quote Originally posted by FriendOfYours: Change your old radiator cap Just put the last burn I'm going to do into the ecm, retimed to 11* and I hear a hiss coming from the front. Pop the hood and put my ear to the cap, tap it with my fingers and pewww My eyes, right side of my face, neck and right hand are incredibly burnt. You're welcome to come get the car but I'm not going anywhere today. I really hate to make you drive so if you want to wait until tomorrow, Amanda and my Pa will drive. Again, if you want to come today, I'll leave the keys in it

Get to a hospital and get some burn salve put on those burns.
It wasn't the caps fault! A radiator cap comes off only if it is loose. It has a twist lock mechanism with two steel tabs that go under the lock ring. Radiator caps can leak but I've never seen one pop off unless it was not tightened properly. Although things did not go well, at least this thread provided you with the opportunity to advertise your business.

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" THE BLACK PARALYZER" -87GT 3800SC Series III engine, custom ZZP /Frozen Boost Intercooler setup, 3.4" Pulley, Powerlog manifold, Northstar TB, LS1 MAF, 3" Flotech Afterburner Exhaust, Autolite 104's, MSD wires, Custom CAI, 4T65eHD w. custom axles, HP Tuners VCM Suite.
"THE COLUSSUS"
87GT - ALL OUT 3.4L Turbocharged engine, Garrett Hybrid Turbo, MSD ign., modified TH125H
" ON THE LOOSE WITHOUT THE JUICE "

[This message has been edited by Dennis LaGrua (edited 01-11-2013).]

If you look at the picture I put, one of the tabs is gone

I'm heading to urgent care right now

[This message has been edited by FriendOfYours (edited 01-11-2013).]

I'm sorry, but this thread makes me shake my head...not because of FOY but at those criticizing the "deadlines" not being met.

Have you people done completely custom work on your cars? FOY has had the car for 3 months and 1 week...that time included custom work, tuning, and 3 MOTORS. Quite frankly, I think it's amazing the car was done this fast.

I had a lot more typed, but I'll just leave it at that...

FOY's own words.

"I certainly don't need you giving me grief or comparing us to lowlifes like Loyde. There are dozens of people on here we have sold parts to that are very happy

We've been in business for 20 years, this isn't the first time we've had to redo things and make someone wait, it happens. This isn't a small start to going downhill. I have been upfront with Dave from the very beginning and have done everything I can to make this work out well. Two months is hardly a long wait considering the amount of work that has gone into tuning and building these custom parts, this would have cost an absolute fortune for anyone else. We've fulfilled about fifty orders in the last three months, we don't just work on Fieros, it doesn't even make up 10% of what we do. I'm dedicating my own personal time to finishing his car when I have a million other things that I have to finish as well. Enough. Save the commentary for when we are done"

Sounds like your done!

My last post for today



The audio is off for some reason but this should keep you calm for now. I didn't think about anyone needing video, should have asked. I was more caught up in the, let's get this thing out of here, business

quote Originally posted by FriendOfYours: Just put the last burn I'm going to do into the ecm, retimed to 11* and I hear a hiss coming from the front. Pop the hood and put my ear to the cap, tap it with my fingers and pewww

That was not a good idea.
Harbor Freight, mechanic's stethoscope, less than $10. I use the SH1T out of mine, versus putting my face next to a hissing cap, squealing alternator, or insert name of other hot/spinning/sharp/dangerous thing.

the best thing for a burn is cold tap water .as soon as you can , put whatever got burnt under running cold water .if you do it right away it makes a huge difference in healing time .i have had burns that i ran to the tap with and did not even get a blister .

quote Originally posted by FriendOfYours: If you look at the picture I put, one of the tabs is gone I'm heading to urgent care right now

Most importantly take care of yourself, feel better, get those burns dressed. and request a pain killer. Then you can worry about what is discussed here. If one of the radiator tabs broke that would cause the cap to come off. I've never seen a cap that is in such bad shape that this happens but a freak acccident is certainly within the realm of possibility. It unfortunate that this odd occurance happened and caused you injury and pain.

