[Jermi85]

Long story short, bought a 2009 A6 red in color,recaro,pano sedan yada yada… nothing special but special to me since it only had 34k miles and hadnt been ragged… so i thought! Upon cleaning found lots of rubber inside the rear wells… 1/2 inch to be exact! I mean i can understand having alot of power and wanting to act wild but damn! So, i bought it anyway.
Motor/trans/body/interior wise car was mint! Threw some cooling mods and pullies along with a “she gone” cam and valvetrain to it with a jwhite tune and it rode even better. Trans couldnt hold so i built that with cheaper stuff at a local known trans shop close to DC area. Car worked awesome… for about a month. Went through a couple play times and the trans stopped shifting.
Skip a bit and i pulled trans, took back to my guy and he fessed up to trying to save me a dollar and didnt put a new tcm in with the last build. This time he paid for the ray bestos steels and clutches and all i had to pay for was the tcm and had a friend flash the new unit. Car moved out awesome.
After a while of cruising and having fun spirited drives here and there i believe high iats and acting like a fool in 90* weather caused some new windows and flying wrist pins in my 376.
Fast forward damn near a year shes about to get a new heart! Long awaited DART Lsnext 427 from TMS.

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[Jim]

Wow! Hope you have better luck with the new setup!

 

[Blades1_99]

Long story short, bought a 2009 A6 red in color,recaro,pano sedan yada yada… nothing special but special to me since it only had 34k miles and hadnt been ragged… so i thought! Upon cleaning found lots of rubber inside the rear wells… 1/2 inch to be exact! I mean i can understand having alot of power and wanting to act wild but damn! So, i bought it anyway.
Motor/trans/body/interior wise car was mint! Threw some cooling mods and pullies along with a “she gone” cam and valvetrain to it with a jwhite tune and it rode even better. Trans couldnt hold so i built that with cheaper stuff at a local known trans shop close to DC area. Car worked awesome… for about a month. Went through a couple play times and the trans stopped shifting.
Skip a bit and i pulled trans, took back to my guy and he fessed up to trying to save me a dollar and didnt put a new tcm in with the last build. This time he paid for the ray bestos steels and clutches and all i had to pay for was the tcm and had a friend flash the new unit. Car moved out awesome.
After a while of cruising and having fun spirited drives here and there i believe high iats and acting like a fool in 90* weather caused some new windows and flying wrist pins in my 376.
Fast forward damn near a year shes about to get a new heart! Long awaited DART Lsnext 427 from TMS.
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That hurt to look at.

 

[jrV]

Ouch! I didn't add any windows but mine's down and likely in need of a new short block. That's a nice set up. Looking forward to the next update. When's she going to be done?

 

[Jermi85]

Ouch! I didn't add any windows but mine's down and likely in need of a new short block. That's a nice set up. Looking forward to the next update. When's she going to be done?

Waiting for an oil pan. In all the carnage one of the rods decided to break off and take the side of the oilpan with it. If the pan comes in before the weekend i should atleast be able to get the motor/trans and headers/exhaust back into place before next week. I work out of town alot so it makes things more difficult

 

[Rubber Duck]

After a while of cruising and having fun spirited drives here and there i believe high iats and acting like a fool in 90* weather caused some new windows and flying wrist pins in my 376.
Fast forward damn near a year shes about to get a new heart! Long awaited DART Lsnext 427 from TMS.
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From any perspective / any picture. . .
You 'Done' a good job..

And yes; keeping both the engine temps (oil & coolant), as well as the mass flow (iat's) 'Cool', is very, very important. . .

 

[Jermi85]

From any perspective / any picture. . .
You 'Done' a good job..

And yes; keeping both the engine temps (oil & coolant), as well as the mass flow (iat's) 'Cool', is very, very important. . .

Best lessons learned are often hard on ya, this time it hit my pocket pretty hard. Hard head makes for a soft ass… as my pop would say

 

[Rubber Duck]

Best lessons learned are often hard on ya, this time it hit my pocket pretty hard.

Hard head makes for a soft ass… as my pop would say

..Smart Pop. . .

The two rear cylinders on these engines tend to run hotter than the others.
This makes them very sensitive to destructive self-detonation.

To better understand this. . .
Get an accurate laser infrared, non-contact heat gun / thermometer.

Make a hard pass, get out of the car, open hood and start pulling the trigger
close up on different areas the engine, and you will see.

