The German with the TA clone - Engine Question

[Dan416]

Hey everyone, I am somehow new to muscle cars and Mopars but I have to say it has been fun. I am in my early 30's and used to work on VW's and Diesels but since I got a 70 Challenger about 9 month ago I will not go back The car is a Georgia car (I live close to Atlanta) and it was an original 318 car that was converter to ta TA in the early 90, one owner since the early 80, never welded. When i got it the 340 had a spun bearing and i decided to go to a 4inch crank and all the other good stuff including Fitech Power adder. Past Monday after 9 month of engine building I started her up the first time, ran great after some initial timing issue and passed the 30 minute cam break in. I let it cool and started it again a few hours later only for a few minutes. Tomorrow will be our first test drive. When i checked the coolant yesterday i notices some brown floating crumbles that are somewhat liquid but did not seem like oil. Also there were not many and soaked them out of the top of the radiator and filled it back up. I hope it is not oil coming from somewhere in the coolant, probably is nothing but i am very picky with stuff. Has anyone experienced this after a engine rebuild, can this come from lube oil used, block washing (i had it magnafluxed), or anything else? I do not have water in the oil, i drained and inspected the oil already and it all looked fine. Anyway, nice to be part of this community, during my build i read a lot of posts on certain topics. Was a great help to me. Thank you all for that.

 

[340challconvert]

Welcome to FEBO from New Jersey
Great looking Challenger TA clone!
I noticed you used an after market aluminum radiator
Could there have been oil or fluid residue left over inside the radiator when it was welded together?
Just a thought.

 

[rklein71]

I would do a pressure check of your cooling system to rule out any internal leaks.

 

[AUSTA]

Some times the block cleaning acid is not as strong as it could be & leaves some scale & sludge behind it looks like a Becool radiator they are great i have 1 you could put an inline filter & check it daily once the scale has cleaned up remove the filter as it can lead to engine overheating if left unchecked
I fill my blocks with Hydrochloric acid before having the engine machined but it is dangerous & a messy operation not for everyone but it does comes out clean as new.

 

[DetMatt1]

Welcome to the site from the Motor City! Nice car!

 

[moparlee]

Welcome to site from mid Mich. Great looking car you have!

 

[Grady Cain]

Welcome from NW CT. Nice looking car man...

 

[Dan416]

Some times the block cleaning acid is not as strong as it could be & leaves some scale & sludge behind it looks like a Becool radiator they are great i have 1 you could put an inline filter & check it daily once the scale has cleaned up remove the filter as it can lead to engine overheating if left unchecked
I fill my blocks with Hydrochloric acid before having the engine machined but it is dangerous & a messy operation not for everyone but it does comes out clean as new.

Thank you guys. AUSTA, the inline filter in a great idea, have not thought of that. Where can I get one?

 

[AUSTA]

By the way Welcome Nice Car , how does the fitech go with the single plane manifold ,you can get the filter from ebay or most speed shops i use the Aeroflow 1 i would check regularly to start with in case there is a large amount of scale in the system

 

[Dan416]

It is actually a dual plane plane which can get you trouble along with the Fitech, so far I love It, no complaints. But I have not pushed the motor to see what it does in higher rpm, super start, idle and all. Like all the tuning possibilities along with it, timing, fan temp, idle...I drove for 45 minutes today and it does not seem like I have more sludge floating in radiator but there is some, I will monitor it. Check compression and all. Only think I can imagine where it is coming from is leaking head gasket, my oil is clear so it cannot be motor oil. Either left over from poor cleaning of block or compression leaking in cylinder but I can check on that.

 

[Dan416]

The only filters I can find have a metal mesh kind of filter element, not sure if this will filter out the sludge or just break it up? I cannot find the one you refer, will that one filter more than just solids?

 

[AUSTA]

Yes only the mesh type for solids you would not want to filter the coolant it would create to much restriction causing over heating what is the sludge is it oil based ?
I would drop the coolant & flush a couple of times too see if it clears up.
Its good there is no coolant in the oil.
What coolant are you using.
Try running some of your contaminated coolant through a household paper towel see what is left when the liquid runs through.
Yes i run a Fitech on my TA great stuff i wish they would get the 6 Pack system finished i asked last week & their comment was they haven't heard any news.

 

[Dan416]

Yes the sludge seems oil based, looks solid in the coolant but oily when out. I will flush it first then see what it does. I want to use some kind of flushto break down thisoil and get it all out, any recommendations? I am using regular green mixed with distilled water and water wetter

 

[Dan416]

Yes the sludge seems oil based, looks solid in the coolant but oily when out. I will flush it first then see what it does. I want to use some kind of flushto break down thisoil and get it all out, any recommendations? I am using regular green mixed with distilled water and water wetter. A 6 pack efi from fitech I would buy asap

 

[AUSTA]

Im sure there is a coolant system flush available an engine shop should know of a product
Careful with the green stuff its cheap for a reason ,i took my new edelbrock heads off for porting after 8 weeks of the green stuff & there was that much corrosion around the cooling holes he had to take a 5 thou lick off
He is an pro engine builder & suggested Caterpillar red coolant i haven't had a problem since .
What head gaskets are you using on a medium build i use felpro 1008 after that cometic steel layer.
The engine builder said no coolant for the 1st couple of months as it leaks between the layers how true it is i don't know.

 

[Dan416]

I decided to pull the heads anyway to be 100% sure what is doing on and it will give me the chance to look at pistons and cam. I let you know what I find you.
Daniel

 

[Dan416]

Hey austa, to let you know what happened, I talked to my machine shop who did the block and heads and he insisted for me to flush coolant before I remove heads and that did it, used purple flush and everything is gone, after almost 100 miles nothing came back. Also pressurized cooler to13psi no leaks. Just need to upgrade motor mounts and I am almost finished.

 

[AUSTA]

Thats great cruising.
Careful with the mounts if you like to burn rubber even the Schumaker mounts tear out.
Just working on some captured mounts for my 416 injected using the rear leaf spring bushings
Not sure how much noise will be transmitted from the engine it will be a try it & see.

 

[Dan416]

I ordered some mighty mounts, heard good things about them, hope to get them before the weekend. How much tuning did you have to do on your Fitech to get it where it needs to be? Only issue I still have is I have to open the throttles quite a bit in order to start the car, and it is harder to start when hot. I mean it starts right up when I have the butterflies open some but I would like for it to start with no foot work. Are you there yet?

 

[AUSTA]

The mity mounts look good havent heard of them before i have ordered a couple of sets.
Do you wait about 4 seconds after turning the key for the pre quirt of fuel before starting.
You could add a bit more of pre start fuel via the settings
Mine starts first kick hot or cold at idle (down around 1 celsius i have to crank it twice at idle it will start then dies on the second go it will idle & smooth out.
I think you can also adjust your minimum distributor pulse setting as the Fitech is looking for a square wave pulse from the distributor plus a bit of throttle position before it will add fuel
What pump are you using do you have full pressure at key on to allow a full pre quirt of full for startup