North Florida 289 Build, #10306

[Chainsaw]

The coolant still seems to be getting too hot (240F+) even rolling at 20mph w the radiator fan on. After this last run today (#3), I could hear percolation in the engine after I shut it off in the garage. I'm not sure if that's bad, but it sure seems like it shouldn't be doing that. I previously tried to bleed it at the fill cap which the highest point in the system, but the system still seems like it might have air in it. I am a bit of a doofus on this stuff, so any recommendations are appreciated.

[Chainsaw]

Did some research and asking around. Culprit may be a stuck thermostat. I’ll check it out when I return from my business trip to Seattle. I’ll also bleed the radiator itself from the upper peacock again.

[lasse2]

Might be worth checking that the thermostat isn’t upside down. I may have made that mistake a few years back….
Enjoy your visit to Seattle. After a beautiful summer, the rain finally returned this week. Hopefully it isn’t too wet while you are here.

[Chainsaw]

thanks. The thermostat came installed from BPE, so I hope it wasn’t installed incorrectly. I’ll find out shortly.

The weather in Seattle was very acceptable. A little rainy Wednesday, but Thursday turned out very nice.

[Chainsaw]

Slow going with work and family trips.

I’m still not sure why the car is showing it’s hot. The fan is working and I bled the system fine. I tested the thermostat and it’s fine. I did have trouble getting the thermostat housing to seal when I reinstalled it. After 1 gasket (fail) and 2 rounds of using Permatex, I got it reinstalled without leaking. I made the mistake of not checking the Sniper CTS readout during my initial runs. Maybe the dash gauge is just off. I need some more “engine on” time.

I got my side pipes back from getting ceramic coated. They look good. I’ll get them temporarily installed back on the car and move on the the next problem. I still have an issue with the harness wiring that I have to sort out. Brake light signal is going to the front harness, hazards and turn signals not working correctly, and tail lights are not working at all.

[Chainsaw]

Got the pipes back on and ran the car for a while. The Sniper CTS (coolant temp sensor) indicated 180F +/- 5F once it got up to temp. The H20 gauge went up to 240F eventually while the other sensor via the Sniper display was still indicating the 180F-ish. No overheating problem. That’s a relief. Now I can get some drive time in go-kart mode around the development. I’ll contact Speedhut tomorrow to see what I can do about the H20 temp gauge. Oil temp gauge seems fine so far.
I think I have the fuel gauge calibrated now. Time will tell after I add some more gas to the tank.
Now on to the other electrical issues.

[Chainsaw]

Checked all the wiring on the taillights and redid all the connections on the converter in Weatherpaks. All looks good, but still no the taillight function. Looks like I’m going to have to pull the dash and start digging into the harnesses there. But, I’ll first try make sure the converter is seeing any power. Maybe it’s bad?

[Chainsaw]

The taillight converter is fine. I have taillight power (12.96VDC) to the last Weatherpak connector on each taillight. Neither light comes on. I also connected both taillights to directly to the battery and tried both taillight and brake light connectors and had no illumination. Going to have to ask FFR about this one.

[Chainsaw]

Talked to FFR about the taillight and other electrical issues. The tech wasn't sure what was going on, so he'll have to get back with me on that one.

Took the car for a ride around the neighborhood; went about 2 miles. It was mostly good. About 1.5 miles in, I noticed the idle had ratcheted up to 1900 rpm and wouldn't come down, so I headed back to the house to check it out. I pulled into the driveway and stopped the car short of the garage and before I could turn off the ignition the car quit. It wouldn't restart and the fuel pump wouldn't fire up (and no fuel pressure.) In addition, the Sniper display was indicating "No Data" on any channel, so I'm thinking maybe the ECU crapped the bed. With my neighbor and Mrs. Chainsaw, we got the car back into the garage. About an hour after the car initially stopped running, I thought I'd hit the starter again and the fuel pump came on and the car started and idled at it's abnormally normal level of 1000-1100 rpm. I let it run for for a bit and then it quit again. When I tried to restart it, the fuel pump engaged, but per the display the Sniper wasn't getting rpm signal, so no start again. I hung it up for the day.

