Car Took A Dump on the Dyno

[SYNFULL]

I am feeling pretty depressed right now.
Arrived at the shop to dyno tune my car. Finally got everything set up. Did the first run with some timing taken out and the car was still detonating. Then we made some more changes, the tuner called Tony Armour to clear up some points. Dyno'd the car again. This time it sounded great - no detonation- just brought it up to 5k and was getting 605 hp when antifreeze came from underneath. We cut everything off, cleaned up and found it came from the overflow bottle. Checked the fan and it wasn't coming on until about 205- decided I needed to get it to come on at a lower temp- don't know if the vec can control that. Anyhow did another run - car sounded great - Just when I thought we were in the home stretch we brought it up to 5k again and then antifreeze came shooting out of the top coolant bottle.
They told me that the head gaskets have been torn up from the detonation and the compression is pushing the coolant out.
I didn't have much of a choice but to leave the car there as we were worried fluid entered the cylinder and could bend my rods if we started it up.
Estimate is 1600 (20 hours) plus parts. I don't have the time or energy to take the heads off again after I just did the whole heads s/c job.
The good news is they can tune it between the vec2, and their dyno. The tuner was even recommending that I get rid of the vec and use his program which has more control. He gives me a device (similar to or it is the SCT XCalibrator) that holds a few programs and is flashed to the pcm. I don't think you can log with it plus I don't want to spend the money on anything else right now.
Moral of the story is don't drive your car if it's detonating- unfortunately I have been trying to find out for 3 weeks if what I was hearing was detonation since it didn't sound like the usual description, and the plugs didn't show any sign of it.

Any chance this may be just a bad cap??
Thanks
__________________

 

[plumcrazy]

id tell you the story of my car blowing up TWICE on a dyno in the last 1 1/2 years if it will make ya feel better.

 

[Red Snake]

That ***** man. Hope you get her right.

 

[SYNFULL]

Yea I guess it would- misery loves company

 

[TAXIMAN1]

Syn, water in oil? White smoke out of the exhaust? any other symptoms?

Been there many times.. I had blown 5.0 Mustang back in 94', that loved to go through head gaskets.. Hang in there, you'll get it right.

 

[SYNFULL]

Definitely white smoke every time I started her up. I thought it might have been left from the seafoam cleaner I had used.

 

[99 R/T 10]

Hey Gary,
if you get the heads off quick, do you think you could get away with just cleaning up the mess and replacing the head gaskets? $1600 seems high if all they were going to do is replace the headgaskets.

 

[viper spray]

Better check out everything , sounds like you blew the top end...........

 

[00prowler]

That *****...Mine has been detonating ever since I had the Roe installed..I finally found the car had to hot of a plug in it amognst other things...I am getting it tuned properly by a person who really knows how to do it, but there is no more pinging with the new plugs..Al

 

[plumcrazy]

who in CT knows how to tune a vec ???

 

[SYNFULL]

Yes it does seem high - I asked the shop and he said that is the cost for 20 hours- if it is less he will charge me less. I am going to tell him that I checked and it usually takes 8 to 10 hours.
I can't really drive it home because it may hydrolock with the antifreeze in the cylinders, so I would have to tow it home- and they just got the tune right and were refining it - so I would have to bring it back there for them to finish. I just can't see towing it home and doing the work myself this time.

Thanks
Gary

Hey Gary,
if you get the heads off quick, do you think you could get away with just cleaning up the mess and replacing the head gaskets? $1600 seems high if all they were going to do is replace the headgaskets.

 

[Sean Roe]

Hi Gary,

While I can appreciate that the shop says the head gaskets pushed out due to detonation with no signs of it on the plugs (which doesn't sound right), you really should start with a little more diagnostics before proceeding.
Has anyone done a coolant system pressure test on it to see if the system was loosing pressure anywhere other than the overflow bottle? It's just a simple pump you put in place of the radiator cap. If it's leaking, you see the pressure drop on the gauge. If it's going in the engine, it shows up in the oil or when you spin the engine over with the spark plugs out.
Regarding the cap, they do go bad. If it's not holding 17psi, they let the coolant pass. Was the coolant coming from the bottle on the fenderwell, or the one in the front fascia?
If the head gaskets are leaking, did you have the heads surfaced before installation? I assume they were used? Do you know much about their history, or if they were cut down with smaller combustion chamber volumes (yielding higher compression)?
Did you install the heads yourself? The gaskets are less than $200 for the pair.

