Cory recently pointed out to me that it's mildly surprising, given how much I enjoy writing, and how much I pretend to enjoy working on my car, that I really don't do a very good job of sharing what I do to to it, so that others can suffer vicariously with me. With my latest exercise in futility, I thought I'd try to rectify that.
A little background on my car which may be redundant: It's a 2005 Intermeccanica. Henry built the car for me as a “coach” with no running gear, as messing with the engine and such is what I purport to enjoy. After delivery, I installed a 2110 which sported some of AJ Sims “best” (craziest) ideas. Those of you who've been around long enough to recall my ignorance, know that the entire thing was built around heavily modified 46 mm Kadrons, which were a complete disaster. In the end, I installed some Art Thraen rebuilt 40 Dellortos, a DTM, and an A1 sidewinder.
It was a fine engine, and should have kept any sane man satisfied for a long, long time. I however, am not a sane man, and by 2008 had contracted with Chico Performance for a short-rod (5.325&rdquo
2332 with nickasil cylinders, 44 x 38 mm valves, a bevy of cylinder head coatings, 48 Dellortos, a DTM, and a 1-3/4” sidewinder. It made 201 hp at the crank with a belt and through a muffler. To put it in the car, I built a really cool 2-1/2” exhaust out of mandrel bends that wrapped around the engine, and had an electrically operated cut-out before the muffler.
At the same time, I installed 911 motor mounts on the engine and transaxle. I built a pretty stout (heavy) steel “mustache” bar to connect the engine to the rear mounts.
Somewhere along the way, I installed AL Bivens wheels, and had NHS re-do the combo gauge to eliminate the fuel gauge and add an oil pressure gauge. Henry supplied a re-would fuel-gauge sender to trip a “low fuel” light. Also at some indeterminate point, I re-did the pedals with AL covers, a dead-pedal, and better spacing for heel/toe work.
In 2009, I installed a pair of grossly overpriced (and way-comfortable) Fibersteel speedster seats, and had the rest of my gauges re-done. I built AL frames for the seats that allow the seats to hinge forward. I had NHS recalibrate the speedometer to my actual tire size, so it reads true (with my GPS, and a radar gun), and had the tach re-screend and rebuilt for 8000 rpm. I installed CHT gauges on all four cylinders.
In 2010, I re-did the transaxle with a ZF LSD. At the same time, I changed to a gusseted AL rhino case, and went to a .89 fourth gear (from a .82). I also had NHS re-do the CHT gauges to make them look better.
I've been able to log about 10K miles in 6 seasons of driving (which is pretty pathetic)-- but in those 6 years, I weathered a recession with my business, built a house & a barn, married off all three kids, and had 3 grandkids born. Given as much time as the car has spent on jack-stands, it's not as bad as it could have been.
Which brings me to this year:
I've wanted to dry-sump the engine for a long time. I was reluctant, because this would require re-doing an exhaust I had built at considerable expense of time and treasure. Last fall, I hit a piece of the space-shuttle (or something equally large) in the road, and messed up one of my precious exhaust tubes pretty badly, so I decided that rather than repair what I had, it'd be a great time to start over and do the dry sump and a new exhaust.
And so it began...
Late last year I ordered and received a Bugpack 2 stage dry-sump pump from aircooled.net. Once I received the pump, I sent it and the mustache bar to Tiger from A1 to have a 1-5/8” short-tube header built that would clear both parts and not stick out the back of the car. It was supposed to take 3 weeks. At the 3-month mark (after calling every week, then twice a week, then every day, then twice a day), I got the header. It cleared the pump, but not the bar.
Rather than start over on the header (and wait another three months), I decided it would be a good time to make a better, lighter rear hanger bar for the engine. In a fit of hubris, I decided to use AL to save weight. This made the fabrication about 10x harder, since I don't have a spool gun for the MIG, and had to keep taking the pieces back to a welder to have done. Here are progress shots of the bar, from about mid-point to completion:
I built the exhaust out of mandrel bends and mufflers from Summit Racing. I've been reading a lot about exhaust tuning, and was convinced that the large primary/long tube header everybody uses is a torque killer. I wanted a 1-5/8”short-tube header connected to a tuned length head-pipe, and dumping into either a chamber muffler or atmosphere depending on the position of the exhaust bypass valve. Due to the location of the collector, however, it was impossible to get the head-pipe long enough, so I had to compromise. The pipe is shorter than optimal, but I tied on with a smaller mandrel bent 90 to replicate a long collector before blowing up to the full exhaust size. Hopefully this will work better than what I had.
Everything tucks under the apron, which was no easy feat. The “muffled” side of the system runs though the chambered Flomaster, then a Dyno-Max in/out turbo muffler. It has an O2 bung, and Bernoulli tubes on both exits for Moroso breather valves (they'll be connected to the breather box). I had it ceramic coated locally. Here are some shots of the exhaust going together:
The dry-sump tank was another thing I wanted done a certain way. A 911 tank fits pretty well in the passenger side wheel-well (I'm told), but it also has a filter right where I have the CDI box mounted. I decided to build a custom tank out of AL. I fabbed up what I wanted out of Styrofoam to make sure it fit, and took the prototype to the welder to have fabricated. I dry-fit the tank, located the bungs and filler tubes. I have yet to make up baffles, and take it back to the weld shop to be completed.
The engine tin became an issue. The dry-sump required that a bunch of tin be cut, and in the end, it looked “homemade”. I made up some patterns out of poster-board and cereal boxes, and cut the tins out of .060 AL sheet. I tried to make the pieces so that the “important” ones could be easily removed for access to the stuff I want to get to easily. The surround tin is at the powder-coat guy right now, and I'll get the apron tine done when the pulley set up arrives.
The pulley set-up was typical of this project. A dry-sump requires a much smaller crank pulley to clear the pump. I ordered a complete Bugpack dry-sump kit in December, but the pulley was on back-order. There was no progress by March, so I did a bit of digging. Apparently, Bugpack buys the pulleys from Scat. The one guy at scat who runs the pulley CNC had a stroke, or aneurism, or something, and hadn't been at work for a couple of months. They weren't going to make any pulleys until he got back. So, I went to plan B, and bought a $100 (plus freight) dry sump pulley from CB. CB's pulley is made by Jaycee, and is a nice piece with a steel hub bolted to a nice CNCed pulley. They did not offer the pulley cut for a sand-seal, so when it arrived I had my son-in-law cut it down at work. It was slightly too small for the crank, so back it went to the machine shop to have opened op a bit. This time it fit perfectly. It rides so close to the pump however, that a belt cannot be installed. I gave up and ordered a BMD serpentine set-up. I'm nearly $500 and 6 months into.... pulleys. It's nice though, and replicates stock fan speed.
This all has taken about 3 months longer than I wanted it to, but one thing led to another and, well.... you know how it goes. The packaging of all of this, while maintaining a reasonable weight was a Rubik's cube sometimes. I'm pretty happy with how it's coming together, and the end's in sight. I'll have a report on how it all works once I've got some miles logged. Eventually, I'll eliminate some of the breather tubes, and clean-up the hoses inside the engine compartment. In the mean-time, I just want to finish and drive.
One thing that I am not clear on is why do you especially like the dry sump over the wet sump? My Beezer has a dry sump as do many motorcycles and I never quite understood why the manufacturers do that. The only thing I can think of is for oil cooling. 
That's quite a job there, Stan. Cory told me that you were a magician. Now I see what he means.
