My engine build at Richard Clarks Turbo Regal Farm...picture heavy

[Pronto]

It is just a manual boost controller with a knob made out of billet aluminum....giant POS

Bryan

Yikes! Something so simple but did you in.
BTW, are those Cometics that are being sprayed? Did you take them apart to spray between layers?

 

[Phoneguy]

Thanks for the info. I was going to use one on the next build b/c it looks a little nicer than the rjc one. RJC one def works just fine though. Were you running long lines to it or anything?

It was mounted to the radiator support. I also used it because it looked good
Bryan

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[Phoneguy]

Yikes! Something so simple but did you in.
BTW, are those Cometics that are being sprayed? Did you take them apart to spray between layers?

Yes , Cometics with riveting removed and sprayed on both sides

Bryan

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[rmar]

Thanks for all the well wishes guys. If Ronnie did his job and sacrificed the chicken, all of the problems with my should be over !!!!!


Bryan

Voodoo high priestess contacted, check. Chicken sacrificed, check. Emu on standby for extra juju, check.
Still in search of a virgin, sorry B, just way to rare around these parts. I'd say since its been Mr. Clarked you can now sleep well.

I will maintain my search for a virgin...........you know, just in case

 

[Phoneguy]

Voodoo high priestess contacted, check. Chicken sacrificed, check. Emu on standby for extra juju, check.
Still in search of a virgin, sorry B, just way to rare around these parts. I'd say since its been Mr. Clarked you can now sleep well.

I will maintain my search for a virgin...........you know, just in case

Thanks Ronnie ,I knew I could count on you. Let me know how your search works out...Lmfao

Bryan

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[Phoneguy]

Glad to hear you got home safe and sound!!!!!

Wish I could have been there to help you guys!!!!

Richard and Patrick are absoultely AMAZING!!!!!

They have kept more GN's on the road then GM!!!!!

Hope to see you at Bowling Green.....a little birdie told me you want SOME!!!!

COME AN GET IT!!!!!

Thanks man
JD, you are always welcome to come help...
I will be at BG, car will be there for test N tune. Not ready for prime time yet. Hopefully I can get the axles and driveshaft upgraded before then and a decent boost controller...birdie was correct, yeah I want want some !!!!!!!

Bryan

 

[jdsgnx]

ANYTIME!!!!!brotherANYTIME

 

[Ed Valvo]

I was sick to my stomach when you hurt it a couple years ago due to that bum boost controller. Reading this thread just now made my day!

 

[Steve V]

Congrats Phoneguy, it was great to meet you and spend the day as we both worked on projects. Great crew and peeps down there. We just got back from our 2nd trip in 3 weeks. Learned a ton and blown away.......................

 

[Phoneguy]

ANYTIME!!!!!brotherANYTIME

Your time will come grasshopper.........

Bryan

 

[Phoneguy]

I was sick to my stomach when you hurt it a couple years ago due to that bum boost controller. Reading this thread just now made my day!

I hear you, I was sick when I pulled the intake.......

Glad to make your day !!!!!!!

Bryan

 

[Phoneguy]

Congrats Phoneguy, it was great to meet you and spend the day as we both worked on projects. Great crew and peeps down there. We just got back from our 2nd trip in 3 weeks. Learned a ton and blown away.......................

Great meeting you as well ! RC's place blows my mind every time I am there.
I learned quite a bit...never got to build my own engine before.

Bryan

 

[we4Mateo]

Great meeting you as well ! RC's place blows my mind every time I am there.
I learned quite a bit...never got to build my own engine before.

Bryan

I in no way had your experience, but I've had my block down to bare sans freeze plugs and helped put it back together every step of the way, and it really is a cool experience. Lots of details but still pretty simple. Makes me want to take on more projects.

 

[SloGN]

I have had mine down the last bolts several times since 99................on my 3rd block...................but the last block is still good just has .040 holes in it ...didn't want to build that one for max power...........

 

[Phoneguy]

I have had mine down the last bolts several times since 99................on my 3rd block...................but the last block is still good just has .040 holes in it ...didn't want to build that one for max power...........

I have seen the secret block...JD is in for an ass whoopin........LOL

Bryan

 

[jdsgnx]

Your time will come grasshopper.........

Bryan

 

[jdsgnx]

I have seen the secret block...JD is in for an ass whoopin........LOL

Bryan

You think SO!!!!

 

[SloGN]

You think SO!!!!

I know so...............It's gonna be epic....................

 

[stage-1 torque]

I have had my share of bad luck with my car to say the least. I wont go into details as it would just lengthen the thread.
Richard offered his services to me after the last issue at the Nationals in May of last year as long as I was there for the entire build. I left my car and trailer at his shop when I left.

