BUILD THREAD 86 GP 2+2~Blown 6.0

[81cutlass]

I'm supposed to be leaving in a few days to make the couple thousand mile trip to Hot Rod Power Tour and back and I don't have vital engine parts laying on the work bench and I'm not scrambling to overnight parts so I can make the trip. All I can think to do is vacuum the carpet, give the car a wash and load up the cooler.

Something seems wrong. Either 5 years of slow and steady updates are starting to finally pay off and the car is legitimately working, or I'm forgetting something important that is going to strand me on the side of the road somewhere in Indiana 600 miles from home.... Let's hope for the first option.

 

[Texas82GP]

I'm supposed to be leaving in a few days to make the couple thousand mile trip to Hot Rod Power Tour and back and I don't have vital engine parts laying on the work bench and I'm not scrambling to overnight parts so I can make the trip. All I can think to do is vacuum the carpet, give the car a wash and load up the cooler.

Something seems wrong. Either 5 years of slow and steady updates are starting to finally pay off and the car is legitimately working, or I'm forgetting something important that is going to strand me on the side of the road somewhere in Indiana 600 miles from home.... Let's hope for the first option.

View attachment 181966

I hope you have a great trip! Such a cool car.

 

[64nailhead]

Go get’m,
Take some vids
And enjoy!!!!

 

[81cutlass]

I found things to do.

I aligned my front bumper and hood. Front bumper has always been low so I pulled the support up and pulled the hood forward and down on the hinge side. Found out I had half a dozen missing bolts in the driver's inner to outer fender joint.

Painted my front air dam, checked some nuts in the exhaust for tightness, changed oil in the trans, found some vaccum caps and hoses that had small cracks, and vacced the carpet.

Funny how when you think the thing is done but it's not really

Took the car on a short cruise and everything seems ok. I need to clean it up and load the cooler and I'm good to go.

 

[81cutlass]

1500 miles in 5 days on power tour and I'm back home.

Didn't get stranded, didn't have to pop open the tool box, didn't overheat and had a relatively comfortable drive with the AC on.

There's a bit of drone and driveline vibration at like 80mph, there's some tuning work to do on the transition from idle to light throttle tip in with the AC on but nothing huge to complain about.

The car smelt of burnt oil heavily when I drove through a big puddle in Indy and there's a few dots of some fluid on the back bumper. Not sure if I have a very minor leak somewhere or if it's road grime from driving through the rain. But there's no leaks from sitting overnight.

I had 2 random 1 second studders 3 hours into my drive home Friday evening and the primary fuel pump ended up dying near Madison WI. I flipped my second race pump on, didn't even stop and kept going. I don't know if I have a wiring issue, the pump is going out or what. The primary pump worked when I got home today so it's intermittent and I need to diagnose that.

The rear exhaust hanger on the driver's side also fatigued and broke. Passenger side broke last summer and it's got 12k miles on the exhaust so I gotta put a figure 8 style hanger in and allow it to flex side to side better.

Got some minor update items before drag weekend but overall not a ton.

 

[Streetbu]

Congrats!

 

[81cutlass]

Was on vacation for the last week and got home last evening. Got to work correcting a few things that broke over power tour today.

The driver's side exhaust tailpipe hanger broke, and laying under the car the mid hanger also was broke so I'm pretty sure the mid hanger broke and overloaded the rear mount.

Replaced the mid hanger with a new one from O'Really and got to replacing the rear mounts. Pretty sure the steel mount with a vertical bolt that comes in the pypes kit over constrained the tail pipe and fatigued over time. Welded a tab to the top of the pipe and welded some 3/8 rod I had in the scrap cabinet to the frame and used some generic figure 8 rubber exhaust hangers.

Determined the cause of my primary fuel pump dying, the relay holders disintegrated again. I chocked the first one failing to a random bad plastic part but #2 and #3 have failed on the trip so they must just be crap quality. I need to order some new ones from Delphi.

I also changed my fuel filter. I probably only have 2500 miles on it but wanted to see for myself that it was ok because all the fancy-dancy people criticize you if you use a cellulose filter on e85 and claim you need to use a $140 stainless mesh filter. I know they are wrong but I wanted to see for myself. The wix filter is spotless and uses steel caps so the claim e85 eats the glue in these cellulose filters is worthless here.

 

[Supercharged111]

I ripped a similar style exhaust hangar rip, so I welded it back together and eliminated the rubber part altogether. It too subsequently ripped the middle mount, but also came disconnected and started dragging on the ground and I got black flagged after setting a lap record and taking the lead. Lame!

 

[81cutlass]

As a self reminder

Enough parts came off backorder to get the relays redone. $15 each if I buy a kit vs. under $9 each if I buy them bulk. Bulk it is. The rubber seals are backordered and have been for 6 months but they aren't 100% needed and I can install them later.

I also noticed my rear end backlash opened up a lot and with an unknown source of input seal shaft leak I am going to replace the seal and reshim the carrier. I thought I did OK last fall but it seemed to open up?

Anyways got kinda a busy week. Gotta get the linelock installed, relays done and rear end shimmed. Also want to build a tire carrier. Going to try and test at the track Saturday.

 

[64nailhead]

Either a poor (loose) connection or a poor ground looks to be the cause of that mess. I guess you'll know what parts to carry around as extras.

I did encounter some budget connectors for relays that the pins would loosen very quickly, then just what you found was what I was seeing.

Sounds like you had a good time - great pics!!!! Did you go alone?