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Looks great under the hood. How did you clean out the buildup? I'm surprised there was some carbon on the ports. I know DI cars get it worse since the cleaning agents in fuel don't go through the intake manifold/head. A little afraid to see what my car looks like there.
Thanks Aman! Yes, I cleaned the ports out the best I could. I didn't want to take the heads off or turn the crank to close the intake valves, so I just very carefully stuffed a shop paper towel into each port, used some mass air flow sensor cleaner, a toothbrush and a microfiber cloth and scrubbed them multiple times. Then I used a vacuum and vacuumed out anything that may have come off and fell onto the paper towel, pulled the paper towel out and gave it one last wipe. Thankfully all the build up was on the top of the port. The intake valves actually looked spotless. It was a couple hours of work I wasn't intending on doing so it put me behind, so my weekend project took me into Monday, but only a few hours yesterday to finish it up. The car had 40k miles on it before the catch can, so it's possible it built up before I installed it, but a Dodge service tech responded to my question on one of my FB groups about cleaning it and he said even with a catch can 99% of the engines he sees has some sort of build up like that so it's very common.
Originally Posted by TylerT
That's one good looking engine bay! Well done!
When are you going back to the track? Curious to see the improvement!
Thank you Tyler! I'm going to try and get to the 1/4 mile at the end of this month, possibly might have to wait until November though. Or I have been strongly considering buying a Dragy. They're supposed to be as accurate as a VBox. I don't want to get my hopes up too much, but with the intake manifold and gears I could possibly see high 12s. We'll see though.
Originally Posted by rockstar143
get off his nuts bro
serious.
get off.
But he's a dad now, he knows how to be gentle with the nuts while wiping. It's ok dude.
Welp I went to the last test and tune a few weeks back and could only get a best of a 13.4. Not quite the results I was hoping for. That's just a tenth better than my previous best of a 13.5 pre 3.23 LSD and 6.4 intake manifold. I think I might be able to get a tenth quicker if I invest in a datalog or dyno tune, which I may do early next year, but even a 13.3 isn't exactly hauling butt compared to most cars nowadays. I think this may be the end of the road as far as modifying Sapphire goes.
Oh yeah? Well, my BRZ gets its doors blown off by minivans!
I just enjoy my car for what it is. I have had much more powerful cars but sometimes you just find the right one for you at that moment in time. There will always, always be newer, higher performance cars. That's a given.
Enjoy what you have. I have begun to prioritize fewer headaches, so I don't have big aspirations when it comes to mods (relative to how I used to be)
But that would insinuate I have reached a certain level of maturity that I have not yet reached.
You’re right though, and for the most part over the last few years I’ve been more realistic with my expectations and being satisfied with what I have. My decision to not mod it any further isn’t just based on the track results. It has a lot to do with the fact that I’ve done all the typical bolt ons now so anything more and it’ll start getting into internals or forced induction, and since the car is 11 years old and has 118,000 miles on it that’s probably not the right move.
I am really happy with the car and I do still enjoy driving it. It’s a great street car. I just expected more from the recent mods, but the silver lining is that it didn’t get slower.
Welp I went to the last test and tune a few weeks back and could only get a best of a 13.4. Not quite the results I was hoping for. That's just a tenth better than my previous best of a 13.5 pre 3.23 LSD and 6.4 intake manifold. I think I might be able to get a tenth quicker if I invest in a datalog or dyno tune, which I may do early next year, but even a 13.3 isn't exactly hauling butt compared to most cars nowadays. I think this may be the end of the road as far as modifying Sapphire goes.
Dude...if youre going make those mods, you gotta get a custom tune to fully utilize.
No doubt, but technically I do have a custom tune. It's just the latest tweak wasn't based off of a datalog from my car. Maybe I was foolish for thinking he adjusted the tune based off of other datalogs done with a 6.4 intake manifold and that would be sufficient. I don't want to think he was just feeding me BS because he didn't want to deal with it since he doesn't charge for revisions, but it is starting to feel like that might have actually been the case.
