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CHRA Re-assembled with new oil seal
Oil restrictor, to prevent future issues
Trans-controller is working on the bench top. The big gold colored part is a 12 ohm resistor, same as the solenoids in the car. Bench testing shows an issue, when using an IR camera, the transistors are about 80C using a 10V supply - they will be even hotter in the car. I'm going to replace them with MOSFETs which should run a lot cooler. Next step will be permanently soldering this to a circuit board.
The timing cut on shifting works great, and lets the transmission fully engage the gear before applying the power.
Unfortunately... Second gear is destroyed. The trans-go shift kit slamming gears with slicks at the track seems to have wrecked it, probably the 2nd gear sprag which is known to fail.
Re-programming the transmission ECU to skip 2nd gear works great, but the revs in 3rd are too low to build boost making the car sluggish. The trans will need rebuilding.
The a340 was a hit and miss for me, had one last for years while boosted. Decided to take it out install a trans go shift kit, upgraded clutch packs, torque converter and the trans lasted a few months.
Took it back to the trans builder he rebuilt it and gone agian in a few months.
Went and bought a used one left it alone other than the upgraded torque converter, transmission died a few months later.
By the time i was on my 3rd or 4th used a340 transmission I decided to go manual
The a340 was a hit and miss for me, had one last for years while boosted. Decided to take it out install a trans go shift kit, upgraded clutch packs, torque converter and the trans lasted a few months.
Took it back to the trans builder he rebuilt it and gone agian in a few months.
Went and bought a used one left it alone other than the upgraded torque converter, transmission died a few months later.
By the time i was on my 3rd or 4th used a340 transmission I decided to go manual
Thanks for chiming in, I'm torn between a level 10 rebuild and a TH400 rated for 900hp. Sounds like the A340 is not the right path... I'm planning to stay Auto for drag racing.
More bad luck, while prepping the engine I found cylinder 4 was full of rust. Cleaning it out left pitting, mostly from where the oil control ring was. The compression was good on the cylinder, but I'm not comfortable building and swapping an engine with damage like this. The new plain is to install the cams and valve springs in my '95 engine with the weak connecting rods. With 112 race gas, hopefully HP will be around 600 crank, and wont make the rods want to leave the block..
I've pre paid for a 1/2 mile event July 3rd. With second gear gone, I tried re-programming my controller for a 1-3-4 pattern - the car falls on its face. Boost only builds at 4k RPM, and 1-3 drops the revs too low. Opened the trans to find the 2nd gear sprag destroyed. Chunks from the sprag lodged in some of the 2nd gear clutches, scoring them badly. I've replaced the sprag and shaft from my spare trans, and swapped the bad 2nd gear clutch and steel for an old worn one. I also swapped my spare stock valve body in, while keeping the shimmed/sprung accumulators in. The shifts are perfect now, they don't slam gears, but are firm and distinct unlike before. Some of the other clutches and steels have burning and minor scoring, second gear holds with my controller - but shifting in at full power with the stock ECU leads to slippage. I'm a perfectionist, less than stellar work like this (installing burnt clutches and re-furb steels) haunts me at night. New parts would not have arrived in time for the competition. Worst case scenario is a slipping 2nd gear, so I do not feel un-safe, its just dis-heartening to know how much time is involved in another rebuild.
The AC has never worked in the car. I topped it up with a few Oz of R134 and used a leak detector to trace the leak to the receiver. A new one is on order, AC would be awesome at this time of year... With the Rad Fans off, the condenser gets very hot. I haven't figured how to take the 1UZ ECU AC signal into the MS3 ECU. If I'm able to fix the leak, I think I'll set one of the 2 rad fans to be on above 25C MAT temp. If its over 25C, I think the AC will be on, it seems like a good work around
Old receiver dryer. Screw was cross-threaded and not tightened fully causing the leak, you can see dust and dirt made their way to where the o-ring should have been seated. AC works great now.
Doing shake-down runs before the competition showed there was a big leak in the head gasket. In 50-100 miles the car burned through 1.5 gallons of coolant. I decided not to compete, to avoid any more damage.
I'm tired of the failures the engine and transmission in the car have had, I'll be doing a full and proper rebuild of my spare engine, with forged internals, and a race prepped 700r4 transmission. While building the new engine I'm planning to fix the exhaust leak from turbo-down pipe due to a small misalignment.
Tear down started:
Custom low-cost gear puller
Bearing wear is good, except for #5 which is almost worn-through to the backing
ready for the machine shop
700r4 adapter plate design started. It will be 3/8" grade 50 steel, the transmission will have an SFI bell housing for safety.
The crankshaft shop did an amazing job. With out asking, they balanced each piston and rod to within 1g of each other. This engine will be blueprinted to the best of my abilities. Shiny! Piston pin locks are a huge PITA to install. It took 2h to get the first one in, then 30 mins for the rest after I had the process down First few in Clearances all checked with plasi gauge It turns over nicely, nothing binds up or feels rough
05-01-18, 11:20 AM
