(Possibly) Blew a head gasket looking for suggestions

[arlisscm]

Looking for suggestions for what all else I should replace/update while I will have the engine and transmission out.
Here is what I have so far:

New engine (fairly obvious)
New intake and exhaust manifold gaskets, new turbo to manifold and turbo to downpipe gaskets, new throttle body to intake manifold gasket
New exhaust manifold, turbo to manifold and turbo to downpipe studs and nuts (ARP)
Header wrap for exhaust manifold since all the Cerakote flaked off (downpipe already wrapped)
New injector seals and install tool
New plugs and coils
Slapping on an Airtec oil cooler
Copious amounts of oil and filters
2 gallons of coolant
New axle seals
Ravenol transmission fluid
New tensioner and pulley
New idler pulley for my AC delete
New serpentine belt (shorter belt for my AC delete
Various hardware
New upper bearings for my BC coilovers (they are a bit clunky)

Built transmission with new slave cylinder went in ~500 miles before the engine went, and clutch/pressure plate/flywheel have ~1000 miles on them (looked basically new when I was swapping the transmission), so I'll reuse all of that.

Am I missing anything or does anyone have something I should add?

 

[M-Sport fan]

You are not going to be wanting for every single pony or 'torques' at the wheels with that setup, given it's possible head room for tuning/fuel/etc.

But if for some reason you are, there are also the Whoosh overdriven alloy water pump pulley if you are concerned with possible cooling issues on track, or the Pumaspeed underdriven alloy pulley for the water pump, especially since you have basically the highest capacity radiator offered for these cars.

Does anyone offer higher strength (300M) front axles and CV joints for our application yet (or will they ever)?

 

[arlisscm]

You are not going to be wanting for every single pony or 'torques' at the wheels with that setup, given it's possible head room for tuning/fuel/etc.

But if for some reason you are, there are also the Whoosh overdriven alloy water pump pulley if you are concerned with possible cooling issues on track, or the Pumaspeed underdriven alloy pulley for the water pump, especially since you have basically the highest capacity radiator offered for these cars.

Does anyone offer higher strength (300M) front axles and CV joints for our application yet (or will they ever)?

For the time being I'm staying maxed out on 93 on the S280, so ~300whp. I do want to run e30 or e50 one day, not looking for anything world shattering. If I can get within spitting distance of 400whp with the fast spool of the S280, that will be plenty. Even with ~300whp out on track only a handful of supercharged muscle cars and some exotics barely walk me on the straights.

I have toyed with the thought of the overdriven pulley. My only issues are 1) I'm looking to take advantage of the the tougher engine by bumping the rev limit up a bit (at least to 7,500RPM) to give me a little more legs between gears. So, the water pump will be spinning even faster than a normal overdriven pump (car is basically full track duty now, so it will live most of its life between 5,000RPM and the limiter). 2) Related to 1, but with centrifugal pumps the power requirement goes up by the cube with RPM (see thee affinity laws). So, from the Whoosh pulley a 7% reduction in size = a 7% increase in speed = 22.5% increase in required power (at any given engine RPM, assuming no slippage). This makes me question what the longevity of the water pump and its bearings will be with the extra power transmission load and axial thrust (higher speed = more head = more thrust), and it is also extra parasitic draw just by the pump on its own.

The underdriven pulley is interesting, my main hang up is it requires a special belt due to the size change. I already have a special belt since I have an AC delete, so I would need to hunt down the correct belt to run the underdriven pulley and AC delete. (basically find out how much longer the "new" belt is compared to stock and add that length to my AC delete belt) Not a deal breaker by any means, but likely something I'll look into deeper if I run into cooling issues. Which, I should note, was never an issue until the engine went. So this one is still a possibility.

As far as I know the only uprated axles were the ones Ron was doing a pre-order for and they never happened. If anyone chimes in with some, I'll certainly look into it. But at the very least, once I go to ethanol in the future, if the torque is starting to look dangerous, the tune can tone it back. Since I do basically all road course tracks, I don't need stump pulling torque down low, so as long as the midrange (4,500-5,500RPM) is decent, it'll be fine.



Edit: Dropping some info here for myself (and potentially others):

Stock serpentine belt length: 61.81" [1570mm]

Pumaspeed underdriven pulley belt length: 62" [1575mm]

AC delete (with stock water pump pulley) length: 60.43" [1535mm]

Therefore, AC delete with Pumaspeed underdriven water pump pulley belt length: 60.63" [1540mm] (Dayco 6PK1540 or equivalent)


Also, Pumaspeed claims 12.5% reduction in drag, so assuming most of that is from the speed reduction (neglecting less rotating mass), it is around ~4% larger. So, flow with drop ~4% for any give engine RPM, head (pressure) will drop ~8%, the math is solid but the assumption off 100% drag reduction from pump load is purely speculative, so do with it what you will.

 

[arlisscm]

Looking at the long(er) term weather forecast, seems like I'm likely to be able to get the ST moved to the shop to get rolling on the swap in a few weeks. I'm not super keen on plastering the car in slush and mud before starting an extended wrenching session.

 

[arlisscm]

As long as it stays reasonably dry, should be getting stayed on the teardown/engine swap this weekend. I think I have acquired all the "while I'm in there" things I want/need to do for now.

Along with the new engine, I'm adding in an Airtec oil cooler, which I will have to somewhat custom mount because of my setup (DHM intercooler and crash bar). Likely placing it center in front of the intercooler, going to remove my front license plate mount (will just zip tie the plate on if/when I'm on the street), and going to put some speed holes in the bumper cover section between the upper and lower grills (grilles?) for a little more air flow. Got a thermostatic sandwich plate with two 1/8" NPT ports from Chase Bays (Airtec one doesn't have auxiliary ports) so I can add in an oil temperature and an oil pressure sensor. Got a Glow Shift dual temp/pressure gauge/sensor combo and will put the gauge in the vent pod (will be right below my AP). I'm more worried about having to do minor wiring than I am yanking the engine. haha

Got some ABS sheet and some foil duct sealing tape to try my hand at fully enshrouding the grill (grille?) openings and cooling stack for more efficient cooling. Never had an overheating issue prior to the engine popping (Mishimoto radiator and A/C deleted), but beefing up the cooling now so if/when I go ethanol later I can turn the dial up without worrying too much about it.

Also going to try some Nord Locks (paired serrated washers) on the turbo to manifold studs since on track my S280 keeps trying to fall off even with copper locknuts. I threw some Hotlock (ceramic loctite type stuff) on there last year and it seemed to work for 2 of the 3 studs, but I did have to snug the rear one every 2-3 sessions, which isn't hard, just inconvenient. Hoping the combo of ARP studs/nuts and Nord Locks sorts this.

Other stuff is just some basic clean up and maintenance. Got new spherical upper bearings for my BC coil overs as one has been blown out for ~2 years. Finally pinpointed the clunk last spring when I pulled the coil overs out and the passenger side upper bearing flopped like a fish, at which point I channeled my inner VGG and just said "I'm going to pretend I didn't see that" and just put it back in. haha

I'll remind myself to take pictures as I go. I also got a label maker to label all the wires/connectors/hoses as they are everywhere.

My somewhat firm deadline for getting everything swapped and ready to roll is around April 20th or so, to be able to fairly easily get the 1st 1,000 break in miles done before my dyno tuning session on May 11th. The minimum is 1,000 but I'm going to try to get as many miles and I can before then.

If anyone has anything specific they want me to look at or get a picture of while I'm elbow deep in the engine bay, let me know.