VE44 BOMBFest - April 14th, 10 am, Max's Ranch

["Mad Max"]

Folks' -



The event will be happening snow or shine Oo. - there isn't a rain date. Weather looks good for Saturday, though Friday looks like snow. Typical Colorado . So, hope everyone planning to come out will still make the trip. It's always sunny and 70* in the shop, and that's where we'll be working in the rig. Thanks!!



- M2

 

[glhs]

Get any snow?

Have a head count?

Could you give me a call Sam? 303-506-5135 It's 9 pm now I'll be up until 10:30.

Thanks

Kurt

 

["Mad Max"]

Hi Kurt - sorry didn't get in from prepping the truck and shop 'till 11:50 pm. I'll be up around 7 am or so - you're welcome to call me at (719) 494-6688, or I'll call you around 8 am.



We got 'snow', but nothing like the doomsday Extinction Level Event they were calling for . Roads are good, and I think we'll have between 5-10 rigs here.



Got the parts today, got the heat exchanger removed, exhaust manifold bolts cracked loose, down pipe fabbed and the rest of the exhaust ready to bolt in, and all the gauges transfered from the other truck.



Food, sodas, and grille are ready, shop is... pretty clean, hope to see y'all tomorrow, any time after 10 am. Welcome to call at the above number for any reason.



- Sam

 

["Mad Max"]

HUGH THANKS TO EVERYONE TODAY - GREAT TIME!



Great turnout! Dave, George, Andy, Kurt and Mike came down from Denver, Trevor, Pat, and Matt from Rockware in Colorado Springs came out, plus a couple friends from the local Mopar club came out.

Easily, Kurt was the MVP for the event - his knowledge and experience were instrumental to success at this event. With his instruction we 'did' three VE44 pumps, including one 4BT on a stand!

Andy did a 366 spring and leak-proofing to his pump and made a nice difference in his 6BT-powered RC.

Trevor did a PDR fuel pin, 366 spring, and pump screw tuning. That 4bt aught to be a great engine for his '52 M-37 Power Wagon.

I did a 366 spring, fuel screw set to 'full', rotated the diaphram to max, installed a custom 4" exhaust that I made yesterday, installed POD's, plus a PDR HX-35 hybrid turbo and a 16 cm collar. HUGE difference, probably upped power from 130 to around 270. We'll re-dyno it next week.



Here's some pics:



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Pat's '77 Power Wagon

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Kurt's rig

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Dave's rig

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Kurt (on left), Pat (in back), and Andy on right

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Trevor and his 4BT

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Yours truely tweakin the pump

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... and what it was all about - making this little box pump lots of reliable fuel and make big power.

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Again, a very big thank you to Kurt (GLHS) for sharing his knowledge and experience and getting down and dirty. He stayed late to tune my rig (it took the longest to finish) and we got it all squared away and running good. Also a big thank you to Andy (Idually) for also staying late and helping throughouot the whole day.

Thanks to Trevor and Matt for helping wrench on my rig, especially the exhaust R&R.



It is the folks like this that keep this kind of thing more like fun and less like work. We all learned a lot of small stuff about our rigs, got 'em tuned up, bolted on a few go-fast goodies, and are happy about it.



Oh, we decided to do Sonic, and a huge Thank you to Trevor's wife Lauri-ann for running to Sonic for food - thanks LA!



- M2

 

[Idually]

Hey guys! I'm SO glad that I came down today. Had a great time. It was also great to see all of you guys! That's the fun part!



Kurt. THANK YOU very much for coming down. As stated before, your knowledge... Whew! Thanks for coming down and helpin' out. I'm not so sure I would have done ANY of this, without your knowledge and assistance.



Sam. As Always. Thank you too! Orderin' parts, arranging events like this... Guys... if you haven't come to the "Springs" for "Sam event", you should.



Now. Today was GOOD! We did a 3000 rpm gov spring and added a few "o-rings" to ol' Red today. Leaks are gone(for now), and the power is AWESOME. For Red, it's not really power. More about where it "is". Cruised with traffic up I-25 on the way home... kept with traffic and was VERY capable of passing a slow vehicle. Mind you. Red has a "3-speed" trans and no O/D. Didn't fell like I was "pushing it" like before. Very nice mod to do. I'm sure the extra fuel and the twist of the AFC pin, helped a bit too! Overall, I'm very impressed with the simply mod!



