Getting my new 406 SBC installed, running, and driving

[IROCZman15]

My engine arrived this afternoon!

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Over the past few years (as most of you know) I have been building up my 1987 IROC-Z camaro to be a street/strip/autoX/show car. I have upgraded the fuel system, installed a very beefed up 700R4 trans, 9" converter, a Moser 12 bolt rear, strong driveshaft, suspension components, bigger brakes, wheels, a wet nitrous system on the TPI setup, battery relocation, etc. Here is a link to the multi-year build up of the rest of the car itself: http://www.njfboa.org/forums/showthread.php?t=68229 its 6 pages. lots of photos, info, and discussion.


It is finally time to bring in the engine, by which this new thread will be about....getting it installed, wired, plumbed, and setup. I have a pretty "ok" idea of what to do, but I also already have some questions and will need advice as I take on this task over the next few weeks. ANY/ALL advice (good or bad) is much appreciated. thanks


So the engine arrived today. It was built by Nyes Racing Engines out in Indiana.
Here are the basics, but I have attached a photo of the build sheet below:
- Dart SHP block
- 406 cubic inches
- Callies Compstar Crank and Rods
- Mahle pistons (rings are gapped for a 200-250 shot of nitrous)
- Dart Pro1 215 Cylinder Heads
- Comp Cams camshaft 245 intake/245 exhaust at .50, .4000 lift intake and exhaust, and 110 LSA (cam card below)
- Crane roller rockers
- Edelbrock Victor Jr manifold
- Holley Sniper EFI
- SFI 168 tooth flexplate
- MSD Pro billet distributor



Dyno Tested on February 2, 2020 (dyno printout attached)

Max HP was 531.6 @ 6,000 rpm
Max Torque was 513.0 @ 4,800 rpm


very happy with how it all went. I never wanted a super high horsepower high revving drag engine that was non-streetable. I always wanted a "hot-street" motor capable of doing "it all" well. street, strip, autoX, show, long cruises, etc. I'll take some time before getting the nitrous setup on it, but that is going to happen for sure


I plan on installing the engine in the car this saturday, and it will bolt to the new Prothane Polurethane engine mounts I installed. Today, I already mounted some of the front accessories (power steering pump, water pump, some pulleys) but I am still waiting on a mid-mount bracket set for the powermaster alternator. I also mounted the starter and did my best to check its alignment; see photo)

I have a champion 2 row (1" tubes) aluminum radiator on the way and will buy new hoses. A 160 degree thermostat was recommended by the engine builder, and I still need to buy a water neck. I will be re-using my OEM fans, but building my own relays to power them. The holley sniper unit will control fan 1 and 2 on/off. I will use evans waterless coolant also, and still have to find an expansion tank/overflow tank I can put neatly in the newly repainted engine bay.
- It took me a little while to understand the proper way to setup the fan relay diagram, but thanks to people on this board I think I have it worked out.





My biggest dilemma comes from some of the wiring that lies ahead.... I thought I had some of it figured out, but I seem to be getting into another confusing stage regarding the ignition wiring and some of the other topics below.....


Since I have removed ALL of the oem wiring that went to the TPI's ECM and its functions, I was left with wiring at the C100 connector, the C207, and the C221 along with the fuse panel, and in-car wiring. Things definitely cleaned up nicely under the hood and I wanted to do my best to keep it that way.

--I plan to use the Pink/black stripe wire coming from the fuse panels 10 amp ENGINE CNL port to trigger the sniper's ecm. (what does "CNL" mean anyways??) this pink/black wire used to go through port F of the C207 connector under the passenger dashboard but I removed it from the connector and plan on using it to connect to the new pink switched ignition +12v wire that leads to the sniper via it's built in connector? does this seem correct???

I thought that was the end of my ignition wiring questions, but sadly I realized when I did more reading that even though I own a MSD Digital 6 Cd ignition control box (currently removed and planned on selling it), I do NOT want to use it because on page 8&9 of the holley sniper quick start guide it states that "CD box ignition is intended for users that have an aftermarket ignition system but do not want the ECU to control timing". If I am reading that correctly, it means that the MSD digital 6 box would control timing, and would inhibit/prohibit the holley sniper from self-learning and self-tuning. ...
....thats not what I want. I want teh sniper to do the timing, tuning, everything. no external msd box is desired.
-- therefore, my only other option is for me to go buy a MSD remote mounted ignition coil (see page 8 of holley manual https://documents.holley.com/199r11193.pdf). Since I do not have a large cap HEI .... I have a MSD pro-billet distributor #85551, I will NEED to have a remote ignition coil right??? something like: https://www.summitracing.com/parts/msd-8202 or something different that works seamlessly with the MSD dizzy AND the holley sniper.. any suggestions? should I call holley tech on the phone and sort this out, or do you guys have any advice?

--after that dilemma, I then realized the issue might be even more complicated, since included with my Holley Sniper wiring harnesses, I located the "Holley Sniper EFI coil driver module".. which I had never heard of before today. this: https://www.summitracing.com/parts/sne-556-150 . so now I am getting more confused about what I need to get the ignition system proper, and next, how to wire it. I will be searching online and on the holley forums, maybe even a phone call.. but if anyone can point me in the right direction, that would be fantastic. I am confused, very much so.


the second (but probably not the last) issue I would like to resolve, is what the best method for fuel pump wiring would be. I currently already have the Racetronix FL98 wiring/relay kit in the car https://www.racetronix.biz/product.asp?ic=fpwh-005 and it is plugged into the oem bulkhead connector at the trunk area. So my plan was to keep this in place.... however the Holley sniper unit came with a pre-wired fuel pump relay and wiring!! so now I would have two relays for one 340 lph racetronix fuel pump. Initially myself and Polarbear decided that I should keep the racetronix relay and configuration, that would mean cutting up the brand new holley sniper wiring a bit, so before I do this, I wanted to see if anyone else had some thoughts or ideas?
- my gameplan would be, keep the racetronix wirign harness and relay in its entirety. I would then leave the OEM ground wire from the bulkhead to its chassis ground at the body under the rear seat. I would LEAVE the pink wire running along the drivers side rocker, since it goes to the dashboard fuel gauge, and I want that. I would keep the OEM tan wire along the rocker, but connect the sniper's "fuel pump trigger wire" to it, while then cutting out the sniper relay and its wiring?? if so, the schematic on page 14 of the quick start guide https://documents.holley.com/199r11193.pdf does not show the trigger wire to the fuel pump relay... it only shows the blue wire which would run from the relay to the pump. I will check my actual wiring harness tomorrow, but I think the sniper's fuel pump trigger wire to the sniper relay is pink?? if so, I would just connect that to the oem tan trigger wire at the rocker panel??



I still have to figure out fuel line fittings too, thats up to me basically. I need some -6 fittings and a -8 to -6 reducer as well. I might add in some 90 deg or angled fittings to keep the fuel lines neat where the enter the holley sniper at teh back-side. I wish the handheld display for the sniper showed fuel pressure as a display, but it does not. I think I will (eventually) add in a mechanical fuel pressure gauge at the sniper so I can occasionally visually check the fuel pressure. my only question here is: would the mechanical pressure gauge go on the return line after the sniper's built in regulator ??correct??



for header gaskets: I have DynoDon's 1 3/4" headers and he recommended the Remflex RFL-2007 header gaskets. I trust him, but the shape of the ports doesn't seem to really match the actual ports on my Dart Pro1 215 heads. I bought the gaskets, but is there a better option?

is there a better solution to mount my oil-pressure sender unit? I removed the stock one from my 87 TPI engine, and cleaned it up. .. but it certainly will NOT fit standing up vertically (and looks goofy), and it will probably crush into the firewall if mounted with the 90degree fitting like oem style. Is there a less bulky, more compact, simpler oil pressure sender that I can put into the oil port on the top of the block (under the distributor by the intake) ? any other solutions or parts that would work? is there a different oil passage/port in a dart SHP block I could put the oil pressure sender unit into?? it would connect ONLY to my oil pressure dashboard gauge, via the tan wire that goes through the C100. ?? otehrwise, if I do need to keep the bulky sender, I will get a proper angled fitting like https://www.ebay.com/i/153570139170?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&itemid=153570139170&targetid=859093278935&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9003720&poi=&campaignid=6470544942&mkgroupid=89253985335&rlsatarget=pla-859093278935&abcId=1139336&merchantid=8240504&gclid=CjwKCAiAj-_xBRBjEiwAmRbqYv97sXH7z4Fvx8tIpyegZu_aLVETrkIuKrwG Bx8dQJXxOwXfcHD7KRoC2LQQAvD_BwE
.. I am not really digging this orientation of the sender https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49499101773_ac921cf39f_c.jpg

last question for now:
pertaining to valve cover breathers... engine builder told me its a non-pcv system which I like. If I end up needing a catch can later, so be it, but I should be fine with the no-nitrous use N/A setup for a while. So I am going to order some push in breathers for the valve covers. my question is, can I orient the valve covers(and breathers) to both be at the rear of the engine? it cosmetically looks "goofy" to have one breather rearward and the other one towards the front on each side of the engine? There are no baffles inside the valve cover, so I think that any "pressure/breathing" would be fine if both breather holes are at the back towards the firewall. is this incorrect? https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49499821082_89bfd061d6_c.jpg







here are some photos.

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hows this for starter tooth engagement?
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even more photos can be found at this photo album link which I will add to as I take more photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/iroczman15/albums/72157713006026381


Sorry, a very long post. I hope to get some of this sorted out soon, and ANY advice is very much appreciated.

[LTb1ow]

Well thats wall of text :lol:

If the sniper is similar to my terminator, make sure your fuel pump is handled by the sniper fuel wiring/relay. In my case, my pump would not match well with Holley wiring, so I left the Holley relay alone and its output triggers my existing contacter for fuel pump.

In regards to the breathers, if you can run the covers so the breathers are up front that is best IMO. Breathers up front then hoses to the rear and a catch can or just pan evac em. Less chance of oil sloshing out of em under heavy accel.

The oil sender, check if your block has a pressure port above the oil filter, if it does, just toss your sender there.

[BonzoHansen]

is there any sealant on that OPS? you should have plenty of firewall clearance to run it there but it may need to turn more. it might even fit as shown. A big cap HEI fits no issue.

I like to install all that extra stuff after the engine is in the car, but that's just me. less to break/scratch/get in the way, less weight, easier to move around. all that.

[WildBillyT]

is there any sealant on that OPS? you should have plenty of firewall clearance to run it there but it may need to turn more. it might even fit as shown. A big cap HEI fits no issue.

I like to install all that extra stuff after the engine is in the car, but that's just me. less to break/scratch/get in the way, less weight, easier to move around. all that.

I was going to say this too- I think the OPS should have sealant on it. If you can't find a smaller OPS I *guess* you could also use braided hose to relocate it.

Regarding the breathers, those valve covers do have baffles on them. I think you can probably run both in the back without issue. Only possible downside is that oil may get thrown back there during hard acceleration. With no PCV you might get a little bit of oil mist anyway.

[PolarBear]

The GTAs came with a 45* fitting for the oil pressure sender. That would help alleviate your issue with the spacing, but you could get any number of 1/8" NPT fittings to put the sender where ever you wanted and as far away as you want, you just need to be a little creative.

[BonzoHansen]

The GTAs came with a 45* fitting for the oil pressure sender. That would help alleviate your issue with the spacing, but you could get any number of 1/8" NPT fittings to put the sender where ever you wanted and as far away as you want, you just need to be a little creative.

yup. mine runs to a T because i have 2 senders; 1 for the gauge and 1 for the factory idiot light.

[IROCZman15]

cool thanks fellas!

just as a FYI, I had just simply placed that oil pressure sender in that location for the photo to show what i was talking about visually. Then I removed it; so that is whyI did not put any thread sealant. just for mock-up. I had not intended to install it until the motor is in place, because if that contacted the firewall during the engine install I would be pist that it scratched the new firewall paint. so after I took that photo, I put the OPS back into its plastic peanut butter jar storage container and its been on my parts shelf. --I might look for a 45deg fitting(s)to re-orient it later on. I talked to the engine builder today and he said if all else fails, I can get an adapter fitting and put it into one of the oil galley holes in the shp block, basically could also do as matt mentioned, use the hole near the oil filter, unless the sender housing would be in the way of the headers etc. I'll have to check once engine is installed.
-- but I do need it, and want it to work the dash gauge, so I do appreciate your advice and for noticing it had no thread sealant (yet).

also, today when I talked to Pat (engine builder) I asked about the valve covers. he said that if I was purely doing drag racing and hard acceleration driving he would want the breathers at the front of each valve cover. for "normal" street driving, its ok to have them staggered or to the back of the engine, but to be mindful of any oil mist escaping during hard acceleration and if that happens to move the breathers to the front. he again told me not to run a pcv system on this engine.


He suggested using the integrated Holley sniper fuel pump relay and bypassing the racetronix one. That poses a problem, because I would then have to drop the exhaust, rear axle, and perhaps the tank just to connect the sniper's long blue fuel pump wire to the wiring at the top of the fuel tank?? Its a heavier gauge wire than the oem tan wire, so I couldn't just splice it in.... I would have to run it all the way back to join the heavy wire leading to the racetronix fuel pump power wire at the fuel tank's bulkhead?? right? That sounds like a ton more work than me just removing the holley sniper fuel pump relay, and running the snipers fuel pump trigger wire to my oem tan wire, to the racetronix relay (which is already working and neatly mounted by the fuel tank). why would I not want to do this?? Am I missing something? Either way, one of the relays has to go away, and it seems less work to use my existing racetronix relay and wiring, as opposed to eliminating that and running more wiring and more connections by using the holley sniper relay setup. thoughts??


lastly, for the ignition questions, he informed me that I SHOULD use my MSD Digital6 CD Capacitive Discharge box with this engine. it will need the big spark power from it. Thankfully I did not sell it and it can be used, since it is an expensive part I would't want to have to buy now.
So I will have to call holley, or find the exact proper wiring schematic.... Pat said I will need the MSD box, the holley sniper, the msd distributor, and a msd canister style ignition coil (i'll still have to buy that). does this sound correct? what about that msd coil driver little gizmo? this ignition wiring/component topic is the area where I am currently MOST confused. I'm sure it will make sense to me soon, but just hasn't clicked in my brain yet. advice is appreciated

my current 9.5" torque converter is getting shipped back to Edge racing tomorrow and they are going to get it set up for a 3,500 stall speed or somewhere around there. he will run the numbers for real when he gets it in the mail, but today we quickly discussed my cam specs and engine combination and he agrees that I should have a better converter setup. Luckily I will save some money not needing to buy a brand new one.

[sweetbmxrider]

That little cool thing isn’t needed, they say so in the q&a below the item description ****

[unstable bob gable]

Real nice looking engine

[IROCZman15]

I have been doing some research on the ignition wires, but not much yet because I was focused on getting the engine mounted in the car which would then allow me to start running fuel lines, wiring, radiator and hoses, etc. I will probably begin with the actual wiring later in the week.

On Saturday, I installed a 1gauge ground wire that connects both aluminum cylinder heads together. I will have another 1 gauge wire connecting the engine to the "framerail" and also another long 1 gauge cable going all the way back to the trunk at the battery's negative post.
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My dad came by after lunch Saturday and we rolled the car out into the driveway because my garage's height clearance would be too tight to get the lift's boom up high enough. Took the engine off the nice engine stand that Nyes racing built for shipping. Bolted up the upper motor-mount brackets and lifted the engine up, over, and down into position. Since I had nothing in the way, everything went really easy. The brand new poly mount on the passenger side gave us a very small amount of a hassle, but we got it done without any real frustration. torqued the motor mount through-bolts down, and rolled the car back into the garage.

I took a go-pro video during the install, but GoPro turned it into two videos?? any idea how I could combine them if I already added them to youtube:
video 1 (17 mins) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk8L_JjOMqQ&t=732s
video 2 (3 mins): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YK0OFfX8UxU
---the video is fairly uneventfull, and I am not a youtube video personality, so it was really just me making a recording of the engine install as a memory with my dad etc. thats all.

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Spent some time installing the new Champion American Eagle 2 row Polished Aluminum radiator. It has two 1" rows and is pretty much a direct fit, aside from some very minor trimming of the lower rubber mounting pads. I could not afford an $800 big name radiator, but have heard a good amount of things about this radiator, and the price was good too at $215 shipped. It has a nice billet cap-cover that I will put on later.

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( I still need to find an overflow/expansion tank that I like and that will fit where I want it to go.. hmm also, the lower radiator hose shape will work, so I will buy a new rubber one of those(hopefully with that coil spring inside of it to keep it from collapsing. But my upper hose will not come close to working. I will have to order a new t-stat housing, and then find a way to get a rubber upper hose from the oem radiator location, to the new t-stat location. I am thinking that an oem shape.style hose for a third gen TBI car would work? thoughts? otherwise I will have to find a hose-building kit or something to work.









Next I was going to install the fans, but I noticed that one of the 4 lower fan mounting "ears" was cracked and would never survive on the road, so I have to order a new bracket and will install the fans later. I got the power steering lines installed (with teflon tape on the threads), and fiddled with a few other things.




Decided to use the racetronix fuel pump relay and will therefore be removing the holley one from the sniper wiring harness. Reason being, that the racetronix is mounted a short 18-20 inches away from the fuel tank/pump and it uses heavier 10 gauge wiring. Whereas, the pump relay setup in the holley kit mounts inside the engine bay area, and uses a smaller 12 gauge wire that runs under the car alllllll the way back to the fuel pump, where it would then also be a challenge to connect it to the appropriate pump power feed wire. PolarBear reminded me that the sniper ecm sends a negative ground signal to trigger the relay, as opposed to a positive trigger like the racetronix. He helped me learn how to change the polarity of the relay, and I reconfigured the wires to the racetronix relay and tucked it up and out of the way.

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I will need to shorten my -8 and -6 fuel lines, since they used to go to the front of my TPI intake, and now they need to go to the rear of the holley sniper throttle body. So I am ordering a few fittings from racetronix. I think I will hold off on the mechanical fuel gauge for another time, and jut simply get the lines hooked up and secured.



One thing I came across in my ignition wiring research, is that in order to get the full benefit of self-learning and timing-control available with the holley sniper, I will need to lock-out my distributor. I am still new to this, but learned that it also requires me to make some changes in the sniper handheld, and to make sure my MSD CD box is configured properly. there are some Holley Youtube videos about this topic, so that is good. Holley recommends that if someone is installing an entirely new setup, to first not worry about the self-learning features, and just use the sniper as a TBI while letting the CD box, distributor, and coil handle the actual timing control. This is to ensure that everything else engine-wise is working properly. Then... Once I am ready to let the sniper take over full engine control, I make some wiring changes, handheld controller changes, MSD box changes, and remove the mechanical advance weights from the distributor. Then the MSD ignition box will simply supply big power to the coil and distributor, but the sniper ecm controls engine timing on its own and I can adjust things as I learn how to. Does this sound correct? This is not how I expected it, but after taking time to learn about it, this is how I think it works? Also, as Adam said, I will not need that little coil-driver device.. it is for "lower" horsepower/stock ignition setups. So, I looked around, and I THINK this is the diagram/schematic I will need to follow??
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One question I have... is, can I use my MSD ignition coil that was on my car with the TPI setup? the box style one? or do I need to have a "canister" style ignition coil? I plan to call and ask holley tomorrow, it would be nice not to have to buy a new coil, because I have my TPI style one on my parts shelf. this one: https://www.summitracing.com/parts/msd-8226?seid=srese1&gclid=CjwKCAiA-P7xBRAvEiwAow-VabEirLXYSKg3OiTFpZJzpZmQJxGBlWoxoJRqVbkKaQGAkCVDy vJ46xoC6WoQAvD_BwE . if needed, I'll buy one, but does anyone see a problem that I am not realizing?



thats it for now.


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[Joey D]

I hate wiring but love what you have done. Looks nice and clean.

[grazi]

I think you may be confusing self learn and timing control. They’re two seperate things on the Sniper. You can
Set the Sniper to self learn seperately from having it control timing on its own. I installed Sniper on my dads car a couple years ago and never hooked it up to handle timing control. He wanted it to be simpler and didn’t want to lockout distributor. You will love it by the way. Good luck

[TaKid455]

A tid bit on the OPS. Use one from a 68 GTO. PS157. Fits other applications as well. Reads same ohms as the PS155. 0-80 psi. Same thing just a shorter housing. Fits under HEI. Downside it cost a little more than the PS155.

Came across a great solution by accident. No fittings or crap. Just straight up sensor.

Had a 68 GTO in the shop while doing a Gaugemarks oil gauge install on an 80 Camaro. Thought the fitting method was hokey and went on to find a better solution which happened to be 10 ft away at the time.

Note: you may have to clearance the intake slightly depending how far the FNPT threads have been opened.

[ar0ck]

Project is coming along nicely!

[IROCZman15]

grazi: you are right. I was indeed merging the self-learning feature with the timing-control feature. my mistake. I am new to the EFi and tuning stuff. brand new. so I have a lot to learn, but thanks for your advice!

Larry: awesome, I will look into it. I was able to get a good angle/position with my current OPS configuration. it clears the firewall enough and it shows I have oil pressure on my dashboard gauge too. but if I need to redo the OPS, I will be sure to take your advice. thanks

Arock: thanks man. it is coming along indeed.

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UPDATES:

got the fuel system finished up. the relay I finally decided to use was the racetronix one since it is nearby the pump, uses heavier gauge power wire, and was already installed by me a few years ago and has worked great ever since. I did have to remove the Holley FP relay from the brand new sniper harness. I also had to shorten my -8 feed and -6 return fuel lines and hook them up to the sniper. while I was at it, I replaced the magnetic fuel filter.

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Got my new dipsticks, linkage cables, and bracket. also a mid-mount setup for the alternator. only some of these parts have been installed as of now

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next, the headers were bolted on to the engine along with new Remflex header gaskets. the headers are DynoDon's 1.75" "mid length" headers. I had them on the old engine with the DynoDon's Y-pipe and knew they would fit so I plan to use these until I actually do need something bigger (probably when the nitrous gets hooked up)

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Installed the Dorman lower radiator hose and bought a stainless steel coil/spring from Earls to help prevent it from "sucking itself closed" ever. Also a Dorman upper hose from autozone, but setup for 3rd gen TBI style mounting. it works, but maybe I will change to something fancier later on?

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spent many hours stringing wiring together in the engine bay. My goal has always been to keep the visible wiring to a minimum. I like to run spark plug wires underneath the headers. Much of the other wiring also measured, cut, crimped and put in split-loom to be tucked under the headers. it took a while and my fingers are beat to hell from that and the braided fuel line work.

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for the ignition system. I was able to find the proper schematic for what ineeded to do. The components are the holley sniper, MSD 85551 distributor, MSD digital 6 plus CD box, and a MSD ignition coil. last week I called Holley and asked if the ignition coil I had been using on my TPI setup would work, or if i needed a canister style. I was told hat my MSD Blaster 8226 (220 mili-amps) coil would work for now, but not for the big amps needed for nitrous. It was suggested that I could upgrade to the MSD 8207 coil which puts out 300 mili-amps, or even better, go to the MSD HVC-2 8253 coil (450 mili amps). thats a bit expensive, so I am not sure if I can do that right now, so currently, my MSD 8226 coil is what I am using. thoughts?





when everything is wrapped up, I will have to spend some time polishing the fresh red paint, and also the valve covers are coming off and getting a good hand polishing. they are getting a bit "used" already, but I will get them shining; thats for sure.





So...

my goal was to try to test-fire the engine by the end of this weekend. I checked over all the wiring, fuel lines for leaks, engine bay for loose tools and items, filled up 6 quarts of Valvoline VR1 20-50 racing oil (very thick oil!), added about 4 gallons of 93 octane fuel, and cranked it over.

It cranked for a second, coughed, and ran for 2 seconds. I was excited. So I cranked it again, and it fired up, ran (roughly) for a half a minute at idle (see youtube video) . I shut it off and noticed it was running very very rich. it even sneezed a bit of fuel through the sniper. I checked on the sniper handheld and opened the butterflies to let the intake vent out. cranked it over again about 10 mins later and it ran about the same, but still rich. lots of smoke and smell in the garage. but it ran! (alternator belt is a little loose, will tighten that) also, FYI it is just open headers for now, not even a y-pipe until I get the transmission back installed. I wonder if the o2 sensor is reading badly because of just an open header exit 2" away from the sensor?

short VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DECdJ5YrwgU


so, I will have to look into the running rich issue. I will have to spend some time with the sniper tutorial, the handheld, and maybe call holley tech support to ask some questions.
I still need to finish wiring up the cooling fans/relays, and I have yet to install the actual throttle cable and bracket.

The torque converter is in California getting redone, and hopefully it will be back soon. then I can install the transmission and do a road-test.

[wretched73]

Congrats! That's an exciting milestone.

Your O2 sensor is definitely reading poorly being that close to where the exhaust is exiting. Once you put the Y pipe on it will help a lot

[sweetbmxrider]

Would the o2s even be reading yet? Not familiar with aftermarket stuff. I would think tune or timing issue first

[IROCZman15]

I called Nyes racing engines today to ask Pat's thoughts. he agreed with me (and wretched73) that without a collector or y-pipe, the O2 sensor would be fooled and read crazy values, thus richening up the fuel mixture. This is what I thought also. It might be another week before the torque converter comes back, and before the transmission goes back in, so maybe I'll just bolt up the y-pipe, and the cat back exhaust and see if that changes how it runs and the rich air/fuel situation

Pat had the engine tuned up and the timing was set at the distributor (I have not checked anything with a timing light yet, but I will do so). I did try to make a "new run file" by setting the very basic parameters on the holley sniper in a new file, but did not get too into the setup/configuration just yet. before I do so, I should read and watch the setup tutorials.

[sweetbmxrider]

Did he say anything about running the motor with no load? Something my old school guys mentioned. I’m sure just a little idling and revs with no trans is fine but you should ask their opinion on it

[IROCZman15]

next time I talk to him I will ask.
I wish I could put in the transmission, but I have to wait for the torque converter to be re-configured and shipped back to me. So I only ran the engine a short bit just to test the ignition wiring, and fuel system for leaks, and etc. I put a floor jack under the oil pan just to support the back end of the engine, but as you said.. there was no load/trans connected so I didn't get crazy with revving it up or anything.

