Outside ready for a blast of Simple Green and power wash...these are the BEFORE pics. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Clean as a whistle! Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Looking good Rick! Also very cool of Cavallo to have an "owner participant" major service. I've always suspected a service that allows the owner to get involved would be a hit with enthusiasts.
Day 2 was cut short - I only got about 4 hours in but that didn't slow John down. John went to town on the belts and tensioner bearings, making great progress. He also got the valve covers off and most of the way through setting all the cams to spec. Man, this thing is going to be smooth as silk when it's done. I managed to chip away at the gold connectors but still have a lot of work ahead of me. Some of these are a snap and some will bugger you up for 3x the normal time required. I am confident that the job will get done tomorrow though - it better because I'm not sure John will wait for me to put the engine back. I'll post a few pics in the morning.
Hi Rick, It looks like your car has a Tubi exhaust on it, right? When you are at Cavallo, can you take a peak at my motor and see what exhaust is on it? Jim originally advertised that my car had a Tubi, but looking at the pictures you posted yesterday it appears to be something different than yours. (Maybe it's the stock system.) Thanks! -Greg
My God! We have another Stooge in SD! Welcome to the club, Rick. You've come a long way since the brakeline incident at my place!
Yours is definitely Tubi, just looked at it again. Mine is Capristo. BTW, I swapped your cross drilled rotors off onto my car. lol. kidding.
Well, both motors are out of the car simultaneously and the intake systems are removed. If the rotors and exhausts were removed too, we probably couldn't tell the different between the two. If John or Chris have a memory lapse, this could get interesting!
Been working hard the past couple of days with little time to post any updates or pics... In any case, I've been 100% focused on the Gold Connector Upgrade the past 12 hours and have just 4 connections left to finish today before we swap in my new clutch disc and then button up the valve covers and stuff it back in the car. With any luck, it'll all be done by the end of the day today. Some notes: - John didn't like the 'feel' and sound of the bearing in the water pump so we decided to replace it. We debated whether we could scavange/stooge a used pump or possibly repack the bearing but that debate ended rather quickly as John determined it was nearly impossible to do either one without great risk. Luckily, there was a brand new one sitting on the shelf in the shop. I agreed there was too much at stake to risk over a $400 part and so the new one went in. - I was going to have the valve covers painted - they're in reasonable shape but we had some time to kill. Unfortunately, the right color of red/crinkle finish paint was not on hand. I think I'll just skip it and get the thing put back together since it'll add a day delay to getting the car back. I'm very anxious to see how my baby drives!! Regarding the Gold Connector kit: - You really do hit a rhythm with this after a few connectors. One of the first ones I did was the Cam Sensor and this one gave me all sorts of fits. There is a factory splice of 2 wires into the #2 position and some kind of metal clip about 2-3 inches down the cable. So, first off, it's tricky to crimp the 2 wires into one connector and secondly it is a real b!tch to slip the new boot far enough down the cable because you can't get it over the clip that protrudes. Solution...lots of grease and "persuasion". - Also, this Cam Sensor was one of the few sensors that gave me all sorts of problems getting the old connectors out of the housing. Best advice I can give when this happens, push like crazy from the snipped end toward the front of the connector before sliding the blue connector release tool all the way in. - If you forget to put the 2-wire boot on the cable and you've already made the new crimp connections, you will not be able to get the 2 wire boot expander tool over the newly crimped connections. Use the 3 wire expander tool instead but 1) use lots of grease and 2) don't let the boot sit on the expander too long, you don't want to over stretch it. - Throttle position sensors. Interestingly, true to other users experience, mine were already fitted with gold connectors from the factory. I left the connectors in place and carefully removed the housing put new boots on (old ones were shredded) and cleaned everything up anyway...and I'm glad I did. These were the dirtiest housings of all so far. It looked like someone was building little sand-castles inside of the housing. The connectors themselves were fine. - Coolant temp sensors. Holy crap were these connectors disgusting. I hope the pics turned out ok...it was as if someone had slathered blue-cheese right onto the connectors and spades. Unreal. According to John, these are a very low voltage connection and would affect driveability in a big way - his reasoning went above my head but he seemed to know what he was talking about. - Most of the 8 injectors were pretty gross too. Only instead of blue-cheese, they seemed to all be smeared with copious amounts of ear-wax. - The 3 wire coil sensors were a little tricky. They have a much heavier gauge wire in them and when it came time to crimp, they looked sorta messy after using the 18-22 setting on the crimp tool. We tried the next notch down on the crimp tool (12-16, I believe) and not only was it easier to crimp, we got a much nicer result. The 7 wire connector (actually only 5 wires + 2 empties) on the top of the ignition coil also has 3 "fatties" - heavier gauge wire. Same thing. - If you want to clean up the connector housings, hit it with some Brakleen after removing it from the engine area (make sure you have some gloves on)...works great and is non-destructive on the housing. Question for Dave Helms: - Did you ever evaluate just having the entire wire loom done with gold connectors? John reckons he could remove the engine related wire loom in about 30 minutes on this car (he didn't comment on how long to install a new one, hehe). Is this option just too cost prohibitive or was there some other reason it was ruled out?? Ok, that's it for now...some pics attached below. