Looks like it's coming along nicely David, I recognize all the white dust in your engine bay, definitely seems like the car has been at a body shop. I know that pain all too well

Also, what's the story with the radiator hose clamps? seems like they'd be a pain to get at in a pinch.

 

david i'm wondering what kind of thermal management you are going to use for those LEDs. i bet those suckers get mighty hot.

i'm assuming they would need some sort of heatsink/heatpipe to cool them. is the light housing vented/cooled somehow?

 

I believe I am the king of body shop dust sir!

 

Yep, you know how those one week quoted projects turn into 6 weeks? That's the current situation but I have to say I am very pleased with the quality of the work being done. It's up to my obsessive compulsive standards.

Regarding the radiator hose clamps, the top portion of the ram jet comes off, providing easy access to the hoses. We still might relocate the hoses but I should know more today as the work should be done and the car on its way to Kilo for a radiator flush and the installation of an AC air valve.

Good question Tom. Most people think leds don't get hot (the light produced is cool) but as you know the backside of them produces all the heat.

If you power one of the LEDs up thru the 700mA power source it will literally burn you it gets so hot. Curiously though, once we hook up the recommended 5 leds per one 700mA power source the leds stay pretty cool as they get warm but don't overheat. We left them on for over one hour and you could grab the back of them no problem.

The body shop did however mount them to an aluminum strip to ensure proper heat dissipation and has left them vented so they should be all good. It is a bit of overkill but better safe than sorry.

 

Good to hear from you James. I hope you are doing well. Has it worked out for your car with Norm?

Yes, this is what we discussed. We'll have to meet soon once the car is back here in Jax which I am expecting by next weekend. But I've said that many a time before!

 

That IS odd. The LEDs are in series, right?

 

Yes.

 

David your car is awesome, and I hope you continue to make changes / improvements.

But do you have goal or idea on when you will say your done?

 

As long as you've been here I guess you forgot the saying "Welcome to the obsession" You should know that our cars are NEVER done. LOL!

 

i know I know - just seeing if there was an end goal - and then get another 7 project - or keep improving on this monumental project. Either way - David strives for perfection and has the means (finally good shops) and cash to make it happen - I look forward to any posts on his projects.

 

T-von is right, you never stop I don't think. Just when you think you have it all set you come up with something else to do like my current projects.

As it is now, my plan is to finish up the body shop mods (which are supposed to be done today), take the car to Kilo for a radiator flush and an AC air valve install and then enjoy driving the car. I need to spend some "me" time with the car and I am looking forward to just driving and having a little fun.

Future plans - see I already have them! - include reactivating the water/meth injection system. It's on the car but I want to swap out the nozzle for a HD version.

The madness never ends does it?

 

Yeah I know how you feel David... it's an addiction. I wonder if we all have addictive personalities and this is how it's manifesting itself haha... could be worse we could all be full blown alcoholics

Speaking of alcohol, what injection setup are you running currently? Alc or water? Good safety measure!!

 

So what about the FD owners who enjoy their booze then ?

 

I have a custom Aquamist meth system. The pump is twice the size of the normal Aquamist pump and is designed for the 3 rotor. It is plumbed into a custom meht/windshield wiper reservoir that was designed to feed the pump with the "blue" windshield juice as well as keep the windshield clean. Gotta see da road!

The system has been installed on the car for a few years but currently is not turned on. When Kilo got the nightmare of my car, he disabled/removed a lot of what Gotham had installed so he could ensure the engine ran properly before layering on extra stuff. I think it is now time to turn this back on - maybe.

As a quickie update, the car was delivered from the body shop to Kilo yesterday. It was supposed to be towed over but the tow truck couldn't take the car because it was too low so the body shop guys decided to drive the car on over. Wish they didn't do this as I wanted Kilo to check out the car before driving it. They showed up in a cloud of radiator steam as one of the hoses they moved to build the ram air box came loose. The body shop guys claimed this happened at the last turn before the shop but I am doubtful about this. Don't know how the system could maintain pressure with the hose loose.

Anyway, my fear is the engine heated up too far and something is warped. Kilo did cool the system down pretty quickly but we shall see. The other bad thing is Luis from the body shop was watching the stock temp gauge and not my PLX one so all he saw while driving was the gauge never moved out of the middle position. Had to explain to him I was glad it didn't register high but that this doesn't mean much. Would suck after all of the work put into the car to have it go down for something like this. The body shop said they are completely responsible for paying for it and I did explain the potential costs involved but let's hope everything is okay.

On the bright side, the car looks great and I am very pleased with the way everything turned out. Was too bummed to take pics so that will have to wait until next time.

Final note on the water/meth injection system - I have been following Howard Coleman's thread on the high def versions of systems now and will look into what it will take to upgrade my system before reactivating it. While I wait on what I hope will be good news on the car, I am going to inventory my system and see what else I need. Shouldn't be much.