The trans guru (Dana at ProBuilt Automatics) reccomended that I put ina few quarts of CAT transmission fluid along with my AMSOIL synthetic ATF) he says he recomends it for road race cars, autoX, and drag cars. I had never heard of this, but he says he has been doing it since the 1990's with great success. anyone thoughts?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/133300100305?ul_noapp=true
- I already bought a gallon, and I do trust the guy, but has anyone used this before?

[LTb1ow]

The one I have heard of is JD tractor fluid, hyguard, and that is mainly for turbo cars that bump into the box to get boost up. It will handle heat better, but you usually read that it tightens up the torque converter.

Make sure you ask if the trans has the correct filter in the pan to run the different fluid, Hyguard comes with the recomendation of a brass mesh vs OE paper

[grazi]

You can temporarily disable your 02 sensor with the handheld if you want to run it without the 02’s. I forget off the top of my head it’s all in the instructions. Do you have sniper controlling your timing yet or is it locked. May be better of locking it until you get it running right. Your timing almost seems a bit too advanced by how it was cranking. Looks good though!!!!

[IROCZman15]

Matt: cool. I rechecked with Dana and he said for all his transmission builds, he only uses the proper SPX "sealed power" filters that definitely work with the CAT fluid . he assured me that the trans will run cooler, live longer, and keep the planetaries alive if I do some on-track road course racing etc.


grazi: I forgot about disabling the O2 sensor! I may try it tomorrow. or, I might just bolt up the Y-pipe, it only takes a few minutes to do it. I haven't dug in too deep with the handheld sniper device yet.
- as for timing, I am not having the sniper control timing (yet) I want to have the car on the road and sort out any other gremlins I need to adjust before getting deeper into the ignition. So, currently the distributor is exactly the same as it was when the engine was built a few weeks ago. All I did was take the cap off real quick, and put it back on. It is a regular MSD 85551, with the advance springs and weights controlling the timing. My MSD box and coil supply the power. Actually, for curiosity sake, I should put a timing light on it one day once I have it running again.

Tomorrow I will setup the Lokar throttle cable and its bracket. I also will build the relays for the cooling fans and test/trigger them using the sniper handheld.


I spoke to Andre at Edge Racing Converters today on the phone. He had my converter cut open and cleaned up. He said all internal parts looked great, and there was minimal wear after 2 years of use. So, He looked at my cam specs, rear gear ratio, and we discussed that I want the car to be first and foremost a street car... but also be able to do a track day or autoX event. He is going with a 3,400 stall speed. The converter has anti-balooning plates in it. It will come with a renewed 2 year warranty. He knows I plan to spray some nitrous at it occasionally too, and that the nitrous will be ramped in progressively by the sniper unit.

I plan on using 4th gear TCC lockup still, but I am not sure if I am going to do it using a toggle switch (like I did for 2 years) or go with an automatically controlled kit. The trans builder recommended the painless wiring kit, but warned me that it is more expensive than most other kits. https://www.painlessperformance.com/webcat/60109 I can always add this later, so I am going to hold off for now, and probably just keep my manually activated toggle switch that I have been used to.

[PolarBear]

You don't need half of that stuff from the Painless kit though, you would be wasting money buying it

[IROCZman15]

PolarBear: yea the price seemed pretty high, and I am in NO real rush to have TCC lockup right away. Good to know that I can probably go with a more affordable kit that will do the job just fine. cool. thanks



converter is being shipped and should arrive this week. Then I can install it, install the trans, the trans fluid lines, new Lokar locking dipstick, Lokar TV cable, and the Dennys Driveshaft. hopefully that should get me a chance to do a road test.

I did begin to install the locking dipstick, and needed to drop the trans pan to do so. it clicks together and the lower part has a locking threaded portion design. it also comes with a click-in plug for if you need to take the trans out of the car or transport it etc.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49571700093_1700abb808_c.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49572210386_12fbee7d2b_c.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49571702578_ba744581f3_c.jpg

I installed the Lokar throttle cable and its sniper bracket. I forgot to take a close-up photo of it installed, but it can be seen in other photos below

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49572211336_cd9391145a_c.jpg




The coolant overflow/expansion tank arrived and I got it mounted up.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49571710658_458703c27c_c.jpg

Spent a LOT of time running wires, tucking them in split loom after labeling them and building the relays for the two electric fans. I tested the fans too by changing the on/off parameters in the sniper handheld, and both fans turned on and off when I commanded them to; success! Since I have a 160 thermostat, the engine builder recommended Fan 1 come on at 190 and turn off at 160. Fan 2 come on at 210 and off at 280(***correction, I meant off at 180!! ) . With the high volume water pump, Evans coolant, big 2 core aluminum radiator, no AC, and intact air dam.. I am hopeful that I will not have any cooling problems.


It was nice out today so I pushed the car out in the driveway and some neighbors came by to check out my progress, and they helped me put the hood back on too. After that I gave the car a much needed wash and took some photos.



https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49571704813_b10502c302_c.jpg


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49572442322_a974e4a5f4_c.jpg


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49572214766_3f6a7f1caf_c.jpg


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49572214906_dae830c3bb_c.jpg


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49572214961_c148be9605_c.jpg




https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49572448512_20c133250b_c.jpg






I am happy with the progress so far.
I will need to re-learn the car and what the new powerplant wants, and will have to work on not-frying the rear tires before adding in Lockup. My budget is getting diminished currently, and I was really hoping to be able to find/buy a nice set of wheels/drag radials or slicks. Also would still love to have the 6 point roll-bar done one day, somehow.



https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49571710733_132d7258fc_c.jpg



Now that the hood is on, I can get a proper measurement for an air cleaner/filter setup. I really don't think I am digging the typical round circle air filter for this car. I am kinda leaning towards the oval shaped look. I know its not typical 3rd gen fbody, but I am thinking it might look pretty good with the my under-hood components. something like:

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/ems-ms215-96p
or
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/ems-ms215-95ca
or
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/bsp-15420
or
??? thoughts??




took a short video walk-around
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TBbf6jNX5w&t=1s

[3.4 grape of wrath]

Beautiful build.

[sweetbmxrider]

On at 210 and off at 280?

[grazi]

Looks awesome dude

[LTb1ow]

On at 210 and off at 280?

Prob in the theory that you have a problem and you don't want the fan turning off.

I think both of mine come on around 180, my car never gets above 200 afaik

[IROCZman15]

On at 210 and off at 280?



oh wow! I didn't notice my typo. that was a mistake. my bad.

I changed some of the settings in the handheld today actually, but the 280 deg was a mistake

Fan1: on 190 off 160
Fan 2: on 215 off 195


I dont think the holley software allows you to have the fan off temp at/above the fan on temp. it must be below or the handheld wont let you input the info.
thoughts?

[sweetbmxrider]

Makes sense to me

[PolarBear]

I don't know if this is right or not, but I think you want to set your fan temps closer to the thermostat, no? Fan 2 would basically be an "oh ****, somethings wrong" fan and will probably never come on at all. Those on/off temps seem way too far apart too.
I have the fans in my car come on at 20 above the thermostat, and off 5 over, then the other fan is 30 over and 5 above. Something like that, so fan 2 comes on more frequently as needed instead of waiting until you have a LOT of heat in the system

With it like that, when you're sitting still the temp is going to go all the way up to 190, then down to 160, over and over instead of keeping the temp relatively consistent.

[IROCZman15]

I don't know if this is right or not, but I think you want to set your fan temps closer to the thermostat, no? Fan 2 would basically be an "oh ****, somethings wrong" fan and will probably never come on at all. Those on/off temps seem way too far apart too.
I have the fans in my car come on at 20 above the thermostat, and off 5 over, then the other fan is 30 over and 5 above. Something like that, so fan 2 comes on more frequently as needed instead of waiting until you have a LOT of heat in the system

With it like that, when you're sitting still the temp is going to go all the way up to 190, then down to 160, over and over instead of keeping the temp relatively consistent.


good point, good point. that's the type of feedback and advice I like to hear on this thread. thanks man.

What numbers do you suggest I use for the fan1 and fan 2 then. 160 deg thermostat.. and more importantly, the Holley Sniper ecm changed from open loop to closed loop and begins learning (fuel enrichment etc) only when the engine gets up to 160 deg. It provides the 160 deg number many times in the user manual, so I don't want to really be cooling the engine down below that, or it would cause the ecm to change back to open loop and non-learning, etc? right? or wrong?



so, the torque converter shipped out today, it should arrive friday. perhaps I can get it installed with the trans and driveshaft and get the car out for a road test by the end of the weekend..?


However, I still need an air cleaner assembly, so I built a mock-up of a oval shaped one and a circle shaped one out of cardboard just to check the dimensions and hood clearance..as well as to see what it might look like cosmetically. both cardboard mock-ups are a bit taller/chunkier than actual part dimensions, but it was just for a quick visual look, and to check hood clearance. here are some photos... here are some photos...


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49582348936_aa6d56eef0_c.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49581853273_728d36529a_c.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49582581752_a1b2f51b6f_c.jpg


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49581853233_b361785c8a_c.jpg


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49582581782_6bc71d8b18_c.jpg


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49582349136_5cf3d8d930_c.jpg





thoughts?




so, from my choices below, you can kind of tell that I am leaning towards the oval shape. I want something sleek but bold/aggressive. no company logos/names/writing on it, no colors or powdercoating, and capable of flowing enough air into the engine. the circle style will work, but it seems too traditional to me.


Here are some choices (in order of my choices):

1. https://www.summitracing.com/parts/bsp-15420

2. https://www.summitracing.com/parts/bsp-15320 (less long than the one above this)

3. https://www.summitracing.com/parts/bsp-15640

4. https://www.summitracing.com/parts/sum-g280

5. https://www.summitracing.com/parts/sum-g286

6. https://www.summitracing.com/parts/bsp-15329

7. https://www.summitracing.com/parts/bsp-15429

8. https://www.summitracing.com/parts/ems-ms215-96p

9. https://www.summitracing.com/parts/ems-ms215-90p

10. https://www.summitracing.com/parts/hly-120-141

11. https://www.summitracing.com/parts/ems-ms215-91m

12. https://www.summitracing.com/parts/bsp-15630

13. https://www.summitracing.com/parts/trd-6021

14. https://www.summitracing.com/parts/sdm-pce104-1006



In the end it will come down to my personal preference, but figured I would put some choices out there to see if anyone had any serious gripes or criticism before I place the order tomorrow night. .

[sweetbmxrider]

That first one looks nice man, I like it

[unstable bob gable]

I think an oval one looks pretty boss.

[PolarBear]

I don't know, maybe fan 1 on at 175* and off at 160 then fan 2 on at 185 off at 165?

Since you have a 160 thermostat, and you should have enough cooling capacity, when you're cruising the car should stay around 160-165 without the fans. I don't see why you would want the car to get much higher temp than that when you're sitting still.

If someone wants to call me out on my logic, please do.

[IROCZman15]

I don't know, maybe fan 1 on at 175* and off at 160 then fan 2 on at 185 off at 165?

Since you have a 160 thermostat, and you should have enough cooling capacity, when you're cruising the car should stay around 160-165 without the fans. I don't see why you would want the car to get much higher temp than that when you're sitting still.

If someone wants to call me out on my logic, please do.


awesome. yea, that does sound a bit more appropriate. I am really hoping never to see over 200 210 deg on on the temp gauge. so settign the fans around the values you listed would be better. and, if I know that I am driving into traffic on a hot day, I can go into the handheld and a few clicks later I cna change the values to get the fans to turn on and stay on, and then reset them later on. if needed. probably going to have to see how the car/engine likes it in early spring, and then re-assess things come the heat of summer.



I am glad everyone seems to like the oval shape, even lots of friends from my other groups all like the oval. I expected to have more people say go with a traditional circle, but i am glad to hear the oval is the general consensus.

here are few quick photshops,

my favorite choice is still the longer billet specialties one:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49585735222_126a15df73.jpg


but here are a few others.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49584999198_a2bc832985.jpg


I might not go with a red/purple K&N filter though. white paper filter element seems to look better with the silver and polished components.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49585498301_43764f4f2c.jpg not much a fan of hte edelbrock writing on it tho

[wretched73]

I like the first 2 photoshops the best. Just make sure to jam the biggest one you can fit

[IROCZman15]

I decided on buying the one I liked from the start, the Billet Specialties 15420. It arrived yesterday and I had my wife help me put it on. I have plenty of hood height clearance, which will be good for when I do put the nitrous wet-plate on. I could perhaps go with a taller filter element too, but this one is good for now.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49603047442_6dbfa8354e_c.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49602282233_053c42ff33_c.jpg



https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49602783356_0d5b563796_c.jpg



https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49602281873_06a3338638_c.jpg











The torque converter arrived back from Edge Racing Converters, it now has a 3,400 stall and a renewed 2 year warranty. anti ballooning plates etc.


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49603047212_c070db73c7_c.jpg


Installed the converter today, as well as the transmission (a ProStreet Elite unit from Dana at Probuilt Automatics). Bolted in the Dennys nitrous-ready driveshaft, ran the trans lines, lokar cut-to-fit TV cable, shifter cable, etc. The Lokar "anchor-tight" dipstick I got is too long.....I kinda thought it was going to be, but I had no real way to measure the length I needed when the trans was not in the car. So, I just ordered Lokar 1211234 (13") to replace my Lokar 1211244 (26") dipstick and tube. THANKFULLY, I will simply be able to un-click the dipstick tube from the transmission fitting and click in the newer, shorter one; thats the design of the lokar anchor-tight units, should be a quick install. My longer one will be going up for sale, and is in perfect condition. it is just too long and I have nowhere on the firewall I want to mount it. (see photo and video)



Gave the entire car a check over, and lowered it down to the ground. Started it up and pulled it out in the driveway. Added more ATF (AMSOIL ATF and 1 gallon of the CATerpillar ATF that Dana recommended). Drove around the neighborhood a few times stopping at my house occasionally to check, and add atf as needed.

Car drove great. sounds AWESOME in real life. I have the cut-out half open in this youtube video of it at idle. Total run time today was about 45 minutes, and it never stalled or anything. The Holley sniper display is something I need to get familiar with glancing at while I drive, and I still need to learn/adjust some parameters. Fan 1 came on when I was idling for a while and the coolant temp got to about 195.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49603087032_2ec46ba890_c.jpg
(yea, see the the tach difference on the holley vs the oem gauge, I've read about it before)





After the low speed neighborhood laps I took it out to a few main roads and laid into it a bit. It sure has a lot more torque than my old 305 and revv's up fast. It basically just blows the tires off in 1st and 2nd gear until I get off the pedal. It will take some getting used to thats for sure, but it put a huge smile on my face to finally have this car at a performance level I have dreamed of.

some things I need to take care of:
- Shorter anchor-tight trans dipstick (has been ordered)
- fix power steering belt and tighten better (it slipped off the pulley)
- something must be loose inside my Hooker muffler, as I hear a odd flutter from it and when I knock on the muffler case something metallic rattles/buzzes
- cleanup/detailing of the engine bay and painting some bolt heads, hood hinges, install filler plate in bumper etc
(oh, and after I finish off these Nitto 555 street tires, I am going to have to look for something with much more grip)


this video was taken the first minute I pulled it out of the garage when the sniper was in open loop and is still learning the engine.* after the 12 miles today the idle has cleaned up a lot and it runs much smoother.*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaXsGx2nytU


overall, super happy with this project! the dream of taking my high school car and turning it into a +500 hp street car is pretty much complete

[sweetbmxrider]

Nice work, Dave. Car definitely sounds healthy haha. Can’t wait for you to go racing!!

[LTb1ow]

Did you measure and adjust the trans dipstick for correct fluid level?

[IROCZman15]

Did you measure and adjust the trans dipstick for correct fluid level?



not sure that I do have to do that? I got the Lokarn anchor-tight dipstick that is specifically made for the 700R4, so I didnt think i would have to adjust anything? these type dipsticks arte not made to ber measured or cut or modified as far as I've ever seen/re3ad.


thanks adam, it sound smuch better in person, especially with the cutout half-open. with it totally closed the car is just the right amount of quiet to avoid being noticed when I dont want to nbe and to keep the neighbord happy at odd hours of the day/night. when its fully open the exhaust gets a little raspy as it goes through the rpms,

I tightened up the power steerin belt and went for a drive today, about 15 miles. it should be good to go now. I might pull some spark plugs later and give them a look.

I plan to download the Holey EFI sniper software and try to put my brain to learning it. maybe try some data logs etc

[LTb1ow]

Ya, I am not sure, on my lokar, I had to trim the end so the dipstick part would show the correct level. Granted, I may have had a universal version.

And def download the software, I am certainly no expert but there is a ton of info out there to support the stuff. I am really enjoying constantly tweaking and playing with my tune while I wait for my hotside to be back on car.

[IROCZman15]

I downloaded the software to my desktop computer in the house successfully, but was sad to learn that when I tried to download the same holley sniper efi software to the very old (10 year old HP laptop I got for free from a co-worker) that I keep in the garage, the software won't download to it. Bummer, I was going to try to use this laptop specifically just for the car and garage only. crap. Also, I know zero.zero info about tuning or how to even read data, so once I data log, making any sense out of it will take me some time, as well as making changes(correct changes)



I drove the car more today. roads were very crowded so I couldnt really get on it to much. I did hit the highway a little bit. when I mash the throttle at mid/higher rpms, the car does want to get up and go, but it sure doesn't feel like +500 hp worth of power. it felt similar to the pull/surge of spraying the 100 nitrous shot into my old 305 at wot, good and noticeable, but nothing neck breaking. I am sure tthat something's gotta be adjusted or figured out, which is a new territory for me; troubleshooting/tuning/dialing-it-in. . I do feel the instant kick/torque from a dead stop, slow roll, but it doesnt feel like its making the big power. ?? I expected to be rocked going from a TPI 305 with a 100 shot to a 531hp/513 tq level. I know there is a fair amount of tire spin, but I think there is more to this that I have to figure out to make the engine come alive in the car as opposed to the engine dyno.

I also have a chirp/shreeeak/weeeessshhhhh noise (not a squeal) for about 1.5 seconds whenever I go to WOT. Something is telling me it is not a belt, but coming from the sniper?? I searched online about this, but nothing much came up. Might call Holley tomorrow and ask.

IT is supposed to be nice weather tomorrow, so maybe I can take the car out again for a bit and try to datalog. I also wanted to try the 1/4 and 1/8 mile feature of the free TRC (That Racing Channel) phone app. I am no experienced racer, but right now the car feels like a high 12 second car, which isn't a bad starting point, but I believe that for the power/tq of the new motor, the 3,400 converter, 3.55 gears, and approx 3,400 pounds (plus another 200 pounds with me driving) it should be quite a bit rowdier. It definitely felt that way yesterday, but today not so much. it was fast, but not where it should be.

I can try to get the car weighed again at the local quarry tomorrow too, since I last weighed in in November with the old engine etc and it was 3,410 without me. I'll check plugs, belts, vac leaks, and to an underneath/engine bay bolt check too.


- Anyone with any suggestions, tuning ideas, component configuration changes, let me know. and thank you! It'll get there, I just have to figure out how to make it feel/perform like a mid-high 11 second car, which is the territory I was shooting for before pouring nitrous to it.

[LTb1ow]

If you are doing this all on the base holley tune, I would highly suggest not doing that.

The canned tune it created for my car was pretty bad, it would probably run, but I would not expect much else from it.

[wretched73]

Doesn't it have the same tune in it that it was dyno'd with?

Can you post that dyno sheet again?

[IROCZman15]

it's not the base Holley tune. it is indeed the tune from when the engine was dyno'd, but there wasn't much tuning that needed to be done on the dyno. the sniper is NOT controlling timing advance ..that is still currently handled by the weights/springs in the new distributor...for now. But it was run on the dyno in this exact configuration. In my car, its a different story (converter, exhaust, gears) Took the car out today again for a short bit, its certainly good at frying the tires down low and accelerating great, but not earth shattering just yet.

Stopepd over at the quarry's scale and weighed it with a full tank of fuel. Previous weight was 3,410. Current weight is 3,440. I know the heavy 1 gauge wiring (78 feet of it!) added weight during the battery relocation project and battery box. Glad the new engine, sheetmetal enginebay panels, cooling system, etc didn't add too much to the car. I am sure I lost weight somewhere too, but gained it back as well. Would love to put it on 4 corner scales again and see how my weight distribution is, but for now, I'll live with the 3,440 pounds. street-car

Called holley about the TBI whistle noise. They knew exactly what I was talking about! I also found info on it online and the whistle noise was discussed in a youtube video. People determined it to be with the airflow through/past the IAC. it causes a completely harmless whistle, but it is indeed an odd sound for a N/A car! the solution is one of those 4 barrel carb/tbi spacers. I will probably do this to solve the whistle noise, but ALSO because I am surprised how much heat soak makes it up to the ECU area of the sniper unit. Many people (including holley tech) recommend a 4 barrel spacer to keep the heat out of the TBI and it's self-contained ECU unit. Will order one soon.

Called pat at Nyes. He suggested I check the ignition timing not only at idle (which I checked and is 14-15 deg with my timing light), but also at 3,500 rpm when it should be full advanced and be around 38 deg. This is not something I have ever checked before, and I'll need a helper/neighbor/wife to come work the pedal. I tried it today, but my timing light (innova) wasn't flashing steady at higher RPMs??? new territory for me. Pat said that sometimes the combination of MSD boxes, coil, distributor, etc can retard ignition timing a few deg during advance, so perhaps diagnosing this as correct or incorrect can help steer me in the right direction. This can/will all change later when I lock-out the distributor and let the sniper control timing, but for now I' would like to check it as it is configured.

otherwise, I want to put the car up in the air again, do a full bolt/nut check on everything, check driveline angle, degrease underneath, and figure out that exhaust shield/muffler rattle. have to realign the hood, and install the shorter trans fluid dipstick when it arrives.

I took a few data logs while doing some easy driving around town today, so maybe I'll get them uploaded and start to learn. I would love to try to put a newer version of windows on that olde laptop I have. While talking to Holley tech they told me the sniper software won't work with Windows Xp which is what I have on that old laptop. It also runs very slow, but I was hoping to try to make it work. otherwise I'll just have to remove the SD card and bring it inside to my desktop.

here is the dyno sheet. also the build sheet and tech info is on page 1 of this thread too
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49499600221_84cc432cb4_c.jpg
engine was in the exact same configuration as it is now (aside from air filter), afterwards oil was drained and new oil filter put on. plugs were left in it and showed a nice ignition firing mark on the straps when it arrived. gapped at .035 autolite 3924

[WildBillyT]

Sounds like you need to dig in to the timing a bit.

You aren't using a dial back timing light are you? Those don't always play nice with MSD boxes.

[grazi]

What value is sniper showing at idle. Should be around 30 I believe. If the iac is commanded to fully open (I believe it’s 80 on the handheld) you’ll hear the whistle. You may need to adjust your throttle blades

[IROCZman15]

WBT : I am using this timing light. https://shop.advanceautoparts.com/p/innova-digital-timing-light-3568/12071152-p?product_channel=local&store=7681 I don't think it is a "dial back" style right? Timing/tuning is a very new topic for me so bear with me as I learn!


grazi : what value are you referring to? IAC ? I have read about adjusting throttle blades. I get the whistle when the TPS sensor reads above 30% open or so, it happened 3 times today and I saw about 30-35% on the TPS reading at that time. Unsure of the IAC value at that moment though


I have so far put 105 miles on the car/engine since saturday; almost one full tank of gas, but lots of idleing and stationary running time. Did a good 40 miles of highway today. It is definitely no slouch! It pulls hard in every gear except 4th(OD). I like it, I will check and verify timing at full advance(should be 38 deg right)? I think the sniper is learning, since throttle response and drive-ability is seeming to get better. I just want to be sure I'm not operating at a reduced capability of what the engine is capable of, thats what I meant by my previous posts... it reaching its full potential..



Last night I de-greased the underside completely. Very clean chassis now. This was because, yesterday I was sad to see a drip of oil coming form the pan/flexplate area when I pulled out of the garage. I checked, and it looks like leaking at the rear main? I am thinking this is because I do not have a PVC valve... I have seen some light smoke vapor coming from both valve cover breathers when the hood is open and engine is idling while hot. I think I have too much crankcase pressure. I will remove one breather and put in a PCV valve. Any suggestions on one that is not just a cheap-o plastic chineese component? I would like something nice, reliable, shiny, and compact. I only will be doing a PCV on the one valve cover and the other one will retain a breather. I am not in the market for expensive new valve covers yet, so we are going to try one PVC and see if ti works.
-Question, if the rear main seal is now leaking, is there a chance that it can NOT leak if I install a PCV, or is it pretty much now that the seal leaks, it will always leak? I am going to call Pat at Nyes too, but figured I would ask here.


The car is indeed fast. The engine has power, thats for sure. I hope to get it all dialed in somewhat soon, but there is a chance that if Island dragway is open for test and tune this sunday, I might go. Despite my 5 year old and worn out Nitto 555 street tires, I would hope for a mid-low 12 ? Thoughts? in full street trim.

I determined the source of the exhaust rattle. I took down the Hooker AeroChamber muffler and found that an internal pipe in the muffler broke off of its bracket inside the case. No way to remove it and no way to fix it without cutting open the whole muffler case and re-welding it. No thanks. Holley/Hooker is replacing it at reduced cost and free shipping. short video explaining what the heck I'm talking about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PojNWPOOwKk

I don't mind the whistle, but i want to try to adjust IAC and throttle blades if that might clear up the whistle and also maximize performance. I still might do an inexpensive Phenolic spacer, in order to reduce heat soak to the sniper ecu. Just preventative. thoughts? I have read that ONLY 4 barrel/hole spacers are suggested with the sniper. somethign liek : https://www.ebay.com/i/261328386669?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&itemid=261328386669&targetid=886140166958&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9003720&poi=&campaignid=9426387570&mkgroupid=98549529271&rlsatarget=pla-886140166958&abcId=1140476&merchantid=10151234&gclid=CjwKCAiA-vLyBRBWEiwAzOkGVFEsEJNBPwM2PTlfRyea4qeayIRm2dimDDo cfOiQS1c_80XnABFYthoC7UUQAvD_BwE thoughts? I STILL have every intention of hooking up my nitrous to this engine one day. I am wondering if the above spacer will play nice with a wet nitrous plate??


