The Chronicles of SneakySnake Vol III

[slowhatch]

First fire

[slowhatch]

Everything back together. Solid idle, great oil pressure, car is ready for a shakedown drive to check for leaks, etc. Can't wait to pick her up, I'm like a kid on Christmas morning

[MoHaWk2003]

Been watching your rebuild process on Instagram. Glad to see the engine back in and the car running again. Can't wait to see more pics and videos! Makes me wish I lived in Houston and had such competent and professional Viper techs.

[Loud]

Great to see the car back together. Congrats!

Are you running a full belanger system? Cats or no cats? Sounds fierce.

[slowhatch]

Great to see the car back together. Congrats!

Are you running a full belanger system? Cats or no cats? Sounds fierce.

Belanger Longtubes, Catless Midpipes, and Corsa 3" Catback

[Space Truckin]

Congrats...such a sick sound...woo hoo

[ViperNC]

Impressive! We look forward to your first drive video!

[srtoad4]

Could listen to that sound all day!

[Whitey]

First fire

When you see the body of a car and door shake at idle, its safe to assume big bump stick! .......cuz RACECAR! Congrats and enjoy.

[Hamrhead]

Damn that sounds so good. I want!


Hope this works out well for you! Anxious for your next Vid!

[serpent]

Cant wait for more vids, also can you get it on the dyno? We need more 9L Extreme cars dynoed.

[slowhatch]

Appreciate all the kind words!

Yes I will get the car on the dyno at some point in the future. It will be the same dyno that was used when this car was tested on its previous 2 setups (first bolt-ons, then H/C). I thought it would be appreciated by most to see the deltas on the same dyno between those 3 curves. I will wait to put some mileage on the motor first, and for atmospheric conditions to get as close as possible to the previous runs--which likely means waiting until the fall.

[CNU_Physics]

That will be a good test to get a rough estimate of drivetrain losses, since you know exactly what the engine makes.

[Arizona Vipers]

That will be a good test to get a rough estimate of drivetrain losses, since you know exactly what the engine makes.

Different days, different dyno's, different conditions etc. But yeah, will be interesting....

[Whiskey]

Congrats. 🍾. Enjoy it

I always say Miles = Smiles!!!!

[Jack B]

I may have missed the post, but, what are the details on the oil cooler?

[1.8t]

Any initial driving impressions compared to your old setup? I know you’re still breaking her in, but curious what differences you note between setups during this process.

[slowhatch]

I'll give you the guys the 411 on the 9LX, but before that, let me drop one little nugget of info that may save someone here some frustration and time. This little tidbit delayed me from picking up the car from Tuesday down to Friday of last week. When I bought fresh motor mounts for the car from an online mopar parts dealer, I ordered qty 2 of PN# 05038667AB--which are the OEM left AND ride side engine mounts for the Gen 5. They are identical side to side. What follows is what can only be described as target fixation--focusing so much on the perceived problem that awareness of everything else diminishes.

When the mounts arrived it was blatantly obvious that the mount on the left was missing the dust cover. I was pissed off, because the mounts had come merely days before the motor arrived, been delayed to ship by over 2 weeks, and I knew I would have no recourse with the vendor in time for me not to delay engine install. I looked over the mount and the stamped PN# and made absolutely damn sure it was the same as the mount on the right, and that it was just the cover that was missing, and not that the two mounts were different. I decided we would just re-use the dust cover off of one of my existing mounts, no big deal.



Anyone with a pair of eyes (except me apparently), would also notice that the threaded stud is of different length on both mounts, and one having a stepped OD and not being threaded all the way to knurling. Neither I nor Morgan spotted this quite obvious difference as we were too focused on the damn dust cover, and installed both of the mounts. Since Morgan likes to get the engine settled with the exhaust installed before he torques down the mounts, we didn't realize our oversight until the motor and exhaust was all the way in. Of course this happened when you went to torque both mounts down;



Ok, feeling a bit perplexed we decided some mix-up had occured with parts and we somehow got the wrong mount. So we ordered another one, same PN#, overnight. The mount comes the next day, and its the exact same one with the longer unthreaded stud. Both of the OEM mounts that came off my car are identical to the LEFT mount, with the shorter stud, so we knew that was the correct mount. We scrambled, again, to find another dealer with them in stock, and this time, made the parts guys send us pictures of the mount before they shipped. They were able to fish one out of inventory that had the correct shorter stud. We ordered it again, overnight, and it came in last Friday, the car was buttoned up, and I was a happy camper in the end.

In closing, we have no idea why 2 different length and style studs are installed on the exact same PN#, but be cognizant of this if you replace your mounts. Either the vendor screwed up and put the wrong studs in a batch of mounts that went out to Dodge, or, there is some part sharing going on, and some mounts (with stud designed for another car), are being incorrectly labeled with GEN 5 part numbers.

[slowhatch]

Picked her up last friday.

Here were my impressions pulling out of the parking lot;

[1.8t]

^ that’s awesome! Having come from the cam’ed LS world, parking lot surge became infuriating. Yes I could drive around it, but I found myself becoming aggravated that I had too. Looking forward to your next vids!

