The exhaust I previously, and proudly, boasted about has been removed, recut, rewelded, and reinstalled. Twice. Wiring that I redid earlier in the year had a few small "shakedown" issues which were resolved.
I've been reminded about how much work can be done to a car and then you can still be left not fixing the problem that was originally targeted. Relative to the scale of some of the big-buck builds seen in magazines my engine didn't cost that much to put together. After the dust had settled and I finished trading parts, I have under $2500 into this engine. However, there are some major components that I don't want to see fail. Such as the $250 custom-made clutch.
A car's clutch system is not that different from the brakes, except they are inverted. When the clutch is pressed down the brake "releases" and when the clutch is up it is engaged. If any oil gets on the brakes then they will start to slip. This is because the brakes are based on friction, the pads are a rough carbon material and the rotor is metal. When oil gets in between the friction material and the metal the friction goes away. Same with the clutch, if it manages to get oil on it, it will start to slip. Given this new clutch cost an aforementioned $250, I have not been keen on getting any oil on the clutch.
Unfortunately, for the past two weeks I have been trying to track down a fluid leak at the back of the engine -- exactly where the clutch is located. First, I found the oil pan had loose bolts, so I tightened them. Second, I found some oil leaking from some brass fittings at the top of the engine. Upon replacing the fittings, the oil line to the turbo need replaced as it did not have the length to connect the fitting to the turbo. This caused a panic as the type of hose needed for the connection is of a special high-performance type. Luckily, after a few phone calls I found a place 20-minutes away who had the ability to fabricate a new line. After getting everything reassembled. I still had leaks. Third, I dropped the transmission, the clutch, the flywheel, and replaced the rear-main seal. This had both myself and my Dad awake until 1:30 AM on Thursday night re-assembling the car. All of these events unfolded in the same week as Saturday was race day and my goal has been to get the car ready to run at the track. On Friday, I started driving the car a bit to make sure things were stable when I noticed that fluid was still pouring out of the space between the engine and transmission.
This latest leak meant dropping the transmission again. So Friday night, out it came, and I was able to confirm that the front seal on the transmission as leaking. Of course, someone reading this might say, "Duck, transmission fluid is red, why didn't you know the difference between brown-oil and red transmission fluid?" This is because I was trying to be smart about the survival of my transmission. The ubiquitous Ford/Borg Warner T5 transmission is notoriously spindly and my power levels are border line for the transmissions survival. A way to improve the life of the transmission is to use GM Synchromesh transmission fluid, at $15/quart, and it is brown.
Between 6PM and 10:30Pm on Friday I managed to remove the old transmission and swap in a mystery transmission into the car. Instead of $15/quart fluid I'm using $3/quart fluid that I happened to have on the shelf. After some spirited driving around the neighborhood, I finally had less of a leak. You are reading that correctly, less of a leak, it appears that the oil pan gasket is still leaking and it will need to be removed and better sealed. After some consultation and deep thinking, we concluded it was not leaking enough to go to the track.
Saturday morning my Dad and I drove the car out and I raced the car all day. The car was dependable and it still needs more tuning and suspension work but the preliminary results of 8.8 seconds @ 81 MPH are very encouraging.
Some pictures from the victory runs:
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