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I expect the cylinder pressure to increase a little further to around 165-170 over time. See how it goes. That is a very safe but decent cylinder pressure, I normally aim for around 185-190 psi.
Although your tuner did recommend 80lb injectors, I would say that a large injector like that if controlled by the EECIV will not be super well controlled at small injector pulse angles. Idle gremlins can result if the injectors are too big. I would be inclined to back the injector capacity off a little. The right size injector should be around 60-70 % of maximum duty at maximum power level.
For your application at 350 hp this will be an injector with about 32 lb hr. An injector that is 32-42lb hr would be more than ample. An 80 lb injector is way overkill and adds no value in your application and can take your driveability backwards at cruise and idle speeds with very small injector opening angles, as the EECIV doesn't have the sort of granular resolution in its tuning tables that a new Motech or Haltech unit has. So injector control is not as good, I assume you are still using the EEC IV ?
Ask your tuner again to reconsider the 80lb injector option if using the EECIV. Your application is only 350hp, so that's all the injector needs to deliver but with another 30% capacity for injector head room on top of that. The suggested 80lb injectors are just not adding anything positive here in your application. Different story if it was going to be boosted.
My suggestion is to use a 32-42lb injector which is correctly sized for your engine, but ultimately its your call and the tuners call.
The table above shows some factory level injector sizing for mustangs. Find a comparable mustang v8 with similar power levels to your engine and you will see that they will fall within the levels I mentioned.
Not even the 760hp 2020/2021 GT500 has an 80lb injector ! As you are half the power level you will need only 1/2 the injector...so about 32lb/hr
Yes, that was a concern for me as well, but apparently these new breeds of injectors can be controlled fine with the eec-iv for idle and cruise speed. Injectors / EFIDynoTuning
However, I was looking for a cheaper solution and my tuner ok’d these ones. https://injector-rehab.com/product/3...5831-set-of-8/
These guys do before and after flow tests and rebuild them. And the price was right.
They’re on their way, so we”ll go from there. lol
In other news, ever since I did the last lash adjustment, I’ve been trying to track down an annoying rattle behind my dash. Console out, tombstone out, gauges out. Whenever it starts I pull over and poke my stethoscope around trying to isolate it. Found it today.......underneath the drivers side valve cover. Something goofy going on with my valvetrain. Will dig into it later this week. Tricky bugger. I was 100% sure it was a dash rattle, and I know my ‘odd noises’ pretty well.
Injectors arrived this week and I tore into it today. They came with a nice flow sheet.
While I have the upper manifold off to change those out, I pulled off the valve covers to see if I could find that intermittent rattle. No obvious signs of contact, but I took my die grinder to a little more of the left side cover on the raised bosses.
Also, I decided to try one last effort at quieting down the valvetrain. My witness marks on the valve tips look dead centered, but maybe slightly wider than optimum, so I used the “mid lift” method to confirm my correct pushrod length. Turns out I could use a pushrod about another .050 longer to get a perfect mid lift measurement. That would push the mark slightly out, but would likely narrow it a bit. Pics attached to show witness marks after about 300 miles of use. Probably gonna just stick with my current 6.400 for now. All suppliers are backordered on 6.450 anyways.
That witness mark looks OK. It is not the source of the valvetrain noise. The rapid rate ramps in the cams are what make the noise. Every fast ramp cam I have had in my 331 engine 2 cams from Ed Curtis and a Comp Cams XE 264 all made the same valvetrain noise. The factory cam was very quiet by comparison. When I heard your idle video, it sounded exactly like mine.
Keen to see how the injectors and tuning end up for you.
Ed Curtis ended up having 6.450 pushrods. I’ll give them a try. I have the upper off now to change pushrods and swap out the injectors. Noticed some oil in the upper plenum. Probably the cause of my black plugs and oily plenum gasket. Valve cover is away getting a small baffle welded to the bottom of the fill hole so I can stuff a copper scrub pad down there to help with the oil mist. My inline filter was not adequate. Also noticed some oil in my catch can coming off the PCV, but not sure if that may have been backdraining from the plenum. Hopefully I get my VC back tomorrow so I can get this back on the road.
Maf is a stock SN95 unit. I think 70mm. TB is a FMS 65mm. Tuner indicated I wouldn’t see significant gains by upgrading either of those.
The upper plenums do get oil in them if you feed the vacuum hose from the upper plenum directly to the PCV valve, even standard they suck a bit of oil in there. So make sure the oil catch can is fitted in between the PCV valve and the upper plenum, it will stop a lot of oil in there. Also if you want to get funky, I use a 2 stage PCV valve to allow me to tune the crankcase vacuum exactly how it needs to be. The standard valve is good when the engine is standard but larger cams etc change the vacuum behaviour of the engine and the standard valve may or may not provide the right crankcase ventilation behaviour.
