E85 Procharged W2 340 budget built

Well the work has begun on the procharger setup, and I still don't really know what the hell I am doing with any of it :big grin:.

I have a set of 12 rib pulleys and a manual tensioner that I can rig up to the bracket I currently have that I think will work fine with enough belt wrap. I also have the 8 rib pulleys and spring tensioner that came with the bracket. Ideally, I'd love to do a 12 rib spring tensioned setup. I think the end result will determine on what SD Concepts says when they get back to me about the bracket letting me know if it IS one of their brackets or not. If it is, I am just going to pick up a crank spacer/pulley from them and make it work with the supplied 8 rib stuff to be done with it. IF not, it is back to the drawing board as far as getting a crank spacer and milling/shimming for proper pulley alignment.


I welded up the sumped tank the other day. I going to take my chances on running E85 in it without a sealer as I am more worried about a sealer failing and chipping off in sheets than the welds rusting. Only problem now is my driving habits over the winter. I don't want to winterize the car because I still drive it every so often, but I don't drive it frequently enough to keep fresh E85 in it. Still doing some research as far as stabilizers go or other options to keep the E85 from going bad.


Next step will be to box up the fender where I had to cut a bit out to clear the top edge of the procharger, welding up the intercooler mounts and then starting to weld up the intercooler piping. I have to work on fixing a problem I have been having with my Miller 211 first of not getting enough shielding gas to the welds, even with the regulator set up at 40psi. I've had it for a few years and I'm thinking the feed tube/gas line is kinked of clogged up somewhere inside. You can see the black soot around the welds on the tank, welds came out good but just excessive soot/spatter. [img:center][/img]

Here's the car. Looks perfect in pics, whoever did the body work did a great job on paint and a terrible job on prep. Starting to bubble through in a few areas, the only visible ones being a bad spot on the p/front fender and a little on the hood. I am going to repair those spots and have a friend attempt to blend the paint (even if it doesn't match, it has to look better than a big bubbly rot spot). The car really needs a full resto as I am sure there are gallons of bondo and rot underneath it all, but I just want to make it look half decent and drive it for a few more years before I go that route. It is such a shame because it is one of the nicest spray jobs I have ever seen and the color looks great in every lighting.

Before anybody says anything, I am ordering mirrors for it soon. Been meaning to for the past 5 years LOL

I don't think your problem looks to be the gas flow, most flow regulators measure ultimately flow rates, not pressure. What are viewed flow rates? The darkness would seem to me to be the thin coating on the main tank. The splatter is gas mixture or current/voltage settings related. Or are we talking alum mig welds here?

How are you doing your crank snout keyway solution?

jcc, I would have thought it was the metal too if it hasn't been doing this everything I have welded over the past year or so regardless of heat settings, even on the cleanest bare metal. I used to weld for a speed shop and I did most of my work on a Miller 212, a Miller 175 and I owned a lincoln 220v welder as well and never had this issue. Honestly, I have never been happy with the welds I have gotten on this machine since I bought it compared to the other welders I have used, but I have been using cheap home depot Lincoln wire and have been getting my gas from the same place since I bought it (although it is a reputable place). When I worked for the speed shop, we used wire that was probably twice the cost of the Lincoln home depot stuff. It probably didn't help trying to weld thinner gauge sheet metal up like that with .030 wire, voltage was probably higher than it should have been just to get good starts with the thick wire. I'm in a rush with this project though and couldn't waste time running out for more wire!

As far as the crank snout keyway, I was going to have my machinist figure that out but I was going to have him try to add dual keyways into it.

Check the polarity of the leads inside the welder.

[quote=fbs63]Check the polarity of the leads inside the welder. [/quote

Good call

Cool build!!

Thanks!

As far as the welder goes, polarity isn't switched. Had this welder for a 5 years or so and I can't recall if I always had this particular problem, but I do know I was never too happy with how it welded. I don't remember having this particular issue, but I always thought it just seemed harder to get a nice, controlled bead with this welder and always seemed like the amperage was erratic and sloppy. I was never able to get that nice, tight sound from it.