What happened to the bubble, put you and the car in the bubble I said, ack. I tried calling several times around 3pm and it rang off the hook. I just got home its quarter to 4 now and too late to pack the kids for a 7-8hr car ride.

What time in the morning can you confirm to leave. I want an early confirmation as if you can't make it, I need time to get the kids ready, loaded and out the door, then time to make it down their, get the car make it back, plus the hour or 2 waiting at customs then get to the house, load up all the club gear. (Lisa and I don't just go to the meetings we chair the meetings) Then get to the club meeting by 5:30 to setup.

I would say I need to hear by no later than 9am. I feel for your burns I really do, I can see where the tab broke off and it should have been sitting half cocked off to one side, as you must have had that cap on and off a dozen times due to the burping of the 3 different motors.

Anyhow, let me know how you want to handle this. Either way I will need you to be their in person, or at least take my call so we can arrange a place to meet so I can get the balance of the refund from you.

You have both my numbers. Kinda surprised you did not call me when the cap blew.

Thank you for the 2nd video by the way. To be honest I was kinda expecting the build thread to be documented about like I document mine or Archie does his, or Car-Lo. I guess everyone just has their own way of posting things.

Well let me know how you want to do it.

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857GT Part 85GT Part 87GT Part Caddy, 93 Eldorado 4.9, 5spd Dual O2 Custom Chip, Custom Exhaust. MSD Everything Now with Nitrous. Capt Fiero --- My Over View Cadero Pics Yellow 88GT 5spd Full Poly Suspension, Lowered 1/2" in front, Corner Carver.

I called for about a half hour and it went straight to your voicemail. I'll figure out when I can get up. I had to get a piece of metal hooked out of my eye.

Where in the heck did the metal piece come from? That's really odd.

If you are in that bad of shape, do you want me to plan on just coming down?

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857GT Part 85GT Part 87GT Part Caddy, 93 Eldorado 4.9, 5spd Dual O2 Custom Chip, Custom Exhaust. MSD Everything Now with Nitrous. Capt Fiero --- My Over View Cadero Pics Yellow 88GT 5spd Full Poly Suspension, Lowered 1/2" in front, Corner Carver.

edited out

[This message has been edited by countach711 (edited 01-12-2013).]

quote Originally posted by countach711: I admit I haven't read this whole thread all the way through...

Well, perhaps you should read the whole thread (and get your facts straight) before you start being critical of the "client" in this situation.

[This message has been edited by Patrick (edited 01-12-2013).]

This whole thread is cursed. I predict loss of limb next...

edited out

[This message has been edited by countach711 (edited 01-12-2013).]

Rant Edited out as Countach711 also edited his post.

Now back to the thread.

Ok where we dropped off I was trying to get in touch with FOY in regards to my car. Lisa and I were ready to jump in the GTP at 9am tomorrow and race down there. Well I got a call on my cell at 9pm and...... well lets skip to the end here, I offered to go, he said no, and that I don't need to go, he will FOR SURE, GAURNTEED, BE IN BLAIN just south of the boarder at 5pm. This will give me an hour to get the car from him, get to customs pay any duty / taxes they want on the repairs, and then get in the car and race to the meeting to handle the speaking and such.

Lisa won't be able to drive me as she will need to be at the meeting by 5:30 to start setting things up. So I am going to have a friend take me down.

I normally say wish me luck, but in this case, you should wish both myself and FOY luck.

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857GT Part 85GT Part 87GT Part Caddy, 93 Eldorado 4.9, 5spd Dual O2 Custom Chip, Custom Exhaust. MSD Everything Now with Nitrous. Capt Fiero --- My Over View Cadero Pics Yellow 88GT 5spd Full Poly Suspension, Lowered 1/2" in front, Corner Carver.

[This message has been edited by Capt Fiero (edited 01-12-2013).]

