Lateral-g Forums - Project PT-57, 1957 Truck, Built By Hot Rod Jim's

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That is looking sweet!!!
Keep up the good work guys.:thumbsup:

Love this build and can't wait to see it blasting cones at Optima!

fuel system problem, wrong injectors and we're having to rebuild some of our wiring harness. Plan is to get a safe tune on monday so we can break in the transmission, differential, and turbos then tuesday spin it up and get the serious tune so we can get some track time in on Thursday before we leave.

http://www.hotrodjim.com/immages/pro...ate/08/s-3.jpg http://www.hotrodjim.com/immages/pro...ate/08/s-4.jpg http://www.hotrodjim.com/immages/pro...ate/08/s-5.jpg

http://www.hotrodjim.com/immages/pro...ate/08/s-6.jpg http://www.hotrodjim.com/immages/pro...ate/08/s-7.jpg

http://www.hotrodjim.com/immages/pro...ate/08/s-1.jpg http://www.hotrodjim.com/immages/pro...ate/08/s-2.jpg

-Russell

That truck is just awesome!! Good luck with the problems. Looking forward to seeing it in some track video.:cheers:

Awesome build guys.
Now, is the reason you went with STS turbos because there would be no room in the engine bay or just because you like them better? THANKS!:thumbsup: :cheers:

Update? How's it going?

Looking good Russell, love it

Well, Did you make it?

Quote:

Originally Posted by ccracin (Post 245462)

Well, Did you make it?

X2

We pester you because we care! :unibrow:

An other awesome build! I love the theme! That turbo setup looks awesome.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ccracin (Post 245462)

Well, Did you make it?

I don't think they did since I heard they were trying to substitute a '39 Truck at the Challenge.

I hope it's there though.. I've been dying to see it in person since it have my favorite paint scheme ever...

Yeah, doesn't look done in those photos. That is a shame, they were busting it trying to get it done. Looking good though. :thumbsup:

The truck is at SEMA and I'm leave Texas about 6pm tonight now to Take them race tires And odd and ends .Guy keep your findercross that we make the race.:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

The truck wasn't quite done (well, done enough to race) as of this morning, but it looked close. They were sure busting their butts to get it done. Hope it's ready!

http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/4...024x768.th.jpg

http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/2...024x768.th.jpg

Russell will post here shortly. He's had some technical problems accessing the site.

We did make it, we pushed the truck into the SEMA Show Monday for setup and drove it our on Friday after finding and fixing wiring problems.

We put down 567.13 RWHP and 506.27 RWTQ at 4:00 A.M. Saturday morning on the Dyno at Wicked HP with the Help of Chris. When we got to the track we were still locking down a few little things and needed to finish bleeding the brakes. We were given an extension at Tech but ended up missing our deadline when the front wheels with the race tires high centered on the calipers. I had ordered them because I was told they would clear the Z06 Calipers but such had been our luck for the last 2 weeks (Turns out that wheel guy is out of business now, go figure). I'm working on a full report sorting photos and a video. Sorry, but for now you'll have to live with these.

After we missed our dead line we had all been awake for 36+ hours and not have had any good sleep in weeks we all wanted to just go home at that point. We we're told we will be aloud to compete next year because of our efforts this year. The wiring harness was the major last stab that slowed us down. 2 bad sensors wired so we didn't get it running before we left and ended up spending 30+ hours finding and fixing a $700.00 harness. I will not release their name because they did make the harness for me in 3 days and for that I am grateful and by my research they've never had this problem before but I can say I'll never buy another wiring harness from those guys again after the indignant response I got when asking about the problem.

-Russell

http://blogs.cars.com/.a/6a00d83451b...c33c970c-800wi
http://special-reports.pickuptrucks....jims-pt57.html

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2466/...cd30bb03_o.jpg

Hot Rod Jim’s PT-57 SEMA 09 Story

So here’s the story covering the why and what happened starting after our last post of photos on the 22nd.

Monday when you last heard from us it was Thursday October, 22. We started installing the motor bits, intake, pulleys, and fuel system then we noticed a little problem. Sunday night, most of the wiring was down. We were finishing up the fuel system, but the fuel rail wasn’t going down all the way to the intake. It soon became obvious that the 42 pound injectors are LS1 injectors not the short body truck ones we needed for the LQ4 intake. Our goal was to be on the dyno Monday afternoon. We spent most of Monday morning looking for a quick fix on the injectors, because we wanted to be on the dyno that night but nothing turned up. We then spent Monday night modifying the system to accept the LS1 intake.

