PLEASE READ THE FAQ BEFORE E-MAILING
PLEASE READ THE FAQ BEFORE E-MAILING
(Some links maybe broken due to site changes)
12/19/01
Quaife update-
1) Payment options and timeframe.
Half at the time of order, other half by March.
Quaife states if units are ordered before Dec 31st we will have them in the first week of May.
Money Order or if you desire to use a credit card I would setup a paypal account (www.paypal.com) and I will be able to receive payments by credit card that way. Paypal/credit orders will have to add 2.9% to the overall price, this is the service charge they tack on.
2) Price
Currently Quaife America would like to get $950 per unit, I am trying to negotiate a lower price based on the fact we are purchasing 25 units in one go and the 555/568 units are currently retailing for $950-$990 in singles.
3) Other units added to order
When I initially spoke to Quaife I was assured that we would be able to attach several other units (neon, 555/568, etc) to the order and get a reasonable discount. They have done a 180 on this statement and claim that we cannot do this now even though we are looking to purchase a large number of units! just amazing. Still working on this.
4) Warrantee
Lifetime coverage for unit, most Quaifes use a "standard" gear package with only the carrier assembly and splines being unique. If your Quaife becomes damaged Quaife will rebuild or repair the unit.
12/09/01
Has it really been 21 years since Lennon was shot? Seems like yesterday...
Rest in peace John and George.
12/08/01
This is pretty darn cool- http://www.geocities.com/berksglh/87dakota.html
Now that's hotrodding at it's finest!
Some other things I forgot to mention-
1) Windows XP (again) What's up with the fruity interface with the 2 inch tall icons? And what a pain in the butt to find anything! I never did find the equivalent of windows explorer or network neighborhood but I found more Microsoft "wizards" then you could shake a stick at! Holy Cow it took me 2 hours to setup a network using XP with wizards popping up like crazy saying "Microsoft wants you to do it this way and Microsoft wants you to do it that way" and the damn computer still couldn't find the IPX based network even when it was told where there darn thing was. Which was find because all we needed to do was let the Win95 box see one folder on the XP box which wasn't a problem.
Win95/98, 5 min tops to set up a network. XP is progress?
2) Been busy working on my old truck, it's been sold (sniff) It blew a brake line sitting at moms house and rather then fix it there I just hooked up the tow dolly to the Caravan and dragged it home. Who says you cannot tow with a turbo engine eh?
3) More amusing links!
http://www.sr20deforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9591
http://forums.clubsi.com/ubb/Forum21/HTML/002353.html
http://www.newcelica.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2840
http://www.honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=97410
http://www.shitonhonda.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=001163
"the Honda gene pool could uses gallons and gallons of chlorine"
http://www.syty.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?topic=8369&forum=5
"That's a Supra spankin four bangin Plymouth Reliant!"
Note to self, pages to do...
A) Auto trans building & tips
B) Crankcase ventilation page
C) 60 & 70 mm sized compressor wheel selection
12/02/01
Still on vacation.. Few thoughts.
1) Had a chance to use Windows XP for a few hours on a clients 1.2 ghz computer. I think it sucks more then anything has ever sucked before. My home PC with almost half the mhz running Win98SE utterly crushes the XP box as far as "feel" and application load times.
2) The game Max Payne rocks! The level of detail is simply amazing! A little to linear (and short) for my taste but still an excellent buy if your thinking about picking up a new 3d-shooter.
3) Shoveling 4500 lbs of gravel & loam sucks.
11/20/01
More amusing tales...
http://forums.clubsi.com/ubb/Forum4/HTML/013547.html
http://www.ls1.com/ls1forum/Forum16/HTML/003121.html
http://web.camaross.com/bb/Forum9/HTML/005582.html
http://forums.clubsi.com/ubb/Forum26/HTML/007410.html
http://www.altimas.net/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11008
http://web.camaross.com/bb/Forum9/HTML/005621.html
You know what I find amusing? 90% of the domestic guys think that the Reliant is the greatest thing since sliced bread, 90% of the import guys think it's the biggest shitbox on the planet (I'm being general of course)
Pity.
I like all cars that *perform* myself,
just can't stand posers.
11/12/01
That was a real tiring week.
48 hours before I leave the SOHC cylinder head cracks & pukes coolant everywhere. I call a buddy up and we get it changed in 5 hours so I can make the event.
Congratulation's to all who broke there
personal best this weekend- Butch broke into the 13's with several 13.7 passes
and a best pass of 13.6, Brian Slowe ran 12.18 and Mr. Hard luck himself Mike
Marra rocked into the 11's for the first time with a 11.95 and backed it up with
a smoking 11.74 pass! A large number of Turbo Dodges were there racing
(including the Grassroots Motorssports entry "Silver Bullit" which ran
12.95) and there were a number of spectators who came from as far away as Ohio
& Kentucky with the long distance prize going to a few guys from Canada!
My luck was... fair. First pass was a shakedown to see how the track was, fuel
curve, etc. Car was a little rich, boost low, cleared out mid track or so.
60' 1.67
330' 4.54
1/8 6.97
mph 100.82
1000' 9.07
1/4 10.83
mph 128.1
This race was amusing because I was
pitted against some snarling mid/early 60's Dodge- The guy redlighted (.421) and
I still caught up and passed him around the 100 ft mark. He ran a 11.29 at
118 mph, the baffled look on his face when we were back in staging was
priceless.
Pass two was 35 psi, dialed in baby.
60' 1.69
330' 4.46
1/8 6.74
mph 108.09
1000' 8.71
1/4 10.41
mph 132.11
Best pass to date, NOS bottle sitting in front seat of van. Relentless is one
bad mother. I wonder what it would have run with the better head that cracked?
Darn it.
Pass three, *bottle installed*, 40hp shot.
60' 1.96 <-- what the hell?
330' 4.80
1/8 7.03
mph 110.63
1000' 8.96
1/4 10.61
mph 135.25
Car was soft out of hole, hit bottle in second gear car pulled very hard to
right before traps. Car was felt to "fall off" in or right before
traps, I shut down NOS. Blew headgasket and damaged cylinder head. EGT's were
reasonable.
Damn it this was 10.0/9.99 pass except for damn launch. Grr.
Some pictures taken at the event-
http://www.planetb.net/phpix/?mode=album&album=Cars%2FCecil+funday+2001&start=0
I'm taking a vacation till at least the end of the year, maybe minor updates. I'm pretty tired of looking at the car after hammering along flat out for 3 weeks to make the event.
Speaking of updates, the 10, 11, 12 and Daytona hall o' fames have been updated as has the turbo database directory and the decal ordering page.
Take care.
Gary D.
11/08/01
Two stage injector setup- fully adjustable on both stages for volume and duration.
1) We have a functional Reliant- With... improvements. Cecil County this Saturday.
2) Temp videos have been pulled, the supra race is now on the videos download page.
