bjhines

I'm reading the post and wondering why half your data is Celcius and the rest in Farenheit... among other things.

The thermostat will allow the engine to come up to temp REGARDLESS of how big your radiator is. You could plumb a nuclear power plant cooling tower into your system and the god-damn water will not cycle until the WATER IN THE BLOCK gets hot enough.! I notice you have been chasing leaks and put a low pressure cap on the radiator(bad idea for a turbo!!!!)... Are you sure you have enough water in the engine to contact the temp sender and thermostat. I hate these discussions where the poster will not do the most basic fact finding tests that any competent mechanic would do the first time. There is absolutely no mystery to this. Fix the glaring problems with your cooling system and it will work fine.

I'm with ktm on practicality. I drive a Honda Pilot, BMW E36 M3/4/5, and a Ford E250 bigass van. I will always go for the Pilot first. The van is great because nobody 4ucks with it in traffic(come get some white paint buddy). The BMW is a Sunday driver and part time track car. I can park someone IN at the parking lot with the van and I don't find a scratch. I put the BMW by itself, in the back lot and someone will pound the doors in. Middle aged mothers in SUVs can't see the BMW. but they FEAR The VAN. Muwahahahahaaaa. Little old ladies will pass my van at 90 MPH on the highway and then realize they are speeding the moment they pull back in front of me. I am installing a train horn on the VAN!!!! and making it my daily driver from now on. Fricking E250 the Ultimate rush hour driving machine.

Honestly what you are describing sounds like a bad thermostat. It never quite closes and it never quite opens either. You can see that visually. Pull it out and I GUARANTEE that it is cracked open when cold. Toss it in near-boiling water and it should open >1/2" in 5-10 seconds.

This issue with Positive Crankcase Ventilation came up many years ago with my very first posts to this forum. That was on an L24 engine, but I used the exhaust pulse vacuum tubes offered by MrGasket or Moroso to provide vacuum under full throttle. The system used a PCV in the intake manifold and an additional exhaust pulse vaccum tube Tee-ed into the PCV system. It would pull a slight vac under all conditions and that motor stayed dry on the outside for dozens of track events. I think I will add 2 of those to this system. Winter project.

jt1... Please explain the distributor problem. I am not using the oil O-rings, I made sure there is a little play in the intermediate shaft with the oil pump and dist torqued down. The dist gear shows no wear. The collar seems very tight and secure??? There is an adjustable cam button with specd end play.

Siblings are highly overrated. You can handle a lot of **** they cant MIKE!!!! Go and get back to your real life and let the lazy rest alone.

Needless to say, my undercarriage is well oiled. I am really tired of washing oil off the back of my new car. I put an emissions smoke leak detector in the oil dipstick tube and turned up the flow enough to pressurize the crankcase. The front seal is TOO THICK. The front corners of the oil pan are not mating to the block. Also... The distributor adjustable collar leaks profusely at the split in the split collar. I will seal that as well.

Well... The track event had it's ups and downs. The upside is that oil pressure is a steady 55psi(Warm) at speed and the temps climb slowly to ~200 and pretty much stop climbing for 6 laps or so. Yaaayyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!! The DOWNER is a bad leak at the front of the pan that would lead to oil buildup under the car/exhaust and smoking after braking zones. My hypothesis is: The oil pan gasket needs a THICK front seal which apparently is NOT what I have with the blue silicone gasket I purchased. It is so hard to tell what the heck to use.. The seal is indeed "thick", but I think it is due to the extra thickness of the side rails and ends up loose in front with the pan bolted on. Does anyone know what years the Chevy engines changed from Thick to Thin front sections???, and is the Eldlebrock 2 piece timing cover a "thick or thin" lower section??? What a pain in the butt... but I am making brutally slow progress. I still had fun at the event considering my student had a E63 AMG supersedan. Good freaking lord... what a car! Yeeeeeeee... Haaawwwwwww... all that Lux and weight and is still accelerates like my HybridZ Race car. $$$$$$ you can get something functional and entertaining for 6 figures.

I am using the EPC valve with a 25 psi switch. For those who do not know, the EPC valve is activated only when the pressure drops to the the switch activation pressure. You can purchase several different pressure switches. The valve will always allow the accusump to refill slowly through a restriction. The inline/external check valve is to keep the accusump discharge from flowing backwards to the oil pump. I think the next best place to teturn oil is the plugged galley hole above the filter mounting pad. You would need to remove the plug and tap the hole. The small passage leading to the top rear near the distributor is too small.

The dry sump systems are far more expensive than most people think. The pickup mods were a Sunday afternoon project. I used a sawzall and eyeballed the cut. Then I used the belt sander to get it flat. Total thickness reduced 3/16". I did not braze the pickup to the pump. I only hammered the pickup tube in enough to get the pump-cover bolts on for clearance checks. When I cleaned and reassembled everything I pounded the pickup tube in a little further for a tight fit and bolted it on. It sits dead flat with the pan floor now @ 3/8" Aviaid makes entire Dry-Sump systems for the SBC and they list prices for various parts. For fun lets think of just the main parts. 3 stage pump($750), Gilmer drive($225), Oil Pan($350), Oil tank($500), Breather can/vacuum relief/AN fittings/manifolds/brackets/etc($800). That stuff is IN ADDITION to the other things I have already added to the system(minus the accusump).

