g_bear89
10-12-2011, 12:15 PM
Well..this is going to be a LOOOONG post.. so if you have some time and are willing to give some input, continue reading :angel:
I will start my unfortunate luck with this car since the day I got my new shortblock installed. In April/May, I took my 99 cobra to get a MMR 900 shortblock swapped in at Sinergy. At the same time, the usual got done to the heads. They were resurfaced, new valve guides, valve job...whatever else gets done to them when swapping a shortblock LOL. I bought new gaskets for pretty much everything, including new "heavy duty" Felpro Headgaskets. At the same time, a bunch of other goodies got installed, including aluminum flywheel, ford racing headers, centerforce dual friction clutch, energy suspension motor mounts, MM adjustable clutch quadrant...etc.. nothing huge though. Just a bunch of little things to make the car more enjoyable.
Anyways, the whole process of getting the engine swapped turned out to be a headache. All of this was mainly due to the first shop (not sinergy) that failed at getting the job done and left it half ways done. So by the time Sinergy got a hold of the job back in April, my car was a mess. By a mess, I mean that they literally did half the job, but all my parts were unorganized. They removed the engine, but Mark pretty much had to find which bolt belonged to what because the other shop put all my parts and bolts in a few boxes.
So fastforward a bit...Sinergy is installing my shortblock. While they are doing this, a few issues came up that delayed the completion of my car quite a bit.
First of all, Mark told me the crank that came with the new shortblock was not the right size? So because of that, the new aluminum flywheel would not bolt up to the crank. So the flywheel had to be sent out to be machined to make it just a tiny bit bigger. So that gets done.
The next issue: The engine is put all back together, the headers are installed when the engine is out. It then gets dropped into the car. Things are looking good since this is the closest the car has been to completion since a long time. While trying to install the mid pipe, it is brought to my attention that the bolts on the headers are stripped :angry2: So more delays.
Next issue: after the stripped bolts issue is resolved, everything comes back together finally! By now, it has been 2 weeks (may) since the car was dropped off at sinergy, so you can only guess how excited I am to finally drive my car! (I had not driven it since December when the engine went bye bye) So the car is turned on and everything looks good! Except.. there is a HUGE coolant leak :angry2:
Turned out to be a problem with one of the freezeplugs in the rear of the engine? So Sinergy had to take out the engine and correct the problem...
Finally, after that..the car is finished and I pick it up after 3 weeks. I drive it back to the bay area and on my way back up, a check engine light comes up. 1 of them had to do with engine knock and the other with insufficient egr. Spoke to several people and I was told not to worry too much about it. I was planning on getting the eaton swapped soon which would remove the knock sensors and possibly the egr, so I said fine.. I'll drive it like that in the mean time since thats my only means of transportation.
Another issue that I noticed after the engine swap is that during hard cornering, I can hear some sort of popping towards the front of the car. I have yet to find out what that is.
Another issue: after a long drive (25+min on the highway), when I am making a slow turn (5mph>*) into a parking spot, I can hear something lose towards the middle/rear of the car. I have yet to figure that one out as well =( This only happens when turning very slow.
Another issue: a couple days after the engine swap, there was a loud whine coming near the wheels when turning. This turned out to be my tie rods and it was fixed with a bumpsteer kit.
Also, occasionally... as in maybe twice a week, my car dies when coming to a stop. No clue what that is.
So anyways, about a month and a half ago, I got some 3.73 gears installed in my car at sinergy. That came out great, since it also fixed a huge clunk that I would get after shifting gears. Anyways, Mark was supposed to send me a tune file to correct the gear ratio in the car. So one night, I left my Xcal 3 tuner in the car, planning on getting that done the next morning. Well, the next morning I woke up to my car with a broken window :aaron: My tuner was stolen, my double din head unit I had just gotten was stolen, my ipod was stolen..well.. About $3-4K was lost. My battery post wires were cut, some wires under the dash were cut, and a vacuum line that connects to the ac control panel was cut.
This happened maybe about a month ago?
So after this incident, I have become a bit paranoid about my car. Since that time, I started noticing quite a lot of white smoke coming out of my car after every start. This white smoke continues to come out up to 10 minutes of driving. If i drive it for longer than that, no more smoke comes out. But if I let the car off for about 30 minutes and I turn it on again, white smoke comes out again :angry2::angry2::angry2::angry2:
I have checked the coolant level, and it has remained the same. Oil level is also the same. The smoke is very translucent, and it doesn't really smell like anything. It seems like steam more than anything really. But I still don't know what is causing this. It's pretty depressing thinking how much has gone into this car and it still doesn't run right =( I have no clue where to start or what to do at this point.