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Pic 2 - Note the burned out boot on the back of the alternator. Something bad happened here and could get worse...planning to fix this up today. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Pic 1: My old water pump Pic 2: Throttle position connector housing Pic 3: Coolant temp housing Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Question for Dave Helms: - Did you ever evaluate just having the entire wire loom done with gold connectors? John reckons he could remove the engine related wire loom in about 30 minutes on this car (he didn't comment on how long to install a new one, hehe). Is this option just too cost prohibitive or was there some other reason it was ruled out?? I would sell 2 a year worldwide in a good economy. I went as far as to calculate the wire lengths, gauges and costs in a teflon coated, silver plated wire we use to make harnesses on the race cars. I added the costs of a water tight, silicone harness jacket all molded as it would have to be. Less labor we were getting far too close to the cost of a Ferrari harness of which no one buys. Really quite a big investment that is not needed, at least at this point. I threw all of my research notes in a file in case one day it is justified.
Your engine is disgustingly clean and corrosion free (imagine jealous face here). Don't skip re-painting the valve covers!
Updates: - Opened up the pumpkin today to throw in the new clutch disc and discovered some issues. 1) Pressure plate showed a lot of hot-spots and there was practically zero metal left, in fact, the rivets were now contacting the clutch disc. Decision to get a new clutch pressure plate. 2) On the flywheel, the wear was visibly different and seemed to indicate that the surface is not even. Decision to have it re-surfaced. 3) Lastly, the throw-out bearing sounds like an old pair of metal roller skates so I've decided to replace that with the Hill Engineering TO bearing and sleeve. Good news is that at least the clutch assembly was dry...no leaks. With all of these additional issues, decided to go ahead and repaint the valve covers. Pic below of the covers being stripped of the paint...kind of a neat effect. Forgot to take a pic of the covers with new paint (while drying) but they look HAWT. Sorry, will get it next week. I finished the Gold Connecter kit...actually, I lie, I still have to O2 Sensor Harness to do but that was an optional part - the main kit is done. The couple pics I included here are before and after shots of one of the crank sensors. Started replacing / pre-fitting the coolant hoses. There are 2 big honker hoses (shaped like mini-plungers) that are buried deep in the valley that require a fair bit of work to get to and replace. Split the gaskets when removing the pipe so had to hand make new ones and scrape the old stuff off with razor blades to ensure no leaks when it goes back together. Belts and belt covers all on. Spark plugs (NGK) in. Cleaned a bunch of parts and the inside of the engine bay. Not rushing anything, probably about 2 days of work left to go. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Wow, the new connectors look great. Didn't you just replace the clutch 1k miles ago or so? What prompted you to open it up again?
Yep, just replaced the clutch plate with 3forty8 and plugzit's help a couple months ago. In fact, plugzit actually had a new-used plate for me to swap in (for a nominal fee, involving GFRTS sponsorship) - which was probably half used up. Following the mini Stoogefest, I sent my original plate in to a local clutch shop to get re-lined. During this current service, I figured 'what the heck', I might as well put the fresh plate in there. I'm glad I did it...even though it's driving the cost of this service up, I'll have supreme confidence in this machine for many years/miles to come. In fact, to celebrate, I'm trying to decide if I should do another AutoX or a track event sometime this Fall. PS Oh yeah, forgot to mention, the outside cover (not visible in pics above) of the pressure plate has been badly nicked in several spots since the mini-Stoogefest. I'm going to guess that I musta lost a washer down through one of the open gaps in the pumpkin at some stage this summer. Looks like it took a beating.
Thanks! Bonus item...forgot to mention that the Fuel Block Divider recall got handled today as well. I'm making mental notes of some things to take pics of. Any requests as this thing goes back together and into the car?
Rick, glad they were able to take care of that recall item for you. I don't think the recall was ever performed on my car either and I mentioned this to Stephen 2 weeks ago. I'll have to remind him. Sounds like John will start working on mine as soon as he's done with yours. Hurry up!!
