The Chronicles of SneakySnake Vol III

[swexlin]

Glad to see warranty was honored.

Alex, between the original repair, car-apart detailing, and now this, it seems your car has had more time in pieces than on the road. Hope you get some time to enjoy it now. Up here, it's winter. My car hasn't been out in a month, and with the weather and winter, isn't going anywhere any time soon.

Good luck, and keep us posted. On edit: Seeing the comment about the failure of the 2013 with 12,000 miles (highest mileage failure besides Arizona's I can think of) makes me glad I have the 10 yr warranty.

[Jack B]

Alex:

Good luck with the new build and a Merry Christmas. Some questions on the recent issues:

1. Did you see a minor drop in oil pressure?

2. Why do you think the car had the stumble?

[TrackAire]

Slowhatch,

What is your opinion of the R888R's in regards to street driving and tire noise? I've heard conflicting reports that some say they are super loud yet others say they're ok.

Congrats on getting your car back and on the road.

[slowhatch]

The new build's break-in was over just in time to hit a dragstrip rental I had purchased a spot in a few months back. I had procured a set of 18x13 OZ's and 26" Hoosiers (thanks Bernie and Andy) to try to increase my final drive ratio, and combat the tall 1st gear in these cars. I knew I would have my work cut out for me trying to 60' the car on a stock clutch but I was ready to give it the 'ol college try.

Still remembering the last time that a set of 18s didn't quite fit (on my previous gen 4), I decided to mock-up the rears so there are no surprises the day of.



I'm glad I did, for if I didn't have a set of spacers that I run on my SW2's on hand, I would have gotten an unpleasant surprise in the staging lanes. It seems the e-brake cable was just barely brushing the inside of the barrel, and only after I had mounted the .450" spacer with the OZs did it move outboard just enough to get a hair of clearance.



With that sorted I was ready to drop off the assemblies to get the real tires mounted;





Hoosier daddy?



We arrived the morning of to Royal Purple Raceway, to find everything but the main dragstrip lanes themselves had been absolutely destroyed by the heavy machinery roaming about the property. Royal Purple was officially closed since Harvey hit (only allowing private track rentals), as they struck a deal with the local insurance companies to store all of the flood vehicles on their (quite expansive) property. But, after months of moving cars about the property with huge front end loaders, the parking/staging/return-lanes looked like they had seen a WW2 strafing run. Broken concrete everywhere, return lanes completely unusable with a gaping hole in the turn-off, and mud everywhere. After driving through a mud pit to even get to the track off the main road, we were informed that all cars would have to make passes AND return down the main lanes. Obviously, this pissed everyone off, as the whole reason for a track rental vs just going on a test/tune night is proper seat time with the opportunity for hot-lapping. Not only would this effectively quadruple the time each person needed to make a pass, but there would be no way to immediately re-stage after a pass to get dialed in. I think had everyone known the situation going in, we all would have saved our money/time for another day. I kind of felt bad for the organizer, as he obviously wasn't told of the stipulations up front, and had to endure everyones bitching for the remainder of the day.



Radials mounted, and waiting for the track to go hot;




Our staging "lanes", 1 in, 1 out;






I gotta say I was actually quite pleased with the "mis-matched socks" look. The OZs looked really nice against the blue/yellow combo.




The heart

[slowhatch]

And thus began the beginning of a long, disappointing day...







I knew the stock clutch would be a pain, but I arrogantly thought I'd be able to make it work. Between the length of time it took between passes, someone blowing up and oiling the track down every other pass, I was only able to make 4 passes in the 8 hours I was there (9-5). Not a single of those 4, was I able to get the car to shift into 2nd gear after the launch. I was varying launch rpm between 4.5-5k and quickly slipping the car out of the hole. This led to a tormenting amount of clutch smoke, and a glazed clutch which would refuse to disengage and allow any shifting directly following the launch. I was able to whittle the car down into the 1.5s in the last 2 passes but each time the car had nothing but a rev-limiter for me on the 1-2 shift. I was literally fuming inside my helmet after each pass--compounded by the fact that it took about an hr or two between each attempt to agonize over what I could do differently to get the car to cooperate on the next attempt.

