1970 Duster AlterKtion, 4 Link, LS/T56/Turbo and Minitub

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Sounds to me like there may be a plumbing problem with the boost controller. If the duty was adjusted from 40% to 100% and you saw no change in boost it is either not seeing a clean boost signal or it just plain isn’t working.
 
The only thing I wonder about is I hooked the lines up backwards. 1 in, 2 is out and 3 is vent. I did 1 as out and 2 as in but I called Holley and asked and they said its literally a door so it shouldn't matter. And yeah maybe thats the issue idk. I can try to use the boost reference port from the turbo to feed the boost controller instead of the intake manifold port and see if that changes anything. Its definitely hooked up because its responding to some change, but I'm gonna probe the wiring to verify, though I checked it like 3 times before cleaning it all up.
 
Very inspiring build. I also considered an LS, but wound up doing a 5.9 stroker, with a goal around 450 HP. It's at the machine shop...
I'd like to see the final stance. I have the same issue with my 69 Dart, built the diff a little narrow, would like the tires a little further out. Might want spacers.
Is your dash panel from Classic Dash or just the gauges?
 
The whole gauge cluster is from classic dash. I love it.

I'll take more pics when its cleaned up for the stance etc. I'm still torn on spacers or not as well, though now the tires will tuck up nicely without hitting the wheel well lip.
 
Time for some updates....

Quick recap, I had the car dyno tuned and it just didnt make the power I felt it should be making for a turbo 5.3 running 21lbs of boost. And driving it on the street after it felt kind of sluggish compared to the 340 even and just didnt feel like a 584whp car. So after I got home I've been doing some digging and trouble shooting looking for an issue.

First I built a PVC cap to attach to the front of the turbo where the air cleaner would go to pressure check the system. I found the throttle shaft was leaking on the aftermarket TB so I took apart a factory TB and added the gasket. Then I found one of my intake manifold orings wasnt seated right so I had an intake leak and fixed that. Im sure that made it run a little shitty, BUT I still was weary that that would rob so much power.

Since this issue has been bothering me so much (quite disheartening honestly after all this work) and I had too many unknowns still I wanted to start at the top and do a compression test. So I pulled the plugs two nights ago to start and cylinder 1 plug looked awful shiny still. I was like "hmmm that's odd". So I continued and did the compression test and each cylinder was 190-200 except cylinder 1 was 180 (also thought that was weird). Then I was going to verify timing following the sloppy mechanics "how to" video with an LS using a piston stop, creating a pointer and marking your harmonic balancer to use a timing light. I get the light out and all hooked up andddddd my timing light wouldn't turn on.
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so I try some different things and no luck. For the hell of it I grab a spare coil, plug wire and plug and plug it in to check spark. Spare has spark so the pigtail harness is good. Attach the same wire and open plug to the coil in the car. No spark >.< Dead coil out of the box!!! Or it died sometime after it was installed but with how clean the plug was I'd say DOA. Also makes me think the rings in that cylinder havent been "set" yet since theres been no load in that cylinder yielding the 180psi. But you couldnt really feel a skip!! Every once in a while I could barely feel something and was like man I almost feel a skip. But I'd think "naaah its all brand new". It was so hard to tell that myself and my buddy who I took on a test ride, which both of us have been around engines and HP shenanigans a long time didnt notice it AND the tuner on the dyno didnt notice it. I took 2 videos to simulate the difference. I will say open headers I could REALLY notice it. In the video with the turbo back on you can BARELY hear it when I first jab the throttle. With full exhaust you cant really tell. These LS motors just run so damn good. Soooo anyways, it made 584WHP on 7 cylinders lol IF the coil was indeed DOA.

This is the car firing on all 8


This is the car firing on 7 replicating the dead coil


I also started working on the 4" exhaust for the car with leftover diesel piping since the 3" was too restrictive.
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Damn, that can be so frustrating tracking those kind of issues down. That’s awesome that you got it figured out. I think the 4” exhaust is a great addition as well. I’m curious to see how well it fits tucking such large tubing in a tight engine compartment.
 
Yea the first time you blip the throttle in the second video I can just hear it hesitate. If the math is right you should pick up + or - 85 hp plus whatever load the engine was wasting spinning dead number 1 cylinder. So 670-680. Nice find.
 
