Build Thread 1978 Mercury Cyclone. The pig is in the pen.
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I'm thinkin both situations will come to pass for him....one of them sooner than later..
It's like Collin said Dave...@Davedacarpainter. building the MS is easy...the instructions are clear and concise. After watching you do what you do, I have every confidence that you could build one yourself.
It's what happens after you screw the thing together that gets dicey.....if you dont pay attention to anything else,
Pay attention to these 8 symbols, letters and numbers..
@a91what
You'll be thankful you did.
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So the question remains... Do you have a functioning tach, and all other options you originally wanted? Clearly I have no idea what the hell you and Steve are talking about and doing, so Im just curious if you are now fully functioning?
The car does everything I want it to do now, but I haven't hooked the gauges back up yet.
So I can't answer your question.
Have you had any time to work on the gila lounge?
Between healing up and chasing monster gremlins, oh and I'm sure there is still a couple things on the house do list
You know sleep is overrated, right
Between healing up and chasing monster gremlins, oh and I'm sure there is still a couple things on the house do list
You know sleep is overrated, right
Firstly, My birthday isn't for a month.
Secondly, ( and much more to your chagrin) I like Winkin. I think he is one of my better ideas, bordering on a work of art.
The fact the he is full of gauges where some aren't exact, doesn't tip the scale enough to force me to wanna change it. Ol Winkin has left an impression in the leather that would force me to have to make an equally long replacement housing that I think will look huge in his place.
Thirdly. They do not affect how this car runs, or limit its potential. The lack of octane does. Which means in the grand scheme, there is something I need far more urgently than a new set of gauges. Water meth.
Lastly.....and maybe most importantly.....My birthday follows a 6 week "dry spell" with regard to my income because of the bionic knees. The wife is footing the bill for almost every expense until I'm back to making my regular wage, which doesn't look like that will happen until December. Asking for a 600.00 gauge set on top of that throws a big hairy monkey on her back that I don't intend to ask her to carry.
( Besides,..My wife is really good looking,...Asking her to try to accessorize around a big assed hairy monkey wouldn't fly anyway)
So,...because of a series of untimely events preceding my " big birthday" it looks like I'll be getting a bow tie and a pair of socks instead.
It's all I can do to keep my Mr. Hyde concealed in the Lounge....In my case, Hyde throws sht everywhere, and never puts anything back. ( Ever see pics of my other garage in the previous house?)
This space is so nice that I don't want that to happen, so I spend a fair amount of time in "Jekyll mode" picking up what Hyde left laying around,...which leaves little time to consider "improvements".
Despite outward appearances, The car will never be done,...There'll always be something I'm gonna want to change/upgrade. All of my friends that used to be potential " hang arounds" are drag racers...and are too busy fixing their blown up, hagged out junk to hang around anyway. That leaves me, in a cool space by myself to either sit around, or mess with the car....I always end up messing with the car.
Ok,....gauges are back in.....tach works ( surprisingly) Maybe now that the " tacho output" is disabled in my ecu, and I'm actually on a single coil output instead of a wasted spark output, maybe..........maybe the tach will jive with the ecu now?
We'll see I guess.
We'll see I guess.
Sweet. And yes, you surely know my thoughts on winkin, lol. Its all good, just bustin your balls, I dont want you making Kate carry a gorilla around either. Pretty sweet that your tach works, despite your original output going to another use (if I understood all that talk right).
Working till about 6 today, and the wife is on a "girls weekend".....
I'm gonna be such a naughty kitten....I'm just gonna trash my mittens, and eat up all the pumpkin pie.
Tonight when I get home the plan will be to finish putting the car back together, and take it out for a test drive.
It gets to about 40 here at night when the sun goes down, so it should be a perfect opportunity to see if it's gonna get hot, and stay that way while it moves through that cold air.
I could not find the source of that freaking rattle...nothing under the dash is chafed or scraped up that would be indication that something was rubbing together. So in the big picture, if that freakin rattle s still there...I'm gonna still be pissed regardless of the win with the ecu.
I also changed the cross over frequency on my tweeters...I cut 3 db out...the freakin things were so bright, my ears bled. I could not roll enough high frequency off to make them tolerable w/o hurting the sound quality elsewhere, so now hopefully Usher will say Yeah like I want him to.
I'm gonna be such a naughty kitten....I'm just gonna trash my mittens, and eat up all the pumpkin pie.
Tonight when I get home the plan will be to finish putting the car back together, and take it out for a test drive.
It gets to about 40 here at night when the sun goes down, so it should be a perfect opportunity to see if it's gonna get hot, and stay that way while it moves through that cold air.
I could not find the source of that freaking rattle...nothing under the dash is chafed or scraped up that would be indication that something was rubbing together. So in the big picture, if that freakin rattle s still there...I'm gonna still be pissed regardless of the win with the ecu.
I also changed the cross over frequency on my tweeters...I cut 3 db out...the freakin things were so bright, my ears bled. I could not roll enough high frequency off to make them tolerable w/o hurting the sound quality elsewhere, so now hopefully Usher will say Yeah like I want him to.