My 3rd pass was my only semi-clean run; I launched the car too soft (around 4250) and actually bogged on the roll-out, but the reduced amount of slip contributed to less heat, and a clutch that semi-cooperated on the subsequent shifts. I went to grab 2nd and got nothing but rev-limiter again, but I pulled back one last time and to my surprise she fell into gear. Stayed in it and she delivered clean 3rd and 4th shifts.





Will never get used to returning in the same lane....



I made one more pass after this thinking it'd be the "one", but I was rewarded with a completely blown clutch, and a car that refused to shift into any gear, period. Splendid.



I limped the car back into the pits and thought it may get better after I let things cool. While she sat fuming and stinking of clutch, I swapped back to the street tires and crossed my fingers that I could make the trek home without a flatbed.




All in all, I was disappointed, and pissed off at myself for breaking a car that I had spent months getting just right. But, that's the nature of the racing game! Looking back at it now, I'm actually quite impressed the car was able to run a low 10 with a missed shift. I have no doubt in my mind that with leveraging the learnings from those passes and an upgraded clutch, I will be able to run the 9.9-10.0 number I was looking to find that day. The car is a full weight, fully loaded GTS (as heavy as a gen 5 can get), with aero. She's still a beast

I was able to limp the car home with rolling through a few stoplights and stop-signs (luckily it was late on a sunday and there was hardly any traffic). She would only allow me to shift with exact rev-match, pretty much back to the stone age of un-synchronized manuals. Back to VE for a new clutch!

[swexlin]

I guess I jinxed you with my post above, sorry man. So what clutch are you going with?

[1.8t]

Nth moto clutch is the last clutch you will ever need. Search for my write up on it if you’re curious. It’s amazing and is the perfect compromise.

[Vipes]

This VE warranty is really impressive, that's a huge selling point on this package.

Wow nice driving, that's a beast run! Can't wait to see it with an upgraded clutch.

[FLATOUT]

Nth moto clutch is the last clutch you will ever need. Search for my write up on it if you’re curious. It’s amazing and is the perfect compromise.

Agree as well, I usually have one or two in stock. Only clutch I’ll run in my personal Viper.

[slowhatch]

Glad to see warranty was honored.

Alex, between the original repair, car-apart detailing, and now this, it seems your car has had more time in pieces than on the road. Hope you get some time to enjoy it now. Up here, it's winter. My car hasn't been out in a month, and with the weather and winter, isn't going anywhere any time soon.

Yeah, part of it has been sh*t luck with some silly issues, and the other is my propensity to always have everything done, all at once, right now. I did the same with my gen 4 for the most part, modded like crazy for the first year, and then spent the next year or two enjoying the car. Hopefully we are on greener pastures and the growing pains are behind us.

Alex:

Good luck with the new build and a Merry Christmas. Some questions on the recent issues:

1. Did you see a minor drop in oil pressure?

2. Why do you think the car had the stumble?

Jack I cant answer the part on the oil pressure as I honestly didn't have much seat time in the car when it was having issues--save for 1 or 2 troubleshooting test drives. I can tell you with confidence the oil pressure appeared in the normal range, in the sense that it didn't draw my eye.

In regards to why that issue was occurring, we debated that quite a bit (between Dick, Andy, and myself). Driving the car, it felt as if the ecu would put you into limp mode on the top end, the car would cease to accelerate for a split second or two, and then clear right up and pull like a freight train. Our discussions largely revolved around the camshaft, phaser (or lack-there-of in this case), tone ring, and how the pcm uses the information from the cam position sensor. All of this culminated into doing some exploration into the timing cover, and finding the camshaft was physically sticking in the journals.

Slowhatch,

What is your opinion of the R888R's in regards to street driving and tire noise? I've heard conflicting reports that some say they are super loud yet others say they're ok.

Congrats on getting your car back and on the road.