3) Question came up why do I use Real Audio for video clips? Because it offers the highest rate of compression I have seen while still maintaining excellent video quality. For a comparison I encoded the long supra race clip into mpg and adjusted the bit rate so I ended with the same file size. The 2.5 meg Real Audio version was encoded at 450k and is practically indistinguishable from the 20 meg AVI I keep on file. The 2.5 meg mpg file had to be encoded at 300k and was a pixilated mess that got deleted after one viewing. Real Audio 7 crashes time to time and is a resource hog but these shortcomings are more then offset by the quality of video playback.
4) Here is the short version of the supra race in mpg format (800k)
11/06/01
Something... amusing.
http://www.clublexus.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25420
http://www.nethirdgen.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=009287
http://www.shoforum.com/ubb/Forum15/HTML/000802.html
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=38&threadid=613136
http://www.turbobuick.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18414
http://www.supraforums.com/supravb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11601
11/05/01
This is bad.
At this point it looks like
an injector failed in cylinder number three, the one without an EGT probe of
course. 1500 degrees, pulling hard and then poof.
So I'm going to Cecil with the SOHC- Should be interesting considering I sold
the hybrid I was running for the last 2 seasons.
Going to be busy guys, I'll
give you an update in a day or two.
11/01/01
Check that out! Ported & ceramic coated DOHC exhaust manifold. SWEET!
Check this out-
http://www.thedodgegarage.com/caravan_backpressure_testing.html
10/31/01
Video captures from tape provide by
Eric from Quebec (thanks!) These will only be up for a few days, grab them while
you can! Real Audio 7 or better is needed to view (RA 5 might work, it's
supposed to anyway) Real Audio 7 basic can be downloaded from my website, it's
on the downloads page. All files are under 1 meg except for last one.
To save these for storage right click on file and choose "save as" or
"save target as"
Shot from stands, New England Dragway, Oct 18th.
OTHER VIDEOS
HAVE BEEN PULLED TO SAVE SPACE
Supra Sushi! Watch Japans finest being sliced and diced by domestic firepower.
10.53 @ 130 mph vs. 12.1 @ 135 mph
kcar_vs_supra_ned_short
Long version- 2.5 megs, includes burnouts, crowd is hilarious!
kcar_vs_supra_ned_long
10/30/01
A TIII with an automatic?! Yup!
A friend of mine came up with a fabulous idea! He took an underdrive pulley and mounted a shutter wheel to it. Then he fabricated a bracket to hold the factory sensor in place and viola'! I can even adjust the base timing!
10/27/01
2.5 liters, DOHC & 35 psi of boost =)
That turbo back there looks mighty big.
Whew! Glad someone pointed it out to me, I had the back valve cover on backward! Still new to this 16V stuff, thought something wasn't sitting right. <fixed> Hope to have car running in a few days, still fabricating stuff!
10/24/01
After much work I have managed to convert the QuickTime movie of the Reliant at NED to Real Audio format- It can be downloaded here. I also have a MPG version if need be.
Support the FMML R&D effort! Decals anyone?
10/23/01
Just goes to show you what you can do with a free car and a little spare time...
http://www.badassperformance.com/sdac/newyorker.html
10/22/01
Some videos!
10.60 pass at NED 10/13/01- GREAT upper track position!
www.animemecha.com/DSM/Gary.mov
Gus making a few easy passes with Slugmobile!
www.animemecha.com/DSM/Gus1.mov
www.animemecha.com/DSM/Gus2.mov
QuickTime 4 from www.apple.com required.
Some guys came down from Montreal Canada to watch the racing so we were more then happy to oblige with a group picture. I'm standing in front of the Reliant, Butch in front of his Daytona and Gus in front of Slugmobile.
10/14/01
Saturday was interesting... As was Friday.
Friday- Road tested car with datalogger running then came back to the house and viewed results... THEN went on second road test because didn't believe results of first road test. wow. Have I got plans for Cecil County...
(pressure taps in turbo housing & manifold)
Saturday- Arrived at NED promptly at 7:45, was first car teched, prepped the car and then proceeded to wait nearly 7 hours to make a pass!! The skies were so foggy and overcast they couldn't see the end of the track from the tower! I didn't mind to much as long as I got a chance to make one or two passes.. I had my friends from SDAC-NE to hang out with and watching the antics of *some* of the import "racers" was rather amusing at times. The tower announcer seemed to really dig the dodge turbo cars that was racing today and the large crowd would cheer every time one of us would make a pass (we were running faster then 98% of the cars there)
So I finally get a chance to make a pass- I fire up the 'logger and pull into the burnout box and clean the slicks off good, stage and launch the car. Felt like a good pass (I have a new launch technique) but I wasn't expecting any records considering how damp and slippery the track was (even the RWD guys were crying the blues). I was very suprised when I was flagged down by a track official before I even got to the timing shack and informed I would have to get the car REINSPECTED at tech because the car went "REALLY FAST"!
The timeslip:
ET
10.60
MPH
130.7
Short Time 1.76
I'll be damned, the new technique works! The car re-passed tech with nothing more then minor quibbles and I headed back to the pits to do a quick inspection and top off the fuel. By now a LARGE crowd had gathered around the Dodge area of the pits checking our cars out- People were utterly amazed how fast our little Dodges were and even more amazed to find out none of us were running the bottle! After another 2 hour wait I headed to staging a gain...
So there I am sitting at the top of staging minding my own business and the staging director starts waving at me. What the hell does this guy want? It seems there is an import racer who wants to specifically race me and they are pulling him out of lanes to pair us off! As the car pulls along side I see it's a $40,000 RWD Toyota Supra! Two seasons ago I got pistol whipped by a 10 second Supra at Atco when I was running high 11's and now history was repeating itself.. except this time the Supra owner was in for a rude suprise.
We did our burnouts.
We stage.
We launch.
I cut a .705 light.
Mr. Supra cuts a perfect .500
It doesn't do him a damn bit a good.
Relentless explodes out of the hole with a 1.70 ST as the Supra lights up his slicks with a 2.27 ST. At the 330 foot mark I have a 1.36 second lead and the Supra owner is getting a good view of the trunklid as by the 1/8 mile mark Relentless stretches it's lead to 1.57 difference between our two cars (6.82 @ 106.8 vs 8.39 @ 104.7) at the 1000 foot mark Relentless is STILL stretching it's lead out (1.64 difference) an only as the quarter mile mark flashes does the Supra owner have anything to brag about as the Reliant pounds through the traps at 10.53 @ 130 mph vs the Supra's 12.1 @135 mph.
The crowd goes NUTS!
Amusing highlights of the weekend-
1) Relentless is the QUICKEST car out of 440 racers!
2) As I'm leaving the track there is an import racer with a two signs in his window. The first one reads "car for sale" The second one reads-
"GOING TO BUY A DODGE"
Now your talking!
10/09/01
1) Leah's birthday was this week, YEA!!! The big 01, where did all the time go??
2) Updated 11 second Mopars page, Dean Stillie ran 11.0 with his Rampage!
3) Updated Caravan page with pictures from LVD racing.
4) Received new intercooler for van this week ;-) will be awhile before installed though.
5) Been working on Reliant for Import & Sport Compact event at New England Dragway this Saturday, never raced the car up there should be interesting... No major work, just a revised radiator setup and doing extensive datalogging to determine what's going on during a pass. A large number of pressure taps and sensors have been installed, should be very interesting...