Hi Capt, my apologies, when you distill it all like that I can totally see your point of view as well, and it is equally valid. I think I had my blinders on from just coming out of a similarly poor-luck job. I edited my last post a bit as well. Sorry for your misfortunes as well, I hope all is going better and I apologize for making you feel like you needed to defend yourself. John

quote Originally posted by countach711: Hi Capt, my apologies, when you distill it all like that I can totally see your point of view as well, and it is equally valid. I think I had my blinders on from just coming out of a similarly poor-luck job. I edited my last post a bit as well. Sorry for your misfortunes as well, I hope all is going better and I apologize for making you feel like you needed to defend yourself. John

Ok and Thank You. I went ahead and removed my rant.

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857GT Part 85GT Part 87GT Part Caddy, 93 Eldorado 4.9, 5spd Dual O2 Custom Chip, Custom Exhaust. MSD Everything Now with Nitrous. Capt Fiero --- My Over View Cadero Pics Yellow 88GT 5spd Full Poly Suspension, Lowered 1/2" in front, Corner Carver.

quote Originally posted by Capt Fiero: This will give me an hour to get the car from him, get to customs pay any duty / taxes they want on the repairs, and then get in the car and race to the meeting to handle the speaking and such.

You should not have to pay any duties. The labour is not taxable and the custom parts are made in the USA so it's free trade. Unless someone snuck some Chinese parts in there, you should be fine.

Same goes with my kit. or leave it in the car and say it's spare parts. :P

Take a picture of the car crossing the border! Celebrate a major accomplishment!

Cheers!

FOY has gone above and beyond in his efforts to get this project completed correctly and delivered to his customer.

I hope everyone in the Fiero community realizes and appreciates the amount of work and time that he has donated to this project to get it right.

[This message has been edited by olejoedad (edited 01-12-2013).]

This is NOT the only thread pertaining to issues with this vendor. Oh well. Capt, best of luck to you. I really hope you get your car back.

The cap exploding was caused by excess pressure from combustion gas in the coolant system, I just tested it. The only thing that has stayed constant between motors is the cam. It is the only explanation for how we could blow three different motors headgaskets in a very short amount of time. I'm going to call right now and we need to decide what to do. I have a hunch when we pull the cam and mic it, it will be way off and Delta is going to have some explaining to do

quote Originally posted by FriendOfYours: The cap exploding was caused by excess pressure from combustion gas in the coolant system, I just tested it. The only thing that has stayed constant between motors is the cam. It is the only explanation for how we could blow three different motors headgaskets in a very short amount of time. I'm going to call right now and we need to decide what to do. I have a hunch when we pull the cam and mic it, it will be way off and Delta is going to have some explaining to do

Wow, Best of luck to both the builder, and to Capt Fiero. This has to be extremely frustrating to both parties.

Wow!

Maybe I'm not understanding something here, but how can a CAM let combustion gas into the coolant?? If the lobes were off, etc.. You would get a loss of compression, intake leak to the exhaust or vise versa. But neither the cam, the valves or the pushrods come in contact with coolant...

The only thing that DOES come in contact with coolant and is constant with all 3 engines is that intake..

That doesn't add up to me either but I have been wrong before.

Question is why are you just now figuring this out? Any time you install a cam you should mic it. Same thing with cam bearings, rod bearings ect.. It better to find out you have the wrong parts before you blow up 3 engines. I also agree with the intake being the problem. Just my 2 cents.

The intake can't force air into the cooling system, especially not enough to create the massive amounts of pressure we are seeing. It blew the ****ing cap off in my face. The intake has not been modified besides porting and adding a plenum, absolutely no way to cause a blown head gasket.

If the exhaust duration is too short or the lift too small you can certainly blow a headgasket. Intake off you get predetonation

And when you buy bearings, they haven't been reground. When I go to a company that all they do is cam grinds, and they hand me a spec sheet, I assume it to be correct

Also, it is not smoking nor is there any smell of coolant in the exhaust

[This message has been edited by FriendOfYours (edited 01-12-2013).]