They are absolutely incredible in my opinion, just like the old R888s were. I haven't tracked on them yet so I cant say anything in regards to lateral grip levels but the straight-line grip is phenomenal. Its almost dead hooking 1st gear which is impressive at my power level. Car feels planted and stable from roll-ons in any gear, at any speed, a marked improvement from the wheel-hop laden spin fest of the stock Pirellis. Surprisingly, they also ride twice as nice as well, there is a marked suppleness going over expansion joints, bumps, etc, that wasn't present on the oem tires. I would however, attribute a lot of the ride quality improvement, with the increase in sidewall height of the new 35 series fronts. As to the noise, I honestly never understood people who whine over tire roar in a road legal race car. Personally, I cant hear a damn thing over the exhaust anyways, and even if i did, I couldn't care less. Safety, confidence, and high speed stability rank miles above some wooshing noise on the freeway--just my .02.

[slowhatch]

I guess I jinxed you with my post above, sorry man. So what clutch are you going with?

No jinx, just my usual stubborn self learning through personal experience rather than other's anecdotes. I watched Tony (nineball), go through an entire oem clutch on a brand new car chasing the first gen V 10 second pass--which he eventually got, after a dozen or two passes, but went home on a trailer. On the other hand, you got people like Tony Caton up in the north east, who was cutting 1.4s on the stock clutch like it was his day job. Talking to him after the fact he was like; "Don't slip it all, just rev it up and dump it from 5k". Dumping a clutch from 5k on a car that makes 700lb-ft on a stiff-wall short radial that hooks like glue seems in my mind, like an expedient way of going home on a trailer. But, his slips dont lie. Part of me thinks he was secretly waiting for me to sh*t the bed, before giving me the secret sauce Wish I would have tried that, but hindsight is 20/20.

Long story long I went with another stock twin-disc. I got hooked up big time by Rob (thank you sir!), and I just wanted the car back on the road ASAP. I know the nth triple is the bees-knees I'm just not convinced that I need to put that kind of clutch in the car at my power level. The majority of this car's time is spent either in Mexico or the road course, or auto-x events, and the stocker is more than suited for that task with zero driveability compromises.

Car was dropped off at VE, and they had the new clutch back in the following day, along with a trans and hydraulics flush. Back on the road!

Nth moto clutch is the last clutch you will ever need. Search for my write up on it if you’re curious. It’s amazing and is the perfect compromise.

I hear nothing but good things about it. If I get the wild hair to return to the strip (...I will) at some point, I will probably end up going with one. I just felt guilty after all the money spent on the car in the past few months to explain to the misses how I'm going to peel off another 4k for a clutch the week before xmas.

[Steve M]

While not apples to apples, I can tell you my Gen 4 on 28" Mickeys dead hooked (and bogged) on a 5,500 RPM clutch dump. That was on the stock 3.07s, so our first gear final drive ratios were about the same, although I'm thinking my race weight was a bit higher than yours. I tried that a 4th time, and the clutch slipped off the line, and then slipped at the top of 3rd gear. I decided to hang it up after that...that smell lingered for a solid 3 days in my garage once I got the car home, thankfully under its own power. I'll be doing the Nth Moto clutch in the spring. Hopefully my newly installed 3.55s will also help get off the line...it shouldn't be hard to beat a best 60' of 1.90. I really should be on a 26" tire like what you ran, but I'll let these wear down before swapping over to some Hoosiers.

Thanks for all of your detailed write-ups...even us non-Gen 5 guys find them useful.

[LABrit]

Looking good - you just don't stop tinkering! Belts look good, time to remove the stitching on the seats, doors, console and wheel to yellow...

Glad they honored the warranty.

So your car didn't retain the stock bottom end? It's no longer a matching numbers car?