So get one of these if you are bored and try it, quality is excellent and it works as advertised. I really like mine it worked well. See below:
For the MAF and TB sizing I think you are probably going to be right on the limits of their capacity.
MAF: As this MAF is on the smaller side, it may peg at 5V when on full throttle. What I mean by that is the MAF signal will read 5V (max for a MAF) BEFORE the engine has hit maximum airflow. This is because your engine is now making a good 100hp over std. When it does this the computer cannot accurately measure the air volume properly and fuelling control is somewhat lost. When your tuner is tuning the car you will be able to see the signal level from the MAF during the power runs and determine when it hits 5V. Ideally, the MAF should NOT hit 5V at maximum airflow, thereby allowing the ECU to SEE all the air coming into the engine. For a 70mm MAF this will limit be at about 322FWHP or about 268RWHP, I know this because that's when I pegged my 70mm ford MAF . You are going to be very close to that so I would check it closely.
TB: The 65mm TB will be Ok for the 300-350HP that you are making. I would prefer a 70mm once you are over 300 FWHP not so much for the power gain but for the throttle response. For TB I like to go with the following:
65mm to 300 HP
70mm 300-350HP
75mm 350-425hp
80-85mm 425-500hp
90mm over 500hp
Again it comes down to each engine. Check the vacuum at full throttle when in the dyno to see if it is pulling a vacuum, if it is it has an intake restriction (either intake manifold or TB, OR piping or MAF)
That is a cool PCV setup you posted. May look into that in the future.
On a positive note, installed my new pushrods and injectors and my remote tuner got her dialed in pretty good. I’m getting a bit of fluctuating IMAF readings at certain loads which the tuner says is turbulent intake air. It’s causing a slight rolling sensation at certain speeds. He suggested trying an air straightener before the MAF, so I have one ordered up. If that doesn’t solve it, I’ll redo my air box to include a lid and seal it off completely from engine bay air. Should probably do that anyways.
Also noticed after doing some more aggressive driving to record logs for the tuner, my catch can does not seem to pickup nearly as much oil, and my plugs are looking much better. I suspect as I get more miles on it (about 400 now) the rings are sealing better and there is less blowby getting past the rings. Will be interesting to redo a compression test.
And I pressed in a cool little baffle into the bottom of the oil fill tube. It works pretty well and will allow me to put some copper wool down the tube without it falling in. Or I may make a secondary removable baffle to sit in there.
One minor disappointment is the cooling. Before this rebuilt with more go fast parts, my Monster cooling fans had no problem cooling her down. Now when I pull into the garage and idle the temp will go up, fans kick on at 208* and within about 10 min it’ll be up to 214. Before, the fans would cool her back down to 200 and cycle. Been looking into the Contour fans that a lot of folks here use. Guess I’ll give them a try.
Ticking off a couple more items.
Next box for me to tick off is this damn dash rattle that I can’t seem to locate. I’ve taken out the tombstone and center console and gauge pod and have driven around with my stethoscope on, felt all around behind the dash and still no luck. I even had myself tricked into thinking it was coming from under the hood as I first noticed it after one of my several valve lash adjustments. Now I have no choice but to remove the entire dash to see if there is something loose or broken. Been a few years since I had the dash out to install dynomat. Not really looking forward to it but it’s got to be done lol.
Edited:
Well this is fun. Started the car up, after a minute or so the rattle starts. I’m about ready to pull the dash at this point but start poking around with my stethoscope....seems to come from the firewall. Go to the engine side and I can plainly hear it coming from near the drivers side valve cover. Thinking I may have some contact to the firewall I shut her off, jack it up, loosen off my engine mounts and trans mount, wiggle things around a bit. Go back up top and I can see the drivers side head is real close to the firewall but not quite touching. Then I see this.
The stupid thermactor plug back out and was tight against the firewall.
I can get some angled needlenose pliers in there to turn it. And it turns pretty easily.
I’m positive I put thread sealant on those suckers.
Anyways, I don’t have a good way of getting in there without pulling the head off, so my temporary solution will be to back out the screw as far as I can, goop some hi temp thread sealer on there, and screw it back in as far as I can with the needlenose. JHC
If that fails in a short time, I’ll unhook the exhuast and see if I can move the engine forward enough to get a little better access. Think I’ll just go ahead and order those collector gaskets in preparation for that. lol
I hate those stupid thermactor plugs. The heads I have are the thermactor deleted option. The thread is a bit loose from memory and they turn easily...which means they rattle out easily too
Try the thread sealant and then add a drop of blue loctite to the last two threads just before you screw it all the way in. That should keep it in place
Also I love your oil baffle in the filler neck it looks great ! But you will definitely need some copper wool or stainless steel wool in there to baffle it more.
