It was a long few days in Omaha. We hit the C&S Mustang Dyno on Monday night ready to go. However, the car wasn't apparently. We did some driveability tuning first. Then as we were getting ready to do some pulls, the car started heating up dramatically. For some reason the radiator fans quit working. After an hour of tracing wiring, we figured out it was the fan relay. So, we jumpered the plug to get the fans to work. Then we noticed there was some bad voltage fluctuation. That's causes a big problem with the Megasquirt. So, we determined the alternator was going out. We were done for the night. So, Shelly limped the Neon back to her old house and I drove the truck and trailer. When we got there, she told me that the speedometer wasn't working either. DAMMIT!
Instead of heading back to KC and planning on doing this again in the near future, I decided to hang out another day and replace the alternator and fan relay and go back the next night. Of course I didn't have any tools with me so I had to go hit up K-Mart for a cheap set of tools and Tom from C&S loaned me his floor jack (he's a good guy).
Tuesday afternoon, the car is back together and ready to go. I take it for a drive and notice that the speedometer needle is stuck below the bottom pin. Like somehow, the needle spun all the way around and got stuck behind the bottom pin (there was no top pin). So, I took the dash apart and removed the bottom pin and then the speedo worked fine. I've never seen anything like this before. This would be called foreshadowing.
Tuesday night, we're strapped back on the dyno and started our first pull. The plan is to take it to 5000 RPM, tune, go up another 500 RPM, tune... rinse, repeat. The first pull, at 5000 RPM the car bucks violently. At first we think it's spark blowout, so we pull the plugs. 2 of my plugs are cracked! How the hell does this "happen"? Those plugs are a month old! So, I call some parts stores and go pick up a new set.
Start to do some pulls. 5000 RPM went fine. Did some tuning. 5500, same thing. 6000... well... after I let off of the gas, the car backfires and shuts off. We lose tach signal. Oh and the tach needle spun all the way around and got stuck below the bottom pin on the cluster (there was no top pin). I turn the ignition on and I have no fuel pump. WTF?!? The fuel pump fuse blew. I pulled the dash apart and moved the bottom pin to the top hole. Surely this would stop the needle from going all the way around and getting stuck again. We put another fuse in and try another run. Same thing... 6000 RPM, let off the gas, car dies, no fuel pump. The RPM needle is now stuck to the top pin. Damn. So, we replace the fuel pump fuse one more time and I pull that top pin out of the RPM gauge.
This time, as soon as we crank the car, the fuel pump fuse blows. By now Scott (my tuner), has to leave as it's getting late. Tom starts digging into some schematics to find out what else is on that circuit that would cause that fuel pump fuse to keep blowing. After about 20 minutes of trying things, we find something interesting. The alternator trigger wire shares the same circuit as the fuel pump. Too much of a coincidence. So, I unplug the pig tail from the alternator and we start the car. The fuse holds. So, I plug the pigtail back in and make sure it's snug and we restart the car. Runs fine. Apparently when I replaced the alternator, I may not have pushed the plug in snug enough. Now it looks like we're ready to do some pulls.
So, the first pull at 5000 RPM is right at 299 untuned. Keep in mind this is a Mustang Dyno and it runs 15%-18% lower than a dynojet and my best numbers on a Dynojet were 366 whp and 407 tq. Once we had the air fuels at 5000 set safely, we did another pull with the cutout open. Same pull to 5000, only change was opening the cutout. 319 whp! Wow, I didn't expect a 20 hp gain with the cutout, but it was nice.
So, we do some more pulls and call Scott. He gives us some ideas on how to change the air/fuel. This is good seeing as I need some seat time with the Megasquirt myself. So, we make changes and do some more pulls. We determine that redline needs to be right at 6500 as that's where my powerband falls off.
By now, we're good on the air fuel and we start playing with the timing. We get a little aggressive with the timing and then we have to add in some more fuel to compensate. It's getting late. We did about 10-12 pulls. So, as we're getting close we setup to do another 4th gear pull. As we get up around 6000 RPM, the car bucks and the RPM shoots up and it slips. It felt like the clutch slipped... royally. We shut it down and check the dyno to see if a belt slipped.. no such luck. We try another pull.. .same thing happens.. but only in 4th gear. Tranny is making some not-so-happy sounds... damn.. I lost 4th gear. So, we're done for the night. I limp the car off the dyno and put it in the trailer.
My best numbers for the night was 342 whp and 391 tq. Adjusted 15%-18% for a Dynojet and those numbers equate to: 396-403 whp and 449-461 tq. That's a little better than my old numbers and it looks like I hit my goal of 400 whp. The good news is, there's still some fine tuning to be done. So, now I need to figure out how to make this base model Neon tranny stronger. Once that's done, I'm headed back to C&S to have Scott help out with a final tune. When that's done, we're going to head to the Dynojet just to see how it does.
Here's the graph of my two best runs. For some reason, he couldn't print out the 342 whp run because it happened quickly. Apparently his MD software is finicky like that.
