Engine build for all the boost!

[glittle75]

Got a bit behind on posting. I was trying to get the car done so I could drop it off to the tuner this week.
Engine and trans going in. Was a huge PITA with the bigger pan. Had to drop it in just enough to clear the pan over the K member, then put the LTs on while it was hanging, then slide it all in the rest of the way. I definitely feel like I did it the hardest way possible, especially working by myself.


In there, took a bit of wiggling, but I got it.


Next comes the blower. Made sure to take everything apart and clean / reseal. Everything looked good so back on it goes. Using the hoist made it much easier for me by myself as well lol!


And in. Also shout out to Midd Tenn Decals for the coil cover decals!


After talking to my tuner, he wanted more fuel system in the car. Ended up going with a Lethal Performance return setup. Division X hat, dual 465 pumps, -8 Feed, -6 Return, Division X regulator.

[glittle75]

Got the regulator installed. Not a huge fan of this setup. It's huge and the FRPS mount is not the best. But it's what we got for now until I get some new rails.



Putting the hat in, this piece from Division X was beautiful. Everything went together perfect over all with the fuel system.


The lethal return harness was super easy to wire and route. Mounted in the stock FPDM location. Removed my modded FPDM and the BAP.


After that I was able to stick all the body panels back on, get it on the trailer and drop it off at Fastlane Motorsports in Benson, NC for an initial tune for break in. Caleb, the tuner there, is going to drive the car saturday to get the drivability dialed in perfect in the tune and I should be able to pick it up Monday and put 5-600 break in miles on it. Then back to him for dyno tuning.

Borrowed truck, rented trailer lol!


Stay tuned for more!

[311-420]

So awesome. Love the coil cover decals. You'll be 'distancing' yourself out in front of some folks for sure.

[glittle75]

Originally Posted by 311-420

So awesome. Love the coil cover decals. You'll be 'distancing' yourself out in front of some folks for sure.

Thanks! That is the plan, at least 6 feet behind me lol!

[hotford]

Nice Job!

[glittle75]

Originally Posted by hotford

Nice Job!

Thanks!

Well, shes alive. Had the starter go bad for some reason (my luck) and the water pump seal got pinched on install. After changing both of those the tuner was able to get it running and driving great. The Street Extreme clutch from Mcleod has a very very light pedal compared to my old setup. The first drive was rough lol. I have 200 miles on it so far, another 200 and I will change the BR30 out for Mobil. Then 100 on that and off to the dyno!

https://youtu.be/riq1v241wIo

[BONESTOCK]

Nice! Thanks for the update!

[glittle75]

Break in complete, runs and drives great with no issues. Loving the McLeod clutch after getting used to it. Very smooth and light for a unit that can handle 700hp.

After having some difficulty with my local tuner, And others not willing to work with me at all, I will be going with a stand alone Holley EFI and tuning it myself. Talked to Holley, and will be going with a Terminator X setup. Have to cruise to a dyno day at some point to see a number, but we will see what ET it puts down and guesstimate from there based on weight.
It’s unfortunate when a shop’s personal issues bleed over to the customers. But such is life and I want no involvement in a shop's drama. I’ll just tune it myself.

[BONESTOCK]

Originally Posted by glittle75

Break in complete, runs and drives great with no issues. Loving the McLeod clutch after getting used to it. Very smooth and light for a unit that can handle 700hp.

After having some difficulty with my local tuner, And others not willing to work with me at all, I will be going with a stand alone Holley EFI and tuning it myself. Talked to Holley, and will be going with a Terminator X setup. Have to cruise to a dyno day at some point to see a number, but we will see what ET it puts down and guesstimate from there based on weight.
It’s unfortunate when a shop’s personal issues bleed over to the customers. But such is life and I want no involvement in a shop's drama. I’ll just tune it myself.

Nice! Let me know how it goes with that Holley! I'm interested in learning how to tune myself!

[glittle75]

Alright, well went through some pains with the Holley EFI setup.
I ordered a Terminator X kit. Also the USB-CAN harness and a 3 bar MAP sensor. 3 bar gives me the ability to go up to 30psi of boost. I will be shooting for 18psi.

After it arrived i ran all the harnesses and was able to start the car. However, I could not get the IAC working, and the idle was all over the place after moving the throttle at all.
After much troubleshooting, I was sent the wrong main harness. It happens, some one put the wrong thing in the wrong box. The correct harness should be here on Monday. All the other harnesses and wires are ran, So i should just be able to plug it in and get to idle tuning. On to some pics!

