Spark Tech sponsored STM (NZ) 1000+hp rwd Evo 8 Drag car build thread
Feb 9, 2011, 09:09 AM
#31
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Cuz, my next trip back to Wellington I'm going to have to head out to their shop to meet them.
Feb 9, 2011, 12:03 PM
#32
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cant say a bad thing about them... I've known Ray for a number of years now, before he moved to Speedtech (he was/is my gearbox specialist) and I cant say enough about him and that goes for Bam, Andre and the rest of the team... 
Last edited by joyce1bro; Feb 10, 2011 at 03:48 AM.
Feb 10, 2011, 12:16 PM
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Hey guys, thanks for all your kind words!
Craig asked me to jump on with an update on the car.
We were all busting our asses through the entire month of January to get HD2 ready for the 4 & Rotary Nationals on the 28th/29th. In the last few weeks this meant 3, 4 and sometimes 5 people working on the car at the same time, and 7 days a week, 15+ hours a day!
Unfortunately our best efforts weren't enough and a clutch issue finally made us pull the pin on racing for the Nationals. The car still made the trip north for what is the biggest import show in NZ. It was well received by the huge crowd and Mike was able to start the car up during the official unveiling.
Following the weekend we had a chance to sort out the clutch and get the car on the dyno prior to the next race meeting. We were confident that the new package had the goods to push 1200+ whp once we lean on it, but for testing we had set our targets on a more conservative 1000 whp. We always prefer to start with a mild tune up and get the chassis working before slowly increasing the power.
The next problem was that HD2 produced too much torque for our dyno, shutting it down at 7500 rpm and around 900 whp. Our Dynapack chassis dyno is torque limited to 4400nm and while that sounds like a lot, remember that the engine torque is multiplied by the very short 5.1 final drive. This means that the engine only needs to make around 900 nm to over torque the dyno.
What was promising is that at 7500 rpm the power and torque were both still going vertical. We would expect this engine to make peak power at around 9500-10,000 rpm so you do the math!
The fix is to fit a taller final drive in the 4.1-4.3 vicinity to reduce the axle torque, but we didn't have time to do this before we hit the track. We already had a really good base map from previous engines we had tuned, so we were happy enough to detune the engine a touch and hit the track for some testing.
With the amount of datalogging available on the car we can very accurately tune the car at the track and this is normally what we do with high end drag cars. We use the dyno to get a baseline tune up and see what the torque curve looks like and from here we will tune the car at the track in real-world conditions.
We headed to the track for the cars first shakedown with our close friend and experienced drag racer Bob Tynan driving the car. After some adjustment to the launch control, Bob pulled a huge 5th gear burnout, banging the limiter past the 330' mark and laying down two thick black lines. The car sounded angry and we were all stoked to finally see the car turn the slicks.
Bob backed up and came into stage and brought the car up onto the 2 step. When the tree dropped, the car launched hard on the wheelie bars and laid down a 1.17 60'. This was only a shakedown pass and Bob clicked the Liberty into neutral at the top of 3rd gear so there isn't much other data we could take from the pass. The 1.17 60' is a great start although we would expect the car to be running in the 1.0X region once we have time to get on top of everything.
We were pretty pumped to get the car turned around for another pass, but when we started the car to warm it up in the pits it started smoking profusely. A leak down and compression test confirmed that the engine was in perfect health but no 1 plug was covered in oil, as was the top of the piston. After pulling the plenum, we found the reason for the smoke machine - the intake port wall had been ported a touch too thin and a tiny pinhole was allowing oil to be sucked into the port from the rocker cover under vacuum.
Despite out best efforts we could not repair the problem at the track and made the call to not run the car. It is very frustrating, but when you are trying to be the fastest in the world every limit has to be pushed to the edge and this involves certain risks. We are happy to report the head has now been repaired and we are looking forward to hitting the track again next weekend.
We will keep this thread updated with results.
Craig asked me to jump on with an update on the car.
We were all busting our asses through the entire month of January to get HD2 ready for the 4 & Rotary Nationals on the 28th/29th. In the last few weeks this meant 3, 4 and sometimes 5 people working on the car at the same time, and 7 days a week, 15+ hours a day!
Unfortunately our best efforts weren't enough and a clutch issue finally made us pull the pin on racing for the Nationals. The car still made the trip north for what is the biggest import show in NZ. It was well received by the huge crowd and Mike was able to start the car up during the official unveiling.
Following the weekend we had a chance to sort out the clutch and get the car on the dyno prior to the next race meeting. We were confident that the new package had the goods to push 1200+ whp once we lean on it, but for testing we had set our targets on a more conservative 1000 whp. We always prefer to start with a mild tune up and get the chassis working before slowly increasing the power.
The next problem was that HD2 produced too much torque for our dyno, shutting it down at 7500 rpm and around 900 whp. Our Dynapack chassis dyno is torque limited to 4400nm and while that sounds like a lot, remember that the engine torque is multiplied by the very short 5.1 final drive. This means that the engine only needs to make around 900 nm to over torque the dyno.
