When a 2006 S281E is not extreme enough.
01-02-2009, 12:10 PM
#1
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Join Date: Mar 2006
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Posts: 4,469
When a 2006 S281E is not extreme enough.
I have been working on a twincharged setup for quite some time now and wanted to give everyone a preliminary review. The car is not finshed but only some final touches remain.
I took delivery of the car in September of 06. By February I was looking to do some basic modes, nothing crazy. I started by working with Jim at JDM and purchased a set of kooks LT headers, Kooks O/R X-pipe, 60 lb/hr fuel injectors, Autolite spark plugs, 8-rib pulley kit with 10% overdrive crankshaft pulley, GT500 throttle body with spacer, C&L inlet tube, JDM CAI, JDM lowering mounts, SCT2400 mass air meter, Gatorback belt, and a SCT XCAL2 tuner. I had everything installed and tuned at Lamotta performance. The car made 440RWHP & 440 RWTQ stock. After all the bolt-ons the car made 515RWHP & 555RWTQ. The car was a beast and the throttle response was great. Times were good and I was happy. I had the car for three months and one day while driving I heard a lot pop and a crap of ****e smoke started flowing from the tailpipes. I assumed the worst and drove the car home. (I was only a couple miles away from home) I took it to the shop and thats when I was told I popped a piston. The motor had to come out. As would anyone would feel I was pretty upset and hurting inside. I had saved and waited for such a long time to have my dream car and to have engine failure after a year and a half of ownership was the worst feeling. I haven't owned to many cars in my life and I'm just one of those old sentimental folks who feel its yours for life. I still have the first car I owned and still plan on restoring her.
After 9 long months I finally got the car back. When the motor came out I figured it was time to just do everything I could possibly ever want to do to the motor. I plan on posting all the mods that were done when the car is finished, but for now I will try to give you a synopsis. If anyone just can't wait just shoot me an email at s281e@yahoo.com for the breakdown. Jake from Lamotta performanc edid all the work and the guy is as down to earth as you can hope. The pricing is beyond fair and they take really good care of your car. I wouldn't dream of taking the car to any other shop and plan on bringing him my next project car as well.
The legendary Al Papito was summoned to work on the motor. When the motor was removed the motor was torn down. The pistons were replaced with CP pistons which were what Saleen already uses. The crankshaft and rods looked brand new (As they should since the motor only had 2400 miles on it). The bad news was the block was scorred so bad that maching .030 from the bore was not enough to fix it. As you know with our new blocks we don't have too much metal to be removing .030. This was mainly done to see how deep the scoring was. To remove .030 of metal from the bore and still see scoring goes to show how bad the bore was scored. Al quickly ordered a new aluminum block from ford and did the assembly and balancing. The only key difference Al did comapred to the stock motor was decrease the compression ratio. Al thought this would be a good idea since we would be running more boost than the stock motor. The extreme motor has a tock comression ratio of 9:1:1. We went down to 8:7:1 which isn't a huge difference, but again Al thought would be the way to go. Al has more experience building motors than I could ever dream of so I listened. The second biggest conflict was stroking the motor. Al advised against this and so did a couple of the other major engine builders I contacted. They all felt the stock block comes perfectly flat. (Meaning the bores are perp. to the top of the block.) To machine the bores would change this a bit. We did not want to buy a stroker kit because the added travel the pistons and rods would endure would increase the wear of the rotating assembly. Plus this decreases the reving ability of the motor. As much as I wanted to stroke the motor for even more horsepower its hard to go against Al and even Jake so I trusted their decision. Plus for the amount of power I would get from stroking the motor I could simply increase the boost by 1-2 pounds.
While the motor was being worked we sent the heads to champions racing heads in palm coast. These guys have a collection of 8 second buick nationals and ford mustangs. This guys are the best head guys on the east coast. Possibly in the states. They fully ported and polished the heads, added larger valve springs, and changed the guide seals. They checked the valves and rocker arms to ensure no damage was done to the heads when the motor failed. They picked the heads up from Lamotta and dropped them off so I did not have to pay any shipping. My only regret was not being able to install the heads on the stock motor to see how much power the car picked up. I was able to look at them and inspect them myself. I wish I could have taken a picture of the intake and exhaust openings before and after. Jake had a stock set of heads at the shop so I could see the difference for myself. It was huge. The stock heads have been known to flow 199 cfm at .600 valve lift and 138 cfm at .600valve lift on the exhaust side. My stock heads were pretty much on par with these numbers. After porting we saw an increase of 270cfm on the intake side and 190 on the exhaust side, which is enough to make some serious power.
I have run out of time for now but will continue writing tonight so check back in. Please leave me some feedback about what I have so far. Do you want me to get more detailed on the buildup or do you just want me to write a review on the way the car drives now. Thanks for reading and enjoy.
