Thanks Igor, for taking the time to read it. Always feels nice when somebody cares.
As far as I can tell so far, my oiling system is, in the very least, no worse than anyone elses
. I think the priming system will be probably the best idea though, and perhaps the cooler, but I've come into more info on that yet, and my temps are closer to normal than I thought. Aparently 210-220 is no big deal, and I hardly EVER hit 240, I have to be cruising at 4k+ RPM for a long while on a hot day to hit that.
The blown motor was indeed a product of all the oiling mess, but from a debris standpoint, not a flow standpoint. Totally my fault, I should have spent the extra time/money to get it properly flushed after grinding in there. I don't seem to learn in that respect (timing belt job a few weeks ago...)
Glad to see a healthy number from your ZE. I'm in contact with a guy on Probetalk who is running the same cams as me, and he'll be doing a compression test shortly. Its his track car, and it hasn't had a lot of break in time yet. I'm pretty sure its the cams though. I'll be posting it up when I know.
My heads are clean because they aren't original to the rest of the motor... I discovered them in the JY. Freshly tanked, in the very least, and nothing obviously wrong with them, so I just snagged 'em($40). Threw in Topline's stem seals and Interprep springs. One thing I wish I did was lapping the valves. I just looked at the seats, noticed they were a little thin, and just put it back together. KLG4 heads may be in my future. These cams destroy the HLA's I think. They're always noisy on startup, so who knows about 8k RPM...
You're totally right that I need some suspension work... bad. My last bout of wheel hop destroyed my RHS ball joint, it clunks now every time I switch from gas to brake. All my bushings are tired, too. I'm currently on brakes, I think I have to tackle that next, especially if I want to keep tracking it. I'm also sure I need another alignment, as my eyeballs tell me I have positive camber in the LR wheel.
Talking about traction issues, I'm curious to hear about other ZEs. I'm running 195 series BFG G-Force GT Sports (worth $600 new a few years ago). I know they're super thin, but they were an awesome price. Also, they don't make road noise. I can have them in full slip and they're silent. Well, aside from a certain asphalt, but very few roads use that... Because they're so quiet it hard to hear when I have wheelspin, I kinda have to go by feel. 1st is easy, between the hop and the RPMS moving with my foot instead of the road, but I have to dump the clutch to get it going. It won't spin if I just bring it up WOT from a gentle 2k engagement. Well, once again, not that I can hear. 2nd will almost always "chirp", well silently, and 3rd will sometimes too. The torque steer thing into 4th is pretty crazy, I don't know what causes it, but its exponentially worse if I'm turning back into my lane when I shift. Thats probably normal.
Do you also find your car to take off at 4-4.5 somewhere? I swear the power doubles at that point.
I'm not running the hacked rack yet
Thats next spring. Along with some other goodies that you'll all love....
But nothing is certain yet, so I won't get your hopes up.
I just rebuilt a rear caliper today. Took honestly 4-5 hours. I broke off the bolt on that bracket that bolts to the hub. I spent 2 hours trying to get it fixed, when I had an epiphany to check my scrap bin... bingo, found another bracket.
So now I have 3 good corners.... lol. Tomorrow I'll finish I hope.
I threw the distributor in @ TDC on the compression stroke determined (scientifically) with a long 1/4" drive extension, and well it runs. That is as far as I got so far.
I've found that not to be a good indicator of engine condition.
