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Had I known that the virtual full restoration of my 95TT, that I've owned since 1996, was going to take over THREE YEARS to complete, I never would have done it. Well not to the extent that I did. I've always taken very good care of it and could have gotten by very nicely with a lot less, and still ended up with an excellent Z. This project has been one hurdle after another after an other, and don't EVEN ask me what it cost. I don't even want to know, for sure. I thought it was finally completed three months ago. I had it back, it was running great, and was just putting a few miles on its refreshed engine and its new RPS triple disc clutch, and enjoying my new 2863R turbos, before doing the E85 tune. Here is how it was running when we first started her up. It's a video of the last pull of its first dyno session to set it's base tune. And we were very please. on a cool 58 degree day, at 17.5 lbs, 93 octane, and zero timing, it did 537 hp & 440 ft.lbs. https://youtu.be/P-exN3mQNXY But then, about a week later, I started it and there it was, the sound of a sticking lifter. But although anyone that heard it said that's all it was, there was something about it that literally didn't sound right to me. For one, it was to loud, louder than any sticking lifter I'd ever heard before. I could even hear it inside the car, with the widows up. Also, the time intervals between ticks were not consistent. As much as I wanted to believe it was just a sticking lifter, I couldn't. So out came the engine and off came the heads, again. It was not a sticking lifter. One of the valve guides had become loose, which put some side load pressure on the valve stem, which in turn knocked one of the little keepers out of its seat. Why that valve didn't just drop I don't know, but something catastrophic was about to happen, no doubt. When I had the engine refreshed I didn't do the heads. I just asked the machine shop to check them out, and all seemed fine. I took the heads over to Scott Taylor at Z Shack and had him change everything. New valves, valve guides, keepers, retaines, seats, everything. Oh, and also, upgraded to JWT 500 race cams and mechanical lifters. Scott did a beautiful job on the heads. With mechanical lifters you expect to hear them, but there wasn't a sound, not one tick, even on a cold start. I dare say they are even more quiet than a perfectly running set of hydraulic lifters.I could not have been more surprised. Hopefully this was the last hurdle. I'd post a pic of the dyno chart but I'm not allowed to post pictures yet. But here's a link to the video of the final E85 dyno run. On a hot Houston July afternoon, it put down 684 rwhp and 591 ft.lbs torque at 24 lbs. boost. https://youtu.be/4wftREXCrhA
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11:46:40 07/21/21