My shorter trans dipstick arrives today. will install it while cleaning up the trace amount of oil at the rear seal that I can see. I really hope the seal issue can go way with a PCV system.

I am probably going to be buying/installing hood pins soon. I was doing some "testing" and at high speeds I can still see my fiberglass hood lift. I have all new hood bumpers and pads and they are adjusted as best as I can get, but I would really really hate to have the fiberglass hood lift and crack or fly open/off. I love the clean look of my hood, but I think a nice set of hood pins would be ok. I am not into the areocatch or quick latch style for this car, so something like : https://www.summitracing.com/parts/dmg-5r3z6316892k?seid=srese1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAwP3yBRCkARIsAABGiPqTmzQrk-QEujnJxVx9WeGYlpbVcVOutR8X9OR0NRpVqqpqvoI1wroaAl_l EALw_wcB with the lanyards/cables removed.

[grazi]

Message me if you go to island. I plan on going.

[IROCZman15]

ok, will do

ok, phew. it is NOT the rear main seal. there was oil higher up on the backside of the engine and some in the front trickling down by the manifold area.* I pulled the old PCV valve off my 305 TPi valve cover and rigged up a TEMPORARY PVC valve setup which T's into the brake booster line and then both go into the back of the sniper.* after wiping down the oil, I did a 20 minute test drive and came back and no smoking from the one remaining breather. pcv valve is sucking well, but the grommet is a little loose,and I do still want to test this setup more. but hopefully this will prevent positive crankcase issues causing the oil leaks up by the intake.* hopefully I don't have to re-seal anything?* my brakes are a little less grabby, as to be expected,* *this is a tradeoff for sharing the vacum port right?* any other options ?

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49619288628_b74482eae6_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2iAFPNm)Untitled (https://flic.kr/p/2iAFPNm) by David Martin (https://www.flickr.com/photos/iroczman15/), on Flickr




while I was out for my test drive, the UPS guy came and dropped off the replacement (shorter) trans dipstick. while the engine cooled down I installed it.* My longer one is now up for sale. make an offer if you want it before I put it on ebay and the classifieds.*


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49619804461_5b190eb204_c.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49619288628_b74482eae6_c.jpg

I checked timing again. base timing at idle is 14-15 deg.* Help me out here if I am doing something wrong.* So, my Innova timing light is set at ZERO and I am reading 15 deg on the balancer. right? right.* Then i push the up button on the timing light till it gets to 38 deg, right? next I shoot the light at the balancer while revving up the engine to around 3,500 rpms.* I can't get a steady flashing reading, it just flashes all over.* *should I not be dialing the timing light up?* am I doing something wrong?

I also played around with the IAC and throttle position settings as per the manual and recommended by others. Had the car plenty warm, (see video) in neutral, and TPS sensor was at 0 deg. My IAC starts high and sometimes levels off lower, but later on it will become high again. I fiddles with the adjuster screw and got it to between 2-10 on the handheld display.* this made it run badly ,and in fact it would stall out whenever I would go to give it throttle...* engine stalls out/off in the video.* *during the test drive, if I stabbed the throttle, it wold buck and hesitate for a second, then wind up and go.* it was not doing this earlier today... it would just go.*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Imz6jIJN-sU

[LTb1ow]

Did you do the TPS wizard after every TB ajustment?

[IROCZman15]

Of course not! I currently have no idea what I’m doing !!!
All I did was cycle the key or restart the car if the engine stalled (like in the video). The holley sniper manual says to just cycle the key to reset TPS. didn't see a wizard for it?

[WildBillyT]

You can try using the light not dialed up, but I think the issue may be your light with the MSD. I had a nice digital timing light I was using until I put on the MSD then I had to buy a basic non-adjustable one.

I think the issue stems from the multiple sparks and the light picking them up.

Just looked it up- INNOVA says none of their timing lights work with MSD ignitions.

[IROCZman15]

I was doing some research last night and I posted on third gen.org when I learned about my timing light not working with the multiple sparks. That was not fun to learn. So it looks like my brand new hardly used timing light will be going up for sale if anyone wants to buy it. I’ll be picking up an older style timing late today at my shop in Chatham and see if that will work with the multiple spark ignition. Once I can figure that out I think things will be better but it does suck to know that the new timing light I have will not work with the new msd ignition setup

[LTb1ow]

Of course not! I currently have no idea what I’m doing !!!
All I did was cycle the key or restart the car if the engine stalled (like in the video). The holley sniper manual says to just cycle the key to reset TPS. didn't see a wizard for it?

My bad, I keep making the bad assumption all holley products have similar software. :facepalm:

https://forums.holley.com/showthread.php?22246-TPS-Autoset

"Once the engine is up to operating temperature, the idle speed can be set to what was configured in the Wizard.
To do this, open up the Initial Startup gauge screen that was used in section 17.0. With the vehicle in neutral,
adjust the idle screw until the IAC Position reads between 2 & 10%. While adjusting the idle speed screw, if the
TPS Position begins to read higher than 0%, cycling the ignition switch will recalibrate the TPS back to zero.
NOTE: Do not attempt to set the Target Idle Speed and IAC Position until the engine is above 160°F!"

[grazi]

I wonder if you have a vacuum leak. That would cause the iac being low, the stalling at idle, the off idle hesitation and the brakes feeling spongy (not having enough vacuum assist.) are all the vacuum ports used or plugged on the sniper?

[grazi]

I may be wrong but I don’t think you’ll want to share pcv and vacuum to your booster. The pcv May alllow too much free air into the sniper and act as a vacuum leak and not give enough assist to the booster.

[grazi]

Is the sniper controlling timing or do you have It disabled still?
Is the distributor advance locked out?

[IROCZman15]

all good points here. we may be on to something!

so yes, Matt, thats the same exact paragraph I keep reading and doing (and was what I was doing in that short youtube clip video). Thats the paragraph in my sniper quick-seput guide that myself and a neighbor were discussing and trying to dial in yesterday. I was adjusting the IAC to be between 2-10 and whenever I had it set right, it would stay there for a moment, and then fluctuate, usually higher. I would blip the throttle, and usually the motor would hesitate or stall out.

which might go along with what grazi is suggesting.. possibly with me now incorporating a PCV system, I may be introducing TOO MUCH vacuum after/below the sniper tbi unit. this is quite possible indeed.

what about if I kept the PCV valve in one valve cover, but ran it to one of the available 3/16" vac port on the sniper unit? so it wouldnt share a hose/port with the brake booster, and would still pull some positive crankcase ventilation, but instead of into a 3/8" port, it would be into a 3/16" diameter port.. basically cutting the vac pull in half? would the vacuum pressure be too much and suck the smaller hose closed? would it not be enough diameter to even do anything at all for crankcase ventilation?

didnt have a chance to work on the car today at all, will try a few things tomorrow. ... but again, the stumbling/hesitation/stalling ONLY began AFTER I incorporated the PCV valve.

and yes, the mechanical distributor MSD 85551 is still controlling the timing via the weights and springs. it is not locked out yet, and the sniper is not controlling timing yet. It will one day soon-ish, just currently is not setup that way.

[grazi]

Can you temporarily put a little air filter into the valve cover to see if it makes a difference?
Also, the sniper will probably need a little idle and drive time in learning mode to relearn every time your making changes to the iac/throttle blades/ tps settings.

[IROCZman15]

when you say, a little air filter into the valve cover.. do you mean a breather? thats what I initially was running, two open element style breathers, one per valve cover. they were beginning to show traces of oil and would give off a small waft of oil smoke at hot idle.

Thats why i popped in my old TPI's engine's PCV valve with the 3/8 hose. or did you mean something different. ?
this is what I have (different brand, no logo, but same style: https://www.summitracing.com/parts/sum-g3417?seid=srese1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAhojzBRC3ARIsAGtNtHUgTpQZTYCAXUmcp1mx 4c_jaXPb4_Ju_IuqrMJ54WvODbXYQ5nfar8aAqkwEALw_wcB

I am going to work on the car later tonight and tomorrow to hopefully get it prepped as best as possible so that I can indeed head on over to Island Dragway on Sunday for test and tune.

[WildBillyT]

Maybe you can use a remote PCV breather with a catch tank?

[IROCZman15]

WBT, I thought about that too. Was talking to JoeyD about catch cans the other day also. I made some changes to the PCV system that I explain below. Tomorrow I will get to see how well it works.


* **I plan on spending most of the day tomorrow working on the tune, timing, pcv issues.*

I will be getting the base and advanced timing confirmed/set tomorrow. I have a second timing light that is an old craftsman type. My neighbor also has one, and if all else fails I will see if I can rent one from autozone real quick.* I am going to move the target hot idle rpms up from 850 to 950 and see what that does. I will also take time out to get he IAC and TPS dialed in.* I have most of the afternoon tomorrow to do all of this, as well as test drive it, and change spark plugs if needed.**


I will datalog, probably tomorrow while driving around town, and sunday as well. If I could rig up a way to have my GoPro video record my holley sniper display I will do that too.*


PCV update.* I decided to try another experiment. I still have one fresh air breather in the drivers side valve cover. I temporarily got rid of the T fitting which connected my PCV valve (pass valve cover) and my brake booster to the sniper baseplate.* *I now just have the brake booster going directly to the 3/8 vac port at the sniper.. like I initially did.* I then took a piece of 3/16" hard-walled plastic tube and connected it to my PCV valve and to one of the 3/16" vac ports at the sniper baseplate. Therefore it could still pull some crankcase ventialation, but just only about half as much as the 3/8" hose that was on it before (which remember, T'd with the brake booster). I am going to road test this tomorrow and see how it works. I was fortunate to have the hard walled tube, because I am sure a soft rubber tube would collapse. If the smaller sized pipe works well, i will clean up the install components and make it look nice, but for now it is just an experiment

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49628270208_a3438cb90b_c.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49628788891_13178f6d24_c.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49628788896_c9ab76850a_c.jpg



My new replacement muffler arrived today.* The "rattle" I had coming from my muffler was an internal piece of pipe that broke off from inside the case. Got a new muffler at* a discounted rate from Hooker, with free shipping. Installed it today and cut open the case on the old one out of curiosity.* There was a good amount of water condensation inside it.* I am glad that I will not hear that piece of pipe rattling and rolling around anymore.*

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49628788911_dd5acbdb53_c.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49628270133_209d53ff2e_c.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49628270303_2d1f25f78c_c.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49629060172_ce1b8b7a97_c.jpg




again, tomorrow will be spent in the garage and on the road trying to get this car dialed in as much as possible. so any suggestions, tech advice, tuning advice.. please let me know.* *thanks* I will be posting an update and possibly some videos on this thread tomorrow night. maybe even some datalog info.*

[IROCZman15]

Short version:
-had fun
-nothing broke
-drove car to track, ran 6 passes, drove car home


Long version:

Got to Island Dragway today for their opening day of 2020, which was just a Test and Tune day. $45 entry fee and unloaded car. Went through tech with no problems. (the guy writing my number in white paint pen wrote it small, so the timing booth had trouble seeing it properly throughout the day, but I got timeslips for all 6 runs). Checked timing. base timing was set at 17 deg using the old timing light I had. When checking advance and total timing I revved the motor up above 3,500 rpms and saw it flickering right about 38 deg. Grazi arrived at the track around this time and we chatted about the car, the setup, and checked ignition timing. IT was nice to meet him and to talk car stuff. I checked the condition of my brand brand new plugs and looked at the "timing mark" on the ground strap. all appeared good. set front tire pressure at 35 psi and rear tire pressure at 28 psi. for all passes I only did a short dry burnout. I realized after my first run that it was easier for me to get the car around the water box by going to the far lane, so I stayed in the right lane for the rest of the day.


ALSO, I had no GoPro video camera today, left it at home by accident charging in the garage like an idiot. SO I had to use my old iPhone 4 mounted to a suction cup mount on my windshield for video; the mount is cheap and has a crack in it so it rattled, vibrated and shook around. sorry about that. The camera angle I pointed it at makes it looks like I stage the car crookedly, but I can assure you, I just had the bracket and camera pointed at an angle. Audio is not the best, as the iphone is in a lifeproof sealed case. Also, since Grazi was there, he filmed two videos from the spectator stands (run 3 and 4). I datalogged most of the runs. If anyone wants to help me by looking at some of the log files, please let me know. I would like to learn how to do this also.


Pass 1: 13.381 at 108.82mph
-had no idea what was going to happen with traction, so I just went for it. spun a bunch, started drifting to the side, but stayed in it, and got whopped by some exotic high end mercedes roadster thing. data-logged the pass
in car video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaCMfHIAvWI

Pass 2: 13.780 at 109.49 mph
- even more spin off of the launch datalogged the pass
- in car video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvgnz-24IOo

Pass 3: 12.590 at 112.07 mph (best e.t. and speed of the day)
-a bit less tire spin. stalled the engine up to about 2,000 rpms for the launch, got passed by a C7 Z06 corvette at the top end. no datalog this time
- in car video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DHFlJ_y9ZQ
- other video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr0MnXEZF-g*

Pass 4: 13.039 at 111.50 mph
- went red, some spin, datalogged
- in car video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhjfQXa4GPo
- other video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5YDCDizidk

Pass 5: 13.164 at 108.34 mph
- about the same routine. datalogged
- in car video:*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyFrw7aEn7g

Pass 6: 12.883 at 109.13 (best 60ft of the day 1.93)
- was next to the silver 4th gen camaro for this pass. ( and man, I really wanted another 12 second slip so that my 3rd run wasn't the only 12 second run), and the timing booth had difficulty reading my small white car#'s so I had to have them reissue me a hand-written slip since the girl at the finish line booth didn't have a slip matching my car number! I did afterwards hangout with the 4th gen driver and he let me take a photo of our slip. Actually, if he wasn't way late on the tree, we would have had a really tight race actually (see slip photo below) datalogged
- in car video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewCfozqudWQ



So, remember about a week ago when I wrote that long post (on this particular thread) about how the car felt like a high 12 second car, well, yea. it did, and still does, because it is ! I have talked to a multitude of people in the last week and I know there is more in the car/engine, but I am not skilled enough to find out how to unlock it.* I don't know anything about tuning, BUT I AM WILLING TO LEARN so I can maybe get this car more dialed in. Aside from a set of sticky rear tires, I would love to get it either tuned by a pro, or find a way to comprehend the tuning software/parameters with some help from a knowledgeable person.* my goal for the car in street-car N/A form is an 11.999 at around 120 mph. After that, I will put the nitrous bottle in it and install the rest of the wet-plate system with a 150-200 shot.*

The only problem area I noticed today was that many times if the car is at idle and I go to wack the throttle it almost half hesitates or stumbles for a half a second, and then it catches itself and revvs up. Again, tuning, I'm sure will show this and hopefully can remedy this.

My goal for today was of course not to break anything, to have fun, and to run under 12.50. I came close, but just a bit short. All in all, a great day. After 6 passes, street drove the car home, emptied the gear, chatted with neighbors about it, and gave it a wash. Uploaded photos and videos and will do datalogs tomorrow.



*Happy to have the car working this well at this point in early March, after only removing the old engine early January, putting the new engine in early February, and full blown rewiring, painting, bodywork, cooling system, trans, converter, and so on over the past two months of 2020.* You guys here on the board have been a huge help to me during this process, so thank you; and keep the advice coming !



full photo album can be found on my Flickr account page, but here are some photos from the day:



https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49637979022_f6a6b894fd_c.jpg

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https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49638016202_8184be5a39_c.jpg

[IROCZman15]

two areas I need advice with:

tuning: if peopel know a local place I can stop by at and learn as the tuner looks at my combination and builds a tune. also, should I keep the distributor controlling ignition timing advance or start my research into how to lock out the distributor and let the sniper unit control ignition timing?


tires:
A good set of drag radials would be great for getting my 60ft down lower, absolutely. I have had a few conversations with people who might let me borrow a set of wheels ro use their old tires. OR I am considering using the small amount of my car-budget $ to buy a set of tires to put on my old 16"x"8 iroc wheels. currently, I do not have $ to buy a set of rear wheels and tires.. no matter how cheap they are... when it is actually time for me to buy MY drag wheels, I am not just going to want something cheap, I will want something that also looks nice on the car.. so that will be expensive. But perhaps for now, for just a short while... I can get away with buying some sticky tires for the 16" iroc wheels I already own. ?? I have been told drag radials for auto cars and slicks for stick cars. ??

if slicks would be fine for my setup, Hoosier makes a 28x10-16 Bias Ply slick ?
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/hoo-18153

or if I should go with drag radials... MT ET streets ?
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/mtt-3460

[TaKid455]

Heard you guys from the house. Great weekend for an opening day. Congrats on the no break day.

If you send me the datalogs, I'll take a peak at them and see if anything seems out of place.

[IROCZman15]

Awesome. Thanks larry. I guess the best way for me to send them to you is via email, do you want to send me a PM with your email address in it ?

[LS1ow]

ahhh crap, i was going to head up to island but worked on the car instead. This local kid that wants to race me was up there running no time(black turbo 2013/14 Cali special Mustang)

They arent the best tires, and idk if they will even fit, but i have a set of ZR1 wheels with Toyo DRs for sale in the classifieds. They are practically new. Im not sure how far you are from me but if you want to give them a go and see how they do, come and get em.

[IROCZman15]

Yea man. I think I saw that mustang there. Cool

I remember seeing you selling the wheels/tires on here but I don’t think the backspacing will work my 12 bolt has the stock measurements for the rear wheel backspacing/offset. Aren’t those wheels you have pushed outboard ?

[IROCZman15]

Took out some time and converted the ignition timing control duties over to the Holley Sniper ECU. Removed the brand new MSD 85551 distributor from the brand new engine and took out the weights, springs, and locked-out the timing. Also installed the adjustable rotor, MSD 84211 and got it setup. While following along with the Holley efi youtube video tutorial, I was able to set the timing on the engine balancer. Made the appropriate wiring changes and also changed everything that I needed to in the sniper handheld, which changes the GCF file in the ECU. Fired the car up and it ran rough at first but slowly the computer began to do its thing.

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Then used the "static timing" feature on the sniper handheld to check static idle timing. it was good at 20*. used the static timing feature again to check the timing at higher rpm's and I noticed that it was retarding a few degrees, so I had learned to get this corrected by adding a few miliseconds into the inductive delay. After a few series of adjustments I settled on 130au (130 miliseconds) and that worked very well. took the car out for a good 20 minute drive and at first it was a bit jittery. during the drive the computer was learning and by the end of the drive it was much improved. Also took the car out again today for about 45 mins and again, everything is improving. It has a long way to go (to learn) but that's its job.





I am going to be working with a tuner via the internet who is pretty reputable. Mad Science Motorsports https://mad-sciencemotorsports.com/ I sent him a bunch of engine info and car info already and he will be creating a base tune ( GCF - global configuration file) for me in the next few days. It can be used as a separate tune from what the sniper ecu is learning now on its own. he/we can also create many different other tunes and revise them as many times as we need to (like a higher octane fuel tune, or e85, or several nitrous tunes). They will be stored on the SD card and I can just pick which one I want with a few taps on the handheld. Pretty Cool ! I sold a bunch of car parts online recently and made enough money to afford this investment. Basically it only cost $300 and tuning services last for life, so anything I do or change I(we) can rework the tunes accordingly. he can even remotely tune via laptop if I have my car on a dyno for testing, which I do plan to get this car on a dyno locally one day.


here is it running while sniper ecu is now controlling timing.... just a few minutes after I finished the conversion, getting the engine temp up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rPreVuJa14




I have been spending some time diving into the Sniper EFI software program and looking at my datalogs. It is new and exciting to be able to see all this stuff, and I know I am barely scratching the surface of what is able to be logged and adjusted.




Also, took a few hours and cleaned up/sanded/painted my OEM original old rear IROC-Z wheels. Its not a flawless job, but they were in pretty rough shape from being unused for the past 17 years. I didn't go crazy with the level of detail since the plan is to use them for non-show purposes. Bought the Mickey Thompson ET Streets that I was discussing above and they will be mounted on these iroc wheels one day soon. I have missed having these wheels on the car so it's pretty cool to bring them back to life.

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Couldn't make it to Island Dragway today for T&T, but perhaps next week if they are open. By then, I hope to have several revisions of the new tune and the drag radials on.

[IROCZman15]

So, not too much recently. with the race track shut down and roads "closed" the car sat for a few days. I did wash it and give it a polish/wax job too.


Got the drag radials mounted up and bolted onto the car. I took them out for a short "scuff" to break them in a little bit. they had no problem hooking up on the street at a moderate 3/4 launch. that made me happy.

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two MINOR issues I am trying to sort out (since all the big stuff is done)

1. I had been trouble-shooting the PCV system for a while now and I think I have come up with the best solution. I have a single breather in one valve cover and a (oem gm tpi 305 replacement) spec one in my othe valve cover. I ran a -6 PTFE line (3/8" diameter, with black shielding over the braided wire) to a T fitting where it splits into TWO very short 3/16" lines and then both go into the two available 3/16 vac ports in the sniper. the 3/8" vac port in the sniper is occupied by my brake booster. SO far this combination has been the best one yet. and I am not experiencing any crankcase oil leaks or mist form the breather. I had been doing all this without a vacuum gauge, and I finally was able to get my hands on one. At idle, I am only getting a reading of about 8 on the vac gauge. My brakes work really good (99% of the time I dont feel any power brake loss), and pcv seems to work. So I am happy with that. For my cam/engine combination/ and needing no other vacuum related accessories, does 8 seem like a good value? I am inexperienced in this area, so I figured I would ask here. I am really trying to avoid installing any type of ugly vacuum pump or additional accessories, so if I am good where I am at.. that issue is settled.

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2. TCC lockup:
My trans was built by ProBuilt Automatics a few years ago and is the top level (pro street elite). TCC lockup was present in 2nd 4rd and 4th and I discussed this with Dana and apparently this feature is ok, but I decided to bypass it by putting in an in-line toggle switch to CUT power to the TCC lockup when the switch is inactive, and to send power to the TCC and lock it up while cruising on the highway. I LIKE IT THIS WAY. I like being able to just flip the switch while on the highway and activate the lockup; and then to flip the switch again (or presss the brakes) and turn off lockup. Again, I like it this way. I am very un-interested in a self-contained automatically controlled lockup kit . I am aware that I can get one of those and then also use a toggle switch to control lockup, but its not what I want.
I am at the point this year where I am just wanting to drive the car and be done with the projects and work. Thats what I do in wintertime. Therefore I am not interested in dropping down the trans pan, installing a wiring kit and pressure switches, and then a relay, etc. No thanks; not now.

So, Since my transmission/lockup/TCC system worked the way I described it above, when the old 305 and the TPI ecm was in the car, that was good. now the ecm and 305 are removed. Holley sniper can not control TCC lockup. I want to use my switch. plain and simple. I bought a new pigtail (mine was cracked and missing the locking tab) for $9 on ebay. Did a lot of research online on many different websites. Looked at my shop manual schematics too. Since my setup can/had been locking up in 2nd,3rd, and 4th when activated, I figured it should still work this way, even with no ECM. (how did the tcc lockup not use a relay before, but now the aftermarket kits use relays) why stock no realy.. , jsut power from fuse panel??) so I took the new pigtail and connected it's purple wire (pin A) to the purple wire coming from my brake switch (and prior to that the <- toggle switch <-the fuse box <- power) Did NOT connect the green or tan wires since they both used to go to the oem ecm. *I have no use of the ALDL anymore and no SES light because no ECM, so that would eliminate the need for the TAN wire right??* *leaving the green wire to do....?
Did a test drive but sadly, no lockup.
****So im thinking I have to do something with one or both of the wires (tan and green) Unsure if they need to be grounded, spliced together, etc.
This is not the typical TCC lockup question, and I did search the internet, but came to no straightforward answer. I know an easy answer is to build/buy/fab up a whole relay kit and all that... but I see NO reason why I can't make MY unusual TCC configuration work with the 3 wires configured properly. I just dont know how to do the configuration. The TCC worked fine without a relay and different wiring before. shouldnt need much now to make it work. Just something to do with the tan wire and the green wire? but what?

thoughts?

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otherwise, the car is good. I am waiting on the second revision of my GCF tune from teh tuner to be emailed to me. Car runs good, but he likes to do 5-6 revisions of the tune before I go heavy WOT

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another thing I got to think about is somehow trying to get a knock sensor and knock warning indicator system into the car. like many gen 1 sbc setups, I have no knock sensor. I would like one.





pretend 5" side exit exhaust (just a joke photo)

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[grazi]

8” of mercury vacuum is super low Unless your running a really redical cam. Do you know the lobe seperation angle of your cam? Sure you don’t have a vacuum leak?

[IROCZman15]

yea, lobe separation is 110.0 deg
gross lift is .600 .600
duration at .050 is 245 and 245

I checked all around for vac leaks. my hoses are tight, the base-plate of the sniper is tight. I checked where you said to check about the bolt holes that mount the sniper to the manifold. etc. sprayed starting fluid at the vac line connections and so forth. did it again today at 6:30 pm . no evidence of leaks at the manifold to engine surfaces either.. thoguths? ideas?





been re-reading these threads abotu the lockup situation.
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/transmissions-drivetrain/680520-700r4-toggle-switch-lockup.html
and
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/carburetors/492891-tcc-control.html




.

[The_Bishop]

Why not drill and tap the manifold for a 3/8" (Or #6 AN if you want to be fancy) fitting? You'll get the correct flow without the hose shenanigans.

Also: What's your initial (idle) timing? That will change your idle vacuum.

[IROCZman15]

I had read that people have drilled and tapped the intake manifold. At this point in almost April I have no desire to pull the intake manifold off of a brand spanking new engine and drill and tap it. Not looking for any more “big” projects I understand what you are saying but I’m not trying to open up any can-of-worms type scenarios at this point. Just hoping to drive and enjoy the car and do little projects along the way

Initial timing is 17 deg. The tuner I am using sent me the revised base tune and I hope to load it and test drive the car tonight. I mentioned the vacuum to him and he said it will change as he makes tuning changes

[IROCZman15]

If it helps, I can post the cam specs/cam card again, but I know there is a photo of it on page 1 of this thread.

- as for vac, I checked it again today. I checked it directly at the 3/8" vac port at the back of the sniper and the PCV line was plugged. gauge shows still right around 8.5", mayyyybe 9" of vac. needle bounces a slight bit.. it is a steady rhythmic bounce, not erratic or jumpy , but a steady pulsing bounce.. I have sprayed starting fluid all around the intake, hoses, sniper etc and have noticed ZERO signs/symptoms of any vacuum leaks.