 

Fingers crossed for you David. With everything you've been through you deserve to catch some good luck. How far was the drive from Body Shop to Kilo? Shop workers don't understand the potential impacts of such an event to these cars. Keep us posted!

 

Thanks man, I do need to catch a break.

The shop is about 25 miles from Kilo so that is plenty of time to do damage in 95+ degree heat. They say they filled up the coolant at the shop before driving and let it idle for some time to ensure the radiator fan kicked on and that no coolant came out. They also state they pulled over 4 or so time to inspect the car and it looked fine and that the hose popped right before pulling into the shop.

What makes me inclined to believe them is that the car was down a little less 3/4 of a gallon of coolant. Had it been leaking the whole time (leak = steaming out by the time they got to Kilo) I don't think any coolant would have remained. After tightening up the offending hose clamp and filling it up with water, the car did start right up.

The other issue that bothers me is that I had a new 3,00 CFM fan installed but it doesn't appear to come on at the right temp. Seems to now be activated at around 98 degrees celsius which is way too hot.

In any event, I'll let Kilo work their magic and hope all is well. The plan before this happened was to be back on the road next Saturday.

 

Do you know what your temps were at the time?

 

What engine Management System did you end up with? Haltech? Yea, I've gotta believe that you can adjust that to kick the fans on sooner.

 

Damn, I can't believe that they just decided to drive the car without calling you first.

 

David, it should be pretty easy to upgrade your system to an HD version. The hardest part of any meth/water system is figuring out where to mount the pump and tank, and then running the respective lines.

I'm not exactly how many control boxes your system has, but a lot of them just have 1, if thats the case with yours, and the HD system you decide to go with only has 1 control box, all it would take is to replace the old box with the new one, maybe a couple of extra wires would be needed. (If you need new nozzles those would probably screw right into the existing holes (most are 1/8npt).

Then you have to decide on what kind of failsafes you want to include, but thats another story. Personally, I'm a fan of the type that sense a blockage in the line and then kill power to the boost controller, resulting in an open wastegate. Another alternative is one that is linked to the wideband and boost source, if you are boosting and the AFR goes above your warning point then it kills power to the boost controller.

Just make sure you pick a system that has a maximum start setting of something propper for a rotary. I don't have an HD system, but I do have a 3d system (progressive dependant on boost), and when i purchased it, I didn't realize the maximum turn on point was 8psi, which means I can't delay it from turning on anywhere above 8psi unless i run a manual boost controller in line. I have the boost controller set to 13psi so now the control box doesn't get a boost signal until then. It gets the job done, but eventually I'll replace it with a newer unit.

 

Not quite. It was kind of a surreal experience waiting for the tow truck and them to turn around and see the car with steam pouring out. Jesus immediately grabbed a jug of water and pooped the hood and poured water on the radiator and then some on the engine. I didn't think to check the temps until a few minutes later and it was 100 degree celsius. My guess is it didn't get above 110 based on the short amount of time it took before I checked but I can't say for sure.

Jesus is going to check the engine out tomorrow and call me. He's going to clear out the water passages and use compression to test the engine, whatever exactly that means. He says he's looking for bubbles which will indicate if the engine is damaged.

Microtech and the fan were set to come on at 88 degrees but that didn't happen so there is something wrong with the new wiring for the fan. Jesus is aware of this and will check/fix this tomorrow if the engine checks out.

Exactly, especially since I said not to drive the car over. I know they were trying to make me happy but damn dudes.

 

Thanks Gordon. Let's hope for the best.

 

Thanks for the input Collin. I put this on the back burner until I know if the engine is wounded. I am do some research tomorrow and pull out the components of the Aquamist system I have in storage. The pump and the tank are on the car and the lines are run so I won't have to worry about that. I might start this as a separate thread and seek input so I will definitely keep you posted.

 

Well I am glad you are going down my route.... I have a 20b in London and I tell you its not a wise decision to go 20b unless you have 60 tousand dollars sitting in your account... the real problem comes after you get the car back from the builder....do you know the minute you put your foot down your diff will go....then you cant put KAZZ1.5 or something on as they will go as welll....So you will become like me I search here for JUSTIN SAMBERG so that I can request him to make me a Cobra Diff Cradle.....after the diff is sorted the propshaft is gona go and then your gear box....I know it all depends on the torque and BHP you are going to be putting out from your car.....In my case I am pushing arround 800BHP single turbo....street ported engine but still I was not expecting this much of the problem.... I have already spent 60thousand dollars and still the car is not finished.....Really need help with the strong diff as I want to hit the 1000BHP (because you only live ones) and without a good diff or a gear box I know I can do that....anyone who knows the person who can do the Cobra diff for me... I would appreciate his/her help

Regards

 

David my car is as low as yours and as long as the flatbed driver brings along one 2 x 4, getting it up there should not be a probem'

Trust me my tow truck driver knows me quite well

Ive overheated twice last year, and both times i stop the car where it is at and call it in.
Not smart in Miami, but the Sig Sauer is resting in the glove box.