OEM harness on top, Holley harness on bottom. The holley uses really nice wrapping and everything is already to the correct length, making for any easy install!


Factory harness unwrapped. I am keeping the stock PCM in the car to run the stock cluster and AC. Found an electrical diagram and printed it.


Unpinned the large connector that usually hides out in the back left corner of the engine bay. I only need the crank sensor from this so the Tach will work. Once I put the holley harness in the car, I will splice into it for the signal, split it to the PCM and Holley, and the tach will work.


I also ended up using the speed sensor that goes to the trans to drive the speedo on the dash. No pic, but its the DG/WT wire from the PCM harness, to the trans sensor, and the other side of the sensor gets grounded by the PCM.

There is a sub-harness that the AC clutch wires are hiding in. I just pulled them out, and re-pinned them to length so I can tuck them under the frame rail.

[glittle75]

All the factory wiring that is no longer used. I plan to snip all the connectors off and save them in a jar just in case. I can always add wire. All the wiring will be scrapped.


2.75" pulley compared to the pulley that came with the blower for 10psi. This pulley should put the blower around 17,181 RPM at 7000 engine RPM. (6.75/ 2.75) x 7000 = 17,181. Crank diameter divided by pulley diameter, then multiply that number by engine RPM to determine blower RPM. KB states all their blowers should be kept below 18k RPM.
According to boost calculations, this should also put the boost at 18psi. But we will see, Im expecting to see 16psi or so with the longtubes and cams.


Also picked up a windows 10 tablet to keep in the car. Will be used for live datalogs and to view the holley gauges on screen when needed. I will do the bulk of the tuning on a laptop. But this should be nice to have for simple changes or seeing live datalogs while driving with it in a holder.


As soon as the correct harness is installed, I can tune the idle, ensure the car will hot start without any problems, and take it out for a drive. I have a pretty good base tune already just from me researching and asking other people that know what's what.

I will be shooting for 11.2 AFR and 18-19 degrees of timing at WOT. Idle and cruise AFR and tables will be whatever gets the best MPG, those will just require lots of drive time to dial in.

Holley EFI software is very intuitive to use, the GUI is very friendly, and there are forums and FB groups devoted to mod motor holley efi setup and tuning.

Figuring out how to run the factory cluster was a chore, most people i've seen don't bother figuring it out or wiring it up. But if you can read the schematics it's not too awfuly bad. The holley digital dash is very nice, alot of guys go with that. No wiring, plug and play with the ECU, and there are alot of places to find mounts.
I want the factory stuff to work, just because I want the car to look mostly stock. I want a car that I can toss the keys to anyone and they can get in and go drive. No switches, no start sequence, full interior, and full comforts.

More to come!

[BONESTOCK]

Nice man!!

[DSG2003Mach1]

Very nice!

[glittle75]

Originally Posted by BONESTOCK

Nice man!!

Originally Posted by DSG2003Mach1

Very nice!

Thanks!

New harness is in, it runs and idles. Messed with it for a while and could not figure out why it didn’t want to hot start. Turns out the alternator is dead. New one is on the way and we should be back on the road after that. I was able to tune idle, but after a little bit the crank and cam sensors were out of sync and the ECU was acting weird. I assumed bad alt or battery. So I pulled them and took them to be tested. The alternator was the culprit.

[BONESTOCK]

Nice catch! Frustration I imagine!

[glittle75]

Small updates, car runs and drives great. Tuning has been fairly easy with the Holley software. I have A/F tables, Fuel tables and spark tables all dialed in.

After a few 'spirited' highway sessions I was able to finalize the spark timing right around 16-17 degrees at WOT and the car pulls like crazy all the way to 7000!
First drive on the highway scared me a bit, i was in 3rd around 60 floored it and it knocked the tires off and got a little sketchy lol. Once I learned where the torque was, I was able to get some full pulls and datalog them. I am seeing 16psi of boost peak.
As soon as the weather clears up in NC and we can get a good track TnT night I will be headed there with ice and a couple sets of plugs to read to really dial in the power.

Next on the list is to plumb and wire a flex fuel sensor andset up the table for the offset in the software.
Right now I am on straight E85 all the time, but I want flex just in case I am way out and can't get to ethanol. The car can just adjust itself until we are back.