After following this post, I really feel for the Capt and FOY. The Capt because he doesn't have his car back and FOY for not being able to find the right formula to get a 4.9L to have a few more horses.
I have decent mechanical skills but I would not attempt a 4.9L build unless it was done from the ground up. If you are going to go though that expense then the 3800SC becomes the far better option. Head gasket sealing was always a concern with the 4.9L engines and thats why GM instructs to use a special type of cooling system sealer everytime the coolant is changed. You have "drop in" steel sleeves fitted in an aluminum block and under temperature extremes the coefficient of expansion between the two metals creates unequal expansion and contraction . Installing a higher lift cam could increase combustion pressures, hence more strain on the head gasket.
While I commend FOY for attempting a difficult project, IMO the 4.9L is best used, as it was originally built. If you want a V8 get a V8 Archie kit with the reliable and time tested SBC may make more sense. .

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" THE BLACK PARALYZER" -87GT 3800SC Series III engine, custom ZZP /Frozen Boost Intercooler setup, 3.4" Pulley, Powerlog manifold, Northstar TB, LS1 MAF, 3" Flotech Afterburner Exhaust, Autolite 104's, MSD wires, Custom CAI, 4T65eHD w. custom axles, HP Tuners VCM Suite.
"THE COLUSSUS"
87GT - ALL OUT 3.4L Turbocharged engine, Garrett Hybrid Turbo, MSD ign., modified TH125H
" ON THE LOOSE WITHOUT THE JUICE "

Alright, some people are going to be pissed at me for saying this, as they want me to just come get the car and screw you to the wall, however this is what I want to do. Push the car aside for 2 weeks. Take a break from it, finish up the other orders that are on hold because of my car. You have several people on here that want to string you up over delays on there parts that are caused by my car. Get everyone else taken care of. You said that Purple's parts are in my car. Get them shipped asap. I have another 4.9 friend in Tacoma and I'll ask him if he can stop by and take a look at the car. Maybe he can offer some insight. After everyone else is taken care of, we can re-address what to do with my car. Today is the 12th of November, we can come back to it on the 26th. Maybe between now and then some more idea's can be floated on here and come up with a solution.

As to why this is happening. When I was grasping at straws throwing random idea's out, I one of the things I asked was could it be the cam. Not from wrong lob angles, but from excess lift push up on the heads so much lift that when the lifters pump up, its trying to rip the rockers up, causing an uneven load on the heads. Its far fetched but it was one of my "Way Out There" ideas. If the cam was causing pre-ignition it would have been detonating so bad that while you were trying to tune it, you would have heard it. Assuming you are not new to cars you would have heard the detonation.

The things that are common to both swaps, are the cam, the intake and, I thought something else but I can't remember what it was. Is it possible the intake got warped during the porting and is causing an en-even load on something. Is it possible that the bolts holding the new intake to the lower intake are too long?

If I think of something else, I'll try to post it up.

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857GT Part 85GT Part 87GT Part Caddy, 93 Eldorado 4.9, 5spd Dual O2 Custom Chip, Custom Exhaust. MSD Everything Now with Nitrous. Capt Fiero --- My Over View Cadero Pics Yellow 88GT 5spd Full Poly Suspension, Lowered 1/2" in front, Corner Carver.

Hang in there guys........
Remember that the two of you started as a team to tackle a difficult task.
You'll get something worked out.

[This message has been edited by olejoedad (edited 01-12-2013).]

Give him my cell number, he's more than welcome to come look at the car.

If the intake were off it'd cause pre-ignition and I've heard nothing and neither did the mic. If the exhaust is off it could very well make no discernible noise. I also can't imagine there be so much lift and the heads come loose before the rocker bridge breaks

The heat dissipates from the intake so fast when welding that there is no way it is warped, and I checked it. There are no bolts holding it on, it is one welded piece

[This message has been edited by FriendOfYours (edited 01-12-2013).]

quote Originally posted by fierofan25: Question is why are you just now figuring this out? Any time you install a cam you should mic it. Same thing with cam bearings, rod bearings ect.. It better to find out you have the wrong parts before you blow up 3 engines. I also agree with the intake being the problem. Just my 2 cents.

