The Chronicles of SneakySnake Vol III

[LABrit]

Drive one, its like driving a C class until you push the throttle. I'm not a huge hypercar fella but those things are fucking sweet to drive

I’ve driven and owned most of the new Supercars. The macca’s do absolutely nothing for me.

The problem I’ve always had with macca is the sound and lack of character - feels like a computer game. The 720 is serious VFM compared to HyperCars but compared to a huracun or 488 to me it’s not as special overall and wouldn’t be a toy I’d take out on a Sunday for a hoon and it’s too expensive to use as a daily so i struggle with where it would sit in my garage. My old Speciale was far more fun than this wave of macca’s even if it was slower.

[dewilmoth]

Any updates on the driveability of the VE Stage 2? I came across a car with the same setup at a local car show and it sounded incredible. But it won’t idle and frequently stalls, requiring the owner to shut it off at stoplights. I was pretty interested in the heads/cam until I heard that. I’m trying to figure out if the car I saw has other issues, or if it’s the nature of the beast with this setup, which is a deal breaker for me.

[Jack B]

I have about 4000 miles on my HC and it has never had a stalling issue. It idles at 770 rpm.

Any updates on the driveability of the VE Stage 2? I came across a car with the same setup at a local car show and it sounded incredible. But it won’t idle and frequently stalls, requiring the owner to shut it off at stoplights. I was pretty interested in the heads/cam until I heard that. I’m trying to figure out if the car I saw has other issues, or if it’s the nature of the beast with this setup, which is a deal breaker for me.

[dewilmoth]

I have about 4000 miles on my HC and it has never had a stalling issue. It idles at 770 rpm.

But you are tuned on HPTuners correct? Wondering if the off the shelf Arrow stage 2 tune has an issue or if it was a one off issue for the car in question. The car did also have a vent to atmosphere catch can setup, which which I’m not convinced is great from a closed loop tuning perspective, but that’s probably for another thread.

[Jack B]

But you are tuned on HPTuners correct? Wondering if the off the shelf Arrow stage 2 tune has an issue or if it was a one off issue for the car in question. The car did also have a vent to atmosphere catch can setup, which which I’m not convinced is great from a closed loop tuning perspective, but that’s probably for another thread.

The arrow HC cars are all tuned with the factory pcm with an arrow tune and not HPT. I can only attest to my car, it has no idle issues.

The open vent catch can will have little affect, the air inlet (dr side) is open on the oem system also. On the pass side you would have to plug the vacuum port.

I have to back out of this thread, it is Alex's.

[Scott_in_fl]

Any updates on the driveability of the VE Stage 2? I came across a car with the same setup at a local car show and it sounded incredible. But it won’t idle and frequently stalls, requiring the owner to shut it off at stoplights. I was pretty interested in the heads/cam until I heard that. I’m trying to figure out if the car I saw has other issues, or if it’s the nature of the beast with this setup, which is a deal breaker for me.

Very interesting. I never heard that before, but would be a deal killer for me as well.

[dewilmoth]

Very interesting. I never heard that before, but would be a deal killer for me as well.

Jack says his driveability is fine, so I’m going to assume it’s a one off issue related to the car itself. But it definitely makes me want to drive a reference car before taking the plunge.

[slowhatch]

Any updates on the driveability of the VE Stage 2? I came across a car with the same setup at a local car show and it sounded incredible. But it won’t idle and frequently stalls, requiring the owner to shut it off at stoplights. I was pretty interested in the heads/cam until I heard that. I’m trying to figure out if the car I saw has other issues, or if it’s the nature of the beast with this setup, which is a deal breaker for me.

We just did a cruise yesterday with dozens of cars, 4 of which had the VE Stage II kit, never saw any issues with them nor ever heard of anyone complaining about stalling cars or idle issues. The cam in that setup is very mild, it drives like stock. Sounds like the car you saw had some underlying mechanical issues.

[dewilmoth]

We just did a cruise yesterday with dozens of cars, 4 of which had the VE Stage II kit, never saw any issues with them nor ever heard of anyone complaining about stalling cars or idle issues. The cam in that setup is very mild, it drives like stock. Sounds like the car you saw had some underlying mechanical issues.

