Psychoholic
Professional Idiot
- Joined
- May 28, 2018
- Messages
- 84
- Reaction score
- 28
- Points
- 18
- Location
- Loganville, GA
- What vehicle(s) do you drive?
- 72 Miller Meteor
I figure that asking questions works good for individual posts but a good build thread is always fun and a good way to post updates without flooding the place.
I'll condense some info in other threads for convenience.
Right now the world's fastest hearse belongs to a guy named Arne and it ran a 9.4 @ 146 mph but it's a station wagon conversion. It is a real hearse and I don't take that away from him but it's not a big body car on a commercial chassis. I think there are maybe 2 commercial chassis cars that have even gone in the 12s and neither of them are in the US so that's kind of the goal (without shedding any weight). It's not a real goal so much as just a fun idea and I love this car beyond words. I've had it since '98, my wife and I drove away from our wedding in it and thanks to VinWiki my car is arguably one of the most famous hearses in the world.
www.youtube.com
We're building a turbo 472 for her. I have most of the major parts already sitting at the shop right now. We are doing a Bulldog intake, Holley 1000 cfm throttle body, a WORK S475 twin scroll turbo, LS coils, MS3Pro Ultimate ECU, one ridiculously huge intercooler, electric fans, and a bunch of other fun parts.
Here is a video of us machining the intake:
So that brings us to where we are today. Was at the shop yesterday and was supposed to be working on some furniture for a customer but really the recent starter issues were just lingering in my mind and pissing me off so my shop mates (our shop is 3 of us who basically just do whatever we want up there as stress relief since my day job is a bit mentally tasking and stressful. We offset the rent by building industrial style furniture for people but it's a car shop, machine shop, and fabrication shop all in one) were giving me grief about my lack of commitment to the project since I've been amassing parts of well over 3 years now.
We yanked the intake off and just mocked up the new one with throttle body, cut all the plug wires instead of just pulling them off (so I have no choice but to commit), yanked the HEI dizzy out and got started.
Figured out a really cool way to handle cam position sensor. I took an old points style distributor I had laying around and pulled all the guts out of it. We're going to machine out the original brass top guide bushing, open up the housing a bit to make a bearing race for it, then make a single arm (square edge), weld that on, then us a hall sensor to give me what stroke the motor is on. I have a crank trigger wheel off of a BMW we're going to machine down to put on my existing pulleys. I'll be sure to document the process of each of those.
I was a little shocked by the size of the ports on the new intake where they meet the head. The intake is DEFINITELY going to need some porting done but it's aluminum so it shouldn't be as bad as trying to do a set of heads. I wonder if that is why the motor that Courtney/RichardH were building with it made such terrible power.
For now the plan is to just get her running on the EFI setup and get a good NA tune going. Once we've got the bugs worked out we'll start with the turbo build portion. I'm also replacing the existing dash with a 7" touch screen and a Raspi4 running Tuner Studio (you can see the mount I made on the 3d printer on the last picture).
Wish me luck!
Chris (Psychoholic)
I'll condense some info in other threads for convenience.
Right now the world's fastest hearse belongs to a guy named Arne and it ran a 9.4 @ 146 mph but it's a station wagon conversion. It is a real hearse and I don't take that away from him but it's not a big body car on a commercial chassis. I think there are maybe 2 commercial chassis cars that have even gone in the 12s and neither of them are in the US so that's kind of the goal (without shedding any weight). It's not a real goal so much as just a fun idea and I love this car beyond words. I've had it since '98, my wife and I drove away from our wedding in it and thanks to VinWiki my car is arguably one of the most famous hearses in the world.

Ganci In The Wild
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We're building a turbo 472 for her. I have most of the major parts already sitting at the shop right now. We are doing a Bulldog intake, Holley 1000 cfm throttle body, a WORK S475 twin scroll turbo, LS coils, MS3Pro Ultimate ECU, one ridiculously huge intercooler, electric fans, and a bunch of other fun parts.
Here is a video of us machining the intake:
So that brings us to where we are today. Was at the shop yesterday and was supposed to be working on some furniture for a customer but really the recent starter issues were just lingering in my mind and pissing me off so my shop mates (our shop is 3 of us who basically just do whatever we want up there as stress relief since my day job is a bit mentally tasking and stressful. We offset the rent by building industrial style furniture for people but it's a car shop, machine shop, and fabrication shop all in one) were giving me grief about my lack of commitment to the project since I've been amassing parts of well over 3 years now.
We yanked the intake off and just mocked up the new one with throttle body, cut all the plug wires instead of just pulling them off (so I have no choice but to commit), yanked the HEI dizzy out and got started.
Figured out a really cool way to handle cam position sensor. I took an old points style distributor I had laying around and pulled all the guts out of it. We're going to machine out the original brass top guide bushing, open up the housing a bit to make a bearing race for it, then make a single arm (square edge), weld that on, then us a hall sensor to give me what stroke the motor is on. I have a crank trigger wheel off of a BMW we're going to machine down to put on my existing pulleys. I'll be sure to document the process of each of those.
I was a little shocked by the size of the ports on the new intake where they meet the head. The intake is DEFINITELY going to need some porting done but it's aluminum so it shouldn't be as bad as trying to do a set of heads. I wonder if that is why the motor that Courtney/RichardH were building with it made such terrible power.
For now the plan is to just get her running on the EFI setup and get a good NA tune going. Once we've got the bugs worked out we'll start with the turbo build portion. I'm also replacing the existing dash with a 7" touch screen and a Raspi4 running Tuner Studio (you can see the mount I made on the 3d printer on the last picture).
Wish me luck!
Chris (Psychoholic)