 

[Jermi85]

And here comes the little gremlins that always seem to come with projects like this! Do these clearances look abnormal to anyone else? i have about 6 pushrods that are situated very close to the casting of the head.

..Smart Pop. . .

The two rear cylinders on these engines tend to run hotter than the others.
This makes them very sensitive to destructive self-detonation.

To better understand this. . .
Get an accurate laser infrared, non-contact heat gun / thermometer.

Make a hard pass, get out of the car, open hood and start pulling the trigger
close up on different areas the engine, and you will see.

Funny you say that! Thats the two that decided to exit the party🤣

 

[Rubber Duck]

And here comes the little gremlins that always seem to come with projects like this! Do these clearances look abnormal to anyone else? i have about 6 pushrods that are situated very close to the casting of the head.
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Funny you say that! Thats the two that decided to exit the party🤣

Oh No. . .Now you have really opened up a can of worms..
First, as I recall, this was a complete engine you purchased. . .Correct!

 

[Jermi85]

Yessir had it built. I emailed dustin at Thompson and he assures that they have always encountered this on the exh side of the FED m311 castings and havent had an issue. However mine are on the intake rockers🤔

 

[Rubber Duck]

Yessir had it built. I emailed dustin at Thompson and he assures that they have always encountered this on the exh side of the FED m311 castings and havent had an issue. However mine are on the intake rockers🤔

Since I don't have sufficient info regarding your issue, and I don't desire to get in between a vendor and his customer, I am simply going to attempt to give you some info below, which might help you.

While your issue might not be a simple rocker arm / pushrod length issue, below is a post I made to this forum some time back, as well as a video, which might help you begin to sort things out.

-----------------------------------------------------------

A couple of comments from this video:
When push rod is ‘TO LONG’ the contact patch will be more towards the exhaust side.
When push rod is ‘TO SHORT’ the contact patch will be more towards the intake side.

----------------------------------------------------------

Also, please watch this video regarding push rod length, versus rocker arm / mid-lift geometry.

Enjoy..

 

[Jermi85]

Did some talking with Tms and got the close clearance ordeal with the pushrods smoothed out. Apparently all of the M311 castings are close and for a while people were try to clearance(dremmel) them even more and they ended up with paper thin intake runners.
Ran into another prob since these heads are configured differently than the stock lsa casting. Had to dent one of my primary tubes on the header…Happy to be able to say she’s in the car, trans bolted up, headers secured and mounts are tightened down before i had to leave town for work this morning.

 

[Jermi85]

Build had to be slowed a bit due to more pressing issues! Kubota took a bit of a shit! Replaced both heads, cam, tapets, pushrods and a lower casing… back in action. Did get to put headers on the car, bolt/torque the tq converter to flex plate, driveshaft in, had to modify the oil dipstick since the FDE heads are a little taller. Damn the gm sensors are expensive! $pent a couple 💯 in just sensors but i didnt wanna put the jap scrap on it.

 

[SecondhandV]

It's looking good. Be careful touching that shaft like that.

 

[Jermi85]

It's looking good. Be careful touching that shaft like that.

🤣🤣🤣 just the tip🤣🤣🤣

 

[Jermi85]

I have been going back and forth in my own head… i know it isnt healthy talking to myself. I have the 102tb but have the stock snout/blower… i want to see the gains with the stock blower setup just with the new motor. Will the 102 help for now or should i keep it in the bin until i port everything? I wont change blowers unless i do a procharger which im fully aware of the mounting configs and i welcome the challenge.

 

[Jermi85]

Finally found time to get the engine together in the car after dealing with an unexpected hernia operation…
Fired the car for the first time today and it seems the stock oil cooler has a week spot and cracked. I do t see the benefit of running hot oil and hot water into the same location so I’ve decided to delete the cooler all together and block it off until i decide on a dedicated oil cooler. Also noticed the blower making a rattle in the snout area at idle.
The engine may have a total of 5 mins run time so im going to pull the blower back off and investigate further. This poor car is in need of some terrible deep cleaning !

 

[Jermi85]

Just received my ddp so i can put this 102 on. Hopefully switching isolators will make the blower go quiet again. If not i guess it’ll be sent to get ported. Not sure on companies for that yet

 

[SecondhandV]

I hope the isolator takes care of the noise. Are you thinking of using Kong to port the snout/blower if you have to send it in for a rebuild?

I also found a drip from my oil cooler recently. I've seen some pretty nice block off plates that have a thermostat and threaded bosses for remote cooler lines. I think I'm going to go that route if I have to replace my oil cooler.