Well.......there has been a lot going on. Trying to keep up with "life" and the jobs I do at the shop have left me little time for the car. Engine builds are out of control and so is keeping up with double pumpers and then there are the tunes.

Anyway, I put some hours in today. I got the front engine mount done. I'm not sure what it was from originally to be honest, I'm going to have to figure that out. It is aluminum though and bolts up to our front center member. The rear mount was next and really kicked my *** all day. It's hard to work back there first of all. I THINK I am going to be able to use the stock EVO rear aluminum mount, the factory mount that goes to the chassis. Tomorrow I am going to make the part of the mount that actually bolts to the trans and then I should be able to use the EVO parts from there.

The mount under the battery........well that one is the toughest. It's going to be a complete PITA and may just end up requiring some drilling to the EVO's mount that is welded to the frame on that side. I am going to try to avoid that but it may just end up needing to be done to make it all work out. I wish I could just get rid of that one and it is a thought.

I think the only other things I still haven't finished are: bolting on the upper i/c pipe and installing the AIT sensor back in the pipe, changing the actual shift arm, re-making the radiator hose, making a new bracket to hold the cable and then mounting and hooking the lines to the cooler.

I can't believe I am this close to our Sport Compact Race next week and it's still not done being tested! Damn it.

I also have new wiring we are going to try to control the trans and if all goes well this trans will have an actual trans brake, so launching will be simply bad ***.

I'd really, really like to get it on the ground tomorrow, fill it with fluid and check the wiring. I may do that before I even finish the last mount under the battery just so I can get an idea if the wiring is going to work for the trans or not.

 

sucks, but thats how the game goes.

 

Things will work out in time. I have a good feeling about things this time around.

Let me know if you need help I can round up the crew and come help.

 

Thanks Chris, I hope to get it today. I came in early to get started. I'd like to drive it home tonight and get some video and a feel for if it's going to work.

 

Best of luck getting it done Dave! I too am in engine mount hell.

 

Kick some *** Dave. I hope the Trans brake works out because that would be sick!

 

Hopefully David made some progress. I wasted half his day tuning my problem child.

 

A lot of progress today. It's nearly done. I have the mount left under the battery to do but I have it mostly done, having some parts machined to finish it completely. I need to fill the trans and transfer case with fluid, hook up the wiring, put the negative battery cable back on and I think that's it.

I may come in on Monday, even though we are closed and try to finish those things up.

My rear diff has a leak I noticed today and so does one brake line. Odd as stupid **** like that usually doesn't happen on this car.

I'll tell you, this has been a HUGE PITA, the other trans we had in, a piece of cake.

 

Sorry David I just saw this. Still no word on the shafts.

Aaron

 

I musy have missed something... I saw the part about the evo 7 trans i believe. You killed it first test drive. Now i saw you say something about a diesel truck tranny? What post # was this talked about?

 

No problem Aaron, it is what it is on the shaft. We put it together Wednesday and shipped it to North Carolina, it is installed in Matt's car now.

We never tried and EVO7 trans, that's not what was in the car first that failed. The rest........oh I must remain secretive.

 

My car moved today. I have to button up the wiring, finish the side trans mount and do a TON of cleaning on it, it's never been this dirty.

We are working through some trans wiring issues with this new trans, Kiggly is helping me out with it. Hope to have it sorted out tomorrow.

 

awesome news , sticking around for some video.

 

LOL OK......... im holding out for the end result then.... good luck!

 

UPDATE ON TRANS:

The original trans I was using, that I broke, got repaired and sent down to my good friend Matt Smith in North Carolina. Matt got the trans and all the required stuff installed in his EVO and brought it up on Friday.

The new heavy duty trans that I found and we just built I got installed in my car last week. Everyone assumed the wiring and shift control box built by Andrew was going to plug in and work. I had another wiring harness/controller built by Kevin "Kiggly" that had a trans brake built into it. I got the trans in my car installed and ready to rock. Plugged in Kiggly's wiring and the trans would not function correctly. Kiggly was at a loss as to why and suggested I contact Andrew and get one of his shift boxes. I have spoke to Andrew on the phone a few times but we have never met. I called and asked him if he could get a box built for me and sent out ASAP and he did, had it the next morning. Plugged it in, same basic problems. I called Andrew back and he said, "I am on my way, I'm going to load my car up and drive there overnight from DC and see you in the morning." I couldn't believe it.