I thought I was gonna do this last night, but when I started the car, the oil pressure read 11 p.s.i.
Disgusted, I shut the hood, and went upstairs.
This morning, just to be safe, I went and bought 7 Qts of oil and a new filter and changed out the old stinkin' ( smells like combustion gasses) Syn 10w40, and poured standard 30wt crude back in instead.
When I started the car, the oil pressure immediately rose back to where it should be, so I blamed myself for running the oil dangerously low.
Still needing to take it on a test drive, I did that today.
I poked around, close to home just in case something didn't work right....I watched as the water temp rose rapidly after getting past 150, where it kept going up to about 212 on my gauge...then, everything started going back down...till it bottomed around 177, and started its way back up again...I wish I knew which of the two temp gauges to trust, the two of them are always about ten degrees apart from each other.
See,....the ECU has its sender mounted directly above the the gauge sender.....It's like this:
It's dark, but you can see that sender sitting about 2" below the other.
Shouldn't make that much of a difference though you'd think.......Right?
Let's just check shall we?
Top sender:......
Bottom sender:...
Can you freakin believe that?...All this time, I'm blaming my junk POS digital gauges,...and here it is...the higher up on the head,...the hotter it gets...Looks like I'm gonna have to block off the one,...and install a "T" so that both senders are tapped into the same high point...
Live and learn.
Also,..while I'm driving along,...the oil pressure drops to 11 psi...then jumps right back up to 60 psi....
Can I blame that on my junk POS Digital gauge, and not my stupidity?
This is a mechanical, belt driven pump,....I know there ain't nothing wrong with that dude...When I had the car up in the air changing the oil, I checked the wire to the sender...it's there,..but it seemed like it may be the problem,..moved a little too much like it's hanging on by a thread.
Junk...
I decided to get rid of my HD oil catch can, and install a second oil breather instead...I built a baffle to try and keep the wet oil in the engine, and out of the breather as well. Additionally the base of these breathers are tapered so that they'll drain back, so any oil that does get past, should drain back...
But once the engine gets up to 190 somethin....these dudes are smokin like a train....Just what the Doctor ordered to impress the kiddies at the Saturday night cruise-in.....
The car still rattles, when you floor it in high gear,...and today for the first time I believe that I caught a glimpse of a significant blue cloud in the rear view when I floored it...
So now, I got smoke coming out from both ends....Perfect.
I'm done trying to tune the thing on pump premium. Either there is too much compression for the boost level, or the motor is going away,..more than likely, probably both. I'm gonna attempt the water meth ( if I get it for my Birthday)
before I start considering having to tear the engine apart.. If I get that, hopefully the detonation will be fixed..then all I gotta deal with are all of the damn oil leaks, ( the rear main seal is a joke) and the freakin blow by.
( Which I'm hoping to hell is because I installed a low tension ring set, a broken ring will have hurt the cylinder,..)
But that's just me....remember I'm an Automotive Hypochondriac.
Disgusted, I shut the hood, and went upstairs.
This morning, just to be safe, I went and bought 7 Qts of oil and a new filter and changed out the old stinkin' ( smells like combustion gasses) Syn 10w40, and poured standard 30wt crude back in instead.
When I started the car, the oil pressure immediately rose back to where it should be, so I blamed myself for running the oil dangerously low.
Still needing to take it on a test drive, I did that today.
I poked around, close to home just in case something didn't work right....I watched as the water temp rose rapidly after getting past 150, where it kept going up to about 212 on my gauge...then, everything started going back down...till it bottomed around 177, and started its way back up again...I wish I knew which of the two temp gauges to trust, the two of them are always about ten degrees apart from each other.
See,....the ECU has its sender mounted directly above the the gauge sender.....It's like this:
It's dark, but you can see that sender sitting about 2" below the other.
Shouldn't make that much of a difference though you'd think.......Right?
Let's just check shall we?
Top sender:......
Bottom sender:...
Can you freakin believe that?...All this time, I'm blaming my junk POS digital gauges,...and here it is...the higher up on the head,...the hotter it gets...Looks like I'm gonna have to block off the one,...and install a "T" so that both senders are tapped into the same high point...
Live and learn.
Also,..while I'm driving along,...the oil pressure drops to 11 psi...then jumps right back up to 60 psi....
Can I blame that on my junk POS Digital gauge, and not my stupidity?
This is a mechanical, belt driven pump,....I know there ain't nothing wrong with that dude...When I had the car up in the air changing the oil, I checked the wire to the sender...it's there,..but it seemed like it may be the problem,..moved a little too much like it's hanging on by a thread.
Junk...
I decided to get rid of my HD oil catch can, and install a second oil breather instead...I built a baffle to try and keep the wet oil in the engine, and out of the breather as well. Additionally the base of these breathers are tapered so that they'll drain back, so any oil that does get past, should drain back...
But once the engine gets up to 190 somethin....these dudes are smokin like a train....Just what the Doctor ordered to impress the kiddies at the Saturday night cruise-in.....