[Chainsaw]

Did a little more troubleshooting yesterday. Started the car and it ran with the idle jumping around a bit, but then it more or less settled out around 900 rpm. It gradually increased to a little over 1000, but was pretty smooth. The car then shut off again. As I checked the display, it was showing flashing “No Data” indications on all of the sensor values. I turned the key off, let it set for a bit, and turned the ignition switch back to accessory mode. The display indicated it was searching for the ECU, which it did not find during the 1-2 minutes I had the device powered. My guess is this is an ECU problem/failure, but I’ll call Holley on Monday to discuss. I was logging during this time so I have some record of what went on; however, I need to find a compatible SD reader to pull the file and transfer to my home computer.

[Chainsaw]

Got the pipes back on and ran the car for a while. The Sniper CTS (coolant temp sensor) indicated 180F +/- 5F once it got up to temp. The H20 gauge went up to 240F eventually while the other sensor via the Sniper display was still indicating the 180F-ish. No overheating problem. That’s a relief. Now I can get some drive time in go-kart mode around the development. I’ll contact Speedhut tomorrow to see what I can do about the H20 temp gauge. Oil temp gauge seems fine so far.
I think I have the fuel gauge calibrated now. Time will tell after I add some more gas to the tank.
Now on to the other electrical issues.

Received a new sender unit from Speedhut. We'll see how it works.

[Chainsaw]

Talked to Holley support and did some troubleshooting with them. ECU is cooked. Have to send the Sniper and handheld display in for repair/rebuild. 4-6 week turnaround. Ugh. That should give me plenty of time to work out my electrical wiring issues.

[Chainsaw]

Maybe I'll buy a Holley 600 cfm carb and run it that way for a while.

[Chainsaw]

Had my friend Jeff B come over on Friday and he was able to solve my tail light issue. All good there now.

[Chainsaw]

Just tidying up the engine compartment with p-clamps and more/new tie wraps. Also, my hood scoop hole wasn't cut by FFR. I would have thought it would have been done by them, but that ship long since sailed. Does anyone have the correct dimensions or instructions for cutting the scoop hole?

[lasse2]

Hi Jack,
I don't have dimensions with me as I write this but for my hood I ended up cutting the opening just a little inside the thickness of the fiberglass and then sanding it to flush it out on the top and bottom. The sides were a little different due to the inside curve of the scoop. I ended up creating a bit of a rounded corner on the bottom so that it looked good to me. It leaves a bit of a step on the inside of the vertical portion that isn't perfectly smooth but shouldn't be very visible. The bottom of the opening where the hood extends back under the top lip of the scoop is a bit of a pain to finish as well. It sits low and needs to be filled to match the surface of the hood. I used HSRF filler and glaze to build it up. If you do this, I would recommend you creep up on it rather than do a heavy fill and sand due to the difficulty of sanding the inside of the scoop. While I was at it I worked a bit of the filler into the transition/step at the sides as well to blend them. Hoping to hear that you get your ECU issues figures out soon. I fought my (new in the box) Coyote ECM for a couple months only to learn that it hadn't been programmed correctly by Ford. I was where you are thinking I should have just gone with a SBF with carburetor right up until I heard it fire up for the first time.

[Chainsaw]

Got the repaired Sniper back today and installed it, but I haven't started the car up yet. I also received some more trunk carpet from FFR and cut pieces to finish out the drop trunk. I also started work cutting out the hood scoop opening. Drilled a few holes and cut through them to connect the dots. I started filing down the edges, but I realized it would go a heck of a lot faster if I just bought a new Dremel tool to replace the one that died recently. I'm going into holiday mode now, so no work on the 289 until Friday at the earliest.

[Chainsaw]

The car runs again. Really rough idle at the start, but it smoothed out and idled around 1000-1100. I still need to adjust the idle screw appropriately. Now that I'm back from work travel, I can get some stuff done.

[Chainsaw]

Car is dying again. Seems like the same thing as before. I did check the injector electrical connectors and zip-tied them. They all seemed to have good connection already however. No help. Frustrating. I'm ready to buy 600-650 cfm carb and move on.

[Chainsaw]

I did some more troubleshooting with my electrical engineer tech advisor (and FFR Roadster owner) Jeff. I ran the car for about 10 minutes, idling only, with no problems. When he arrived, I restarted the car. It ran fine for about 1 minute and then died. I restarted the car and it ran fine for 5 minutes and then I shut it off. We looked at the data logs on the Holley software he downloaded, but we can't really diagnose it due to gross ignorance of how to use the software. We did see in one of the files that several measurements went nuts during one of the events. The measurements (TPS, AFR, and one other) started rapidly railing to both full scale and null and then the file ended. In other files for when the car didn't die, everything seemed nominal.