I was doing some thinking last night and as much as I really really hate the idea of extra items/hoses/etc in the engine bay, I might start looking into the catch can OR remote breather setup. mayyybe. I've so far learned that a catch can is different than a remote breather tank and thats different than an evac system and thats different from a vac pump setup. Reason being, mostly, I am slightly uncomfortable with sucking the crankcase vapors back into the intake and "dirtying" the intake/valves up on a brand new engine. Its unsettling, but I know it is common and used by manufacturers globally. Would feel more comfortable in the long run if I kept the intake as clean as possible, especially with everything so new and fresh.
---So, hillariously, just as I have finally seemed to find a PCV/hose setup that appears to work great, I might start thinking about re-vamping my system. !! jeez !

Some research I did shows that 8.5-9" of vacuum is on the lower end of a street setup, but is not drastically too low. My brakes work just fine and PCV valve seems to be doing its job just fine also
---- Today I took out the one breather I have (pass side valve cover) and held a paper towel to the opening at the valve cover and it is being slightly pulled into the valve cover. Used my hand there too and it is sucking my skin in. this is good. this means I have vacuum there. right? right. next, while doing this same process, I took out the PCV valve and plugged its hole/opening with my other hand, which pretty much immediately resulted in NO more suction at the valve cover hole where the breather usually is, and it began emitting a pressurized "smoke" vapor. After a few seconds of this test, I uncapped and reinserted the PCV valve and right away the passenger valve cover opening stopped smoking and began having suction again. good? yes? To me, this is all great and is the way it is supposed to be functioning right? I think it is, but perhaps hearing it from someone more experienced will ease my concern. If this is good, I'll keep it like this while I do research and possibly decide about catch can or breather tanks, maybe


Finalized the TCC lockup. followed the advice above and simply grounded the tan wire to the nearby subframe. took the car for a ride. I can flip my toggle switch (which is my OEM fog-light dashboard switch) and I can lockup the converter in 2nd, in 3rd, and in 4th gear. awesome. a press of the brake pedal also unlocks it as it is supposed to do. I was happy to get this working. It will be nice to lock it and bring the rpm's down when cruising on the highway.

The tuner will be working on my next revised tune tomorrow and hopefully Thursday or Friday I will have it sent to me so I can do some testing/datalogging/etc. I am doing my best to view this logs and Global Config Files (*tunes) on the holley sniper software. some of it makes sense to me and I think it is really cool to see all this data, but most of this stuff is still over my head (for now) .


all in all, the car is doing good. unfortunately with the global pandemic and COVID-19 pandemic, all autocross events, car shows, drag strips, test and tune days are shut down..... so, I am really just slowly getting the car "sorted out" on the street locally and safely.

[LTb1ow]

If you have a working PCV system, then you are pulling dirty fumes into the engine.

Running a quality catch can inline will help lower the amount of gunk getting pulled back into the intake stream.

[IROCZman15]

Yup. Exactly.
But for me, it’s a tough decision because I am very much concerned with under hood appearances and Simple, clean, streamlined layout. Finding a place to locate the actual can and routing the hoses neatly is Mostly what’s holding me back. Maybe I can find one with some -8 or - 10 AN fittings and braided hoses. If I didn’t care about appearances I would have already pulled the trigger and had one installed, but experimenting (successfully so far) with the PCV setup was my first plan and it’s nice to know that it does the job, but the “dirty air vapor” remains a concern

[IROCZman15]

minor update:

I have been working with the tuner and we are now onto tune revision 3 of about 6or7 initial tune revisions. the way he does it, is the first several tunes focus on the cold starts, idle, part throttle, low rpm, and hot re-start parameters of the tune. Then, after about tune 3, if he likes what he sees, he starts to work on the higher rpm and WOT areas. We are also discussing the PVC/catch can/breather tank situation and we hope to get the engine vacuum up to about 10 inches.

Had the car out today for a short session and I have almost put 500 miles on the new engine. Engine builder told me I would be fine waiting to do the first oil change at 1,000 miles, but since I have time off from work (and my curiosity is elevated) I just might do the oil/filter change soon, to make sure all looks good inside the oil system. Today I picked up 6 quarts of Valvoline VR1 20-50 and ordered the recommended filter Napa ProSelect 21060 oil filter.




I stopped by Larry's Shop last week and he and Chris gave the car a look over and helped point out some things I should adjust/keep in mind. We discussed catch cans also, as well as tuning, and how difficult it would be for me to retrofit any type of functional "knock sensor" to the engine. He also let me borrow his fender-roller and I used it to slightly bend the rear fender lips on both sides. I did not go too far with the metal reshaping, but it certainly better than before, where I had scuffed the current tires a few times in the past.

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I also decided that I had enough of trying to make the oem power steering pump, tank, bracket, and pulley look like it belonged with the all new engine and engine bay. I sold some more autoparts online and used that money to buy a new power steering pump, tank, pulley, and brackets. The old oem pump I tried to cleanup and paint during the winter was "ok" looking, but it looked really out of place on the new engine, and I didn't like how high up it sat with the chunky steel bracket. The new pump sits lower, has a metal tank, aluminum pulley, and does not have 175,580 miles on it like my oem one does. I did run into a snag when I realized that the high pressure fitting in the tanks was different. I tried to source out a proper hose locally, and was almost about to go have a hose made, but I spoke with PolarBear who suggested that I swap the fitting from the old tank onto the new tank. After some hesitation, I did this, and everything worked and connected properly. Took the car for a road test today and the new pump along with the newly rebuilt (February 2020) box, new cooler line, etc feels great. Steering system is just great overall. I took these photos yesterday, however today I went and got a 1" shorter v-belt, so the pump tank sits more vertical compared to how it is leaning over a bit too much for my taste in the below photos.


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might decide to swap out the water pump pulley and the crank pulley to be aluminum next. might just keep them as is for now. will have to measure sizes and see what my options are. I looked around very quickly, and did not find a crank/water pump pulley combination that has v groove (for PS pump) and ribbed style (for alternator), in matching aluminum

[sweetbmxrider]

Preventative maintenance looks good http://www.njfboa.org/forums/images/icons/icon14.gif

[TaKid455]

A tip on the Knock sensor, TPI cars had them on the RH side by the engine mount. (ACDELCO 21396 ) While it is a possibility, you would need to know the sensor's specifics and also that your block is similar if not exactly in metallurgy. Also, you would need to cross that info into your ECU. As discussed, if you are going to guess on something that one would rely upon its data, might as well guess w/o it.

PS - pump looks good. If you can live with the other pulleys, I'd leave them until you do a serp conversion. While it would have bling, you could score a TPI non AC set up cheap. BIllet specialties has nice stuff if you want to burn some $

[IROCZman15]

cool, thanks Larry, yup, as you educated me in person about the knock sensor, I then kinda took that idea of having one, and after learning about what you said, decided I won't be diving into that territory. you had some super well formed factual info about the knock sensor, and I trust your expertise in this field, for sure. I don't feel like guessing on experimenting with any knock sensor combination and then being wrong and having to deal with the unintended consequences of false knock, or it not detecting knock. However, When I sent my last set of GCF tune files to my tuner he informed me that he is not seeing any detonation in the logs. In my reply (which I typed up last night) I asked him what I could/should look for in my datalogs that would be an indication of detonation/knock. When he replies and answers my question, hopefully it will be a way that I can continually look at my datalogs and then be able to observe if I am knocking or about to be.

Yea, I am happy that I did the PS pump. It was unsightly, and my eye was drawn to it every time I opened the hood. I think I will be holding off on any other pulleys for the current year. perhaps winter I will make a conversion. I am happy this setup is working great and the new PS pulley, bracket, tank, pump looks good too. So, this is the configuration I will stick with. I did toy around with the idea of a Gm type 2 pump with smaller tank which you mentioned to me. I decided to stay "true" to the gen 1 SBC engine theme and went with this one, also because I didnt have to redo any fluid lines.



Sent the tuner my "tune 4" datalogs and "learned GCF 4" last night. Some small adjustments to the IAC and the hot restart were made to tune 3 file. The cold start is now getting really good and the engine will usually fire up quickly with out any need to work the throttle at all. He is still adjusting VE and AE in a few parameters on various tables. My hot idle is set for 872 rpm.
- we started the full throttle tuning too. starting with 32-34 deg advance throughout WOT. I am assuming we will be bringing this number up higher somewhere close to the 37-38 range? Pat (engine builder) had me setting the total advance timing at 38 deg when I had the mechanical distributor weights/springs controlling the timing. I am curious now though, with the holley ecu controlling timing, will it still be in the 38 deg range, or will it be completely different timing numbers with ecu timing control? should I get that 38 number out of my head and just have the tuner read the logs and adjust timing according to data, even if it results in WOT timing advance in the 35 deg range?

- he mentioned a cool little useful trick to calculate horsepower from "fuel flow data". It gives you an approximate HP number if you double the fuel flow nmber.... So, on one of my WOT datalogs, my max fuel flow was 266.6 lbs/hr. So if I double that fuel flow number, my horsepower would be 533.2 hp ? (which is very close to the 531 hp shown on the engine dyno sheet!) and this flow number was at 6120 rpm, (also close to dyno sheet, see page 1 of thread) and this happened with 33.9 deg advance ignition timing at that point in the log. Seems cool if it is somewhat accurate. There is also a similar trick to calculate torque numbers using the VE table. This all was new to me, and I want to check it again as time goes on, especially if we bring in more WOT timing and if my fuel flow numbers go upwards.


Just saturday I hit the 500 mile mark with the new engine. I was told I could go to 1,000 miles before the first oil change by Pat, but curiosity got the best of me and I will be doing an oil and filter change tomorrow. I have an oil filter cutter too, so I will open up the filter and examine it.

-- Aside from the very obvious stuff, should I be checking for anything else on, in, around the engine while I am under there, now that it is broken in after 500 miles?. typical bolt check, zip-tie tightening, etc? I might shim the starter since every now and then I hear it "clang" when/if the engine didnt fire off. This was more noticeable weeks ago when the engine was slow to turn over before the cold start and hot start tune was dialed in. Regardless, I might put a shim under the starter and remeasure the flexplate teeth engagement. Other than that, I'm just enjoying driving it.

[LTb1ow]

You should walk up to max timing based on what plugs say not what the tuner, or engine builder claim.

As far as knock sensors go, I came close to seeing if I could get twin dry sensors installed since my harness has the plug. But decided that it may prove to be more diffucult that worth. The HP forum has a good write up
https://forums.holley.com/showthread.php?2534-Connecting-amp-Tuning-Knock-Sensors-Holley-EFI

[IROCZman15]

Matt, ah, cool thanks for that link. in recent months I have been browsing a lot on the Holley tech support forums but I have not come across that page. Some complicated stuff there that I will really have to dig through, but in the end, my gut is telling me I may not have luck with knock sensor(s) on this setup. I have seen a TON of posts by that super-tech guy Danny Cabral and he sure knows his stuff. He seems to answer everyones questions accurately every time.
-- good point about reading the plugs. that is wise indeed. It will be difficult to do this while street tuning (since all tracks are closed), but maybe I can find a way to do a full throttle rip and then shut it down to check plug markings in a safe spot.


Did the oil change today. 512 miles on the new engine. Oil came out dark and there was only a very small amount of metal "sludge" on the magnetic drain plug. I wiped this onto a clean paper towel:

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I cut open the filter and found no metal, but on the inside of some of the pleats I found some trace amounts crusty crumbly black buildup. what would that be?


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installed a 1/32" spacer shim between the ministarter and the dart SHP block. unplugged the ignition coil and cranked the engine over a few times. no grinding or clanging noise at the flexplate. that should be it for that then.



haven't had much time recently to browse around for catch-can options. Talkign with Larry, a small fat one might fit on the firewall behind the brake booster, and above the C100 wiring bulkhead, but aside from that area, there really isn't a space under the hood that I am thrilled about bolting a catch can to, let alone running hoses to/from. Does it have to be at the same height as a valve cover, or can it be mounted low and out of the way since it is a sealed system? anyone have any other interesting ideas on where to mount one under my hood which is arranged this way:

(keep in mind that underhood appearances are important to me)

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[wretched73]

Your engine bay is wayyy too nice for a catch can.

Why not run lines from the valve covers to the exhaust? Let the exhaust pull some vacuum. Or was this already discussed?

[TaKid455]

Can should be higher. Vapor travels up. The downward path could cause an air pocket. Might be stretching it there.

Monitor the black crud. Keep on trucking. First couple oil changes will have 'stuff'. You have minimal 'stuff'. Good.

Knocks - Need to read through that post more for greater details. However, the 90 deg brass fitting is something GM did in 1980 with the 301 turbo cars. While it did work, it was a very crude/ basic system. Att his point, I'm not sold on retrofitting knocks for a variety of metallurgy & engineering fundamentals reasons above most people's understandings. As I dig more into them, I might change my thinking. As of now, it's still a best guess output.

[BonzoHansen]

a black catch can would not be terrible. Looks race car :)

[sweetbmxrider]

Maybe tuck it high and left of the msd box, won’t look out of place. Or maybe behind either pair of headlights if high enough...

[wretched73]

Knocks - Need to read through that post more for greater details. However, the 90 deg brass fitting is something GM did in 1980 with the 301 turbo cars. While it did work, it was a very crude/ basic system. Att his point, I'm not sold on retrofitting knocks for a variety of metallurgy & engineering fundamentals reasons above most people's understandings. As I dig more into them, I might change my thinking. As of now, it's still a best guess output.

OK, I'll bite. Care to elaborate? Are you referring to the metallurgy of the metal that his SBC is made of vs a late model engine?

[TaKid455]

Prewording - by no means am I proclaiming to be an expert in this field or advising fully what's required or involved. Instead, I am relaying information I have been informed, researched, & studied (to some degree). The topic is open for discussion for those who also have input in this area.

"Are you referring to the metallurgy of the metal that his SBC is made of vs a late model engine"
In part, yes. There are other areas also.

There is the metallurgy component(s) (Casting porosity, material composition (i.e. amount of X compound) , thickness, density, ect)

From there, there is the bore spacing. Siamese or individual cylinders.

Frequencies, Vibrations and Harmonics. Every object has them. Based on the above, you need to find the values/ properties of those naturally occuring. A good bit of Differential Equations. While it has been a little since I studied this area,

Next step is to find locations and find what values are of all components at those points. This sets a baseline for the sensor output.

Once that is known, you get into the dynamic component. This is where one looks to determine at what vibration level 'knock' truly occurs. Also, the various frequencies & vibrations different combinations. This is why it is necessary to adjust knock sensitivity on some modified engines.


I looked into this topic a few years back for personal Pontiac 24x conversion project. Including sitting down with an GM / Dephi engineer and going over the idea. Based on info received and some research, I paused and decided not to dig deeper to the finer details as for the intended project mainly based on what all it would take to find out what 'knock' valves would be. Yes, one could figure it out. But I would want to have imperial data throughout and not make assumptions.

Using the guess & check method
We could put a given sensor in a block. At what point would we base 'knock' values. One could evaluate a handful of factory designed applications and record data. Then take sensors for respected blocks and insert into other known blocks and record data. Then compare. Perhaps at this point, one could take tested sensors and place into experimental block and see how that data compares.

It would be an interesting experiment I'd be up dig into

[wretched73]

I think what is being missed is knock sensors are not precision instruments. They should be used as a safety net only.

The logic you're using is missing all of the deviations that occur between two identical factory motors. No two engines will ever be exactly the same yet the OEM uses the same sensor and tune.

[IROCZman15]

cool, feel free to continue the knock sensor conversation if you guys feel like it. it is interesting to learn, so type away at will.


-still on the fence about catch can, decision to be made one day later on. I did think about those style evac tubes that plumb into the exhaust and use scavenging exhaust pulses to pull crankcase vapors away. I had read somewhere that for a street car that sees several thousand miles a year, it would not be a wise decision. I know drag racer guys have luck with them, but unsure about street car aspect of it. good to think about though! thanks




Forgot to post this the other day, but the tuner I am using (Mad Science Motorsports) did a short feature on his facebook, nothing crazy, but pretty cool:

https://www.facebook.com/MadScienceMotorsportsAZ/

also here is his instagram (which I cant view without a huge pop-up blocking the whole screen since I dont have instagram)
https://www.instagram.com/mad_science_motorsports/

[LTb1ow]

Why not place a vent tank mirror'd of the current tank pax side?

Make it chrome and have lines run from the front of the VC to it.

[IROCZman15]

So, I actually thought of that with my one neighbor who is a hot-rodder. he said, buy a smiliar tank and apparently you can put steel wool or something in there to collect oil vapor and have it drip down to the bottom of the tank, but also there are no baffles in the tank? . The only thing stopping me from doing that is I am not sure if I want that whole drivers side front-corner area to be used for a possibly secondary fuel tank unit. Even with the 340 pump and wiring upgrade, some people have suggested it might be better off to have a secondary fuel tank/pump just for the nitrous system.

I've seen some nice units from various companies, and space would be very tight there. Of course I could always then re-locate the catch can at this point again, but it is an option. right now, that whole are is open and empty. good observation, and thanks for the suggestion.. it is a good one indeed. I would try to be as creative as possible routing the hoses, because I liek how there are very minimal hoses/wires/items coming off the front and sides of the engine. it is the center focal point, and more hoses around/across it would be a bit"unsightly" to me, but when the nitrous system gets installed, I will have to accept its required plumbing and components.

so yea, but perhaps instead of running the hose to/from the front of the valve cover on the drivers side, i run it from the rear of the valve cover, around/over/under the brake booster, and along the side of the inner fender where I have the plastic wire loom covering the elctric wires. then it would be somewhat "symmetrical" to the pass side. the tank I have on the pass side does look nice, fit well, and has many configurations for ports/hoses/plugs. so its a possibility. BUT, would a run of hose that long be problematic? it would be about 5-6 feet from valve cover to catch can, and then 5 or 6 feet back to the engine and into the sniper. too long? it would be about the same level/height to avoid dips and pockets.

[IROCZman15]

Figured I would do a short update (sorry no pics, nothing really visually has changed)

My goal of putting 1,000 miles on the new engine by the end of May was completed! Just crossed over the 1,000 mile mark this past weekend. The car is incredibly enjoyable. I love the new engine's power and love driving it. It idles perfect and the exhaust sounds great (I should post a video of it.. next time) I have done 5 series of revisions of the base tune with the EFI tuner (Mad Science Motorsports) and last week I had a 4 hour phone conversation with him where i took his "intro to holley sniper" online class. I learned a hell of a lot! Fuel injection tuning is so cool, and I have barely even scratched the surface of it. I am starting to make my own changes, (dialing down fuel for better cold start, and after-start enrichment, noticing learn values, applying them to the VE base table) but any major changes I plan on running by my tuner prior to loading them to the ECU.

if anyone was bored and wanted to look at some of my datalogs along with the GCF tune file, let me know, I can email them over.. since I don't think i can post those types of files here on this board. on the holley forum you can, but not here right?

since race tracks have been closed, minimal real world WOT thottle tuning has been done..., but I have done some WOT datalogging on the highway in 1,2,3 gears. In fact I did some today and will look at the data later on. I did a rip with the air filter on, and one with the air filter off. Also, I have joined the Holley EFI tech board and have been reading a ton. I may start making some changes to fueling and timing at higher RPM's in order to pull in more power, and then save the different tunes for an upcoming Test and tune day at Island Dragway. Thats really the only way I can think of since WOT testing on the highways can be hit or miss (hills, traffic, police, tires, etc).

I have yet to install a catch can or breather tank. It is on the list of things to do, but I don't have any burning urge to dig into this just now. However, I fixed my "bouncing" spedometer problem by using a shorter cable. I would get bouncing between 0-35 mph and figured it was the 80" cable.. since when I did the engine bay cleanup, I had too long of a cable and had to "snake" it under the dashboard, causing it to get caught up inside the cable housing. so a 61" cable was just perfect, so that was nice easy fix. speedometer is dead on as per GPS apps.

My tachmoter with the OEM 4,500 RPM yellowline and 5,000 RPM redline bothered me. especially now that I will be shifting gears between 6,000-6,200 RPM with this new engine combination. Visually, that just bothered me. I also did some RPM testing with the holley sniper rev limiter and learned that my oem tach is significantly off. at 3,000 rpm on the holley it was reading 3,200 rpm on the dashboard. at 5,000 on the sniper, it was reading around 5,300 on the dashboard gauge. So I was told about this guy on THirdgen.org who recalibrates tachometers (Cajun tach shop) and he also informed me that a V6 thirdgen tach has a 6,000 rpm redline from the factory. So he is sending me a V6 tach that has been re-calibrated and will be dead on accurate...
...so not only was I consciously shifting way early during my shakedown passes back in March, but I was even shifting lower than what I thought because my oem gauge was reading higher than the engine was revving. that certainly makes me hopeful that I can pull some much faster ET and Speed numbers next session. That, along with some tune adjustments, and the Micket Thompson ET Street SS tires, mayyyybe there is a chance I can crack into the high 11 second zone. That would be great.

bonus: the new V6 tach comes with a 80 psi oil pressure gauge, where my current tach has a 60psi oil pressure gauge. I knwo my engine has at least 70-80 psi oil pressure based on the dyno printout (see previous pages for numbers). Do you think i will have to get a different oil pressure sensor to work with this new 80 psi gauge, or will my current (oem) oil pressure gauge work fine? does the new gauge simply just provide a larger range of psi or is it calibrated/wired different?

Aside from that, I have gotten a bit used to the car once again after this 1,00 miles. It does feel a bit more "unsettled" in the nose though. I was VERY used to how the car handled and turned and cornered hard due to the various autocross events I've done, and just from owning the car for 20 years. But now, it feels noticeably lighter up front. Almost to the point of having some understeer. I know I move the battery to the back and changed a small amount of weight distribution, but the overall weight of the car was within 30 pounds of what it was prior to this whole engine project. I have the Koni yellows up front and they are cranked up to 2/3 of max. I'm not complaining, but just mentioning that because it was a noticeable change that I am getting used to.


Even with no car shows happening, or autoX, or drag racing, or cruise nights, I am glad I was able to hit 1,00 miles. Got a lot of compliments on the car too and basically I am just really enjoying the seat time. Learning the holley sniper system is the next long term project. hope to hit 11's. after that, I will probably explore getting my nitrous system hooked up. then, will certainly need to get that roll bar installed too.

thats about it for now.

[IROCZman15]

I took the car over to Island Dragway this past Saturday for Test and Tune. My goal was to perhaps crack into the 11 second zone. I now have Mickey Thompson ET Street SS drag radials on the rear iroc wheels, and was going to revv out the engine more in each gear. I am no experienced drag racer, and the car is not a competition drag car, but seeing an 11 second time slip (naturally aspirated) would be killer. I got "close" but I am not quite there yet.


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I took very un-exciting in car videos (mostly for my own use to hear the engine and shift points), and I data-logged each pass. Prior to heading to the track, my tuner and I have really nailed down the low rpm and mid-range rpm stuff. Driveability and low end pulls are just awesome. We only had a chance to do two tune revisions with WOT data. Also, those two WOT data sessions were on the street with hills, traffic, and only included 1st gear and 2nd gear pulls to 6,000 rpm. I was really hoping for a more dialed-in tune revision for WOT fueling before the track day, but we didn't have time to get that done. However, now, after the 11 1/4mile passes of data, we can certainly use that data to dial in the fuel table up top. I am still learning EFI tuning basics, so I am hesitant to do any adjustments myself.

The weather was good, but a bit hot. Only about 30 cars came to the Test and Tune day, and a majority of them had packed up and left by 1pm. I got 11 passes in that day, I was going to stop at 8, but I changed my mind once I started getting into the low 12.2 zone and decided to make a few more laps. I tried using the Torque-converter lockup switch on a few runs, and saw no gain, in fact on one run it slowed me down. I have read of others locking the converter at higher rpms, because it will pull the rpms down and you can avoid shifting into the next gear if you are about to cross the finish. One run I locked the converter at the top of 2nd gear, and this caused the rpms to drop too low when it shifted into 3rd. So, no more doing that.

I was hopeful that my new re-calibrated tachometer from Cajun Tach supply would have arrived on Friday, but it was actually delivered Saturday while I was at Island dragway. So, While racing, I had to do my best to guess what RPm I was shifting at since my oem tach is significantly off. I set the rev limiter on the sniper efi to 6,600 rpm and hit the limiter a bunch of times....the tach was showing right at 7,000 rpm when the limiter activated. I'l be installing the new tack (and 80 psi oil pressure gauge) soon. Should I adjust my 6,600 rev limiter? I might think about adding a small shift light since I don't want to watch the tach needle while going down the strip. However, cosmetically, i DO NOT WANT a huge in-your-face shift light. something simple and subdued is more my style.


anyways, time slips are here:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49985638166_2e8a76f258_c.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49985638211_6d8826fde5_c.jpg

- I hot lapped it the last 3 passes! if you look at the time on the last 3 slips, 3 passes in 9 minutes!




videos:
1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryAffM0lLJc 12.56
2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2-eVJPUDs0 12.33
3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUPiK_8jxbk&t=1s 12.55
4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6cz3LK4aCc 12.33
5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNqHD9zuNKs 12.66
6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pirMZqVFBfA 12.35
7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHnE43p2_XI&t=3s 12.21
8 no video 12.26
9 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0KxB35IkmQ 12.20 *best of the day
10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5E8RUVCp98 12.41
11 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25j4KzzUK2Q 12.50
in the lanes next to turbo camaro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEg4Ud8tpUQ


and I know I can't post tune files or datalogs to this forum, but I can screenshot them or take photos of them. If anyone has the knowledge and wants to chime-in let me know your thoughts.



Quick observations:
-Off the bat, from my limited EFI knowledge, I am pretty certain I need more fuel at higher rpms. The CL comp limits we set were for -20% to 20% and learn % was -5 to 5%. So the CL COMP (yellow line) looks like it was adding fuel to the base table up to its limit (of 20%) and then it couldn't add anymore (because we pre-programmed not to) so it just held it at 20% fuel added and robbed me from horsepower. right???

