Totally not contributing to the conversation, but I lol'd too hard at this.

In my driveway, there's a 2006 Ram 2500 5.9 CTD/48RE quad cab long bed Laramie package and a '76 Wagoneer that spent it's entire life until ~6yrs ago as a winter recovery vehicle in Estes Park.

Both in many many pieces at the moment. Though both ran before I took them apart...I mean, the truck pulled 18k# 2000mi from Jupiter to Conifer without a hiccup, despite the +100hp injectors and stock everything else. Well...the trailer blew a tire just before Yeehaw Junction...and the '74 Stingray inside it decided she wanted to get up and walk around while I had the fasten seatbelt sign on right in front of the FHP's Orlando office...but the truck'd be running if the county we're in wasn't a CA emissions county.

I know, I know...excuses and buttholes...

 

lol - that you mean you have a 67 Corvette in the mix too? And if I were going to tow, there are some good Cummins equipped Dodges out there. You have many projects to work on over there! Ever get the spare heads done on the 250?

 

1974. The last year of the big block (though she came with the L48/TH400), first year with no chrome, and I believe the 2nd worst HP rating from the factory, with '75 CA models going down to ~160hp from a 1st gen SBC. '70s vettes are all basket cases because they were designed, built, sold, and bought by people who don't remember the '70s. She and my 1984 13' Gheenoe Lowsider got into a fight over who disliked Georgia's interstates more, so I now have some composite repairs in my future, which may or may not also end up coinciding with me mocking up a 4 GR intake, which may or may not involve that set of heads and lower intake being used to mock up the whole thing on the bench. I spent like 2 months chasing ~2cc of water around all the ports until calling it good enough.

More immediately, I've gotta get the clutch sorted--already found out a T015 and T015X don't work on a SL25A (7M/R154 is ~5mm smaller mounting pin/bolt OD than the SL25A wants), so now I'm waiting for a T014 to make it through the holiday mail traffic. I'm already anticipating having to space the flywheel friction surface out the 7.5mm step to give the T014 the flush engagement distance it wants...but this isn't my build thread. Once I have a clutch that can actually hang through whatever embarrassing torque number our mostly stock engine's putting down, I'm going to be getting a baseline dyno just out of curiosity, then I'll be swapping on the ported/polished heads, and I hope to obtain a set of 2GR cams by then. Else, more engine teardowns. I mean, with my mid-term plans, I better get used to it, I suppose.

Right now, I'm sorting the junk piles to get my garage PC talking to the -250 through a J2534 cable. I also have somewhere between 10 and 20 watercooled PCs dating back to pre-commercial water block days. Used to hold some overclock and benchmark world records (before phase-change became a thing) circa '04-'05 thanks to unlimited free electricity in the barracks and my radiator/fan hung out the window in the -40 degree Ft. Wainwright air.

Yeah, you're not the first to remark on the number of pots I like to keep on the burners...wife also had me tear up the basement this summer.

 

Jumping into the past. I had this for 25 years. A 73 Gran Torino Sport, 351C 4BBL 4 bolt mains, Toploader 4 speed, 3.50 Trac-loc in a 9-in Nodular case, Dayton pinion support, and 31 spline axles. After the build whereby the heads were ported but still open chamber smoggers, it made 375 hp, 350 tq. Loved the sound of that machine (through Dodge Hemi mufflers)....

^^ background is a 79 F-350, 460 ci., C6 Auto, 4.11 gears Dana 60's front and rear. The Guzzler! lol All body and paint work done by me back in the day.


In the end, Universal Studio's made me an offer I couldn't refuse and I sold it to them with a full 72 nose with hood scoop. There was already a red car in the Fast Furious 4 so it got painted it green (-sigh-). IIRC 9 were purchased, 3 were factory four speeds, mine was used for all of the interior shots. At the time I made a deal with the director that if it survives, I get it back but he wanted to keep for his own. It didn't matter as all of them were destroyed. Insert more sadness. Cool dude to chat with, regardless.


72 nose conversion and color change for the movie...


I miss that car...

 

I've started this post a handful of times and abandoned it, because, well...things are complicated, so I'll just start interesting and get boring...

The engine in the vette right now is a World 383cid block, Dart Pro1 64/215cc heads, Pro products Hurricane intake, Comp 294S cam, and a heavy, all-stainless rocker and valve system on top of more spring than I need for that cam's RPM range.

