My ongoing Turbobaja build

[turbobaja]

Dude, why are you always so lucky The spacers are the easy thing, but finding a shop to take the hubs down a tiny bit shouldn't be to much trouble. If it is, my guy can do it for sure.

don't be jealous, this kind of luck doesn't come cheap!

I'm thinking of a hungry burr bit and the hub mounted backwards on the axle, spinning, while I chew away. Git r done.

I need to relocate my boost reference for the FPR still too, and of course rework the fuel map considerably afterwards. Mine is located pre-throttle body so it only sees boost (old, carb'd mentality) and it'll see boost when the manifold is in vacuum at freeway speeds quite frequently. It's messin' with my EGO, so it's gotta go . With the digital fuel pressure gauge on my dash I started noticing it creeping up to 47-48psi on the freeway, with 10" vac in the manifold. Basically the turbo is spooling and my EGO correction is having to compensate for increased fuel pressure when it should be decreasing with less than atmospheric pressure in the manifold. Ideally my BOV wouldn't allow this, but it takes just a little more vacuum to open the valve (need to address this).

[turbobaja]

To make a long story slightly shorter, after much shimming, grinding and a little fab work, things were fitting pretty well.








After a short test drive with HEAVY pulsation from the right rear, I found this.





The rotor has .008" thickness variation and I'm hoping the vendor (Pacific Customs) can get the manufacturer (Tatum Motorsports) to help me out somehow. Phone calls and E-mails... now I get to wait some more. Unfortunately, with the holiday weekend especially, I've got no chance of making it to Woodburn next weekend with the baja.

[Steve Arndt]

Damn. Buy the best and you still get to modify and finagle every little detail. We love this hobby! Don't Quit!

[Devastator]

The rotor has .008" thickness variation

I don't know how that is even possible with Blanchard grinding. Weird.

[turbobaja]

The rotor has .008" thickness variation

I don't know how that is even possible with Blanchard grinding. Weird.

I don't get it either. It was the last thing I expected to have a problem with, especially after having so much trouble just getting everything to line up and "bolt on".

You'd have to have driven the car and felt the massive pedal pulsation from the very first apply to really understand the confusion. My first instinct was thickness variation, but I knew I just had my hands on everything to do with the rear brakes also, so who knows. When I measured the rotor I could hardly believe how bad it was. Rotors advertised as 1/4" thick, but this one surfaced down to .212-.220". The other side, smooth as butter, measures .234" everywhere I measure. I purchased 2 new rotors directly from Tatum and both measure right @ .230" everywhere...moving on.

[andy198712]

will they refund you?

like you say, moving on!!!!

[turbobaja]

will they refund you?

like you say, moving on!!!!

I asked the vendor (Pacific Customs) for help. They asked me to measure the rotors. I sent them pictures of dial calipers on the rotor in multiple locations showing the measurements on the dial clearly. Then they asked me to send the rotor to them (Pacific Customs) so they could send it back to Tatum Motorsports for their inspection. Tatum did not believe the rotor could have this problem because of the technique they use to surface grind them. All through the process I've asked what direction should these rotors turn? What side should they be on? No instructions...no clear answers.

Pretty obvious that my "project" and my time are worth next to nothing to both these companies. So I chose not to keep playing their game over a $100 rotor and just move on, bleeding money the whole F'ing way...

[andy198712]

are the bolt holes counter sunk on one side or both?

Thats pretty poo isn't it

[turbobaja]

are the bolt holes counter sunk on one side or both?

Thats pretty poo isn't it

Yes, countersunk only on the inside face of the rotors. There are "left" and "right" rotors, but no marking or part numbers to differentiate the 2. The whole situation is pretty poo for sure. Just gotta push on towards the goal of better braking and not spend too much time looking back.

[petew]

My type 3 drums are looking pretty good at this point. Sorry man. I sincerely hope Tatum gets it's act together and starts helping... you could start shaming them on twitter/facebook... That's been known to work in the past.

https://www.facebook.com/tatummotorsports
https://twitter.com/tatumsandcars

Sometimes a gentle reminder in public to do after-sales service is a good thing.