-3rd gear (a 1:1 ration in a 700r4 right?) is not exciting. I am through 1st and 2nd gear and shift into 3rd by the 1/8th mile. I am trapping 92 ish mph in the 8th mile, but only picking up 18-19 mph to the finish? finishing consistently between 110-112 mph. Less than ideal. It has a 3.55 gear ratio and I know that is unfriendly, but remember this is a pure street driven car. Also a 3,400 edge racing converter. anything I can do to make the top end of the track more aggressive?

-I gotta figure out if my exhaust is a restriction. my MAP goes down during all of my runs, and I was running with No air filter and the sniper efi feeding into the edelbrock victor jr intake which should be great for high rpms, so it shouldn't be an intake restriction ? my 1 3/4" mid length dyno dons headers shouldn't be it, the dyno dons y pipe? hooker 3" cat back.. but I have a 3" exhaust cutout that I keep open and its mounted along the main pipe before the exhaust bends up over the axle. thoughts?

-the MT ET streets are great. I didnt feel tire spin off hte launch at all. during passes 8,9, and 10 I was getting 1.73 second 60foot times. I am not revving up the engine much on the starting line. maybe to 1500-1700 rpm before the car wants to creep forward. probably could be better. I did remove the front sway bar, too. without installing a trans brake, anything I can do to get a harder launch?


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Overall, another good day getting used to the car. I street drove it there, and street drove it home. It rained around 3pm right after I made my 11th pass so I decided that was my sign to pack up and head home. Picked up two orders of chicken wings at marleys in Hackettstown (mango habanero and Kamakazi) and drove home. Unloaded the tools, swapped the wheels, and washed the car while chatting to neighbors. The next day I participated in the Cops-N-Rodders fundraiser cruise/parade event that started in Roxbury and Ended in Hackettstown at Piggys BBQ. The car drove great the whole trip, even is heavy stop-and-go traffic and it only got up to about 193 on the temp gauge. Again, street car duties are important. I saw Larry at the cruise too, and Chris was there for part of it. Took some video, but I there was no aggressive driving on my behalf, so the videos are just cruising.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DrfA9c0p1E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1MxiLS2G3s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJsRzuchssw



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[LTb1ow]

How much does the car weigh?

[IROCZman15]

3,440 pounds without me in it, but with a completely full tank of fuel




I didn't think of it during the time at the track on saturday, but I forgot to check the DA density altitude. Luckily I used the TRC "That Racing Channel" phone app during two of the passes, and saved the info, and it logged the DA on it. it was hot and humid saturday so the DA was 2792 ft at 12:30pm and 2920 ft at 1:40pm that day. I put that number into the DA calculator/adjuster and learned that my 12.202 pass would be an 11.775 pass, at 116 mph. so thats promising, but I won't truly be happy until I have a few paper slips with and 11 second pass on them.

[IROCZman15]

I had the car all prepped and ready to go to the Test and Tune this past Friday night at Island. All I had to do was pack some food and drinks and hit the road at 4:30pm. Website said T.B.D. for T&T all week long. Decided to phone call, .. when I learned they are not yet ready to hold Friday night T&T events. Total bummer. unpacked the tools from the car and did some test hits on the highway instead. I have been working on dialing in the WOT base table and ensuring my fuel modifier parameters are all coming in properly and correctly.


IF Island does decide to open this Friday for T&T, I plan on going. New Tach is installed along with the 80psi oil pressure gauge and sending unit. I was able to acquire a free HP laptop from one of my neighbors (fellow hot rodder with a mid 70's el camino project car) and we got it all setup with the sniper software. I will soon order the proper wire and dongle to connect the laptop to the ecm, but for now I am still removing the sim card from the handheld and putting it into the laptop.

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also installed a 1/2" Phenolic carb spacer (4 hole) to get rid of the notorious "sniper whistle" under mid throttle.. and to keep engine heat soak off of the tbi/ecm. I've driven the car several times since and the whistle is gone, and there is a much less difference in heat soak up to the sniper. Might help a very little with some power too, but I didnt feel anything while street driving.


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didn't like the black plastic look, so painted the sides
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didnt want to run the risk of scratching the fancy air cleaner lid on the hood, so I decided to do some cutting and trimming for peace of mind.

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Saturday, I am signed up for the Autocross event at MetLife stadium. It is the M.S.N.E. event. the S.C.C.A. event for sunday was sold out right away so I could not get registered for that. I have never done a MSNE event, but I don't expect it to be too different.
So, current plan are drag racing friday, autocross saturday. If there is no T&T friday night, perhaps I will go to T&T at Island on Sunday instead. Otherwise, there are some car cruises/gatherings on Sunday, so potentially, if all goes really relay well, I could possibly do Drag racing Friday, autox saturday, car show/cruise sunday.


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[WayFast84]

Do you have skinnies on the front when at the drag strip? If spectators are allowed to attend Island I'd love to go some Friday night and I'll bring my skinnies for you to swap on.

[IROCZman15]

currently, no skinnies on the front . One day I plan on ordering a set of front and rear lightweight drag wheels, skinnies up front. borrowing some would be awesome though!. As far as I last checked, Island wasn't allowing spectators, but they are allowing "crew" members. Technically if you brought skinnies and said you were helping on my car, that woukld count as a "crew member" right?

anyways, that would be cool of you to do that. I'd pay ya to rent them for the night, or I'd cover your admission fee.


JoeyD informed me that Island posted on their facebook and website that starting this Friday night, they will be open for T&T. https://www.islanddragway.com/event/friday-night-test-tune-plus-gamblers-47/ So I plan on going. Hoping to crack into the 11's. And, I know, I know, 11.99 really isn't that fast in today's day and age, but for my street driven, multi-purpose street car, that is my N/A goal.

[IROCZman15]

Well, quite a weekend. Did 2 of the 3 car events I was hoping to do.

Friday night Test and Tune at Island dragway = Yup
MSNE AutoCross at MetLife = Yup
Car Show in Wayne = No, it was canceled. instead took wife to Rita's for a treat with the car



-Test and Tune at Island had a good amount of cars there, which was good to see. I brought the new-to-me laptop to check datalogs and tune files in between runs. The D/A that evening was in the 1400-1900 range. Made 5 passes total. 12.45, 12.12, 12.16, 12.11, and 12.07. The car seems to launch better from an idle, instead from revving it up to 2,000 rpm and leaving. Getting more consistent with shifting at 6,000-6,100 now with the new tach. I shift into 3rd gear just before half track, and the rest of the pass becomes boring. Played with adding timing advance a degree at a time in between each run. I know that my MPH would show an improvement with timing changes, and E.t. is more about shifting and being quick out of the hole. Gotta work on somethign to liven up 3rd gear. Got home after midnight and parked the car. Installed the front sway bar and replaced the Drag radials with my street/autocross wheels. Bed around 3 am
- Woke up 6 am and headed over to MetLife stadium for the MSNE event. Large/long course. Car did well, but it is immediately noticeable that I will need to re-learn how to throw the car around corners better now with the new powertrain. Lots of spinning at part throttle, so I had settle for the fact that light throttle exiting turns was the way to go, or else it would simply fishtail. Many experienced autocross members complimented the car but everyone made it a huge point to tell me that I need better tires without a doubt. In the last 3 runs, my power steering was not there at low rpm's. That made it quite more of a challenge to make sharp turns with no power steering. I wish I had in car video of me wrestling with the wheel. It was dry all day so the cars in the first two run groups had nice pavement; however, it did rain slightly during runs 3,4,5 which was just after I began to learn the course! It rained a LOT when i was packing up the car and I didnt have time to examine the power steering belt/pump so i just drove home in traffic, in the rain.
-Unpacked the car and cleaned it all up nicely in the hoped of going to the TriCounty Car show in Wayne for Sunday, only to find out later on when I looked online, that the car show was canceled due to Covid. Sunday I took the wife out to Ritas in Flanders with the car and the power steering is still not-there at low rpms. will examine it this week, pump was brand new in april (see my posts from then).






Photo album from Island -> https://www.flickr.com/photos/iroczman15/albums/72157714895184666

-also, I see one or two people who appear to be track staff or similar taking photos while doing recent T&T events at Island. However, nowhere on their website or their facebook page can I find out info about who the person is, or how to get one of their action photos? Anyone know? I tried emailing Island and also left a voicemail asking for info, but no return call. Any ideas?


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thehazguy !!
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AutoX photos:
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ride home:
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There was one guy who was taking a ton of photos during the autocross, and he uploaded like 3,000 of them to this site-> https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipN3WK9dm7nucu4BrIAhRopWugwhVuCrTC7q3TScg9GTVt nr1MTdNWErt0IWU0jnnA?key=T0hLeVhDSXFkbXZlUDFtOWY1N 1RIOGtpZEoyQkNB Looks like he edited them or added filters. I put them into a photo album with the photos I took with my phone at the event. my album-> https://www.flickr.com/photos/iroczman15/albums/72157714895342461

his:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50055684106_e439112052_c.jpg

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Videos:
I gotta get better at having the desire to make better videos. I don't know the first thing about editing, or changing camera angles, or any of that. So, all the videos are from the same windshield viewpoint, which really doesn't capture the amount of sliding I was dealing with on the autocross.


Drag racing videos:

Pass 1: 12.454 at 108.30mph
in car: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a6ZdLSi9qI
trackside: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3iz4c2nFXs

Pass 2: 12.124 at 112.46mph
in car: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V2J56BveIc
trackside: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcQrm2qFjzw

Pass 3: 12.164 @ 112.03
in car: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AP1QckGZUU

Pass 4: 12.113 at 112.50mph
in car: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45gw9wXYPKw

Pass 5: 12.074 at 113.08 mph best pass of the night and my personal best also
in car: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PWX3Ck_JLw






MSNE AutoX videos:
run 1: 83.085 seconds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KtyFwDDzK0

run 2: 80.171 seconds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xedOkqXfass

run 3: 77.570 seconds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPaFgJcoKQA

run 4: 999.999 ran off course (missed one gate)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyWzKh-MS8g

run 5: 76.519 seconds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qm0dUKB-oJs

run 6: 76.022 seconds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIbZK1pJDvI


run 7: 82.887 seconds (spun out 360deg and continued on)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaWfSkW-p00&t=2s

a few very short video clips a friend took as I was learning the course during run 1 and 2, right before it started to rain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0pprBurVz0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-bmTadPtFc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiYU9DS5rIA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aftKrGPaz18
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta-P1BbESNM







nitty gritty details: I checked plugs 1 and 2 in between each round and looking for signs of pre-ignition. I also looked for spikes on the rpm trace of the datalog. Seeing no issues at all, I added spark in. Looking at the 2D ignition table, I changed spark a degree upward in those cells from the 32 range, on up to right at 36 deg advance. Still not seeing that much of an improvement in mph or any numbers on the datalogs.
- also, my VE table (CL comp and learn) has now gone down from last time I did 1/4 mile passes on June 6. after applying learn to that table I was in the 117 range for peak VE numbers. now I am back down to the 112 range. I find this odd. Learn numbers are in the low single digits on that part of the graph. Confusing to me. I can post or link datalogs and tune files if someone was curious to take a peek.



Overall:
had a ton of fun. would have loved to go to a car show Sunday and bring home a trophy, but oh well, I couldn't change the fact that it was canceled. 138 miles on the car with 5 drag strip passes, 7 autocross runs, and some ice cream with the wife. No fluid leaks, no odd noises, just a power steering problem, and apparently I have one of the bulbs burned out in the center brake light from what I cans see in the action shot photos. Multi-purpose street car.

[thehazguy]

Good to meet you at Island Friday night.

Here's one of the photographers that post pictures. Follow his webpage

https://janscreative.photoreflect.com/store/StoreSearch.aspx

[IROCZman15]

Good to meet you at Island Friday night.

Here's one of the photographers that post pictures. Follow his webpage

https://janscreative.photoreflect.com/store/StoreSearch.aspx


fantastic! that is EXACTLY what I was looking for ! thank you. I see my photos from March 8th on there, and from June 7th. I guess he wasn't there Friday night, or perhaps he was and he did not upload photos. I will check his website in a few days, but this is awesome. Thank you much; and I am sending ya an email in 2 minutes, I will get your stuff shipped back to you asap.

[LTb1ow]

Do you have the learn function turned off or at least minimized to how much it can change?

[LS1ow]

There must have been 2 AutoX events going at metlife yesterday. I swung down for a bit around 12 to see my friend run his C5 Z. Which was taking place in the lot closest to rt3 by the practice facility. Didnt look like there was anything else going on in the other lot, maybe it was over by then?

give me a heads up next time and ill come down and say whats up and watch. I live 1 mile away.

[IROCZman15]

Matt: So, this is a topic I am still slightly confused about. I thought I had the VE fuel table set up well for my June 6th T&T event (see previous posts and log info back a page or so) Turns out that by pass 9,10, and 11 on that day my Cl comp was maxed out and I was running the engine lean. Didnt know that the Learn table was wanting lots of fuel up top, and I didnt know to "apply learn" since I did not have a laptop that day so I had no idea until I came home at night and looked at the data.... So, for the T&T session this past Friday, I had the laptop and checked the Cl comp during the run after each pass as well as the learn table. My first pass showed large negative numbers on the learn table, so i took fuel out and the table had a range of 110-112 in the WOT area. made another pass and then saw very low Single digits on the learn table, like in a range of -0.2 to +3 at most. I was happy to see this. I applied learn once and watched it barely change throughout the next few passes. I did not bother changing the CL comp or the Learn % limits from 25% and 30% respectivley, because i saw it was only making very small changes. Now that the tune/table is getting more dialed in, I plan on lowering the CL comp to 10% and the Learn to 5% (in certain rpm areas). Thoughts?
- my confusion comes from my CL comp adding its 20% max allowed fuel limit to the 117 range in the VE table a few weeks ago, to now it wanting only 112-113 in those same cells and having very small Cl comp numbers? why would it want more fuel weeks ago, to now wanting less fuel ?
-I downloaded my GCF from the ecu last night as I wanted to compare it to my GCF I had before a eekend of drag racing and autoX and street/highway driving. I took a 2 minute glance at it using the "comparison tool" on the holley software and there were some changes but nothign significant. So now, I think I am getting real close to locking the tune down and turning the LEarn % limits down real low. thoughts?

-I did check plugs during the event and from what I can see, no metal specks on the porcelain, fuel ring looks proper, ignition timing marks are just after the curve of the ground strap. ...but I didnt really see a significant power gain, going from 32 deg timing to 35.5 deg.


Beggs: There were two autocross events at MetLife this weekend, but they were on different days. Sunday was with the SCCA and this one got sold out real quick when registration opened. I was put on a wait list, but instead decided to abandon hope of getting a call-up, and I signed up for the event on Saturday with the MSNE group. This one only had 60 cars. We were in lot L, and it was right nearby where the outdoor Flea-market was being held....so there was trash and stuff blowing across the course when the wind picked up at times. I knew you lived nearby, but didnt know ya were that close, cool. If I sign up for another event anytime soon I'll let you guys all know. It sure is fun, even getting whooped on by the little tuner cars.

[LTb1ow]

Once I finish mine, the learn function will be set to either off or very very small percentage. Otherwise a bad set of plugs or gas etc, will corrupt your tune if you take the suggested "learned" values.

[sweetbmxrider]

Sounds like you had a blast this weekend. Thanks for sharing, keep improving!!!

[IROCZman15]

yea, I think I am just about almost at the point of dialing down the Learn %. I agree with what you are saying.

I will probably look through some of the tune files and datalogs tomorrow night. maybe I will screen shot stuff and post it here in case anyone felt like examining them with me in case I am missing something?



thanks hazguy for sending me the website for the track photo guy. I was not loking for him on Friday night, so I am unsure if he was there takign photos. Some of the ones he got of me back on June 6 are pretty good, but I am behind the cneter barrier.


I can feel that the car is hooking and the MT ET Streets are not spinning. thats a win there; very glad I got these tires. . But I am seeing some 1.70s on the 60 foot now, and hoping to bring that down a little bit more. I mostly have always revved-up to 2,000 and left. I think only on pass 5 of the Friday session I left at a lower 1,100 rpm.. not from a true 900 rpm idle. and on that pass it did the same 1.70 which was cool, but it actually felt better in the seat. Think my e.t.s and 60ft would be slower if I left from a dead idle and let the converter flash then? I can feel the nose come upwards a bit, but that last 1.70 60ft seems very close to some other 60fts when I was leaving at a "higher rpm". The tires are hooking, and the removed front sway bar is helping too. I had middle 3/5 settings on both front struts and rear shocks that day (June 6).. but this Friday I had the fronts on a 3/5 middle setting and went tighter 4/5 in the rear (koni yellows, are only single adjustable).
-even though it would hurt my E.T., I am wondering if I could "waste" a pass next time and set the rear shocks very low and the front ones high, and maybe just maybe get a little air under the front driver's tire for a photo? think its possible? aside from struts/shocks what else could I temporarily change in order to possibly yank a tire up for a pass, and then change it all right back in order to make a quicker pass? leave off a low idle ? or am I too far into the "wishful thinking zone" and I don't stand a chance of pulling a wheel up before I pipe in the nitrous to this car?

here is his photos from 3 weeks ago:
(my 60fts that day were: 1.88, 1.79,1.78, 1.80, 2.08, 1.78, 1.76, 1.73, 1.73, 1.73, 1.76) pretty certain I was leaving from a 1800-2200 rpm launch that day.


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50060499251_3edb368266_c.jpg


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50059935503_77f2a295aa_c.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50060745547_05c1a2759b_c.jpg


If he did take photos from friday, I ill look at them too, but I was in the far lane for 4 out of 5 passes....
(but my 60ft and launches were 1.75, 1.70, 1.72, 1.72, and 1.70

[IROCZman15]

ugh, I think I might have hurt the power steering pump during autocross. This power steering pump I installed back in mid April and it has only about 800 miles on it. My run group in autocross got all 7 runs done within an hour. I knew the pump would get hot, but with all the other autocross Ive done, my old oem pump got hot too but never failed or quit on me. During run 4 or 5 I remember feeling power steering disappear as I went to make a sharp right hand turn. power steering seemed to work while I was under throttle, but if I was off the throttle it was not there. this was the same the rest of the day. so that, plus the slight rain, made getting around the course quite a challenge. I thought maybe the belt got loose and i planned on fixing it after, but that is when it began pouring rain. I hoped that it would return to normal after the system cooled down.

So i checked it the next day and tightened the belt. still no power steering at low rpm. checked it again today, tried a new belt, no luck,. decided to scuff up the inside groove of the power steering pulley in case the belt was slipping inside the groove. no change. The general consensus from a few people is that it got too hot, and will never come back. I agree, but I am hoping it is not the case.

If I have to replace the pump, I don't want to go with a gen 2 pump. I don't like the look and underhood appearance is important to me. I know I need an in-line cooler. I am curious about what to do for a pump that keeps the look of the pump I have now. see photos a few pages back. That is the look I want. Would liek to remedy this soon, especially with the UMI autocross even coming up (which even though i am registered, I might have a conflict and have to bail out, which would suck)

[TaKid455]

Pick up the phone:
https://sweetmfg.biz/home.php?cat=27&page=1

Used their stuff in the past. Works.

[IROCZman15]

Larry, thanks man!
I looked at the site, good stuff there. At this point, I can't sacrifice the general overall appearance under hood to have one of those style looking pumps. I'd have to reconfigure some line (no big deal really) but im trying to avoid a full re-working of the PS system at this point, and I much prefer the traditional "teardrop" style with a polished finish.
- I have contacted the company that I bought the pump from in April and we are trying to work something out to get a fair priced replacement. I know for SURE I am adding a fluid cooler for the power steering fluid on the low-pressure line. I will take some measurements tomorrow for a cooler and order it soon. tube and fin style I am thinking. However, If the company is willing to send me a replacement pump, or discounted price pump of the exact same model, I will simply go that route for now and ensure I have the large fluid cooler installed. The UMI autocross event is only 16 days away, so i dont want to leave this till last minute.



Which brings me to my other topic, drag racing.
I am still hopeful to put this car into the high 11's N/A this year. Still working out some tuning stuff, and wayfast84 said he is willing to let me borrow some front "skinnies". I am also still hopeful to change the shocks and suspension around to pull a small wheelie on one of the passes where I wont be gunning for an 11. However, I am not sure if I will be taking the car to the dragstrip in the next two weekends prior to the UMI autocross. Not sure if thats a smart move.

Anyways, I would love to borrow wayfasts drag skinnies, but I also think its a good idea to start looking around for a cheap used set in case he isn't available on one of the days I plan to go to the track. I tried a bunch a searching online classifieds, and nothing can be found locally on ebay, craigslist, even racingjunk etc. Pop-up ads from the big performance companies just fill up the search results, all wanting me to buy new ones.
-So if anyone knows someone who would be willing to loan, rent, or sell me a "Cheap" pair of skinnies for the rest of the year, let me know.

I tried to do some research on thirdgen.org and on the corvette forum about what skinnies would fit. I run the C4-HD brake upgrade kit from Ed Miller flynbye, so the rotor is 13" diameter and the caliper adds some meat back there too. I have never dabbled with skinnies up front, so I don't know how tight backspacing measurements can be compared to a "normal" wheel. Some of the corvette guys use a 15" diameter wheel with a 5/16" spacer, and others don't need to do anything. Just trying to plan ahead and think of everything I can, before trying to bolt up a set and finding out they wont work. thoughts?

I eventually want to get a full set of 4 when it comes to drag wheels. something nice for the car, but with me running my old iroc wheels and MT ET street's out back for this year, I can be ok to sacrifice the car's looks for a used-but-functional set of skinnies which might help get me into the 11's and help to get a wheelie photo.

[BonzoHansen]

do you have the factory 3rd gen PS cooler? Its better than nothing. If not I'd look to add some kind of cooler.

[IROCZman15]

Yes. I have the factory cooling loop , which I bought a brand new replacement of back in February. I handy planned on having pump overheating problems with the brand new pump, Since I hadn’t had more. That just a simple overheat and re-cooling issue with my other stock 1987 oem pump during the various autocross and road course stuff... but I guess I’m working the car harder now... so a Steering fluid cooler is a must have . I can get a long skinny tune and fin one and mount it under the radiator where the current loop Metal line is, or I can get one of the rectangular style trans cooler units, and find somewhere to mount that. Going to get under the car tomorrow and measure. The so pant who sold me
The pump contacts me today with instructions on how to ship it back to them so that they can send me a replacement. So tomorrow I’ll be removing the pump, and keeping the pulley and sending the pump back to them. They agree, that it should not have failed this soon despite how it was used. So either I’m getting a free replacement or a replacement for a reduced price.

I’m thinking I’ll have to flare the lines when I cut them to install the new cooler, it will be rubber going over metal line with a clamp, but I should flare them to prevent any potential leaks etc?

[sweetbmxrider]

Is the cooler on the return line? I would do a flare for that, yes

[IROCZman15]

that is the plan, yup

[IROCZman15]

good and bad update:



the good:

-got about 1,500 miles on the engine now and decided to do an oil change since I last did the oil change at 500 miles on the new engine. Got the oil from Brian who was getting rid of the VR1 20-50 that I needed, so I picked it up from him a few months ago. my 1,000 mile Oil looked great when it came out and there was barely even anything to wipe off from the magnetic drain plug. I cut open the oil filter and the filter element looked good as well. nice.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50109619828_f093af1615_c.jpg



https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50110428717_32910357c2_c.jpg




https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50110034286_b0cc815cc1_c.jpg



- greased the front and rear suspension. checked bolts on exhaust, converter, driveshaft, rear, suspension, brakes, etc.
- getting car prepped for the big UMI auto-X in ten days. I always try to check bolts and brackets. all bolts and hardware were good. (except one, see below)



The company who sold me the power steering pump in April was kind enough to send me a FREE replacement pump. They agreed, that the pump should have lasted longer than a few months and only 4 autocross runs. I thanked them for this and am very appreciative. I also ordered a power steering cooler (trans fluid cooler). I debated what type of cooler to put in the system, either tube and fin, stacked plate, or in-line heat-sink. I also had to figure out where I wanted to mount it for functionality, aesthetics, and so forth. I am unwilling to mount ANYTHING in front of the radiator, so a cooler that relied primarily on actual airflow to cool it was not going to happen. I read a bunch about the heat-sink style and lots of people have good luck with the in-line aluminum style ones. they are used for cooling transmission fluid and on their own can dissipate heat by design if you are sitting still or there is minimal high speed air-flow (like in auto-cross!). So I bought a DeRale one and mounted it in place of part of the return line (low-pressure line) on the factory cooling loop. securely mounted it under the radiator and behind the plastic air- dam. again, I did not want anything impeding the airflow to the radiator since my current engine cooling system is working excellent. I flared the ends of the metal tube to keep the hose clamps secure. had a small leak at the port at the back of the pump, and I tightened it so it appears to be stopped, but I will check on it again next time i drive the car.


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50110274112_a0cef68c70_c.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50109465483_1bc0fa8126_c.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50110275007_b747a3f1ec_c.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50110275012_b3fb278e34_c.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50110275137_f0cb90f19f_c.jpg




bought a shift light to help with more consistent shifts instead of relying on watching the tach needle sweep. the new tach is dead-on accurate, but it is slower in response tot he digital readings of the sniper handheld. so I think a small compact shift light will help me improve me shift consistency. Did not hook it up yet though...

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50110273977_62e280f7d8_c.jpg







the Bad:

bought a fuel pressure gauge to ensure that I have adequate fuel pressure at the sniper tbi. Went with the Aeromotive 0-100 psi liquid filled gauge. Also got an earls -8 fitting to hold it. Since aesthetics matter to me I wanted the gauge to be "clocked" correctly and face straight up. unfortunately despite using teflon PASTE the gauge was only able to face straight up when it was not fully tightened (leaked drips). when tightened up enough where it would not leak anymore, it was facing the 5:00 position so basically up-side-down. and this was real tight. if I cranked it anymore I am certain I would crack the aluminum of the fitting. I used teflon paste. Can i use the YELLOW teflon tape instead since it is "ok with fuel" when the white tape is not? fyi, the pressure gauge did read 61 psi which is basically right where the sniper's regulator is supposed to be set (58.5-60psi). while this fuel pressure gauge isn't integral for the car to run, it was nice to finally know that my fuel psi is correct. some people recommend not leaving a fuel pressure gauge attached to the engine due to potential leaks, so I guess I could leave it off and only put it on for future troubleshooting?. Kinda want to have it installed permanently, but it cant be facing upside down and obviously cant leak fuel!

