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YASVT (Yet Another Sixteen Valve Turbo) - now 16V Whiteblock (LS)

I haven't really driven it enough so far, lol. It warms up and sits at around 200. Then I romped on it a few times, and it started creeping up to 205 - 210. I just thought it should keep a bit cooler is all. It was a fairly hot day.

The new thermostat is a bit lower. I may have overreacted with a 160-degree thermostat. But I didn't like seeing water boil off the valve covers.
 
JohnMc said:
I haven't really driven it enough so far, lol. It warms up and sits at around 200. Then I romped on it a few times, and it started creeping up to 205 - 210. I just thought it should keep a bit cooler is all. It was a fairly hot day.

The new thermostat is a bit lower. I may have overreacted with a 160-degree thermostat. But I didn't like seeing water boil off the valve covers.
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The damn low. I see 190-204? on a regular basis. I've seen up to 216? on really hot days with ac blasting. I know these engines see 210? on regular basis in the work trucks on the tv shows.
 
its a efi engine, they like to run hotter, 210 is totally normal on these. hell my old c4 vette normal operating temp was 230 and the fans wouldnt come on till 236. if you take it to the track just dont hot lap it
 
Drove it to work this morning. And had another small fire when I got there - very small, just one spark plug wire on fire. 2nd one back on the passenger side. The header is VERY unaccommodating to spark plug wires there. After the last set of fried wires (long ones that wrapped around back and came up the middle) I tried regular (high temp) short wires going down and straight to the plugs (with titanium socks). But I couldn't fit that 135 degree boot onto that plug, so I reused on of my older wires and did a short loop around and under the header on the side. That's the one that caught fire. I guess I need to do a longer wire back around and under again.
 
JohnMc said:
Drove it to work this morning. And had another small fire when I got there - very small, just one spark plug wire on fire. 2nd one back on the passenger side. The header is VERY unaccommodating to spark plug wires there. After the last set of fried wires (long ones that wrapped around back and came up the middle) I tried regular (high temp) short wires going down and straight to the plugs (with titanium socks). But I couldn't fit that 135 degree boot onto that plug, so I reused on of my older wires and did a short loop around and under the header on the side. That's the one that caught fire. I guess I need to do a longer wire back around and under again.
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So MountainMeet?
 
JohnMc said:
Drove it to work this morning. And had another small fire when I got there - very small, just one spark plug wire on fire. 2nd one back on the passenger side. The header is VERY unaccommodating to spark plug wires there. After the last set of fried wires (long ones that wrapped around back and came up the middle) I tried regular (high temp) short wires going down and straight to the plugs (with titanium socks). But I couldn't fit that 135 degree boot onto that plug, so I reused on of my older wires and did a short loop around and under the header on the side. That's the one that caught fire. I guess I need to do a longer wire back around and under again.
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I ended up spacing the passenger coils up off of the valve cover, running the wires back and under the manifold, and I think I used 90 degree boots as well (MSD kit and some other kit for the 90 degree pieces). the wires are run inside of heat shield, and I think the front two have additional high temp stuff on them.

prior to that, I couldn't keep front wires intact for more than a couple of weeks no matter what I did. So, proximity is a problem, and they absolutely cannot be touching the header even if they're wrapped.
 
I guess socks/wrap/insulation in general only helps if there is something carrying heat away inside the insulation. Otherwise, it just slows down how quickly whatever is inside heats up, but it's going to eventually get as hot as whatever it's touching is anyhow.

I didn't touch the driver's side - it's still using Accel wires with 90-degree ceramic boots, wrapped around the front end. On the passenger side, 3 short wires dropping down to 135-degree boots, going through the headers. And the one that caught fire, still a 90 degree Accel wire.

I'm thinking this weekend I might redo that *again* (le sigh) and try wrapping them around underneath again, but instead of using sleeves on them, just make a sheet metal shield and tuckng them all behind it.
 
FWIW - this is the header I'm having trouble with:
04-650x650.jpg


The two rear (to the left) plugs aren't so bad. The front one (to the right) isn't great, but not horrible. But that last one? Sheesh.