6) Video page has been updated.
9/30/01
Lots of customer things happening this week- fabricated a mandrel bent exhaust system for Butch's 89 Shelby Daytona, fabricated a dual catalytic converter system for an Audi (oh what a joy that job was) and picked up a 1989 Acclaim LX! It's a 3.0V6/four speed automatic model with all the bells and whistles, the price was right and I could not resist.
MINIVAN RACING!
LVD
was having as Mopar day Saturday so I decided at the last minute to go (K-car
currently undergoing "upgrades" if ya were wondering) Problem was that
the van still had a cracked windshield from it's little bang up in NYC and I had
to find a shop that could install a replacement in a hurry! I was in luck and in
a matter of hours the van had new glass installed and I didn't have to worry
about driving 3 hours and having a tech inspector tell me I was out of luck.
Spent the rest of the day tweaking things & installing a few goodies before
hitting the sack at 1:20 in the morning. Man does the intercooler in the van
suck Twinkies! Bad enough it doesn't get very much airflow but it's also so
light that it doesn't have much thermal mass and heats up wickedly fast. During
a road test 1:00 A.M. Saturday morning it starting pinging like crazy at 18 psi,
I opened the hood and the intercooler was hot enough to fry an egg =( I
did come up with a quick fix at the track though, lol.
http://www.thedodgegarage.com/caravan/caravan_lvd_octane_booster.jpg
Arriving at the track I was suprised how many cars had shown up, it was wall to wall Chryslers! No extensive test and tune today!
The Van made four passes:
14.88 @ 86 mph, 1.99 ST (the mph is off, so was other lane)
14.67 @ 89 mph, 2.01 ST
14.75 @ 89 mph, 2.00 ST
14.60 @ 90 mph, 2.01 ST
All passes were made at 16-17 psi with 22.5 x 7.5 M&H slicks.
HP by ET was 209, HP by MPH was 188 (Vans have high aero drag remember?) Just
need 30 more hp to run a 13.90!
Catch ya later!
9/23/01
New pages-
Intercooling using the 84-87 Turbo I Log Intake manifold
http://www.thedodgegarage.com/intercooling_the_log_manifold.html
Installing hybrid turbo details
http://www.thedodgegarage.com/hybrid_turbo_install.html
Updated-
http://www.thedodgegarage.com/11_sec_club.html
9/19/01
Updated-
Daytona Hall o' Fame (New member, Chad Kilback)
9/16/01
Pages updated-
Video clips, James Reeves & Relentless at the Nat's (fastest K-car pass caught on film, 10.61, no-bottle)
Have an idea what I'm going to do with the car next, hope to have prototype in 2-3 weeks in time for testing at New England Dragway Oct. 13th Import & Sport Compact day.
And no I'm not telling, it's a suprise.
9/13/01
I watched in horror as events unfolded on the television Tuesday morning.
I knew more then most people that something like this *could* happen (I'm a fan of Tom Clancy's books and not three weeks ago just finished reading "Debt of Honor" in which a individual slams a jumbo jet into the Capitol building) for every plot we found out about and halted how many continued unseen? Four planes loaded with innocent people used as weapons of mass destruction. Thousands dead when the World Trade Center collapsed including hundreds of brave police and firemen.
Mr. Terrorist you wanted to catch our attention? Guess what, you just did. One problem there buddy, the USA isn't one to roll over and fold.
You just signed your own death warrant.
No borders will stop us.
No country will protect you.
We will find you.
I hope *when* they find the hole your hiding in, its turned into a nice glass parking lot. This wont bring back the victims of your monstrous crimes but will give any friends of yours second thoughts about f*cking with us again.
A sight my daughter may never see- The twin towers from the statue of liberty.
"The architects of this wickedness will find no safe harbor in this world. We will chase our enemies to the furthest corners of this Earth. It must be war without quarter, pursuit without rest, victory without qualification."
Got that right.
9/03/01
Updated-
http://www.thedodgegarage.com/turbo_intercooling.html
http://www.thedodgegarage.com/30v6.html
9/02/01
Updated a few stray links still pointing to 50megs, think I got them all this time..
Rather amusing video clip of Jon's CSX-T beating a Mustang has been uploaded to video page. The track announcer is hilarious!
9/01/01
50 megs is back up- I replaced all the pages with a new ones redirecting them to this address. As you can see by the notice in the banner section I'm trying to get together 25 people for a group purchase of Quaife diffs for automatic transaxles, know anyone who would like one? Have them drop me a line...
8/25/01
Did'ja miss me? Damn 50megs. Well we don't have to worry about that anymore. They said I had to many visitors and cut me off! And to add insult to injury they were going to cutback on my server space! Ahh well, waddaya want for nothing?
A) Did I mention NEW SERVER! Big thanks to Rocky Johnson for hooking me up!
B) The Mopar Nat's (Aug 10-12) The Reliant has ran it's best non-nos pass ever- 10.61 at 130.4 At SDAC it ran 131 mph and a 10.74, the weather at the nat's was hotter, but the traction was better... hmmm.. Cecil at the end of the year...
Runs-
1) Friday after towing car 16 hours to get there I figured I'd make a street tire pass (it was all I had the energy for, the thought of changing all the tires over and prepping was enough to make me pass out) Rolled the car off the trailer and headed for staging.
S.T. 2.4
E.T. 13.4
MPH 113
I was laughing all the way down the track, car smoked the street tires pass the 1/8 mile mark and this was at 22 psi! I lifted near the traps as the car was walking around pretty bad.
2) First qualifying for SDAC FWD ET shootout. (Saturday)
S.T. 1.83
E.T. 10.7
MPH 129.6
Needless to say this woke a few RWD people up in the stands.
3) Second qualifying pass, tried to soft pedal it out of the hole because I spun the slicks on first pass.
Bog city! DOH!
S.T. 1.98
E.T. 11.01
MPH 128.9
Spent rest of Saturday answering about 1000 questions about the car and hanging out with friends.
4) Sunday-
They gave us a free time trail so I decided to make a bottle pass (the bottle was left in the van on Saturday so there was no doubt on how the car was getting down the track). I figured if I popped a head gasket I'd have plenty of time to change it before the finals. I came out of the hole and the car stuttered all the way down the track! I had richened up the mixture on the 5th injector to try and drive the EGT's below 1500 but the car would have nothing to do with it. Damnit! I was planning on using the NOS (45 hp shot) on the last pass of the finals but the field was pretty stiff. I wasn't going to risk trying to make a bottle pass during the shootout with Rocky, Joe and James just waiting for me to trip over my own shoes ;-) Of well better to find this out during a time pass then elimination's.
S.T. 1.81
E.T. 13.2
MPH 91
I have an idea what's causing it, made a few changes (stuff I thought might have
been the problem) to the car since sdac that had no effect this weekend so now
it's a matter of moving forward to rectify the issue.
5) 1st round elimination's, 22 psi bye run (Barry Miles bailed out on me to run ET bracket)
S.T. 1.98
E.T. 11.8
MPH 119
6) 2nd round elimination's against Rocky Johnson's 11 sec Omni
No time slip, computer failure in tower at 1/8 mile mark. Rocky had a good pass going too.