I can go back to my old job and jump on either the Miller 175 or 212 and get nice, clean welds with nothing but some light brown silicon valleys around it. I never even thought about touching an anti-spatter spray or anything there, there was never any spatter to clean up. The welds seem to get nice when I crank the gas up to over 40psi, but I don't see any reason why the pressure should have to be that high. I am thinking either a clog somewhere, or the regulator is just off.


I think of one the few times where I was able to get cleaner welds was when I was welding a set of rock sliders up under a truck. My torch was snaked all the way up and under the truck with a tight fit between the rockers and the chassis. I didn't get much spatter or black soot leading to me believe it was because the shielding gas was lingering around the welds from being in an enclosed space. Of course the welds sucked from welding blind in a small space, but they were spatter/soot free! LOL

As far as the car goes, I am still waiting on SDCE regarding a reply about seeing if this is one of their brackets, and if their crank spacer will work for me.

If not, I am going to have to figure something out with either trying to run a Paxton crank spacer and modify it to work with procharger pulleys or maybe having my own crank spacer made (or seeing if some kind of SBC spacer could work with some modifications).

Should be working on it a little over my "weekend" on weds and thurs. I'll take pics of the progress. I want to finish up boxing the fender well and mock up piping so that I can pull the motor and bring it to the machine shop for the half fill, head studs and refresh then get it back and install the W2s.

Looks like I'll be running hood pins and ditching the latching mechanism as well so I can fit the intercooler where I want it.

What is everyone's guess on what times this car will run when finished? 340, ported W2s flowing just under 300, ported Indy 360 intake, still working on a cam selection, E85 and probably 12psi or so, 4:10 rear, 70/30 drag shocks front, 50/50 rear with SS leafs and adj pinion snubber, I'll probably be building my own 1 7/8ths long tubes with a 3" exhaust, CSU blow through E85 carb with procharger low profile carb hat (going to kill some power, but I want it all to fit under the stock hood with the indy intake and that is no easy task).

Check the white and black wires attached to the receptacle. BLK to brass and WHT to silver. You may need to check it the way to the panel box.

I would tell you to buy another spool of wire
or put it in the oven at about 200*... I've had
that happen on old dusty wire... replace the liner
also

The above receptacle wiring is correct on a 120V machine, but it will not be the reason for your splatter, etc issues. It does not effect weld polarity.

If it is a 110 volt welder make sure it is not plugged into a extension cord. If you have to run a longer cord make sure it is big enough.

Thanks for the tips everyone, the welder is a 220v but I am running it through a 50 foot extension cord. I am pretty sure I have welded with it plugged in directly and still had trouble though.

I am definitely going to replace the liner for starters as it is definitely possible it got beat up at some point or ran over by the cart.


Mr. P Body, you may be onto something as I keep the welder in a very dusty garage and my wire always seems to have a bit of dust on it from storage in the welder. I may start to remove the spool and keep it in the house from now on to prevent contamination, but that would make sense that unclean wire is causing the issue. I feel like it has done it with new wire too, but it's hard to say as more often than not I am welding with a spool that has already been sitting in the welder for a while.

Got a big chunk of work done in welding up the intercooler mounting brackets, getting some of the piping routing down and checking clearance with the Indy intake (it JUST fits under the hood using the low profile carb hat which I know will cost me some power, but I love the look of this hood).

some more pics

It's not the cleanest or coolest of work I have done, but I am in a huge rush with trying to get it done before the end of summer with limited time to work so it is getting done and that's all I care about.

As far as the welder goes, it definitely is the liner. I swapped liners with a friend's and it made a huge difference, welds like it should again. Unfortunately, I couldn't keep his liner to do the intercooler brackets but I don't really care about show quality welds with this project, as long as they work. Thanks for the help everyone!

The piping seems to fit great (not done yet, but it looks like it is going to work just fine).

The next big step is to cut out a support bracket for the back of the blower bracket and figure out how I am going to fasten all that to the head/block. I am still waiting on SDCE to get back to me on the crank spacer and whether or not this bracket is even theirs. I am preparing for the worst of having to get my own crank spacer made. Any ideas?