Went To The Track.....may Have Problems (kinda Long)

ive actually been three times this year since gateway reopened. First two times where a couple months ago, and it ran a consistent 13.8-13.9 @101-102 with 60's in the 2.1-2.2's (yes, i suck at driving, but still seems a touch slow). The second time i went a heater hose decided to burst on the second pass, forcing me to limp it a mile or so to get a new one. Ended up putting new head gaskets and a timing set gasket on it to cure leaks that popped up, and issues with an ect and a dead battery, but its been driving fine down the road now for two weeks. Also switched my pos mac cai to the stock airbox setup because one of the couplers decided to rip in two (that and the fit was horrible).

Then i went to the track again on weds. Got 6 passes in, missed third twice (oops, like i said i suck at driving). The real problem is the other 4. Could not get the car out of the 14.4@98 range, even with a (single) 2.0 60'. I could even feel the sotp power loss, especially on the 1-2 shift. And it was like this on EVERY pass, even playing with launch rpm and shift points a bit (3500rpm launch and a 6200rpm shift on the stock tack seemed to work best)

Im just not understanding how it lost (gained?) a 1/2 second and 2mph, though to be honest the 2mph worries me more than the 1/2 second (remember how i suck at driving?). Im hoping its just a tuning issue more than anything else.

Been tinkering with it today, pulled all the plugs and they look a little white/gray, and while i was there hooked up the compression tester and got 130-145psi on all 8. Timings at 14 initial. Whole combo is:

Explorer gt-40p long-block
tfs stage1 with the tfs spring kit
stock explorer rockers/pushrods/lifters
shorty headers
tfs street intake
24# injectors
c&l maf for the 24's(yeah, i know, not the best)
fpr set at 38 psi with vac off
stock suspension other than b-springs and tockio blues
275/40/17 nitto dr's

havent dynoed the car, havent messed with cam timing. i did go from a 1011 to a 9333 headgasket, and from a 1250s3 (still a pos like the normal 1250) to a stock 5.0 intake gasket, dont know how much either one of these things would have helped/hurt.

i have the stock valvetrain from the e7's sitting in a box, ive been debating swapping it out with the explorer stuff because ever since ive had this explorer motor, its been damn near impossible to get the rockers to not slide back and forth on the pedestals, which also means theyre a bit sloppy on the pushrod side (and noisy). i actually took a bit a meat off the bottom of a few pedestals with a file to even get the things to lash on the pushrods. the e7 stuff may just be in better shape (even though theyre the same stampings, with about 30k more miles), but dont know if it will be worth it.....

f8tlfiveo said:

Did you replace the valve springs? Stock explorer ones prob don't mesh well with your cam.. Explorer cam is pretty weak so the springs are going to be weak also..

Click to expand...

yes, used the tfs spring kit.