You know the crazy part, well one of them, is when you guys were at T-Hill. I was texting with Aaron on how it was going, and he said it was puking oil out of the tank breather. I suggested checking the tank cap, assuming an air leak, because that's normally what makes them puke. Never in a million years would I have guessed they plumbed in a PCV, putting a HUGE air leak in the system. That's dry sump 101.

Please keep showing everyone how the self proclaimed master of all things race car, screwed up even the simplest of task.

Yeah Craig — I have to say the more we get in to the car - the worse it gets..... There simply isn’t a single system that was done right. No coolers on anything... motor burnt up - wiring burnt up.... Dry sump is on so you DO NOT suffer oil starvation.... but then, that’s assuming you know how to plumb one.

MISTER “I’ve built 200 race cars....”

HA! What a joke that S.O.B is.

Let's cut him some slack, he may actually have built over 200 race cars...

https://lateral-g.net/forums/attachm...1&d=1547159301

...he just sniffed too much glue while building them.

Reading this thread and the original build thread just makes me shake my head in disbelief. I *almost* drank the "secret sauce" kool aid over a year ago and was about to order a floater rear end from Ron but got an odd feeling at the last minute and ordered a currie instead. I've already used all my luck with Frank at Prodigy... I was one of the lucky ones who actually received all my parts from him before that house of cards collapsed.

I feel really bad for Greg and everyone else who was taken for a ride.

Looking forward to the testing of the rebuilt car!

To this day I'm still amazed at everything that went down. And I'm just a long distance bystander.

I look forward to the day you get to take the first lap in v2.0.

Somewhere my free RSRT sema shirt is on the shelf at a goodwill store. I hope the poor bastard that gets it doesn't get cursed.

I just love Greg's straight forward analysis of what happened during his build.... Usually everyone is afraid to really call out and explain the B.S. they got and "PAID" for.....

Ken

So true!!!

Karma
 

Karma is what it is... but Greg continues to be one of the good guys!

One of best OG's on here IMHO who's been "calling it as it is" and as he sees it since day one! (...should have listened closer...)

Here's to a great CT scan and an amazing 2019 for you buddy!!!

I really feel for ya, spending your hard earned money and getting a product that was substandard & below expectations. Man you guys with the high end builds can't seem to get a break.....which reminds me a another high end Camaro build that I've read which had a litany of problems.

I'm a small potatoes guy in the big picture Lat-G scene but decided to reach out to Ron after reading a' Brake sizing and selection tutorial' informative article on braking over at PT.com, Tobin also had some input.
Contacted him, he returned my email 16 days later. I thought it was a little excessive, I understand people lead busy lives but c'mon.
Excerpt of email response:
Sorry for the crazy long delay. Just a heads up that I have been & still am swamped with projects right now for SEMA ... then I'll be gone to Las Vegas for 10 days before & during SEMA ... doing my Suspension Workshop there, launching a new line of brakes in conjunction with StopTech, then displaying at the Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational the weekend after SEMA.

I'll be back in the office Wednesday, Nov 9th following up on calls & emails first, then getting back to my client projects including yours. So if you try to contact me between now & then, don't be frustrated I don't answer. I'll be the guy running 200 mph with his hair on fire. LOL

Call me the week after SEMA & let's go over the details of what you have in mind.

Until then, take care !

After this response I decided to deal with Tobin and haven't looked back.
Seems he bit off more than he could chew, I've been running my own business for 32 years and decided to stay smaller for my own sanity, family, quality of life yet give my customers a level of customer service that they expect and I give without compromising future new customers & referrals because a unhappy customer will certainly tell a hell of a lot more people than a happy one.
I really hope everything gets straightened out & in the end the final product exceeds your expectations and vision, plus we want you to post up another track video!

That reminds me of a time management problem. "Man, I'm so busy" Busy doing what?

We've all heard that line so many times. Guess what, if you are that damn busy something is wrong. You either don't have your priorities straight, you have poor systems, or you need to hire help. There is always the choice to say NO. I know I'm speaking Greek here. ha

It's a big RED FLAG when people are too busy.