What was promising is that at 7500 rpm the power and torque were both still going vertical. We would expect this engine to make peak power at around 9500-10,000 rpm so you do the math!
The fix is to fit a taller final drive in the 4.1-4.3 vicinity to reduce the axle torque, but we didn't have time to do this before we hit the track. We already had a really good base map from previous engines we had tuned, so we were happy enough to detune the engine a touch and hit the track for some testing.
With the amount of datalogging available on the car we can very accurately tune the car at the track and this is normally what we do with high end drag cars. We use the dyno to get a baseline tune up and see what the torque curve looks like and from here we will tune the car at the track in real-world conditions.
We headed to the track for the cars first shakedown with our close friend and experienced drag racer Bob Tynan driving the car. After some adjustment to the launch control, Bob pulled a huge 5th gear burnout, banging the limiter past the 330' mark and laying down two thick black lines. The car sounded angry and we were all stoked to finally see the car turn the slicks.
Bob backed up and came into stage and brought the car up onto the 2 step. When the tree dropped, the car launched hard on the wheelie bars and laid down a 1.17 60'. This was only a shakedown pass and Bob clicked the Liberty into neutral at the top of 3rd gear so there isn't much other data we could take from the pass. The 1.17 60' is a great start although we would expect the car to be running in the 1.0X region once we have time to get on top of everything.
We were pretty pumped to get the car turned around for another pass, but when we started the car to warm it up in the pits it started smoking profusely. A leak down and compression test confirmed that the engine was in perfect health but no 1 plug was covered in oil, as was the top of the piston. After pulling the plenum, we found the reason for the smoke machine - the intake port wall had been ported a touch too thin and a tiny pinhole was allowing oil to be sucked into the port from the rocker cover under vacuum.
Despite out best efforts we could not repair the problem at the track and made the call to not run the car. It is very frustrating, but when you are trying to be the fastest in the world every limit has to be pushed to the edge and this involves certain risks. We are happy to report the head has now been repaired and we are looking forward to hitting the track again next weekend.
We will keep this thread updated with results.
Feb 10, 2011, 12:26 PM
#34
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so the problem was with the head .. intresting ive never seen anything like that before
So the head was repaired , hope u guys get this evo on the track soon =)
So the head was repaired , hope u guys get this evo on the track soon =)
Feb 15, 2011, 08:15 AM
#37
Hey guys, thanks for all your kind words!
Craig asked me to jump on with an update on the car.
We were all busting our asses through the entire month of January to get HD2 ready for the 4 & Rotary Nationals on the 28th/29th. In the last few weeks this meant 3, 4 and sometimes 5 people working on the car at the same time, and 7 days a week, 15+ hours a day!
Unfortunately our best efforts weren't enough and a clutch issue finally made us pull the pin on racing for the Nationals. The car still made the trip north for what is the biggest import show in NZ. It was well received by the huge crowd and Mike was able to start the car up during the official unveiling.
Following the weekend we had a chance to sort out the clutch and get the car on the dyno prior to the next race meeting. We were confident that the new package had the goods to push 1200+ whp once we lean on it, but for testing we had set our targets on a more conservative 1000 whp. We always prefer to start with a mild tune up and get the chassis working before slowly increasing the power.
The next problem was that HD2 produced too much torque for our dyno, shutting it down at 7500 rpm and around 900 whp. Our Dynapack chassis dyno is torque limited to 4400nm and while that sounds like a lot, remember that the engine torque is multiplied by the very short 5.1 final drive. This means that the engine only needs to make around 900 nm to over torque the dyno.
What was promising is that at 7500 rpm the power and torque were both still going vertical. We would expect this engine to make peak power at around 9500-10,000 rpm so you do the math!
The fix is to fit a taller final drive in the 4.1-4.3 vicinity to reduce the axle torque, but we didn't have time to do this before we hit the track. We already had a really good base map from previous engines we had tuned, so we were happy enough to detune the engine a touch and hit the track for some testing.
With the amount of datalogging available on the car we can very accurately tune the car at the track and this is normally what we do with high end drag cars. We use the dyno to get a baseline tune up and see what the torque curve looks like and from here we will tune the car at the track in real-world conditions.
We headed to the track for the cars first shakedown with our close friend and experienced drag racer Bob Tynan driving the car. After some adjustment to the launch control, Bob pulled a huge 5th gear burnout, banging the limiter past the 330' mark and laying down two thick black lines. The car sounded angry and we were all stoked to finally see the car turn the slicks.
Bob backed up and came into stage and brought the car up onto the 2 step. When the tree dropped, the car launched hard on the wheelie bars and laid down a 1.17 60'. This was only a shakedown pass and Bob clicked the Liberty into neutral at the top of 3rd gear so there isn't much other data we could take from the pass. The 1.17 60' is a great start although we would expect the car to be running in the 1.0X region once we have time to get on top of everything.
We were pretty pumped to get the car turned around for another pass, but when we started the car to warm it up in the pits it started smoking profusely. A leak down and compression test confirmed that the engine was in perfect health but no 1 plug was covered in oil, as was the top of the piston. After pulling the plenum, we found the reason for the smoke machine - the intake port wall had been ported a touch too thin and a tiny pinhole was allowing oil to be sucked into the port from the rocker cover under vacuum.
