I'll keep plugging along for a little bit longer before I finally have enough and put it all in storage.

 

UPDATE: It's been a while since my last update and sorry about that, but my site is up to date. I've actively been trying to find a foundry to do the pours on the Renegade manifold and so far, no real progress and plenty of let downs. However, yesterday a made a list of some promising foundries and today I talked with one that may be promising, BIG maybe there. It all comes down to their largest flask size they have and the size of my match plate which IS a huge stumbling block. Just to give you an idea of cost, a flask to work with my match plate if they don't have one is about $7,500-$8,000 to me added to the cost of the pours....You see where this is going and why the cost per unit goes up. I have to pass that cost on to the customer and I can't do that no matter what and the price keeps going up. Hence the problem with finding a foundry that already has the right size flasks.

The foundry I talked with today has a very large flask and right now it seems that is doable and I will be sending them a lot of documentation that they need right after I receive the NDA back from them and we can move forward. There's a lot of IFs here, but it does look somewhat good so far. The site is updated and anyone that is interested can go there and find information on things that I think people need to know. Thanks and that is all...

 

@Buccaneer Any updates or did you shelve this for the time being?

 

There has been some renewed interest in the Renegade lately. A company is interested in the manifold and I have talked with them a bit. I have no idea how this will turn out if anything, but I will see.

 

Thank you for the update.

 

Well I’ve been on the BookFace telling everyone with a crossfire to contact @Buccaneer and ask him when production will resume. So come on Tom people are relying on you.

 

LMAO...You're killin' me Greg!

 

 

I know I haven't said anything on this thread in ages but I do have an update, and I finally have time to sit down and write it, so here's what has happened since the last time I made a post. I was able to get a used Renegade intake out of Nashville, TN that a guy had had problems with. When it got to my house I noticed right off the bat that there was essentially slag in the runners that I could knock off with my fingers. To make sure I didn't ruin my engine, I took a die grinder and some carbide burr bits and gave the intake a slight port job just to clean everything up. The previous owner of the intake had also stripped the bolt holes for the throttle bodies so I had my local machinist put in some thread inserts. After installation the thermostat also leaked a bit but some RTV took care of that. The front of the intake does slightly rub on the hood, but the hood does close like it is supposed to.

Now to the good stuff people actually care about. I installed the intake in August and I'm in west central Missouri so the first startup was definitely hot and humid. The first night I took out the car I was able to put down a 14.34 and it ran fairly well. I then had the car with me in Columbia and daily drove it at college with 0 issues related to the intake for 7 weeks. This involved a lot of ripping it around campus and sitting in city traffic. It did try to stumble on launch when it got down around freezing and the motor was cold but that is probably because I still don't have an IAT sensor and I haven't adjusted the tune for the cold. After running many VE learns on my EBL Flash II, the car put down a 14.08 but that was on November 6th. I'm not sure how much of that difference was the tune, how much was the weather, or how much of it was me realizing I could rev it our more. Before the intake, I had only ever run a 15.1 and that was with my Melrose long tube headers and exhaust system. The car now pulls to 5200 rpm easily and it feels like it runs out of cam at that point. The fact that I was able to take a technically flawed intake and end up with such good results is very impressive. I almost forgot to mention that my fuel economy improved as well. I can run 80 down the interstate and average 25 mpg. Hopefully @Buccaneer is able to get those intakes made again someday so every CFI owner can have one. After all these years I'm extremely grateful to have gotten my hands on one and install it myself. I'd like to thank everyone on this forum for their help along the way as well. If I ever build a motor for that car I'm slapping that Renegade on top and keeping it CFI

 

That’s good stuff. I did know you had acquired a Renegade via our Facebook communication, good to hear it’s working as predicted. I believe Buccaneer has a canned EBL tunes that works ok but if you like I can send you mine. Some time on the dyno is the best way to sort it out.

 

The tune Tom has was actually done by a gut local to me with a lot of seat time. The couple of guys I've talked to that run it say it's pretty spot on. The guy who did the tuning is really good at what he does and it would probably be near perfect out of the box on a stock car....

That being said with a renegade it probably needs some tweaking.

 

Excellent. Well that sounds like a good place to start.

 

congratulations.

 

That is a big gain; over 1 second, with the intake. That's awesome. Is this 14.08 on a Renegade, Melrose headers and an exhaust?

