Performance Modifications and updates

 

1/1/15

I haven't made any updates on here for a while becase I've just been putting gas in it and driving it but I really wanted to help this thing hook on the street a bit better. It just so happens that these changes also make it look a bit meaner. This may actually slow me down a bit on the track because I never really had many traction problems there and these new wheels/tires are heavier and take away some of my effective gearing, but it will certainly help everywhere else besides a fully prepped surface. I decided to mini-tub the car and try to tuck a taller tire underneath. It's all still stock style suspension and I'm still limited on tire width because I haven't moved any mounting points on the axle or the body but I did go to a smaller diameter coil spring and offset control arms to get just a bit more clearance for the inside of the tires. I had to change out the rear shocks to some shorter ones so when it was at full droop it wouldn't spit out the shorter springs because I moved the axle up almost a full 2 inches to compensate for the taller tires. The last thing I wanted was the stink bug look and it absolutely had to tuck the tire or I wouldn't do it. Here are a few pictures of the car as it sits now and the interior that I am almost done with. I may try to fit the factory plastics back in place but I would have to cut them up quite a bit and not sure it's worth the time at that point. There is also another addition that I'm not going to expound on at this point in time but you might be able to tell what it is by looking at some of the interior pictures. In my initial testing it is pretty fantastic for the street but won't really do anything for me at the track. Oh well I've said enough... :)

 

4/10/11

Time to start updating the performance section a bit differently as things will kind of go in chronological order from here on out, not sure why I didn't do this to begin with.

So I took the Camaro out to the track again to see what it can do at 18 psi on E85 along with a few other small changes like lightweight brakes/spindles. I'm trying desperately to get rid of some of the heft of this thing and even with the latest weight reduction it's still sitting around 3400 lbs raceweight with me in it. The lightweight brakes dropped a solid 50 lbs off the front of the car so it's not a huge amount in the grand scheme of things but every little bit counts. I also have a lightweight seat in it now which fits the 5-pt harness better but it's still actually really comfortable. Also new is E85, well I've actually had the car running it for years now but I never ran it at the track after the change over.

This day out at Speedworld was a benefit race day for my good buddy Sterling. He is in need of a kidney transplant and we decided to try to get everybody out to the track to participate in a small race series to try to generate some money to help pay for the operation. We had some trophys for our made up classes for the winners and it helped to get people to pay to enter the races or enter in some raffles. I had already decided that I was going to be on the brakes for the entire day until the last race so I wouldn't break out and get the boot since the car is only legal down to 10.0. We setup the ladder system so that hopefully it was me and Bill Wallace in the finals as we were the two faster cars for that day. This way if neither of us broke out and won our races we could let it all hang out in the final for the boot, well for me at least because Bill's car actually techs for 9 second passes and mine doesn't.

First couple of test passes before the ladder races I was getting a feel for the track and what 2-step settings I was going to run for the day. I eventually went all the way down to 2800 rpm on the 2 step as anything higher would blow the tires off. The track just wasn't doing it for me today because normally I could turn it up to around 3400 rpm and make it stick so my 60's weren't all that great. I decided to run the 18 psi setting to half track and then get hard on the brakes to get an idea of what it would run full out. When the guy handed me my timeslip I about shit because I knew it felt quick but not that quick. I'm car #6 in these timeslips and you can click on the timeslip to get a bigger image.

So yeah, I seriously broke out on even that half pass but mysteriously they said nothing to me at the ticket booth about getting the boot so I got back in line and went through with all of the ladders till eventually Bill and I made it to the finals. OK, this was for all the marbles and not only did I want that 1st place trophy I wanted to see a low, low 9 second timeslip assuming the track would hook it. We staged up and Bill sixty footed the shit out of me as expected and I had to play catchup the entire way down the track, hooray for turbo power! It was the closest race of the day and was fun to watch. I beat him by a hundreth of a second at the finish line. Be sure to click on HD for the video and full screen it.

I was ecstatic at the mph but not so much with the ET because of the poor 60'. I know I can get it to hook better on these drag radials but I didn't have the time to play with suspension settings. Either way I won the trophy, got a new best, and was able to help put on a good show for the "main event" for my buddy's benefit races. Dare I say this thing may have an 8 second pass in it in full street trim as I was running it that day at the track with a better 60'? I think it may, time will tell. :)

-NicD

 

History on the car

Previously my combo was just a stock bottom end heads/cam car with nitrous. It worked well for what it was and ran a best of an 11.0 @ 128 mph blowing the tires off in 1st gear.  The engine had the rare ring issue and over bored cylinders from the factory so it used some oil and smoked at WOT and high RPM decel.  I tried to get the thing to blow up but never did accomplish that.  Instead I got bored with it and decided to change it up before I could blow the motor to bits.  Honestly I tried but I just couldn't get it to pop.  Surprisingly enough the pistons, rings, and bearings looked flawless when I pulled it apart. I thought for sure with the amount of smoke the car would blow at WOT and how much oil it consumed something would have been visibly wrong. The block itself looked fine, but when running your finger over the cylinder walls you could feel flat spots. It was time to move on.

After tuning and working on various turbo mustangs and LS1s over the past couple years I decided it was time to put one on my car. This is something I wanted to do myself, dropping my car off and just picking it up when it was done wouldn't be any fun.  All in all it wasn't bad at all and nothing was difficult, just time consuming.  Some things had to be cut, modified, and moved like most turbo installations in a car that wasn't intended for forced induction.  Everything with this setup I was trying to follow the KISS theory.  I wanted to relocate the minimum amount of shit in the car and keep things as factory as possible along with easy maintenance, like plug changes, oil changes, and easy access to just about everything all while making decent power.  Sounds easy right? :)

Here is just a quick break down of my current setup...

The TTi race kit installed fairly easily with just a few minor bumps in the road.  I had to bend and trim a few spots on the frame where the lines ran to prevent them from chaffing and to prevent some fittings from hitting.  I had to trim the bumper fog light hole right at the intercooler so the bumper cover would fit back on properly.  I had to slightly bend the upper rail of the radiator and upper support rail to get clearance for the cold side pipe and cut a section out of the middle after the BOV for the stock MAF so I can pass emissions.  My pipe going from the turbo to the intercooler has a reduction to go on the turbo outlet (2.5") that comes with the kit and since I had a custom turbo done it needs to be cut off and a larger 3" inlet welded in it's place.  I got a generic overflow tank that I had to mount since the water tank for the intercooler sits where the stock one was.  The aftermarket airlid looked like it would fit perfect with some minor trimming to hide the piping and it works great.  Overall it was a nice kit and fairly easy to install considering the car was never designed for something like this.  TTi's customer service was also very good and I received the kit within 2 weeks of having my order go through.

Here are some motor build up and turbo install pictures, click on them for larger versions.  They kind of go in order through out this forever ongoing project.  Most recent pictures are at the end.

 

Here is an old scan of the time slip and the video of my first 10 second pass with the turbo setup back in 06.  It was running on 10 psi with just plain old 91 octane in the tank racing my buddy in his 03 cobra with pulley, exhaust, tune and a 150 shot of nitrous.  It just spun through 1st gear with a horrible 1.7x 60' so it had a lot left in it with a dead hook and the good suspension that I have on it currently.

10.63 @ 132.8 mph time slip

10.63 @ 132.8 mph Video

Here is a picture of my last dyno graph with the manual transmission on my medium boost level.  I knew what it was approximately before but it was nice to see some hard numbers.  This was on 16 psi with a 91 oct pump gas and 104 octane race gas mix and pretty conservative timing.

Here are just a few more older pictures of various parts of the car.