Despite out best efforts we could not repair the problem at the track and made the call to not run the car. It is very frustrating, but when you are trying to be the fastest in the world every limit has to be pushed to the edge and this involves certain risks. We are happy to report the head has now been repaired and we are looking forward to hitting the track again next weekend.
We will keep this thread updated with results.
Craig asked me to jump on with an update on the car.
We were all busting our asses through the entire month of January to get HD2 ready for the 4 & Rotary Nationals on the 28th/29th. In the last few weeks this meant 3, 4 and sometimes 5 people working on the car at the same time, and 7 days a week, 15+ hours a day!
Unfortunately our best efforts weren't enough and a clutch issue finally made us pull the pin on racing for the Nationals. The car still made the trip north for what is the biggest import show in NZ. It was well received by the huge crowd and Mike was able to start the car up during the official unveiling.
Following the weekend we had a chance to sort out the clutch and get the car on the dyno prior to the next race meeting. We were confident that the new package had the goods to push 1200+ whp once we lean on it, but for testing we had set our targets on a more conservative 1000 whp. We always prefer to start with a mild tune up and get the chassis working before slowly increasing the power.
The next problem was that HD2 produced too much torque for our dyno, shutting it down at 7500 rpm and around 900 whp. Our Dynapack chassis dyno is torque limited to 4400nm and while that sounds like a lot, remember that the engine torque is multiplied by the very short 5.1 final drive. This means that the engine only needs to make around 900 nm to over torque the dyno.
What was promising is that at 7500 rpm the power and torque were both still going vertical. We would expect this engine to make peak power at around 9500-10,000 rpm so you do the math!
The fix is to fit a taller final drive in the 4.1-4.3 vicinity to reduce the axle torque, but we didn't have time to do this before we hit the track. We already had a really good base map from previous engines we had tuned, so we were happy enough to detune the engine a touch and hit the track for some testing.
With the amount of datalogging available on the car we can very accurately tune the car at the track and this is normally what we do with high end drag cars. We use the dyno to get a baseline tune up and see what the torque curve looks like and from here we will tune the car at the track in real-world conditions.
We headed to the track for the cars first shakedown with our close friend and experienced drag racer Bob Tynan driving the car. After some adjustment to the launch control, Bob pulled a huge 5th gear burnout, banging the limiter past the 330' mark and laying down two thick black lines. The car sounded angry and we were all stoked to finally see the car turn the slicks.
Bob backed up and came into stage and brought the car up onto the 2 step. When the tree dropped, the car launched hard on the wheelie bars and laid down a 1.17 60'. This was only a shakedown pass and Bob clicked the Liberty into neutral at the top of 3rd gear so there isn't much other data we could take from the pass. The 1.17 60' is a great start although we would expect the car to be running in the 1.0X region once we have time to get on top of everything.
We were pretty pumped to get the car turned around for another pass, but when we started the car to warm it up in the pits it started smoking profusely. A leak down and compression test confirmed that the engine was in perfect health but no 1 plug was covered in oil, as was the top of the piston. After pulling the plenum, we found the reason for the smoke machine - the intake port wall had been ported a touch too thin and a tiny pinhole was allowing oil to be sucked into the port from the rocker cover under vacuum.
Despite out best efforts we could not repair the problem at the track and made the call to not run the car. It is very frustrating, but when you are trying to be the fastest in the world every limit has to be pushed to the edge and this involves certain risks. We are happy to report the head has now been repaired and we are looking forward to hitting the track again next weekend.
We will keep this thread updated with results.
........................
Wonderful wrap-up of the day from you guys!
Glad to take the time to read a post like this and actually quite surprised that you took the time to share all the details...........def shows what you guys are made of
Very excited to see some 1/8mi #'s and of course full on BLASTS down the 1320!
Feb 16, 2011, 11:16 AM
#39
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Hi guys,
Just a quick update to let you all know that HD2 is all ready to race this weekend at the South Island Champs. We repaired the intake port and had a chance to check over every thing else on the car. Mike also had the chance to get the front end painted so it wont look quite so dodgy from the front
The weather forecast for the weekend is looking a bit marginal so we are just keeping our fingers crossed that we can get some racing in!
I will post updates over the weekend.
Andre
Just a quick update to let you all know that HD2 is all ready to race this weekend at the South Island Champs. We repaired the intake port and had a chance to check over every thing else on the car. Mike also had the chance to get the front end painted so it wont look quite so dodgy from the front
The weather forecast for the weekend is looking a bit marginal so we are just keeping our fingers crossed that we can get some racing in!
I will post updates over the weekend.
Andre
Feb 17, 2011, 12:24 PM
#40
By the looks of it you guys are going over the car with a fine tooth comb, in case the weather holds she is ready to rumble.
Thanks for the updates. As someone mentioned thanks for being candid about issues along the way. Kinda puts everything into perspective.
Thanks for the updates. As someone mentioned thanks for being candid about issues along the way. Kinda puts everything into perspective.