7) 2nd round elimination's against Rocky Johnson's 11 sec Omni (rerun)
S.T. 2.0
E.T. 11.1
MPH 130
Won round, Rocky blew off a vacuum cap and shut down his car at 1/8 mile mark. Forgot tree was on autostart and wasn't ready when tree came down.
3) Last round elimination's. I was against Mr. James Reeves and his peerless tree chopping abilities (James cut a .510 trying to get me at SDAC-11) I knew I could not cut him any slack as his Omni was now running consistent 12.1's and any screw up on my part might hand the shootout trophy to James.
S.T. 1.73
E.T. 10.61
MPH 130.4
James was good, but I didn't screw up ;-) That's the best non-nos pass to date! A 3 meg quicktime video of the pass can be seen here, nats_fnl.mov is the file name.
All in all a good time even with the 1600 miles of towing by myself (the oil cooler worked excellent BTW, major reduction of engine temps) Congratulations to Joe O'Conner and Rocky Johnson who are the newest members of the FWD Chrysler 11 second club! Had a great time hanging out and meeting my friends, most of I have never met before but know well from online mailing lists & e-mails.
C) Pictures from the Mopar Nat's!
More Later...
8/09/01
Well I think I'm ready for the Mopar Nat's- The car is hooked up on the trailer and ready to go. Nothing more done to the car except for a little minor work since SDAC. (I'm trying out a new crankcase evac system) It's going to be hot so I don't expect to set any records, just going to get the car some exposure to the general Mopar (RWD) public and visit with a bunch of friends.
The Caravan has a new radiator, the old one was was damaged in the accident and just started leaking. Also installed a engine oil cooler from Summit Racing, I'm curious to see how much cooler the engine runs.
Updated the part's for sale page- bunch of R/T stuff has been added.
I'm looking for another laptop for when I'm on the road- Anyone have one for sale? Mostly interested in one with a reasonable amount of ram and 300+ MHz.
7/25/01
Someone has teeth coming in...
7/21/01
Lots of updates!
1) I'm proud to say the Dodge Garage has hooked up with an old name in FWD Dodges- Lambros Race Engineering! Bill is an old hand in FWD Mopar's and is amazed at what some of us have done with our cars. While not super active currently in the FWD field, Bill has a warehouse full of parts and one-off items not to mention years of experience and extensive contacts in the Chrysler racing field. His help is greatly appreciated!
2) Richard's page has been updated with a series of video captures from SDAC-11.
3) Went to Chryslers at Carlisle show last weekend to do some parts swapping and participate in a technical Q&A session at the SDAC national tent. Presentation was given by Anthony Berge, Steve Menegon and myself in front of a crowd of roughly 40 turbo enthusiasts and was very enjoyable and went well despite it was largely off the cuff due to the excessive consumption of Iron City brew the night before ;-)
It's a massive showing of Mopar clubs, cars and swap meet vendors all catering to the Chrysler crowd- If you can't find it here, you wont find it!
4) Going to the Mopar Nat's next month! Relentless is going to be throwing down some action in the FWD classes, perhaps some fast neon's will show up to play.
I'll have make a few changes to the car based on data gathered at SDAC-11 =)
5) Parts for sale page has been updated.
6) I'm selling or trading 16V stuff (posted to mailing lists)-
I have
decided I'm selling & or trading off 16V Lotus setup with 512 miles on it I
was going to use in the Reliant- I have everything for the upper end (head,
cams, rockers, valve covers, intake, exhaust manifolds, etc) I sold the
shortblock last year and just recently made the decision not to use the head on
my 2.5. The SOHC setup I'm currently using will be more then enough to propel
Relentless into the 9's...after the next round of engine modifications.
The engine this head is from has a Chrysler documented 512 miles on it, the car
was in a wreck back in 91 and was in litigation for a number of years before it
was released for salvage. The vin number was run through a local dealer and it
was confirmed there was a warrantee hold on the car dating back a number of
years, everything is like new. Anthony Berge inspected the shortblock last year
and he can be contacted to verify the condition of the components.
I don't expect to get "new" prices for these pieces but don't expect
to get offers for what parts with 80,000-90,000 miles are going for either. To
make things easier I'm willing to part out things as needed- i.e. cams sold
separate from head, rockers as an assembly, etc.
I'm also looking for a number of parts for various projects (forged pistons,
turbos of various configurations, larger then stock intercoolers, performance
tires, etc, run anything by me, you never know) suprise me with a package and
perhaps we can strike a deal.
I also have a number of other R/T related parts, I'll make a list in a few days
but it includes 2 crank and cam sensors, coil packs, wiring harness, 2 SBEC's,
idler pulleys and a number of other miscellaneous items unique to the 16V engine
Someone else has first dibs on this, if he declines it's open season.
7/05/01
SDAC 11 Pictures and video clips!
Due to enthusiastic response The Forward Mopar R&D Division is now open for business!
The Forward Mopar Mailing List R&D Division
7/03/01
I had an idea while working in the garage the other day...One of the largest problems facing us is lack of hard, concrete data for our cars. No one that I know of is doing any real testing (back to back runs, same day dyno, apples to apples testing, although TAFT did do some cam testing) I kept thinking... If only I had access to a flow bench for a few days... or a dyno... or the funds to try 10 different things... and then it hit me.. perhaps we do!
Here is my scenario- We have senior memberships to the F.M.M.L. for say $25-50 a year, those members come up with a list of research projects that they would like to pursue, a rough budget is worked out and approved. The research is completed and a report is generated and distributed to the members first, after a period of 2-3 months the results are forwarded to the SDAC newsletter for publication and webposting. The current balance & membership could be viewed online by senior members to assure there is no monkey business with funds and discussion of possible projects & budgets could take place on a private list so as not to disturb the rest of the lists. (Hell we could have Dave from P.I. whip up some FMML decals for us while were at it)
One example project- Cylinder heads.
We could send out a number of heads to be flowed, same day same bench. Have one head with a 3 angle valve job in one chamber, a 5 angle in another, one chamber could have backcut valves, another valves with a different angle backcut, the next with 1 mm oversize valve, etc. you get the picture- we would have clear-cut data about what works and what does not!
If we had a project that generated lots of parts.. say we wanted to purchase 10 coils to find out which tossed out the hottest spark on a bench test.. at the end of the year we could have a drawing and distribute the parts among the paying members.
The possibilities are endless! dyno testing, custom cam grinds, header research, throttle body testing- the more members we have the larger the project we could tackle!
Thoughts? Suggestions? Ideas?
6/30/01
Had a fantastic time at
SDAC-11, Barry & crew did another great job, Canada
was a perfect location this time around although it always seems the club
manages to find a hotel that's under construction! LOL!
Saturday-
With a whoosh of boost we rolled out of the driveway at 7:00 A.M... Turbo-mini was packed to the roof with spare parts, luggage, 2 adults and 1 Leah! Electric brakes on the tow dolly worked perfect- Really helped make the trip more relaxing not having to worry about relying on the van's brakes to stop everything. Trip took about 11 hours at a relaxing pace, stopped a few times for lunch, driver swaps, etc.