High $$$ Wheels are like the little alligators and horseys on shirts. The folks who claim that the ""REAL"" wheels are better need to go back to prep school. Your wheels might cost more but my car is definitely FASTER! If you ever owned a set of 3-piece wheels you would understand that THEY LEAK! 3 piece wheels have a purpose in racing when a team has multiple sets with extra shells to change offsets and widths for different tracks and series. The race team also has lackeys to deal with all the frigging little fasteners and scrape all that silicone off the surfaces every night. I have been there and done that ****. 3 piece wheels are for RACING ONLY!

I called Melling, and Moroso about this. The additional cooler, thermostat, filter, accusump, fittings and lines(and the lack of any block mounted bypass) are too much for a stock pump, or a nearly stock Z28 pump. The only thing the Z28 pump has got over stock is a steel drive gear and ~maybe~ a stiffer bypass spring. It was shipped with standard and 10psi higher(purple) spring. They all agreed that I needed a higher volume and a higher pressure pump. The starvation issue and oil overheating are likely because of poor oil control in the pan. Apparently windage can cause a great deal of added heat when the oil is whipped into a froth. This leads to lower pressure as well. I did not realize at first, but the addition of the 3qt accusump requires a larger pan volume to accommodate the added oil it can put into the pan. The factory 4.5qt pan will allow the level to rise into the rotating assembly when the accusump discharges. They suggested an 8 qt pan. I chose the Hamburger's performance 1088 7qt pan. It has a large boxed sump with trap doors and comes with a pickup to suit the pan. Hamburger's lists the Melling 10550 pump as well as others to suit the pan/pickup combo. BULLSHIT!!! The Melling HV pump 10550 puts the pickup 1/8" off the bottom of the pan. The pickup is not even level with the bottom of the pan. I knew this would not be that easy, so I cut, and rewelded the pickup to add clearance. Hamburger's instruction manual insists that I must use their crappy paper pan gaskets. I used a nice one piece silicone gasket despite their doomsayer instructions. Frankly I need the extra clearance to reduce the amount of cutting I had to do on the oil pickup. I did not want to reduce the volume of the pickup too much. The pan is notched for stroker clearance which means there is no room for conventional fasteners. It uses allen head cap screws for clearance, which means I had to purchase longer allen screws to accommodate the thicker silicone gasket. The pan is 8" deep where the original was 7.5" deep. I still have enough ground clearance the way the car is set up now.

Pegasus Auto Racing Supplies.

355dat dude. WTF are you babbling about? Jtr kit is hard to beat. Pics plz mr man.

Im with you on the lack of dimensions for basic SBC parts. It goes to show that rednecks have used hammers and anvils to fabricate sbc parts thus far. Eyeball engineering ftw.

Yes.. Like that.. But I put the tube into the firewall sheet metal and I used a wrap around plate on the upper frame horns. The cage makes a continuous brace from front to rear strut towers.

Plastic side windows for towing in the rain. I have to leave them out on track for safety rules. I am using 6 degrees caster in front. I get that with a combination of offset upper mounts and adjustable tc rods.

I did that and i added a tube to do the same thing the bolt on brace does.

The fender vents are from a late 1970s Pontiac Trans Am. There were a few different types of vents, these were the most functional of the various designs. I certainly hope the differential lasts a long time. It is BRAND NEW with factory paint and a little surface rust. It is a VERY sophisticated LOM-59 NISMO 2-way CLSD with 12 disks, low ramp angles, and low breakaway torque with strong lockup. It is plumbed for an external cooler with front top return and an extra 1.5qts capacity in the cooler, filter, and lines. I have a temp gauge for the diff and it never gets above 250f.

I used that controller on a car and it would turn on by itself on very cold nights and kill the battery. It never did respond very well to radiator temps and it allowed the engine temps to fluctuate and sometimes would not turn on until the engine nearly overheated. Other times it would never turn off.

The first event was scrubbed early due to an oil leak and a small fire. The second event went much better with the car handling very well, but definitely a handfull. I have a complete track toy that is working as expected with some more development in the works soon. 2.5 neg rear-camber, 2.7 neg front camber. ~Relatively soft springs with big sway-bars. It has fantastic grip and lets me put power down early in the turn.

My M3/4/5 sedan had that hood release prob. I removed the drivers side corner marker light and pulled the cable from there. The sheath had collapsed and come loose but the inner cable was intact. I could pull the whole cable and it released the hood. Coups have different corner marker lights that may be more difficult to remove with the hood closed.

The frame rails are weak. There is a lot you could do to improve in the system.

I am using 2 gal., 15-40 Rotella with break in modifier to add zink. The oil level ends up being too high for sure after the accusump discharges and then cannot refill at the higher cold pressures. I could remove a quart and see if that helps reduce foaming. All the bearings have factory clearances with little time on the build. The heads are modified 461s with 1/2" holes for drainback. It may actually have the stock pump. I have a catch can that collects very little oil, mostly vapor from blowby. I was looking at a high volume pump and claimer pan with some kind of windage tray and vertical baffles. I was looking at a welded pickup pump/pan combo like Milodon offers. I could also try 10-30 oil.