With the engine needing a rebuild, I had to weigh my options. I knew the clutch was slipping, so it should be replaced before putting the engine back in. With a new performance clutch, the stock T56's life would be getting a lot harder. I didn't have the funds to upgrade the T56 and if I blew that, I'd be beat. On top of all of that, I wanted to go faster. I decided to sell the T56 in working order, and use those funds to have a three speed "automatic" Th400 built. I don't remember all of the details on the build, but I was told it would hold to around 1,200 hp and would include a reverse manual valve body and a trans brake.
I got my crank cut, some new bearings and was back in business just in time for summer. This was summer of 2018 right after Brett and I graduated college. We were on a mission to get both cars back together.
As expected, it didn't take too long for both cars to be back on the road.
Besides fixing my engine, I did make a few other changes to the car. The turbo set up had always been plagued with an overheating issue if I was driving that car for a long period of time. It ended up being nothing more than weak fans. Problem was, I needed a bigger fan and there simply wasn't enough room for one. I ended up chopping up the ratiator support to move the radiator further forward, and was able to fit stock f-body fans I had laying around. This also gave me an opprotunity to mount my trans cooler for the new automatic.
Besides the transmission change and cooling fix, the only other changes I made to the car were wheels, tires, new shocks/struts. Like I said, I wanted to go faster. I sold the nice watts link and ground control suspension setup and put back on factory springs, with some Lakewood 90/10s up front and viking double adjustables in the rear. I loved the Weld Wheels but the times on the back wheels were shot, and 17" matching fronts to clear the front corvette breaks were just too much money. I sold everything and bought the racestars with brand new 28" 275 radial pros in the back.
The car was running good and was a totally different kind of animal with the automatic. I know manual turbo cars can be fast, I just did not have the skills or money at the time to be able to build a fast manual car. The way mine was set up left me losing boost each gear change and really slowed the car down. With the automatic and PTC converter, the thing was just constantly making boost.
These photos are from early October of 2019. After years and thousands of hours working on these cars together, for the first time ever Brett and I made it to the track with BOTH cars at once. I had my car running with the automatic for just over a year before actually making it to the track. I had been pretty busy starting my Job in Finance and passing all of my licensing exams. It was also after the summer I had my Hayabusa and we really just all rode our bikes together all summer. Now that it was fall though, we were motivated to get the cars right. After this day, I finally finished installing my door bars in the cage years later. I got the bump box working in my car and finally did the rear gear change to 3.55s.
This was a great weekend. As far as racing goes, the best ever with th car. It was two weeks later and we went to Atco Friday night and Island saturday morning. The car worked perfect Friday night and had no issues, so we just left it in the trailer and hooked up to the truck and jumped right back in saturday morning. It was the first time the car was really pulling the wheels and after the rear gear change, it felt like a rocket. Mind you, Im STILL on the sloppy mechanics base tune, and only running about 10 PSI of boost.
Unfortunately, the last pass of the day on Saturday i started having issues. About half way through the pass it felt down on power, but the car was still running and driving after the finish line. I noticed my windshield was covered in oil and realized something was going on. I pulled over to the side expecting to see a rod hanging out of the block, but there was nothing. Not even a puddle of oil on the ground. So I thought it was something small. I left the car at the end of the track, picked it up with the trailer at the end of the event and took it home for diagnosis.
Unfortunately, the old 5.3 had finally given up on me. After a compression test that resulted in a dead hole, I pulled the head to find a burned piston (and mike) looking back at me.
At this point, the car was going 10.3 and I did not have a full cage. I thought whats the point of fixing of rebuilding a new motor just to get kicked out of the track when I actually tune the car for more boost. On top of that, the whole process of building this car had always been a learning experience for everyone involved. Everything I did on the car was my first time doing it and realistically, it wasn't the most professional.
On top of that, this was all happening as I was starting my career in finance. I know time only gets harder to make as life goes on, and there was so much I wanted to fix and do right on the car. So thats how the next build started, completely from scratch.
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