Sundays car show-
Good showing of really clean and diverse group of cars! Had everything from
Relentless to a outrageous white CSX ragtop that was IMHO the best of the
best!
CSX ragtop (1 of none) was 1st place in concourse modified
Relentless won 1st place
popular vote modified, I will honestly point out though that no one else was
inclined to enter the class against it.
Mondays roadcourse-
Missed it, did the family thing in Hamilton seeing the sights. I hear that rides
in the Viper GTS were pretty fun though!
Tuesdays dragrace-
You know this is what I came for =)
Started easy on the boost and rich on the fuel- a little to rich as the car had
a misfire for the first couple of 11.70 passes, tried changing plugs, hall
effect and a few other parts till I pulled a bit of fuel out and then car found
it's happy spot :-) Track was very slippery as the day progressed, most of the
runs where with the slicks spinning in first with immediate shift into second
gear. Car was open for inspection in the pits in case anyone had any doubts the
car wasn't making all boost passes. (In short the nitrous kit had been
uninstalled from the car to silence nay-sayers who thought the car was bottle
fed all the time)
Tweaked fuel, spark, boost and cam timing till the car ran a best pass of 10.74
with a 1.8 ST and a best MPH of 131.3. This bodes very well considering the high
temps and humidity. At Cecil last year (8/12) under similar conditions the car
ran a best of 127 mph, with no other changes in the cooler fall at Cecil (11/06)
it picked up 3-4 mph.
In summary with a 1.6 60 ft.
the car has enough power to now run 10.30's on a track with hook (a.k.a. Cecil
or Atco)
New insights into current engine bottlenecks were noted and changes MIGHT be
made in time for the Mopar Nats!
Transmission worked VERY
WELL with ZERO flare even with reduced line pressure.
A big thanks goes out to my final round quick 8 counterpart Joe from Canada- I
lifted a headgasket in the semi-finals against Paul Velliky (Got a little to
happy with the spark advance, whoops) Joe was a gracious competitor who gave me,
John Lucas, Nick Alessi and another fellow the 23 minutes (from the moment the
hood opened to the moment it closed) needed to swap out the headgasket and make
final round, winning the quick 8 shootout with a slick spinning 11.2 / 131 pass.
Here is a Real Audio clip shot by Butch- It's a 1.5 meg download.
Nick and myself going to
town- I think there were more people watching us at one point then the racing
going on! We were hauling ass in a big way.
As always it was great to see all my friends again as well as few new ones only
known through e-mail-- If you have not ever been to an SDAC event you don't know
what your missing!!!
Notable stuff-
1) Calgary members- newest chapter of SDAC, these guys drove 2200 miles ONE WAY
and hammered on the road course and dragstrip, these guys are hardcore! I love
it!
2) Illinois member getting his trailered GLHS Charger running in parking lot
with Masarati16V/2.5 engine!
3) Congratulations to Dave St.Louis who powered his 2700 lb Shadow (Equipped with Turbo 3 & Maxon ECU) into the 11 second club!
4) Relentless Awards-
Popular vote modified, Quick 8 shootout winner & Top Gun award.
Way to much to list, days went by in a blur of hanging out with friends
(drinking Canadian brew) and having a hell of a good time. I SUGGEST you join
the Shelby Dodge Auto Club so you can
come hang out with us next year!
Gary Donovan
P.S. Another thanks goes out to Nic at TAFT for his assistance at the track on
Tuesday!
6/20/01
I have a running car! Just a few more items to wrap up and I'll be ready to go racing.
How cool is that? Great work by Dave at Positive Impressions.
6/18/01
Updated!
http://www.thedodgegarage.com/the_reliant_2001.html
6/16/01
Someone I consider a friend once said, "Technical factual data is not anything personal or vindictive." and I believe that.
Recently I published a webpage that contained technical factual data about one product from a vendor that painted that product in an unflattering light. This was not done as a "stab" at the vendor but in the normal course of research and information collection. Gathering information from many different individuals who contribute to this site helps to determine weakness/strengths of an item, as well as trends as to what works and what does not.
The vender had been asked on several occasions for technical data about his product. It was stated on those several occasions that he had the information "somewhere around here" but none had ever been forwarded to me. I had the item shipped to a VERY skilled third party who had no idea who produced the item nor any stake in wither the item was good or bad and had it compared to other similar items.
This was all done at my considerable expense and the results where posted.
I stand by them.
Gary Donovan
6/14/01
Check this out-
http://www.thedodgegarage.com/the_reliant_2001.html
(My new intercooler, yowza!)
http://www.thedodgegarage.com/the_reliant_dash.html
(Now THAT'S a dashboard!)
6/9/01
Congratulations go out to Steve Menegon and Joe O'Conner, both had a good night at the track! Steve's white GTC Lebaron hammered out a 12.2 @ 115 mph pass at Cecil County and Joe's Daytona clipped off an ever-so-close-to-11-second pass, 12.09 @ 117 mph.
Pages have been updated to reflect new times.
6/7/01
Relentless' pages have been broken up into seasons, and the 2001 season page has a new pic or two added to it.
Progress continues...
6/7/01
UPS was here yesterday, dropped off four badly needed parts If I'm going to be racing at SDAC-11 in Canada at the end of this month. And that's where this gets opened. Yippie Ki Yay Mo-Fo!
I just noticed... haven't said much about the Reliant the last few months... I have been busy though ;-)
1) Freshened transaxle with custom front drum by JS (no more 2-3 flare)
2) Freshened shortblock with.. low friction pistons.
3) New intercooler with 3 inch runs... REALLY BIG INTERCOOLER.
4) Reworked fuel system good for excess amounts of power.
5) Better flowing cylinder head
6) Very high flowing intake manifold with larger throttle body.
7) Weight reduction, currently at 130 pounds (includes 20 pounds driver lost over winter)
If it don't run 9's this
year I'm going to set it on fire ;-)
6/5/01
Mini Van fans check this out!
http://www.geocities.com/t115_2000/LakebedFun.html
A video of my van racing is up on the video page!
6/4/01
Relentless pages are getting broken up into "seasons" for quicker viewing- Here's one of the first.
http://www.thedodgegarage.com/the_reliant_2001.html
Parts for sale page has been updated.
It was a raining like crazy on the trip to Englishtown but mother nature decided to bless us with sunshine and entirely to many other racers this weekend! 3 passes in 7 hours is not fun!Was racing the van this weekend- here is a quick rundown.
2.5 Turbo with Anthony Berge built automatic transaxle with late model diff.
Ported head and exhaust manifold, 89 Garrett turbo, 2.5 mandrel bent exhaust. Probe over the valve cover intercooler, 12 psi of boost (no diode installed) Curb weight with driver 3430 lbs, 205/70R15 tires. I was offered slicks but wanted to see what van ran "driven off the street"
Pass number one-
Eased out of hole, boost came up smoked tires first AND second gear, 15.9 at 85 mph 2.44 short time.
Traction sucked.
Pass number two-
Was a little to happy with water sprayed on intercooler, van misfired all the way down track on 3 cylinders, ran a 17 still slapping around a Chrysler in the other lane who must have been waiting for invitation to go from post office.