Your cooling situation is easily fixed. The monster fans are marginal at cooling these cars and so is the monster radiator.
I would get the contour fans first because they have a built in shroud and flow quite well. I had to make my own shroud (hard and messy) as I went with custom SPAL fans setup. The car is perfectly cool at all times even driving all day at 100degF. Its no issue for it.
My radiator is brass/copper and is quite heavy and large (it only just fits between the frame rails) and goes all the way to the bottom edge of the front bumper.
My Radiator is 26.8 in H x 18 W x 2 in core thickness.
I think you will be Ok with the better Contour fan setup. They should keep it cool.
Your blowby will improve as she gets more miles up. It is normal to get a bit early on. I think you should redo a compression check after 1000 miles and let us know what it is. It would be good to see if it picked up any more compression from the original compression test..I am assuming it will slightly.
On my catch can (Mishimoto small) after about 5000 kms (when i oil change it) I have maybe 1/4 cup of oil in my catch can.
Yeah, everything is starting to look a lot better to me now
Went for a quick drive tonight. Rattle is GONE. Was definitely the thermactor plug. I can’t beleive how tough that was to locate.
My remote tuner really got her dialed in good. It’s a real pleasure to boot around in. Still a wee tiny bit of low speed bucking. Tuner says it’s due to air turbulence and suggested an air straightener as the imaf’s are bouncing around a bit when it happens. Honestly it doesn’t even bother me (but it may in the future knowing me lol). Of course I have one ordered.
I also ordered the Contour fan and a Dakota controller. Going to wire it up for low speed fans to come on first, then they switch to high speed if the temp rises. One relay is back ordered for a couple weeks, but I can drive the car till then as long as I don’t hit any traffic jams.....I don’t go to the city anyways.
Even the valvetrain noise is tolerable now. The new pushrods seem to have helped a little. I went 5/8 turn preload. I may tighten it up a touch more next time the valve covers are off. Hopefully no time soon.
John and everyone, thanks very much for the help and encouragement this past year. I very much appreciate the little nudges when I needed them.
So glad to hear that all is now running sweet. I agree that it is nice to drive a car that is well sorted all round, it make sit fun. If you an OCD kind of person (like me and you then any rattle, knock or issue ruins that for you. Glad the tuning is working great, with regards to the bucking check to make sure the VSS is working 100% as well. I improved my slight hesitation by setting up the VSS signal correctly. Also no need to tighten the preload any further it will not improve the noise, that's just how fast ramp cams sound
Mate, we are all happy to see you get to the end of what was a challenging exercise. I can speak for everyone and say "job well done" in putting the car together! Now go out and enjoy it every day Top down !
I started on my contour fan install 2 week ago and finally got everything together enough to test it this evening. Success. I fired her up and the fans came on low speed at the requested temp and immediately dropped the temp idling in the garage. And they’re nice and quiet on low. Just have to tidy up some wiring and button up the interior and I’m back on the road.
Gotta say though the contour fan/shroud setup is far from ‘do a little trimming and bolt it on’. I went through 3 iterations of fabbed up mounting brackets before I finally come up with something that works well and is suitable for quick removal/reinstall should I need to service the rad.
Judging by initial impressions, it was worth it.
Also I managed to get rid of some of the old Miata engine harness while I was wiring these up. Guess I’m past the point of no return now....no way the old 1.8l is going back in now. lol.
Ok....regrouping.
Thinking this through.....after last years failures of thrust bearings, and changing shops and having another failure (not positive it’s thrust bearing as I don’t have it apart yet, but it probably is thrust), the issue has to be something other than the engine.
Going back over my notes with the original shop, they indicated that the pilot bearing looked like it had been pushed in 1/4 inch too far. They replaced the pilot bearing again. And I recall when I took it to the new shop they mentioned that the new pilot bearing looked like it had been bashed in (after another failure).
Assuming we’re looking at an issue in the bellhousing I went back over some pics of the T5 input shaft going into the crank. I can posts pics, but I did measure and am 100% positive input shaft is not bottoming out in the crank. The snout of it is shorter than the hole it goes in.
That only leaves TOB preload. And with the new longer throw master, I am able to have 0 preload other than the small amount present from fluid in the lines pushing the slave. I will double check it again today, but last time I checked I could easily achieve no preload by moving the fork by hand.
Someone mentioned that it’s possible if the driveshaft is too long, it can push the input shaft into the crank while driving around. It may not show up when sitting, but while moving. I’ve never heard of such a thing and it doesn’t seem plausible that the internals of the T5 could move that much without breaking something inside. It’d have to move a good half inch forward. It sounds like a wild goose chase, but I’m going to jack it up today and check that. Looking over my notes, the driveshaft was made 30.25” c-c of the u joints.
