• Got the Contributing Memberships stuff finally worked out and made up a thread as a sort of "How-To" to help people figure out how to participate. So if you need help figuring it out, here's the thread you need to take a look at -> http://www.corvetteflorida.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3581 Thank you, everyone! Rich Z.

427 engine (part 2) - RHS block

Well, it appears that Jim Smith has been too close for too long to my car. He is now infected with whatever is eating up my car.

Aaron told me that they got in the new PCM for me car and when they loaded in the program, the car just will not start. It appeared to load fine and the engine cranks over fine, but it just won't start. They are thinking perhaps a corrupted table. Perhaps the new PCM is bad. Maybe Jim's laptop has become corrupted. Or whatever damn bad juju is causing all this to happen.... Jim has the new PCM back down in Orlando with him, so Aaron isn't expecting him to be back up in Thomasville until Wednesday or Thursday.

You know, I couldn't have purposely written a more unbelievable comic tragedy script for TV than this is turning out to be. I'm just waiting to see what the surprise ending punch line is going to be.
 
Well, no joy again this week.

I drove up to South Georgia Corvette today since I hadn't heard anything from Aaron since Monday, when he had mentioned that Jim Smith would be back in town on Wednesday or Thursday. My car was sitting outside the shop, so I figured that wasn't a good sign. It wasn't....

Apparently Jim didn't make it up from Orlando this week. Not sure why not. But Aaron says Jim got the problem with the new PCM figured out. Of course, once it's installed back in my car, they're back to seeing whether or not that 1514 error code still shows up. Or some other problem crops up. I'm certainly no foolish enough at this late date to think it's nearly finished. Anyway, Aaron says Jim will be back up maybe on Wednesday.

The engine compartment looks all straightened up, neat and tidy. Inside the car itself looks like hell, though. Pretty much a rat's nest. I looked at it thinking I will NEVER get that car clean again. Yeah, I know it will all be cleaned up by Aaron before I bring it home, but still, it looks like a garbage bin right now.

I guess I shouldn't have run out there today. All in all a pretty depressing experience....
 
Man that stinks!!

I would have thought also that with the work you had done it wouldn't blow head gasket. 6 Bolt heads are suppose to fix the head lift issue. I assume that with all the money you put into the car that they put on good head gaskets like Cometic.

The only other thing I would wonder if it was being tuned and had a boost spike.

Either way I am sorry for the issues you are having.
 
When I was out at Aaron's place on Friday, he showed me the washer that they found that had damaged the piston and wound up in the intake manifold. It was pretty beat up and folded over a couple of times. You can see the obvious marks on that piston in pics I posted earlier. I'm wondering if somehow the pressure of the piston against this washer hitting against the head might have caused the head gasket to blow out on that cylinder. :shrug01:

Aaron showed me the piston and it was obviously worn on both sides of the skirt where it had rubbed against the cylinder wall when the other side was pressing against this washer. I'm just glad nothing else was damaged. Can't figure out how the darn thing got back up into the INTAKE, but somehow it did....

Oh well, we'll see what happens this week, I suppose...
 
Reversion will push parts from one cylinder back & forth between all. With the intakes being composite, it is quite common to find sharp shrapnel imbedded in the intake runners. (just waiting to come loose when the motor is rebuilt).

While attending Racing engine school at Reher Morrison in TX they showed us super high speed film in slow-mow where the indy cars at 18,000 RPMs had the reversion fuel cloud 2-3 inches above the veolcity stacks.
 
If I remember the conversation correctly, they took apart that FAST intake in order to find that washer. So there shouldn't be any more surprises of this nature taking place. I hope...

I sure hope I get the car back before that fourth space in the garage gets overrun by "temporary" storage items. I've already cleaned it out several times when it looked like the car was going to be finished "next week", so I'm just not doing that again. The car is going to have to be parked on the apron until I can clean up that space in the garage.
 
Yes. The FAST is nice that we can dissasemble to find the debris. On the stock intakes it is always a gamble to reuse. Your getting closer....two steps forward, one step back......your almost there Rich!
 
Well, seriously, I don't know how to take this news.

