Me n Ethyl

[wrp]

Remains a mystery. It has been installed for nearly three years now put a little over 4,000 miles on it. My best guess is that there are a combination of problems.

• We had trouble with the snout breakaway a couple of years ago and they upgraded the system. So where the snout would have probably normally broken as it was designed to do, the force was transmitted to the rear bearings. Once the rotors touched, I was smurfed.
  
• Discussions with Whipple indicate there is nothing noticeabley wrong with the cog drive, ie that wasn't the problem. However, the belt tended to hit the brace on the driver's side when cold,. I am thinking the extra drag that caused was a contributor.
  
• Whipple has a 2000 hp marine internal setup that they have now applied to the system. I think we were operating far beyond the specs they had in mind, and we've been doing it for three years.
  
• Previously we had fueling issues, using the wrong fuel filter on the inlet. The engine was starved for fuel which probably explains the low horespower ie 969 wheel horsepower. Changing the filters forced us to redo the entire tune. It will bee interesting to see if that affected the numbers.
  
• Bear in mind, of the 4,000 miles, probably several hundred were on the dyno at WOT. You've seen my videos on the rest.
  
• We have re machined the snout brace and Whipple has now upgraded the rotor pack and bearings. Everything in the blower is new except the case.
  
• When I put the TH400 in we initially had a 4500 rpm stall. That sucker hit hard amd given the other issues may have contributed. We have gone back to a 3700 rpm stall now.

There are not a lot of people to share experiences with on 4.0 Liter Whipple mounted on LS engines. Since this wil apparently be the upgrade to the 2.9 on the COPO, perhaps there will be more learning in the future. I guess I am finding what breaks first.