Also, an engine builder says I should be able to move the crank by hand when checking endplay (with the belt off). I’ll pull the rad today for more room, but last time I checked endplay, I need to lightly tap the crank bolt with a wooden handle and deadblow to get it to move rearward and then I used the clutch to push it forward for the measurement. If I can’t move it by hand I will look for the issue on the trans side of the crank.
I will rebuild this again, but not till I’m 100% certain of the cause of these failures.
I found a pic of the previous pilot bearing. It appears to be chamfered more than normal on the inside where the input shaft may have shaved it. May be on to something here.
I would not think it would be driveshaft related as with a fixed mount diff there would not be significant movement in and out of rear of trans. Like you said, if it was, there would be trans noise/issues as well. The input shaft does not appear to have machining/wear marks either to show that it would be machining the pilot bearing (based on photo of trans/bell mounting without clutch). If it is another thrust bearing issue, I would lean towards clutch/flywheel/throw-out preload/overload and applying too much load on crank. Can you check crank movement/endplay when clutch is engaged/disengaged?
Ya, I’ve pretty much ruled out thrust issue. Driveshaft/yoke clearance is within spec, and the trans input shaft cannot move enough to be a concern.
With the rad removed for room I can easily push the crank back and forth by hand and measured .006 which is the same as when assembled. I had measured .0065 a couple weeks ago, but likely just a measurement error. TOB is setup with no preload on the PP.
I noticed that my plugs are looking better than they were, and my catch can is not getting nearly as much oil in it anymore, so I’m hoping it’s just the rings sealing and maybe that’s where I’m getting the metal. If so, it should stop pretty soon. I do only have a total of 1000km (about 650 miles) so maybe I’m being overly paranoid. So weird, it runs great and oil pressure is great and endplay is on the money, just the metal makes me nervous.
Ya, I’ve pretty much ruled out thrust issue. Driveshaft/yoke clearance is within spec, and the trans input shaft cannot move enough to be a concern.
With the rad removed for room I can easily push the crank back and forth by hand and measured .006 which is the same as when assembled. I had measured .0065 a couple weeks ago, but likely just a measurement error. TOB is setup with no preload on the PP.
I noticed that my plugs are looking better than they were, and my catch can is not getting nearly as much oil in it anymore, so I’m hoping it’s just the rings sealing and maybe that’s where I’m getting the metal. If so, it should stop pretty soon. I do only have a total of 1000km (about 650 miles) so maybe I’m being overly paranoid. So weird, it runs great and oil pressure is great and endplay is on the money, just the metal makes me nervous.
Hi Brad,
I have a good read of your info and can conclude like you that your thrust is perfect, TOB is good, the transmission input shaft is correct with the pilot bearing, tailshaft is correct. So there is no mechanical issue that I see here to cause you any real issue.
Yes its true that there may be a little metal in the oil and it be normal ( couldn't really get a good grip on the amount from your pics ). One area that can get "filings" happening is on the rocker arms pivots and rocker pushrod ball socket. If they were not fully lubed at assembly then you might find some metal filing residue (more like a mild metallic sludge than filings) around the rocker pivot or pushrod ball socket. if you can be bothered you can lift one of the rocker covers and have a quick look.
I would just run a compression test on all cylinders to see if they are all sealing properly and equally and if so, then rev the engine at idle with the oil filler cap removed and see if there is any pressure being put into the crankcase.
My guess is that your compression is all healthy and your rings are sealed , which means that you wont have any pressure in the crankcase.
If its sealing right, does not blow smoke, pressurise the crankcase or make any weird noises AND performs well, then my friend I would not worry at all. Just keep changing the oil and keep a watch on the metal situation, if it eases up then great.
I think its all fine because if something serious was not right it would let you know pretty quickly
Yeah, I finally heard back from the machine shop. He basically asked a few questions and said the same thing. Short oil change intervals and switch to 10w40 from the current 10w30.
Will pull the plenum and valve covers and check the valvetrain in a bit.
Just a quick note to conclude my glittery oil issue. I put another 1000 miles on it and sent off an oil sample last week.
Got the results today. They look pretty dang good.
Yeah thought so. Oil sample report is good, hardly any metal.
The Windsor engines from y experience work best with a 10W40 based oil. You could go a little thinner to 10W30 but it will need to be excellent oil (i.e. Neo). I find the 10W30 is just little too thin for these engines, not by much but a little.
I always use 10W40 in mine, its just the right viscosity for protection and light enough to allow contaminants to burn off.
Great stuff!
Qik Q: What are your cranking pressure numbers like now with throttle fully open in psi ?
04-19-2021, 07:16 PM