To get the LS1 intake to fit the turbo system we had to modify the intercooler piping. So all those parts had to come back off. The piping then started to hit the inner fenders so we then pulled the front end back off and get them re-shimmed. Wednesday night and we’re finally getting close to having all those mods knocked out. I hadn’t finished drawing up the shop banners for the booth yet so I was spending time working on that while Jim and Billy worked on the truck during the day. Then I would come in at night to run wiring. If you cam by the booth most likely you met Darren. A buddy of ours graduated top of his class from WyoTech and was the M Class tech at the BMW of Austin. He loves wiring so he came down 3 nights from Austin (1.5 hour drive) to help me work on the wiring and learn how to program the Stack ST700 Tack. I was still sorting the exact tuning setup since I’ve never programmed a Turbo car before and the EFI Live custom OS we were going to run was a little confusing to me still. Kendal was tearing up the TIG on the display parts and a few little odd ball parts for the truck we hadn’t built yet.

Wednesday more of the last minute parts showed up. We had a bad check from a customer so we ended up selling off one of our cars, the little black 32 roadster, that weekend to make up for it. Our missing pair of 12” Z06 Corvette wheels from FedEx, 2 Sets of Hoosiers followed the wheels in the UPS truck with a few other boxes of other little parts in tow. Getting those mounted took a little time. Turns out almost no one can mount a 12” wide wheel in this town but the guys at Expert Tire got it knocked out with 2 guys standing on top of the mounting machine jumping up and down on those 345/30/R19’s to get them on to the wheel. That was fun to watch.

Thursday saw more help and a few more headaches popped up. Kelly was back in the game full time busting on the truck helping to nut and bolt the chassis and he, the web coder, was actually getting some photos taken for me since I wasn’t even paying attention to it at that point. That day our truck and enclosed trailer both fell through due to unforeseen circumstances. So even if we got done we didn’t have a ride to the show. That’s when our buddy Jonathan pulled threw and hooked us up with his 1 ton Dodge for the trip. A long time friend of Kendall’s, Don with another shop in San Antonio, lent us his trailer since it had brakes where our normal shop trailer didn’t making the trip one step easier.

Friday the troops began to rally. Our plan we to roll out Saturday night and most everyone riding out was at the shop that day planning for a long night with some rest in the truck. Looking at what needed to be done, we recalculated when the absolute latest we could leave. Our new deadline now Sunday at 6 A.M. with the advantage of 2 hours in time zones and an additional hour because of the time change we had a few things going for us but the details of our to do list grew just as quickly. Darren was back in the shop now with all his stuff loaded up into the haul truck Kelly’s stuff on top of his, I hadn’t even looked at my bag yet, and I live at the shop in an apartment/ office. Kelly was plugging leaks in our turbos oil lines, Darren was still wiring getting all the grounds in place, Billy was locking down the turbo air lines and I was getting ready to start the truck for the first time.

Saturday we took the truck to have its front graphic mounted. Jim and Kendall both worked on the shop display, Billy was securing the advertising banners and cards while Kelly finished up some revision to the website. When I got back Jonathan and his son Charlie had both shown up to give us a hand getting the truck road worthy. Brianne our driver and her Boyfriend Jason both showed up even thought it was Brianne’s Birthday. We worked on driver ergonomics and pedal adjustment while I was trying to figure out something on the ECM. I played with it and played with it but I couldn’t get the pedal to show any signal, and the MAP wasn’t showing any voltage either. Watch our SEMA video to see what happened then. Saturday around midnight or Sunday morning later the truck still wouldn’t start. It would fire off then die. We decided that’s it and had to load it up. We couldn’t do anymore then, but we could plan to work on it at the show. So we did just that and started loading up the tools we would need to get it knocked out with. Then had to make plans for a second truck for the extra support tools we would need for chassis tuning. Kendall and Jim would stay behind and come out with those tools later and the 4 of us would all leave that night to make the setup for SEMA.

A whole lot of driving later its 7:00 A.M. and we’re in Vegas. We got checked into our hotel, it was supposed to be 2 rooms but they didn’t have it registered in there system so we only got one room and two beds for all 4 of us, yay. We got to the show, waded through all the crazy and finally got to our booth to set it up. Afterwards we all walked back to the hotel around 5ish and crashed.