[slowhatch]

While not apples to apples, I can tell you my Gen 4 on 28" Mickeys dead hooked (and bogged) on a 5,500 RPM clutch dump. That was on the stock 3.07s, so our first gear final drive ratios were about the same, although I'm thinking my race weight was a bit higher than yours. I tried that a 4th time, and the clutch slipped off the line, and then slipped at the top of 3rd gear. I decided to hang it up after that...that smell lingered for a solid 3 days in my garage once I got the car home, thankfully under its own power. I'll be doing the Nth Moto clutch in the spring. Hopefully my newly installed 3.55s will also help get off the line...it shouldn't be hard to beat a best 60' of 1.90. I really should be on a 26" tire like what you ran, but I'll let these wear down before swapping over to some Hoosiers.

Thanks for all of your detailed write-ups...even us non-Gen 5 guys find them useful.

Thanks Steve, its always good to learn from one another. I remember lurking on the boards long before I was a Viper owner trying to absorb as much info as I could. Just trying to pay it forward.

I think the 28s do more harm than good for us at the drag strip. I think any snake below the 800hp range would do better on a set of shorties (26s), I can't get wheel-spin to save my life on the Hoosiers. The 3.55s will help you A LOT. I was able to cut a 1.5x on a 19" NT05R drag radial in my gen 4, and believe I could have done better still with a 26" tire.

Looking good - you just don't stop tinkering! Belts look good, time to remove the stitching on the seats, doors, console and wheel to yellow...

Glad they honored the warranty.

So your car didn't retain the stock bottom end? It's no longer a matching numbers car?

Just going to leave the interior alone, I'm a less is more kinda guy. Think all the stitching turned to yellow may be a bit much.

Yes, I am no longer a "numbers matching" car, I honestly never gave it a second thought. Its not a '62 GTO, its a Viper, I didn't buy it as an investment, so I'm more concerned with the car providing me trouble free mileage than worrying about resale. Me and lady agreed we would add to, never replace, the sneaky one. I don't think they'll ever make a car like this again in my lifetime. I feel privileged to have it

[cubeman]

You want to do a 150-200 shot so you can be the test mule before I jump in ?

[slowhatch]

One more fun little upgrade.

I always felt like the catted Belanger setup was amazing in tone, and the perfect sound level at WOT. The only thing I wished was that it would give me a bit more chop at idle now that the car was HC (the cats really mute out the idle chop). That, and I've always wanted the possibility of spitting flames on fools on the freeway LOL. So on a whim, we got Lou to ship out their new 3" catless setup to replace my existing 2.5" catted system.

I've run Belangers on my last 3 Vipers and no other exhaust sounds like it on these cars, just really enjoy their smooth bellowy sound. After pulling the new setup of the box I could see there had been some worthwhile improvements to their kit. First off, they've really stepped up the overall build quality of the system, and I particularly like their novel secondary 02 bung placements--right at the tip exits. They did this for 2 reasons; (1) it is the only location that welding a bung into the free stream doesn't take away the cross sectional area (still full 3" there), and (2) It let's you tuck up all of the 02 extensions up into the chassis and keep them away from the high heat areas, only getting anywhere close to the exhaust at the outlets. Secondly, I like how they've integrated the mid-pipes into the catback itself, just one less connection to make/worry about.

In for surgery;



Existing header-back removed;




Look at that pickle!




Onto the goodies;





Laying out the new 3" (left) vs the removed 2.5" catted setup (right).



2.5" vs 3" outlets



Perty muffler, er, resonator




New tips, notice the secondary 02 bung placement;



Very nice flow area even with that bung;



All buttoned up, here's a quick vid, the car is still not warmed up so its on a high idle (hasn't settled into the full chop yet). A few quick revs to 3k rpm. Car is MUCH louder, but still maintains that belanger tone that I like. I didn't get an opportunity to drive it yet as a storm rolled in directly after we took the idle vid. Will report back on whether its obnoxious or not, and whether or not the loss of cats bothers me (the smell is honestly my largest concern).

[Jack B]

Did they use a black powder quote or black ceramic on the tip. It is a nice touch that they welded the front pipe into the muffler.

[slowhatch]

You want to do a 150-200 shot so you can be the test mule before I jump in ?

Sure, if you convince Dick to tune it on the Arrow controller. Sure as hell not doing Hptuners beta on it.