No way would the intake have anything to do with their problem.

quote Originally posted by Capt Fiero on the 12th of January: Today is the 12th of November...

That ship sailed two months ago.

Take a deep breath, Dave... relax...

[This message has been edited by Patrick (edited 01-13-2013).]

I have been watching this thread since the start and hoping for good ending and good results.

The only place combustion gasses can access the coolant system is through head gasket, cracked liner or cracked head. Since this has happened to 3 different engine, the failure point is likely the head gasket.

Common items between the 3 engines that are suspect in my book are:
Camshaft - maybe the lift is to much and you are either coil binding the springs or bottoming out the retainer on the valve boss. If either of these happen, you likely will bend a pushrod, break a rocker arm, break the rocker arm bridge (yours is steel right?) or try to lift the head which will kill the head gasket.

Valve Springs - were they matched to the camshaft? Are the installed the to the proper installed height? Are they too strong?

Intake manifold - If it is slightly warped, it could be putting an abnormal side load or lifting one end of the head. Have all 3 motors lost the gasket in the same cylinder? If they have, then the intake might be a good suspect.

Engine/transmission/Dogbone mounts - The 4.9 is a bad design in my book with the liners essentially floating in the block with coolant all the way around them. They are o-ring sealed at the bottom and ONLY use the clamp force of the head to keep the tops stationary. So any movement or additional stress on the head puts the seal between the liner and the head gasket in jeopardy and increases the chances of failure. By using rubber transmission mounts from other applications as engine/transmission mounts, the mounts take less of the driveline torque and put a much larger amount of load on the dogbone. If this dogbone is mounted on the head, then the dogbone will try to shift the head and cause a head gasket issue.

Tune - It could be the engine was suffering from pre-ignition, which caused exceptionally high combustion pressure, which could try to lift the head. Normally pre-ignition kills the pistons first, but since GM designed the 4.9 w/o a knock sensor, and having never head of anyone with a 4.9 cracking/melting a piston, they might be stout enough to kill the head gasket before melting/cracking. Pre-ignition also created much hotter combution temps and those higher temps might be expanding the rings to the point they bind (like running too much nitrous). When the rings bind in a normal engine, the excessive drag usually breaks a ring landing, because the cylinder bores can't move. In a 4.9 if you bind the rings, you very well could shift the liners and kill the head gasket.
Also, with the changes in the heads, camshaft and intake, the tune should have have needed some pretty significant changes. When Rockcrawl started using the 7730 instead of the stock caddy ecm, he commented that the stock caddy ecm didn't respond in a normal fashion to the adjustments in the tune (implying that the ECM was far from being fully hacked, understood, and having the ability for definitive and precise adjustments), which made if very difficult to dial in the tune on modified engines. Add to this the lack of a knock sensor to help detect issues, and not a single mention of using a wide band O2 sensor to keep an eye on things... the tune would be highly suspect in my book.

Power - It could be that all the upgrades have made a significant increase to the airflow of the engine and combustion pressure, to the point that the clamp pressure can no longer keep the tops of the liners stationary and sealed tightly. Since there has been turbo's 4.9's, I doubt this is the issue by itself, but add in additional stress from a warped intake, and higher loads from the dogbone due to mount design, then the increase in power output cound have been enough to push things over the edge.


Before you put another engine in this car, I would do a through review of each of the failed engines to see if there were any commonalities between failure points.

[This message has been edited by fieroguru (edited 01-12-2013).]

The other two motors used the steel bridge, this motor was the factory aluminum

The springs are factory

The intake is perfectly flat. I checked it with the same starrett I use on heads, blocks and everything else I machine. It isn't twisted either

The engine is mounted at 4 points on the bottom, it barely shifts without the dogbone.

The tune has been rewritten nearly 50x now and it was done with a wideband and a knock mic.

fieroguru, great post.