Beretta.net

Trailer porn, on a Beretta site! I like it, very nice. Hmm, I'm thinking that the ramps would fit nicely into the triangular front section on their sides -one per side? Some light 1x1 angle welded under the bottom could support them, and bungees strapped across the top would be cheap/easy to secure them in place. If they are too long to fit in there, what about on the outside in front of the wheels? That would cover up that d@m# tape though... I hate having ramps separate -I'm always tossing boards into my van or hauling over the stupidly heavy steel ramps I have and stuffing them inside because I have no way to carry them on my tow-dolley, and the ramps it has are about 50% the length they need to be for most of what I've ever pulled on it. My old motorcycle trailer hinges in the middle, and swings all the way down for me with no issues, but that is a different animal altogether. And why do I suffer with a half-a-trailer-dolley? I got it for cheap, in really good shape from the original owner with all the paperwork, and they DON'T have to be titled or licensed in most states, so I'm not out $65 plate-renewal every year on something I use once or twice per calendar. But, I'm still a little envious of your trailer...

Trailer parts ARE pretty cheap, but I liked your comment about the 'million-dollar conspicuity tape' -that stuff is ridiculously expensive -that is where they make their money back!

Another option on your winch might be to fab-up a small roller for the cable to ride on at the point where it hits, that way you could leave the draw angle low on it, since your cars sit so low to begin with, running the winch too high wouldn't be a good thing. Just a thought, if you have to put more time into it anyhow. I like that winch setup, my motorcycle trailer has a hand-crank winch, so I need help if I'm loading a bike heavy enough to need the winch -at the angle my trailer pivots back to, that includes most of the bikes I have, I just hardly use it now. In fact, my GTU's original 2.8 is sitting on it with my old Z-1 in front, hasn't moved in over two years...

Yeah, it's almost $100/yr for trailer registration. I didn't realize that til I went to DMV...but that's NY for you.

I was going to fab my own steel ramps to interlock with the trailer ramps, but hauling the heavy ones at the track convinced me that the small money savings doing it myself didn't offset the weight savings of the RaceRamps. They're maybe 5lbs each. I could throw them from the tailgate to the back of the trailer. Haha

My first thought was to do a roller for the winch. I couldn't find a single roller fairlead, so I thought of welding mounting tabs and then using some 1"NPT iron pipe with 1.25 pvc conduit over it as sleeving. I've got a long piece of pipe and the conduit was $5 so it could double as a tire stop. But I'm undecided yet. Relocating the winch is a cleaner solution, and the little bit of height it needs will still clear the cars no problem.

I did make a 3" taller winch mount. It's heavy, but it works as a battery tray too. And it's free! Made it out of some old scrap my dad had around. Least amount of fabrication and saves the most money. haha

Of course, the maiden loaded voyage wasn't even my car... My father sold his old house and had to get his Firebird out of there before closing.

I really need to follow your build better. I remember when you got this thing, its come a long ways!

Tried to fix all my 2018 problems in 2018, but this one is headed for 2019!


Ben at WOT saw my post about drag racing and we got talking about AFR and timing etc to get the most MPH out of my combo. I brought up again how noisier than stock the lifters are even with the +.030" pushrods, so he had me do a preload measurement by tightening the the rocker arm until zero lash and counting the turns until torqued. With a 1.5mm thread, 3/4 turn works out to around .040" preload. He figured that was still light for some reason (turns out my Frankenstein rockers change things by about .012" somehow) so he sent some +.090s he had around for cheap with some .020 shims for a little bit of adjustability.


Even though those should have put me at perfect .080" preload, the engine did not like them. Had at least one valve hanging open on #1 and possibly #3.
https://youtu.be/s3ueYStvciA

So apart it all came to get hopefully more reliable measurements. I had an adjustable pushrod tool from Comp that I lathed down .150" so it would be short enough for the intake side. Cyl #3 came in strangely short, and they all varied more cyl to cyl than expected.




So Ben had me disassemble the lifters to inspect and clean them. I could get them partially disassembled, but the hydraulic bucket WILL NOT come out. I tried relieving the check ball while hooking the bucket, flushing the thicker oil out with WD40, even freezing them...but nothing worked. Couldn't even get them to compress by hand - only when putting valvespring pressure on them by assembling the rocker and pushrod. He or I haven't seen anything like this before. They are pretty low mileage and they look great, but something strange is going on. So I said screw it and I have a set of new lifters on the way. Maybe that will shut this thing up, finally. Big thanks to Ben for all the help troubleshooting. I've got a lot of time in this and now so does he.




Stupid Beretta...

Weird issue on the lifters, for sure. All 12 acting like this? Seems likely that most or all of your problems are right there, what brand are they?

On the pushrod measurement, there is a measuring standard for total length, and one for effective length, wherein the amount the ball-end recesses into the socket is ignored -I think it was Comp Cams that uses the odd method of measurement, if I remember correctly... But if you are taking true length measurements and Ben is speaking the same language, then no issues there -the problem is when ordering off-the-shelf components.