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50109465458_c79ffbd6e1_c.jpg






while doing my bolt check, I noticed that one of the 3 outer bolts that hold the front pulley to the engine balancer was GONE!. another one was loose. the center one was tight, but I had a WOW moment. I retightened the loose bolt and tried to replace the missing bolt with one I had in my bin. it was too long, so intead of just setting some washers under it, I cut it down and cleaned up the threads. Correct me if I am wrong, but I think it is a 3/8" fine thread bolt?? despite my best efforts I could not get my shortened 3/8" bolt to grab onto the threads. Maybe I will try to buy a proper bolt or a new shorter one. I have a tap and die set, but not for fine threaded bolts. suggestions? Also, these were installed with red-locktite back in february...so ?


...and lastly....
Initally, was having an easy afternoon working slow and unhurried for most of the afternoon. the leaky ps fitting and leak in the fuel fitting , along with the barrage of curious and energetic neighbors, me skipping lunch, and working with the garage door open which caused the sun light to mess with my view, caused me to make a bone-head mistake. Man, if I only had taken a small pause to check that everything was absolutely clear from under the car like I usually do, I would have noticed that the wood blocking I usually put under the tires, was not fully clear. so, when I let the car down with the jack, the passenger side rocker panel was right there.. and it wasn't happy to meet the wood blocks. crack! Damn, just 2 weeks prior to the UMI event, and right before the car show season also begins, I go and do this. Ugh. I know its not repairable, so I am going to look for a replacement GFX locally. I'll probably bodywork it and paint it here at my house; anyone know where to pick one up before I go making a "parts wanted" post in the classifieds?

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50109465363_c999e042cd_c.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50109465838_bcdd40477b_c.jpg

[wretched73]

I might have what you need in my pile of parts. Let me check when I get home tonight

[Blackbirdws6]

Nice to see you got a new pump as it was the right solution given your issue. Hopefully the cooler works as intended as well.

I don't know the thread you need but once you identify it, McMaster-Carr is a good place to find what you need while blowing a minor hole through your wallet.

Sucks to see the car got damaged! I've been there and its a terrible feeling. For the UMI event, just do some basic touch up work and it will look fine in pictures while you are tearing up the course. I have a room reserved at the hotel but may need to pass depending on some logistics on my end.

[wretched73]

See attached. Of course the passenger side is what is damaged. But I don't think it is too bad, definitely repairable. The rest of it is perfect, driver's side is in perfect condition. You can have them for free but you have to take the driver's side too.

They are off a 1988 Z28

[IROCZman15]

Wretched: awesome! I think I might take you up on this. Much appreciated for you checking for me. I think I will give it a few more days before making a decision. I have one or two places up here in northern NJ that I might check at but the price seems right for what you are offering. I will certainly get back to you about it. For now I put some red duct tape on the area and it blends in well enough, so I might keep it this way until UMI is over with....but my spirit is still crushed!


Brian: thanks again for the engine oil. and yea the new pump was a free replacement so I am glad about that. I took the car over to the local cruise-night tonight and the new pump is working great. I will monitor temps while at UMI but the fluid cooler itself is getting hot to the touch and the fluid line directly after it is just slightly warm to the touch, so it seems to be doing its job. No worries if you can't make it to the UMi event but if you do, it will be a great time hopefully.


I am going to order a set of 3 ARP crank pulley bolts from Summit racing. I will install one at a time on the pulley using red locktite and torqued to spec. going forward I will make it a frequent habit to visually/physically check on the bolts. these
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/arp-430-6801/make/chevrolet


as for the fuel pressure gauge. I was thinking, since the gauge is only ever going to be installed to this exact -8 fitting, and wont ever need to be removed or rotated.... perhaps I can JB-weld it in place where it is clocked/facing the correct orientation. JB-weld is perfectly safe for fuel, and will cure nicely, locking the gauge in place with no leaks. thoughts? its not that I don't want to buy another fitting, but my guess is that if I bought another fitting, the gauge would just wind up pointing in the same 5:00 orientation and I would have wasted my time and money to wind up with the same result. after further research, yellow teflon tape is not an option I want to try. I might retry it one more time with the PTFE sealant, but if not, I might just neatly do a JB-weld assembly of the gauge to the npt fitting port.


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50110606617_c34c30ac6f_c.jpg

[IROCZman15]

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50116920293_60424b33c0_c.jpg


got the fuel pressure gauge installed in the fitting and oriented straight up like I wanted. some Jb-weld on the threads and let it cure. safe for fuel.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50117487626_c5a4160237_c.jpg


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50117712027_aa80219703_c.jpg




Was going to order the crank pulley bolts from Summit, but since I was running errands near Rockaway, I stopped at Bruce's Speed Shop and they had one pack left on the rack. Got them installed with red-lock-tite and will continue to check on them often. I will probably paint mark them. Would really love to find a nicer aluminum crank pulley instead of the UGLY painted stock steel one, but no need to do that now. maybe winter time

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50117711977_a5d4376690_c.jpg

[LTb1ow]

I would not feel so great with a fuel gauge hanging a motor with JB weld, but thats me.

Does the sniper not allow for extra inputs?

[IROCZman15]

I have been spending some time on the Holley sniper forums looking into the fuel pressure topic. unfortunately, in all the reading I have done, even the experts use a mechanical gauge. holley sniper software doesn't have provisions for a fuel gauge on a datalog, and I have yet to find a single person who has a setup that uses a fuel pressure monitoring device tied into the sniper software in any way shape or form.
https://forums.holley.com/showthread.php?20392-High-Fuel-PSI&p=88356#post88356

the other option people do is put in a fitting with a schrader valve and then spot-check the fuel pressure if they are troubleshooting a fuel issue. a port and fitting for a schrader valve would look pretty unsightly at that spot on my engine so that wasn't an option for me. luckily I am not having fueling issues, but it is nice to now know that I do indeed have proper fuel pressure.

So as it stands, I am going to leave the gauge for a little bit. not entirely sure I like the look of having it there or not. since its a 1 minute install/removal of the -8 an fitting, what I might do is only install it if I want to check/troubleshoot a future issue. and then keep it in a box on the parts shelf off of the engine. the JB weld was not to mount the gauge, the threads are holding it firmly in place, but without something (teflon sealant, tape, jb weld etc) there was no way I could think of to get the gauge's fitting to seal while also keeping the numbers facing upwards. If I had to resort to cranking the fitting tight to prevent leaks resulting in the numbers being up-side-down.. I would probably sell the car for scrap metal. If you guys had/have any other thoughts, please let me know.

[Blackbirdws6]

I like the idea of it being of use if/when you need it to diagnose an issue given the orientation will bother you. It's just not worth running into a potential fuel leak for obvious reasons.

[LTb1ow]

Unpopular opinion, but a fuel pressure gauge you can only check at idle, is fairly useless for anything outside of setting initial pressure. So why leave it and risk a potential leak?

[IROCZman15]

Yep. You guys are right and I am half in agreement. Due to functionality and also due to aesthetics. Maybe I’ll leave the gauge in place on Monday Wednesday Friday and then remove it the rest of the days of the week.

Nah, in all seriousness, I Have heard lots of cases of fuel problems while reading on the Holley sniper forums and such. One of the easiest things to check is fuel pressure to eliminate that as a problem when troubleshooting (you guys already know this, but I like to ramble and over explain things anyways). So I had always wanted to verify that my fuel pump was doing it’s job and that the snipers fuel pressure regulator was working correctly. This gauge confirmed my thoughts and I can rest easy now. So aesthetically it doesn’t really jive with the horizontal and linear lines of the engine; and in rare cases, people ha e claimed their gauge bezel has leaked fuel. I think I will keep it on for a week or so and use a go-pro camera to maybe see/record fuel pressure at WOT and with load on the car. Then remove it.

I know I will want to see what happens to fuel pressure this winter when installing the wet nitrous system and whatnot. So it will
Be good to have but I agree I don’t need it on the car now (weight reduction!!) and then just take my 7/8” wrench and install it/uninstall it

[LTb1ow]

Its easy to spend others money, but a electric fuel pressure setup would be what I would setup if you can swing it. That way you can always safely monitor fuel pressure at WOT and spirited driving conditions.

[sweetbmxrider]

Yeah I was going to suggest an electronic sender too. That or a quick connect style fitting that could be capped off nicely somehow.

[The_Bishop]

Being able to see your fuel pressure is nice.

Watching your car burn down due to a fuel leak, not so much.

[IROCZman15]

that electric fuel pressure monitoring system sounds like a good idea. I will do some research but it might be an investment I may add into the Nitrous system $budget project for this upcoming winter. especially if I don't decide to go with a separate fuel tank/pump/lines just for the nitrous and I have all the fuel coming from the oem tank with the -8 line.. I would certainly want to monitor fuel pressure (electronically for datalogs) to see that I am not running lean on fuel at WOT on a 150-200 shot.

cool, thanks guys.

[IROCZman15]

car is packed up and ready to roll out tomorrow for the 4 hour drive to UMI motorsports park/and the Holiday Inn for the two day UMI autocross event. I tend to overpack a lot of tools and supplies, so the car is pretty weighted down.

unfortunately I didn't have money in the spending budget this year for a really good set of autocross tires. with my wheel size I only have a few options, and I am probably eventually going to go with the Falken Azenis RT615K+ tires. I am going to speak to a lot of people at the event about tires and this will help me eventually make my decision... but for this year, these tires are going to me my weak-point. They are 5 years old and a 300 treadwear Nitto 555 set of tires. . its what I got, and I'll do my best to make them work good I hope. I am also very used to them since I've done about 6 autoX events with them, so there wont be any on-track surprises or learning with a new set of tires.

Aside from that, the car is ready. that fuel pressure gauge setup is off, and I actually called summit and they are going to send me a replacement gauge and replacement fitting for free, because I noticed that the on/off/on/off/tightening I had done caused the gauge to leak some glycerine! I am sending the old ones back. they were very helpful on the phone.


I know Scott, BTK, and a few of their buddies (Joe and Curt) will be at UMI. along with a few people I know on www.thirdgen.org. Should be a good time. wish us all good luck, but no matter what it will be fun!

[Blackbirdws6]

Enjoy the event. It is a lot of fun with a very nice group of cars.

[sweetbmxrider]

Have fun, look forward to reading about it!

[IROCZman15]

Another great event completed!

Short Version:
Left mid morning on Thursday for the 230 mile drive out to the event. Thursday night we went to the track and got our registration packets and went through tech. A lot more people took their cars on trailers this year it seemed. Pizza dinner provided by UMI at the track and then parking lot party at the hotel at night. Friday Autocross started around 9am after the drivers meeting. I was in run group 1 (same with Scott, Billy, Curt). I had difficulty fighting the car to react how I wanted it to react despite tire pressure changes, strut/shock changes, and varying between which gear I wanted to be in for which part of the course). We all got 7 runs on Friday. I tagged some cones, slid the car around more than needed and overall it just wasn’t my best day. UMI provided lunch and at night they had food trucks, a local country singer, a bonfire, and parking lot party. Lexi took Scott Billy and I for a thrilling ride though the woods on one of the side-by-side 4 wheelers. Saturday I did my best to focus and made a few runs with similar times to my best times of Friday afternoon. Then, I decided that I would crank up some more rear brake pressure to maybe keep the car more settled and not nose dive/push so much. This seemed to work and I wish I had done it sooner. The afternoon I made a string of mid 48 second runs and I was happy with that. Loaded up the car with my 300+ pounds of gear and made the long drive home. Only had one mechanical gremlin the whole weekend, and that is my fuel pump/tank got way too hot during the ride home, but I got that solved. My biggest takeaway was that I need to be more forceful and snappy with steering inputs. With this new build I am hesitant to “know” the car yet, so that’s why I wasn’t so direct and crisp. I also really don’t trust these 5 year old hard rubber street tires to do what I want them to do, and for good reason.. because on many occasions they just don’t grip and the car slides right, left, and forward too much. I will keep these nittos for this year, but next year I will have a set of BFG rivals, Falken Azenis, or Bridgestone RE71rs for my current 18” wheels. Overall, super fun weekend. Great weather, food, people, lots of laughs and excitement.

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Longer version:
Packed up the car on Wednesday with a ton of tools, parts, fluids, floor jack, jack stands, spare wheel and tire, helmet, clothes, laptop, and so forth. Cranked up the rear shocks to the max to keep the tires off the inner fenders if I hit a huge bump on the highway at speed (this happened last year and I got a few small slices in the pass side tire). Left for PA mid morning on Thursday so traffic was light and sunglare was low. The directions are super easy. Just get on rt 80 from my neighborhood, take it for 220+ miles and get off at the exit, two left turns and I am in the hotel parking lot. Saw a few fellow UMI participants during the drive. After checking into the hotel we headed over to the track to get our registration packets, stickers, and to go through tech inspection. We got to walk the course too, so I did that twice. UMI had pizza for dinner as more and more people arrived and unloaded their cars from trailers. There was definitely a lot more cars coming on trailers this year; lots and lots of high caliber cars. Party in the parking lot at night.
Friday I drove the car over to the track and we started racing around 9am after the usual drivers meeting and national anthem. There were 120 vehicles registered for the event and I think 110 or so showed up. They split the field into 3 run groups just based on where you parked. However the vehicles are classed into 4 different categories: “vintage” “mid-muscle” “modern-muscle” and 2 seater”. I was in mid-muscle. None of this mattered to me, as I had no competitive expectations and no lofty dreams of being anywhere near the top of any class or overall.


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Day1:

Run 1: Set front tires to 35psi and rears to 28psi. front struts to 4/5 tightness and rear shocks to 2/5.
- The car slid/pushed when entering the infield at one point, enough for me to go off course
- So I got a DNF but ran 60.510 seconds while figuring out the rest of the course
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PplJKYXBPY


Run 2: lowered the front tire pressure to 32. Kept the rear psi and struts/shocks the same
- Decided to hold the car in 1st gear on the front stretch so I was on the rev limiter for a bit, but had more power in 1st gear in the infield. turned out to cause more sliding though
- Ran a 51.864
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EMn8JZDrgo


Break for other run groups to make laps

Run 3: Front tires re-set at 32 psi and rear set to 28. Softened front struts to 3/5 and kept rears at 2/5
- Tried leaving the car in 2nd gear and not shifting at all. Causing it to be slower in the infield, but less blazing of the tires. I got confused at the couse layout in corn-dog corner and didnt make the left in time.
- Ran a 54.121
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2xRlQtSaQM


Run 4: Front tires to 32.0 rear at 28.0 struts 3/5 shocks 2/5
- 1st gear and 2nd gear on the track and then downshifted to 1st gear for the infield. Tires can’t grip when heavy on the throttle in 1st so I ran through some infield cones again. decided to stay in 2nd gear from now on
- Got a DNF but ran a 54.148
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBM-J_vUqYY


Run 5: Lowered front struts to 2/5 rears at 2/5 also tire pressure same
- Clean run, no cones. 50.322
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWh2-9g8dhg


Break for lunch and other run groups to make laps. Burgers and lunch stuff provided by UMI


Run 6: 30psi front and 28 psi rear
- BTK joined me for a ride along (after I just did a ride along in his car moments prior). He told me that I certainly need to be more quick and demanding with my steering inputs. Left it in 2nd gear for the whole run.
- My best run of the day, but apparently, I hit a cone that both he and I didn’t realize I hit, so yea
- 48.670 with +1 cone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyMZNUC4BnM



Chatted with a lot of people throughout the day and talked to them about my options for better tires. Talked to the guys at Thurn-One steering about my previous power steering pump issues and they had some recommendations for me in case my current (new) setup with the new pump and the new cooler gave me any problems this event or in the future. Which it didn’t!! but it was good to talk to them about future upgrades and such. Went back to the hotel for a shower and then back to the track for food from the food trucks, groups of people hanging out partying, a live country singer, fire pit, etc. This part of the event drew a good amount of locals from the community so that was good for the track and for business. Ryan’s sister (Ryan is the owner of UMI and UMI Motorsports park) took us for a wildly exciting thrill ride(s) through the 86 acre property on one of the tracks ATV’s.


Day 2, Saturday.

Run 7: Front tires 30 rears 27.5 shocks struts left the same at 2/5 and 2/5
- Car pushed straight when I wanted to turn right, right after the infield loop. so BTK instructed me how to take this corner better and I am glad to have listen to him.
- Ran a 50.548 with +2 cones
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxC0_PqKLXc


Run 8: no changes to tires or shocks
- Clean run, no cones, I just get impatient while “lugging” through the infield at low rpms in 2nd gear.. but that keeps the car from sliding around and from blazing the tires loose so it’s the best manner to navigate the infield by.
- Ran a 50.517 clean
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-Q5ZxhQnT8


Break


Run 9: no changes, clean run minor sliding, still nose diving though.
- Ran a 50.320
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P7rwMHhrvA

Run 10: 31 psi front, 28 psi rear shocks struts still the same 2/5 and 2/5
- Growing frustrated at the nosediving all weekend, I decided to crank up (in) the rear brake line proportioning valve 1 full turn. This seemed to help a bit actually.
- Ran a 48.767 finally under 50.00 !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmcy331tel0



Break for lunch


Run 11: tires and shocks the same, added a ½ more turn in on the prop-valve.
- Slid into the cone wall just approaching corndog corner, I think it was just me being too aggressive, and not the cars fault. you can see the cone-person flee for safety as I drift towards him!
- Got a DNF with a 57.376 time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZS8j8ibAGo


Run 12: tires and shocks same BTK came along for the ride again
- 48.537 clean run
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtYkEzW4X3I



Break


Run 13: Front tires 30 psi rear 28 psi lowered both the front and rear struts/shocks to 1/5
- 48.517 clean run and my best run of the weekend.
My GoPro battery died 6 seconds into this run, so there is no video of it.



Had a much better second day than Day 1. Finished a little lower than I expected to finish when I arrived at the event. Would have liked to be in the top 80 or so, but live and learn. The track’s computer timing program seemed to have a glitch, that even though my correct times are displayed in the details when you click my name/number, the statistics show me finishing in 75th place with a time of 46.387 , right below Val Pichette and Brian Coyle. Now, Obviously anyone and everyone knows that is completely outlandish and impossible. If I take my best time of 48.517 (run 13) and find where that fits into the list, it puts me directly below our buddy and pal BonzoHansen (Scott Applegate) who was just 0.042 seconds faster than me). I am content with that. Packed up the hot car with my tremendous amount of gear and watched the awards ceremony. Afterwards, headed out for the ride home.

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The ride home was super smooth sailing aside from one single mechanical issue; hot fuel tank. I have had an issue before with heat/pressure in the tank, but it never had caused the pump to shut off. So, I was about 45 minutes into the ride home and everything was perfect. All gauges had great readings. I had the converter locked and I was cruising on rt 80 when all of a sudden I felt a stumble and looked at the gauges to see the AFR go way lean just as the motor shut off. I coasted to the “shoulder” which was pretty tight at this stretch of roadway. Tried to crank it, but no fire up. Started thinking and learned the fuel pump wasn’t “priming” when I put the key on. Hilariously, that fuel pressure gauge I had installed at the sniper last week, (and subsequently REMOVED because it was leaking just two days prior to leaving for UMI) would have come in super freaking handy at this moment int time!!! Anyways I cracked open the fuel feed line fitting at the sniper and didn’t have good fuel pressure. I then thought, hmm, lets open the gas cap. It opened with a huge blast of super hot vapor. Hot as in real hot. As I left het cap off for the tank to breathe, I got under the car and felt the tank, and it was scalding hot. I also noticed that my muffler and the heat shield were pressed really tight together and also seemed to be really close, if not touching the fuel tank. I am certain the muffler heat soaked the tank and fuel and pump. I also opened the trunk and felt the carpet on the trunk’s hump and it was way hot. I let it cool down for 7-8 minutes and tried again. It fired up and ran. I took the next exit and got some fresh fuel and had zero problems the rest of the trip. I am thinking the heat soak from the day of track action and the weight of all my gear in the trunk was the cause, as even though I have had fuel tank pressure before, it has never been this excessive with pressure and heat.

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The highway driving and normal road driving with this car is phenomenal. The engine loves to run between 179-185 on the highway, and with the converter locked it does 80-82 mph at 2,400 rpms. Trans temp stays right at 160 deg. According to my “learn values” on the sniper data the tune is really on point for drivability. I plan on looking at the datalogs from the autocross later on this week and that will help me refine my AE acceleration enrichment based on the TPS RoC and other values that I see. Its probably really close to perfect, but I will examine the data. Then I plan on locking in the learn limits of the tune file and calling it good.


All in all, a super fun weekend and event. 529 miles of driving with 2 days of autocross action. It is one of my car highlight events for the year.




I am working on compiling the 10-12 video clips I took into a single video, but having problems with the computer still.
-There will be official re-cap videos and photos coming from UMI and other media outlets, I'll probably post those in the separate UMI thread I created.

[Blackbirdws6]

UMI puts on a nice event and glad you enjoyed yourself while improving throughout your days there. Sounds like the car performed well with minimal issues outside of your issue on the trip home so that's a great testament to the work you have put in.

I look forward to the eventual pics/vids and hearing from others who attended. Hopefully next year I'll be able to attend.

One last comment, with all the detail you covered for each day/run, shame on Scott and Bill for not making you drink more.

[sweetbmxrider]

:lol: agreed, bls. Great read!

[BonzoHansen]

Dave, you sure you have that tank vented properly?


One last comment, with all the detail you covered for each day/run, shame on Scott and Bill for not making you drink more.
1) Dave is much nicer than us lol
2) we tried, but he and Joe were both teetotaling this weekend.
3) Billy and I probably made sure we drank their share too. :rofl:

[IROCZman15]

Ha. Yea. So this year I changed up my routine and decided no drinking, period. So it was bizarre when I woke up wide awake at 4:30am on Friday morning, and then on Saturday morning I had a splitting headache until lunch time. I was like, damn I didn’t even drink a drop of booze, and this is what I get!! Oh well.


So regarding the vented gas tank. I’ve looked into this a little bit over the years and occasionally I’ve had hot fuel vapor come out of the tank after a really long drives. But it was never ever in the 20 years that I’ve owned this car to the point where the pump stopped working. I do not have a vented gas cap but I do have a working check ball breather under the car. In fact I have one on the car and one on my part shelf in both of them I have disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled. I’ve always thought that the vented gas cap was to let air in so the gas tank didn’t suck itself in. I thought the evap canister was for pressure. However neither was to help with heat and fuel boiling, correct? I mean if a simple vented gas cap would alleviate future issues, I’ll certainly do that. However this is the same gas cap that has been on the car since way prior to me owning it, and I e had it for 20.5 years now.


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[BonzoHansen]

Evap line should vent it. Did you cap it?

Are you running a fuel return line? If so how's it run?

[IROCZman15]

yea, evap line is capped (folded over and crimped) since I removed the charcoal canister this winter. I have no interest in putting in an evap system either. especially nothing ugly and under the hood. perhaps something like a canister filled with that activated charcoal mounted near the tank above the axle, but that just sounds ugly and sloppy. and I tend to avoid stuff like that.

yes, running a -6 return line from the sniper unit directly back into the tank's oem style return line. the -6 connects to the oem return line just above the tanks bulkhead. I think I have a photo somewhere on my other "car buildup thread" edit: found it: https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4605/38864425990_91018864e3_z.jpg
the -8 is feed line, the -6 is return. the other is evap and its not been capped right by the axle, and the 4th one is for the vent-valve/rollover acorn thing.

[sweetbmxrider]

I left mine open to atmosphere with a basic small inline carb fuel filter. That other thing sounds like the rollover valve.

[BonzoHansen]

^^^do that and see if it changes the issue. Or if you can get a vented cap for that tank. Or drill a few small holes in the one you have.

A pricey way to do it is this: https://www.iimuch.com/collections/fuel-differential-vents
Guys swear by these, no gas smells in their garages that an open vent often allows.

On the return, when the early EFI swap guys were on the power tour in the early 2000s, many had hot fuel issues due to returns from the engine. it was causing fuel pump cavitation. that is when the corvette fuel filter with the regulator came into vogue. Note Chevy doesn't return hot fuel back to the tank.

OEs do things for reasons.

[LTb1ow]

^^^do that and see if it changes the issue. Or if you can get a vented cap for that tank. Or drill a few small holes in the one you have.

A pricey way to do it is this: https://www.iimuch.com/collections/fuel-differential-vents
Guys swear by these, no gas smells in their garages that an open vent often allows.

On the return, when the early EFI swap guys were on the power tour in the early 2000s, many had hot fuel issues due to returns from the engine. it was causing fuel pump cavitation. that is when the corvette fuel filter with the regulator came into vogue. Note Chevy doesn't return hot fuel back to the tank.

OEs do things for reasons.

Prior to that vette setup they did. Don't recall reading of issues with stock stuff

My pump pulls a vac on my fuel tank with just one 6an vent line, so next tank iteration will def have a larger vent in place. Along with a fuel return submerged.

[Blackbirdws6]

I left mine open to atmosphere with a basic small inline carb fuel filter. That other thing sounds like the rollover valve.

Ditto and I honestly only get a whiff of gas in the garage after a fill-up which subsides quickly.

[LS1ow]

dont know if itll be any help, but my fuel system has the feed line to the front, the return port capped and the vent port vented to atmosphere with a small breather on the end. Ive ran that set up the whole time and never had any issues, nor any fumes in the garage.

but i dont drive it nearly as much as you.

[BonzoHansen]

Prior to that vette setup they did. Don't recall reading of issues with stock stuff

My pump pulls a vac on my fuel tank with just one 6an vent line, so next tank iteration will def have a larger vent in place. Along with a fuel return submerged.

4th gen f bodies don't, at least LS cars. They got away from it in general for a reason. Nonetheless swap guys definitely had that issue on long hot rides - like 1+ hour summer rides

[wretched73]

4th gen f bodies don't, at least LS cars. They got away from it in general for a reason. Nonetheless swap guys definitely had that issue on long hot rides - like 1+ hour summer rides

I know on the truck side, i think 03 or 04 they went to a dead head, non return fuel system.

Aftermarket high HP guys who go back to a return system have issues with hot fuel because the fuel returns goes directly into the fuel bucket. This is good when the tank is low as it helps keep the pump cool and prevents starvation but on a long and hot cruise the fuel can really start heating up.

