wim's '84 blue hemi swap - now with sound!

[Mopar_guy]

Glad to see you put some miles on it! Nice trip for sure! Glad to see you're enjoying it. Now to start with the "fine tuning" as I call it.

On your power steering, If you have the whine inside, get someone to turn the steering while you listen under the hood. There's a good chance it's quiet under the hood. I didn't see what you used for hoses, but if I had to guess, it was braided steel. If that's the case, try replacing the high pressure hose with a stock one from something that the booster would of fit. I'm using a Chevy truck booster and mine whined inside the car. I changed pumps too, but it was still there. I used a pump from Turn One in Michigan and the owner, Jeff, looked at it with me at a show and that's when I found out it was quiet under the hood. What I was hearing is the fluid pulsating from the pump in those hard lines. Since the booster is bolted to the firewall, the noise was amplified thru the firewall. I used a pressure hose (from the pump to the booster) from a Chevy truck. I found a compression fitting to convert the one end to AN and tried that. All the whine was gone! The stock hose is larger and softer than braided steel hose, so it acts as an accumulator to dampen the pulsation. It's worth trying a hose first before replacing the pump. It took me a year to figure that one out.....

Also make sure your reservoir is higher than the pump inlet or that can cause that too.

You might have to put a anti drone pipe (also called a J pipe) in the exhaust if the resonator doesn't work. They're basically a Helmholtz resonator. That's what it took to get rid of the drone in my car (with a Hemi) but I didn't have any room for a resonator. When I build my Cherokee, I'll put one during the build so I don't have to redo it.

[Laredo Matt]

Awesome trip and great pictures...congrast on finally enjoying the fruit of your labor!

I love the confidence to take it on a such a long drive out of the gate. I took my first very short test drive two weeks ago. I've been thinking I'd work my way up to a road trip once I've put 500-1000 miles on it. Just in case so I don't get stranded somewhere. I'm clearly nowhere as confident as you.

Enjoy her and look forward to updates as you fine tune it...cheers.

[wimsurf]

Awesome trip and great pictures...congrast on finally enjoying the fruit of your labor!

I love the confidence to take it on a such a long drive out of the gate. I took my first very short test drive two weeks ago. I've been thinking I'd work my way up to a road trip once I've put 500-1000 miles on it. Just in case so I don't get stranded somewhere. I'm clearly nowhere as confident as you.

Enjoy her and look forward to updates as you fine tune it...cheers.

well, to tell the truth, I did take it on several ~100 mile drives the 2 weeks before we left, but still: driving to Germany, boarding a ferry, and heading up the cold northern mountains with a toolbox and OBDII scanner in the back is a bit of an adventure the first day or 2, but the confidence grew by the hour

[wimsurf]

Glad to see you put some miles on it! Nice trip for sure! Glad to see you're enjoying it. Now to start with the "fine tuning" as I call it.

On your power steering, If you have the whine inside, get someone to turn the steering while you listen under the hood. There's a good chance it's quiet under the hood. I didn't see what you used for hoses, but if I had to guess, it was braided steel. If that's the case, try replacing the high pressure hose with a stock one from something that the booster would of fit. I'm using a Chevy truck booster and mine whined inside the car. I changed pumps too, but it was still there. I used a pump from Turn One in Michigan and the owner, Jeff, looked at it with me at a show and that's when I found out it was quiet under the hood. What I was hearing is the fluid pulsating from the pump in those hard lines. Since the booster is bolted to the firewall, the noise was amplified thru the firewall. I used a pressure hose (from the pump to the booster) from a Chevy truck. I found a compression fitting to convert the one end to AN and tried that. All the whine was gone! The stock hose is larger and softer than braided steel hose, so it acts as an accumulator to dampen the pulsation. It's worth trying a hose first before replacing the pump. It took me a year to figure that one out.....

Also make sure your reservoir is higher than the pump inlet or that can cause that too.

You might have to put a anti drone pipe (also called a J pipe) in the exhaust if the resonator doesn't work. They're basically a Helmholtz resonator. That's what it took to get rid of the drone in my car (with a Hemi) but I didn't have any room for a resonator. When I build my Cherokee, I'll put one during the build so I don't have to redo it.

thanks for the tips on the power steering lines, I have a set of earls power steering lines, they are braided with black nylon on the outside, but indeed, they are stiff, I'll do the listening test soon.

on the exhaust, I have been calculating the j-pipe dimensions needed. According to the calculations I would need a 28" pipe somewhere and I don't really have the space. what I'll do is go to 2'5" after the catalytic converter, Y into 3" then resonator, muffler, and single over axle bend out the right back side.
that should make it less drony because of the reduction and coming together into a single (I once had a jeep WK1 grand Cherokee with a 5.7 hemi, (pre- eagle engine) and that had a single pipe and sounded awesome, with no drone, it had a similar setup)