Stock Car Mafia

Damn dude, now that is a racecar! Subscribed and following.

Over the last few weeks there has been a LOT of driving and cruising and less work. I've been chasing down some new roads to test the car on. The rear sway bar has helped out immensely. I probably will go a little thicker/stiffer in the rear down the road. Still feels a little tight on the apex of corners when I get back in the gas. In theory, I need to strengthen the chassis so I can increase the spring rate to get the chassis set up correctly. Seriously the car is on rails in the corner and handles VERY WELL still. I should have time most of this week to get some work done on the car. I will be throwing it back on jack stands tonight and going through the car looking for any more issues. Here are some that I've either found or neglected to fix up til this point: Mound OBD2 port: This is on the passenger side. Just need to find a solid/easily accessible point for it. Fix low beam headlight: I've gotten some support from Dapper, I just need to do my part and dig into the root cause of the problem. Take out dash: Wire the resistor to get the tach working. Rewire the oil pressure and water temp lights so they work. Fix left blinker: The bulb broke on my front driver's side. Clean up mating surfaces of the hubs with the wheels. Paint exhaust. I've spent some time envisioning what route I want to go down the road. Obviously handling is important but more power can never hurt. Building a roll bar and additional chassis support. Going higher in spring rate. This will require a new and different shock package and potentially new struts. New seats with 5 point harnesses. Possibly switch to a 8.8" IRS Ford diff or R230 diff and associated parts. I've really been contemplating going forced induction down the road. I would love to go through and fabricate a turbo setup but I don't like the torque curves of these and don't care to go straight. The roots/twin screw SC's would blow my rear tires out from underneath me. The centrifugal SC's seem to be the way to go. The problem is the LS2 has a higher compression ratio and don't respond as well as the LS1 or LQ4 motors do on pump gas. I'm looking in to the Corvette style ProCharger setup for the car but would require me to switch to the Corvette pulleys and accessories. I do believe this sets back the drive system by about an inch compared to the F-Body layout. I need to see if the damper will still have clearance and fit and where the alternator would have to be moved to. Again, just playing with options but these all take time to figure out. A lot of these improvements will take time and probably won't progress as fast as the project has so far. I've been told there are more important things in life that need attention

NewZed, I do believe I found my issue with the lack of fuel pressure. One of my lines runs along the passenger header near the collector. When I was sitting in traffic that hot day, there was no moving air underneath which probably vapor locked my fuel line. I might have to wrap that this week.

Ha! I would love to bore you guys with my landscaping duties but I don't know how relevant that is to the topic at hand. I've been spending a lot of time with the girlfriend and the daughter to make the most of the summer we have left. I've had little Brooklyn in the garage helping me with little things here and there. She helped replace the welding gun tip and re-feed the wire. It's the little things in life that create the most happiness!

Thanks man, I appreciate it! Your car is beautiful and one of my favorites. Don't ever sell that thing!

Thats a nice cruise! We just went down 60 to Wabasha a few weekends ago with the car. Thats where I learned i needed the resr sway bar. I think we were on highway 11 near Millsville as well. I will have to say I am pretty confident the pump just got too hot. It is acting normal now and sounds just like it did when i got it. Fuel pressure is holding steady where i had it set before. My IAT's under the hood were running 160 deg. On a 85 deg. day when my air filter was under the hood. I cant imagine what they were that day. What is the vapor/evap. point of 91 octane?

This has been a bulletproof setup for most N/A builds. I don't mind running in to unknown problems while paving a new path. It's a part of the project car tug of war.

NewZed, the pump is an exact copy of the Bosch 044. That is what I spec'ed out and found these guys. I haven't heard anything bad on the other forums about the pump but against it's a roll of the dice. I however need to do my own investigating. I haven't pulled the pre and post filters to looks for gunk or shit that might have reduced the fuel pressure. Still part of me feels it was the pump acting up with how hot it was. This is not something I want to worry about while driving. If I add more power down the road I'll be changing this.

So I believe the problem I ran in to on Friday was fuel pump related. The damn thing just quit on me on my way up to St. Cloud. I believe with my return style fuel system it is pulling a lot of the heat and raising the temp of the gas. The pump either overheated or became vapor locked. I had about 3/8 of a tank at the time. This just make me think I've hurt the life span of the pump and I'd sure hate to go on a long trip and have it fail. Short term solution is to get a back up pump and bring the proper tools with. Or just not drive on hot days. The pump is back to sounding normal again. It is a TRE Performance TRE-044 pump. Long term solution is to dump the setup I have and go returnless with a Corvette FPR/filter. I might drop in a in tank fuel pump too to keep the pump from overheating. The guy who owns Race Coatings in Forest lake said he was running this set up and is pumping over 700 hp to the wheels with no return.