Common breather on lots of trucks is to run the breather line up from the tank to the fuel door along the filler neck, and put a little carb style filter (like beggs and adam mentioned) right next to the gas cap

[TaKid455]

2nd the II Much stuff. Nice piece. Also used for Diff venting.

While I have heard of return style system issues, I haven't run into any. For simplicity, I build them with the return back by the filter/ regulator nowadays. Biggest issue I've run into fueling wise on so called built cars is improper pump & injector sizing along with inadequate wiring for pump. You don't have this issue Dave.

OEs went this way for cheaper cost (less material & labor) & to eliminate extra heat being added to the fuel.

[IROCZman15]

awesome. thanks for the input guys.

I think my first attempt at fixing it will be trying a new vented gas cap. AC delco GT195 was recommended to me, and I have also seen some other fully vented ones. If that does not solve the issue, I will be dong what you fellas recommend, and get a small little breather and connect it to the capped off evap tube by the axle. I'll get on this next week, but I do appreciate the input and help!


On wednesday I picked up that front set of skinnies that Joey D was selling. ( http://www.njfboa.org/forums/showthread.php?t=69132 ). 15" JEGS SSR wheels with Mickey Thompson Sportsman SR tires. I drove over to his house and test fit them. the research I did on the corvette forum mentioned that I might need a small spacer, so I bought some in advance at Bruce's speed shop. Turns out I did need them! But the wheels fit and the price was very good. Thanks Joe, super awesome.

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I am still chasing that 11.999 second timeslip, so I am certain these will help get me there one day. I am also hoping to pull a small wheelie one day, so these will help with that too.
- Therefore I am going to head over to Island Dragway tomorrow for the Summit ET Raceday and enter into the Trophy class. there is no test and tune this weekend at Island, so the next best thing is this. I have never done a raceday event, so this is all new to me. The trophy class seems the easiest for a newbie like me to attempt ( https://www.islanddragway.com/6852-2/ ). Not sure if I will get that 11.999 tomorrow because of the weather, so I might plan on a slower dial in, but instead try to pop a wheelie in the process of running a slower e.t and dial in. If I can do both, that would be fantastic, but unlikely.

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Put the drag radials on the car today, the new-to-me skinnies, front sway bar removed, took the seats and sound system out, kept my tools packed in the toolboxes from the UMI autocross, and checked the holley GCF files. I also went to the local quarry and weighed the car with all the seats out and skinnies on, and it weighed 3,320 without me in it, and weighed 3,500 with me in the car and full tank of fuel. Joey D and I had weighed my existing 18" wheels (50 pounds) and the skinnies (35 pounds each).

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I will get one (maybe 2) timeshot/test passes in the morning, and then 1pm is eliminations. I will probably get knocked out right away, but hopefully I can get either an 11 or a wheelie. I might even put some weight in the trunk, maybe, maybe not.

[IROCZman15]

Since there was no "test and tune" class this weekend I decided to enter the car into a small little trophy class instead of going into the sportsman classes. I was basically using the class to do test and tune, and I only got two passes total unfortunately. But my wife was away for the day and I just really wanted to go to the track. I checked the weather forecast and decided Saturday would be the best day because Sunday (today) looked like rain. and it turns out Island canceled the nostalgia drags today so I am glad I went Saturday.


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I have never done any type of bracket racing; just previously did test and tune days. I knew there was a lot more involved in bracket racing, but I decided to give it a shot. Knowing the hot summer weather was not helpful with my quest for an 11 second pass, I decided to try to work on my reaction time, launch, and to finally get to test my new shift light. Lots of cars racing in different classes meant that we all only got one test pass or "timeshot". I decided that I would put a safe WOT ignition tune in the car and I loaded one that has my WOT set to only 35 deg. Knowing that I would run slower, I decided to see if I could get the car to maximize front end lift by putting a lot of weight in the rear. for my first pass I put 200 pounds of weight in the trunk's lower well! sounds crazy, but when I chatted with some experienced racers, they said that many of them had done this earlier in life and I shouldn't feel too dumb about experimenting with this. I also lowered both the front and rear struts/shocks to the lowest setting. Had the front skinnies set at 35psi and the rear drag radials at 19psi. Did a good 2 gear burnout. I wanted to see how the car would leave off of a "high idle" and while focusing on actually really trying to get a better reaction time. My previous reactions times recently are all over the place, because i had been concerned with other aspects of the car/pass. So I launched from an 1,100 rpm high-idle and the car hooked fine but I don't think it pulled a wheel. The track photographer who was there did not get a photo either. bummer. . I also wanted to see how dialed-in my new shift light was, so I didnt shift until I saw it light up at 6,100, and then as soon as that happened I quickly looked at the dash to see where the tach's needle was and THEN I shifted. this caused me to hit the rev limiter at 6,500 . did this same routine again for the 2-3 shift (tack bulb on->glance at dash tach->actually shift) . but I learned that I should slightly lower down the shift light's dial setting. ran a slow e.t. and got smoked by a modified Track-hawk. but my reaction time was somewhat good (for me) and there were no other issues. 12.418 at 110.08 mph. (remember 200 lbs in the trunk, hit revv limiter on both shifts, and a "safe" 35 deg WOT timing)

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Since we only had that one time-shot to base our Dial-in for round 1 from, I kept the ECU tune the same, lowered the shift light rpm, and decided to put another 100 pounds in the trunk. so thats 300 lbs in the trunk total (bringing my car weight to 3,800 with me in it). it seems somewhat foolish, but I would rather experiment and try, instead of never trying and not knowing. I wrote a 12.45 dial on the window despite knowing the rule that 100 pounds will add a tenth to an e.t., but I planned on not tagging the rev limiter so I was ok with a 12.45 dial in. Welp, I got an unlucky draw against a guy who has a very dialed in car and is very consistent. So i got knocked out when he went 14.261 on his 14.26 dial in! However, the 300 pounds in the trunk is indeed getting the nose to lift, but again no track photographer (they took breaks because of the heat) so I can not verify if I am close to lifting a wheel yet or not. Honestly, I think I am not, but I am probably really close to having the drivers side front tire up high enough that is is just gliding on the track for a moment. the extra weight caused my pass to be slower, but I am fine with that. I was a little bit better on the tree with a .117 reaction time. But this is new to me and one day I will look back and laugh at my previous .4xx and .5xx reaction times. I later spoke to Jerry (theHazGuy) about some tips and tricks on how to react/time a tree. He has been super helpful to me, along with a lot of the other racers I hungout with and chatted with yesterday. I learned a lot.

Anyways, I got knocked out in round 1, as expected. Only got two passes, but learned a ton from people and drove the car home with no issues. I feel that the adjustment on the shift light is pretty well set, so maybe 1 or 2 more passes and I will lock it in for good. Up to yesterday, I;'ve never had to react/shift from a shift light bulb, but I will get used to it soon I am sure. I plan on going to the Test and Tune this upcoming Sunday August 9th.


I took screenshots of the datalogs for my two passes. I am also pretty happy with the values in my LEARN table too. I know the extra weight in the trunk effected the load on the engine, so some numbers up top aren't really low, but I wont be loading hundreds of pounds of weights in the car for long, probably just experiment one more time if a track-photographer is there. could also try a go pro mounted low on the car facing the front drivers side tire.


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Datalog of Run 1:
dark read RPM line, shows me leaving off an 1,100 rpm high-idle and the converter flashing around 2,800 (but its a 3,400 converter.. is this normal??), I hit the revv limiter at the top of both shifts (flat spot on dark red line). ignition timing is the flat green line and was 35 deg at WOT. AFR seems well dialed in (except rev limiter moment and at shift)

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Datalog from Run 2:
Left from a 1,600 rpm and converter flashes right around 2,800 rpm. timing is 35 deg. Was much better on the shifts with the 1->2 shift at 6,289 and the 2->3 shift at 6,356 rpm. crossing the finish line lower than usual in the rpm band (at 5,480 rpm but I also have an extra 300 pounds in the trunk). CL comp% and learn were also pretty good.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50181351568_3103a2e6cd_c.jpg



Only one in-car video from yesterday which was pass 1 against the trackhawk. I must have double clicked the go-pro camera button because for pass 2 I only have a 1second clip! whoops.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyPNq2osf9s

[LTb1ow]

That seems like a LOT of RPM drop every shift.

[IROCZman15]

I had thought that too when I looked at some logs back in early June. I looked at my dyno sheet and noticed that it is dropping to just before where the top of peak torque is (see dyno sheet on page 1 of this thread), so, I assumed this was normal? Also, I was unaware of what I could even do about it, so I didn't dwell on it too long. If its bad/negative/ not optimal and there is a fix for it, I am all ears!

[LTb1ow]

Assuming 26in tires and 3.73 gears, with that trap speed/RPM, you are slipping 3.351% I think. Which is pretty good IMO.

Have you shown the data plot to the torque converter guy?

[IROCZman15]

correct on the 26" tires, but I have a 3.55 gear ratio in the rear...not 3.73s

unfortunately all this is real new to me, so if you are able to enlighten me a little bit about how you can calculate slippage etc, that would be awesome

I had the converter re-freshed back in February before the engine was even running, just based off of the cam, gears, engine build, weight, and multi-use street car gameplan. I haven't talked to him since back then. he also knew I was going to use nitrous in the future so it was spec'd for that too.

let me know any thoughts/ideas. many people yesterdays aid my converter was holding me back from some mid-11 second drag passes, but after I explained that its a true street car that is drive to the track, driven to shows, autocrossed, etc there was more understanding on why we went with a 3,400 converter instead of something like a 4,200 converter.

[LTb1ow]

That brings it to 8.6% which is still pretty good I believe, but I would def suggest calling Edge and seeing how they feel about that RPM drop every shift.

(I was using this site for calculating slip https://www.tciauto.com/racing-calculators)

[IROCZman15]

Thanks Matt

I decided to call Andre at Edge Racing converters this afternoon just to settle my thoughts and ask his expert advice. I had a few questions which have been rolling around in my head, and the topics have been covered here and with other friends of mine, but I figured it would only help me to speak with him. he built my converter with the most important aspect being the "STR factor" or "street" parameters setup that his company calculates. The street nature of the car along with all the car/engine specs were taken into account along the way. He knew that my future plans did/do include nitrous use so he made the converter tighter so that it doesn't "flash through" when nitrous is in use next year.


He confirmed that the converter flashing at 2,800 rpm after leaving off of a high idle at 1,200 or so, is normal. He described the converter in having a " true-stall of 3,100plus ". He stated that if I wanted to have the best/highest converter flash-stall, I would be best leaving off of a dead idle (mine idle is set at 920 rpms). More important than flash-stall is true stall of the converter. Flash-stall is not necessarily where I need to launch the car every time. I was not doing this during the session this past Saturday when I had the 300 lbs in the trunk, I now will try this next time). As for my rpm drop between shifts, he stated that for the street car aspect that this car is, that the 1,500 rpm drop between shifts is normal. If the car was a full blown 1/4 mile car he would want the rpm drop to be only about 1,000 rpm.. and for an 1/8th mile car the rpm drop would be only about 800 rpm. If the car was setup for drag race only he would have the converter stall speed at 4,000-4,200 rpm. The best for me now (with plans for nitrous this winter) is keeping this 3,400 converter as is. "Nitrous will cause a higher flash and higher K factor". As for the 8.6% converter slip (that Matt calculated with the extra weight in the trunk) this number is pretty good. He said to do some fresh passes with no weight in the trunk and launching from an idle and then calculate slippage again. I also asked him if there would be any benefit to me manually locking-up the converter at any time during the run. He said it wouldn't cause any problems mechanically with the converter because it has high-carbon internals and would not ever glaze or depreciate. It would get closer to 1:1 ratio when in lockup, but this would then get me more "out of the sweet spot", and would cause even more of a drop in rpm's between the shifts, so basically "it would be a slow dog" if I locked it up during a pass. (I did actually try this back on June 6th, and i remember that it did exactly this so I never re-visited locking it up during a run but wanted to ask him anyways). I asked him about the wheelie aspect, and he recommended that for this I would be better off launching completely opposite as discussed before. My 60ft and et would suffer negatively, but I would have a better chance of lifting the nose up if I brought the rpms up as high as possible on the foot-brake and then pouncing on the throttle.

So, launch from as high rpm as my brakes can hold for a wheelie attempt, but for the best/quickest drag pass possible, leave from a 920rpm idle.


He is confident that with nitrous on this converter the car will fly. It is currently doing fantastic with street manners, its right there at the autocross, and is doing moderately well for N/A drag racing.. but when I get the nitrous into this car...this converter will come alive. This sound right? basically I am currently just experiencing the results of having a mutli-use car but the "slower" N/A drag passes will give way to much better use of the converter when the 200 shot starts flowing.*



comments questions concerns are always appreciated!

[sweetbmxrider]

I was wondering about the trap speed as well

[IROCZman15]

mystifies me too guys, it really does.
my best trap speed was only 113 mph when I ran the 12.07 pass back in late June. I wish I knew what needed to be sorted out to really let this car fly, which is why I am on here daily (and elsewhere) asking questions and trying to learn what needs to be done to set the car alive. I've even checked over the silly stuff on the car like making sure all wheels spin freely and no brakes are dragging.
- Datalogs, VE table, fuel flow numbers, sniper data says the engine is doing its job and is in spec with producing the 530 hp. yet, the power-train seems to rob a lot of power (seat of the pants feel, lack of brutal pulling power the whole 2nd half of the track). I know my exhaust setup isn’t optimal, but I don’t think it’s robbing that much top end power ? Maybe it is

[IROCZman15]

as for the converter topic, especially the rpm drop between shifts, I mentioned the same thing on Thirdgen.org and one of the guys who has been helping me throughout my build replied with this:

" From what I've worked out , both mathematically and empirically is :

6500 rpm 1st gear shift to ~3420 in 2nd.
6500 rpm 2nd gear shift to ~4010 in 3rd.
6000 rpm 2nd gear shift to ~3700 in 3rd.

That's based on the 700R4/4L60 gear ratios of 3.06 and 1.62 (1st and 2nd respectively). This does not account for the characteristics of the converter.
​​​​With my off the shelf 10" TCI, I'm estimating about a 10% slippage. There's always been a significant RPM drop from 1st to 2nd. It's not so much from 2nd to 3rd as you can see in the above.
Now the empirical part came from racing with my own Camaro and a similarly prepared 82 Monte Carlo. My 1-2 was always crisp although the ratio split made for a terrible shift. The 2-3 shift was generally slow despite the tighter gearing. That was with a home prepped 700 with the usual stuff and the 10" converter. Now enter the Monte with the same converter and transmission. Predictably the same results. Later that season we swapped in a spec 9.5" Yank. Surprisingly (to me anyway) was that data logs showed that the engine RPMs never fell below 5000 regardless of the gear it was in. 6500 1-2 shift landed at 5000. Same on the 2-3. That car picked up 2/10ths.
This to me demonstrated the importance of having a converter tailor made for the application. And a specific application at that. Not only that but having a thoroughly built transmission pays off too. My home brew rebuild was sent to a specialty shop (an acquaintance of mine actually). I spec'd a pile of Sonax and new GM parts for it and let my guy do his thing. The results are nothing short of spectacular. Shifts are blazingly fast at WOT. Even the previously sloppy 2-3 shift is instant.
Now although I've stepped up in the converter game with another TCI, it's not going to compare to the likes of a Yank or an Edge that's made for my car as you guys have. "


that info and much more can be found on my "engine" thread on TGo :
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/tech-general-engine/768347-some-questions-during-install-3.html




otherwise


I hope to back to Island on Sunday to experiment with launching from a dead idle. I am also considering removing the cat back exhaust for a day of testing? I know that some of you guys are making due with a 3" exhaust and are making more power than I am, but I became curious about if my DynoDon's mid length headers, Dyno dons y-pipe and hooker 3" full cat back (gutted cat tho) was too restrictive. I do have an electric cutout mid way along the 3" main pipe, and I leave this open while racing, so I never thought much more into it as being restrictive. I played with an exhaust size calculator and in general terms, a 3" single pipe exhaust is really only good for 370 hp. Another calculator shows I would need about 3.6" diameter pipe for 531 hp.

- On my other build thread (the one started a few years ago) I knew I would need to upgrade the exhaust later, but it was not in the budget for this year or for the N/A setup. My plans were/are to put a mufflex 4" exhaust and some long tubes on the car this winter when the nitrous gets installed and along with the roll bar. I am wondering if I should bother leaving the headers and y pipe on but taking the rest of the cat-back off the car for this sunday's test and tune day. Its hardly more than 20 minutes of work and this would remove the two tailpipes, muffler, over axle pipe, and part of the main pipe...removing maybe 40 pounds of weight and possibly freeing up exhaust flow??.. I cant take off the y-pipe and run open headers because of where the o2 sensor is and it would get false readings. thoughts?

[wretched73]

Your exhaust probably isn't doing you any favors but I can't see it being a major restriction.

Go ahead and drop the cat back and run without it, see if you can free some more top end power up. Won't hurt to lost the 40# either. You could take the air filter off and see if you can free restrictions from both ends :shrug:

Good luck and let us know how it goes

[Blackbirdws6]

It may be in this thread but curious of two things.

1. Where does the engine make it's power? A good peak number doesn't suggest great power under the curve. I wonder if there is some untapped power that may be better seen on a chassis dyno with more tweaks.

2. Did you determine if you have enough air filter and/or have run with it off? Would the tune compensate for any extra air flow?

[IROCZman15]

yep, I am probably going to take the cat back off. I am guessing it weighs about 40 pounds, but I'll do my best to weigh it once it is off for an actual number. Will do this saturday afternoon after I get home from the car show in hackettstown.

-I have been taking the air cleaner/filter completely off since back in early June. So the datalogs, tune, and learn data from the track sessions is all with the air filter off. Back in march I did a few passes with the air filter on and some with it off. I also did a few highway rips with air filter on and off and sent these files to the tuner. Overall, the MAp only drops by 1 with air filter on, so it was nice to learn that it is not a huge air restriction when it is on. But again, at Island, the air cleaner comes off and gets put into a box for the day, but I put it back on when I pack up the car and set off for the drive home.

as for the horsepower, it made over 500 hp from 5,300-6,400 rpms. So I guess that's is powerband?
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49499600221_84cc432cb4_c.jpg
I called the engine builder and he said to shift between 6,200-6,300 and to set my rev limiter at 6,500. so thats what I am doing. On pass #2 of this past weekend I shifted great, but again, there was 300 pounds in the trunk and I was at 35 deg WOT timing. My target afr for peak power is 12.5:1 and the sniper is keeping it right there with some very minor corrections in CL Comp%

chris: I did some fiberglass work and body filler work to the passenger side rocker panel you gave me. still needs some more sanding and fine tuning in the coming week, but hopefully I will have it painted soon.

I chatted with the local performance shop in the next town over and they now have their chassis dyno up and running. Pretty sure he wants to sell me a tune along with dyno time for around $450. I am on the fence about this because I know I will need the car tuned and dynoed in the spring once the nitrous is on it. For nitrous dyno time he chargs $650, which also includes base tuning. So I am thinking it is financially smarter to not do a N/A tune for $450 now, and then have to pay another $650 come springtime. Part of me is saying to hold my money and wait for spring to do the N/A tune and the nitrous tune at the same time for one price.


car show saturday at the Lowes in Hackettstown. It usually gets a lot of cars but this year it is limited to 300 entries. They do have a live band, some extra displays and stuff so its a good one to go to if you are looking to get out and about on saturday. Sunday I'll head to the track.

[Blackbirdws6]

Thanks for the info. Per the engine dyno, it's making good steam so I'd suggest the following which has already been mentioned.

- Ditch the 300lbs in the trunk.
- Remove the catback

I feel like the 300lbs is robbing of you of about 30HP (usual rough calc of folks saying 100lb = 10 hp). You are also racing in some pretty hot temps so the DA is likely garbage so you may only see modest gains. I wouldn't go too nuts shooting for your number right now but you should see better results naturally in the late Fall. You may be leaving 50+HP on the table with all things considered which assumes your catback isn't a restriction.

I agree that I wouldn't spend money on a retune now and wait until you are ready to spray it.

I'll be at the show on Saturday with the Bird. Larry (TAKid455) extended an invite for the car to be at his booth. Hopefully no issues pop up as this will be it's longest ride since all the things were rebuilt/redone. It won't be cleaned up properly either but it will be fine.

[IROCZman15]

cool, sounds good to me. I know I am a bit impatient to run a good number at the track, so I am hyped up to do it soon, but come cooler weather in the Fall, that will be the plan also.

I will see you and Larry tomorrow at the show. Prob Chris will be there too and a few of the other car show regulars. cool .

[IROCZman15]

Overall a pretty good weekend. But I think I am going to take a break for a little while, especially from racing the car. Might do some shows until the weather gets a little better, unless I go over to a night-time T&T at Island. 3 racing events in 3 weekends was a little much (UMI autoX, Summit Bracket racing event, and T&T)


Went to the Cops-n-Rodders Car show in Hackettstown on Saturday. Hungout with Brian, Larry, Chris, AJ, and a bunch of other people I knew. Show was definitely good, live band, food, vendors, etc. A good assortment of well built cars, and it was actually my first car show (non cruise-night) event of the year. Weather was hot, but hey, it is August.
click link to photo album from the car show:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/iroczman15/albums/72157715440055261



Drove the car home and promptly removed the interior seats, nitrous bottle, sound system, front sway-bar, and removed the hooker 3" cat back. Swapped over all 4 wheels, and then loaded up my boxes of tools, spare parts, jack, and stuff.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50215839998_8f06018633_c.jpg

sidenote: I had these little logos printed at a local vinly place to put on the new Jegs skinnies. kinda takes away from the bulky look of the center cap: https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50215839763_f7263b83fd_c.jpg

---also in the above photo is the type of breather I plan to install on the old evap line to the fuel tank.. that is the style filter/breather you guys were talking about right???



Test and Tune was packed with a lot of cars on Sunday. There was a huge number of import/tuner cars and it took me 45 minutes to get through the front booth from the time I pulled onto the driveway. whew. I kept checking the weather/DA and pretty much knew that my first pass was likely going to be my best of the day...and... that it probably would not be anything in the 11 second zone. I knew I would therefore work on my reaction time, launches, 60 foot and also getting my shift light and shifting dialed in better. I had brought those heavy 50 pound weights just in case, so if my passes were garbage, I was going to try one last attempt for a wheel lift using the weights in the trunk.


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50216719662_a204ff0e55_c.jpg




Pass 1: launched from an idle (906 rpm) with a 1.690 60ft! ran a 12.153 at 111.10 mph . shifted at 6,428 rpm and 6,144, crossed the finish line at 5,700 rpm . WOT ignition timing set at 35.5 deg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50215839938_cc4e2e5fd0_c.jpg


video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6L4EKj7mFc






Pass 2: launched from an idle (964rpm) and a 1.808 60ft. ran a 12.285 at 112.31 mph shifted at 6,380 and 6,056 and finished at 5,736 rpm WOT timing moved up to 37.0 deg.


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50216724772_3c56e3221d_c.jpg


video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I14taj1YLqw



Pass 3: launched from an idle (898 rpm) and a 1.702 60ft. ran a 12.269 at 110.92 mph this pass I tried shifting off of the tach needle on the dashboard and hit the rev limiter both times. the shift light was lit-up both times but I wanted to see what the data log said if I shifted using the dash tach. shifted at 6,508 and 6,352 finished at 5,519 rpm WOT timing was moved to 38.0 deg. noticed my AFR is rich after pass 2, seeing 12.2-12.4. a nearby racer told me to lean it out so I set it at 12.8


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50215844983_016f601acd_c.jpg


video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3udrDH_VIg


Pass 4: launched from and idle (917 rpm) and a 1.723 60ft. ran a 12.190 at 112.34 mph... shifted at 6,229 and 6,024 finished at 5,724 rpm timing still 38 deg WOT and AFR set to 12.8


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50216724757_344a88102f_c.jpg

video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ned3tazJSs


Pass 5: knew I wasn't getting faster so I tried leaving off of the max rpm the brakes would hold, and at 2,181 rpm it pushed through the beams. 1.866 60ft and ran a 12.358 at 112.02 mph . tried shifting off the needle again and anticipated it too much so I short shifted at 5,969 and 5,980 finishing at 5,567 rpm . timing still 38 deg WOT and AFR set to 12.8


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50215845003_587408b532_c.jpg

video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5Ix1h4H8CY



Pass 6: decided to try the weights int he trunk one last time before I give that up and put 250 pounds of weight in the trunk well. had to try it one last time. launched at 1,793 rpm and a 1.793 60ft. ran a 12.560 short shifting it a lot at 5,667 and 5,890 rpm and finishing at 5,450 rpm timing still 38 deg WOT and AFR set to 12.8

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50216724767_893e20c979_c.jpg


video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWA-2zMTEes


the converter is flashing just above 3,000 rpm if I leave off my 920 rpm idle. the launches are less aggressive in the seat leaving from an idle, but as the converter guy told me on the phone.. I will see a better 60foot if I leave off an idle (except pass 2, not sure what was different there) I now have the shift light set to come on at 6,050 rpm which should keep me shifting between 6,200-6,350 rpm. rev limiter set at 6,550 at the end of the day. I figured out what settings my shocks and struts like to be on for a good launch. Also, the new-to-me front skinnies are set to 37psi (hot) and the rear MT ET street drag radials like to be at 19.0 psi (hot).

Determined that I am not going to be able to get the car to pull the front wheels with the current setup. a better rear gear might do it. and of course when the nitrous goes on this winter, it will launch wheels up, but I had to do what I could think of to at least try it a few times. it does get good front end lift and plants/hooks the rear tires, so i shouldn't be upset about that at all!

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50216724777_0240b0e48e_c.jpg



https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50215844968_ba7e8c9928_b.jpg


I mean overall, it was a good day at the track for figuring things out...but I am still super confused as to what is holding this car back. from higher mph and better passes. Something is robbing power, especially in 3rd gear at the top of the track.. its a dog. I don't think I got a lame engine, it made good steam on the dyno and I know for sure that it was my actual engine on the dyno paperwork they gave me and not just a false printout. Something is just eating power. Not the cat-back exhaust either, since that was removed for this whole day and I didn't see any monumental power gains in timeslips or in datalog info. It also isn't something silly like a dragging caliper or wheel bearing. I did that test where I had the car in neutral on jack stands (like beggs was talking about) and the rear wheels were spinning with the car in neutral, so if that was the case, I can eliminate a tight/dragging brakes or axle setup right?