Our lead tech at the shop I last worked at built a 427-spec 'Vette engine, and it came back running rough once warmed to operating temp. The two top guys there (I roll my eyes here) started racking their brains trying to figure it out, and thought that maybe the valves were too tight (solid lifter engine) but they couldn't find accurate adjustment specs for some reason -heads were not original, and the block had once been a 454, so the whole thing was a bastardized hog... It popped into my head that night that all they had to do was perform a cold compression test, then a hot compression test. If the valves were too tight, the cold comp test would actually read higher than the hot test -even though the rings would seal better when hot, the valves would started hanging open. They did my test, and found the valves were too snug. Adjusted them up a little, problem solved...

Yeah, it's too bad these goddam things aren't adjustable like my small blocks.

All 3 I tested couldn't be disassembled. Been said he's only had a couple like that ever, and they were grungy ugly ones. Really strange. I even went over the process with him step by step in a video call just be sure we were on the same page. Cause it just doesn't make sense. These are the original lifters to the engine that only have 40k or so on them with religious synthetic oil changes. And they look perfect. But my commute to work is only 1mi, so those 40k are harder than normal. I also do pound on it from time to time. Haha

As far as pushrod measurement it's total length. And the numbers mostly make sense. I did try a crude measurement of the lifter body to plunger both on the base circle and around peak lift and found .080 and .060 preload when they should both be the same. Very strange.

I tried a compression test before taking it apart and found 175psi rather than the 190ish the stock cam had which seemed reasonable if not a little low. But cyl #1 had 0 so my first thought was mixed up pushrods on that cyl, but not the case. And 3 turned out to be the strange measurements, not 1. There really is no smoking gun to explain it all. That's why I decided to just replace all the lifters.

woody90gtz wrote:Yeah, it's too bad these goddam things aren't adjustable like my small blocks.
That's why I decided to just replace all the lifters.

Hmm, I was thinking that solid lifters might be nice in your engine, considering how many times your car sees the track. But short-hop commutes on a DD would kill the valvetrain on that engine. We had a 2000-something Alero come into the shop a few years ago, it had ripped one of the rockers (roller pedestal, so bolt-in) out of the head. A week later it came back with the same problem on a different cylinder (same head), so when I fixed it I also max-torqued all of the other rocker-bolts, then backed them off and re-torqued to the middle of the range with loc-tite, I can't remember if I managed to pull another rocker free doing that or not (I think I did), but the car was fixed after that. I had thought maybe the head had been overheated and damaged, but was having a hard time buying that theory even though the customer confirmed that they had overheated it some time before. Maybe they were having similar sticking lifter issues... I have been running stock 3400 pedestal rockers in my modified 3.1 MPFI heads on my '90 Turbo 'Retta for over six years now, stock 3400 cam (H.O. Ram-Air G/A LA1) and lifters, no problems at all with the valvetrain. Had to swap-out some pushrods of course, MPFI heads on a 3400 block, but it has never had a problem since I set it up (stock 60-degree pushrods too, mixed-and-matched for fit, so it didn't cost me anything to do)

Yeah, I would ditch the whole set of lifters too with three of them bad like that. I wonder if that cam of yours has anything to do with it, that thing looked pretty lumpy to me (me likey lumpy cams, poor idle and all! )

Nah, definitely not solid for the DD car. Even the Camaro is gonna be hydraulic roller. To run enough cam to get the most out of them it wouldn't be very o2 sensor friendly. And that WOT cam is pretty tame.

I had one rocker loosen up the first week I was driving it. Ben said it was likely due to the almost zero preload the stock pushrods had. So I've been blue on them since with red at the top nut (so they act like a bolt in theory). But there's been a couple times where the red has let loose instead of the blue (even with perfect prep)...the Permatex stuff just isn't as strong as true Loctite. So this round I'm using the green Loctite 609. That stuff will never come apart without a torch now - it's made for turn slip fits parts into press fit parts with no fasteners. We use it at work and it's amazing.

Mashed a bunch of drag videos together from this year. One is really cool where you can see Jay tree me and then I reel him back in. The shift light also looks good st night. Haha

https://youtu.be/2itULsZcsX4

Dropped these things off at the paint shop to get color matched. I can't be having chromey looking wheel hoops... And the center caps are junk. They're ugly as hell and didn't fit the axle stub, so I've got an idea up my sleeve.

Savage speed shop aka #tsquaredmetalworks was happy to supply the slicks haha.
Yikes, I wonder how long your engine has had this going on. It might actually be quicker than you thought.

Solid lifter would never remove power... I doubt the new lifters will change much of anything. Now if they didn't hold hydraulic pressure and compressed easily then I could see that being an issue, you'd loose lift and duration.

Read what he said about compression -it sounds like those lifters were holding some valves open -yes, he has been losing power. Also, if it went the other way (and Woody also complained about loose pushrods and noise), then some valves aren't opening all the way -remember with typical ratio rockers, .080" lost on a lifter is .12" lost on valve-lift, never mind the lost duration.

Properly adjusted, fully warmed solid lifters will keep power in the engine, and more efficiently with high-pressure valve-springs than hydraulic lifters, but the reason for zero-lash hydraulic lifters goes beyond the lack of start-up noise and lower maintenance time.