Build Thread 1978 Mercury Cyclone. The pig is in the pen.

The world is made up of two sides.

Dick heads, and Good guys.

You're either one or the other.

It's all about balance actually, for if there were no dick heads, there be nothing to reference what a "good guy" actually is/was.

Today, I worked with a real good guy. I know this because I'm the reference standard for which to judge against.

Steve, (A91what) is one of the good guys.

It's been around 6 hours now. Time spent looking at a computer at my ECU, linked together by technology diligently working to try and tame the monster.

We're almost there. Because of the weirdness of an I6, and the fact that it is such a un-orthodox build, his knowledge was taxed this afternoon. We attempted a restart today, but were hobbled by a set of outputs that didn't seem to jive, as they were originally set up to work. He sat on the computer looking in while I attempted a jerry-rigged temp solution to try and get the water pump and cooling fan to work. After ten minutes of re-wiring, I managed to get the water pump tied into a key switched circuit, and the cooling fan controlled by the MSII......and we turned the key.

It stumbled at first. It need more fuel. He added the requisite amount and we hit the key again. It ran, but still wanted more.
He added more fuel, took out some timing, and the thing started to idle.

It hunted and surged for awhile, and he messed with the tune some more. Soon the car was hovering around 900 RPM in park,...but still would occasionally decide to surge. he tweaked and tuned,..sometimes idling perfectly, and just as rapidly surging as much as 300 RPM.

He has me jab the throttle...........The motor wings w/o a bog or hesitation. But that stinkin' idle..... still hunting. He removes timing, and the car responds. It's close. Idling at about 13.5 AFR,....it looks promising.

All of this directly at the hands of a guy hundreds of miles away. Who for whatever reason does all this sht for free.
In case you're wondering this is one of the good guys...I can't thank Steve enough for getting the Monster close to being the terror I knew that he was capable of being.

The heat cycle issue is gone now. The car idles as long as you please at 195. It still has an annoying vapor smoking issue, but again only has 30 minutes of idle time on the rings.

The cam is starting to be audible now. Not anything like what you'd expect from a 90 degree V8, but nonetheless distinctly noticible.

All in all,....a good afternoon. it starts and runs. It idles almost perfectlyat 900 RPM in park and will after I adjust the throttle blade position on the TB.

Here's the rub......

It leaks oil.

The oil cooler up front is potentially ruptured. (what you might expect from a Chinee junker, exposed to 70 PSI of 30 wt. oil pressure.) There still is an engine leak. Either from the Mike made side cover, or the HG,...regardless, oil is making it's way out of the engine somehow.

Not a real big deal as of yet,

The fckin thing runs.

Lets revisit how big a deal this is.....

The engine has an Australian head that doesn't fit directly. It's full of Chevy sht with water holes plugged, and the deck widened, held on with bolts and glue. Thanks JB weld.
It's got a solid roller cam that opens the valves in a different order with much higher spring pressures than ever expected from the factory....custom ground,.....from Australia.
The side of the engine is completely cut open to allow me to drop in BBF roller lifters, covered by a 3/8" thick steel plate made by me.
It has a homemade ECU,....built from pieces-parts....soldered together on a kitchen table.
The intake was a bunch of exhaust tubing bends, and sheet metal.
An indian made timing chain for some Toyota application, missing two links so it fits a 5.0 timing gear.....
A harmonic balancer that fits the same 5.0
EDIS,....
No distributor....
An oil pump outside the engine.......

It runs.....

How, that all works is a freakin' miracle.

There are three guys that helped make the miracle happen,....Nick @84Ttop, Steve, @a91what, and Dave,....@ davedacarpainter.....how a dick head deserves all this good fortune from three really good guys......All I can say is I'm humbled.

Ok, One major oil leak fixed, and one to go.

You'd think that I would've at least tried to tighten the fitting that went to the engine oil cooler to rule that out yesterday, but evidently I thought that "too obvious". Today, in the rational light of the morning I decided to go and give it a try.

Loose as a btch.

I'm gonna say that I don't need a new engine oil cooler after all. I just gotta remove the coolers from the shroud, and clean that mess up.

The other leak doesn't look to be coming from the side plate. It looks like maybe the sending unit, or maybe the block fitting.
I'll have to clean up the wet area and watch it from underneath in real time to know for sure.

I'll tell you one thing,.....I know I have another leak at the fitting on one of the water bulkhead fittings for the A2W intercooler. For whatever reason, no matter how hard I tried to tighten it, it just wouldn't stop dripping. Those fittings are -12's and are Summit's oem brand I think. It is the same -12 fitting brand going into the top of my oil pan sump where the oil leak is happening.

Coincidence?....

I'm gonna be pissed if I have to try and remove that fitting from under the car,....you cannot see that thing no-how. It's at the back of the engine and you can only get a hand up in there to dick with it.....

There will be cussing,..I feel it.

In the grand scheme of things, a fitting would be the lesser evil I know,....Nonetheless I'm entitled to the cussing part. I still plan to..

** pre work practice....
Damn sht sonofabtch mutherfckn pieceofsht GOD DAMNIT!!!

tool throw

a91what said:

Mike before you start the car again [after the fixes]... you need to start the Warm up enrichment autotune. this will get the AFR on target while the car gets up to temp.

Click to expand...

Ok thanks.

Remember the head gasket fiasco? Remember me having to pay Cometic 125.00 to build me what amounts to a stock gasket after that POS copper thing refused to seal the engine?
Remember me resigning my 16-18psi aspirations to whatever boost a stock HG is capable of withstanding? Like 8-10 PSI? maybe?

Cometic seemingly the only company in the world capable of making a MLS headgasket, wouldn't couldn't make me one off the template I sent them.

This is a MLS head gasket to fit my engine boys and girls........


Look who it's from....

Cometic Australia.

I wonder if the two companies (US&AU) share each others database as far as cad drawings go or whatever they use to print and cut that steel that makes up a MLS head gasket?

Regardless if they do or don't, I now have a source for a HG that'll hold cylinder pressure to let me stuff the monster w/ whatever I choose......for the bargain price of 190.00 USD

18 PSI in Monster terminology should equate to something like 600whp 750rwtq...at 2750 RPM.

I'm going to the Texas smackdown,...I'm gonna beat your asses.............

And I was just saying that I talked to the walls on the other forum......

Since I was answering build thread questions on other peoples threads I figured I'd talk some more to the paint.

I worked on the hood again today.....Concentrating on the underside in an attempt to blend the G nostrils in better. Once I got that to a point of completion, I spot primed it, and let it sit.

When I built the Megasquirt, I bought DIY's bluetooth adapter so I could connect wirelessly to the ECU. Today I decided to try and get that thing working.

3 hours later, it still wouldn't connect. I hate that thing. While it would be cool to have the capability, how hard is it to actually plug a cable in instead? And how often is it after it's tuned that I'll need to do that? And who else would've sat there for three hours changing baud rates, and com ports, installing, and uninstalling the bluetooth driver and software anyway?

A guy that talks to trees...that's who.

Fck that bluetooth adapter.