Rebuild?..again?..help!!!

[treesnake]

My 01 Roe S/C car, with BRAND NEW Arrow Racing engine, is at American Race Technology under the care of David Weaver. (One of the most knowledgeable guys I have ever met in regards to what makes our cars run...or not run...)

Anyway, DW was tuning my car and was reporting that everything seemed OK on new base tune and was going to start to turn it up. DW told me that he was going to start injecting methanol and activate the 1st stage Nos. Wasn't sure about second stage. Said he was a little "skeerd'"..
Later that after noon I talked to David and he didn't sound good. He said that we were losing power when using 9% methanol???
He said he wasn't comfortable using more alcohol...
Also, wasn't going to turn on ANY Nos...

Naturally, I asked him what was wrong. He sent me the dyno sheet below
(This is a pull with only 9% methanol)
Obviously there is a problem...

The worst part is that DW confirmed an odd problem I was having the entire time I put the 500 break in miles on car.
He said he had to empty the valve cover catch cans after about 12 pulls...
I asked how often this happened. he said more than once...

I then told him that I had to empty the catch cans myself several times on breakin. To make it worse, I have a catch can on each valve cover and they both are full each time.......

David said that if he put more on the engine there would be big problems...

I know what this sounds like. But how could this be?
I had my engine spec'd, designed and built at ARROW RACING. I had them use the best parts available. Striker heads, all forged, billett mains, custom billett cam, custom pistons with lowered ring lands to handle boost..etc. I even went one step further and paid ARROW RACING $690.00 to breakin and seat the rings on the dyno so that there wouldn't be any problems with the engine. I also had an oil anaysis done and cut open the filter after the breakin. All this was done at ARROW before the engine left...Just to be sure.
I was told everything was ... "GOOD to go"

With all that being said, and the precautions taken, what does this sound like to you?

Thanks for your opinions......

 

[1TONY1]

Have you done a leak down test yet ? When doing that, also check to see where the air is going if anywhere. Also, what do the plugs look like...all the same or ??

 

[treesnake]

Have you done a leak down test yet ? When doing that, also check to see where the air is going if anywhere. Also, what do the plugs look like...all the same or ??

Yes. ART did a leakdown and changed plugs more than once.

If you know David Weaver, I know you do Tony, you know that he is a good guy. I think he is trying to be somewhat kind by not telling me the obvious....

The fact that he will not use more alcohol, will not use nos (even though engine was spec'd for it)
And...
He is getting me pricing to rebuild is enough for me...

This is a brand new engine that I paid extra to have "broken in"...

 

[Red Snake]

This *****. I am bummed out. I know how much time, $$$ and pain you've put into this car Mike.



Hopefully ART can help you get it right.

 

[ViperGeorge]

I had Arrow build me a motor for my 06 which I've put a Paxton on. It has all the good stuff as well. I'm still in break in period (about 650 miles so far) but my engine is not using any oil so far. I also have the Valve cover catch can which has been dry so far but then again I have not beaten on the car yet. That happens tomorrow on the track after I put another 350 miles on it. Please post what you find out.

 

[mbccenter]

Do the leak down and see. Maybe they have the ring gaps wrong or something simple like that? I also broke my engine in on the dyno doing the first tune hard and I never had a Viper engine use as little oil as this one.

 

[treesnake]

Do the leak down and see. Maybe they have the ring gaps wrong or something simple like that? I also broke my engine in on the dyno doing the first tune hard and I never had a Viper engine use as little oil as this one.

Arrow did the breakin before delivery to me. It wasn't turned up until i had about 600 iles on it. The car never went over 4000 RPMs before it was delivered to A.R.T.

I am going to have ART rebuild it before something is damaged. I'm hoping it is just wrong rings or bad hone. I'm not sure how many leak down test have been done so far. I know of atleast one. The dyno "falling off" and filling two catch cans in a dozen pulls makes it pretty obvious

But I will obviously need to have engine pulled and tore apart...

AGAIN...

 

[paulsgts]

What brand and weight oil are you using?

 

[treesnake]

What brand and weight oil are you using?

As directed, for break in, non-synthetic straight 30W
it was several months ago but I believe it was Rotella

 

[mjorgensen Woodhouse]

Have you tried to ask Arrow what they think? I'm sure they would like to know what is going on before you have this rebuilt again.

 

[treesnake]

Have you tried to ask Arrow what they think? I'm sure they would like to know what is going on before you have this rebuilt again.

Mark
I can't even get my build sheet....
It took an "act of god" just to get generic receipts for my parts...
I know several other people that have had the same problem.
This has been such a headache that i dont want to prolong the obvious.


Besides, David Weaver's advice is good for me.




"I'm sure they would like to know what is going on before you have this rebuilt again.[/quote]"

See if this scenario sounds accurate....

