this bolt hole, but there really shouldn't be any circumstance where the 2 could mix in this location......kind of at a loss on that one.


Last edited by auto_god on Sun Jul 30, 2017 7:52 am, edited 1 time in total.



Sun Dec 18, 2016 6:46 pm
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