Regards,
Sean

 

[dave6666]

Another thread reminding me of why staying N/A sounds good.

Sorry for your troubles, but no tech advise to offer.

 

[ViperTony]

who in CT knows how to tune a vec ???

The only person I knew of that could tune using a Vec was Damn Yankee but he may be somewhere up north now.

 

[mike & juli]

id tell you the story of my car blowing up TWICE on a dyno in the last 1 1/2 years if it will make ya feel better.

I think that would actually be too depressing........Here's to getting yours SOON! ~juli

 

[mjorgensen Woodhouse]

Deleted by Mark J.

 

[Sean Roe]

What would you do to diagnose the coolant leak if it rolled into the Woodhouse shop?

 

[1TONY1]

Another thread reminding me of why staying N/A sounds good.

Sorry for your troubles, but no tech advise to offer.

N/A is good...just SLOW

There are a few points here.... and the question: Did the car hurt itself on the dyno ??

There were used heads, already installed Vec2 and a new s/c. Gary did all the work.

Points:
1. The already installed Vec2 did not have the vacuum lines changed for forced induction. So, anytime it was in boost it still had the timing and fuel curve for N/A.
2. Once the lines were corrected and the vec was reading boost, the timing was changed to stop any detonation but not in the right areas....so, that means nothing was changed to stop detonation.

Now, it may have died on the dyno with a good tune etc. but IMO it was killed before that. To blame forced induction is not correct. I applaud Gary for going at this himself, unfortunately it may be a learning $$ experience.

No way I would pull anything until I did a leak down (like I have been suggesting) and saw what was going on. I was worried it was hurt before even going to the dyno. Maybe it's not the gaskets....maybe (probably) it's only one ? Were the heads flat ? Block surface flat ? What is the actual compression ? How were the gaskets installed and torqued ? Lots of different avenues here Dave.

 

[mjorgensen Woodhouse]

Well as stated I would first inspect the cooling system integrity, then check to see if it really is a head gasket issue. If there was nothing wrong with the coolant cap pull plugs and look for evidence of a problem in there, detonation, fuel, coolant.

If the heads were installed without checking trueness then I would go there next after contacting the original owner/builder about the spects and CR.

 

[00prowler]

who in CT knows how to tune a vec ???

Plum, I have a friend that can do anything to a Viper..He tunes all kinds of cars and is real good at it..He is doing mine next weekend...He found my spark plugs were to hot and that was the main culprit for my detonation problem...Before the tune I have no pinging whatsoever...It finally runs really good for the first time in 3 years..He also installed a puke tank, wideband, A/F, and pillar pod, 1.7 rollers, headers, 3inch cats and exhaust back...He has loaded all of the Vec2 programs in his computer and said it will be a piece if cake..I will let you know how it turns out...Al

 

[plumcrazy]

please do, it would be nice to actually have someone in the NY / CT area who can tune a VEC

 

[mike & juli]

please do, it would be nice to actually have someone in the NY / CT area who can tune a VEC

I second that notion...........juli
Details?????

 

[00prowler]

Sometimes I wish 1Tony1 or PBJ was my nextdoor neighbor...Al

 

[davem]

I agree completely, A leakdown test is absolutely step 1, no debate.

Have that done and post again as to the results.

-Dave.

 

[mnviper]

the timing was changed to stop any detonation but not in the right areas....

Tony, could you elaborate on this? Are the "right areas" at lower and upper rpms with high boost where the vec program usually takes timing out?

 

[SYNFULL]

Sean,

The first thing they did was a pressure test on the fill bottle. I asked about it possibly being the cap. I was told that the cap releases at 17lbs, but doesn't shoot out like a geyser like this did. Also, the first time coolant came out it came from the overflow bottle in the facia. The second time it shot out of the bottle on the fender well. The cap just popped up and sprayed coolant all over.

The heads were resurfaced at a local machine shop before they were installed. I don't know much about the heads other than they are the standard ported heads that you sell geared for the s/c.

Gary

Hi Gary,

While I can appreciate that the shop says the head gaskets pushed out due to detonation with no signs of it on the plugs (which doesn't sound right), you really should start with a little more diagnostics before proceeding.
Has anyone done a coolant system pressure test on it to see if the system was loosing pressure anywhere other than the overflow bottle? It's just a simple pump you put in place of the radiator cap. If it's leaking, you see the pressure drop on the gauge. If it's going in the engine, it shows up in the oil or when you spin the engine over with the spark plugs out.
Regarding the cap, they do go bad. If it's not holding 17psi, they let the coolant pass. Was the coolant coming from the bottle on the fenderwell, or the one in the front fascia?
If the head gaskets are leaking, did you have the heads surfaced before installation? I assume they were used? Do you know much about their history, or if they were cut down with smaller combustion chamber volumes (yielding higher compression)?
Did you install the heads yourself? The gaskets are less than $200 for the pair.

Regards,
Sean

 

[SYNFULL]

N/A is good...just SLOW

There are a few points here.... and the question: Did the car hurt itself on the dyno ??

There were used heads, already installed Vec2 and a new s/c. Gary did all the work.
(Roe)
Points:
1. The already installed Vec2 did not have the vacuum lines changed for forced induction. So, anytime it was in boost it still had the timing and fuel curve for N/A.
2. Once the lines were corrected and the vec was reading boost, the timing was changed to stop any detonation but not in the right areas....so, that means nothing was changed to stop detonation.
The tune that I was using was supposedly a "safe" tune. Then I tried to get your and Seans help to get rid of the detonation/chirping problem. Sean was helpful at first but deferred to you since you were the reseller. You did try to help me and explain the correct way to take the timing out, but we weren't even sure if what I was hearing was detonation because it didn't sound like the common description that I have heard. The plugs were checked numerous times, and so no signs of detonation. I took 25% of the "safe tune" timing out before we did any pulls. We slowly got on it and heard the detonation and we made more adjustments and totally got rid of the detonation. That is when we did the first pull - but like you said the motor was probably already hurt. But it was not hurt from the vec vacuum line not being connected. It detonated just as much when the vacuum was set up properly.

Now, it may have died on the dyno with a good tune etc. but IMO it was killed before that. To blame forced induction is not correct. I applaud Gary for going at this himself, unfortunately it may be a learning $$ experience.

No way I would pull anything until I did a leak down (like I have been suggesting) and saw what was going on. I was worried it was hurt before even going to the dyno. Maybe it's not the gaskets....maybe (probably) it's only one ? Were the heads flat ? Block surface flat ? What is the actual compression ? How were the gaskets installed and torqued ? Lots of different avenues here Dave.

Heads were surfaced at a machine shop. Heads were torqued according to the manual.

 

[pteam]

Another thread reminding me of why staying N/A sounds good.

Sorry for your troubles, but no tech advise to offer.

Ya I agree with dave here. If I get bored for hp I think I would buy an 08 and do full belanger and have 675 horsepower, thats enough for the street, at least for now.

 

[1TONY1]

Heads were surfaced at a machine shop. Heads were torqued according to the manual.

Do you know how much material was taken off during the resurface ? That is raising your compression. If the head has to come off, get them to cc a combustion chamber.

 

[Sean Roe]

Do you know how much material was taken off during the resurface ? That is raising your compression. If the head has to come off, get them to cc a combustion chamber.

That's a great point.
Something has been very different about this since the beginning. Seeing the VEC log and seeing that the box saw no manifold pressure input was the first problem (no fuel enrichment and no timing changes while driving with the SC). If the cc's on the heads are lower, could be part two of the problem. The stock cc's are 74 (yielding 9.6:1). Make sure they're no lower than that if they come off for new gaskets. Also, go 10 ft/lbs over the stock torque on the head bolts.

Gary, sorry if you felt like I was getting shorter with you after all the emails. I was just running out of the time I could give away. Hard to pay the bills when you don't sell the parts to the person, but still provide the service.

Regards,
Sean