Man, the heat was pretty damn bad. I kind of daydream about A/C when it is like that. It's quite funny as one of my motorcycle riding buddies sent me this picture I think yesterday when he was on 694. I told him I know who you are

Well I ran in to an issue last evening with the high temps up here. The car died on my last night and wouldn't start. It'd crank over but wouldn't fire. After sitting for 15 mins I got it to start after checking everything over. I'll post up later what i found out.

I don't know what tempted me to work in the 120 deg. heat index today but I put in a couple hours in the garage tonight. Jesus even sitting still sweat rolls down your face. I went ahead and dropped the exhaust to get to the rear sway bar mounts. It turns out after all of those heat cycles on the pipes, the nuts had loosened a bit. I figured this would happen but I guess I was being lazy. Again I struggled with compressing the end links enough to get the nuts started. I had the control arm jacked up and a ratchet strap to get them started. The exhaust clears just fine. The driveshaft rear knuckle didn't....I would rub about 1/8" on 2 of the 4 corners. I know this probably changes the balance a little bit but I ground down the material on all 4 corners. It is not in a spot where I was removing strength just tabs that hang off. I didn't take any good pics as it was getting dark. Holy moses does the car feel better while cornering! The backend feels more stable and evened both sides out instead of both being independant. I love it. Now I might look into thicker bars down the road but don't want to get too off balance. A couple nights ago I got a decent shot while cruising some back roads...

The F-body accessory drive is what everybody uses and is proven to work. If you don't plan on junk yarding a lot of these parts, I would buy a Katech belt tensioner, especially if you plan boost down the road. It is fail proof and stronger than the OEM one. The F-body alternators are cheap. You'll need the large bracket and smaller rear bracket for this as well. All sourced really easily. The belt is easy to find or measure too. The right size belt is buried in my build thread somewhere. Do you have a car and plan to build a swap? Make sure to start a thread!

Which TTT stuff did you get for the car? I can wait for pictures if that's the case. Car is looking good!

Some day we will have to cross paths and in our cars. I've never been down to that part of the country.

I'm pretty damn sure it is Black Hill Road. I did some digging and it looks similar to a chart I found. That road is a damn blast!

It looks like the heat wave will be this week so I'd count the weekend as a win. No events for the car yet. Need a rear sway bar and to tackle any remaining tire rubs and finish the quarterpanels. The girlfriend and daughter were with so we only went part of Friday and part of Saturday. There was a concert one night and Watertown's weekend celebration on Saturday so it was a packed weekend. That hill climb sounds like something I'd definitely love to do. I've been on those roads there a bunch on 2 wheels. What exactly is the cource and do they utilize Black Hill Rd? The one that is always covered in gravel.

I think that chute work looks really good! You may be able to see more up close but if it is functional, I'd call it a win.

You are the proof I've been waiting for. I think I must have been reading about people that were not using a sway bar but really just using it for straight line or drag race settings. I don't want that. I want a corner carving animal. Glad to hear it handles well! That might be something I grab in the near future.

I remember you saying you don't remember what dyno you were on. I am very interested in how you got your torque curve that fricken low! I've seen most N/A LS motors are around 4800 rpm. What exactly did you build or do for your intake manifold? I am wondering if that lets the motor breathe more in comparison to the absolute crap LS2 intake. I know the 243 heads breathe pretty good stock. I need to re-read your build thread and see what I can dig up.

I believe I am just deaf sir. But in all honesty, hearing it outside the car for the first time on the dyno....ya it is pretty damn loud. Overall I think we got lucky on the weather. It was good to see your car again. Hopefully your trip out east was a blast.

Thanks man. It is a damn blast for sure! Now I'm back to the drawing board to see where to go next. I don't think I'm done modding and will push painting back a little more. This car is too much fun! I failed to mention this was done on a Dyno Dynamics dyno. It sounds like these are pretty comparable to Dynojets. But I'm not all too concerned about numbers it sure feels good behind the steering wheel.

Has it made the car turn better on corner exit/acceleration? That is where I see my car handling like POOP right now. I still haven't put the bar back in as it sounds like I'll have clearance issues with the companion flanges.

The dyno session was on Monday. We got on at about 1:15 pm and it didn't take long for Shane to have the car dialed in. It took him longer to delete all the emissions CEL's than anything. bramagedained showed up with his uncle so we we able to bullshit while they worked on the car. It's always nice to see two of them side by side. Overall I am happy with the tune. The car actually idles now and no more limp mode! Shane said the GTO computer is limited as far as access for air maping at idle compared to the Corvette computer. The car still surges once or twice when decelerating. Here is one of the pulls on the dyno: https://youtu.be/xVBwF6G-l7s

Man I really like the look of that sway bar! Is this how they recommend mounting it? Did you drill holes in those upright pieces? I'm interested in something like this. I can't get enough of your updates!