Mean Streets April 2010

I recently announced that Power Fab was going to be handling the fabrication side of things with my s13 and its all already well under way. First two things to address were the infamous ls1 blowby issues and cooling issues.

PowerFab knocked out an amazing catch can setup which vents my ls6 valley cover and my front port on the passenger valvecover. we did a test event (Mean Streets) to see how it would do as far as catching the blowby and vapors without just venting them back out and it went 100%! Now that we know we’ve got the blowby situation sorted the guys are gonna do a self-returning drain down to the pan for a maintenance free catch can.

Our first thoughts on the cooling system was simply lack of fan. The car currently runs a 55gpm meziere full race pump with griffin 3-row aluminimum radiator via -12 feeds and a -20 return to the pump but still gets much too hot. PowerFab tossed a fan with 3000+ cfm of airflow and shrouded it but the cooling problems are still lingering. Its more than likely something I overlooked during the build but we’re tossing around a few extra ideas as to what the solution may be which will be shared later after testing at Lonestar Bash on May 16.

Aside from those 2 issues Jeremy spent some time with my car on the dyno before I picked it up for the Mean Streets event. The car made great numbers and whats more important is after I picked it up it was super responsive. 3rd gear traction on the street was a joke, throttle blips could break it loose, I was very very impressed! The difference showed very well at the event, throttle placement was easier than ever and Jeremy has expressed wanting to spend more time with the car on the dyno very soon so I look forward to even better performance.

The event went very well minus some cooling bugs and the typical plague of the T56 transmission, MISSHIFTING! Ended up qualifying 4th place and finishing…4th place? Haha. Mis-shifted while driving against Josh Steele for my shot at the 1-2 battle then blew up my Driveshaft Shop axle against Tyler Greene in the 3-4 round. The axle had blown up both cv’s and sheered off all 6 of the bolts that held it to the output shaft of my differential. Jeremy had mentioned wanting to toss on some much stronger ARP hardware and I supplied a new axle but I’ve been told the output shaft flange is snafu as well so I’ll be dealing with that very soon.

Overall I just wanted to share that I’m very very pleased with PowerFab and everything they’ve been doing for the car. Not having to keep my head under the hood all the time really helps me focus on driving and its nice knowing I’ve got a great support group behind me.

Some of the highlights from the last event…

some portions of this event will also make their way onto the Keep Drifting Fun documentary made possible by Josh and Will. Two definitely cool guys with an awesome goal and vision. Be sure to check it out!