Barn Find IROC-Z

[Komet]

Olympic Streetcar Shootout --- I looked it up and seems it's at/near Bremerton.

Have you ever visited Forks WA ? --- Northwest of Bremerton --- Forks' tiny paved municipal airport Also doubles as their dragstrip --- I kid you not! I visited there about eleven years ago; love the peninsula !

Yeah it's at Bremerton Raceway for the 1st and 3rd day.

I haven't been to Forks, only really been to the upper peninsula a few times and only as far as Port Angeles.

 

[Komet]

Took the truck to town today, it always does great. Always impressed at how it can happily do 1200rpm at 45mph, tangentially related but I've been trying to pick between a close ratio t56 or a wide ratio t56 and the answer is it depends on your rear gear and what your target rpm is at highway speed. Which is actually higher than I thought for even moderate duration 220-230 duration cams guys are saying they like to cruise at 2000 or even 2200 rpm. That's wild to me in TPI land, if I need to go above 2k in regular traffic then it's an event.

Makes me think the stock cam in the truck is ideal for the ultra low rpm utility factor.

Anyway, https://www.blocklayer.com/rpm-gear is a fun website for cool and interesting people who make fantastic graphs such as:

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That would be the close ratio t56, stock rear gear. Likely the better option for the rear gear. But the rear gear is also probably terrible. But maybe not with stock TPI because muh low speed port velocity?

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Wide ratio does have them really nice looking splits but the .50 x 2.77 combo is hilarious. Could it work though? I don't know if it would really be that bad with stock TPI. I don't always want that, but I could change the gear with the induction.

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Spent 3 hours on a claybar job for everything including windows. Everything was super contaminated from tree junk, paint and glass feel smooth again.

Currently debating further paint correction or maybe just wax it because I have better things to do.

 

[Supercharged111]

The wide ratio gives a big old nut kick of an RPM drop on the 3-4 upshift, on track I'm not a fan of that. My car has a 3.73, so either first gear works fine. The car seemed to pull better and be less zinged out with the 2.77 box, stock LT1.

 

[Komet]

A couple years ago, I bought an AC Delco paint pen for my car on closeout for like $8, I forget where, could have been rockauto. Advantages of buying a common color.

Post-claybar pre-paint correction seems like the right time for it, turns out it's a 4 in 1 little kit in a bottle with a fine detail pick, fiberglass rust scraper wedge, single stage lacquer paint, and clear topcoat for larger areas. It's actually a nice product.

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I have this gouge in my door, let's see what we can do by totally ignoring what actually needs to be done and just going to town with the paint stick here.

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It worked pretty ok, not amazing but application is crippled by the nail polish style applicator. A fine tip brush and some lacquer thinner would be good here, but I'm in a rush because truth be told that photo was 9 hours later.

Also did my rust snorkels:

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Yes I'm aware that isn't going to stop the rust. But it doesn't catch my towel anymore. I hit all my fairly sizable spots, some of them are almost impossible to pick out now.

Anyway, medium-light cut pad with Meguiars Scratch-X was the sauce du jour since it's what I had in ample quantity. I hit the tail and wing with some Ultimate Compound since they were getting a bit fogged from extreme outdoor heat. Then I did Chemical Guys Blacklight which is like the ceramic coating thing for black cars? I don't know I thought this was all very clever 4 years ago and I still have the bottles so that's what I'm doing. Then Chemical Guys Butter Wet Wax, I don't care for it but it's wax and I have it. Ended up pretty good:

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This post was sponsored by ibuprofen.

 

[Supercharged111]

This post was sponsored by ibuprofen.

My life is sponsored by ibuprofen! Getting old sucks.

 

[HotWheelsBurban]

My life is sponsored by ibuprofen! Getting old sucks.

Pain, when you do something you used to do all the time, and now it hurts to do it, is your body saying " you're not 17 anymore dammit"....

 

[Supercharged111]

Pain, when you do something you used to do all the time, and now it hurts to do it, is your body saying " you're not 17 anymore dammit"....