I took delivery of the car in September of 06. By February I was looking to do some basic modes, nothing crazy. I started by working with Jim at JDM and purchased a set of kooks LT headers, Kooks O/R X-pipe, 60 lb/hr fuel injectors, Autolite spark plugs, 8-rib pulley kit with 10% overdrive crankshaft pulley, GT500 throttle body with spacer, C&L inlet tube, JDM CAI, JDM lowering mounts, SCT2400 mass air meter, Gatorback belt, and a SCT XCAL2 tuner. I had everything installed and tuned at Lamotta performance. The car made 440RWHP & 440 RWTQ stock. After all the bolt-ons the car made 515RWHP & 555RWTQ. The car was a beast and the throttle response was great. Times were good and I was happy. I had the car for three months and one day while driving I heard a lot pop and a crap of ****e smoke started flowing from the tailpipes. I assumed the worst and drove the car home. (I was only a couple miles away from home) I took it to the shop and thats when I was told I popped a piston. The motor had to come out. As would anyone would feel I was pretty upset and hurting inside. I had saved and waited for such a long time to have my dream car and to have engine failure after a year and a half of ownership was the worst feeling. I haven't owned to many cars in my life and I'm just one of those old sentimental folks who feel its yours for life. I still have the first car I owned and still plan on restoring her.
After 9 long months I finally got the car back. When the motor came out I figured it was time to just do everything I could possibly ever want to do to the motor. I plan on posting all the mods that were done when the car is finished, but for now I will try to give you a synopsis. If anyone just can't wait just shoot me an email at s281e@yahoo.com for the breakdown. Jake from Lamotta performanc edid all the work and the guy is as down to earth as you can hope. The pricing is beyond fair and they take really good care of your car. I wouldn't dream of taking the car to any other shop and plan on bringing him my next project car as well.
The legendary Al Papito was summoned to work on the motor. When the motor was removed the motor was torn down. The pistons were replaced with CP pistons which were what Saleen already uses. The crankshaft and rods looked brand new (As they should since the motor only had 2400 miles on it). The bad news was the block was scorred so bad that maching .030 from the bore was not enough to fix it. As you know with our new blocks we don't have too much metal to be removing .030. This was mainly done to see how deep the scoring was. To remove .030 of metal from the bore and still see scoring goes to show how bad the bore was scored. Al quickly ordered a new aluminum block from ford and did the assembly and balancing. The only key difference Al did comapred to the stock motor was decrease the compression ratio. Al thought this would be a good idea since we would be running more boost than the stock motor. The extreme motor has a tock comression ratio of 9:1:1. We went down to 8:7:1 which isn't a huge difference, but again Al thought would be the way to go. Al has more experience building motors than I could ever dream of so I listened. The second biggest conflict was stroking the motor. Al advised against this and so did a couple of the other major engine builders I contacted. They all felt the stock block comes perfectly flat. (Meaning the bores are perp. to the top of the block.) To machine the bores would change this a bit. We did not want to buy a stroker kit because the added travel the pistons and rods would endure would increase the wear of the rotating assembly. Plus this decreases the reving ability of the motor. As much as I wanted to stroke the motor for even more horsepower its hard to go against Al and even Jake so I trusted their decision. Plus for the amount of power I would get from stroking the motor I could simply increase the boost by 1-2 pounds.
While the motor was being worked we sent the heads to champions racing heads in palm coast. These guys have a collection of 8 second buick nationals and ford mustangs. This guys are the best head guys on the east coast. Possibly in the states. They fully ported and polished the heads, added larger valve springs, and changed the guide seals. They checked the valves and rocker arms to ensure no damage was done to the heads when the motor failed. They picked the heads up from Lamotta and dropped them off so I did not have to pay any shipping. My only regret was not being able to install the heads on the stock motor to see how much power the car picked up. I was able to look at them and inspect them myself. I wish I could have taken a picture of the intake and exhaust openings before and after. Jake had a stock set of heads at the shop so I could see the difference for myself. It was huge. The stock heads have been known to flow 199 cfm at .600 valve lift and 138 cfm at .600valve lift on the exhaust side. My stock heads were pretty much on par with these numbers. After porting we saw an increase of 270cfm on the intake side and 190 on the exhaust side, which is enough to make some serious power.
I have run out of time for now but will continue writing tonight so check back in. Please leave me some feedback about what I have so far. Do you want me to get more detailed on the buildup or do you just want me to write a review on the way the car drives now. Thanks for reading and enjoy.
01-02-2009, 08:59 PM
#5
2nd Gear Member
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: IL
Posts: 222
I'm considering going a similar route (twin turbo, either with my E...if it doesn't sell...or with a different mustang...a complete build).
I like hearing who did your work and what you thought about them.