I'm shopping for a new Diablosport handheld right now since my v1 Predator is dying and only working intermittently. Once I get a new handheld I will probably reach out to Jay Greene since everyone raves about his custom tunes.
Saturday, May 22nd, marked 8 years with Sapphire. I've just been doing some small stuff lately. I haven't been happy with the Legmaker intake I bought for a couple different reasons, so I purchased a new to me CAI that will be here soon. I did a tune up recently and along with plugs I replaced my original coil packs with some pretty red ones. I'm scheduled to have my Suspension Dude's front end rebuild kit installed in a few weeks, which should make a huge difference in the way the car handles and hopefully get rid of the creaking/popping noises that I hear and feel going over bumps. This car still makes me super happy, so I still haven't found a reason to upgrade and likely won't as long as she continues to be reliable. I'll be taking her on a 2,000 mile road trip soon, so obviously I still have confidence in the reliability. Other than new scratches that appear on a daily basis with the kids, and a drivers seat that looks like a racoon turned it into it's home, I think she still shines up pretty nice.
ever get the itch for an aging hellcat?
I haven't priced them out but there have to be SOME in the 20's or
is that wishful thinking? Sometimes I miss the CTS-V...except for the
gas mileage. That was abysmal.
I've definitely looked. It's very tempting. I've come across many Charger Hellcats with 20k miles in the low 40s and the gears start turning in my head. But here's the thing, I think I'm just getting old, man. I've come to the conclusion that a fast car is all relative to the situation. Meaning my car feels fast because I don't ever really race anyone and I rarely take it to the track anymore, so to me it still feels like a beast. Now if the situation was lining up against someone with a faster car obviously I'd feel differently, but it just doesn't happen to me anymore. Maybe I need a shot of testosterone or maybe I'm just maturing, but I feel like as soon as I get a Scat Pack or Hellcat I'd get used to it and keep wanting more and more and more, and eventually pour even more money into a car that ultimately won't make me any happier. Yep, I'm officially old. Can't wait to retire.
I've definitely looked. It's very tempting. I've come across many Charger Hellcats with 20k miles in the low 40s and the gears start turning in my head. But here's the thing, I think I'm just getting old, man. I've come to the conclusion that a fast car is all relative to the situation. Meaning my car feels fast because I don't ever really race anyone and I rarely take it to the track anymore, so to me it still feels like a beast. Now if the situation was lining up against someone with a faster car obviously I'd feel differently, but it just doesn't happen to me anymore. Maybe I need a shot of testosterone or maybe I'm just maturing, but I feel like as soon as I get a Scat Pack or Hellcat I'd get used to it and keep wanting more and more and more, and eventually pour even more money into a car that ultimately won't make me any happier. Yep, I'm officially old. Can't wait to retire.
Say no more...
the most recent car I bought I bought because it wasn't loud and should be a good quiet daily.
Not like I need another daily but...you get it.
Say no more...
the most recent car I bought I bought because it wasn't loud and should be a good quiet daily.
Not like I need another daily but...you get it.
Yeah, you really need help, dude. How many freaking dailies do you need??!
Say no more...
the most recent car I bought I bought because it wasn't loud and should be a good quiet daily.
Not like I need another daily but...you get it.
Just some small updates. I toned down the engine compartment by swapping out my blue catch can and red/blue fake an fittings with a black catch can and silver fittings. It was starting to look a little too wannabe racecar to me.
I've been fabricating an air box for the Legmaker intake to help keep the engine temps down which has been a fun little project. I tried fitting a Corsa closed box intake to it but it was a complete disaster and I hacked the box up bad. The guy I bought it from claimed it'd fit my car but that was not the case whatsoever, so I decided to just make one.
I was thinking black crinkle hi-temp paint, but the undercoating is an interesting suggestion. I was also thinking weather stripping, but door molding might work too.
10-13-2020, 02:54 PM
Still much quicker than the majority of cars on the road.
Yeah, I meant compared to performance cars.
to 8 years!
