I've been busy. Time is getting short! In short, I've driven it to work two days in a row, had one hiccup and have made 4 psi of boost at half throttle at 2500 rpm, so I do not think I'll have a spooling problem.

I was really excited to drive it to work yesterday, I stopped at a car wash on the way to work, washed the car, then about ten minutes later sitting in stop and go traffic (mostly stopped) I noticed the coolant temperature rising. Ordinarily it rises at a stop until 200ºF when I'd have the fan kick on then within 10 seconds it starts dropping. This time by 203ºF I knew something was amiss. The computer said the engine fan should be on, but it didn't seem like it, so I pulled into a Home Depot parking lot to check it out. Got out of the car and I couldn't hear the fan then right as I was reaching for the hood latch this happen!


Okay, it turned out that the heater hose popped off the radiator, and upon inspection I think the hose clamp was loose. All the steam is from the electric water pump still pumping hot water out, not necessarily from boiling over. The hose clamp was on the ground and I didn't have to loosen it at all to put it back on.


So I got 5 gallons of water from Home Depot and was on my way. I was running straight water anyways because tracks don't like glycol spills.


My poor just washed car frown


My Ford air filter was a casulty of the spill. It turned into mush (I took this picture about 30 minutes before steaming).


So I picked up some 4" couplers yesterday to put a proper filter on it. The tube is a scrap piece of exhaust tubing I had laying around. Tonight I'll cut one that will put the filter in the fender well for cooler air. Though so far, yesterday and today at anything over a few mph the intake air temperature sensor reads ambient temps. Which beats the +40ºF the stock manifold set always registered!



I'm still tuning on it. Every drive yesterday it was running really lean so I didn't want to push it. Driving to work this morning I finally had it giving me mid-10's AFR readings as it was getting into boost. Still have not gone over 65% throttle as part of the tuning process. But good to know it can start making boost below 3,000rpm. I currently have the stiffest single wastegate spring that came in the kit installed. I have the other springs on hand to adjust it as necessary. I want to keep the boost down to around 8psi until my good engine is together.

The transmission is pretty good too! I'm still adjusting the shift points for when to be in and out of overdrive, but it'll bark the tires going into second gear with just a little extra throttle. I'll probably dial that down a little, but it's been fun yesterday and today. It runs smooth well into the 80mph's.

I think the intake and headers have upped the naturally aspirated power, but its hard to tell since I also upped the gear ratio from 3.42 to 3.89 as well. I think I have enough fuel pump to get me to around 350 horsepower, maybe even 400 horsepower, which would be double what it was making before.

Now to get the trailer sorted. I head out Tuesday!