One thing I did notice the last time I drove the car and it died is that the tachometer went to zero. As I understand from Holley, if there's no tach signal the Sniper won't start, so I'm assuming it won't run either. After I had the car in the garage again and tried/failed to restart the car, I was getting a "Stall" indication on the display for RPM, which is indicative of no tach signal. Typically, when cranking the display will show 100+ rpm before starting. I'm going to have to call Holley when I can find the time to do so (family and allegedly part-time work are interfering).

I did finish getting my cruise control installed and wired up, but it needs troubleshooting. I also built up the door latches. I have a limited number of things I can do until I have to switch over to body work. It's time.

[Chainsaw]

I'm also doing a lot of research in the Edelbrock ProFlo 4 system as an alternative. Cost-wise it's a better solution for me, but I sure do love the Borla and Inglese stack systems. Dang, those systems look sweet.

[Chainsaw]

Jeff and I also got to compare the relative sound difference between my 289 (BPE 306) and his 427 (BPE 347) with FFR side pipes. The 289 sound is definitely harsher (racier?), but both are sweet sounding. My car was louder, but sitting in the garage it would be. It was still harsher sounding.

[Chainsaw]

I'm also doing a lot of research in the Edelbrock ProFlo 4 system as an alternative. Cost-wise it's a better solution for me, but I sure do love the Borla and Inglese stack systems. Dang, those systems look sweet.

And after studying Mr. Inglese's website, I'm also enamored with the Weber 8-stack carburetor set up, too. Glutton for punishment, I am.

[Chainsaw]

Still fighting with the Sniper. Sent a couple of files into Holley for analysis. Apparently there's also some EMI that popping in and freaking out the rpm signal which makes the IAC and injectors react. Upon Holley's recommendations, I reset the idle, which put the IAC where it should be and this seemed to help for a bit. Then it died straight away after running 5 more minutes. I've got shielding on every Sniper-related cable and wire now except the display cable. I have a BPE-supplied EMI shield that blocks the ECU from the distributor, coil and the alternator. My only other known culprit is the cooling fan potentially causing a problem, but the fan kicked in 3-4 times before the car died, so there's something else involved. Grrrr.

[Chainsaw]

Got tired of fighting the Sniper RFI issues. Reverting to a carburetor. Holley carb due in today. Someday, when I can afford it, I'd like to put the 4 Weber system on the car.

[Chainsaw]

Carb mounted, but I am waiting for the correct pressure regulator. Ordered the EdwardB recommended studs to mount the louvers. I still need to determine why the cruise control system control panel isn't seeing any power

[Chainsaw]

Got everything put together and the car runs. After some adjustments, it runs pretty good, but was still dying once things got hot. In the course of troubleshooting this problem and the fact that my tach isn’t working, my electrical engineering support, Jeff Bell, discovered what appears to be my RFI issue (crazy and intermittent coil voltage readings from my DVM when the DVM was in one particular spot). This may have been the RFI causing my Sniper unit to freak out. Jeff thinks this may have fried the tach as well as the source RFI is very near the tach. We also are thinking the tach failure is sending this RFI down the cable to the coil and causing the engine to die. After pulling the tach wire from the coil, the car ran fine and didn’t die. I’ll be running a new ground wire to my ground bus bar to see if that fixes my issue. I’m hopeful. Maybe one day, I’ll try to put the Sniper back on.

Back the tach failure, I tried to reset the tach pulses following the directions from Speedhut. Held the reset button down, went to acc power and the tach swung to 8000. Upon releasing the reset button, the tach went to zero and refused all further attempts to do anything. Calling Speedhut later today.

[Chainsaw]

Redid the ground scheme with a 2-ga wire from the battery negative to the ground bus bar. However, the RFI anomaly is still there, at least with the tach connected to the coil, and the tach still isn't working. Next step is to remove the tach coil wire and see if the RFI disappears. I'll try to get to that tomorrow. All the grand kids are at the house today. Car ran okay after having a hard time starting. Missing when cold, but steadied as it warmed up. This is quite frustrating.

[Chainsaw]

Did the checks recommended by Speedhut and the tach is shot. Pulling that today and will get it shipped in Monday.

[Chainsaw]

Tach is on it's way to Speedhut. The RFI gremlin seems to is still there, but the car runs. I do need to adjust the cold idle. I did run a couple more ground wires I missed (windshield wiper motor and cruise control) over the to the ground busbar. Also, my water temp gauge isn't working, but the cooling fan switch is kicking in, so I know when the water this 180F.