The Beginning
-How it all started-
Chapter 1
Here is my project. Its a 1992 Dodge daytona IROC R/T.
Like I said, its a 92 Daytona IROC R/T. 1 of 432 IROC RT's built total, 1 of 75 in white in 92, and 1 of 5 PVP Pilot car. (Pre vehicle production car)
Its got a grey leather interior. Sunroof (1 of 50 with factory sunroof). Power windows, locks, and mirrors. Plus 8 way power recaro drivers seat.
Stock motor is a 2.2l DOHC intercooled turbo. It has a Lotus designed and cast head and a getrag 5 speed trans. It came with 224 hp/ 217 ft.lb stock.
I am the 3rd owner of the car, besides Chrysler. It was sold to a chrysler execs. son, who beat the car till it would hardly run. Then an air force doctor in Kansas picked it up. He tore the motor down to find the number one cyl sleeve cracked, as well as other problems and rebuilt the motor. He was transferred to Cheyenne Wyoming, and decided to sell the car. When I drove up to get the car, it was obvious it was his baby. He parked it in the heated garage, while the new 300c stayed outside. Which he said was one of the reasons his wife was making him get rid of it. Long story short, next day I was on the way home from Wyoming with the car on the trailer.
The car ran absolutely awesome for about 4 months. But, being it was my first "quick" car. I kind of abused it. Ok, I beat it. lol But, thats why I bought the thing.
I loved the car so much that in the first year of owning it. I had put 30k miles on the car. After about 4-5 months the car just didnt seem to be as strong as it was before. I was slowly learning about the car, and why it was not running right.
During this time, the car was entered in a little local car show, and did suprisingly well for a stock car. It ended up taking second place to a WAY modded 400+whp srt4. I was really happy with that, even though car shows just are not my thing. "All go, no show" is really more my thing. But, it was cool regardless.
Even beat out my RT's twin sister. (Mine is on the right, with stock wheels)
(second place plaque photo)
It started loosing boost more and more on the top end. I could not figure out why. Nothing I would do would change it. Not even the addition of a grainger valve helped. It would start at 12, and by the top of the gear was 7-8. Originally I thought it was boost leak, or something the computer was doing. During this time, the mods I did were a TurboXs rfl BOV, Grainger valve set for 12psi (but would crap out to 7-8) 2.5" exhaust, A K&N air filter, Magnacore 10mm wires, Acufab AFPR, and a Dawes device.
When the car was not loosing boost, it ran great. After taking away boost control from the computer, I started thinking my exhaust manifold gasket was leaking and causing the anti-creep. And, turns out it was leaking. But that was not the real problem... The turbo was shot.
money pit begins
At this point, I was more or less to afraid to work on the car myself. For whatever reason. lol But, a good TD buddy (blhfam) helped me do the gasket on the manifold and advice on what needed to be done. I wanted to upgrade the turbo but didnt even know how to go about it. Also, from what I had read there were no turbo upgrades that didnt involve a new downpipe and other stuff. Being a noob that scared me. So, I contacted a turbo vendor that could help. He talked me into a s70 rebuild for my stock turbo. At the time, sounded like a great idea. But, I was really unhappy with the performance of the turbo. It was lagger than stock, with not a whole lot more top end, even with a wheel cut (Thanks for that bit of crap advice TU).
Car ran better after the turbo install, the new gasket and the Polybushing.com solid motor mounts all around. But, I really wasnt all that happy with the performance of the turbo, and it still was not holding boost all that well. Not to mention, when I bought the car. The 3rd gear syncro was rough, and I knew it. But, I never paid it a whole lot of attention untill one night at the track, I killed the syncro. It was sad really because the best the car ever ran was a
[email protected] after all the stuff I had put into it. But, it seemed the more mods I put into the car, the more flaws with it were discovered. After I killed the syncro, I picked up a nice rebuilt a568 trans from FWDperfomance. Also got a new 4 puck clutch and HD pressure plate. :thumb:
After taking way too long putting the trans and stuff back in, it made it a whole 2 weeks till the next problem popped up.
One night while racing a very healthy turbo thunder bird, I the motor up and died. After starting it up, I hear the ominous noise of rod knock.
I shut the motor down, and thus began my friendship with one of the local tow truck drivers. lmfao
Motor Build!
now I'm in for it!
Now, I figured it was time to get serious with the car. If the motor was bad what a better time. So, after some saving up and figuring I set out to build the motor and head. Felt like I had thought everything through... Went with a built shortblock from FWD with all the goodies (venolias, de stressed rods, etc) and a built stage one head from LoneWolf performance I pick up from Cindy as well. While I was at it, I got a set of LoneWolf Stage 1 cams to go with it. Found a Spearco 1010cfm intercooler for a great price, and decided to go with that and custom 2.5" pipe. The build just kept getting bigger and bigger.... Lots of little things I forgot to list. For a complete mod list, see the first post.