Forgot to mention that my correspondences were from 2016.

The only reason he was “TOO BUSY” was because he couldn’t shut up.... the simplest phone call turned in to a story telling session about me, myself, and how great I was and am..... I told him this 50 times.... SHUT The F UP — answer the questions - solve the issue - make the sale... ship the product or service... plenty of time to BS when you see them at SEMA or some other format....

That should be in Sales 101, but I think a lot of people skip that class. We had a guy here that would be on a call for 30 minutes talking about who knows what and in the meantime 4-5 calls were missed. Some will call back, some won't. If the ones that do get ignored again, guess what happens?

ME TOO!!! Because my one and only “stint” in the car - was a rip around the city streets behind where it was built —- and I couldn’t make it back to the shop..... because all the throttle wiring was melted....

That should have been my first clue — there were MANY....

Agree with your curse comment.... there’s a long line of folks over a number of years and businesses he’s had that haven’t faired so well.


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The RIGHT sized dry sump tank installed.... This - along with proper plumbing and deleting the PCV system (idiots).... ought to actually have this system working correctly!



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What size tank did he put on it?

Mister “I’m a race car builder” put a 2 gallon tank on it — along with a PCV system.... LOL

WTF?! You know as well as me, you don't put 2 gallons in a 2 gallon tank, so you got like a 6/7 quart system...less than a stock LS7 by 2-3 quarts. Must be some of that secret sauce race car magic I don't understand.

So not enough oil, and what wasn't being puked out of the tank breather was being whipped to a frothy sauce because of the PCV air leak. I see now why the engine is killed.

I hear via the grape juice vine that being full of Secret Sauce can cost you your business.... We used to call Secret Sauce by another word that starts with S in the old days.

So...... What you’re saying is —— maybe —- just maybe —- running 4 banger dirt track midget cars doesn’t qualify you to be the “know it all” you made yourself out to be?? IS that the Secret of the sauce??? LOL

Several of you have commented on this, but someone educate me please...

Why don't you use a PCV system with a dry sump?

On TOW I don't run a true PCV, but I do have my valve covers plumbed to fresh air inside of the air cleaner. I also have an overflow / breather tank on the side of my oil tank. Oil should never get in there, but I do get some puffs of smoke out of it.

Am I doing something wrong here?

The dry sump should be pulling a vacuum on the crankcase, any breathers or leaks in the system are just fighting to equalize that vacuum.

Dry sumps are sealed systems. Good pumps can pull over 20” of vacuum on the crankcase, literally pulling in gaskets and seals. Most use a vacuum regulator installed on the engine to limit that to 12-15”. If you do have an air leak, you are pulling and mixing the oil with a large quantity of air. That makes foamy aerated oil. The tanks are designed with screens and steps that deareate the oil as it settles from the top to bottom. With an air leak, especially as big as a PCV hole, the amount of air is so excessive the tank simply can’t remove it from the oil. The air expansion in the tank, normally handled by the TANK breather, is being overwhelmed by the excessive air, the oil is not deareating, and gets puked out the breathers. The aerated oil provides little to no bearing film, and consequently bearing scuffs or failures result. The tiny size of the tank and capacity only exaggerated the issue.
They were running this engine at 10/10ths for two lap stints, with less oil capacity than required and massively aerated. Can’t understand how they did this multiple times for multiple days knowing they were causing damage. I simply don’t understand that thought process.

So let me get this straight, he was either ignorant about dry sump systems, or he is knowledgeable about them and understood what he was doing so it was intentional damage? Flipping coin hits floor...

Miss educated post like this. Thank you for the knowledge

Sometimes even if a guy is a supposed “genius” (self described) - doesn’t mean he can hang a picture..... or understand a dry sump....

The funny part — you should have seen the “monkey F’n the football” when the car would come off track and they’d begin their “clean up in aisle 3” routine — in other words — ABSOLUTELY CLUELESS.