Transmission's a TKO600 kit from Keisler before they went to silversport or whatever they are now. Diff is toast, and I always wanted to adapt a 9in, but I think just rebuilding the HD carrier that's in there is a better idea...15 years later. Rear trailing arms are the same story.
Front suspension is shimmed 3/4" on one arm...an awful lot on both of the other side. Rear doesn't seem to have ever been disturbed, but yeah...expecting the worst. Front wiper cowl has about 3/8" of poly resin poured straight into it, as I'm assuming a shop the previous owner paid a whole bunch of money to did to stop the leak that was rotting away the bottom of the windshield surround and both #2 body/birdcage mounts. Found that out after trying to replace the wipers that flew off after I let an ex-gf drive it to work and she forgot to latch the t-tops, the tops coming off at 70mph bent the linkage. Borescope tells me that someone has welded the birdcage before, but I'm still going to delam the firewall from the body and eyeball it myself. Car was given to me by my dad on my first block leave home after getting charged for hometown recruiting and never getting that time back (oo-weee does that F-sport me come 451-day deployment time...), and I end up spending ~$16k of my ~$32k deployment money on vette parts. $8k on the engine, $6k on the trans...it adds up when you're not old enough to drink yet, and you're ordering car parts you don't really expect to see (started the deployment as a platoon RTO with a "hey, I'm over here" antenna, then BS'd my way onto the company's sniper team/CO's RTO...I had a real "divide by zero" attitude after 12mos of Mosul and 4mos of Baghdad). Anyway...CIF gets all but a little less than $4k of my money on my way out of the army (still had to buy my own ticket home to FL from AK) because my personnel file went missing during the paper-to-paperless transfer, or one of my three stop-losses, or when I came this friggin' close to another involuntary contract extension for a handful of reasons ranging from a severely broken collarbone/being counted AWOL due to a "no walk on ice" profile, to driving a technically stolen privately-owned-vehicle directly onto a hot live-fire range to get a signature from someone in the S-shops the day before I ETS'd, to getting busted by the battalion's new CSM the day before that--who is bald and hates hair--with about triple the regulation length hair all over my head and face, in his office, and I address him by every rank but "sergeant major" with one of those "I'm getting out, F-U" grins on my face while he's yelling at me to get a shave, haircut, new attitude, and wipe that look off my face...I dunno. FTA is all I'm tryna say. Ended up ignoring 6 reactivation orders until a DUI finally ended that chapter.
I always imagined the vette would be a father/son project, but it's really just been a white elephant since the day I got it. Single owner, but the husband died early and the wife trusted JiffyLube for 30+ years. Original oxblood red interior was very much a sunburst orange **** by the time I got it...then the T-tops flew off and I had to gut it all before mold killed the fiberglass. Then I smoked the diff.

*Sigh*

The one good thing I can say about the Stingray is that it's mine. Good luck to anyone who'd want to take it from me...

 

^^ Wholly smokes man! That is some story there! I hate it when her tops fly and you see things you didn't expect to see! As for the front cross member, those are soft and given some baja action tend to get a good amount of negative camber. Here we go back to the Chief Easy Liner S2 story. Strap down the shock towers/Upper A-arms and jack up the middle. If all goes well both sides come back evenly. I recall correcting many years for the same issues! Anywho, you have your hands full there!

Maybe you should start an Ultra-250 Sleeper thread whereby FI goes away in favor of brute strength 383 c.i. Chebby?? Haha! Well, at least until the Vette has some deep love.

 

On another note: IS-350 rear diff temperature seems pretty low as in not much Pre-Load going on. I shot it with an IR temp gun after two 25 min drives and one 50 min drive covering 30 miles. The numbers are 98 F degrees each time. This is a reference point for after new bearing installation on the carrier!

 

I should def start my own build thread with as many dead ends as I'm hitting.

But my original go-fast plan that got the go-ahead from the wife was an L33 5.3L and T56/TR6060, back when those engines were ~$1k, but the only sub-$3k trans I found that would work at the time was a C4 ZF, which is a big ol' no-go. Fast forward a few years and the wife OKs another Full Size Jeep, which started the wife wag build--4.7l powertech, 545RFE, NV144 and D44 TrueTracs--which then had me realizing the Powertech was just as suited for the 2is platform and I ran down that road for awhile. The Powertechs have a terrible reputation, but they're the last vestige of AMC engineering, and when you get inside one it looks like an OHC mini-semi-hemi; with the right intake and valvetrain, they'll rev to the stratosphere...their one big pitfall is timing chain stretch, which I blame Mopar for crappy engine bays that hold high engine assembly temps. Trust me, it took me a while to get there, that's not just some off-the-wall theory.

Anyway, the wag we got ended up being too nice to swap anything but sheet metal on. So the field of possible engines to cram into the 2is is wide open again. I still think an L33 would be a great candidate. As would a UZ. Or a RWD Ecotec on too much boost, make a homebrew IS200t.

Anyway anyway, back to your thread.

 

I stumbled upon a fuel station selling 100oct unleaded fuel /eth free too/ that was not at an airport. Cost was steep and initially the kclv didn't change but there was a lot of unexpected city driving during that time too. In the end, before the tank was dry, the 350 came to life. See crappy video. Temps were in the low 40°F.
Lexus IS-350 0-80 mph

Car seems happy!

 

I'm jealous of your traction.

 

For the record, LSD is not installed and the trac light pinged a couple times, if you're referring to the video that is?? For a 4000lb sedan, it seems pretty playful. Perhaps the E85 guys are on to something?? But, we has zero boost. Never mind!

Ever get the MAF issues figured out?

 

I'm referring to your video, I spin if I go wot under 30. I did figure out my maf problem but now I'm tossed between getting rid of mine and finding an AWD model or getting an lsd. I'm kind of tempted to try to find a rwd is300 f-sport and move forward with that, but my is350 is paid off and that's nice on its own.

 

It was dry and has brand new BFG's in the rear. When I got it 2.5 years ago it had these Nitto Motivo's on the tail and it constantly lit those up. Best tire ever for drifting and smoke screens as long as you can load the suspension by turning left!

What about this: Grab an IS-250 rear sub-frame and BRZ Torsen. I bet they give the sub-frame away so it's all just labor and walla, the 350 has traction!! Fit it with polly and go. We've never seen anyone blow one up and I'm pretty sure Jeff Lang's 350MT has one so. Just saying for perhaps $450 you get what you need.

 

^^ what are you running for dampers, springs and anti-roll? All of that matters too! I know most here don't think much of the F-Sport package but damping and spring rates are pretty damn good. And considering these will last 100,000 miles while aftermarket coilovers die in 50 to 60k, it's pretty hard to beat.

Point is, the suspension and tires matter a lot.

 

The car was lowered when I got it, not sure what springs but my car feels stiffer than the others I drove. The rest is stock aside from an f-sport rear sway bar and aftermarket arms in the back to correct camber from being lowered.

Do you have the torque app? You should log your maf values and see what your 0-60, 40-60, and 60-80 times are.