Pass number three (elimination's)
Set dial in to 15.50 was paired up against 340 duster with 14.20 dial, feathered the throttle out of hole when the tires spun and ran a 15.59 at 85. Duster ran 14.25, he won the race with better reaction time 555 Vs 713.
Stuff needed to go faster on current tires-
1) dual stage boost controller
2) More boost ;-)
Van has an easy 14 second pass in it with very little work needed, would do it with ease if I slapped the slicks on.
On the way home I was sitting at a stoplight 3 miles from my house, a Z-24 or 26 (whatever) pulled along side in the "merge over soon" lane. I watch the Caviler in my wide angle rearview mirror nonchalantly as I 1/4 throttle it away from the light. As soon as I was about a car length away from the light Mr. Chevy decides that he didn't want to be behind a caravan and guns it. SUCKER! I slam the gas to the boards and the trans instantly kicks down into 1st lighting the tires up. As the engine winds out and snaps into second the Caviler is at the sliding side door and falling behind, on the third gear shift he's viewing the back bumper (complete with class 3 hitch) and he STILL isn't giving up even though he's about out of road and is getting ready to go ditch hopping. He drops behind now and I get off the gas not wanting to incur another speeding ticket at the same location as a few months ago. Mr. Chevy at this point drops WAYYYYY back and follows at a discrete distance. BWHAHAHAHHAHA, I love my van.
5/30/01
Necessity is the mother of invention.
http://www.thedodgegarage.com/caravan_intercooling.html
It's funny the effect of turbo Mopars have on some people ;-)
http://64.81.114.233/ubb/Forum1/HTML/206590.html
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=146556
http://pub21.ezboard.com/fricecopforumfrm1.showMessage?topicID=645.topic
5/27/01
We try different things around here... sometimes they work good, other times not so good. I need to duct air into this unit if I'm going to keep it here, I don't think I will though. There is a fair temperature difference between the inlet/outlets but not enough to make it worth the while.
Something I'm picking at-
http://www.thedodgegarage.com/cylinder_head_flow.html
5/24/01
Updated-
http://www.thedodgegarage.com/turbo_advanced.html
5/21/01
Updated-
http://www.thedodgegarage.com/dyno_sheets.html
Check this out- Rob makes modified ECU's for our cars complete with dash mounted controls for boost, spark and fuel!
http://www.thedodgegarage.com/vendor_highlight_maxon.html
Want to buy the intercooler from the first FWD Mopar to run 10's? Here's your chance.
<sold>
5/14/01
Damn I lost my place in the garage where the GTX is stored.
I have been thinking about selling it for a while now, haven't driven it in about a year. Seems pointless to have a car unless it's used, at least once in a while. I drive over to Tony's house and head into the backyard to where the portable garage is set up. The dust flies as the covers are peeled back revealing the car. It's getting old and needs some TLC, the paintjob is showing it's age and it has a few rust spots that need to be taken care of. Hazards of living in a snow belt state. I open the drivers door and the dome lamp fails to come on. I think for a moment I'm going to have to use that battery in the trunk of the Daytona but a light tap-tap on the dash near the headlamp switch kicks the light on. I slide into the drivers seat and look around. Comparisons to Daytona are unavoidable- the seats have almost no support, the dash seems miles away, the steering wheel is huge and everything seems so dated.
I turn on the ignition and watch the gauges move off their detents then hit the switch for the auxiliary fuel pump. A mixture of 94 and 110 octane (last filled when Gore was still a year from running for election) begins to flow. No fuel pressure gauge is needed to tell me when the system is primed, my ears tell me when the dual Carter 500's bowls are full. The 11:1 440 fires up on the second revolution, sheets of rust scatter off the Hooker Comp headers as the engine wakes from it's long slumber. The sound of 16 mechanical rockers and booming Flowmaster exhaust system fill the garage as the motor warms up. Mobile one is flowing nicely as the oil pressure and other vitals are observed and I drop it in reverse and maneuver out of the garage. More comparisons come to mind... I feel like a windmill turning the manual steering lock to lock... This thing has a turning radius of Titanic... no a/c... I'm trying to convince myself at this point the car should be sold as I pull out on to the road.
As the car tools down the road it begins to settle in... The steering isn't an issue while driving and the 11 inch drum brakes are more then enough for for this kind of work. As I start cutting through traffic on the way home something else happens I have completely forgotten about... the look.
People act really weird when they see the car. The give you... the look. It can be a suprised look or a little kid WOW it's Christmas look. People give you the thumbs up as your going down the road, a neon driver stopped in a middle of a turn just so he and his passenger could watch the car go by. People speed up on the highway just to get along side for a better view...
I turn on to RT. 85 (Otherwise know as the Donovan acceleration testing facility) for the last leg of the ride home. Everything is fully warmed up now as I drop the car down into first gear in front of the Speedbowl and punch it.
The L-60 15's S/S compound Micky Thompson's howl in protest and leave long black marks on the pavement as the dual quad, tunnel rammed, Mcandless headed 600+ hp 440 roars to life. Even with 3.23 gears 6000 rpm comes up quick and it's time to
<snick>
shift into second gear which pitches the car sideways for a split second as the tach begins it's march to redline again. Did I say march? The damn needle isn't marching it's RUNNING at full speed till
<snick>
third gear arrives and the car is now officially MOVING well into triple digit speed as traffic that passed me moments before now reappears in my windshield as I start to close at an alarming rate. The 11 inch brakes bite deep (one hard braking maneuver allowed per session please) slowing the car down to a more reasonable pace as I pull into the driveway. One last stab of the pedal to light them up at the end of the driveway alerts Heather to the fact I'm home.
I changed my mind, It's not for sale.
5/13/01
This is cool- Lower speed limits in Montana so you can collect federal highway funds and people die. very nice.
http://www.hwysafety.com/hwy_montana_2001.htm
5/10/01
There was swearing, cussing, sawzalling, welding, pulling, hammering, slicing, dicing. More cursing, drinking, measuring & pulling. Soldiering and taping, tie-wrapping and insulating. Painting & polishing, adjusting & shimming.
All and all I'm rather pleased with the results. (yes it still has the V6 badge on the replacement fender, heh)
Time to move on to other things. ;-)
5/5/01
Before my trip to Detroit...
And after. I really, really hate NYC traffic.
It's fixable though, and have already obtained a parts vehicle. More information about my trip there in a day or two... picked up a few goodies while I was there..
5/1/01
A page or two added to the Turbo database, I have revised the index page to reflect the changes. The auto sale and parts sales pages have been revised, lots of R/T parts for sale.
Drove to Detroit last weekend, Caravan got dinged in NYC traffic, lots going on and it's WARM out at last! More soon...
4/11/01
Now this is funny-
Woman injured in fogger explosion at L.A. home
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- An explosion at a house being fumigated with 30 fogger-style "bug bombs" burned a woman, shattered the windows and lifted the roof three inches, authorities said.
The woman, whose identity was not immediately released, was treated at a hospital for first- and second-degree burns to her legs from the heat of the blast, fire spokesman Jim Wells said.