My first whack at it was wrapping all 4 wires back along the valve cover to the rear, and then running all 4 forward from there. Which created a bit of a crowded situation at the back end. I think next time around I'll do a mix of short (regular) wires (where they work), and run them around the end front and rear (which ever is closer). And tuck them in tight to the block, secure them in there too maybe.
 
Man John, this thing rocks. That engine bay is busy looking but neat! You'll get it figured out in short order I'm sure, it's all new build hiccups.
 
Even with no boosts (I left the 'fire rings' out of the wastegates for a bit), it's pretty fun. Gobs o'torque. Silly amounts.

I stuck the rings in last night, engaged in a light bit of boostyness this morning. Although it capped off with some smoke and tiny little flames, it felt pretty freaking awesome. I think it was around 6 psi. Something like that. It's obviously a rough tune still, I'm mostly just shaking down build issues so far, haven't started tuning yet.
 
JohnMc said:
Even with no boosts (I left the 'fire rings' out of the wastegates for a bit), it's pretty fun. Gobs o'torque. Silly amounts.

I stuck the rings in last night, engaged in a light bit of boostyness this morning. Although it capped off with some smoke and tiny little flames, it felt pretty freaking awesome. I think it was around 6 psi. Something like that. It's obviously a rough tune still, I'm mostly just shaking down build issues so far, haven't started tuning yet.
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These engines are hoot with no boost and with boost. 2nd gear and third gear are my favorite..
 
First drive into work ended with 3 burnt plug wires.
Second drive ended with one burnt plug wire.
Today's drive? So far, so good.

I didn't do much, just replaced the wire that burnt yesterday with a similar wire, but routed it on the other side of the header brace. So now it's pressed up against the header flange instead of a header tube. Since the flange is bolted snugly to a temp controlled cylinder head, I'm guessing it will stay a lot cooler. I also took up the slack in the wire (with a zip tie near the coil) so the 90-degree ceramic boot on it couldn't droop down and lay the wire on the header tubes underneath. There's hot tubes on all sides, other than the block side there. Anyhow, good so far.

And I noticed a problem that's been causing some weirdness while driving. The TPS is a bit intermittent, sometimes reading correctly, sometimes reverting to a '-12.5%' setting. And when it does that, MS reverts to a fixed 10 degree timing. Which means the engine still runs, but it's... not peppy. I tried some basic multimeter tests, everything seems good on the MS side, so iffy TPS it is. I unplugged it until I can get a replacement. Now it reads about 30% all the time, and the ignition advance stays active. Which is a good thing.
 
if you have vss and update the firmware, you can set an engine state for idle conditions that isn't strictly TPS related
 
I plan on hooking into the ABS system for traction control at some point, but only after I stuck the Ford 8.8 in and figured out to make that work with the ABS.
 
And impressions so far on the CD009/LS combo? Probably tainted by the 3.73 rear end. But overall gearing range aside (it's a little on the short side for a lower revving motor), it's just... too many gears? The thing has *grunt*, *oomph*, etc, but the gear ratios are so close together that you almost spend more time shifting than you do in the gear. *shift* *vroom*shift* *vroom*shift*.

Maybe I'll get more used to it and start skipping gears at some point?

Adding to that mess is that I apparently broke the little plastic pivot ball in the CBF shifter. Normally you wouldn't put much of a twist on the shifter stub, but I have an offset arm that repositions the lever back to where it needs to be. With a nut that holds it on, which means you twist the lever when you tighten that nut. I guess I should have held the lever firmly, it cracked, it's got some wiggle now. And it's already a bunch of gear (6 + reverse) in a very short throw area, so a little wiggle isn't helping. The CBF guy said he'd toss one in a box for free if I paid shipping, last Friday. Last check, maybe it will happen next Monday.

On the plus side, it is still mostly usable with the broken ball.
 
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yeah, that's a concern I've had with the cd009, but in the world of V8 folks tend to go to higher rear ends unless they're running big tire setups (which still monkeys with your effective ratio anyway). 3.08 isn't uncommon at all. I gotta decide if I want to go to something like that on mine when I go 8.8, the 3.31 is fine for most things but starts to get a bit annoying on the interstate at 80-85mph. Of course, I don't really road trip the car all that often, so.. (but it'd also help with towing by being able to drop out of OD and not spin to the moon either)
 
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