ART pulls the engine. I pay to have it shipped xcountry to Arrow. Arrow tears it down and says it is not their fault. they then tell me it will be $XX to rebuild or will cost me $XX to send all the parts back in a box....

Been there, done that...
Tell me that isn't true...

 

[mbccenter]

Sorry to here about your problems and hope you get it done soon. I think you have it in good hands and should be done before you know it.

 

[mjorgensen Woodhouse]

I deal with Arrow all the time so if there is ANYTHING I can do to help please feel free to ask even if I have had nothing to do with it. I just like trying to keep the peace here as I did with Michael Nori in the past.

Good luck with the rebuild I'm sure you are in good hands.

Mark
I can't even get my build sheet....
It took an "act of god" just to get generic receipts for my parts...
I know several other people that have had the same problem.
This has been such a headache that i dont want to prolong the obvious.


Besides, David Weaver's advice is good for me.




"I'm sure they would like to know what is going on before you have this rebuilt again.

"

See if this scenario sounds accurate....

ART pulls the engine. I pay to have it shipped xcountry to Arrow. Arrow tears it down and says it is not their fault. they then tell me it will be $XX to rebuild or will cost me $XX to send all the parts back in a box....

Been there, done that...
Tell me that isn't true...[/quote]

 

[whitebluevipe]

wouldn't you want to diagnose and pinpoint the problem before you try and fix what you don't know is wrong. you paid arrow racing for their expertise and now you want to ignore their expertise and trust this guy. you want to spend thousands of dollars more without cornering this guy to tell you exactly whats wrong. "If you know David Weaver, I know you do Tony, you know that he is a good guy. I think he is trying to be somewhat kind by not telling me the obvious...." if this guy is an expert he would say this is whats wrong and this is what you need to do to fix it. your are in a vulnerable situation. you want an awsome motor and car and your are allowing your vulnerability to make excuses for people that don't have an answer. "I think he is trying to be somewhat kind by not telling me the obvious...." whats obvious to me is he stands to make a good chunk of money on a rebuild. wouldn't there be any warranty from arrow? is so if there is a problem wouldn't they stand behind it? you ask him what is wrong and he sends you a dyno sheet. that tells you the result of what is wrong not what the problem is. i have flashbacks reading posts like this because i went through this myself when i had a street rod engine built. so i am trying to help you from the outside looking in. good luck. just step back and look at it from a practical pragmatic standpoint and not the standpoint of a kid in a candy store wanting all this super horsepower.

 

[vpower01]

Wow that really *****, i hope its just rings and it wont be too
much to get straightened out.
It's not my car but i feel your pain brother.
Good luck.

 

[Martin]

Did they scope the insides of the cylinders to see if something really stupid happened? This sounds like a real rookie mistake that I saw once before where the rings weren't gapped right, they expanded, scored the sides of the pistons, and caused a ton of blow-by. I know Arrow is probably too experienced to screw something like that up, but it wouldn't hurt to take a looksie.

If it were me, I'd really push the issue with Arrow. I'd tell them (and document everything very clearly and very well) that you want to get to the bottom of it, and you're afraid that if you send the engine back to them, they'll tear it down and have you in a compromised position as far as what to do if they claim it isn't their fault. Get them to agree to pay for the fixes if you have it done at your local provider if the local provider finds that it was a faulty build, or give them the option of tearing it down, inspecting it, and if they claim that it isn't their fault, send it back to you on their dime.

Either way, scoping the cylinders and seeing if something is obviously amiss is the first step. You may just see something really obvious and it will be a no-brainer.

Good luck! These kinds of things are a pain because this process is supposed to be fun - not add stress to your life...

 

[treesnake]

wouldn't you want to diagnose and pinpoint the problem before you try and fix what you don't know is wrong. you paid arrow racing for their expertise and now you want to ignore their expertise and trust this guy. you want to spend thousands of dollars more without cornering this guy to tell you exactly whats wrong. "If you know David Weaver, I know you do Tony, you know that he is a good guy. I think he is trying to be somewhat kind by not telling me the obvious...." if this guy is an expert he would say this is whats wrong and this is what you need to do to fix it. your are in a vulnerable situation. you want an awsome motor and car and your are allowing your vulnerability to make excuses for people that don't have an answer. "I think he is trying to be somewhat kind by not telling me the obvious...." whats obvious to me is he stands to make a good chunk of money on a rebuild. wouldn't there be any warranty from arrow? is so if there is a problem wouldn't they stand behind it? you ask him what is wrong and he sends you a dyno sheet. that tells you the result of what is wrong not what the problem is. i have flashbacks reading posts like this because i went through this myself when i had a street rod engine built. so i am trying to help you from the outside looking in. good luck. just step back and look at it from a practical pragmatic standpoint and not the standpoint of a kid in a candy store wanting all this super horsepower.