The car still rattles, when you floor it in high gear,...and today for the first time I believe that I caught a glimpse of a significant blue cloud in the rear view when I floored it...
So now, I got smoke coming out from both ends....Perfect.
I'm done trying to tune the thing on pump premium. Either there is too much compression for the boost level, or the motor is going away,..more than likely, probably both. I'm gonna attempt the water meth ( if I get it for my Birthday)
before I start considering having to tear the engine apart.. If I get that, hopefully the detonation will be fixed..then all I gotta deal with are all of the damn oil leaks, ( the rear main seal is a joke) and the freakin blow by.
( Which I'm hoping to hell is because I installed a low tension ring set, a broken ring will have hurt the cylinder,..)
But that's just me....remember I'm an Automotive Hypochondriac.
I cant help but wonder if being different is worth all that... Guess youre the only one who knows in this particular case. At least if you rebuild the engine, you know what to do differently to make it last the second go round. I just cant imagine having to do it over. Maybe thats cause I have three kids to deal with in conjunction with my project.
Sooooooooooooooooo much "Holy F-f-f-f-f" could be gotten out a sub 3000 lb car...
That's tubbed....
That has a suspension....
That has these huge ass wheels in the back....
Juss thinking out loud here.
That's tubbed....
That has a suspension....
That has these huge ass wheels in the back....
Juss thinking out loud here.
Man, that caught me off guard
Also, I really do hope the little engine that could still...can.
But if it can’t, I’ve got a 2 lettered replacement suggestion
But if it can’t, I’ve got a 2 lettered replacement suggestion
Also, I really do hope the little engine that could still...can.
But if it can’t, I’ve got a 2 lettered replacement suggestion
This probably goes more directly to you Noobz, but addresses the other two guys as well.
If you ever stood next to me, while I'm standing next to it at any venue that I have taken this car to.......you'd know that all I have to do to get all the " Holy Phhhccckkks" I need is to open the the hood.
It's simple really, it can and has happened to others here with regular everyday, conventional, bolton junk on a 5.0...
I've done something wrong.
Either from my choice to listen to the piston mfg, and install low tension rings, or my misinformed state when I told him my chamber size, ( only to discover that I gave him erroneous information, and now my compression ratio was gonna be almost 1-2 points higher than I expected, and now the resultant detonation has hammered the ring seal to death. I could've broken a ring,...or in the start-up menagerie when I kept having leaking copper head gaskets,..I somehow compromised my cylinder seal. Regardless the cause, there is not one single thing related to the one-off nature of this engine that any of the above couldn't have happened to Collin, or Scott, or anybody that cracks open an engine.
I took the car out last night again, and drove it on the interstate for about 5 miles, and then returned back down a highway that parralled the i state. The temp issue is fixed ( with only minor tweaking required). The rattle is fixed( I did something right evidently).
The car has power...and even at 8 psi where it is now is more than fast enough to bring a smile to my face.
I haven't looked at my intake plenum...I could have oil from the turbo seal getting into the intake (considering the journal bearing is seeing full oil pressure)
Again,...a damaged cylinder seal is confirm-able via a leak down test and that is planned. oil contamination should be evident on the plugs... And I just changed my plugs....they're not showing that.
Talking about " what's wrong" Is all part of how I justify having to do things to myself....remember my short lived Cobra?
That factory sealed termi-engine leaked all over...it took me a month to convince myself to pull that entire engine solely to seal it....talking about similar solutions for the Monster now will make it easier to choke down in January-February when it'll probably happen.
As the famous British philosopher think-tank, Led Zepplin, once said, "Good times. Bad TImes. You know I've had my share." Or as some stupid ass literature teacher in 10th grade made us memorize, "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times."
So no dash rattle. No detonation rattle (albeit at lower than
grin optimal), water temp control that works. Best of Times.
Smoking like the stacks at the Rendevous, running lower than grinning boost, low oil pressure, and oil leaks. Worst of Times.
At least you tell it like it is. Just remember WD 1 thru 39 didn't work right. It took 40 tries (or is that an urban legend?) Save yourself some work, I am sure Bars Leak makes some ring seal in a can. Pour that in your junk and your GOLDEN! Put some FLEX SEAL over the rear main...FIXED! And put a Dyson Cordless under the hood as a electric evac, DONE! You'll be cruising in style and can probably pick up a late night infomercial gig.
So no dash rattle. No detonation rattle (albeit at lower than
grin optimal), water temp control that works. Best of Times.Smoking like the stacks at the Rendevous, running lower than
grinning boost, low oil pressure, and oil leaks. Worst of Times.At least you tell it like it is. Just remember WD 1 thru 39 didn't work right. It took 40 tries (or is that an urban legend?) Save yourself some work, I am sure Bars Leak makes some ring seal in a can. Pour that in your junk and your GOLDEN! Put some FLEX SEAL over the rear main...FIXED! And put a Dyson Cordless under the hood as a electric evac, DONE! You'll be cruising in style and can probably pick up a late night infomercial gig.
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