I still like to act like I'm 17!

 

[Komet]

It's the last weekend before I hit the strip. Wasn't planning on doing anything yesterday but I had a little time so I started with a NSS check, does not turn over in R or D, good to go.

Next was the positive battery terminal:

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It passes the wiggle test, I think the outer shank is just mangled a bit. Don't want to mess with it if I don't have to, I'll lose my ecm learn.

The marker light on that side was out, gave it the tactical wiggle:

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Saw my underhood light looking sad and crispy:

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Confirmed battery voltage at the connector, it could work.Took a minute to clean it up, Aluminum engine paint is what I had. I think it turned out pretty good, and it does indeed still function correctly:

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Cleaned up the PS pump today, got a half turn on the worm clamp on the return, feed nut was Very Tight already.

Went on a cruise today to get some fresh gas, and did about an hour of driving. It was trouble free except the starter is getting more sticky and I was hoping for less sticky.

Idle wasn't great as I was parking it in the shop. I occasionally get a high pitched squeal out of the TB since the refurb. Possible vacuum leak because I reused the gasket? It didn't die, but not the smooth happy experience I was hoping for. Driving around it seems good.

Seems like my front struts are / were yellow. They're not adjustable. Old Bilsteins?

Got my 1 drop from the PS pump on post drive inspection, coming from the front side unfortunately. Junk O'Reillys reman, under 3k miles. No other noted changes or failures.

I'm a little concerned about the starter. I think LT1 starters will fit, might see if the local parts store has one. I do technically have a new full size starter that came off this engine but it's a total nightmare getting it out and in compared to a mini starter.

Battery is 5 years old, maybe it's not delivering the CCAs properly, but it does it hot now too which makes me think crappy starter solenoid.

 

[Komet]

I can get an LT1 starter an hour away from here, it's a reman and they want too much for it.

Had the burbling evap canister on the post-drive inspection, excessive pressure in tank. Forgot to mention, still riding the high of underhood light.

I summoned direct counsel from the Speed Gods, and they told me to go out and start it again. Immediate crank and fire, crisp idle. I'm taking that as permission to send it.

I've got this idea that I'll drive it every day and that will normalize the heat expansion variables of old carness.

 

[Komet]

I usually drive in the afternoon, so I took the opportunity this morning to go for a hillclimb test loop. Cold morning start, 4 second crank no fuss from the starter. I'll take it. Set heater to full hot, want to make sure and circulate that coolant although I've had zero suck from the reservoir so I must be getting better at the fill, spilling funnel calamity aside.

Only gave it a 60 second warmup, I usually let it gather some heat because there's only a couple minutes between me and the twisties, but this is a realistic hotel to dragstrip driving condition. No issues with the cold takeoff, I kept the drive casual since I'm expecting unusual traffic on the holiday weekend. Significant debris from a tree that fell last night was the only hazard this run.

It reproduced the TCC lockup confusion around 45mph today. Seems to happen under normal driving conditions on first warmup. I've got a decently sized thermostatic bypass trans cooler in here after the radiator cooler. Makes me wonder if the trans hits TCC temp and then gets dropped out of it over and over while the trans cooler does hysteresis things. I don't think it modulates TCC as much / at all after I put a lot of heat into the system. Could just be 36 year old transmission things. Three years on the Evil Energy braided rubber -AN stuff in that system. I think I'm getting away with it.

Post run inspection was another pass. Hot restart was immediate. I want to check hot timing one more time tomorrow. I've got a couple hundred miles and 4+ hours on Speedmaster distributor 2, no complaints so far.

What no pictures?

Ok fine check out this crispy dome light:

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I made the mistake of putting an oem spec bulb in and leaving my door open for 5 minutes in July. Been running sans-light for a while but we need full fancy for the trip so I have this crappy LED which makes practically no heat, but falls out so I added some tension to the prongs as much as I dared in the hopes it won't be so annoying:

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