I talked to Aaron today and he told me that his dyno and most of his electronics got fried by a lightning strike that took place last Wednesday. He's waiting to hear back from an insurance adjuster....

I'm not sure if my mind is just making all of this up and I'm in some kind of dream (nightmare) state. This certainly can't be really taking place.... Kind of like a Hell Matrix......
 
Rich Z said:
Well, seriously, I don't know how to take this news.

I talked to Aaron today and he told me that his dyno and most of his electronics got fried by a lightning strike that took place last Wednesday. He's waiting to hear back from an insurance adjuster....

I'm not sure if my mind is just making all of this up and I'm in some kind of dream (nightmare) state. This certainly can't be really taking place.... Kind of like a Hell Matrix......
Click to expand...

Was your car damaged in any way?

Christian
 
Rich Z said:
No. It was sitting outside at the time, I believe. I guess it's lucky there was no hail with that storm.
Click to expand...

are you sure it was Wednesday? i have some friends in Tville that had their HD/DVR, bigscreen and Blueray player hit by lightening on Monday night.....
 
Benjamin said:
are you sure it was Wednesday? i have some friends in Tville that had their HD/DVR, bigscreen and Blueray player hit by lightening on Monday night.....
Click to expand...

That's what Aaron told me..... :shrug01:

That would make sense, though. Maybe he was just confused about what day it was. I couldn't understand why he wouldn't have mentioned that when I was out there on Friday, but that would certainly explain it. Hell, I can't remember what day it is half the time myself. That's why I am keeping a log here to try to keep ME straight about the details.
 
Haven't heard anything out of Aaron. I spoke to him on Monday and he said the parts needed to fix his dyno were supposed to be shipped out that day.

This all pretty much needs to go onto the back burner now anyway. Got family medical issues to deal with now, and no telling what that is going to mean. I just can't be worried about this crap right now...
 
Talked to Aaron this past Friday. His new computer doesn't have a serial port needed to talk to the dyno electronics, so he had to order an interface card for his computer for that purpose.

It's now been 19 months since I first pulled my car into Harwood's shop.

11 of those months it was actually in Harwood's shop.

It's been 8 months since it was towed to Aaron's shop.

I would hope there isn't anything else left for Aaron to find wrong with my car. Well, I'm just hoping that someone put the freon in my A/C compressor somewhere along the line. Would running it without the freon ruin it? The way my luck is running, I guess the answer is obvious....
 
The compressor wont engage without the pressure contorl switch detecting enough freon so no worries. And it is the oil in the AC system that lubricates...the freon just transfers heat.
 
RevXtreme 1 said:
The compressor wont engage without the pressure contorl switch detecting enough freon so no worries. And it is the oil in the AC system that lubricates...the freon just transfers heat.
Click to expand...

So is that oil normally drained when the compressor is pulled? Obviously I'm trying to think of what else could possibly go wrong.....
 
No it isnt. The system when it is cracked should be sealed with plugs and most all compressors now days come with the correct amount of oil in them and are sealed. The compressor when it was removed should have had plastic plugs inserted (only 2 ports side by side) to keep dirt & bugs out....so unless it was dumped out it should be fine. If reassembled properly vacuum is pulled for 20-30 minutes and that boils out any of the moisture but does not pull the oil out. :thumbsup:
 
RevXtreme 1 said:
No it isnt. The system when it is cracked should be sealed with plugs and most all compressors now days come with the correct amount of oil in them and are sealed. The compressor when it was removed should have had plastic plugs inserted (only 2 ports side by side) to keep dirt & bugs out....so unless it was dumped out it should be fine. If reassembled properly vacuum is pulled for 20-30 minutes and that boils out any of the moisture but does not pull the oil out. :thumbsup:
Click to expand...

Well that does make me feel better. I wasn't looking forward to spending money on a new compressor and condensor right at the moment.

Jim Smith is supposed to be at Aaron's this week, so hopefully I can get this wrapped up. I just got the latest insurance bill for this car, and I'm getting right tired of paying insurance and tag renewal on a car I am not even able to drive.
 
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