The guys that were there for this “outting” so wanted me to fire him right there and let them take over — because we mostly had the “issue” figured out.... but by that time it was me still wanting Mister Secret Sauce to be able to save himself..... dumb on my part in retrospect — but we all have 20/20 hindsight....

Oh well.... it shall all be fixedededed right up shortly.

Thanx for the explanation. I may block the ports on my valve covers, although everything looked good when we did the rebuild last year given my current setup. I don't have any method of de-aerating my oil, so I can see where this would be a potential problem for me...

To be sure Bryan — there is a connection between the top of the oil tank and your PCV system (vacuum)..... so be sure you learn about these systems to fully understand them.

What tank are you running? My understanding is that most all tanks have some internal baffling for de-aeration purposes.

Sounds like a stock GM setup, which is a hybrid dry sump. If so, you need your breathers, but can be plumbed through Petersons breather can, and then to the tank.

As Greg said, if you have a pump with scavenge stages and are pulling vacuum on the crankcase, you need two additional pieces. A vacuum regulator to limit the amount of vacuum pulled on the crankcase, and a pressure pop off. Most pop offs are plumbed back to the tank. This is just a safety valve for a sealed crankcase. If the pump has an instance when it can't pull a vacuum, with the crankcase sealed, the pressure has no where to go, and usually pushes past a seal. The pop off, lets that pressure be evacuated to the tank, while still allowing the crankcase to be sealed.

New THREE gallon dry sump tank mounted..... and it’s mounted NOW behind the protection of a NEW front wheel tub.... You can only imagine the amount of track debris that was being thrown against the firewall — and anything back there....



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Hard to see from this photo - but this is the new front tub looking back from the front of the car.... I’d be happy with that quality of fabrication on a fancy build!!!! Remember this is a race car - plain and simple.... I like their (SpeedTech) craftsmanship!!




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Blake and I were just discussing the whole “PCV” system and vacuum pop off valves etc.... of course he has been in direct contact with A.R.E and Kurt Urban.... both of whom know their way around these systems.......

Had Sutton bothered to do this while building the car —- it might have saved me a few grand.... and even more important to me —- MY TIME.....


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How you plumb the topend of the engine is really dependent on the scavenge ability of the pump and whether it can maintain vacuum on the crankcase when the engine is wound up. If you can't maintain vacuum when the engine is at max rpm you have to vent the crankcase pressure to somewhere or you're going to have blow-by issues.
I started out with a 3 stage Dailey that made vacuum at idle but with the 4.125 stroke crank I have it couldn't maintain vacuum when we revved it up. I added 2 more scavenge stages, I can now maintain 15" of vacuum at 8,000 rpm and picked up 20 hp. I initially ran it sealed but with street driving I started seeing moisture accumulation in the tank oil cap and the valve covers. I plumbed a -4 line from the drivers side valve cover to the top of the tank to turn the air over and cured the moisture issue.

What I have done with the 3 stage pumps is to run one -12 line from the valve cover to the top of the tank, you can run it to the tank breather but you'll just fill with oil quicker.

Gdub I would get rid of that Y point by the "B" in your drawing and run each valve cover line separately to the tank, once you go through that Y it's only flowing what one line can flow.

What did you guys change on the front clip? I see a newly welded in piece.

I would put a pop off on the valve covers to the tank. Does the same thing, except allows the pump to pull a vacuum on the crankcase until it can't!

This can be plumbing inline to the tank from the valve covers:

http://www.petersonfluidsys.com/engi...WayPopOff.html

That's certainly not a bad idea.

took out the bent 1x3 and replaced it with a straight piece to give room for the gussets we added to the lower control arm.

It would really be awesome to see detailed photos of what you’re changing suspension wise, so that those of us who have the same suspension are able to see what you’ve come up with as a safe “repair” or change to the front lowers, 3 Link rear, etc. This build thread is sort of the only source that the rest of us might have for ideas and knowledge on what we should do. I understand if you guys can’t share all of it, but anything helps. I personally don’t know anyone to go to that I can trust for a redesign. Thanks again for sharing Greg/Blake.