The explosion occurred shortly before 3:30 p.m. Friday.
"The lady had activated about 30 foggers, and while activating the last one in the kitchen area, an ignition source, possibly a stove pilot light or a water heater, caused an explosion," Wells said.
No more than three or four foggers should have been used, he added.
There was no fire but the blast caused about $30,000 damage to the 800-square-foot home, Wells said.
I was laughing so hard I thought I was going to have an accident.
THIRTY bug bombs???? What was she trying to do, sterilize the whole damn block?
Working on getting home projects done, customers cars and general clean up before digging farther into k-car. Lots os stuff on the burner.
New page-
http://www.thedodgegarage.com/dyno_sheets.html
Life is good.
4/03/01
Caravan page has been updated.
4/01/01
New pages-
Flex fuel vehicles!
http://www.thedodgegarage.com/ddg_ffv.html
Other Turbo owners besides Dodge! Send me links!
http://www.thedodgegarage.com/turbo_enthusiast_links.html
3/24/01
I would say this is somewhat high performance related since there is a lot of people planning on towing their car to the track (except Gus of course ;-)) And the question comes up- Can you tow with a turbo car?
To answer the question I hooked up my tow dolly to the Caravan and headed for Ohio to Dan Tabet's place in Akron (560 miles one way) He had purchased ShelbyTeks old 89 Daytona Shelby T-top car through me and I had arranged to deliver it, this would be a good long distance test to uncover any weak spots in the Caravan before using it to tow K-car to SDAC or the
Nat's this summer.
My trip would take me down I-95 through NYC and then on to 80 West in Pennsylvania
which is a 300 mile long stretch of climbing hills till you hit it's peak in mid state around exit 18 (2250 ft, highest point east of the
Mississippi) If this wouldn't stress the van, nothing will.
The Van- 2.5 Turbo, still non-intercooled 5-6 psi max, 92-93 octane. Modine V6 radiator and V6 fan. Ported head and exhaust manifold, Garrett turbo, 2.5 mandrel bent system with factory cat still in place (I'm doing a backpressure study of the van's exhaust system, look for it in an upcoming issue of SDAC newsletter, VERY suprising results)
Butch really likes the system and wants me to do something similar to his Daytona, it's very quite and breathes quite well. (I'll post a picture later)
Regular turbo trans with 3.05 gearing, late model diff and 205/70R15 tires (70-75 mph at 3000 rpm) 27,000 GVW transcooler
The weather was cool to moderate (40-60 degrees) for the whole trip the temp gauge was locked on 185 degrees like it was glued will slight decreases on long decels down hills, oil pressure was 55-65 psi dependant if on long incline or not, I was using 10W40 regular oil so I wasn't suprised to see the pressure drop as the oil heated up on the long pulls, Mobile 1 would prevent this but I'm adding a oil cooler just the same. (Oil pressure on the trip back with no car was 65 psi)
Oil consumption was non-existent.
Oh and engine was under boost 95% of the time, sometimes as little as 2 but most of the time it was at 5 psi going up even the minor grades. Pretty much all I did was lock the tach at 3000 rpm and let the speed drift up and down depending on grade & converter, speed range was 60-75 mph. Gas consumption on the hills was 13-15 mpg towing, on the way back on
don't have any figures but it was VERY impressive on the return trip, I ran into a technical problem that prevented me from tracking the return
mileage but on the way there I was getting between 180-200 miles on 15-16 gallons of gas (about 7/8 gauge), on the return trip I went over 300 miles and still had over 1/4 gas in the tank.
(Return trip was interrupted by a semi plugged fuel filter after getting gas from a speedway gas station in Ohio) I reversed the fuel filter and powered up the fuel pump and used the pump to backflush the filter into a container, it was just enough to get me home, hard to find a parts store open in the middle of eastern
Pennsylvania at 10:00 at night! One learns to improvise in a hurry.
Things to do or change-
Oil cooler- It's was on list of things to do anyway and the fluctuations in pressure under long load just drove the point home. Mobile one would help avoid this but I think it will be done
anyway to avoid long term oil breakdown.
Tire combo- 205/70's on 15 rims is a LOT of tire, tends to make van move around when passed by semis and or wind gusts. I like the rpm range where the van cruises at however and plan on gearing up the trans to 2.70 gears and offset that by going to a shorter tire to
maintain the same effective gear ratio. Maybe a 16 or 17 inch rim while I'm at it.
Intercooler- Also on the list of things to do, not that I ran into detonation but an intercooler would lower my trip costs by
allowing me to run lower octane gasoline. Would I have been safe running say 89 octane at just 5 psi? Maybe but this engine has a high VE then a stock 2.5 and wished to avoid any chances of detonation while under high load.
Oh and speaking of high loads guess how much the Caravan, tow dolly and drivetrainless Daytona weighed in at a truckstop?
6520 lbs with driver. YIKES!
I'm very impressed with the way the van performed with that kind of GVW. At no time did it feel like it was overly straining to get the job done.
3/14/01
New Page!
http://www.thedodgegarage.com/world_wide_mopars_2.html
2001 Mexican Stratus R/T Turbo and 1985 Dart "K"
Sorry for the delay... I have been doing research..
3/20/01
Boost control page updated- http://www.thedodgegarage.com/turbo_boost.html
Finished the last of the turbo database pages the other day... 2 years in the making... The TI to TII conversion guide...
http://www.thedodgegarage.com/turbo_glhs.html
3/7/01
Turned 35 yesterday.
Some... advice.
1) Take care of your body, it's the only one you will have while your here.
2) Wear proper eye protection when welding. You'll be pissed off when you don't and get a flashburn, even more pissed off when you realize your visions been degraded. forever.
3) Wear proper eye protection when working in the garage. period.
4) Use hearing protection when grinding, hammering, chiseling or during any other loud activity.
5) Protect your back by lifting at the knees. Use a hoist. Have a friend stop by. Know your limits.
6) Wear a seatbelt.
7) Enjoy life while your here. Don't work so hard.
There's nothing to be gained in skipping these precautions. I now view life as a long struggle to protect your personal resources for as long as you can and the precautions you take now will pay off at the other end of your life. Trust me, I wish I was more careful when I was younger.
Spent 4-5 hours shoveling loads of snow out of the driveway and keeping a fire going in the fireplace because the power was out. Bah. All better now.
3/5/01
Having way to much fun now! Found that I can do site stats on the new website- What pages people are looking at, how often, what browsers, number of hits in a time period and most amusing WHAT webpage they were on before getting on my site. Based on this information I have installed return links to all of the pages because there were lots of hit's from search engines and people where hitting individual pages with no way to get back to the index.
Lots of webboards out there and it seems FWD Mopars get mentioned fairly often! LOL! Heres what a few of them had to say... (these were taken from corvette, supra, honda and import weboards)
Prepare to be amazed..this is some crazy sh!t
That's not right...
That car is SICK!!!
Be afraid, be very afraid!
Those damn turbo chryslers!!
I think sleepers are cool and this takes the cake.
Damn, faster than my rx7 for sure.. hehe.. but a lot uglier..
Hmmmmmmm. I need NOS! lots of NOS! (Walks off shaking head mumbling)
Imagine how embarrassed you'd feel if that thing pulled up next to you and smoked you!
That is just NOT right ! I can't imagine going much over 65 MPH in a "K" car, much less a buck-30 plus !
(Talking about Paul's
Minivan)
That must be so embarrassing to loose to a Dodge Caravan. Does anybody know if he's still using the stock engine?
MUWHAHAHAHA!!!! Thats just to funny. I bet that minivan makes grown men cry at the races
And the one I like
best...
I guess that is what Lee I. had in mind when he said lead , follow. or get out of the way!
3/1/01
As you can see I have been busy, will continue to tweak and adjust the site as time permits. Uploaded a "fwd traction" page yesterday and broke the shortblock page into separate pages due to size- while I was at it also added a page with pictures of turbo engine pistons.
Things to do soon-
Page about Dave St.Louis's car
Clutch page- might split into trans page into separate pages
Break up K-car page into seasons
Turbo conversion page
Englishtown is having an import battle on the 10'th- anyone going? I think I'm going to break the van in ;-)
02/24/01
Surf's up!
There is 2 pages that are not finished in the turbo database, I'm trying to
hammer them out this morning- As for the other 3 databases (EFI, carb and DOHC)
I'll try to get them done in the next 2 weeks time permitting. (there is
something of interest on the EFI page though) I have several hours a day
invested in this and it's getting to be time to shift focus onto projects soon.
This turned out to take longer then I thought it did, some pages were only
lightly touched while others took days (an example- Dave z's page took 3 1/2
days of combing SDML archives & finding images and then setting it up in
some resembling and orderly manner) Dave's post's to the SDML.... can be very
illuminating. smart man, to bad we cannot get him to join our list, a priceless
resource.
As always feel free to e-mail any corrections, oversights or something that need
to be clarified. Also you may note that several pages have different color
font's, let me know which is easiest to read.
Other pages will also be up time permitting, I have more ideas and information
lying around my office then there is hours in the day.
Gary
p.s. please use the index link- the nav bar on the left of the screen will get
you around the site much faster AND with the new frames setup the damn ad is now
locked in the top and doesn't reload every time you visit a new page
Ken- I got your money order for the intercooler, will be sending out in the next day or two.
02/12/01
The score so far-
99 pages of html.
11 more to go.
Over 1,100 images.
The new Dodge Garage is coming soon.
I'm working as fast as I can but I keep getting more ideas ;-)
Perhaps a preview picture?
Click on image for larger version.
02/12/01
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash399.htm
Wiretapper Linda Tripp whining about losing her $100,000 a year job after working for the government for 20 years.
"I've lost my benefits. I've lost my health benefits. I've lost everything," Linda Tripp revealed during an interview aired on CNN."
Welcome to the real world baby, get over
it.
Something else to peek at:
02/09/01 early morning edition.
It's time to make the doughnuts.
02/08/01 late, late edition.
Cleaned garage all day.
02/09/01 late edition.
Work done to Caravan last 5 weeks-
1) Rebuilt shortblock & trans, ported
low miles head, had machine shop touch up seats, port exhaust manifold, modify
intake manifold & paint.
2) Tow Caravan to car wash to clean 1/2 inch crud out of engine bay before
installing engine & trans.
3) Clean and paint radiator (fairly new) replace all belts, hoses &
thermostat, replace fan with V6 unit.
4) Make up stainless oil feed line to turbo.
5) Find out why engine fan doesn't work right, replace all relays.
6) Inspect brakes and suspension. Replace shocks & struts, rear brakes, cut
drums, replace brake cables & all rear bearings.
7) Junkyard hopping- Both front headlamps, one rear taillamp, V6 fan assembly.
Install.
8) replace all lightbulbs and pack sockets with dialetric grease.
9) New wipers, front and rear. Fix rear defroster, replace a/c blower motor.
10) Grease front window tracks so windows go up, adjust and lube rear hatch, fix
drivers mirror.
11) Steam clean engine bay, 2 times.
12) DMV, passed inspection, registered.
02/08/01
Cool! The Caravan is on the road!
Work on the site continues.... another two weeks till major update upload...
01/27/01
Cool! Only 9 more pages to reformat and or make changes to and then the new site will be uploaded! I will still have to check everything over close and there are still like 10-20 more pages to make on new stuffs but I think I can pull it off before my 100,000 visitor! stay tuned...
01/27/01
Work on the Caravan continues...
Fired up for the first time the other day, aside from a noisy lifter or roller rocker sounds pretty darn good. Easy enough to change out and will defer doing so till suspension & brakes are complete. After that (and state inspection) it will be time for an intercooler and better breathing exhaust system. The Caravan already has the best brakes due to the fact it shipped from the factory with 15 inch wheels (it shares rotors and calipers with my Shelby Daytona) and I'm going to see if a Daytona swaybar will fit along with a set of 16 inch pumpers wheels.
Website is getting major facelift/update due to it's move to 50 megs.. ALL the pages (over 100 at this point) are getting updated and reformatted and I hope to get everything done in time for my 100,000 th visitor to the site. New sections will include a software download page, a small video archive, more friends cars with breakdowns on what they did, and more pictures of some of the older cars I have owned (GTX page received quite a few new pictures) The reformat of the pages will lock the banner ad in a top frame preventing it from reloading every time you swap pages.. this will speed things up as you browse the site.
01/18/01
Ahh a new year! time for an update!
Well as you can see we have moved to 50megs because IDT has gotten rid of all it's dial up customers (THE BASTARDS!) but that's ok because now I have more room to play with!!
Things that are going on....
1) Updating website! Just a quick makeover due to a different webserver- 50megs places a banner at the top of the page and with the old page setup it would open a new banner whenever you opened a new page- not cool. So I have embraced The Great Satan (Microsoft) and am learning to do frames with Front Page 2000 because Netscape Composer won't! This will place a frame at the top of the page for the banner to set in and speed loading of the pages. Another bonus will be a navigation bar on the left.
2) Breaking my ass working on a Caravan! Restoration started 2 weeks ago (I can't think to call it anything but restoration with 217,000 miles on the clock) The shortblock was completed Friday and the transmission was wrapped up on Thursday- lets just say all these parts are "Relentless spec" and leave it at that. =) The Plan is to have the van done by the end of the month so work on the K-car can proceed. Everything in the van is being inspected, replaced, repaired or upgraded, it will be like a 100% new turbo Caravan. Now I know the question on everyone's mind is will it run 12's? NOPE! This van is built for comfort and towing and will not be gutted! (mind you that doesn't mean I won't make a few passes with it to see how good it runs ;-)
Some of the upgrades done to van:
Mahle piston shortblock, 6 quart oil pan, no balance shafts, blueprinted. Fastburn head (ported with backcut valves) ported exhaust manifold, ported intake... (with a few tricks of it's own) 89 Garret Turbo II turbo, 2.5 inch exhaust, twin Conquest intercoolers.
89 vintage transaxle with late model V6 diff, heavy duty clutch pack setup, race spec clearances, modified valve body. HUGE 27,000 GVW transcooler.
Have to go to work, talk to ya soon!