On the 'mildly' Cheap SS Monte Carlo chasing a 9.0____(anything less than 9.1)

ck80

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Send me an address or a pin map. Or any members that know your address - send it to me.

How far are you from I95?
Normally pretty close. I'd say we're about 15-20 minutes away from the northern weigh station in ga on 95.

All the joking about the ls swap aside, if I were in town and you were in the area I'd buy you a beer or toss a ribeye on the grill of your choice depending on your time constraints. Course, might or might not work out this time depending when you pass through, I've got to help out with mom who is still with us and had a procedure this week before hitting another of my own next week.

But, as you may or may not recall from threads of years past here, I keep a stocked bar of liquors, wines, and beers (some without much alcohol, goes from 0.5 up to 195 proof) and my freezer always comes with 4 things: ribeyes, kielbasa, tenderloins, and mixed BBQ meats (chicken breast, pork cuts, etc) haven't run out of any of those in the last 13 years. Vegetables? Hit or miss. But grill meats and assorted drinks, especially eastern european and new england based? Always in the house.

So, if you pass up or down 95 through GA on any frequent basis, invitation will be open if we're at the house. Always glad to connect with other serious gearheads.
 
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Supercharged111

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Are you still going to bring a drivetrain and restore one of the heaps here with that transvestite powertrain as previously threatened promised? :devilish:

He has a nice short list of helpers to pick from too!

We've joked about swapping out a competitor's diff housing after they go to sleep. Take their 3.73 or 4.10 out in favor of an open 2.73 and just watch that unfold the next morning. Of course we'd have to swap it back, that's the main deterrent so far.
 
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64nailhead

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Finished up with Sick Week 2023 , other than the drive home (ughh) and the credit card bill haha. I will say that this event was not cheap as compared to the other events I've done for a couple of reasons - hotel pricing and of course 1200 miles each way.


I mentioned in the DnD 2023 thread that I managed a personal best ET, 60' and trap speed. What I didn't mention was that all 3 occurred on different runs, which I found to be an amazing head shaking moment. I know most of you are aware of this, but I'll say it anyway, there is more to going down the track than standing on the loud pedal when the light turns green and lifting at the stripe.

The new turbo and converter worked, but both created tuning issues. Regarding the converter, I believe I need to have it re-worked only because I'm seeing too much rpm drop on the shifts, but dang it couples - the slip is less than 5% most of the time. But the rpm drop of 1500 is really messing with the tune and slowing me down. Regarding the turbo, it requires some additional tuning to get it spool quicker - I can get it to 8psi on the TB in 2-2.2 seconds, but I need to get it to 8-10 psi quicker. And don't think I didn't work on this during the week, haha. For those of you that followed along, I had very inconsistent 60' times and it was 90% due to turbo spool on the line.

Things that went wrong :
1st, I recently replaced the pinion bearings, races, crush sleeve and pinion seal - I need to lose the crush sleeve and put in a pinion spacer. The crush sleeve crushed further during the 1st day and created quite a mess. On the 2nd day in Bradenton the pinion was loose - A LOT loose. So we pulled the rear apart and inspected everything and I found the crush sleeve had crushed another .050"+ causing the issue. I zipped it back together and torqued 'properly' haha. By properly I mean with my foot on a 2' 1/2 ratchet and me holding onto the frame and pushing the ratchet with everything I could physically muster. Considering we had a 4 hour drive that turned into 7 thanks to Florida traffic (WTF), I was a bit worried, but it made it through the remainder of the week with only very minor pinion seal seepage.

2nd, my fuel system needs a re-vamp. I mounted a 3rd pump over the winter about 4-5" higher than the 1st two and I plumbed it in a manner that I didn't foresee it being a problem, and I was wrong. I will be revamping the mount ad plumbing before I hit another track. It took me until Thursday to figure out a bandaid solution of running the primary and tertiary pump at the same time once I hit the burnout box. I did this by triggering the tertiary pump with the Mac valve power switch. This creates a couple of psi of excess fuel pressure until I hit 1-2 psi of boost which messed with my spool tuning on the line, but I managed to overcome. Until I did this I was getting a delay in the fuel pressure when this pump came on and it would also steal fuel supply from the other two for a split second that would drop fuel pressure about 10-15 psi and activate my fuel pressure safety which retards the timing 20 degrees (car falls on it's face). This was an issue until the end of the 4th day when I ran 1st and 3rd pump simultaneously once in at the line.

3rd, my O2 sensor crapped out in a strange manner wrecking a set of plugs in the process. Of course that took the better part of a day to figure out and correct. I brought new plugs and an O2 with me and I guess I should've changed the o2 sensor before the event, especially when it dawned on me that the O2 sensor has been in it for over two years and back when I was running leaded C16 in it.

4th, my primary fuel pump crapped out. By 'primary' I mean the one that the runs all the time when street driving. We had a spare and zipped that on Wednesday morning.

5th, I need to revamp my wastegate locations - my last fix helped, but didn't fix everything. It took me until Thursday to find a half baked solution to tune around this, and I still have an issue where the turbo makes peak boost in a hurry, but drops 6-8psi before the top of 1st gear. It's messing with my dome pressure reading due to exhaust back pressure is adding pressure to the dome pressure reading which in turn has the closed loop boost control chasing itself and over correcting the pressure being supplied to the top of the gates from the dual Mac Valve system. Again, this was late night and early morning closed loop tuning and checks and trying to cheat the dome pressure reading by putting numbers into the dome pressure target to compensate. My bandaid fix helped, but I never got it to lose less than 5psi in 1st gear.



