lets talk about the z06... last sunday i had the honor of being the only driver of all the race car drivers and all the track day guys in the country that frequent nelson ledges road course in ohio to be invited to there company picnic to give the cornerworkers, volunteers, and safty workers a few quick laps around the track. we unloaded at 9am was on track by 10:30 i drove each person 5 laps 3 increasing paced laps and to laps at about 1.15 range we reached an averadge top speed of 135 mph with most passengers..including Fred we ran ALL DAY pit pickup a passenger run pit pickup. with a one hour brake for lunch i ran untill 4:30 pm talk about abusing a motor heat cool heat cool all day long...no dry sum no outragous cam or oil cooler accusump nuthin....it just goes and goes and goes...6500 rpms all day..you know why ?????good engine builder...now go ahead pile on the excuses!!!!! ps it allmost killed me physicly but every one that wanted to go got to and nobody got sick or scared..

 

Then have a Chicago style fire & cookout.........LOL

Set the c4 race car on fire & call your insurance man.

Tell him " I don't know what happened.........

Good thing I had my c6 outside of the garage last night".



You must love your c4 track car yet .
7 tries & not giving up.
Beyond stubborn like me.

Brian

 

please don't take this negatively, because remember, but my own past experience trying to lay silver solder on MILD steel (admittedly not cast iron) didn't work at all; there simply was no adhesion; silver solder is for soldering to copper based alloys, not cast iron. What does work with cast iron is bronze based brazing...I've repaired broken cast iron exhaust manifolds this way with no failures, it should certainly work for a small hole down by the pan rail. At the very least, get a scrap piece of cast iron something and try both methods and see which works better for you.

 

Your last failure was due to a bad spring right?

How would all of this fix that issue?

FYI the SCCA has allowed the Non-Z06 C6 guys to go ahead and run a drysump after seeing too many engine failures.

Running a road race pan and an accusump, hoping it will be enough.

if not, I'll bite the bullet and drysump it

 

If I were to have to build, or purchase another engine, I would go with a proven company thats built road race C4 cars. Doug Rippie, LPE to name a couple.
But, you have to be able to drop it off and let them build it. I am sure this isnt a cheap method, but they are proven race car builders, ground up.

 

yep bad spring ....fixed the bad pistons reinstalled them new edelbrock preformer heads bingo 7.5...shakedown stuff almost done...while working with the accusump noticed water in oil let to me finding hole in the block its fixed now and ready to keep moving forward....

 

What did Comp end up doing for you?

 

Murphy lives with you too?? I thought I was his permanent address.

Holed a piston last July [ in a new set ] .. Lean ?? Timing?? Karma?? whatever.

OK... New pistons & New rings.. new balancing .

Life is good, it's 11:30 and the flywheel is going on !! I will trim it Sunday [ today ]

Easy to make 10/14/11 [ at the strip] for a shake down!!!!

NOPE.......... Last bloody bolt high dollar ARP breaks!!

Right at the freaking head, it was only finger tight!!!

Well, that killed this weekend ... motor sits in it's stand waiting for next week.



As far as valve springs breaking, Dodge has made a science of that with their Semi-Hemi.. Our other Dodge truck had one break this week.

Lucky, [ in a sick sort way?] Exhaust bent, jammed but blew the head gasket.

I swear it's bad karma.

TJM

 

in another time and another place it was called "British racing luck"

 

I know the saying well. I started racing in H/P Bugeye Sprites, then went to F/P Triumph Spitfire, next was a D/P TR-250 and then the Porsche 911. Anything that can break on a British car has broken on me. I also learned auto electrics by working on Lucas (the Prince of Darkness) electrical systems in British cars.

You do know that's why the British drink warm beer........Lucas makes refrigerators.

 

If it was easy little kids would be building hot rods.. Lot's want-to-bees out there ... Have to ask and ask and find out who is doing the right thing and who is not and make some calls and somemore and go look at there shop and talk to them and read and talk and talk to people who have great motors and after about 40 years learning stuff very day.. Maybe you'll get it right .The first three motors I build were vere fast big Hp stuff, BOOM ,need steel crank in a Pont. 400 with over 450Hp I did not know that.. 427 ford need to recheck rod bearings when you pick up your parts make sure done right by shop, rod out side of rare 427 ford motor and on and and ,Like I said if it was easy little kids would be doing this... Keep digging and good luck...

 

mtwoolford, I'd have to disagree with your comment about silver solder. When I was still doing mechanical work, I've replaced my fair share of Trane A/C compressors. Trane built their compressors unlike anyone else (part of their patent), one of those things was steel inlet and outlet refrigerant ports. Everyone else used copper. Anyhow, the only way you could bond the steel to the copper was silver solder, and not the cheap stuff. This was on the likes of 50 and 60% silver. Same process all the old school exhaust builders used with the welding rods they used with their oxy-acetylene torches.

The problem your having Trackman is that engine building and machining is a dying profession. When GM, Jasper and so on build good quality motors with warranties, it's hard to compete. I can also see the other problem being the LTx motors were a short lived generation of the small block. I've been searching for a good machine shop I can trust. I've found one that builds all sorts of motors from DD, to drag, roundy round and track cars. They are slowly going out of business because of the economy.

I'm glad to see you are completely fed up with the way people have become. Most engine builders worked on reputation alone. Once a bad engine was built, the owner told other prospective customers and so on. Business went bad quick.

Hell the dirt track guys around my area have high revving motors that last for tons of racing in some pretty abusive environments. Oh yeah summers in Ohio are brutal. Not only does it get hot its pretty darn humid too. And of course the tracks are dirt. Low level classes have a claimer on the motor so most guys don't build expensive motors but the run strong and last all season.

The engine builder I used in TX built dirt cars. His motors were junkyard collaborations that would beat the bandwagon. His cars always ran hard and won. saw pics of his Camaro lifting the DS front tire 3' off the ground as it came down the back stretch. His key to a good motor was balancing it. All the rest of the parts were stock GM pieces. No reason Stock Pieces can't survive the abuse.

Good Luck. Look forward to seeing more about your trials and tribulations. I'm tearing down my LT1 in the morning. Getting parts to a shop to clean and port for the rebuild.