Ill try to take some vids of the smoke and some of the noises this week if possible.
I will start my unfortunate luck with this car since the day I got my new shortblock installed. In April/May, I took my 99 cobra to get a MMR 900 shortblock swapped in at Sinergy. At the same time, the usual got done to the heads. They were resurfaced, new valve guides, valve job...whatever else gets done to them when swapping a shortblock LOL. I bought new gaskets for pretty much everything, including new "heavy duty" Felpro Headgaskets. At the same time, a bunch of other goodies got installed, including aluminum flywheel, ford racing headers, centerforce dual friction clutch, energy suspension motor mounts, MM adjustable clutch quadrant...etc.. nothing huge though. Just a bunch of little things to make the car more enjoyable.
Anyways, the whole process of getting the engine swapped turned out to be a headache. All of this was mainly due to the first shop (not sinergy) that failed at getting the job done and left it half ways done. So by the time Sinergy got a hold of the job back in April, my car was a mess. By a mess, I mean that they literally did half the job, but all my parts were unorganized. They removed the engine, but Mark pretty much had to find which bolt belonged to what because the other shop put all my parts and bolts in a few boxes.
So fastforward a bit...Sinergy is installing my shortblock. While they are doing this, a few issues came up that delayed the completion of my car quite a bit.
First of all, Mark told me the crank that came with the new shortblock was not the right size? So because of that, the new aluminum flywheel would not bolt up to the crank. So the flywheel had to be sent out to be machined to make it just a tiny bit bigger. So that gets done.
The next issue: The engine is put all back together, the headers are installed when the engine is out. It then gets dropped into the car. Things are looking good since this is the closest the car has been to completion since a long time. While trying to install the mid pipe, it is brought to my attention that the bolts on the headers are stripped :angry2: So more delays.
Next issue: after the stripped bolts issue is resolved, everything comes back together finally! By now, it has been 2 weeks (may) since the car was dropped off at sinergy, so you can only guess how excited I am to finally drive my car! (I had not driven it since December when the engine went bye bye) So the car is turned on and everything looks good! Except.. there is a HUGE coolant leak :angry2:
Turned out to be a problem with one of the freezeplugs in the rear of the engine? So Sinergy had to take out the engine and correct the problem...
Finally, after that..the car is finished and I pick it up after 3 weeks. I drive it back to the bay area and on my way back up, a check engine light comes up. 1 of them had to do with engine knock and the other with insufficient egr. Spoke to several people and I was told not to worry too much about it. I was planning on getting the eaton swapped soon which would remove the knock sensors and possibly the egr, so I said fine.. I'll drive it like that in the mean time since thats my only means of transportation.
Another issue that I noticed after the engine swap is that during hard cornering, I can hear some sort of popping towards the front of the car. I have yet to find out what that is.
Another issue: after a long drive (25+min on the highway), when I am making a slow turn (5mph>*) into a parking spot, I can hear something lose towards the middle/rear of the car. I have yet to figure that one out as well =( This only happens when turning very slow.
Another issue: a couple days after the engine swap, there was a loud whine coming near the wheels when turning. This turned out to be my tie rods and it was fixed with a bumpsteer kit.
Also, occasionally... as in maybe twice a week, my car dies when coming to a stop. No clue what that is.
So anyways, about a month and a half ago, I got some 3.73 gears installed in my car at sinergy. That came out great, since it also fixed a huge clunk that I would get after shifting gears. Anyways, Mark was supposed to send me a tune file to correct the gear ratio in the car. So one night, I left my Xcal 3 tuner in the car, planning on getting that done the next morning. Well, the next morning I woke up to my car with a broken window :aaron: My tuner was stolen, my double din head unit I had just gotten was stolen, my ipod was stolen..well.. About $3-4K was lost. My battery post wires were cut, some wires under the dash were cut, and a vacuum line that connects to the ac control panel was cut.
This happened maybe about a month ago?
So after this incident, I have become a bit paranoid about my car. Since that time, I started noticing quite a lot of white smoke coming out of my car after every start. This white smoke continues to come out up to 10 minutes of driving. If i drive it for longer than that, no more smoke comes out. But if I let the car off for about 30 minutes and I turn it on again, white smoke comes out again :angry2::angry2::angry2::angry2:
I have checked the coolant level, and it has remained the same. Oil level is also the same. The smoke is very translucent, and it doesn't really smell like anything. It seems like steam more than anything really. But I still don't know what is causing this. It's pretty depressing thinking how much has gone into this car and it still doesn't run right =( I have no clue where to start or what to do at this point.
Ill try to take some vids of the smoke and some of the noises this week if possible.