installed the breather that you guys suggested on the old EVAP line. I put it right in that little area under the car where the OEM fuel filter used to be. It is right next to my wilwood adjustable prop valve and my racetronix 10micron fuel filter. so far no pressurized gas tank issues, but I haven't really ran the car that long on a hot day since. also, no noticeable fuel smell in the garage. I did buy an AC Delco gas cap which I was going to use instead of the filter/breather, but I will probably return it to Autozone in the future.
I have the passenger side ground effect piece that wretched73 gave me all bodyworked, sanded, and primed. I might even get to paint it tomorrow.
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For a while I have been having an intermittent issue with the starter/starting the engine. Ever since March when the default cranking fuel values was pre-set wayyyy high from holley the starter would kick and clang occasionally. After I started using my remote tuner guy and learning the tuning info myself I lowered cranking fuel wayyy wayy down, but a little bit over time. Hot cranking fuel is about 7lbs and cold (60-80degF) is about 22pounds. holley had it set somewhere in the mid-40 pound range and this would cause the engine to occasionally not start and sneeze a vapor cloud of fuel out of the tbi. this would kick the starter and cause it to clang off of the flexplate. this happen more often in the spring, but as I dialed cranking fuel lower, it became less frequent by June....
.... Until recently, the clang, the starter gear kicking back, and the engine not spinning for more than a second or two happens a lot now. Now, I know I have been hard on this starter, especially the last 5-6 years with some of the racing events. espeically maneuvering around in the grid and staging lanes, turning the car on and off repeatedly at events. In the back of my mind I told myself, one day that starter will get tired of this repeated on-off-on-off.
The starter is a Summit Hitachi Starter #SUM829100 which I bought for $112 and installed in October of 2010. It has always worn a fabric thermal-heat shield and never gave me any problems on the old engine during those 9 years. I had considered buying a new starter when I installed this new engine, but said, welp, lets see how this one works and we will decided after. It did work good, and my thought back in the spring was that the high cranking fuel was flooding the engine and not firing the motor, so the starter was disengaging, with a clang and a bang and a buzz. Did this bad-ness happen often enough to a well-used 10 year old starter that now it is in it's death-throws?
I chatted with PolarBear a little bit about this and finally had a chance to watch what the gear was doing today when my wife came home and worked the key. Pulled the fuel-pump's fuel and the ignition coil wire first. I checked my voltage also and at the positive post on the starter I am getting 12.10 volts and this wire comes directly from the battery in the trunk after passing through the on/off kill switch. My cranking timing is set at 13 deg which it has been at for many months now. When cranking the ignition/starter, I am getting 11.23 volts on the starter's terminal. See the short 30 second youtube video for what it is doing. (not staying engaged and freezing, and then starting to spin after it gets away from the flexplate. unfortunately there is no clanging or banging in the video.
Yesterday I was troubleshooting this and since I wanted to change the spark plugs on the car anyways, I decided to do a compression test, and also see how if the starter spun the engine over easily with no plugs in it. Since the starter was acting up and I could not get the car to start, I did a cold compression test. all readings were between 145-155 cold, but anyways, the starter did "ok" staying engaged and spinning the motor over. However, even with no plugs in it, the starter would kick itself off the flexplate or stop spinning the flexplate but still making a spinning noise itself. Sidenote, I wore the battery down while doing the compression test, so I put it on a fast charge AGM charger and with new plugs in the motor, the car actually started after a few attempts .
Has this starter just been so used, abused, and clanged-on/shocked so many times the internal mechanics are pretty much shot, or am I looking at something different altogether? If I need a new starter, no problem, but if its something else, please let me know what to check. Summit no longer makes/sells the model starter I have, but there seems to be some equivalent mini-starters at a similar price.
short video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqt4HBS0S98
new plugs installed, visually checked under the valve covers, checked for vacum leaks and vac tested everything to find I am still at about 7.5" of vacum, so perhaps one day in the future I will add a vac pump for my brakes, because sometimes they are a little iffy..but the vac pump is for a later time, probably winter project.
Lastly,
Found some of the photos from last weekend's Test and Tune at Island and these photos were early in the day, during pass 1 and pass 3. These were taken when I was leaving from a dead idle, I am sure of that because I was in the left lane. I did not attempt a better wheelie attempt until I was in the right lane on pass 5 and 6 when I left from a higher 2,200 rpm (and rolled the beams in pass 5) and put 250 pounds of weight in the trunk for pass 6 (and left from 1800rpm). during the passes in the right lane I also set the shocks/struts to be very loose, so I am sure the car is getting up a little higher compared to the photos taken below when I left from an idle.. , but nevertheless, not enough to yank a wheel up. ... while I am happy to have figured out that leaving from an idle gets me the best 60foot, the car just isn't getting up high enough to pull a wheel that way. I'll have to wait for the nitrous. The car does transfer weight good and is not spinning the MT ET streets, so I am happy about that.