The week was us all working off and on in the booth during the show then hanging around at night for 1-2 hours so we could spread out and pin out our harness looking for the reason the TPS and the MAP sensors weren’t showing any signal to the laptop. A short somewhere in the system but we reran both sensors back to the ECM and Wednesday night we got it to fire off and idle. I was still a little unsure of the tune so I went over to the EFI Live booth and talked to the engineers and programmers who make the software. Awesome guys all of them then Jesse Bubb asks me if I want him to write a base tune to make it easier. With my enthusiastic “hell yes” and he snapped open one of their laptops and started writing a base tune from a blank custom OS file. He asking me 2-3 questions and filled out almost 50 blank maps off the top of his head in 10 minutes then knocked it down to 3 tables for me to tune all based off the simple WO2 data. Rick Squires of Squires Turbos Systems offered me plenty of info and showed me a few things on his laptop for me to watch out for when tuning the remote turbos on the truck.

Friday, show was over and the mad dash out of the building started. We made it out around 7:00 P.M. then we were off to the tuners. Thursday night the guys with the Optima Battery Race hadn’t given up on us and helped us find a local Dyno plus a friendly shop owner who was going to be there all night anyway. Cody Chapman of Wicked HP was working on a Pro Mod Head and gave us a section of his shop to thrash in that night. We plugged holes, bled brakes, and worked out the tune for some safe power at the track.

We started on the dyno with 75 RWHP. The right bank coil pack had fried the fuse, swapped that and ran out all the fuel from the system then we started putting down 350-390 RWHP but we still weren’t seeing any boost. I had my buddies put their hands over the waste gate dump and could they feel hot air leaking out. Turns out in our rush we forgot to put in the sealing rings that seated against the plunger. We were all discussing about settling for dead turbos and run on all motor. Then the Cody pipes up “You want me to turn one?” Sure enough he chucks up a chuck of aluminum and went to town. An hour later we’re dropping the waste gates back in with their sealing rings. Crank it up and boom 5 PSI and we know the passenger’s side was still leaking a little. 3 pulls later and we have 567.13 RWHP and 506 RWTQ. By that time it was 4:00 A.M. and we still had to get out of the hotel and off to the race track.

I was sure everyone saw us rolling in during the drivers meeting and madly unloading the car. At that point our team had all been awake for the last 36 Hours and counting. Paul and his father were bleeding the last of the brakes (multi pistons hold air like a mother) and we were trying to plug the hole on the diff where the corvette VSS sensor goes but we forgot it back at home. One tech extension, two tech extension we we’re having some trouble with the rear swaybar and the brake light switch never got wired for some reason. Finally Tyler walks up for the last time, Brianne is strapped in and getting ready to take off and then the final straw. The front Z06 wheels high centered on the Z06 brakes and locked up the front wheels, that’s when Tyler with the tech team helped make it plane to me, not this year.

Tyler, a big thank you to you sir for putting my foolish, sleep deprived, rampaging butt in check, I would have surely broken something vital or hurt someone the way we were going. At that point I really wasn’t in the right mind to make that call. With so much money, time, and some blood in a few places into getting there I didn’t want to give up. You were right a few parking lot drives weren’t nearly enough to be comfortable with it. I know personally Jason would have killed me if something happened to Brianne while driving my truck too then I really wouldn’t have made it out next year. We didn’t have the chassis dialed out the way it needed to be and with the interior in its serious disarray. Even if we won every event the show points would have smacked us back to the bottom. With the experience behind me I have to look at the bright side, I have all year and 2 fresh sets of Hoosiers to start. I’m already working on a revised frame for next year to be swapped sometime this spring to shave a little weight.

-Russell

Update Nov 18, 2009 Part-1

Update Nov 18, 2009 Part-2

cool project Russell, nice meeting you at SEMA. Watch out for those brass 90 degree fittings coming off the gas tank, they are quite restrictive compared to the mandrel bent full flow 90's the AN companies offer. Not good to restrict fuel on a twin turbo setup, plus any restriction is tough on the electric fuel pump(s). May not cause you an issue, but if you notice fuel pressure dropping with the boost turned up check those first.

Then again, I'm not positive that's the fuel tanks, so if not................... never mind. :lol: Maybe they're oil tanks for the turbos, not using engine oil to feed?

http://www.hotrodjim.com/immages/pro...te/09/l-13.jpg

Jody

Russell,

I don't know how much you've driven the truck enough to form a solid n opinion of how it performs, but if you have, what are your overall impressions?

Looks like it should be a lot of fun.

The yellow frame really grew on me. I like the use of red also.

If it was me I think I'd like the wheels a dark grey color.

Quote:

Originally Posted by camcojb (Post 248714)

Jody

Same here I just wish I had more time to chat. When your chasing a problem it take 10x more effort than when you get to talk about it in retro speck.