I'm sorry. Not sure where to begin with answering this.
-look at dyno graph. Falling off at 4000rpms
-Catch cans (2) have been filled and emptied repeatedly (This to me is one of the biggest signs of a ring problem.
-I could go on but I have already posted other signs above.

As far as "this guy" you referred to is David Weaver. Maybe you don't know who he is... He is one of the most respected people in the Viper community.
He told me I could take the car. Hell, 740 rwhp will do... BUT there are definite signs of future problems. I made all decisions. He just supplied a wealth of info for me to do so.
I apologize, I may not have been clear. DW and I have had very specific discussions about what is wrong. What I was trying to convey is that DW is trying to help me by letting me see everything and making my own unbiased opinions first. We then discuss in detail his thoughts and solutions.

Best of all, David calls me regularly and is very easy to get a hold of whenever I want to discuss something with him....

"acting like a kid in a candy store"..... If you only knew..

 

[eucharistos]

treesnake, that stinks,

you're in good hands, but i'd give arrow at least a call, might be (much) cheaper to fly 1 of their guys to art for a day to inspect together than to ship engine across country twice, if their fault, they can reimburse you + repair

and if you think you want to pursue it, have art document everything with pics

i feel for you and the testing your patience is about to go thru

hope it all works out soon

peace

 

[TAXIMAN1]

"I'm sure they would like to know what is going on before you have this rebuilt again.[/quote]"

See if this scenario sounds accurate....

ART pulls the engine. I pay to have it shipped xcountry to Arrow. Arrow tears it down and says it is not their fault. they then tell me it will be $XX to rebuild or will cost me $XX to send all the parts back in a box....

Been there, done that...
Tell me that isn't true...[/quote]


Smart man.. It is true, and only someone who has been there and done that, would understand. Once that supercharger was bolted on, and the car was put on the dyno. All bets were off. Should it be this way? no, but it is..

I spent a fortune doing a concours engine build (to stock specs) on an all original 67/435 Horse vette Roadster, Top Flight car. The car spun a bearing within 200 miles (which is a lot of driving for this caliber of a car, believe it or not). And of course, after hundreds and hundreds (maybe thousands) in attorneys fees, and nearly a year of having the car off the raod, going back and forth with phone calls,etc,etc. I ended up paying for a second rebuild anyway...

Sorry to hear about your troubles. But it certainly sounds like you have the right man on the job. And its a good thing you foundthis problem now..

 

[treesnake]

Did they scope the insides of the cylinders to see if something really stupid happened? This sounds like a real rookie mistake that I saw once before where the rings weren't gapped right, they expanded, scored the sides of the pistons, and caused a ton of blow-by. I know Arrow is probably too experienced to screw something like that up, but it wouldn't hurt to take a looksie.

If it were me, I'd really push the issue with Arrow. I'd tell them (and document everything very clearly and very well) that you want to get to the bottom of it, and you're afraid that if you send the engine back to them, they'll tear it down and have you in a compromised position as far as what to do if they claim it isn't their fault. Get them to agree to pay for the fixes if you have it done at your local provider if the local provider finds that it was a faulty build, or give them the option of tearing it down, inspecting it, and if they claim that it isn't their fault, send it back to you on their dime.

Either way, scoping the cylinders and seeing if something is obviously amiss is the first step. You may just see something really obvious and it will be a no-brainer.

Good luck! These kinds of things are a pain because this process is supposed to be fun - not add stress to your life...

I'm hoping that the wrong rings are my problem too. Scoping would work but the dyno graph and the massive blow-by are enough to know there is a problem.

Unfortunately, I have some documented examples of similar situations. None of them turned out good for the customer. Mark, You know of one of them....

 

[whitebluevipe]

I apologize, I may not have been clear. DW and I have had very specific discussions about what is wrong. What I was trying to convey is that DW is trying to help me by letting me see everything and making my own unbiased opinions first. We then discuss in detail his thoughts and solutions.

Best of all, David calls me regularly and is very easy to get a hold of whenever I want to discuss something with him....

"acting like a kid in a candy store"..... If you only knew..[/quote]

the way i took it was he was being allusive to what the fix is. sorry for the confusion. hope he gets everything worked out for you. so are you pi$$ed at arrow? or do they have much of a response?

 

[Martin]

I'm hoping that the wrong rings are my problem too. Scoping would work but the dyno graph and the massive blow-by are enough to know there is a problem.

Unfortunately, I have some documented examples of similar situations. None of them turned out good for the customer. Mark, You know of one of them....

It's true that the dyno graph and the blow-by show that there is definitely a problem. Having concrete evidence (a DVD showing the scope video results with commentary) provides you with something to put your finger on regarding what the problem really is. As you know, if rings aren't gapped correctly, really bad things can happen. That's something in Building Engines 101 and, if that's what happened, I don't think Arrow would want to fight it. It's an embarrassing mistake that they'll want to make go away quickly and cleanly.

Until you can present them with compelling evidence of what happened, they're going to take the stance that it was out of their control and no fault of their own. They could be thinking "maybe he accidentally ran 87 octane in it and the ring lands grenaded" or whatever. Scoping is cheap and easy, so it definitely can't hurt.

 

[treesnake]

It's true that the dyno graph and the blow-by show that there is definitely a problem. Having concrete evidence (a DVD showing the scope video results with commentary) provides you with something to put your finger on regarding what the problem really is. As you know, if rings aren't gapped correctly, really bad things can happen. That's something in Building Engines 101 and, if that's what happened, I don't think Arrow would want to fight it. It's an embarrassing mistake that they'll want to make go away quickly and cleanly.

Until you can present them with compelling evidence of what happened, they're going to take the stance that it was out of their control and no fault of their own. They could be thinking "maybe he accidentally ran 87 octane in it and the ring lands grenaded" or whatever. Scoping is cheap and easy, so it definitely can't hurt.

Thanks for the suggestions. At this point, I am comfortable following the advice and suggestions of David Weaver.
That is why my TT Street Serpent is also at ART now being finished.....

 

[mjorgensen Woodhouse]

"Unfortunately, I have some documented examples of similar situations. None of them turned out good for the customer. Mark, You know of one of them...."

Yes I do, but there are other pieces that caused that problem, and at the end of the day I'm the one that looked bad which does not make me happy either.

 

[treesnake]

"Unfortunately, I have some documented examples of similar situations. None of them turned out good for the customer. Mark, You know of one of them...."

Yes I do, but there are other pieces that caused that problem, and at the end of the day I'm the one that looked bad which does not make me happy either.

Sorry to hear that...

 

[TexasPettey]

**** to hear that. It can happen to the best of builders.

I had a friend with a Vette crate motor from Lingenfelter. After getting the crate motor, putting it on, and getting huge crankcase pressure at 4K RPMs, he started diagnosis mode. After it was all said and done, it pointed back to an older style rings that would 'flutter' at a specific RPM range. This would cause openings that blowby would happen, shooting up the crankcase pressure and dropping power. After going through everything, and documenting exactly where things were happening, Lingenfelter rebuilt the engine from scratch on their site. Good ending, but it required a lot of diagnosis work to get to that point.

If you can, I'd suggest collecting the symptoms as much as possible. Check out the crankcase pressure over the RPM range and boost range. What does the leakdown test show? If you are not able to do it yourself, and you have to pay ART for the diagnosis work, you may be better off just to have them tear into it.

 

[martyb]

Sorry to hear of all of your trouble with the car Mike, I know its been a long, frustrating road for you. I had heard the guys at Arrow were pretty stand up, have they offered to help at all?

 

[treesnake]

**** to hear that. It can happen to the best of builders.

I had a friend with a Vette crate motor from Lingenfelter. After getting the crate motor, putting it on, and getting huge crankcase pressure at 4K RPMs, he started diagnosis mode. After it was all said and done, it pointed back to an older style rings that would 'flutter' at a specific RPM range. This would cause openings that blowby would happen, shooting up the crankcase pressure and dropping power. After going through everything, and documenting exactly where things were happening, Lingenfelter rebuilt the engine from scratch on their site. Good ending, but it required a lot of diagnosis work to get to that point.

If you can, I'd suggest collecting the symptoms as much as possible. Check out the crankcase pressure over the RPM range and boost range. What does the leakdown test show? If you are not able to do it yourself, and you have to pay ART for the diagnosis work, you may be better off just to have them tear into it.

The cars are in Austin, Texas. I am in St. Louis, Missouri.....
Besides that, I woul prefer to have a professional for this type of thing anyway.

Sorry to hear of all of your trouble with the car Mike, I know its been a long, frustrating road for you. I had heard the guys at Arrow were pretty stand up, have they offered to help at all?

Thanks Marty...

Right now I am trying to get opinions of what other Viper owners might think about this. The engine is still running and in the car at ART. DW was going to look into a few things first.

Unfortunately, my build sheet is somewhere with your old Gen 1 cam specs..

Regarding Arrow, I would have liked a build sheet at least...

 

[martyb]

Your build sheet and my cam specs are lost forever Mike. I sure hope its something simple and the fix is quick and cheap.

 

[JohnnyBravo]

That *****, Mike. I know you've been through a lot trying to get all of your cars right, including time, money and aggravation.

One of the reasons I went with the tuner that I went with to do my work was because the motor build, the blower install, the fuel system install AND all of the tuning was done in the same place at the same time. That way, if anything goes wrong, the motor builder can't blame the tuner, who blames the installer who blames the motor builder. They're all one in the same. It ensures a certain amount of quality control.

Hopefully, DW can get everything sorted out or assist you in getting some resolution from Arrow.

Good luck.