-motor/head build list
-Venolia forged pistons
-polished forged crank, balanced
-shot peened forged rods with re-drilled tops
-sealed power rings
-clevite main and rod bearings
-ARP hardware
-melling high volume oil pump
-Ishihara-jonhson windage tray and oil pan baffle,
-Balance shafts removed
-Lonewolf stage one head
-Lonewolf stage one cams
-3rd gen FWDperformance upgraded lifters
-LOTS and lots of other goodies
-shortblock on stand after putting in headstuds and putting on the head.
-Gen 3 Lifters and LP stage one cams.
-LP stage one head**Installed untill I lifted the head, then I took it off, and put my stock one on. The other is out being ported. Pics coming in the next "chapter" lol
-installing the new motor
-Mocking up intercooler piping
-Windage tray and oil pan baffle setup.
-Ported LoneWolf exhaust mani and Fidanza ltwt. flywheel
-Electronic cutout valve for just before the cat. EPA certified!
As I said the build just kept snowballing, it ended up taking almost 2 years to get everything together and put back in the car. :tsktsk-tisk: Again, partly me being lazy, partly waiting for parts. lol Its amazing how much a simple rebuild turns into something else when you have to much time spent waiting, and not working. lol
Anyway, here is a slighltly long video (12 min) of the cars life up to this point. There is some racing and then a description of the build with lots of pics.
-learning to fly Pt.1
A+video+about+my+92+Daytona+IROC+RT.+A+little+raci
Only thing I really overlooked, and I dont know what I was thinking was a decent turbo. lol I knew in the back of my mind the crap s70 was just not going to cut it anymore. For some reason I just kept thinking it would be ok. lol :bash:
Once it was all put together, it did run pretty good. The electronic exhaust cut out I had put on was probably one of the best things I did. I loved the sound, and the butt dyno noticed a large difference even though I had 2.5" exhaust and high flow Magnaflow cat and muffler. And it really made the car get noticed. As I tinkered with it, it started to wake up more and more. I just never could get happy with the s70 turbo, so one day while talking to wallace on the phone he tells me about a brand new Holset HX40pro he has that he can make me a deal on. So I bought it! lol
Then came the night I finally got to go to the track with it for the first time with the built motor/head and s70. I was very excited.
I dont remember now what I messed with but I screwed up the boost controller! lol And didnt even notice my first run. Should have had the Zeitronix installed.:bang head
Here is a little vid...
-learning to fly Pt.2
Dont worry, much shorter! lol
another+crappy+vid.+lol
I was a little erked at the fact I never changed the boost, but felt atleast ok about the times on such a low boost.
Still continued to play with the car some. Got the boost turned up and found that I was running into overboost now at then with the grainger set to 13psi. So, I hooked up my overboost elim, and then never really adjusted it much after that. I also installed the rest of the zeitronix stuff I had not put in. Something I should have done from the get go.
-Installing the Zeitronix wideband/egt/boost/tps/rpm monitor/datalogger
A couple weeks later was my second chance at the track. I was excited I was going to get to run some "decent" boost. 13psi was what I was shooting for.
-Little more track vid, and some "computer gen. street racing video"
More+crappy+RT+vid...+%3a)
As you can see, the car seems to be running really strong with the exception of the boost cut. Which wouldnt be an issue if my 3bar cal stuff had run better. But, understandably needed to be sent back to fwd for some adjustments.
I finally found the time to adjust the overboost elim correctly and found that the wastegate was blowing open. So, I used a couple helper springs and it would actually hold some decent boost! 18psi spike falling to 15psi. So, installed the DevilsOwn meth injection. cranked it up the meth and went racing! (computer generated again of course) I also started keeping datalogs... Or atleast keeping them where I could find them. lol
-Car develops a drug problem. Meth install!
-Datalog of freeway pull with s70. 18psi spike falling to 15psi with overboost elim and meth injection.
-freeway fun with 60trim srt4 and 13 second wrx and others.
old s70turbo video video by bansheenut420 - Photobucket
The srt 4 in the video was a 60 trim with some bolt ons and stage 2 stuff. And the wrx around 1 min into the video had ran a 13.5 @ 104 or something. Funny story about how I found this out was at one of the lights, we slowed way down and a bunch of us were going to go from a 1st gear roll. I ended up wheel hopping horribly and destroying an axle and half shaft. I waved everyone else on knowing there was nothing any of them could do. I called my new buddy the tow truck driver and got in my car to wait for him. The group continued on up the road a few more miles and pulled over, BSed for a while and then the group broke up. I guess the wrx driver's house was back down the street I was on. He pulled over and gave me some major props on my car, asked if we need some help then hung out and talked cars for a while. lol So I was happy with the performance of the car, but excited to get the holset on. Which I knew would take a little work. I didnt feel like tearing the car down with it running was the problem.
It wouldnt be long till I got my reason to get the holset stuff done. The clutch went out.... I figured what better time. lol
15psi+practice+runs.