The fuel 90's on the bottom are the cross over for the gas to get from the left side to the right side when your driving. By keeping the gas split up it reduces the centrifugal force generated by your gas hitting the side of the tank. This way your fuel's weight will have an impact on both sides of your center line and offer less migration of the CG when driving. Since all your suspension reacts in relation to the CG this will help make for a smoother transitions when driving..... in theory, lol.

Cool thing about the turbos being in the back when we were on the dyno the turbos were staying right around 400 degrees. The EGT was in the 800-1000 (i have lots of spark to find) depending on where we were in the RPM's and the ITA temps were only +15 to +20 over ambient because of all the cooling happening on the air from front to back. And that was on a dyno so we didn't have any air moving around the car offering more cooling to the system.

Quote:

Originally Posted by WaterCooledNelds (Post 248788)

I'm crazy happy with the Pfadt shocks. I've got about 40 miles on it now shaking down the chassis and chasing loose nuts and bolts and getting all my sensors working and calibrated. I've been driving with then on 4 and 3 and the ride is really smooth. They go up to 16 and the front and rear have there own valve patterns. Steering is a little tough right now but that's because our power steering pump was leaking and we were trying to find the culprit. Haven't got to throw it around yet. I'm still getting back to work on my customers projects. Everything stopped here a month before SEMA including the cash flow, lol. So that takes a little priority right now but I have an auto cross the first weekend of December I want to be at, hehe.

The yellow rocks !!!!! :unibrow: Like you said, it goes with the green really well. I've got some black I think I'm going to mix with the Gray I have left and see what comes out.

I'm working on the video so look for it tomorrow.

-Russell

Quote:

Originally Posted by rat_rod_russell (Post 248800)

or now

Video
http://videos.streetfire.net/video/H...EMA_720229.htm

-Russell

I liked the vid.

Sounds good too.

Very cool project. I love the colors!:thumbsup: :cheers:
How does that STS turbo work out for you guys?

Thanks all, you should here it go down the street. Turbos, cam and blow off. Its a symphony of speed.

we're working out the little tuning issues and I'm learning the STACK ST700 Tack, this this is nuts with all its features but I think I might be able to get it to cook dinner for me too, lol. Progressive Sequential Shift Lights, maw hahaha.

Here's my interview with Hub TV, sorry I look so hunched, Amber must have been 5 foot even and the camera was right there so I had to come down a little to make up for it.

http://www.hubgarage.com/hubtv/channels/18/videos/382

-Russell

Nice! Now we all know somebody that's FAMOUS!! LOL

Great project - as you already know!

:thumbsup:

Quote:

Originally Posted by GregWeld (Post 249589)

Nice! Now we all know somebody that's FAMOUS!! LOL

Great project - as you already know!

:thumbsup:

I want to get his autograph!:willy: :willy: :willy:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kendall Burleson (Post 249639)

I want to get his autograph!:willy: :willy: :willy:

ya under that Pay To The Order Of line, lol.

Guys Kendall rocks. He's one of the main reasons that we even made it to SEMA this year and he's the one who gave us the push we needed to finally get up and go to the big show. Keep and eye out for his 56 Chevy we'll be banging on ASAP.

We're going to have the PT-57 at the Houston AutoRama if anyone's going. We'll be back in the Swap meet section with some of our shops other goodies

-Russell

I'll be there .:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

we're in the back corner for anyone looking for us.

-R^3

LOLOLOLOL, A buddy of mine turned me into Silent Bob with two swords a SAW and no hat and the sad thing is that I feel like putting on weight to pull off the look. Then there's Kendall, he's in good shape for 60, and he's got a bazooka. My buddy Tyler Richlen stopped by and saw the truck, then he emailed this to me a few days later.

Click it for the large version.

http://www.hotrodjim.com/immages/med...PT-57/01-m.jpg

-Russell

I like your marketing strategy, tapping into the soldier of fortune pro-touring market.

:D

Yep! I like it Skip!

Too funny -- having met Kendall -- he didn't strike me as the bazooka toting type. It would be a good marketing 'ploy' though. Now we'll have to get Charleys 55 Merlin motored monster together with the PT-57 so they can "tour" together! Maybe we can get the government to send them on the USO tours! LOL

Quote:

Originally Posted by GregWeld (Post 252829)

Greg,

In the illustration Russell seems to have had an angry extreme makeover by 'Dorf' (aka Tim Conway).:_paranoid

PT-57 and Charley's Merlin would be quite a powerful pair.:thumbsup:

That funny:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: