89 Cutlass Ciera Race Car Build

[Duke George V]

Rules say that you have to run tires with a minimum treadwear of 190.

[Pontiac6ksteawd]

190? Man oh man.. you could get some soft radials for traction, and own all.. But be replacing tires every 20 laps.. LOL!

The hard part is finding that balance of treadwear, and traction... The higher the treadwear, the lower the traction. I know the UTOQ says diferent, but this is just from my personal experience. Siping also plays a role, but not nearly as great.

[Pontiac6ksteawd]

Another thing to consider is port matching the upper and lower intake plenums, and putting on a larger throttle body. But I cant remember if the 3.1 had a larger one or not...

[Duke George V]

2.8 and 3.1 intakes and heads were identical, aside from the upper having 2.8 or 3.1 cast into it. I already offered all the worked-over parts I have sometime last year.

[lemons bob]

well quick update from yesterday. cleaned up and plugged the icm and coils back together, plugged everything back in and it fired up and sounded good, we hadn't bolted anything in so we thought we would put it all back together and fan back on. While trying to put everything together right it started to rain, and with one bolt just not being easy to put in it took a while. We were just finishing up as Silentwing and Luke stopped by. We went to start it and it wouldn't start up, just backfire when we stoped cranking it. After fiddling for a while we eventually tried the icm and coils on Luke's Cutlass Supreme, and it worked fine, plugged it back in still no good. Figuring now that the water getting dumped into the engine compartment might have been making it act up. So now its sitting drying out while it continues to rain outside.

As for tires, currently the hot tire in Lemons is the Dunlop Direzza Sport Z1 Star Specs. Of course some teams have found that there are times these aren't your best bet. Worn a bit I guess they get a bit tricky in the wet, and the teams racing in Michigan in April found out why they are called Summer Tires. Lots of problems at that race with the cold, the rain and snow. While those are nice they are a bit pricey. We are probably staying on the cheaper end of tires still. Trying something that will last the weekend and keep us on the track. We are a ways off from trying to keep up with the top teams on pace, so we have to try and out last them on the track. The biggest thing we needed to improve from last time was fueling. If we had to fill up we were off atleast 15 minutes. So trying to find better fuel jugs. The 5 gallon blitz ones are painfully slow not that they aren't allowed to have vents. Found some at jegs that are suppose to dump 5 gallons in 68 seconds. Figure if we get 2 of those we would be good, since we won't ever try to fill 15 gallons during a race since the tank is only 15.9, and hurrying we would probably spill fuel all over.

Prorities are still getting the engine running again, and then work on handling, I have a feeling power upgrades will have to wait. What I'd really like to do is be able to drop the car a bit. Lowering would lower the center of gravity and should improve the handling(as long as we don't screw up the suspension symmetry. With the weight loss the car is higher than stock, with stiff springs it will get even higher. So the question is how is the best way to lower the car without screwing up the handling more

[lemons bob]

Yesterday I put it back together after letting everything dry out and it started back up. Still not liking full throttle. It bogs down with about 1/2 to 2/3 throttle, and still misses when warm.

I let it warm up today and started pulling spark plug wires and it sounded like the issue might be with cylinder 3. It didn't sound like it changed with 3, and 2 was really unhappy when it was pulled which makes sense since after looking up the firing order and feeling stupid for not remembering it (1-2-3-4-5-6) it would make sense if 2 doesn't fire and 3 doesn't or isn't firing particularly well that the engine would stumble and not want start. 4 sounded pretty bad to if I remember while 1 and 6 didn't seem as bad.

[Buick_powa]

The more bad a cylinder sound when disconnected, the more powerful it is.

[lemons bob]

not sure if it is because cylinder the is more powerful as much as the car does not like having 2 cylinders in a row not firing.

[SilentWing]

Try the plugs and wires and see what happens, you'd probably need them anyways before you race it again.

[jlattyak]

Replaced the plugs and wires on Sunday, we swapped the location of two of the wires when putting it back together, but once we figured that out it seems to idle much better, but still dies out if you give it to much gas.

We are thinking the next step is replace the fuel filter, and check the fuel pressure to make sure the fuel pump is not going bad on us. Hopping to not have to drop the tank.

We need to find an inexpensive fuel pressure gauge, or see if that is something we can borrow from the parts store.

Seems like we are slowly headed in the right direction, but any thoughts or input is always welcome.

[SilentWing]

Do you have a MAP sensor or MAF? If it's a MAF sensor that could be malfunctioning. Try tapping lightly with the handle of a screwdriver on the sensor and see if it stumbles.

[Duke George V]

89s used MAP.

[mechanizeddeath]

Replaced the plugs and wires on Sunday, we swapped the location of two of the wires when putting it back together, but once we figured that out it seems to idle much better, but still dies out if you give it to much gas.

I've only done plugs and wires a couple times, but because of this I do them one at a time. Takes a little longer, but less chance of a mixup. One exception I know of are the older Subarus (and maybe newer ones?) where the wires "point" in the direction of the plug they attach to. As long as no wires cross, you've got them on right. Idiot proof, is what my ex girlfriend's dad said when he saw the layout.

[lemons bob]

Thursday after work I thought I'd do some trouble shooting. So I decided to see if the fuel pump was still pumping. I disconnected the fuel filter and when we did it last time it shot fuel out all over the place, since we didn't depressurize the system. This time while still not depressurizing the system it didn't spray, just kind of poured out. the fuel pump will still pump fuel but I'm guessing it isn't strong enough to get it up to the proper pressure which is something around 40psi.

That really isn't something we wanted to deal with since dropping the tank we don't think will be fun.

Well since everyone else was busy today I made this from the front seats.



So 2 of us will be more comfortable at the next race, and one of us will have somewhere to hold a drink and put their change.

[Duke George V]

Damn, I need to make something like that. What did you do? Drill and tap the legs the same size as the bolt holes in the seat bottom, then glue threaded rod in and screw it in?