[311-420]

How's the 2.1 sound at 16psi?

[glittle75]

Originally Posted by 311-420

How's the 2.1 sound at 16psi?

Sounds good! As soon as I can get some 1320 time there will be videos. Was wet this weekend, hopefully next weekend.

[glittle75]

Tuning update, not sure if anyone cares for tuning stuff, but here it is anyway.

So the first table that needs to be adjusted is Target Air Fuel Ratio. This table will command all the fueling and also help the engine go from lean at cruise to rich at WOT smoothly.



The left side of the table is Vac/Boost, and the bottom axis is RPM. Since I have a Kenne Bell, it is very simple. Twin Screws give you all the boost, and hold it until you close the throttle. This is why my rows are the same across the RPM range. Since the car is seeing right around 16psi, thats where I want my WOT ratio to be, for me on E85, that is 11.5 to 1.

The purple square of cells is the cruise AFR, this is where the car cruises through town and on the highway, between 2-3k. You want this to be lean as possible to use the least amount of fuel. Because there is no engine load, being so lean doesn't matter.

The top blue/light blue rows above the purple are the ramp from 14.2:1 at cruise, to 11.5 at full boost. A nice smooth transition is important for driveability and plug life.

Once you figure out what your AFR table needs to looks like, then you will adjust the fueling percentages in lb/hr of fuel. Here is that table:


This has vacuum/boost on the left, and RPM on bottom again.
but now the values in the table are fuel in lb/hr.

This is where the Holley EFI shines. It builds a base table once you enter all of the parameters for your car. Engine size, boosted or NA, MAP sensor, Injectors, etc, etc.
The base tables are just that, base. They will not correctly fuel the car right off the bat. They need to be tuned. But Holley EFI does this for you. You tell it how much it's allowed to change the fuel, usually +100% and -100% in the beginning. So it can pull everything in the table, or add twice as much.

The Holley is always looking at the Wide Band and correcting fueling to achieve the Target AF ratio you command on the previous table. As you drive, it corrects the fuel. The more you drive, the better the fueling gets. Then you can transfer all the fueling that it 'learned' while you were driving, to the base table. And boom, your base table is now closer in the areas you drove in. In my experience, you want to drive it a few times, and creep u on the RPM and boost levels as you drive. The more time the car spends at any given load / RPM, the better the Holley is in that area.

I had 2-3 short drives around town and the part throttle driveability was perfect afterward. I took it out on the highway, and would roll into it in 4th to allow it to learn in low and mid level boost. Then I gave it all the onions the first time. It went directly to the commanded AFR (11.5:1) and stood there. Never made a single hiccup. Came home, looked at the datalog for the drive, and adjusted small things as needed.

I have always been 'scared' to tune my own car. But man, once you do a bit of reading, and understand what the car is trying to do, it is very easy.

If people like seeing this type of updates, let me know. I am dialing in Ignition Timing next!

[hotford]

any updates if you had a chance to dyno it?

I see a KB kit for sale on FB...is that yours? maybe going a different route?

[glittle75]

Originally Posted by hotford

any updates if you had a chance to dyno it?

I see a KB kit for sale on FB...is that yours? maybe going a different route?

No dyno time.

Yep, posted it last night, sold today. In process of removing the blower now. I got the tune up good, and drove the car. After driving at 480-ish HP for years, making around 600 was just unimpressive.

Decided to sell the Kenne Bell, Going turbo, shooting for 1000hp+. The engine is good for it. Why not?

[hotford]

It was a great deal too, @ 3500 people would be hard pressed to find it else where.

Good luck with the turbo install.

[311-420]

Next thing will be an automatic transmission

[glittle75]

Originally Posted by hotford

It was a great deal too, @ 3500 people would be hard pressed to find it else where.

Good luck with the turbo install.

Thanks! I think 3500 was a good deal for a complete kit. my inbox exploded when I posted it lol.

Originally Posted by 311-420

Next thing will be an automatic transmission

Staying manual for now. Not fixing it until it breaks lol. I been out playing with the KB turned all the way up. Even with the Hoosiers on, the stock trans and rear have lasted this long. Both went 1.6 60 foots before the rebuild numerous times.
While I was out datalogging the tune it ran all the way through 4th multiple times at 600-ish. Stock axles and trans holding on strong.

Told my wife if the stock trans makes one 9 second pass, im pulling it, spraying it gold and hanging it in the garage lol.