Creating the Silver Bullet / shoebox

[Joe_Van_Duno]

Great read, So the van went the fastest with a stock cam and the stock head with bigger valves?

Yes so far it's best time has been with +1mm valves in a stock head. Thinking over winter I'll work with Rob and get a tune for the ported big valve head that's sitting on the shelf. I had it on the van, but just couldn't get it to run right. But I think the first "winter upgrade" will be spending the money on a built transmission and I'll see whats left in the bank after that.

[speedfreek500]

So that is still the stock cam or the F4? I put on my Foward motion stg3 big valve head and did notice a lot of fueling changes that need to be done also, I use the stage 4 LM codebase and just tweeked the pump eff tables abit and it did help a lot.

[Joe_Van_Duno]

For archive purposes I'm going to copy some of my posts from another thread I have from experiences racing it recently.

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Went to the track today (October 27th 2013), with yet another transmission installed. This trans was in fact a 3 speed turbo trans.

First pass I broke my personal best with 11.82@115. So I equaled Terry mph but due to a "slow" 60ft (1.84) I missed out on a better ET.

Second pass the new trans started to do the same thing as all the others and flare between the 2-3 shift. I ended up running a 12.0@113

Using my "If it still moves it's not broke" logic, we made the decesion to put the biggest shot I had in the van. That turned out to be 150hp shot. Needless to say my blood pressure was pretty high, but once that tree started going down I knew I only had one option. HIT THE BUTTON!!! So light turns green, I launch the van and hit it. The van pulls VERY hard through first, flares into second and I notice that my wideband is reading 13.0!!!!! So I shut down the nitrous, A/f returns to mid 11's. I hit the nitrous again just to make sure and as I'm sure you guys are all expecting, the wideband once again read 13.0. So I rode out the rest of the run out and ended up with an. 11.9@112ish.

My 4th and final run was done with the 150 shot still in there, but we increased the fuel jet. Once again the van launches very hard. But this time I have an issue with the trans not shifting. I have to get out of the nitrous, let out of the gas, and finally the trans shifts to 2nd. Now I should have called it quits there, but I was racing a corvette and I just had to try and catch him. So back on the button, my wideband is reading mid 12's. Still a little lean, but I was okay with it, afterall I was trying to catch this vette!!! So van shifts to 3rd and I hear a pop and a hissss. I look in my mirror and see a cloud of white smoke. Of course I do shut the van down and get on the brakes. I end up running a 12.9@75mph.

On that final run what popped was the camshaft seal and oil spilled all over the engine bay. I also popped the dipstick out of the tube about 1/4 inch. At that point I was towed off the track and JT picked me up at the end of the track and pulled me back to the pits.

I'll start looking into the van over the next few days, I'm hoping I didn't do anything to bad. But it might be time to pull the head and just give everything a good once over anyway. I guess having a minivan running 11's is still pretty cool.

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I couldn't wait till later in the week, so I sneaked out to the garage and did some quick looking. First pulled the plugs, cylinders 2,3 and 4 looked great. Notice I left out cylinder 1. Cylinder 1 had "a little bit of oil" on it. Now when I told this to JT he questioned my "little bit of oil" I told him it's like being "a little bit pregnant" the oil was there, so I wasn't thrilled.

I went to autozone and picked up a compression tester and checked compression. The compression numbers are listed in order 1 - 4

0, 90, 100, 95

None of those numbers are good, but one of them stands out a little bit..:LOL: going to try and find a leak down tester to check the other cylinders and see where the rest of the compression is going on those other cylinders but it looks like I'll need at least one piston. I'm thinking I'll just pull the motor so I can go through everything and just make sure nothing else has taken a hit. Then put it back together, and possibly come up with a few more goodies along the way.
I guess the good new is when cranking the motor there are no knocking noises

Well good thing it's winter, it's now time to start the rebuild. Pictures of the damages will be posted soon.

[Joe_Van_Duno]

So with some help I pulled the engine and took it down to a short block, and only found one issue at that point. My number 1 cylinder threw a lifter on the intake valve. That explains my 0 compression in that cylinder, afterall can't compress any air if there is no air in the cylinder.

But still didn't explain the oil on the spark plug. So I pulled the piston and found some skirt wear but most importantly my piston rings were basically gone!!!! I've done some research and the wear on the piston skirt, and extremely worn down piston rings are from excessively rich fuel conditions. Which sounds about right, because for 6 years the van was running REALLY rich, sometimes pegging my wideband at 10.0. It wasn't until this year I was able to tune the engine down to an 11.2 on the WB. So it looks like I'll be able to just re-ring the pistons and put it back together. Some people might suggest replacing the pistons due to the wear on the skirts, but not me!!! The van doesn't get he best parts, it gets the parts that work

[cordes]

That's good news.

[moparman76_69]

You could get a skirt coating done while you have them out. Do the ceramic tops and anti friction skirts and it'll be some more insurance.

