Thanks Jules. I'm enjoying it, but 2 weeks of crunch time for Nashville is starting to catch up with me. I'm getting a bit tired from (tired from, not tired of) all of the late nights in the garage. Oh well, as long as we're making progress, we'll keep moving forward. It's still fun, just tiring fun....

We actually rounded up all the tools we had scattered everywhere at the end of tonights work. They are piled into two buckets so I can sort them into the tool box first thing tomorrow. We've got too many guys working on too many parts of the car and I own too many tools, so we had stuff everywhere. I hate working in a mess (though my garage is a trashed as it's ever been right now), so we decided we had to at least find the tools.

Oh, and Garrett installed the Hotpart LCA's tonight, but I forgot to take pics of that part. I'll get them tomorrow if I remember.

I wasn't sure if anyone would really care about this old car/project, but I'm having fun and trying to remember to take some pictures while I'm at it. And I hate to waste the pictures once I take 'em, so I started stuffing them in here.

And, AFCO is sending me a radiator pressure loss warning system. If the hose pops off, the light comes on. That would have saved us a couple motors on the AV8SS car over the years. I also bought an Autometer Pro Lite warning light (full sized) to replace the small one I hooked up as an oil warning. I want to make sure I see that thing, so I'll use the bright one instead. I'm sure there's more, but it's late and I'm beat.

Now I really am off to bed.

Hey, I didn't realize that was a candid camera shot! And for your information, the hammer fit quite nicely, thank you very much. After all, I did learn from you.

I can't help you there, but those damn E clips are one of the reasons I put C5 brakes on my C4. I HATE dealing with those stupid clips!

I don't suspect that this brake kit will be here too long. I'm planning to swap to something else at some point. For now, it's here, so I'm using it.

The Ed Miller brakes require a thicker mounting bracket if you go from his 12" kit to the 13" kit instead. The difference in thickness couldn't be made up with a thicker bracket since the new thickness is not a standard for bars stock. I originally bought the bracket for 12" C4 brakes then changed my mind so I would have to come up with a 1/8" spacer to make up the difference. The different caliper carriers from 12" to 13" do not account for the needed space.

I would have an answer for you but it turns out the C4HD setup wont fit inside my lightweight 16" rims... so I didn't bother. I'm looking for different brakes too!

This was purchased as a 13" kit, but it just doesn't line up quite right. I hope to have an answer from Ed tonight.

The swedged chromoly PHB arrived from Hotpart.com today. It's not heavy (I don't think I have a way to weigh it accurately) and the work looks to be very well done. It uses the same rod ends and similar spacers to the control arms that they make (and I already pictured). Here are the pics:

More photos:

The rear suspension is completely assembled now.

The torque arm was already on the car, and that's my Lingenfelter driveshaft that I kept from my other car.

The Hotpart PHB is installed now.

The car already had welded SFC's on it. They are stitch welded down the pinch weld already.

I had to do a lot of adjusting to the front ground control stuff to get the ride height back where I needed/wanted it to be. I wound up with 1000 in lb front springs and 3/4" of the adjuster rod showing out of the bottom of the weight jack (I didn't take a pic of the final ride height).

Tomorrow I hope to get it aligned. On Monday I should have a radiator/oil cooler so I can start on the oil system.

Off to bed. I have to be at an appointment at 9:30 am and it's a 45 minute drive from here. It's a bit before 2:30 right now.

You'll like the 1000lb/in'ers on a track car. I think I'm about ready to jump to a higher rate though now that I'm driving the car harder.

Well, I took it autocrossing today. We had it to where I was sure I wasn't going to blow anything up and 92 Voodoo (here on frrax) was here to visit from NYC and we decided it sounded like a good idea.