Thanks again guys!!! Great to see you all!!!



Andrew

 

[bgilbert]

That place looks familiar! Sam your pump insides look GOOD and healthy. Always a good sign when you don't see any pitting, rust or gunk buildup when you pop a top. Kurt is one of the top dogs right now, so he definately is a good guy to have around. Oh and no under hood pics of his 500hp monster??

 

[glhs]

Sam; Hopefully you get the fuel pin in by Sat. You also need the 60# valve springs now. Easy job. I think your ok to run stock springs to 3300 rpm.

Andy; Get yourself a PDR fuel pin, washer and 16 cm housing and you should pickup 40 more hp. You need some valve springs too. A cheap alternative for your auto would be a TCI convertor... ... if they make them for your setup. It will make a big difference when the stall speed comes down. It will feel like you picked up another 20 hp.

Dave; Glad to hear the Banks intercooler is working for you.

You guys are welcome for the help.

Bill; Pictures? You would be disappointed as I try to keep it looking as stock as possible , but I do have a bunch of intercooler and Dana 80 pics on my camera I need to get in the 1st gen forum.

Kurt

 

["Mad Max"]

Fresh off the dyno:



This is the chart from yesterdays dyno run after all the mods except the fuel pin - it isn't in yet. These numbers are a true 'at-elevation' at the rear tire number, straight up - no modifiers. This is what the truck did at the rear tire at around 6800 ft elevation. Sea level would roughly be 15% more, approximately 290 hp / 646 Tq. Pretty good numbers for an old 1st gen



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- M2

 

["Mad Max"]

... okay, so the truck has been running good all summer, no problems at all, but with all the fuel mods back in April the rig has been smoking a little more than I had hoped for, and I just chalked it up to lots of fuel and high altitude. I did also install a PDR HX-35 and a 4" exhaust, and it sure seemed to run pretty good. One thing that was strange was my boost would peak at around 23 psi - I figured it'd be more but maybe I got some settings off in the pump and had maybe too much fuel. No biggie, but I did want to try to get the smoke dialed down a bit and I did want to look into the low boost numbers.



Well, the other day I am doing some maintenance on the rig getting ready for the big gig at Moab - we're pulling the Nacho on a flatbed behind our diesel - simple enough, but I wanted to clean out the radiator, change the oil, and do a boost leak check before the trip.

For the boost check I gatherd these parts...



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... and made this simple contraption -



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Just some 4" PVC, a manifold fitting and a pressure gauge. Tap and PVC, assemble, and stuff it in the intake plumbing before the turbo, pressurize to 20 psi and..... hmmmm, no pressure... ... but wait... . what's that sound... that air rushing sound..... like a BIG hole somewhe - ahhhh hell, yer kidding

Yeah, look at that pic... see the little red squirter straw I'm holding... pointing at the plug I had just installed on the outlet side of the turbo... the port normally used for a wastegate or a gauge? Yeah, that big 1/4" NPT tapped port has been open for the last 5 months, and for the last 5 months I've been hemoraging boost - never even knew it was there . Never thought about it because the truck was making boost, and not bad boost. It wasn't huge, but 23 psi wasn't bad. Well, I now had a theory as to why I thought the truck was smoking unnecessarily and why my boost seemed low.

Yeaaaah, plugged the hole, reinstalled the radiator, changed the oil, and took it for a drive yesterday with a buddy to the bone yard. After it got warmed up and we got some coffee, I punched it on the onramp to the highway :-laf, and very quickly the rig went to the top of my 35 psi boost gauge and we were cookin' - and the pyro never went over 1200* - - yeaaaah... that's Mo-bettah . Smoke cleared up, and she runs gooooood. Despite everything I think I know about hot rods, I can still miss the smallest and simplest things .



Time to go back to the dyno, me thinks.



Also upped the ante on fluids - will be running this from now on:



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Cruising on the highway, pulling my 28' car hauler, I can now comfortably pull 22 psi at 1200*.



- M2