[slowhatch]

In general as I stated in the video above, initially I was really happy the car drove in a predictable, familiar manner. I didn't feel like I was making a sacrifice--or have to make excuses for--the car making the power and sound that I desired. It is different from the Stage II setup, it takes a mental adjustment to drive the car smoothly, in the same way the Stage II did when I first got it. After a week on Stage II it was all muscle memory and you know exactly how much throttle is needed on in-gear tip-in, or from a dead start, or blipping, etc, to make everything perfectly smooth. If you don't have throttle control or cant be delicate in certain scenarios then you will for sure knuck and buck the car around. There seems to be more throttle response (than stage 2), and the rotating assembly feels lighter, when I free rev the car it seems to gather RPM with a snappiness that wasn't present before. From a dead stop you can launch the car with no throttle, or you can give it 1000-1200rpm and slip it out gently, its extremely smooth. If you get the car into first gear, at low rpm (1000-1300), come off throttle, and come back on, this is where you need to have a gentle touch. Theres a tendency here for the car to "jump or buck" right at the onset of acceleration if you're not smooth coming on power. I literally give it the least amount of throttle my foot can dish out and she smoothly returns to picking up speed--and you can instantly feed it more to accelerate at will. You can avoid this altogether if you're the type of person that always rides the clutch below 1500 rpm--but my driving style is very conservative with clutch slip. The car has no issues lugging around at low rpm in higher gears, I have the tall 6th gear (0.50), and can lug this thing down to 1000rpm and accelerate smoothly. The only real difference (aside from power) is the idle-1500rpm range, everything else feels exactly like stock. Car holds a nice lopey idle around 900ish rpm. Cold start is about 1050rpm.

The 9LX makes the car sound different, I don't mean just in LSA on the cam for chop, I mean overall tone, at all rpm, it just sounds different. It sounds chunkier, meatier, like it has more bass. It sounds absolutely bananas wide open at high rpm, I know I frequently engage in hyperbole, but it really does sound like an old warbird when the car flys by you. Check out the video below for idle, cold start (internal/external), flyby's, and 60-180mph pull at the end. I drug my ass out of bed at 7am on Sunday morning to catch the lowest temperatures of the day (82F). I've been wanting to experience the car at full power (timing), but we are months away from having that happen here (needs to be at least 15F cooler). IATs were around 87-88 and it felt like a different car from the daytime hits I've been making on Fri/Sat (at around 105*F IAT). On friday/sat when I was making hits it felt as fast as my old stage II setup did when it was 60 deg outside. On sunday morning with 20F lower ambient it felt absolutely BRUTAL for an NA car. Relentless off the hit and just keeps piling it on. The first hit I literally sat on the limiter doing a rolling burnout in 2nd gear on R888Rs (tires were cold). I giggled like a school girl in there. Second hit she's at the limit of adhesion in 2nd, and it was the fastest I've ever been in the car, ever. I'm not a top speed guy, it feels strangely morbid for me to "sit and think" while I accelerate at triple digits so I rarely ever come out of 4th gear on the street (unless we are door to door with a combatant in Mexico on a tollway or the like). I just couldn't believe how fast I got up to those speeds now, I saw an indicated 179 and let off, and was like holy shit, is this real life?




Been making any excuses to go for a drive even in this 100+F degree swamp ass weather, and have put about 200 miles on the car over the weekend. I still need more seat time for me to be as telepathic with it as I had become with the Stage II, but we are becoming acquainted. Ask me any questions you guys want about the kit and we can chat.

[Gen5snake]

Picked her up last friday.

Here were my impressions pulling out of the parking lot;

I totally understand what you're saying about having a cam that surges...bucking totally ruins it for me and I'd personally rather have less power and a stock smooth low rpm driving experience. Hope this combo stays together for you...nothing more frustrating than throwing money in the toilette....been there, done that.

[Schen]

Here comes the pain and blue shorts to match!

That thing sounds unreal, when I went for ride in Andy's TA at NVE2 I couldn't get over how LOUD his car was. The Gen V wakes up so much when you start swapping a few things.

Sneaky is back!

--RS

[slowhatch]

Here comes the pain and blue shorts to match!

That thing sounds unreal, when I went for ride in Andy's TA at NVE2 I couldn't get over how LOUD his car was. The Gen V wakes up so much when you start swapping a few things.

Sneaky is back!

--RS

That VE titanium exhaust that he had on his Stage II setup could wake the dead. Personally I thought it sounded amazing, but it droned as much as the Belangers, if not worse.

Its crazy to think I have the "quietest" catback on the car right now (Corsas). I can't imagine how ear-bleedingly loud it would be with the Ti or Belanger catback.

[Hamrhead]

WOW!!

The Lope! The Sound at WOT!! Congrats!

Extremely doubtful being as I just don't drive it enough to justify the $$(Still have 1/2 tank of gas from last October!), but IF I end up doing something silly to my Viper, it's officially your fault.