In December Patrick (SloGN) let me know that the motor and trans were out of the car and the motor was torn apart, I can not thank him enough for the work he did to my car on his own without me being there !!. I called him and Richard to get a date setup as I needed to get vacation approved ahead of time. I planned the 850 mile haul on Jan 2nd but mother nature didn't agree and left 6" of snow here in the St Louis area. I left out on the 3rd. Patrick was generous enough to let me stay at his place for the duration of the build, very cool of him and very much appreciated. I am fortunate to be able to call him and Richard both friends.
Patrick said that the #4 rod bearing had spun and that all of the rest of the rod bearings were beat to hell. #4 rod had some damage but the rest were ok. Richard tried to polish the crank on the #4 rod journal but it was out of round luckily...yes I said luckily. The heads had been repaired from my previous meltdown, The heads were CC'd by Mike a local machinist and pretty cool/funny guy, and measured for how much had been milled from them...it was a lot, .044 !!! Patrick dropped the crank at the machine shop a couple of days before I left for NC. The shop found that the crank was bent about .007 if I recall which is what caused the bearings to get beat to hell in under 50 miles...that's the luckily that I mentioned earlier. The shop was able to turn the crank to get it straight, had Richard been able to polish the rod journal we would not have known the crank was bent and I would have had yet another motor failure in short order. If you have been to Richards place before you know how meticulous he his ( severely understated...) and how he takes measurements to the extreme, sparing no expense on his equipment and tools. If you have not been there before you need to put this on your calendar for 2015 as there will be no 2014 open house...sad to say as I have been to all of the TurboBuick.com events there.
The first day at the shop I was nothing more than a clean up boy...I got to remove GINORMOUS amounts of silicon from the oil pan, girdle, front cover, intake, heads and block. The oil pan and girdle require the use of a serious wire wheel setup that Richard made that has 12' wheels on it. I had to use this outside and the weather was not the typical NC nice at all. After the the basic clean up the block was put in for a hot bath, rinsed and oiled. My girdle was not exactly flat...it was out by .003...Richard fixed that !!! LOL. Now comes the measurements using a $3000.00 bore gauge that measures to the ten-thousandths....and honing of the mains. I think I assembled and torqued the girdle, caps, shims at least 5 times to measure during the honing process...did I mention that Richard is anal with measurements??? Patrick picked up my crank and delivered to the shop( while he was working his regular job). Next was the resizing of the rods, yes he has a machine for that too. Resizing and honing complete onsite. On to the weighing of the pistons, pins, rods. the scale reads to a tenth of a gram. The rod weighing fixture weighs each end of the rod so that both ends can be balanced, not just overall weight. After all weighing is done and written down, I get to start the balancing my self. All pistons and rods are within a half of a tenth of a gram now. Richard now writes down all of the bore sizes of the rods, opens 6 sets of rod bearings and measures with digital micrometer to the ten-thousandth of an inch to find the bearings that give the most even clearances. All rod bearings now have a .0018-.0022 oil clearance. Reassemble pistons to rods. Thread chased the block and gave her another bath, rinse and oil spritzer...
I had to take a day to drive to GBodyParts to have Lonnie take a look at my tranny and replace some weak springs. Bought some stuff and headed back.....lost the entire day of building as the drive is 5 hours round trip plus repair time on the tranny and dyno testing the tranny, plus BS time while there.
Time for balancing the crank...yes onsite as well...you really didn't expect any less did you?? Drill press is directly behind the balancer, no need to remove the crank for drilling. done in short order. Gave the crank a hot bath, rinse and oil spray down. Time for head gaskets...separated the Cometics, hung in the spray booth ( again...did you expect any less ?) and gave them a copper coat, let cure and another light coat, left to dry overnight. Time to get busy and start the build process. Cam bearings installed, crank installed, girdle installed, cam installed, cam end play adjusted, pistons and rods installed, head studs coated and installed, heads installed, lifters, push rods, rockers installed and adjusted, intake installed, timing chain and gears installed, front cover done, BHJ balancer and SFI flexplate installed....time to fire it up on the engine stand...yup....( it's a BEAST!!!). Richard has chips burned for many different injectors for a stock ECM as well as a harness, fuel pump, MAF, headers with an upward mounted muffler, a radiator and fan setup, oil pressure gauge, etc, just for test running engines before dropping into a car. Pretty cool !! Engine runs great, had a couple of very minor water leaks that were quickly remedied with GM tabs. After the engine cooled down we mated the tranny to the engine and dropped in as a unit. This was done at about 9:30 pm Saturday night and was fired up at about 1:30 am Sunday and we left the shop around 2:15 am. The drive to Patrick's house is 45 minutes so we get to bed at 3:15 and and back up at 8 to head back as we were goint to drive the car and do some tuning before I left. Eric S called early Sunday morning after we arrived with car problems and needed to be towed off of the raod. Patrick and Richard fired up the rollback truck to rescue him. We took a short ride in the car to make sure all was OK and I let them go rescue Eric.I needed to hook up my trailer load the car and drive back home so I could be at work Monday so tuning didn't get done but we will address that over the phone and email.

I have no words to express my appreciation and gratitude to Richard, Patrick and Mike. Many thanks to you !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hearing my car running again was as majestic as a bald eagle getting a ....well I cant finish that here...LOL.

Actually , come to think about it Clint came by and got his hands dirty too !!! That is a rarity. Thanks man !

Sorry there wasn't time to just hang out with people, this was a pretty brutal build schedule that was done in about 6 days with some very late nights at the shop.

A few people came by the shop to BS , Tommy ( Megawatt), Eric ( Esinger), Jim ( dont know screen name).
I also met Megs Dad and Steve V and a couple of others, sorry bad with names.

I have pictures that I need to transfer from my phone to my laptop, I will load some tomorrow.

Bryan

NICE!!!!!!

 

[Steve V]

Great people down there wish I could make there more often, I learn volumns from those guys. They are very helpful.