The TALON, Running Project Report Options

[Kazz5]

Very clean, very sharp!

[haunter]

is your transmission completely stock Marcus?

[awd4kicks]

Pretty much a stock 93+ transmission with less than 4000 miles on it I'd say. Besides the spool in place of the AWD Viscous Coupling.

[haunter]

interesting


GM HTP had issues with the stock t-56 in a Camaro shifting at redline with a LS7 swap as well.....didnt wanna go into gear at like 7600 or whatever....

[awd4kicks]

Project Date: 4.17.07-1750mi.

The biggest news... The car is still running after it's toughest weekend so far.

Last week I took care of an oil leak at my remote oil filter mount. I ended up changing the design and hose routing to a much cleaner and safer set-up. By Thursday I had pushed the car to approximately 105 in my make shift quarter mile which translates into a mid to high 12. This was an improvement by seat time alone, but it was still not the number I was looking for and the main problem as always was the inability to shift at higher RPM.

Friday after work I checked over the entire clutch mechanics. Every thing was in place and working properly. The only thing I found was about 1/2 to 1" of free play at the top of the pedal movement. Since my master cylinder rod was already turned all the way out I made a modification to the bracket allowing me to make up that difference. I now have full clutch pedal right from the top. This allows the clutch to disengage by about 3" off the floor as recommended by TRE. THIS MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD FOR MY PROBLEM! WOW.

After my initial run I was jacked with adrenalin just boiling up in me. With this newfound ability to shift, Josh and I felt the car had definitely hit low 12's. You know I couldn't let this kind of thing go un-utilized!

Later that night I hooked up with a guy running a 383 stroked small block vette that sounds like it was built by an F1 race car builder. The car is beautiful and I've seen it run first hand from the navigator seat of a particular EVO. I knew this car was fast and already knew I would see nothing but tail lights, but I went to the track with him just to see how it would turn out anyway.

We lined up from a dead stop. He was confident in his ride and gave me the launch and the leave. (Very cool). I brought the car up to the 5500RPM stutter box that had never been used to this point. I dropped the hammer and watched out the side for his car to move. Surprisingly he didn't have much trouble getting the Auto out of the hole on his 3XX street tires. With the leave I held him off in first but by second gear the vette began to walk by... This was my first point of astonishment. My engine was howling through the external dump and sounding like a jet air plane and this guy in a Killer vette is slowly walking by my with the most beautiful harmony of eight cylinders I've ever heard at full scream. As my tach reach the 8K redline I slammed third but the auto gained a half car. I lost a slight bit more ground and then shifted to forth with no problems, but lost another half car in the exchange. From that point I held my ground about 1.5-2 cars behind him as the tach reach 8k again and he is still on full boil. What the hell... I through the shifter into 5th and hoped for the best. I was still holding ground! My adrenalin was about to blow through the roof even though the tach was swinging a bit more slowly with the overdrive load on it. Then before I new it I heard some noise that sounded like a misfire. I looked down to find all the gages reading ok and the speedo buried!

He heard the same noise and thought it was his car. We both slowed down and went back to the pits. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I reengaged the clutch and found the engine still pulling smoothly.

A quick look-over the engine revealed all was well except my EGT pipe plug had apparently shot out of the exhaust manifold as it was glowing red after running full steam for five solid gear pulls!

I have replaced the plug and the car is still making a great daily driver!

To put things in perspective this corvette runs has run a best of 10.98 on this exact tune but with slicks. I will make no other assumption than I have a real good chance of being in the 11's (11.99?) on my 93 octane pump gas at 22-23psi! OH YEAH!

More fine tuning will come into play, but more to smooth out the DD activities.

[natedogg]

Good killed story, buddy. Hangin with a vette that quick is awesome anyway you slice it!

Any chance you could write up the steps you took to modify the clutch bracket?

[black92_tsi_awd]

Should be hauling ass by SCDC!! Sounds like your pretty close now.

[awd4kicks]

Oh yeah... Let me even put the current Talon tune and the whole race into another perspective. I rode around with Natedogg helping him keep track of his tune and the pull of the GT35 with his 2.3 stroker are just SICK. Like mind bending AWD launches this thing makes you dizzy from a 50MPH roll launch.

