Well since you have so much power, can you up the rear tire diameter some to compensate for the higher speeds? What about running a taller final drive?
Well since you have so much power, can you up the rear tire diameter some to compensate for the higher speeds? What about running a taller final drive?
man...that scoop and top-mount look great.
I remember following midlana on your site years ago. So much fun. Glad to see the old girl is still pushing your buttons!
This car is gorgeous. Beautiful work.
kb58 said:My brother wants me to build something with an LS engine in it...
Lastly, after working on nothing but Kimini and Midlana for what, the last 20 years? I got burnt out and have spent the last year reworking our koi pond. A surprising number of garage tools and techniques transferred straight over. That's nearly done now so I'll start being more active with the car - again.
I know we say LS all the things but an LS koi pond is a bit ridiculous.
May 2018 Update:
- Engine was dyno'd again, due to having been swapped, the turbo/exhaust changed, cams changed, and a revised air filter. The tuner found that the timing was way off (retarded), and once fixed:
The results of his changes were striking, finding 10-30% more torque between 2000-4000 rpm and 15-20% from 4000 on up. The improvement was enough that we mutually agreed to reduce boost to 15 psi, where it still produced 410 ft-lbs torque on 91 oct gas and 450 ft-lbs on E85. Horsepower was 475 on gas and 530 on E85.
The plot below is a combination of the initial tune as-received, after timing was corrected, and the highest result was on E85. Keep in mind that Dynopack dynos read about 20% higher than in-floor types.
- After the dyno session, spend endless hours getting it to start and to idle smoothly, plus not stalling when approaching a stop. As everyone who uses aftermarket ECUs finds, idle is one of the most time-intensive things to get just right.
- Finally gave up on the buggy GoPros and bought a Sony Action Cam. So far so good.
- Did a number of back country drives and met this fellow out in the desert.
- Upgraded the transmission, installing a stronger gear set, one more proper for trackday events; now I have a first gear good for 60 mph, hah. Also switched to an OS Giken LSD, said to be better on-track than gear-type diffs.
- Fixed a casting flaw in the dry sump pan, the source of the mysterious oil leak for the last two years.
- Added ducting around the radiator to force all air through the core instead of allowing it to leak around.
- Had a massive oil leak develop during a drive and only found after arriving home that it had consumed about 6 quarts of the 8-qt capacity dry sump system - a close call. The cause was traced to of all things, a double-stacked O-ring. Apparently the assembler at the factory had reached into the bag of O-rings and hadn't noticed that two were stuck together. Amazingly, the oil-to-coolant heat exchanger that it's part of worked fine for 5 years before suddenly failing.
- Next was again adding a muffler - while the turbo works as a muffler - somewhat - it was still too loud and attracted too much attention.
- Next up is redoing the air intake, currently directly above the exhaust drawing in needlessly warm air.
- After that, a diffuser and wings!
An excellent reminder that a project like this never really ends. I always got stuck in the mindset that I was working to get something "finished", but in recent years I've come around a bit and realize nothing is ever done.
I love the work on this car and appreciate your continuous improvement model.
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