Last night, we tossed a passenger seat in the car so we could ride along. We installed a lap belt so we'd stay put. We swapped to the old Goodyear Eagle HP tires that came on the car (380 tread wear and 5 years old or so) for the event. I didn't want to tear up the new tires that I bought for Nashville. I installed the ECM into the factory bracket and had the prom fall out and land in my hand (that's not good). So, after some trial and error and a trip to moates.net, we got the prom in and working. We test drove the car and started to bed the brake pads. We had too much brake and couldn't really do anything to bed them. Oh well, they'll be bedded after the event (and they are). By now, it was 3 am by that time and I was off to bed....no problem (I had to get up at 5:30 to pick up Bill/92Voodoo for the event).

2.5 hours of sleep....check.

We found that the car has way too much power for street tires. Full throttle in 1st or 2nd results in giant amounts of wheel spin. So, the car seemed civilized and reasonably balanced, but we have a big deficiency in the grip department.

The final (for now) suspension setup is:

Hotpart Camber plates
Ground Control weight jacks with 1,000 in lb springs
Energy suspension poly bushings (front a arms)
Suspension techniques 35mm sway bar
Koni SA's (front)
5.0 castor
-1.8 camber
0 toe

Rear hotpart LCA's
Hotpart PHB
19mm sway bar
Koni SA
Ground Control weight jacks with 225 in lb springs

The car seemed to be reasonably balanced. However, it was hard to tell since every touch of the throttle overwhelmed the rear tires. I only looped the car once, but I took out the timers when I did it (Axoid said he got pictures and will be posting them soon). Overall, we ran decent, nobody died and the car was a handfull if you used a bunch of throttle.

During the last run, the temp got up to 220 degrees and it wouldn't cool down. On top of that it was going lean, very lean and would sometimes bounce to a bit over 220 degrees. So, when idling didn't cool it, we made a run and took it for a drive. That did the trick. However, now it's running poorly, it goes rich, then really lean, then rich, etc. I'm guessing it's a sensor, or I'm hoping.

And, we finished the event with gear lube all over the inside of one rear wheel. I've got to check that one out in the next few days and see if it's a leak, and, if I feel like fixing it.

I ran today as a shakedown run to make sure nothing broke or fell off, nothing did, but we have some leaks and other issues.

We'll see if I feel like fixing it before Nashville......

I'm going to get some sleep and I'll update later.

It's an axle seal. I'd fix it before Nashville, they only get worse.

The axle was just rebuilt (moser axles, Eaton posi, 3.73's, solid pinion spacer, etc) before I bought the car. My friend took it to a shop and paid way too much money to get it all redone. It's survived a few hundred street miles and then an autocross killed it? Hmm.

I know I need to fix it, I'm just wondering if I'm going to fix it and take it to Nashville or just drive down there and leave the car here. At this point, I've got lots to do and I'm down to a few days. I have to tweek the tuning, change radiators, make oil cooler, remote filter and accusump lines, fix an axle seal, install a cooling system pressure loss warning system, etc. That's a ton of work for a couple evenings and the 4th of July (I'm off that day), that's my concern.

We also saw my low oil pressure light blink on a few times. The car makes about 55 psi at idle and the switch is set for 30 psi. So, it looks like we were momentarly starving it of oil, even on street tires. If we didn't have the light, we'd have never known, but now that we know, I'm glad I ordered a 3 quart accusump. We added a quart of oil that I got from one of the guys at the event and we saw the light much less (6 quarts in a 5 quart pan), but I was amazed that we made enough grip to starve the engine on beater street tires.

Also, there is enough play in the rear end that the rear rotors are contacting the PAB's and grinding big areas into the rear rotors. I'm not sure what to do about that one.....

Time to trim the list down to what you need.

The way I see it, here's your list:

-Tweak tuning
-Make accusump lines
-Fix an axle seal.

If you have time, then tackle the others. If the car gets hot, short shift it. I'm still running my stock radiator and so are a couple of other 3rd gens in the NASA Midwest region. The key is ducting the air to it. I've seen 230* more often as I learn to drive the car harder, but if I back it down a second or two a lap, the car will cool off.

Here's some words of advice that my dad always has to remind me: Even if you have to baby the car a little bit, take it down there and enjoy driving it. If you don't, the car is just a chore that you don't get to enjoy. This is supposed to be fun, they sure as hell aren't paying ya!