Andrew was at the shop early the next morning, he was driving his EVO which has the same trans I tried originally in it, now with 5,000 miles on it. The troubleshooting began.........and continued............and continued.........and..........well you get the point. We had really no success. It was determined before Andrew showed up, btw, that the trans we had built was bad and Ted and I stayed late Thursday night at the shop and swapped it out for another stock, bone yard trans I had here. This was after taking it apart to make it work in the car and re-assembling it, which I had never done before. So now we built a trans, tried two controllers, swapped in another trans and Andrew spent 8 hours trying to figure out the problem. No success. A real kick to the *****.

In the meantime on Friday I tuned Chris Young's car and we put Matt's car on the dyno with his new 2.1 I built for him and my old auto trans. The car worked perfectly on the dyno. The power was very-very good. I pulled 12 degrees of timing out of the top end of the map, interpolated that and started there, I wanted the tune nice and dead, I wasn't trying to make any power at all with the car. Just tune it easy and see if the trans would hold up for the weekend. AFR's I dialed in at a flat 11.4:1. Boost we crept up on slowly, started at 15 psi, moved up to 20, 22, 24 and then decided 27 psi was working well. At 27 psi on our dyno in 3rd gear the car put down 490 whp, Dynojet that's 553 whp. Then consider the fact this torque converter is as loose as it can be built and it's making some damn good power.

Saturday we had the autocross for our Sport Compact Race. Matt entered the Max Effort Class which requires autocrossing the car and drag racing it. Your lowest ET from each event is added together and the lowest time wins the class. The car did flat out fantastic in the autocross. Now keep in mind Matt has never autocrossed, the car has been built as a drag car since day one. He borrowed some old tires/wheels from my brother because he only owns drag slicks. He rolled the car out off the starting line, so it was a bit slow to get moving but as soon as it would hit boost in 1st it would just SMOKE the tires, he'd bump the shifter to second gear and then run the entire course in 2nd gear. Matt came back after the first run he made in the car and was smiling ear-to-ear. It did my soul good to see him so happy. After a few more runs he just got happier and happier. He couldn't stop saying how good the trans worked, how much fun he was having and how nice it was to do something other than just drag race the car. I'd guess he made about 15 autocross runs with the car. His best time was a 35.59 second run. The fastest Max Effort car overall was Jansen's and it ran a 34.21.

We broke for lunch, Matt came back for more runs and told me, "I'm gonna make one more and then save it for tomorrow for the drags." I told him "Good idea." At this point I was sure it would never break like this. He pulled up, took off and when he made the shift to second I saw him pull to the side and he was done. My car broke the output shaft and planetary in the trans. This time something else broke and there are gears sticking out of the top of the case and the case is broken.

Bottom line is, THAT transmission is NOT going to work for an EVO making any real horsepower. I am now completely done with it, it's a waste of time, money and effort.

We all went back to the shop and Andrew suggested we pull apart one of the transmissions we were all trying originally and one of the new ones I am running. We took them apart, did some inspection and found a difference. We were sure that we had found what we needed and we pulled the trans apart in my car, swapped some parts and hoped for the best. My car was lowered to the ground, fluid was added and I got in, started it and pulled the shifter. Reverse worked, that's good. 4th was there, 3rd, 2nd and 1st! This was a first since the box had been put in. Andrew jumped in and we slowly started around the block. The shifts were flaring terribly but it was shifting. I suggested maybe the trans was low on fluid as I didn't bother checking it after just dumping some in. Sure enough the trans was low. Topped it off and tried again.............WTF?! Now we had no 3rd or 4th. Something is just not right. We drove around the block again and being the type of guy I am I decided to smack the throttle in 1st, the car accelerated pretty hard but seemed to either be spinning the tires or the trans was slipping, then we could both feel the trans "catch" and we new it was slipping, shift to second was good but we had no 3rd or 4th now. I pulled into the parking lot where 20 people were waiting hoping we had it fixed. Dropped the car to first and started brake boosting it, last time I had tried this with the old trans it broke the output shaft and planetary at about 3800 rpm. The car came up on the converter very quickly, when it hit 3800 I was amazed at how easily it did it, I wanted to launch the car just to see what would happen but it simply wasn't safe with all the people/trucks/trailers in our lot. I backed off the gas and Andrew and I both talked about how well the converter was working. The car got parked and at that point I guess we all gave up for now.

I have an idea where to go from here and I guess that's what is next. At this point the casting project I am going to put on hold for building more of these. I really need to figure this one out and prove it. I've spent way to much money on it already and it's getting out of control. I am confident that it is going to work, when is the question..........