Things that went right :
1st, the car went faster than it's ever gone despite these issues. If I can get these resolved I'm sure there is another .2 in ET left in it without any more boost. I was planning to run 34-38 psi, but because of the issues I never went much over 30psi. And I wanted to lean on the AFR by adding a couple points, but the rpm drop created a lean spot on every shift that I didn't dare to try leaning it out any more. So I ran 10.8-11.1 AFR rather than the 11.5-7 that I had originally planned. And it also kept me on a conservative timing number as well. When I get home I'll post some screen shots of logs that will explain fully my concern and need to stay conservative.

2nd, the rear suspension is working. Between the 8.8 truss bur setup from SSM (Macguyver ) and the shock tuning help from wingnutks, the car plants HARD and loads the tire like a ton of bricks got set on it. I'll post some pics and video to show later. It is truly amazing how well the suspension setup is working. I received a couple of compliments when asked about the rear suspension and I indicated a budget ARB, Rock Auto springs and a singe set of Viking double adjustable shocks is all I have.
 
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Streetbu

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Jim I'd call the week a win. I know you didn't hit some of your goals, but you made it there, ran, fixed issues, ran some more, and made it home in one piece. Live to fight another day! Congrats!!! 👏
 
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64nailhead

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Jim I'd call the week a win. I know you didn't hit some of your goals, but you made it there, ran, fixed issues, ran some more, and made it home in one piece. Live to fight another day! Congrats!!! 👏
My average time in the event was not what I hoped for, but two days I took a penalty for not leaving quick enough. Without those, I would've averaged a 9.6, but I knew the rules.

I hope to be ready for July ( or 'readyier' haha)
 
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64nailhead

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Here's a video of one of the better launches from the week. If watched frame by frame on the hit, it shows pretty well how the rear suspension is working. It seems to work pretty well IMO.

 
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81cutlass

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Feb 16, 2009
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Glad you made the trip in one piece and overall successful with some learning.

The car almost hits the tire too hard from what I've looked at other setups but if it works there's no reason to change. If it's not chattering and hooking up nice that's all you need!

So some fuel system mods, tuning and minimal maintenance and your shooting for 8's?

30 psi seems like a lot to run mid 9's according to the online dock measuring turbo LS world but your car is heavier and you've still got some things to work out.

I've heard some comments that a single 525 in tank as a charge pump feeding something big like a 4303 is a good budget, reliable option that yields good results. If I were you I'd ditch 3 pumps, it just seems like a lot to go wrong at any time and go boom.
 
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Supercharged111

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Going fast in a straight line is easy with a slower car. With a setup like yours there's an eternity to lose if any one thing goes wrong, and you had a lot of changes and workarounds to try and coordinate for a decent time. IMO drag racing a 13 second car is meh, drag racing a single digit car is a completely different animal. I'm sure bracket racing a slower car is a pain to nail your time without going over, but that really doesn't do it for me either. As you know I'm a road racer, but I have a lot of respect for folks hauling the mail in the quarter like you.
 
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64nailhead

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Dec 1, 2014
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Glad you made the trip in one piece and overall successful with some learning.

The car almost hits the tire too hard from what I've looked at other setups but if it works there's no reason to change. If it's not chattering and hooking up nice that's all you need!

So some fuel system mods, tuning and minimal maintenance and your shooting for 8's?

30 psi seems like a lot to run mid 9's according to the online dock measuring turbo LS world but your car is heavier and you've still got some things to work out.

I've heard some comments that a single 525 in tank as a charge pump feeding something big like a 4303 is a good budget, reliable option that yields good results. If I were you I'd ditch 3 pumps, it just seems like a lot to go wrong at any time and go boom.
I’ve considered different fuel system setups. And most anything is always on the table. I like the modular aspect of the 3 pumps - easy to service/test, and the cost/availability of the pumps. I’d like to go to a brushless Fuel Lab or Aeromotive, but yikes are they expensive. I used to be a fan of the 4303’s, but after watching them drop like flies has me hesitant.

Regarding 30psi, I’ve got a fair amount to lean on the tune. It’s easier to turn up the boost rather than lean on timing and AFR IMO. And I will add that I found the fuel system issue without going boom or lifting a head by tightening up the fuel pressure safety ALOT. Live and learn ya know ;)
 
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81cutlass

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I’ve considered different fuel system setups. And most anything is always on the table. I like the modular aspect of the 3 pumps - easy to service/test, and the cost/availability of the pumps. I’d like to go to a brushless Fuel Lab or Aeromotive, but yikes are they expensive. I used to be a fan of the 4303’s, but after watching them drop like flies has me hesitant.

Regarding 30psi, I’ve got a fair amount to lean on the tune. It’s easier to turn up the boost rather than lean on timing and AFR IMO. And I will add that I found the fuel system issue without going boom or lifting a head by tightening up the fuel pressure safety ALOT. Live and learn ya know ;)

I didn't know 4303 have issues, but you have done what, 3 drag and drive week long events now, so you are likely seeing a good real life torture test.

I assume your pumps are not in tank? Easy to diagnose, I get that. I just get worried if one fails during the pass its hard to know, unless you can enable some fuel pressure safety in the ecm.

I forget, what trans brake system do you have? It's something atypical if I recall.
 
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