1.8 camber going to be enough? most CMC guys are around 3 or so on a 3rd gen.

That's where I ran out of adjustment.....

Glenn, I haven't looked at the rules, but can you cut the shock towers for strut clearance in CMC? If I go with much more negative camber I'll have the struts bottoming against the opening for the camber plate (the fender opening). Unless I cut it back....

How do they manage that much camber in a 3rd gen? This has been a very interesting read. It has reinforced my desire to upgrade the car with a set of good gauges.

The oil filter adaptor I have is not a sandwich adapter. So, I have to make lines to the remote filter and the accusump. I hate to waste -10AN line to make lines twice, so the radiator must go in (and I need to flush the coolant out of the block). So, those things are a given. I'll install the oil temp gauge and the mechanical pressure gauge to those hoses when it's all done. So, that's all going to be done before I leave (if I take the car).

I'm going to swap the mini pro lite warning lite to a full size (shift light size) warning light for the oil. It was tough to see the small one and I feel that oil pressure is a little too important to miss. So, I have the light, I just have to solder it in and bolt it to the dash.

The axle seal needs done, but I think it's just going to leak again. I have a feeling that I'll be looking for a 9" real soon for this car.



At minimum, order an autometer 15 or 30 psi oil pressure warning light and a pro lite (I've got a 30 psi in the car and I just bought a 50 psi switch as well). Screw it into the oil passage by the distributor. Ground one side of the sender, hook the ground side of the light to it and put +12v on the pro lite. It's simple and the sender and pro lite will cost about $60 total. It's cheap and I was amazed to see it flashing while autocrossing on street tires. At one point, I turned after the shutdown area to come back to get my timeslip and the light came on for 1-3 seconds (solid). I had slowed and just hooked the turn at the end, and I wasn't going very quickly when I did it. That was even after I added a quart of oil. The stock gauge will not catch the stuff that the light was showing. The gauge would barely move in that time, but the light will blink and let you know what's going on. I'm adding an aftermarket mechanical gauge as well (as a back up), but the light is well worth the money based on my limited experience.

This is starting to feel like the very beginning of a rather steep learning curve.

agreed. Also, the strut body will start to hit the body/innerfender (whatever it is called) near the k-member at full droop with the wheels turned. You can fix that with a BFH though.

edit to add "with wheels turned"

i don't know the legality of those in CMC. i just know your going to dislike 1.8 neg camber on that car.

I understand that part. My point was that my Koni will not clear the stock opening in the fender under full compression (unless it doesn't get up to that opening, but I think it will) with much more camber (and I ran out of "slot" at -1.8 on my car on one side, -2.4 on the other).

When I tear it back down, I might slot it (if it's legal for where I decide to play with it, once I sort that out) for more adjustment.

Just as a datapoint, when we ran ASedan and got to over 1000in/lb (and beyond) springs the camber the tires wanted (gs-cs') ended up being less than -2.0 and we ran soft-side out. Stiff side out wanted even less.

Just fyi.


Costas
cars and such...

Thanks Costas! I appreciate the info. Since I had no idea where it would wind up, I didn't slot anything. Now that I know, I'll try it and see what I find out. If I like it, it stays, if not, I guess I'll have to change it. I guess that's why we call it testing. Since this thing is all new to me, I had to start somewhere (right or wrong).

The radiator is here, pics to come.....

You forgot to mention that foreign guy in the slow diesel that beat you!

Good to see you running again and I hope you get all the issues sorted out before the weekend!

Foreign guy.... He seems normal enough, but he has a funny accent and drives a VW TDI Golf. I think he was faster when he was piloting a Camaro.....

I replaced the axle seals tonight with the help of Axoid (Thanks Bill!!!), we'll see if it's still leaking. Other than that, not much was done, but I got a delivery of fresh parts today....


On to the good stuff. UPS brought me more toys today.

Prototype valve covers from Canton

Canton power steering fittings

Canton remote accusump valve kit

A custom Afco radiator

An Afco radiator pressure warning system (if it loses pressure, it turns on a light)

Some Afco radiator caps (16 and 22 lb)

Here are photos from the autocross debut.

