In the Summer of 2007, I purchased my first Spirit R/T from Michigan after convincing my wife that I needed an economical car to drive back and forth to work. On the drive from Michigan to Pennsylvania, the timing belt broke 120 miles from home and had to be towed. I bought this car without much knowledge of TIII engines and did not know to look at the core plugs in the head for cracking. You guessed it, the head was cracked in addition to the broken timing belt! So I bought a rebuilt head from FWD.
At this point the car had a Precision 50 Trim, FWD stage 1 cams, FMIC, FWD stage 4 CAL, 3" exhaust, +40s, 35mm tial external wastegate. With this setup the car went 14.2 @ 107mph(street tires and me driving = bad ET)and dynoed 330whp @ 20psi. At the end of 2008, I bought a 1992 Daytona IROC R/T project car that the previous owner never finished. The Daytona came with the built engine and most of the parts that are on my car today.
During the Winter of 2009, I got the built motor and turbo that are in the car today running on stock electronics. In 2010, I installed The Big Stuff 3 ECU. In the Fall of 2010, I hung an exhaust valve. At this point, the entire engine was disassembled and had to be rebuilt due to an incompetent machine shop that never balanced the crank, and the spring pockets in the head were not opened to allow clearance for the custom valve springs.
In the Spring of 2011, the rebuilt engine was reinstalled. This brings us to where the car is today. On monday it dynoed 629whp @ 33psi, but I dont have a MPH to back it up. That will have to wait till spring.
I have to thank Brian Slowe for his amazing wisdom with these cars and his willingness to help and teach. He helped me pick through multiple issues I had with this car over the past 2+ years.
I also want to thank Rob Dolan for his continued support throughout this project and his great powder-coating skills.
Thanks to everyone else for answering my questions and giving me the support and encouragement I needed to finish this project.
I still have a long way to go as the car didn't make one pass on this new setup. So this Spring should be fun! Hopefully backing up my dyno #s with a 600hp mph.
Anyway here is the current set up:
Bottom end: rare 2.4 steel crank, oliver rods, JE pistons
Head: ported, lonewolf stg1 cams,adj. cam gears,TI retainers, stock valves and springs
turbo: precision gt3767s (T4 58ar)
exhaust: lonewolf header, 44mm tial WG, 3" turbo back
trans: stock A568, quaife lsd, Monster clutch twin disc clutch
fuel: 14gal cell, aeromotive A1000 pump and reulator, 1600cc injectors
EMS: BIGSTUFF3
intake: 3" IC piping, Tial 50mm BOV, Precision 750hp IC, Trick flow 70mm TB, custom big plenum intake manifold
Well those are the highlights of my long R/T journey! LOL!
Adam