Great, thanks for the reply. I assume no V-Box data on yours yet?

[serpent]

I could look at this all day! DAYUM

Alex bro, when are you gonna put up some new vids of the car? Want to see that beast in action!!

[dewilmoth]

Any updates? Been pretty quiet since you got the car back. VBox data?

[slowhatch]

Any updates? Been pretty quiet since you got the car back. VBox data?

Had some issues that were resolved which took some time, have all the data (60-130), updates, etc I just have been so tied up at work I have not had the willingness to sit down and spend hours writing up/uploading my usual spiel.

I will do it over the next few days!

[LABrit]

What issues did you have if you don't mind me asking?

Josh

[slowhatch]

Lots of updates, pull up a chair.

So after getting the car back together with the heads/cam install it had some weird hesitation at the upper rpms on their break-in/test-drives. We thought it was something non-mechanical by the nature of the stumble but it seemed to get worse with subsequent drives and with a weeks worth of diagnostics and throwing simple parts at the car (coils, plugs, fuel filter, etc), we were getting nowhere. The decision was made to pull the motor and go through everything. It didn't take much past the timing cover to find a camshaft which was getting ready to seize up, and a scored cam journal. I would imagine that whatever debris made its way through my motor almost a year ago to cause the lifter failure (flip back to the beginning of the thread), had also left its mark on the cam area. Seeing as vipers don't use cam journal bearings (its just a high polished area of the block itself), the entire motor would have to be disassembled to attempt a repair. The ability to perform said repair would depend solely on how badly the journals were damaged, and could lead to a new block altogether (ie. tons of downtime). Instead of making me wait for weeks/months while the motor was gone through, VE/Arrow worked out a deal (for which I was very grateful) where they took my old motor in as a core, and gave me an entirely new long-block complete with a fresh heads/cam build. This entire ordeal really validated my decision to go with them for the build in the first place. They had tons of opportunities to leave me out to dry, but instead, they honored their included warranty and made everything whole for me. Motor arrived in a week or so and was promptly re-installed.



Thought this was a very cool pic, my old hurt motor (left) next to a gen 3 motor with the rare-as-hens-teeth Stryker aftermarket heads (right). Notice the exhaust port differences.



With the motor in and the car getting broke in we switched gears to adding some goodies. Started with getting the new tires mounted, no use in wasting that new found power

Went with Toyo R888R's all around--I loved the first gen R888s on my old gen 4 coupe, and was excited to get these mounted.

275/35/18
345/30/19

Down 20 and 10mm in width, respectively, from the OEM sizes; but honestly, either the Pirellis run narrow, or the Toyo's run wide because they actually sit wider on the wheel than the OEMs. I'm very happy with the way the new 35 pro fronts fill out the wheel well compared to the rubber band 30s on the oem pirellis. Just looks much better in my opinion. A much needed bath, before the showing off;












Next up was swapping the seat belts. I wanted to tie the yellow calipers into the interior without going overboard, and figured this would be a great way to do it. I got in touch with the guys from www.seatbeltplanet.com, had VE pull the oem black units out, and sent the full pre-tensioner assemblies off for them to get re-webbed. They had everything turned around within a day or two and back to me (would highly recommend them!).

Old yellars back in hand;



Everything came out better than I even imagined, it really looks nice in person. The whole time I had them on order I was going back-n-forth in my head whether the yellow would look tacky. I mean, its yellow. First time I opened the door and peeked in all my apprehension melted away.







A few additional days of break-in and I made some 60-130 hits to see the difference with the added power utilizing the Racelogic PBOX. Ran consistent back to back 6.40s (with 2-shifts), an improvement of around half a second from the best bolt-on run I had made previously. I was very impressed, and to be honest, I think there is another tenth or two hiding there with some additional tweaks/seat-time. Stay tuned

[Steve M]

What block did they use for your rebuild? Gen 4 or Gen 5?

[Stealth78]

Wait.... You imply that this "cam area" was likely damaged from what ever was floating around in there from when you had your previous issue. So you are saying that when they did the new H/C install they didn't do a thorough enough inspection to notice this? Not to sound dramatic but considering the history of the GenV engines, especially '13 & '14, you would assume the inspection of the block prior to doing a H/C install would be beyond meticulous.