This is where I ran out of talent..... (being on 380 treadwear street tires didn't help, but I screwed up bad)

There are other photos, but Bill (Axoid here) did such a nice job catching my little mistake, I figured I'd share his work.

We accomplished what we set out to do, we shook down the car and found some issues. That was the main goal for the day. We even had a bunch of fun in the process.

And I know that some of you will be really surprised to see me going backwards at an autocross event....

Is that using the Coleman swaged steel tube?
"Lightweight 1" O.D. steel tube
3/4" right and left hand thread
Gold irridite finish
Custom lengths available
.072 wall thickness"

I've got a global west PHB and LCA's with poly ends that I've been meaning to upgrade to rod ends (I'll probably go with QA1 XMR rod ends, but they aren't cheap).

Those look like the same cast alum centerbolt valve covers that Mark Frouhar (from NFME) had on his '85 TransAm.

It looked similar to http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.a...mp;autoview=sku, but I'm not positive.

He had to majorly clearance the inside bosses to clear the rocker arms, and they all ended up cracking at the corner of the clearance notches against the centerbolt tube. If you've got the short-rail AFR heads, you'll have lots of oil going out the left side breather clockwise tracks. We TIG'd a 3" riser to the top of the valve cover at the front, to get some clean oil-free air for the AMW air:oil separator catch can breather setup.

Are the canton's stock height, or taller?

No, Hotpart is a full machine/fabrication shop. I originally thought they were reselling Coleman stuff, but after working with Brian out there and through our discussions, I've learned that they manufacture all of their stuff in house (except rod ends and such). This is a chromoly bar and by swaging it, you don't have to weld on it. That elminates all of the worry about normalizing, etc. And, I can pretty much do pull ups on this bar, it's that rigid. I ran aluminum for a long time and I agree that it seems to work just fine, but this isn't much heavier and it sure seems stout. Anyway, my information is that it is not the Coleman bar, but they could be similar.

I've got Moroso centerbolt covers on the car now and they clear the Comp Cams Pro Magnum roller rockers. I found a deal on these and was thinking of having AN fittings welded on to them for breather tanks, etc (assuming that they fit). Canton listed them as "medium" height (as I remember). I bought them as an experiment. I have to track down hardware first, then we'll go from there. Or, I sell them on TGO and likely get my money back.

I currently have no clue if they'll fit or not. If they do, I'll sell the Moroso's and make a few bucks on the deal (or I'll try).

Cool, you got the finish lights. That'll show 'em! If you're going to screw up, do it in a spectacular way.

So other than the special fittings, what is special about the radiator? Just curious.

Ours are not the Coleman piece and I would not recommend using the Coleman piece. Because of the long length we decide to make our panhard rod from 1.25" x .095" chrome-moly to avoid any deflection. The Coleman piece is using a small 1" OD, very thin wall tubing, and is made from mild steel.

Everyone should look at Hotpart. You guys do things right! Kudos to you guys Brian!

Kevin, the timing light killer

The large fittings are for an oil cooler. It has a built in oil to water cooler for the engine oil. I added a fitting for a water pressure switch. If a radiator hose blows off, the light comes on. We've lost two motors in the AV8SS car due to such issues. We had a freeze plug pop out of a head and didn't get black flagged for 2 laps (that engine pretty much melted). We also had a water neck crack and the "bump" that retains the top radiator hose and the bump was missing, and so was that end of the hose. The temp gauge was in an air pocket and still had a reasonable reading. We ran 3 laps at Beaver Run without water that time and damaged a bunch of expensive stuff. I then decided a pressure switch was a good idea for my own car.

So, it's basically a 650 hp rated radiator with a built in oil cooler. It just saves me an oil cooler thermostat and finding a place for the oil cooler that doesn't block airflow. Besides, those guys build nice stuff. And, they built it to my measurements to fit my car (boy I hope I can use a tape measure....guess I'll know real soon ).