[turbobaja]

Sometimes a gentle reminder in public to do after-sales service is a good thing.

I've got no interest in shaming these folks. I can barely bring myself to trash talk a company/person after being treated like an idiot by them after I've given them a chunk of my hard earned money. It never helps me... I just learn who to do what kind of business with in the future, and who I'll recommend others do business with as well. Currently I'm waiting on Tatum to provide my FRONT brakes that I ordered back in February and was quoted 2 weeks to be in my hands. It's been 4 months and as few phone calls as I could make to keep from pissing someone off on the other end. Luckily my front brakes work pretty well, I just want them to be a little better and match front/rear . The hub I need for the fronts is not an item Tatum usually stocks. I spoke with the owner Rich @ Tatum back in Feb personally and he said he could make the hubs for my BJ spindles and I'm patiently trying to hold him to that. 3 times I called asking for the owner again, each time unsuccessful. Last week I called again and they said my front brakes would be about 1 week, waiting on material was the "excuse". Never has Pacific Customs or Tatum Motorsports made any attempt to apologize for my inconvenience, much less "make it right" in ANY way.

I've learned to appreciate customer service at virtually any cost more than every before...

[Fiatdude]

I say Flame them -- IF they aren't helping you then they deserve it -- -- At least you are putting it out there so no one else gets burned by them -- and then if they do right then you stand up and say so then too --

sometimes one can get lost in the bowels of business and a little laxative (like a foot up their ass) can get things moving again

My money is too precious to let somebody steal it (yes, that is what they did, steal) from me without a fight, and these days there's a lot of power in a keyboard

Remember that guy and what he did to AJ over on the Samba -- that guy never let go of the bone and AJ got his poop handed to him over it, of course AJ made no attempt to make it right either and really paid for it

[turbobaja]

Got a coupe hundred miles on the rear brakes now. They do stop OK, but are very, very noisy. Overall not a happy camper....

On another subject, I finally checked my cranking compression and leak down to see how things are holding up. With the MUCH longer cam (296 advertised and 254 @ .050" lift) and same static CR as I ran with the old cam (8:1) I was expecting low numbers. I did a 3 stroke and 6 stroke test on the engine, cold. All cylinders built almost 80psi in 3 strokes and almost 105psi with 6 strokes. Manually rolling the engine over with the leak down tester on the "next" cylinder it was obvious they were only building compression the last ~45deg of crank rotation, once both valves were fully seated. Leak down measured 4-5% on all cylinders. The hard to tune idle and low rpm/load is likely a combination of low static compression and very low intake velocity under these conditions.

Anybody else out there tuning with numbers like these? Thoughts?

Next step is to pull the heads and make a mold of all 4 chambers so CP can build some custom pistons .... of just flycut my heads and bump up to ~9:1.

[Steve Arndt]

I would just flycut the heads a little and keep things simple. I've ran custom domed pistons for 10 years...

edit: You may be able to keep the same pushrod length if you keep things close. I went from .040 to .050 deck clearance on my last cam change and was able to keep my old pushrods luckily.

[turbobaja]

I would just flycut the heads a little and keep things simple. I've ran custom domed pistons for 10 years...

Not that I would ever buy pistons from John, but are you saying you're not happy with your "custom domed pistons"?

I would tend to think there's a lot to be gained from a better combustion chamber design, half of which is the piston top. My chambers are pretty open with little remaining quench area, and flat tops. According to the dyno the engine can breath more than enough at this point. If I could pull some timing out and cool my heads down just another 10-20F on the freeway it would be so much more fun to drive. If I could get out of my own way from stop light without having to rev it up so much, that would be cool too . A little more throttle response would be nice. It's basically a W120 cam, or a Web 86A, it's not some high revvin', lopy idlin' cam...unless you don't give it any compression and feed it with an enormous manifold . This thing is a handful to tune down low. Just pulls for days up top = SUCKS in a heavy baja, especially trying to "putt around" off-road, or through a parking lot for that matter.