[FLATOUT]

I wish it were that easy. Yes we measure the Cam bores, and use the same exact measurement equipment that Dick uses at Arrow. Everything was with in spec. Sadly it is what it is, we put a ton of effort into mitigating that risk as those are the only types of failures we’ve seen out of our H/C Packages. 87 built and running with 3 cam shaft seizures among those builds.

Having to pay for and eat the cost of a rebuild to honor our warranty isn’t fun lol, for me or the customer so we take our time going over them.

Andy

Wait.... You imply that this "cam area" was likely damaged from what ever was floating around in there from when you had your previous issue. So you are saying that when they did the new H/C install they didn't do a thorough enough inspection to notice this? Not to sound dramatic but considering the history of the GenV engines, especially '13 & '14, you would assume the inspection of the block prior to doing a H/C install would be beyond meticulous.

[slowhatch]

What block did they use for your rebuild? Gen 4 or Gen 5?

Gen 5

[Stealth78]

I wish it were that easy. Yes we measure the Cam bores, and use the same exact measurement equipment that Dick uses at Arrow. Everything was with in spec. Sadly it is what it is, we put a ton of effort into mitigating that risk as those are the only types of failures we’ve seen out of our H/C Packages. 87 built and running with 3 cam shaft seizures among those builds.

Having to pay for and eat the cost of a rebuild to honor our warranty isn’t fun lol, for me or the customer so we take our time going over them.

Andy

Andy, Thanks for the response and I tip my hat to you guys for honoring that warranty!!! I guess the part that disturbs me is that something like this can go undetectable at the time of build. I absolutely love my GenIV and can't imagine parting ways with it, but I have thought that when I'm ready to change things up I would love to potentially find a low mile GenV that already has the H/C package in it. It would be rather bothersome if the acquisition of said car was soiled by something like this, being that that warranty would likely not be in affect. Out of the 3 examples what was the recorded mileage that symptoms started being noticed after the build was installed?

[Steve M]

I can only assume you still carry the same VE warranty on this rebuild on the off chance it is another bum block?

[slowhatch]

I can only assume you still carry the same VE warranty on this rebuild on the off chance it is another bum block?

This new motor was gone through extensively while being assembled, but yes, I still maintain my warranty on this one as well.

[FLATOUT]

Any updates on the driveability of the VE Stage 2? I came across a car with the same setup at a local car show and it sounded incredible. But it won’t idle and frequently stalls, requiring the owner to shut it off at stoplights. I was pretty interested in the heads/cam until I heard that. I’m trying to figure out if the car I saw has other issues, or if it’s the nature of the beast with this setup, which is a deal breaker for me.

Never ever heard of that happening to ANY customers of ours. Also have never had a customer call saying they were experiencing anything like that.

[Steve M]

This new motor was gone through extensively while being assembled, but yes, I still maintain my warranty on this one as well.

Awesome...sounds like a great outcome for what could have otherwise been a very expensive situation.

[FLATOUT]

Something like that can go wrong at any time of anyone’s build unfortunately. Happens at the manufactures level as well, car will roll off the assembly line and just die. So it has more to do with how it’s handled going forward.

We had a bone stock 2013 Launch Edition Viper show up on a flatbed a month ago at VE with 12,000 miles on it with a seized OEM camshaft in it. No one is immune to things like this unfortunately.

To answer your question about when those 3 failures occurred they were all when the cars were still in my possession, failures like that typically happen quickly, and wouldn’t resurface down the road.

Andy, Thanks for the response and I tip my hat to you guys for honoring that warranty!!! I guess the part that disturbs me is that something like this can go undetectable at the time of build. I absolutely love my GenIV and can't imagine parting ways with it, but I have thought that when I'm ready to change things up I would love to potentially find a low mile GenV that already has the H/C package in it. It would be rather bothersome if the acquisition of said car was soiled by something like this, being that that warranty would likely not be in affect. Out of the 3 examples what was the recorded mileage that symptoms started being noticed after the build was installed?

[FLATOUT]

What block did they use for your rebuild? Gen 4 or Gen 5?

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