Local yard by me had several, said take your pick. If I had the time I'd pull one, grind the ears to match mine, and send it and the 70A relay (I have several on my desk) to you. The straight bracket is easy to make, the Z bracket takes some on-the-truck designing to get the offsets right. I think I did that one first, then the straight one second. You have to grind off the bottom right ear on the shroud because it hits the trans cooler line, and grind off the ear and shave down at top left to clear the fluid bottles.

 

PM replied.

 

I've still got just a bit of coolant leaking, and it appears to be leaking out from under 2 bolts for the water pump? IDK how or why, but I chase up the water trails and they terminate at these 2 bolts. And it's only when the coolant system is at temperature & engine running. Doesn't seem to leak when the truck is off and cooled back down. I guess the gasket isn't holding up. I'm gonna be upset if I have to change it.

Engine temps are holding pretty sweet. Drove it around the block for the first time today... but EVERY time I hit the brakes oil pressure tanked and the engine shut off. I tried to raise the IAC to 800 RPMS. Figured it'd be a temporary solution to why oil pressure keeps dropping out at idle (~650 RPM it drops to zero but the flick of the throttle pedal and it jumps right back up). But every time I tried to adjust it it'd either jump up to 1200+ rpm or settle back down to 650. IDK if it's a bad sensor (brand new) or something else. I was trying to not worry about this issue too much and give the bearings a chance to break in, but I can't break this engine in if it's gonna cut off every time I brake at a stoplight or God forbid during a turn.

Also got a CEL pop up finally that I'll have my buddy check out with his code reader. IDK if these are things that will help be solved when the SCT tuner comes in or not.

Gonna keep tinkering around with it tomorrow. Hopefuly finding out what code is being thrown will help a bit.

I'll try to have some pics & vids up this weekend.

 

how many quarts of oil in the pan? Stock pump you said?

Still sounds to me like clearances are off or the pickup is going dry.

 

Oil level is good. I've checked several times. Clearances may just be too high like you suggested.

 

have you put a mechanical oil gauge on it to see what it reads? What viscosity oil? You might try some 20-50 and see if that helps.

 

Alright I'm ordering some mechanical gauges this weekend - a 3 gauge pillar, Jegs oil pressure, Jegs water temp, and probably a trans temp gauge or if not a oil temp.

I drove the truck up to Auto Zone and they pulled the following code for me: P1391 - Loss of camshaft/crank

Googling I've found a few helpful threads that I hope to try out tonight, people with similar symptoms I've got, and it seems it's fairly common to these engines. I'll be checking the crank sensor. I'll replace the cam sensor if the crank doesn't help (crank sensor was brand new - replaced during build). I'll try to advance timing a bit to account for the more aggressive cam (compared to stock).

Not sure what the standard oil pressure should be, but I'm right around 40 psi, just below at lower rpms. Then at idle/650 rpms the signal cuts out. Interesting to note too, this is only once the truck has hit operating temperature and switches into closed loop. The rpm drops down a bit lower to a real low 650rpm idle. It's then that the gauge drops out. The instant I hit the throttle the pressure gauge jumps back up to 35-40 psi. That's telling me it's an electrical connection issue related to the sender or something (oil pressure sender was brand new, replaced during the build). But that doesn't explain the engine cutting out.

I've been popping the truck into neutral during braking to make sure the engine doesn't cut off. I actually drove the truck to work today - about a 7-8 mile drive. Feels so good to have it on the road - despite the issues and needing an alignment desperately. There's about 1-2 miles of high speed road on the way to work. At about 55mph the truck had intermittent shudders. 60 & above it shuddered pretty frequently. I couldn't tell if it was the tranny slipping or the engine cutting.

Maybe the throttle position sensor or idle air control sensor could use some cleaning or replacing too. Maybe the SCT tuner will help iron out some of these issues?? That's still not shipped which is frustrating. The truck still has a full tank of 87 gas in it. It sat for 2-3 months at most. That may be a part of it. I'll try running higher octane, but I was hoping to keep it running on 87 so I can keep using my company gas card. They won't be happy if I've got to run 89/93 all of a sudden.

 

I hope this is not the end of this thread!! Wanting to know how the oil pressure prob worked out. Agree, it does sound like excessive clearance in the bearings but also use mechanical gauges on a new build until I'm sure everything is correct and stable. In the past, I have made it a practice to plastic gauge rod and mains as I assemble the engine. This from bad juju or machining errors on a build or two.

I have a crank I've been wanting to put in my 318. Should bring it up to 377 if my math is OK, (which it seldom is.). If memory serves, that should be nearly square bore square stroke. Adding a high lift, moderate duration cam would make a lot of sense also. I've had very good luck with Inski cams in the past and would likely go that way again.

Jim

 

It's not the end of the thread. I'm taking the truck to a buddy's shop. He's gonna look over things for me. I've literally not touched the truck for the past 2-3 weeks :/ My schedule is so slammed between work and planning for my upcoming wedding in September. I haven't even had the time to drop the truck off... 10 minutes away from both my office and my house. I'll report when he figures out the bugs. Along with the crank/cam sensor CEL, he says it sounds like the torque converter may be on its way out.

 

Ok things are running a lot better. My buddy was able to tap into the ecu with his computer. He got the cam and crank sensor re-synced & timed good, idle control set a bit better than I got it to. Truck idles and accelerates MUCH smoother. No more bucking at higher speeds, no more stalling out. I swear I still hear tapping while accelerating tho. It almost sounds like a starter that doesn't quite have enough juice when you try to crank the engine over. Sometimes sounds like something metallic is loose. I'm gonna investigate under the hood the best I can. But I really only hear it during acceleration, not during idle or free revving, which I find odd. Oil pressure gauge still drops out at idle. I may try replacing it again. And yes, I'll get those mechanical gauges. I've just been spending time/money on the wedding - leaving no time/money for the truck.

Got an alignment done yesterday. Drove to/from a jobsite meeting in Orlando from our office in Tampa/Brandon today. Burned up 3/4 tank of gas (240 miles total on the first full tank), but mostly because I was doing light 55-80 pulls in OD to break in the engine the whole time. Just a bit of load, nothing serious. And no flat out pulls. I did my best to avoid cruising at the same speed/rpm for any given length of time.

The fan kept the temp under control pretty well. I stopped to pick up a bottle of water halfway back, and the truck seemed to creep up to 200/210 the rest of the way.

Now that things are running a bit smoother I'll get you guys that video I promised you. And maybe even the pics of the radiator fan.