When Nate gets all the bugs worked out of that car to shoot down the track...whatch out. I feel I would have less of a chance to hang with Natedogg than I did the vette.

BTW - I will put a little something together on the clutch mod soon to Nate.

[black92_tsi_awd]

I'm afraid to see your car run, let alone Nate's. Probably make it very hard for me to stay with the tiny 14b for the rest of the year!

[natedogg]

Yeah its f-ing scary! Thanks for the help! As I'm sure you could tell I couldn't even look at the guages, much less a computer screen. I just had to fight to keep the crazy thing on the road. Plus its alway easier for me to tune when I have someone else to bounce ideas back and forth with.

[turbohcar]

Very cool Marcus!! Keep up the good work!

[awd4kicks]

Last night I finally built up the courage to do an all out stutter box launch to study how well it realy worked against the vette and future competitors. I was surprised to find out that after the initial Higher RPM hit, there was a considerable (2 second or so) bog before the turbo BEGAN to spool back up. One more practice launch with my tried and true cyclic-reving (Leave while the tach is in an upswing) proved to be much more attractive. I got the good old mind melting, nearly black-out condition on launch and an imediate sweep of the tach all the way to the 8K redline! Then a powerful smell of burnt rubber. Went back to view the launch pad...there were some nice black marks, but nothing after first gear. Good enough I think I may have put myself at least a car closer to the vette I raced the other night.

On a sad note, I ran through my makeshift quarter mile with that first trial launch only to end up at about 105MPH again even with good shifting. I don't know if that vette is a lot slower than it sounds and is supposed to be, or my speed-o/quarter mile measurement is way off.

I'm gonna have to go to the track soon so I can find out for sure.

[ncgalant]

You should be trapping 115-120 easy. When were you going to hit the dyno?

[natedogg]

I find the stutter box works better for me when I hold it at about half throttle before launch and quickly ease the clutch out and the throttle in during launch. I've tried holding down at WOT and just releasing the clutch as quickly as I can. That usually ended up bogging me during the launch.

This was on my 2.0 BR500 motor. It might be a whole different story on the gt35r stroker now. I haven't tried it on this motor yet.

[awd4kicks]

I think we are doing similar things on the launch Nate. I just time mine out with reving for some reason. The stutter box was still active obviously and I never needed more RPM than it gave me.

So yeah... RPM's climing to the stutter point. Ease the clutch out until you black out at which point the clutch is fully engaged. Wake-up in time to shift for 2nd gear!

[mitsu90]

I also noticed with a stutter you need to ease the clutch out, if I just "pop" the clutch the car would bog

[awd4kicks]

You should be trapping 115-120 easy. When were you going to hit the dyno?

I agree Nathan. I would like to at least see 115mph.

I will pan a dyno trip as soon as I can get ahold of R&T's or somebody that can get the job done fairly close.

[mitsu90]

D.I.D. Racing, Inc. is going to be hosting a FREE dyno day Saturday, April 21st, 2007.

It's going to be on a first come, first serve basis and every car that we dyno will get two free dyno pulls with a wideband oxygen sensor and a dyno graph of the better run. Typically we can do 15-20 cars in a day and the event will start at 9 in the morning and go until at least 5pm. We'll have FREE food and drinks around noon and all dyno #'s will be kept quiet unless you don't mind.

If you're serious about showing up please respond to this post so we can have an idea of roughly how many people to expect at the FREE dyno day.

We're located just north of Joliet. Here's our address -

D.I.D. Racing, Inc.
820 Brian Drive
Crest Hill, IL 60435

www.didrace.com

[awd4kicks]

Thanks Mistsu... I wasn't able to make it up North for that dyno day though.

Even though I've turned the boost down a bit to a max of 22 psi, the knock has been climbinging into the teens and low 20's. I figure this is a side effect of the warmer weather that we have been waiting so long for. I know it's a departure from my former self, but I've been adding fuel in the MID and WOT areas using the MAFT. So far I've got knock down to a max of low teens with three positive clicks in both settings.

Seems surprising to me that I am still seeing knock with such a large intercooler and a much larger and more efficient turbo.

[natedogg]

What is your timing before and after knock retard? It might be worth it to visit a dyno just to see and tune your A/F ratio.