In the Holley ecu, can you run diagnostics and check each coil individually to test manually? You should be able to.
 
Yea the first time you blip the throttle in the second video I can just hear it hesitate. If the math is right you should pick up + or - 85 hp plus whatever load the engine was wasting spinning dead number 1 cylinder. So 670-680. Nice find.

I sure hope so! That would be awesome!!

In the Holley ecu, can you run diagnostics and check each coil individually to test manually? You should be able to.

I have no idea on this one! I'll have to start looking into it!
 
Couple more updates:

Got the 4" downpipe made and sure was a TIGHT fit!!
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Got the rest of the 4" exhaust on underneath too. Now gotta finish putting the rear end together and see if the coil was actually the issue this whole time.
 
I still dont have the rear end in haha so idk!! It seems to idle awesome etc but I havent driven it yet. I'm still nervous that a dead coil is just too easy lol
 
its always the easy things that we overlook and they bite us in the ***. keep the updates coming
 
Well got the car back together and took it for a spin. It felt so much better with the new coils in it! The first pull was only a couple seconds before I had to turn and it was quite impressive. The second pull blew a coolant hose off the motor so we pulled over. The top of the motor was leaking oil at that point (almost looked like from the knock sensor hole?) and is now skipping lol. Walked back to get coolant (if walking home isnt hot rodding idk what is lol) and it still didnt run right. If I stepped on it and let off it was smoking white which tells me head gasket. But I have head studs. So idk. Its back in the garage on time out. I'll pull the intake and heads off when I get a minute.

Side note: when sitting in the car there was SO much engine noise almost like the air filter was wicked loud. Finally figured out what it was. The cheap *** chinese sheet metal intake was like a tuning fork. If you pushed on the top of it really hard with your hand it went away. Soooo I already found a TBSS intake for it lol. Thats going on it now. Just sucks cause the sheet metal ones look really cool.

Also got a set of factory truck manifolds. May redo the headers because I'm getting tired of having to pull the headers every time I wanna do a compression test etc.
 
What head gaskets are you using? The stock ones on the LS are multi layer steel iirc and you shouldn’t push those out. Especially with studs. I love the MLS gaskets. And on anything over 20 pounds start to think about o-ringing the deck.
 
Yeah I'm pretty sure they were the MLS gaskets. So we'll see what happened when I pull it apart. I just wouldnt think that I'd have an issue with them AND studs!
 
I agree completely and I would do some diagnostic work before I went through the effort of tearing it apart for that reason. A leak down test being the first place I’d start. Might save you a bunch of work. How do the plugs look?
 
Yeah, definitely going to start there. Well actually I'm going to try to find the oil leak first. I gotta pull all the exhaust back off to do the compression/leak down test but I'll get there too for sure before I just yank the heads off. Though on an LS its pretty simple lol
 
Welp!! Found the culprit! Pulled all the exhaust back off to pull the spark plugs and do a compression test. Cylinder 2 plug was wet and the rest looked great. Threw the compression tester in cylinder 2 and it did all sorts of wonky ****. I was like hmmmm. So I pulled it back apart and the end was soaked >.< lol. So then I turned the car over and blew a bunch of coolant out of cylinder 2. Thats answers that question. Of course I tried the compression tester in cylinder 4 after and it wouldnt work anymore >.< but come the heads!

Sure enough, here it is! You can see where the gasket blew. They were PAPER! My A.D.D. *** was just so excited getting the engine together I pulled the gaskets out of the box and threw them on without paying much attention. Amateur hour over here haha. ACDelco MLS gaskets already ordered.
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After that it was only like 2pm so I worked on some stuff I'd been putting off forever. Got the new mirrors on and the hole in the door for the adjustable driver side. My original doors had the hole already. They sure look awesome!
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Also the roll bar goes through the speaker holes and the trunk torsion bar things go under the deck lid so I had to get creative cutting the new holes for the speakers. Got that done, dynomatted and a shitty attempt to cover it with extra headliner material, but it will do for now! Getting back there with the cage is really a pain lol.
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So the nightmare saga continues.... I should name this build "The Curse of the Blue Pearl" lol

I got the new headgaskets in the mail 2 weeks ago and finally had some time that weekend to put the motor back together. I started with the driverside because that side is the hardest with the alternator bracket and the brake booster etc in the way. Got the head on and was torquing the head studs down to the 90ft/lbs that the instructions I looked up told me to do. Following the pattern and incremental increase in torque I was on the 3rd to last stud at the last torque requirement and SNAP O.o O.O O_O I thought to myself "please just have slipped off the nut" but sure enough I grab ahold of the head stud and it just spins.......
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And the nut wasnt bottomed out on the threads causing it to overtighten in the bottom of the block.

