'89 Stepside "Way Cool Jr."

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Erik the Awful

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I'm working on tearing my Cadillac apart to scrap the body, and I took a few moments to work on the truck. The hood latch was dorked, but I put a washer between the hood cable end and the latch, and that's fixed it. I guess the cable's stretched and I need to buy a new one.

As soon as I got the hood open I began chasing vacuum lines and found the vacuum line to the vacuum canister had pulled off. I re-clocked the vacuum canister in its bracket and cut the plastic tubing shorter so the hose doesn't make a U. I also noticed the bracket on the alternator that holds the radiator hose up was rubbing on the hose and had chafed into it. I tweaked that. I guess I need to order a new hose as well. I didn't drive it to see if it cleared up the idle yet.

I'd been fighting rusted hardware on the Cadillac all day, so I wasn't energetic enough to drop the Holley distributor in yet. I did look at the coil, and it has a massive heat sink/mount with "Holley Sniper EFI Hyperspark" painted all over it. I'd like to pop it free of the mount and use the stock mount to stand it inocculously at the back of the manifold, but I'm not a fan of losing the heat sink.

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Erik the Awful

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...and today I realized I was missing the instructions for the coil. I look the instructions up on Holley's site, and it's really the instructions for the ignition box. I didn't think I needed the ignition box, but now I'm discovering I do. That's another $220, so my $320 ignition upgrade is now a $550 ignition upgrade.

"Hey, instead of selling a full kit for $400, let's break it up into three separate components. We won't tell anyone they won't work separately, and then we'll hook 'em for $280, then $45 more, and then another $225!"

I should have known. These are the people who were known for selling $300 carburetors that needed another $300 in "upgrades" to function properly. It's funny how after IBM lost their lawsuit against "IBM compatible" component makers, suddenly everybody and his brother started making Holley-compatible carburetors and Holley had to start selling carburetors that came from the factory with most of the upgrades to stay competitive.

Also, why do I need a coil that's twice the size of the current coil and an ignition box that's the size of a fist to replace the stock ignition module that mounts in the distributor? Is that to "justify" the larger price? Pertronix made their money shrinking the electronics. You'd think Holley would get a clue. So far my Holley experience has been less that satisfactory.
 

wyn97

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...and today I realized I was missing the instructions for the coil. I look the instructions up on Holley's site, and it's really the instructions for the ignition box. I didn't think I needed the ignition box, but now I'm discovering I do. That's another $220, so my $320 ignition upgrade is now a $550 ignition upgrade.

"Hey, instead of selling a full kit for $400, let's break it up into three separate components. We won't tell anyone they won't work separately, and then we'll hook 'em for $280, then $45 more, and then another $225!"

I should have known. These are the people who were known for selling $300 carburetors that needed another $300 in "upgrades" to function properly. It's funny how after IBM lost their lawsuit against "IBM compatible" component makers, suddenly everybody and his brother started making Holley-compatible carburetors and Holley had to start selling carburetors that came from the factory with most of the upgrades to stay competitive.

Also, why do I need a coil that's twice the size of the current coil and an ignition box that's the size of a fist to replace the stock ignition module that mounts in the distributor? Is that to "justify" the larger price? Pertronix made their money shrinking the electronics. You'd think Holley would get a clue. So far my Holley experience has been less that satisfactory.

You don't need either of those parts (box or coil), for what it's worth. You need the little coil driver module that came with the original kit (little black box that says sniper, about the size of the factory ICM) and a lower energy coil, like a blaster 2. The box and coil is dog and pony show, only needed on high compression stuff or for boost / nitrous. They're designed to capture the full range of Sniper applications, on a stock motor you don't need that. If you haven't put them on, don't, return them, and get a spare coil driver module just in case you cook one. As a note, that coil driver module is functionally identical to the factory ICM, as far as I can tell. I haven't tested that yet, however.

IMO the products are displayed as required unnecessarily. The distributor is the only important part of the system. You could probably try the factory coil even. The way the sniper control timing with the hyperspark is extremely similar to the way GM controlled the timing on the factory PCM.

 

wyn97

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I'm gonna have to re-read the instructions... but not this week. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday all promise to be 13 hour work days.
Page 29 of this document, top shows the way I was referring to, using that 556-150 (that should come with every Sniper kit), bottom shows the way with all the Hyperspark stuff or equivalent. https://documents.holley.com/199r11031r.pdf
 

Erik the Awful

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Thanks! That's a goal for this week.

I spent most of the three-day weekend training others how to do a tune-up on a 4-71 Detroit Diesel. We had a generator that wouldn't hold a load and kept fluctuating speed. Everybody got their hands on "running the rack". We got it tuned and then hammered it with a 100a shock load (36kw). It didn't even waver. Makes me feel like a champion.

Thursday I head to Houston to race next weekend!
 

Erik the Awful

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Had fun, traveled safe, and enjoyed the racing for the four hours we were on track. The BMW ran strong in practice, but a team member went off track late in practice and we think that may have dorked the transmission mount. We were also having trouble with the pulleys chucking the serpentine belt, but after a bit of playing with pulleys and rulers we discovered the power steering pump was tilted slightly. We ditched the existing spacer setup and improvised a more secure mounting.

Our team captain took the first race stint and got us into 2nd place. He said the car had a vibration that wasn't there during practice. We did a driver swap, dropped to 17th, and our second driver got us back into 3rd place. Then the car died on track as we were prepping for another driver change. The "brand-new" alternator we'd installed when fighting the belt issues had conked out. I opened it up and the main stud had broken off. It had a clean break on one side, but the other showed vibration damage. Somebody at the parts store had dropped it and re-shelved it. It took about two hours, but we got a replacement alternator from a nearby parts store and I installed it.

It was apparent at that point that we were no longer contending for a win. Our pit neighbors - friends of ours - ran a flawless race and came in second. Still, track time is track time, and we were all itching to get the car back in the action.

Our third driver went out and did one lap. He heard something clunk and then the suspension got weird. He pulled it in and we found a rear sway bar link completely missing. We yanked the sway bar and sent him back out. I went to another E36 team we're friends with and got a spare mount. As I was walking back, the car came back on the hook again, clanking when we pushed it. The driveshaft guibo bolts all broke. The guibo was fine, so it looks like we might have had a transmission crossmember crack after the off-track excursion during practice. The extra vibration would have been what our captain felt, and it would have caused the bolts to shear.

Here's my pics.

I got to chat with the Monza guys - "Speedy Monzales". They swapped complete a Vortec engine in place of the 4.3 they'd been running. I don't know how they finished. I watched the LS-swapped S-10 keep pace with our car on the back straight, but we can go way deeper in the braking zone, and we can stick the corners harder. They tried claiming it was a 4.8 to the judges, but everybody just assumed from the start that it's a 6.0.

I'll be heading back down to Dallas in December to try and straighten out the frame and weld in some angle iron to strengthen the transmission crossmember mounting.
 
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