[slowhatch]

Did they use a black powder quote or black ceramic on the tip. It is a nice touch that they welded the front pipe into the muffler.

Its black ceramic.

[Vipes]

Sounds evil! I really like the 35 series front tires. I wanted to do this also with the Toyos but I gave up when I found out they don't make our width but those look great. Our cars should have originally came with those sidewalls up front, it really fills in the gap nicely.

[TooBlue]

Sorry to hear about your problems. I admire your perseverance to get it right but that's the mindset of a real gear head ....IMO

I noticed that in post# 404 that the slicks you were using had the same tire "tread" configuration as R7s or A7s. Were you using a road race slick? You said you have done some tracking so you would know how slippery road race tires are until you take some warm up laps to build up heat and make them stick, not to mention how much stiffer the sidewall is till they are warmed up.
What tire pressure were you running?
Do you think these issues may have affected your clutch issues?

Please don't take my questions as criticism toward your build or VE. I am just trying to gather as much info as I can.
I am in the middle of building a very similar gen4 engine but will use HP to disable the VVT and use a standard cut (non VVT) cam. I am looking forward to it because I will have the ability to adjust the ECU to get the most out of the standard cut custom cam to work the best with MY engine.. Not a generic reprogramed ECU without the ability to make changes. (Fuel, timing etc.) As we all know, all Viper engines run different and have different strong and weak points. A generic pre-programmed ECU won't be able to be adjusted accordingly to compensate for weak points and strong points of each particular modified engine.

Keith Prociuk from HP explained the process to some tuner friends of mine at PRI earlier this month... He also
explained the other HP/ECU adjustments needed to be made to make this work.

Sorry, I didn't mean to sidetrack your thread. You have a beautiful car and one helluva build. Andy and VE are very knowledgeable and I'm sure will figure out your problem and you will have a monster..

GOOD LUCK and keep us posted.

[cubeman]

Sure, if you convince Dick to tune it on the Arrow controller. Sure as hell not doing Hptuners beta on it.

Yeah, I might go HPTuners as a couple of threads suggested the arrow controller won't go nuts (or engine kabloom) with small shots, but with 150-200 I'd rather go HPTuners. I've personally been having some quirky issues with the arrow controller regarding idle rpm's. I'll keep you updated on what I end up doing.

[99RT10]

Gen V, but I have the last 190 Gen IV blocks in my possession if someone wants to purchase one for a build.

How much?

[slowhatch]

Yeah, I might go HPTuners as a couple of threads suggested the arrow controller won't go nuts (or engine kabloom) with small shots, but with 150-200 I'd rather go HPTuners. I've personally been having some quirky issues with the arrow controller regarding idle rpm's. I'll keep you updated on what I end up doing.

Did your installer do the proper adaptives/relearn resets and throttle body re-learns when it was installed? I've honestly never heard of anyone complaining about the arrow ecu doing anything of the sort...

[cubeman]

Did your installer do the proper adaptives/relearn resets and throttle body re-learns when it was installed? I've honestly never heard of anyone complaining about the arrow ecu doing anything of the sort...

Bought the car used with ARH Headers, Cats, Exhaust, Underpulley, Arrow PCM. Car was perfectly fine for the 4-5k miles I've owned it but recently been having an idle issue. (Funny enough started around the sametime my A/C Compressor needed to be replaced and has been) I've been told to maybe send it out for recalibration. Maybe I need a throttle relearn as we've checked for vacuum leaks and can't find anything. My belt just began squealing a few days ago. It's a slight issue where the rpm stumbles 50-100rpm and will throw a code due to it.

I'd love to stay arrow, but with my hellcat I can drive out another 150rwhp for around 2-3k. Any engine power adders for the Gen V after bolt ons are 20k+, so to be able to squeeze another 100-150rwhp out of the viper I'd be happy. Unfortunately not much documentation of nitrous shots around here for Gen V's and the arrow controller included. Could always go 50-100-150 and watch AFR's on the testing and dyno.