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So now I'm like "son of a *****" because the bolt was broken like 4" down in the block and crooked. So I went inside for the night to gather my thoughts and strategize. A) I pull the motor and throw my 6.0 I have in there but thats way more down time because the 6.0 still needs the machine shop work and is in Vermont. B) I pull the motor and take it to a machine shop to get it out. C) I find a way to get it out myself because thats what we do here and we think we are all that is man lmao. So C it is haha.
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So the next day I found that an M12 bolt fits into the hole tight before the threads engage. I tried to drill a hole in a 4x4 and then thread the bolt into the 4x4 which I clamped to my drill press... butttt that didnt work. The drill kept walking, even starting with a small pilot hole.

SO my cousins grandfather had given us this OLD OLD smaller lathe YEARS ago. I've had it in the corner of my garage since I've moved down here as its pretty small and I havent needed to turn anything this small .... YET. I pulled all the stuff I've stacked over it, found the box of collets and lubed up the guideways with some ATF. This things OLD haha the drive belt is of the leather flavor with staples lol. But I plugged it in and it fired up!! So I got the bolts into the collet and made a perfect bushing for my left handed drill.



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Once that was completed I started drilling..... after a few hours of drill, checking, lubing and letting the drill cool down I had made pretty good progress into the head stud and it was drilling perfectly straight. But like all good things that must come to an end SNAP O.o "please dont be the bit" and this time I was lucky!!! The drill had caught the edge of what I was drilling and broke about 3/8 of the head stud that wasnt in threads yet. However this means I'm back to only like 1/8 of material I've drilled into. Not enough for an easy out and I've only got about 3/8 of drill left before I bottom the drill chuck on the block. All the while a friend of mine took an easy out and welded it to extension so it would reach into the hole. After a bit more drilling we tapped the easy out down into the hole and give it a try. But it just spun after a moment of grip. More drilling (only about 1/8 of drill left). Tap the easy out back in and it felt good this time. I could tell Charlie was pulling pretty good on the ratchet so I was like "alright its gonna come out!" SNAP O_O NOOOOO.

We pull the ratchet up and luckily the extension had just broken off the easy out. BUT it was 1.5" down into the block. Mind racing I took another one of the bushings bolt blanks I had and fired up the lathe to make another bushing. I pushed this bushing all the way down against the easy out, hooked up 3 car batteries in series and shoved a welding rod down into the bushing welding it to the easy out. With some vice grips we got the easy out back out..... FEW.

After welding the easy out back onto the extension we tapped it back into the stud and THIS time it started to spin but with force so it wasn't just stripping. YAHTZEE!
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So all the while I had messaged a couple friends about this and I had called ARP to explain the situation. I told them I broke a stud, one of the other studs felt a little funky and I had pulled a third already so I dont know which was the funky stud. Surprisingly they sent me 3 new studs without a fuss! The guy I was talking to also said that it may have snapped if I didnt have the washers completely cleaned because the torque spec is a dry torque vs a wet torque.... I was like hmmm maybe..... but THEN the guy who I had got my base tunes from asked what I torqued them to. I told him the instructions said 90ft/lbs. He said that seems a bit high..... Come to find out the instructions I found are ARPs Super Saiyan chrome plated head studs... and my peasant head studs should have been torqued to 70ft/lbs. Good to know! Since I couldnt find my instructions that came with them the first time around.

So this time around everything went back together at 70ft/lbs and I have the new Trail Blazer SS intake on as well. Talk about a TIGHT FIT. The fuel pressure regulator barely clears the intake now lol but I dont have to move it. And I realized that the new Holley fuel rails that work with the TBSS intake were an 8an and I need 6an. So I stopped there and ordered parts.

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Stay tuned to find out what happens next time on Dragon Ball Plymouth Duster.
 
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Man you gotta feel good after all that. Excellent ingenuity!
 
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