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50216181558_8267d115d5_b.jpg


regardless. I used several racing calculators and checked the corrected e.t. and mph and high 11.7 to mid 11.8 passes are what came out all around 115-116 mph. I would be real happy to have an actual paper timeslip with those numbers, and I don't have any intention of changing rear gear ratios or big parts to get there.. so i will have to wait for better weather conditions. theoretically the horsepower of the engine should be in the mid-low 11's on a drag-based setup, so a high 11 would be more realistic for my multi-use street car. I guess I will have to be patient, but I am open to any and all suggestions and feedback.

[Anti_Rice_Guy]

I would just try again in October/November on a cool night, you'll see down to a -2500 DA at Island and you should easily achieve your goal numbers without cracking the bottle.

Are you deep or shallow staging the bulbs? It also makes a slight change in your numbers.

[IROCZman15]

yea, I am a bit impatient to run a number I can be happy with, but I might have to wait till October. I had no idea it would get THAT low of a DA there at Island!! cool

I am currently shallow staging the car. (aside from pass#5 when I rolled the beams while trying to foot-brake at 2,200rpm)

[LTb1ow]

Perhaps the gears are too steep for your motor?

3.73s seem to be a better choice IMO.

[IROCZman15]

yup, I've considered this too. probably would not want to go as far as a 4.11 or even a 3.92, but was considering a 3.73. just kinda on the fence about that since I am hesitant to open up the 2 year old Moser 12 bolt and change it around. Also, I am thinking that for my nitrous passes next year, if I go to a 3.73, I will be past what the 3rd gear will rev to during a 1/4 mile pass, and i'd be shifting into Overdrive/4th, which in a 700r4 would be a dog again at low rpm in 4th gear.

However, I still have the lock-up feature on a manual toggle switch and the converter guy at Edge said I could active lockup at the top of a gear if I am about to revv-out of that gear but still have distance to travel before crossing the stripe. so I'd be able to hit the lockup switch, pull the rpm down a few hundred and hold 3rd gear past the stripe.. instead of shiftign into 4th. So, Without doing the math (which I probably should do, but don't know how!), with keeping the 3.55 gear ratio I now have and adding the nitrous, that will hopefully let me use all of 3rd gear and I would certainly be crossing the stripe much closer to 6,000 rpm ( peak hp) yet, with a 3.73 or a 3.92 rear gear, i would have a much better chance of getting a wheelie too. I don't think either would compromise street driveability as much as changing to a 4,000 rpm converter would, but I am just not sure how ready I am to dismantle the "new-ish" 12 bolt just yet.

[IROCZman15]

installed the breather that you guys suggested on the old EVAP line. I put it right in that little area under the car where the OEM fuel filter used to be. It is right next to my wilwood adjustable prop valve and my racetronix 10micron fuel filter. so far no pressurized gas tank issues, but I haven't really ran the car that long on a hot day since. also, no noticeable fuel smell in the garage. I did buy an AC Delco gas cap which I was going to use instead of the filter/breather, but I will probably return it to Autozone in the future.

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I have the passenger side ground effect piece that wretched73 gave me all bodyworked, sanded, and primed. I might even get to paint it tomorrow.

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For a while I have been having an intermittent issue with the starter/starting the engine. Ever since March when the default cranking fuel values was pre-set wayyyy high from holley the starter would kick and clang occasionally. After I started using my remote tuner guy and learning the tuning info myself I lowered cranking fuel wayyy wayy down, but a little bit over time. Hot cranking fuel is about 7lbs and cold (60-80degF) is about 22pounds. holley had it set somewhere in the mid-40 pound range and this would cause the engine to occasionally not start and sneeze a vapor cloud of fuel out of the tbi. this would kick the starter and cause it to clang off of the flexplate. this happen more often in the spring, but as I dialed cranking fuel lower, it became less frequent by June....

.... Until recently, the clang, the starter gear kicking back, and the engine not spinning for more than a second or two happens a lot now. Now, I know I have been hard on this starter, especially the last 5-6 years with some of the racing events. espeically maneuvering around in the grid and staging lanes, turning the car on and off repeatedly at events. In the back of my mind I told myself, one day that starter will get tired of this repeated on-off-on-off.

The starter is a Summit Hitachi Starter #SUM829100 which I bought for $112 and installed in October of 2010. It has always worn a fabric thermal-heat shield and never gave me any problems on the old engine during those 9 years. I had considered buying a new starter when I installed this new engine, but said, welp, lets see how this one works and we will decided after. It did work good, and my thought back in the spring was that the high cranking fuel was flooding the engine and not firing the motor, so the starter was disengaging, with a clang and a bang and a buzz. Did this bad-ness happen often enough to a well-used 10 year old starter that now it is in it's death-throws?
I chatted with PolarBear a little bit about this and finally had a chance to watch what the gear was doing today when my wife came home and worked the key. Pulled the fuel-pump's fuel and the ignition coil wire first. I checked my voltage also and at the positive post on the starter I am getting 12.10 volts and this wire comes directly from the battery in the trunk after passing through the on/off kill switch. My cranking timing is set at 13 deg which it has been at for many months now. When cranking the ignition/starter, I am getting 11.23 volts on the starter's terminal. See the short 30 second youtube video for what it is doing. (not staying engaged and freezing, and then starting to spin after it gets away from the flexplate. unfortunately there is no clanging or banging in the video.

Yesterday I was troubleshooting this and since I wanted to change the spark plugs on the car anyways, I decided to do a compression test, and also see how if the starter spun the engine over easily with no plugs in it. Since the starter was acting up and I could not get the car to start, I did a cold compression test. all readings were between 145-155 cold, but anyways, the starter did "ok" staying engaged and spinning the motor over. However, even with no plugs in it, the starter would kick itself off the flexplate or stop spinning the flexplate but still making a spinning noise itself. Sidenote, I wore the battery down while doing the compression test, so I put it on a fast charge AGM charger and with new plugs in the motor, the car actually started after a few attempts .

Has this starter just been so used, abused, and clanged-on/shocked so many times the internal mechanics are pretty much shot, or am I looking at something different altogether? If I need a new starter, no problem, but if its something else, please let me know what to check. Summit no longer makes/sells the model starter I have, but there seems to be some equivalent mini-starters at a similar price.

short video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqt4HBS0S98


new plugs installed, visually checked under the valve covers, checked for vacum leaks and vac tested everything to find I am still at about 7.5" of vacum, so perhaps one day in the future I will add a vac pump for my brakes, because sometimes they are a little iffy..but the vac pump is for a later time, probably winter project.

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Lastly,
Found some of the photos from last weekend's Test and Tune at Island and these photos were early in the day, during pass 1 and pass 3. These were taken when I was leaving from a dead idle, I am sure of that because I was in the left lane. I did not attempt a better wheelie attempt until I was in the right lane on pass 5 and 6 when I left from a higher 2,200 rpm (and rolled the beams in pass 5) and put 250 pounds of weight in the trunk for pass 6 (and left from 1800rpm). during the passes in the right lane I also set the shocks/struts to be very loose, so I am sure the car is getting up a little higher compared to the photos taken below when I left from an idle.. , but nevertheless, not enough to yank a wheel up. ... while I am happy to have figured out that leaving from an idle gets me the best 60foot, the car just isn't getting up high enough to pull a wheel that way. I'll have to wait for the nitrous. The car does transfer weight good and is not spinning the MT ET streets, so I am happy about that.


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[wretched73]

Everything looks good, coming along nicely


new plugs installed, visually checked under the valve covers, checked for vacum leaks and vac tested everything to find I am still at about 7.5" of vacum, so perhaps one day in the future I will add a vac pump for my brakes, because sometimes they are a little iffy..but the vac pump is for a later time, probably winter project.

I'd skip the vac pump for brakes and go manual brakes. If you add a vac pump put it on your crankcase. That should actually net you a few HP

[IROCZman15]

I'd skip the vac pump for brakes and go manual brakes. If you add a vac pump put it on your crankcase. That should actually net you a few HP


woah, I never considered that. never crossed my mind! I am going to have to look into how manual brakes will work with my street/drag/autocross/show setup. its a winter project for sure, but this is exactly why I appreciate getting advice/guidance form you guys on the forums. thanks man


also, again, thank you for the fiberglass rocker panel you gave me. I finally had a chance to put paint on it today. I body-worked that section that had some scrapes on it over the past few weeks and primered it. knowing it is a rocker panel and down low, I did not have it professionally painted, but instead walked down the street to my neighbors house and we painted it there. he has a good setup with a big compressor, several guns, and a water separator device and whatnot. sow e did 4 coats of single stage paint, the same can of paint/reducer/activator that I painted my engine bay with. It will need some very light sanding with 2,000 grit paper and then a buffing, but I am happy with how it turned out.

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had a little time today to check on the starter issue, so i removed the pasenger side header and pulled the starter out,. I checked the gear/bendix and saw that it had a significant amount of lateral play to it. a few people have given me the technical diagnosis and I am happy to learn that its not something I directly caused. see 20 second video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0AwTeODU8s


Considered ordering a starter from summit/jegs but decided to stop by Bruces speed shop and I was able to physically look at the starters to visually see what one would work best. Decided on this Powermaster unit. Ran out of time today to get it installed, and didn't want to just rush putting it all back together, so I will do that friday. want to make sure it is shimmed right and clocked right and the teeth engagement is spot on. no sense rushing through that.

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[wretched73]

Still looking good.

https://www.manualbrakes.com/3rd-gen--82--92.html
for some light reading :p

[IROCZman15]

had a few hours today to get some work done on the car. Got the new Powermaster Master-Torque 9600 starter installed. The infi-clock feature was a big help.. I was able to clock the starter into the perfect position while it was still mounted in the car. checked teeth engagement at 3 places on the flexplate. all was good. used some DEI heat-wrap on my wiring near the header and then installed the header with a new fel pro gasket. I used never-seize on the gasket surface as per Bruce, but I have never done this on a header gasket. hopefully it doesn't result in any leaks. new starter fired-up the engine perfectly. did several test starts and everything is working great. took the car around the neighborhood and still having some intermittent power-brake problems. sometimes they are there, sometimes not. bummer.

perhaps this winter I will look into an upgraded power-brake system, but I don't want to be doing any of that now at all. Might just get a replacement booster for cheap and replace the one I have now. do not want to do a mid-year brake system renovation, swapping out a booster would only take about an hour or so.



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noticed how much metal from the headers is blocking exhaust gas flow from the cylinder head. perhaps this is one of the several reasons my car is not performing like it has 500+ horsepower. thoughts??

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[Joey D]

Do the brake booster. Quick and relatively cheap. Go toa dyno day or sumthn where u can get a rwhp would b a guess for me to see where u r at. U should b mid to upper 400's but by ur mph i thnk ur low low 400's. Just a random guess tho

[sweetbmxrider]

Will the brake booster help if you don’t have enough vacuum?

The mids are probably hurting more than the port matching with your powerband.

[LTb1ow]

I'll trade you a 3.73 geared S60 for your 3.54 geared 12 bolt.:mrgreen:

[IROCZman15]

yea, would love to do a simple quick dyno session, but not the $400 dyno and tune one at the local shop, not till Spring of 2021 when I can do that dyno/tune and then for $200 extra have the nitrous tune/dyno added on. no sense in dong two dyno tune sessions, but if a shop was holding a dyno day, I would do one of those where you get 3 pulls for like $75. I agree, seems like low-400 hp to the wheels based on timeslips and seat of the pants feel.


agreed on the mid length headers holding me back. wasn't sure about the port matching significance so i figured I'd ask here. I knew that a full exhaust re-do would be needed when I began this powertrain upgrade a few years ago (see my other build thread where I discuss it) but I wanted to see how well this current setup worked with the engine. for sure it wont work with nitrous, so my hopeful winter plans are for a long tube header and 4" mufflex exhaust setup. probably a 4" cut out too.

booster was ordered. using my autozone rewards points, a autozone promo code, returning the unused vented gas cap, and then sending back the current booster for a core charge, I am getting a replacement booster for like $60 total. just have to paint it and isntall it. I had car out for about 45 minutes yesterday. booster works intermittently. mostly works, but there are moments when it does not, even at various levels of throttle input. keeps things interesting. current booster is about 8 years old and HAS worked all through these various drag/autocross days 9with the old engine) and also multiple race events and 2,300 miles with the new engine... and during that whole time the engine was only making 7.5" vac so I don't see why an inexpensive booster swap-out wont get me just 3 more months of use in this configuration. come winter-time, I will certainly figure out a much better solution for power brakes.


I thought you liked your S60 setup though?!? I mean its damn bulletproof basically right?

[wretched73]

I thought you liked your S60 setup though?!? I mean its damn bulletproof basically right?

He needs your gear ratio more than anything else

[LTb1ow]

Ya I just want ~3.50 area gears, and the cost to re gear is too much for me to bother.

[IROCZman15]

ah gotcha. yea, the cost to re-gear is also a road-block for me also.


took some time today to wet sand and compound the replacement GFX piece that I painted 5 days ago. 4 coats of single stage paint was bound to leave some orange peel from an amateur painter like me. so, I hit it with 2,000 grit wet and then 3,000 grit wet. compounded it by hand twice, and then used some hand polish on it. did not wax or seal it yet, I want to wait another week to do that. I did not spend too much time/effort on the underside because nobody is going to see that anyways.



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did my best to get it to have a good shine and reflective finish by hand:

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surprised nobody has asked me about why I cut a half-circle out of the middle of the underside! well, my S&W subframe kit has a support bar that goes to the rocker area, and this is where I usually put a floor jack to lift the side of the car. it has always been ultra close to crushing my old GFX piece, so I made a generous cut-out on the new one in order to easily give myself room for the floor jack pad to get into place .

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oh well, I am glad to not have the broken piece held on by tape anymore, and this cost me only a few bucks for the panel from wretched and also I already had the paint, and supplies. mistake repaired.

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to:


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[wretched73]

Looks good, came out real nice

That cut out had me confused, I didn't think it looked like that when you picked it up lol

[sweetbmxrider]

Very nice work

[IROCZman15]

All the recent activity on this board is awesome. I like signing on and seeing 17 new posts! keep it up.

Updates:

-got the new brake booster in and it works like it should
- new starter is in and working great
- replaced my rear pads and rotors because I guess a slide-pin locked up and killed one of my inner pads. I knew it was happening a few weeks ago and knew I was due for pads and rotors in the back so I ordered up a powerstop set.

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Recent Major issue (resolved)
-I was all set to race at island dragway about 3 weeks ago but they canceled for the night, so I went to take the car out for a fun drive and it went crazy (bad). wouldn't start. had to work the throttle to start it and keep it alive. spent many house troubleshooting it and eventually became baffled that the ignition timing was 20 degrees retarded. I usually idle at 19-20 deg and that is why the car wouldn't run , because it was seemingly now at 0 deg timing. spent lots of time on the holley efi forums and tech support. I was suspicious that the Holley sniper was having an issue controlling the timing, so I decided to put the weights and springs back in the msd 85551 distributor. The problem still existed, but at least I ruled out the holley sniper unit. During all of my troubleshooting, it kept being a primary theme that the magnetic MSD style ignition setup I was running does not play nice with sniper efi. It is the same CD box and coil that I had on my old engine, and I was fairly certain I could use it with this engine. Some people get it to work fine, but most eventually experience problematic issues. Mine worked great for 6 months, but in an instant, it was unhappy.

The fix: switch over to a Holley HyperSpark ignition system. Specifically designed to use with the sniper efi, it uses a hall-effect sensor and no sensitive magnetic stuff. Even though dozens and dozens of my datalogs showed no traces of RFI, something was somehow pulling 20 degrees of timing from my ignition, mysteriously. I checked as many engine components as I could without taking off the timing cover and something kept bringing me back to the CD ignition box (MSD Digital 6Plus). I have had this box on the car since 2015 and in that time it has been sent back to MSD TWICE for problems/repair. It has a feature integrated to it ....when selected it will retard ignition timing 20 degrees during cranking rpms. I am skeptical, but I think something in the box went bad and this feature, despite being not selected by me, is now stuck on. I tested the car by driving around the neighborhood with adding an "additional" 20 degrees of timing to my base timing and the car ran great. So I had to run 40 deg at idle to get 20 deg in reality. I had to run 58 deg at WOT in order to get 38 deg in reality. i was not really at 58 deg, but thats because I had to add 20 deg advance to compensate/cancel-out the mysterious false 20 deg of retard. Drove it around for a week like this and no issues. This was not a long term fix, but it was to ensure that the engine was in good shape.

Holley hyperspark arrived yesterday and finished the install today. I went overboard running wires neat, shortening the long lengths of wire, labeling each wire with my little label-maker, and generally doing the best job I could. Sniper and Hyperspark wires run directly to the battery.

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Took the car out for a short test drive after checking timing, static timing at idle and 3,000 rpms, and whatnot. Car felt a bit stronger than usual! That was weird, but it felt noticeably angrier. I like that. Hopefully it wasn't just my imagination.. but regardless, the Holley Hyperspark system verified that mechanically nothing is pulling timing from inside the engine and that the problem was indeed with something in the MSD setup.

Called MSD and asked them about the box. They want to take a look at it, so I am sending it back to them for an evaluation/repair. I told them I plan to sell all the magnetic MSD stuff (coil, distributor, spare cap, wiring, and this CD box) so I want it back with a clean bill of health. This ignition setup will work great for many many engine setups, but I would use caution if using it with a sniper efi. Keep an eye out for the classified ad in about 2 weeks.




I plan on heading to Island Dragway tomorrow night for Test and Tune, so we will see how it goes!

[Blackbirdws6]

Nice to see you got the issue resolved. Good luck at Island.

[wretched73]

Nice update, Saturday should be a nice day for racing

[IROCZman15]

Thanks. I am going to test drive the car this afternoon to make sure it is ready to go. I actually plan on going to the track tonight, Friday, not tomorrow. I did about 10 minutes of street diving with it last night and I saw large number gains in me LEARN table, as well as the car feeling faster seat-of-the-pants. So perhaps I had ignition issues this whole time? We shall see. Timeslips and datalogs will tell the truth. Going to put a new set of spark plugs in it later this afternoon, remove the swaybar, pull out the interior and seats, and swap over to the drag wheel setup.

[IROCZman15]

I had an exciting night at the track. After getting the car all setup at home, i drove it to the track and got there a little early. Got through tech and set everythign up while chatting with a few friends I knew that were also racing and some that came to spectate. The goal for hte night was not to get too involved with reaction time numbers, but to see if I could finally get into the 11 second zone.

First Pass: 11.855 at 115.57 mph !
The tune i was using was a "safe" "street" tune I had used to drive to the track. WOT timing was 34 deg and target afr was 12.5. 60 deg temp and DA was 780. Front tires stayed at 36 psi all night and the rears I had at 19psi for the first 3 passes. launched at 920 rpm(idle), shifted at 6,048 rpm, and 6,401 rpm while crossing the traps at 5,840 rpm.
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I was thrilled! you can hear it in the video. I was hoping my next passes were going to be better, but oddly, this was my best pass of the night??!?!

Pass 2:
Now knowing that the brand spankin-new holley hyperspark system was indeed working properly under WOT, I put in a diferent ignition curve. Much more basic. Just a sweep from 20 deg at idle to 36 deg at 3,000 rpms. Set target AFR to 12.6 . Launched at 916 rpm, shifted at 6,500 and 6,500 (rev limiter) and crossed the traps at 5,811 rpm. I had somehow forgotten to not connect/setup my damn shift-light when doing hte ignition install and FORGOT this until mid way into pass #2 ! I had been in the throttle waiting for the shift light to come on, and it never did (twice) so I was slapping the 6,500 rpm limiter. whoooooops ! best 60 foot of the night though at a 1.64 ! checked the brand-new plugs afterwards and everythign looked good. The DA was 505 and the temp was 57 deg.
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Pass 3:
decided I would try using the same tables in my tune and now know that I can't wait for the shift light because its not hooked up. Tried to launch a little higher rpm at 1,200 and it still flashed hte converter at exactly the same usual 2,800 rpm zone. Watched the needle onthe dash for when to shift and I was not quite used to doing this, so I again, over revved it. Shifted at 6,500 limiter, and 6,500 limiter again. Through the traps at 5,857rpm. DA was 413 and temp was 56 deg
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Pass 4:
Same exact tune file as pass 3 and pass 2. Timing at 36 deg and target WOT afr at 12.6 DA was now 342 and temp was 55 deg. I dropped the rear tire pressure from 19 to 18 psi and also made the rear shocks a little bit softer. tried launching from a higher rpm, but with no vacuum, my brake booster can't hold the car in place more than 1700 rpm. The guy in an IROC next to me jumped the light before the tree came down and when this happened, I was justtt starting to creep forward, so I just left. Launched at 1,700, shifted at 6,400 and 6,134 and through the traps at 5,771. converter flashed higher, but first gear took longer it seemed?
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Pass 5:
Had become confused and frusterated but unwilling to give up at improving on my first pass. Bumped the timing to 37 deg at wot and the target afr to 12.7. the DA was now 107 and the temp 53 deg. kept rear shocks loose and kept tire pressure at 18. I tried one more attempt at leaving from a higher rpm, and left at 1,700. For the first time ever, I felt a little bit of tire slip off the launch. Maybe liek 1/3 the rotation of tire. you can see the hood shake at the moment of tire slip if you watch the video. Also, the converter took a bit longer to flash and instead of its usual 2800 rpms, it flashed at 3,400 rpm. Shifted at 6,122 and 6,198 rpms and crossed the line at 5,800 rpms. the timeslip printer at the booth jammed and they had to hand-write slips for a while
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Pass 6: Decided that perhaps my timing tables and "tuning skill" was not going well tonight, so I switched back to the tune I used for pass 1. I did change it a tiny bit, but not much.. timing was still at 34 deg like in pass 1 but I leaned out the target afr to 12.6 and smoothed out the VE table. The DA was now 67 and the temp 52 deg ! I was really hoping for another 11.8x pass. Launched from a 956 idle, and it spun just a touch again like in pass 5. Did not like that.. was not expecting that. I shifted at 6,418 and 6,071 to cross the stripe at 5,827 rpms.
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no video on this run. I must have double tapped the record button. my mistake.
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So, overall, very happy to have gotten that "monkey off my back" and run into the 11 second zone. Would love to figure out scientifically why I couln't improve over hte course of the night with the weather getting better and me bumping up the timing advance as well as leaning out the target WOT. aside from my poor shifting, my mph should have been better with more timign and afr and DA. Any suggestions, let me have 'em.
I am glad that hte hyperspark ignition works great. The car does seem to pull from low rpms much better and my 60 foots show a pretty good improvement to justify my seat-of-the-pants thought process. Did not like the tire spin at launch on pass 5 and 6. Maybe I still had water in the tire grooves? maybe the track temp was getting low?maybe my 18 psi and softer shock setting was too far down?

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50361036068_1d1d233fe2_c.jpg

anyways. good night overall. Loaded up the car and street drove it home at midnight.

[Blackbirdws6]

Congrats on cracking into the 11s. My quick take of why your first run was the best is for two reasons. 1. You didn't hit the limiter like the other couple runs plus a different launch method and 2. Your last run shows a worse 60' but I'd be willing to bet if you had the same as the first, it would be darn close to the first run.

The tuning changes also add variability to the runs also so it simply may not have been ideal. The DA dropped off nice so in theory with the same tune it would have possibly picked up mph.

[WayFast84]

Congrats man. I forgot to answer your text, I've been so busy with work. I hope to come to the track on a Friday night soon.

[PolarBear]

TL;DR
Too many numbers
would not recommend

[wretched73]

Couple things that I see, and I'm curious what people have to say about this.

1) you make too many changes at one time lol, I think it is safe to say that no one on this board has made as many passes this year as you have. So make 1 change, make a pass, see if it helped, rinse and repeat. If you keep adding timing and running slower, your car doesn't want more timing, but I think you made too many changes for that to be an indisputable fact

2) Maybe try short shifting? Based on your dyno sheet, your tq falls off pretty quick after 6K.

[IROCZman15]

I agree. I definitiely agree. Sometimes I get impatient while I am trying to figure out what I did right/wrong the previous pass and I rush my decision making. I know that time is limited and I try to make the most out of each track day.


I think I want to try to short shift the 1-2 shift. I don't know if I am wasting time/speed above 6,000 rpm in 1st gear. If I shift maybe around 5,700.. I can get into 2nd gear and rev that out to 6,200 and hopefully get into 3rd gear a bit sooner so I can be closer to my max hp peak as I am crossing the finish ? Does this sound accurate or ?


I am wondering if I spun on the launch during the last two runs because I softened the shocks more (after run 3) and launched at a higher rpm, and lowered the tire pressure 1 psi, and maybe the track temp was getting colder? Should have kept the shocks and tire pressure the same because it was working just fine. I was in search of a better 60 foot, but instead caused it to spin. I am also wondering if I need to do a better burnout? In the car I cant see what the tires are doing, but i usually let go of the line lock after 3-4 seconds. Sometimes i have foot braked and try to do the same 3-4 second burnout. I make sure I roll out from the burnout with the tires still spinning to get rid of any remaining water.

I hope to really refine what I need to do in the next few weeks and put together a few really proper runs. it was a little more challenging this Friday with no shift light and trying to go back to watching the dash gauge needle.

[wretched73]

I think shifting from 1-2 at 5700 is a bit early. I'd probably shoot for 6200 at first, if it works maybe try 6000 and see if that helps more. 2-3 shift, I'd follow the same recipe.

Someone else will have to chime in about your burnout and tire spin. That is further out of my league lol

[LTb1ow]

gopro on suction cup to watch for tire spin, or have a friend video from side.

[IROCZman15]

yea, I will try shifting the 1-2 shift a bit lower. which is actually exactly what I did on my first pass(best pass). I know you guys can only view the screenshot of my datalog, but if you look at the red line, I shifted at 6,048 rpm, and 6,401 rpm on the 2-3 shift. That one felt great seat-of-the-pants. When I am up above 6,000 rpms in first gear its pulling, but kind of feels like wasted revving. Up above 6,000 rpms in 2nd gear feels better, just not so much in first gear.

I could do a goPro but its hard to see at night. A buddy at the starting line with a camera pointed at the rear tire(s) would be optimal indeed.