I'm thinking a few things here. I'm thinking that I LOVE the 1+ second reduction in your 1/4 mile time!......but I also think that there's more in the car. When I first got my '83 CFI TA, I put in a
*T5,
*Edelbrock TES "headers", Y (shorty crimp collector headers w/a 2.5" Y pipe) and a single cat (no cat back at all)....and
*"free mods" (t-stat, timing, fuel pressure).
* a 3.45 rear
.....and in that configuration, it went 14.5x at 95 mph. Keep in mind, this was a 305 engine and using the box stock, unported intake. Only changes to the engine were coolant temp, timing and fuel pressure. With that in mind, I think your 15.1 baseline w/headers and exhaust should have been at least as good as my 305 w/shorty headers. If that were the case, you'd be solid, mid 13's which I think a CFI car with a renegade, LT headers and exhaust should be able to do.

What elevation is your track at? What were your traps, with those ET's?

 

I agree... I've only messed around stock against my cousins 89 GTA (auto, 350 TPI.) But that's a 14.8 car and even with the CFI manifold... I could run door to door with him to about 80 which is when we would let off... these were on ramps to the highway. I feel you can probably knock another .2 off where it is at now.

If you don't mind, what's the timing table looking like and what's your base and max timing?

 

Sorry for being a bit slow to respond. I wasn't on last night as I was finishing up an AR lower build. I run at MoKan so elevation should be about 800 ft if it's similar to here at home. The 15.1 was with Melrose headers and exhaust system. The 14.34 and 14.08 were with that same exhaust system, EBL Flash II, DUI distributor, and the Renegade Intake. In pulling out the time slip my 15.1 was actually a 15.14 at 91.58 mph. I'm not sure how much I trust the 15.1 though since I was forced to drive through the waterbox that night and had traction issues even after trying to burn it off. My trap speed on the 14.08 was 93.6 mph.

I started off with the 84 specific tune y'all are talking about and made changes from there. Primarily getting my 4+3 OD to work and at one point I was having insane spark knock issues. When I went to put the Renegade on I found my harmonic balancer was slipping a ton. Replacing that fixed most of my spark knock issues but my tables are still screwed up from when I was trying to retard certain areas and see if the knock went away. I'll post them in a bit, but fair warning, they're bad. Now the only time I get knock is if stomp on the throttle too quickly, and the car will not come out of it during acceleration. If it happens I have to let off and let the car kind of reset before I romp on it again. At one point I'd researched how to fix it and found a probable solution but I never went and messed with the tune.

 

Here are some screenshots of my screwed up timing tables. I'll attach my tune file as well if possible. Then you can see everything including my not smoothed out VE tables. I'm honestly surprised how well the car runs considering the tune has been neglected for some time. It would help if I was with the car more than weekends and breaks. Even when I had the car at school I didn't really have time to sit down and work out the fine details. If I don't have it worked out by May I should at least have more time after I graduate.

 

This is great info.
First, the 93.6 mph on the 14.08 is two things: A GREAT ET, for the trap speed indicating a killer launch/60' time? And the other thing is tells me is the HP is just not where it should be, for the mods. I think you should be 270+ NET, chp with the intake and exhaust. But 93 mph is more like 220 hp. Or so.

Second, is it looks like your total advance is 30* at WOT? Is that right? If so, I think it needs more. Is it getting enough fuel? Are you still running stock injectors?

 

The WOT timing may be correct... There is a multiplier in the EBL that adds in extra timing while in power enrichment... I use that so if I do encounter spark knock it'll pull out a little extra. Usually starts throwing a degree at 2800 and 4 total by 4000. For me that amounts to 35 degrees total at wide open. I'll dig into the file later to see what is going on.

For the power though, I agree it seems like there should be a little more top end. I'd like to see the whole slip. Is it short tracking or picking up on the big end... That would indicate if the issue is something beyond what we're seeing.

93 is about all I was getting through a stock intake on my modded engine... Granted it was with an app on the street but should still be comparable. I'd say 95-96 mph is more where it should be at...

 

The launch on my 14.08 was definitely the best launch I've ever had. Road the clutch a bit more than I would've liked to but had absolutely no slip and took off.

Yes it is 30* at WOT. That's still unchanged from the tune provided but Power Enrichment is enabled at that point so I'm getting an AFR of about 12. The injectors are technically stock but I had the throttle bodies rebuilt by Dr. Injector so the injectors were cleaned and tested then.