Cattitude

Well some of you new I had bought a new to me engine (HP500 efi with Dart pro 1 335's and Whipple)and I was excited about installing it. I took my time, worthy rigging etc but the first run on Sunday ended early about 8 miles out with a sudden horrific SB noise.

Yanked it Monday PM (Thanks to Macon motorsports who let me use their shop off the clock) and pulled the pan to find the crank broken between #2 rod and #2 main.

Tuesday night I stripped the engine to longblock form- intending to hand it over to a competent shop and get it back as a long block. I looked at several great shops, but in the end decided to keep it at Macon, my confidence had grown as we talked shop and the timing of the project kept looking better. They do a lot of circle track marine and drag engines- my biggest fear was that shops would be too backed up right now.

Well, stripping the engine went faster than I thought- so I kept going and stripped the engine down completely. There had been detonation issues and 5 pistons were really not happy. I took lots of pics- the previous owner and I have been talking and I'm sure we'll work something out between us that makes sense. Luckily the block and Rods were looking good. BTW- used a new Dewalt 18V cordless impact to remove and strip the engine- holy chit- that thing is awesome. I finally killed the first battery trying to run the harmonic balancer puller- fresh battery zipped it right off.

After that I've been searching old threads till 2am and talking with lots of friends/board members etc we've got a plan and I should have a fresh engine dropping in by end of next week. OSO is wotrth every penny of the membership- even with the few eggheads who come around

The heads only have about 20 hrs on them and look great- will check them anyway. I was already buying crank and pistons, the shop offered to take my h beam rods in trade for some new longer Lunati 1000hp rated I beam rods for a fair upcharge so I'll have a short deck 540 with little added expense.

I'm going to add an ATI dampener for good measure and one of the KPM sea pumps with an extra port to feed the IC. The new eagle crank will be checked out and dialed in (the only real beef I could find is they sometimes need tweaking) and some JE pistons with a .360 thick land will be used to get us near original compression (Dustin recommended). Going to use Felpro multi layer gaskets (rather than wait for Cometic to make some). Sb will be blueprinted etc

Rather than speed up the Whipple to attempt get the most from the 540, I'm going to run it the same speed and trade lower boost for more air from the increased cubes. running the same cam from the HP500 rather than try to chase the extra horses a better grind might offer.

Will use the existing dyno'd mapping as a baseline and take lots of plug readings, if need be, will get the ecu remapped.

The old setup had been dynoed at 790 at 5700ish. Truthfully, me and the Bravo XR will be happy at 750, but if it falls in near 800 or so that's ok. Doubt I'll dyno it cause I'd rather not spend the time and money just so I have a sheet with numbers on it- I'll let the smile and GPS do the talking

I boat in fresh water at 1120 feet- I'm betting 80+ any day and 85+ when the planets are in alignment. Running an Imco lower, 17.5x with ITS (7" setback) and labbed 28, P5x is at throttle up waiting baseline runs with the 28 to see how we want to tweak it. Full pleasure boat with sunken footwells and sink/cooler well.

cobra marty

Why was it detonating? Fuel issues, injector, fuel pump, ECU program? So you are going to put all the 'old stuff' back on a new 540 block and not dyno it and check it for detonation. What ever caused the detonation before will still be there after the rebuild. I would spend the money and have Mark at Precision dyno it and set it up correctly. Nothing worse than having to do a rebuild job than to have to do it a second time. Keep us posted.

Cattitude

actually got Mark's number from Rob earlier today

But I'm still learning (always will be)

Set timing correctly, know your fuel pressure and water flow/ temp and read plugs. What exactly do you gain by doing that on a dyno? Teach me . I'll be running less boost, better pistons, maybe more appropriate ring gaps (not sure how much the builders change the gaps for a blower motor).

Stormrider

If you have problems on the dyno, its easier to fix and dial in than if it was in the boat.
If you want any second opinions contact Jeff Cropper of JC performance.
He's been doing assemblies at Zuls shop since 1988. I know he helps w/ advice for others on the board. Always worth a call for knowledge.

P Offshore

The dyno will give you lots of information you cannot get from the boat:
1) Much better tuning
2) Insure the motor is setup properly ie... detonation timing etc...
In my opinion I think it is silly to build a nice motor and skip a $500 day at the dyno that can head off probelms down the road that could end like the last one and give you the best tuning available which makes it user friendly power that will shift and idle as well as make the big number.


But what do I know, I have only had 10 motors built this year.

Cattitude

So who do you use?

P Offshore

A guy in Joplin that is really good, but pretty covered up. I will call and see when he could get it on the dyno. PM me your number and when it will be ready to go to the dyno. I will let you know, I am in Cabo till Friday so I will call you when I get back.

Cattitude

Is it Brad? just spoke with him, sounds like we can do it soon

Elite Marine

The proper way to set up this motor is to run it on the dyno with an O2 Sensor and have a professional tuner dial in the A/F Ratios on the ECU. Even after this is accomplished, it should be run in the boat with an O2 Sensor and further dialed in.

If you can't get a guy there with the program, you will need to get the dyno sheets and the A/F Ratios at different RPMs and send them to a programmer. You'll probably have to do this several times to get is close.

It is no easy or fast task, but it can mean the difference between a reasonable rebuild time and unfortunately what occured to you previously.

Mark can get it close but not perfect. Not taking anything away from him, he did mine initially and got it closer than anyone, but not perfect.

Cattitude

Isn't mark close to 20 hrs from you? I spoke with him and recognize his skills abilities- but between the 10 hrs and his backlog his skills are not readily available.

Thing is that the previous owner had done this with the previous set up, 02 sensor in etc, custom mapping- but had detonation and or sticking ring issues that I want to be sure to avoid. The existing program should be close, then I can take readings and ship the ecu to Mark or Dustin for tweaking in different ranges.

Brad has one of the better reputations around here and I will likely use his services, though he can't reprogram. He does use an egt sensor for each sesor so we can tune for the leanest cylinder. Ron in Tulsa is highly regarded but his dyno/abilities are not doing EFI right now.