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13,804 Posts
My tribulations have been well chronicled here over several years. It has taken a lot of patience to get things together and sorted out, but it has been running very, very well for about the last week! I'm getting close to 500 miles on the motor, but it has taken over 2 months to do that with multiple transmission & shifter issues, weather, ignition/fuel issues, discovering a bad spherical bearing on one of my wishbones, etc, etc. About the last major thing I have to resolve is my windshield wiper motor synch problems. I'm having to drive with only the driver's side operational at the moment, but we've had some gorgeous weather in South Texas lately and I've been stretching my trips out a few miles at a time getting comfortable.
The motor pulls seriously harder from about 3500 rpm up to my 5k rev limit on break-in. The Gen3 rockers make noticeably more metallic noise under the covers than the stamped rockers. The headers and HF cats make the 708 cam really rumpity-rump at idle, and the x-pipe howls magically at the upper levels! I still have the stock resonators in the sills and they make for the perfect setup for my battered ear drums until I'm hard on the gas.
I'm just about ready to do my first oil change and open up the filter for an inspection. I've used 1qt in 400 miles, so the rings are still seating. I plan to install my 10 quart pan and new trap doors when the oil gets changed in the next week or two. I still need to get my header insulation done before I hit the track, but that's coming along in a couple of weeks. Once the rings seat fully, I'll dyno the car and get Dan Lesser to put a tune in my spare JTEC.
One of the most impressive combos I did was going to the IPSCO swaybar brackets/bushings and TKO adjustable end link setup. I set the ride heights and alignments up with 175# in the driver's seat, then nulled the swaybars. My Penske triples were an ABSOLUTELY HUGE performance improvement 20 years ago, but going now to urethane upper wishbone bushings with the previous spherical lowers, along with the swaybar upgrades just brought the handling into an entirely new dimension of responsiveness. I'm actually having to back off the previous damper settings a good bit for street use.
The motor pulls seriously harder from about 3500 rpm up to my 5k rev limit on break-in. The Gen3 rockers make noticeably more metallic noise under the covers than the stamped rockers. The headers and HF cats make the 708 cam really rumpity-rump at idle, and the x-pipe howls magically at the upper levels! I still have the stock resonators in the sills and they make for the perfect setup for my battered ear drums until I'm hard on the gas.
I'm just about ready to do my first oil change and open up the filter for an inspection. I've used 1qt in 400 miles, so the rings are still seating. I plan to install my 10 quart pan and new trap doors when the oil gets changed in the next week or two. I still need to get my header insulation done before I hit the track, but that's coming along in a couple of weeks. Once the rings seat fully, I'll dyno the car and get Dan Lesser to put a tune in my spare JTEC.
One of the most impressive combos I did was going to the IPSCO swaybar brackets/bushings and TKO adjustable end link setup. I set the ride heights and alignments up with 175# in the driver's seat, then nulled the swaybars. My Penske triples were an ABSOLUTELY HUGE performance improvement 20 years ago, but going now to urethane upper wishbone bushings with the previous spherical lowers, along with the swaybar upgrades just brought the handling into an entirely new dimension of responsiveness. I'm actually having to back off the previous damper settings a good bit for street use.