Also, you don't mention much about your experience with JDM (as your motor blew up, and lots of guys on this forum do business with them, I'd like to hear your experience). Did they warranty their work? etc...
Here are some basic questions I have:
What tuning tools are you using?
Are you adding any exhaust temp sensors?
How are you doing boost control?
What turbos are you using?
Great write up too. This will be a great thread. Thanks for the contribution.
I like hearing who did your work and what you thought about them.
Also, you don't mention much about your experience with JDM (as your motor blew up, and lots of guys on this forum do business with them, I'd like to hear your experience). Did they warranty their work? etc...
Here are some basic questions I have:
What tuning tools are you using?
Are you adding any exhaust temp sensors?
How are you doing boost control?
What turbos are you using?
Great write up too. This will be a great thread. Thanks for the contribution.
01-03-2009, 01:42 AM
#7
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Join Date: Mar 2006
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Posts: 4,469
Thanks for the feedback. Ill start by answering some questions. For the traction issue we changed out the lower rear control arms to some billet aluminum steeda replacements. If you matt the throttle right now the car will break loose in 4th gear.
01-03-2009, 01:43 AM
#8
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Join Date: Mar 2006
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Power wise I would like to see 1000RWHP and 1000RWTQ with race fuel and high boost. This will be a one time thing just to show off the dyno sheet. For daily driving the goal is 650RWHP and 700RWTQ on pump gas with a VERY safe tune. This should be MORE than enough power for almost anything that pulls up next to me.
01-03-2009, 01:54 AM
#9
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Join Date: Mar 2006
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As for the JDM thing thats a whole other issue. For starters they ONLY sold me the parts. They did not install anything and I did not use their tune. I loved dealing with Jim and I hate how things ended between us, but I finally had to say something. He pulls himself in to many directions and makes promises he can't keep. This was my experience and should not influence anyone on this board. If your relationship with JDM is good than you should stick with them. They offer great packages for our cars and are true enthusiast.
For the tuning we used a SCT XCAL2 to download the tune, but the tune itself was custom.
Not sure if any exhaust temp sensors were used. I would have to get back to you on that one.
Boost for the blower is set on the blower. We stuck with the stock pulley, BUT had to add a Steeda underdrive pulley to slow the accessories down. YES, I know this is a big no no for blowers, but we had to slow the blower down to control the boost. I will get to more of this soon. Boost for the turbo's are being controlled by a digital AEM boost gauge/controller combo. GREAT piece of hardware and would recommend it to anyone. Not cheap but its looks great on the dash and its so easy to use.
If your catching on I literally like to do the best of everything. If I can't afford it I'll rather wait and know I'll be that much happier. Hence probably why I can't see myself selling this car. The turbo's are ball bearing garrett, internal wasgates, 55mm (Rounding up) turbo's. This might change to twin 60mm since the blower is doing such a good job down low. But won't be sure until the end of next month.
As for the block I considered doing the boss 302 block but at the time they were offering it, it only came as an iron block. It was the ONLY true 302ci motor from Ford available at the time. I was not going to trade 21ci for 100+ pounds of weight in the front. Not when I had two power adders on the car.
For the tuning we used a SCT XCAL2 to download the tune, but the tune itself was custom.
Not sure if any exhaust temp sensors were used. I would have to get back to you on that one.
Boost for the blower is set on the blower. We stuck with the stock pulley, BUT had to add a Steeda underdrive pulley to slow the accessories down. YES, I know this is a big no no for blowers, but we had to slow the blower down to control the boost. I will get to more of this soon. Boost for the turbo's are being controlled by a digital AEM boost gauge/controller combo. GREAT piece of hardware and would recommend it to anyone. Not cheap but its looks great on the dash and its so easy to use.
If your catching on I literally like to do the best of everything. If I can't afford it I'll rather wait and know I'll be that much happier. Hence probably why I can't see myself selling this car. The turbo's are ball bearing garrett, internal wasgates, 55mm (Rounding up) turbo's. This might change to twin 60mm since the blower is doing such a good job down low. But won't be sure until the end of next month.
As for the block I considered doing the boss 302 block but at the time they were offering it, it only came as an iron block. It was the ONLY true 302ci motor from Ford available at the time. I was not going to trade 21ci for 100+ pounds of weight in the front. Not when I had two power adders on the car.
01-03-2009, 02:05 AM
#10
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Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Memphis
Posts: 2,377
Don't agree with your view on the stroker kit, as depending on the kit your block requires no machining (minus line honing which I'm quite sure you did anyway) as this is how Saleen does it on the newer E's if i'm not mistaken and Steeda on the Q635. BUT, a very impressive build and I can't wait to read more/see more about the project!
Last edited by EagleStroker; 01-03-2009 at 02:08 AM.