I am a Kenne Bell Supporter but I agree that the Optimal range for the 4.0l Whipple is above 25psi. This is why even Kenne Bell will be releasing a 3.6l blower in the future. (I am also hearing rumors about a KB 4.2l)
As for Lethal Performance they provide great customer service and will not bullshit you about there products.
They have had a 4.0L blower for years, but it's just now being introduced to the automotive market. Same thing with the 3.4L. Both compressors have been utilized and proven in racing marine applications.
Change of plans. There's a 60% chance of rain tomorrow and the air temps don't look great. We're going to skip out tomorrow and go Friday. Fridays forecast looks great. 20% chance of rain with a low of 49deg.
It started as a great day. Cool air and sun. We got to the track by 8:30am and finally got in and unloaded by 9:30. We had a check list of things to go over before making any runs. One of which was to make sure the 2-step was setup properly. When Jeremy fired the car up and tested the 2 step I noticed a bit of moisture come out of the left tailpipe along with some light white smoke. I honestly thought it may just have been from the car sitting overnight, the cold weather and the 2-step loading up the cylinders with fuel. I really didn't think anything more than that as the car ran great on the dyno and I had no other reason to believe there was an issue.
So we headed to the staging lanes. Lowered the tire pressure to 14psi and made our attempt at our first run with the new setup. The 2-step was set at 3500rpm's and immediately blew the tires off. The track prep was crap and I'm sure the cold weather didn't help. Since it was such a horrible launch Jeremy shut down even before shifting into 2nd and aborted the run.
Since the car was still cool he rolled back around and got into the staging lane again. Waited a bit for our class and then stepped up again. This time the 2 step set a little lower. Launched the car. Same thing. Blew the tires right off finally got back into it by a slow shift into 2nd and then stayed in it through 3rd and 4th. We obviously didn't expect much due to the launch and slow shift into 2nd. The run yielded a 10.40@138 and change. I don't have the slip but the 60ft and 1/8 time and 1/8mph weren't anything special. That was our first attempt.
When Jeremy came back around from that run he told me he noticed some white smoke out the drivers side exhaust when he let out of it after the 1/4 mile mark. At this point we started getting concerned as even though the launch was junk we should have seen a faster mph for the power we're making. So we started to look into what was happening with the smoke and moisture. My first inclination was to check the radiator reservoir. When I opened it up it was very low. There was only about an inch of fluid from the bottom of the tank. The last time I had checked the tank was when we were on the dyno. Since then the car has been worked on so it's possible some fluid may have been taken out but again I was very concerned. We ended up pulling all of the plugs. What we found was some light pepper speckle on most of the porcelain which means that at some point the car detonated or ran hot. We did a compression check on each cylinder and everything checkout out fine. So we put the plugs back in and I flashed the car with the 93 octane aggressive tune. The tune we were running before was the race gas only tune.
Get up to the line with the 2 step lowered a bit more and launched the car. Same thing. Blew the tires off again however it wasn't nearly as bad as the last run. The run actually looked like it was going well until I see the brake light lit up from a distance and see that Jeremy shut down before the end of the run. He coasts through the traps and the board lights up a [email protected]. I believe it was around the 1000ft mark where he let off. When Jeremy comes back around to the trailer he said that as soon as he went into 4th the car broke up so he shut down. After reviewing the run on paper it was going real well until the back end. We had a 1.535 60ft and 6.56 1/[email protected]. We believe that if the car stayed on it's course from that 1/8 mile time and mph we should have trapped 144-146mph and seen a 9.80-9.90 pass.
Now here's the negative part. We believe something is going on with the car. The moisture in the exhaust, loss of fluid in the coolant tank and the way the plugs looked make it pretty clear that we're going to have to pull the motor for a checkup. It's not worth it to risk hurting the motor so in order for us to see what's going on it's got to come out. Whether it's a blown head gasket or something else it needs to be fixed as we believe it's played a role in the poor performance of the car. Our alternator was also on the way out which is why we charged the battery between each run. Who knows it could be something very minor but as I said we're not gambling with a motor like this.
I'm somewhat upset as I was expecting a better day and we were really hoping to see some 9.60-9.80's however I completely understand that this is just how it works with racing and accept it. The motor will come out this week and picked up by our engine builder for him to take apart and find out what's going on. We look to be back up and running in a couple of weeks. Lastly I'll note that these runs were all done with stock shocks which is why the car was bouncing around like a mexican jumping bean. We've got some QA1 double adjustables going in and will have the methanol kit finished this week as well.
On a positive note we know that the 1/8th mile time we saw from our only somewhat clean pass is an indicator that the car is strong. Being that it was also done on the 93 aggressive tune and not the race gas tune also makes us realize there's a lot more in her. We also learned a bunch about our suspension setup which will be helpful for later on. Lastly it was a great day spent with my family and friends. My wife, son, employee and crew from UPR made it all that better considering what was going on.
We promise to to give you guys that mid 9 sec run you're all waiting to see very soon.
At the time we had stock shocks and some Eibachs. We've since swapped out the stock shocks for some QA1 Double Adjustables and made a few other tweaks to the rear suspension which we believe should help our 60ft.
Well after a long week and a lot of support from all of our friends Jake@Power By The Hour got a chance to check the car out. We did a leakdown and compression test and the motor passed with flying colors. The plugs were swapped, a new alternator was put on the car and we made a few other tweaks. We also believe we figured out why the car was acting the way it did last time at the track.
None the less we'll be picking up the car tomorrow and throw it on the dyno at UPR just to make sure it's all good. Then it's off to the track.
Thanks to everyone for their support. Jon L., Jeremy@UPR (Huge Thanks), Al Papitto and Jake@Power By The Hour.
Hopefully things work out well tomorrow and we can post some new times.