[Joe_Van_Duno]

You could get a skirt coating done while you have them out. Do the ceramic tops and anti friction skirts and it'll be some more insurance.

Thanks for the tip George, I didn't know that was possible to get the pistons repaired. I was just going to give it the ol'shrug and say "oh well, good enough for the van" but now maybe I'll look into cleaning them up a little bit.

[MILKCARTON]

Good news! what were you shifting it at and what rpm was it trapping at?

Sidenote: the van et record is getting serious attempts thrown at it this coming summer from two different vans from Colorado Spings, a hybrid 2.2 cargo and an 8 valve 2.5 window van........

[Joe_Van_Duno]

Good news! what were you shifting it at and what rpm was it trapping at?

Sidenote: the van et record is getting serious attempts thrown at it this coming summer from two different vans from Colorado Spings, a hybrid 2.2 cargo and an 8 valve 2.5 window van........

Well I wasn't shifting it, I leave that to the transmission. It normally shifted around 6500 for first and 6000 for 2nd. Twice that day it over revved in first and spit out a roller rocker. The first was in the burnout box and I was able to hear it, this time I didn't.

Good to hear, the more fast minivans out there more fun this gets!!! Now the only question, will we be able to get them all together at one spot? That would be some serious fun. Even If it's just the 3 of us, all running 11's (or better ) we could make a weekend of it a a track somewhere between Colorado and Illinois and just have fun beating up on people!!!

[shackwrrr]

The ones currently in my van are a lot worse. Rattles a bit when cold but you get used to it.

Looks more like your rings lost tension due to heat or they are seized up with melted aluminum. If they were worn, your ring gap would be huge.

[BadAssPerformance]

Now the only question, will we be able to get them all together at one spot? That would be some serious fun.

Depending on interest level, we could again have a "Top Van" competition at SDAC-24...

[Shadow]

The ones currently in my van are a lot worse. Rattles a bit when cold but you get used to it.

Looks more like your rings lost tension due to heat or they are seized up with melted aluminum. If they were worn, your ring gap would be huge.

Agreed, can you move the rings freely in the groove?

[Joe_Van_Duno]

Agreed, can you move the rings freely in the groove?

Ok so I went out and pulled the other 3 cylinders and the rest came out like normal with the rings popping off the piston. I had to use a small screw driver and a hammer to get the rings out of piston 1. I took the top ring off piston 1 and 2 and inserted them into the cylinder and used a piston to make sure they were even. To my surprise the gaps were equal. So what does that mean? Were the rings just so hot they molded to the piston? I inspected the piston and besides a dark spot where the top ring sits they look normal. I did try and put a ring back on and it feels like it wants to stick in the groove almost like it's filled with dirt. Any ideas??? By the way ring two also had to be "chiseled" put but the oil ring pretty much fell out.

[shackwrrr]

Piston got so hot it collapsed the ring grooves sounds like. Where a cast piston would break ring lands, the forged piston just squeezes the rings so tight they wont move.

At least one piston is cheaper than a whole set, sucks though

[MILKCARTON]

Piston got so hot it collapsed the ring grooves sounds like. Where a cast piston would break ring lands, the forged piston just squeezes the rings so tight they wont move.
At least one piston is cheaper than a whole set, sucks though

Exactly, that piston is an ashtray now, diggleball hone the bores and roll a new slug in it. As far as the van shootout, that would be really cool but SDAC event would be quite the haul for us, I do welcome anyone to come run here on the MOUNTAIN......

[Joe_Van_Duno]

Humm talking about the piston collapsing down has me a little worried. I did spend about 10 minutes scraping and cleaning the ring grooves and I got a ton of carbon / mud like stuff out and the rings go right in and spin and expand like they are supposed to, but now I wonder if I was just scrapping aluminum.

Guess i have a decision to make. Either I could clean up the piston a little more and just reuse and risk having to pull the piston in the begining of the racing season, or I could just buy one new piston and know I'm good to go......If I wasn't such a cheap a$$ it would be an easy decision...lol

[Shadow]

Mic the cleaned ringlands and compare to the other pistons. For that matter, mic the whole piston and see if you can find any dissformaties.

[Ondonti]

This makes me want to tear down a motor I have with forged pistons that always had terrible ring seal/burning after a shop supposedly fixed it up after a serious no oil/overheat.

I would call it good if there are no burrs and it moves like it should. Do a compression test and do them in the future to help look to see if the problem sneaks up again. I hate spending money.

[moparman76_69]

Depending on interest level, we could again have a "Top Van" competition at SDAC-24...

That's gonna depend on where SDAC-24 is, now isn't it.

[turbovanman²]

Run the pistons, where's the spirit? I've done that before and she lived, muhahhhhaa.

Sounds good, love the stories, makes me sad I am out of commission for a few years but that will leave me a few records to reach. I still have one of the fastest, true, full loaded ex daily driver, lol.