I'm glad you dropped in Brian. I was going to mention that I thought that was larger than 1" diameter, but since I didn't mic it and I wasn't near the car, I wasn't 100% sure.

Hotpart's prices are very reasonable for the quality of parts they build (Heck, their prices are reasonable for parts that aren't as nice as these are, getting stuff that's this well built is a bonus). I know Julie has worked with them on her cars as well and had a great experience. Their stuff has been truly top shelf. Talking to Brian will let you know how much he truly cares about these designs (and we've been on the phone many times so far). The tolerances they use on thier taps, the fit and finsh and such are truly first rate.

There are lots of places to buy good quality parts, some are more well know than others, but add Hotpart to the list of stuff that's very worthy of your consideration. This is just based on my experience with their stuff (which I'm doing my best to document here with everything else).

I was just glad I didn't manage to kill the timers. I've seen more than a few of those get broken after being punted. I thought I got it with the tail, but I just bumped it (hard) with the nose.

1992 Z28: Kills timing lights.....DEAD.

I also spent about 1.5 - 2 hours on the phone with Afco working out the radiator details. Rodney Bremmer was who I worked with out there and he was truly a professional (and quite patient).


Tonight.... It's the radiator, accusump and oil system show. Tune in for the next installment, coming soon to a thread near you!!!!

Well, it's not looking good. We fought with the radiator for quite a while to get it to fit (using a few large hammers). Once we made room, the oil cooler fitting is a very tight fit with the power steering. So, we now need to hammer the floor a bit flatter so the radiator can lean back. It was getting too late to hammer on it tonight, so we have to do that tomorrow. Then we have to make all of the lines for the oil cooler, remote filter and accusump. We then worked out where to mount the accusump. There's a chance we could get it all back together tomorrow, but it's going to be real close.

We did a fair amount of hammering to get the radiator to fit but the oil cooler fitting is just where we don't want it to be (they built it to my specs, so there's nobody to blame but me and I'll get it in there).

A little hammering here, a bit of cutting there and "poof", we almost have a radiator.....

Kevin,

I wish I had your energy. What is it? From zero to race car in 3 weeks???? You are gonna be toast by Friday.


I am IN Tennessee BTW. Northwest corner visiting my 94 year old Grandmother. Gonna fill up on that good West TN bar b que and cold beers for the 4th and worry about all those kids over in the Desert that are going to miss out on this Holiday.

I wish I had my energy (I'm already toast ). I've been in the garage every night for a couple weeks now. I've accomplished a bunch, but there's a lot of work to do tomorrow and I'm not convinced that we can get it done. On top of that, we have a tuning/computer issue that showed up after Sunday's autocross. We can't fix it until we get a radiator in the car and I'm running out of time. So, unless a miracle happens tomorrow (which is always possible), I'm guessing that I'm coming down to Nashville without a car. That still could change if tomorrow goes well.

I need to:

Mount the radiator (I really need some metal and a brake to bend up a bracket, but I'll mod the stock one for now)
Buy an electric cooling fan (I don't think the stock ones are going to fit)
Install the oil filter "plate" (so I can hook AN lines to the block)
Install (bolt down) the accusump
Run the remote accusump valve cable
Make up all of the AN lines
Hook up the electric oil temp sender
Hook up the mechanical oil pressure gauge
Install a mechanical water temp gauge
Mount the power steering cooler and hook up the lines (the lines are installed, I just need to cut them off at the cooler and hook them up)
Retune/trouble shoot the car

Based on that list, I'm going to guess that you'll see me without my car for this event. But anything can happen around here.
Make all of the -10 AN lines to connect all of it

Come on down regardless Kevin.

You know we are going to have a blast!

You guys have fun.

Have a beer for me, OK?

Just one? This project is starting to call for "many".

That lower oil cooling line connection is going to be 'interesting'. ;-)

I was interested in the radiator as the new unit in our 92 B4c does okay, until you turn the a/c on and sit in traffic. Even with both fans hot-wired to run continuously, the car still goes north of 220 in traffic. Because of that, I usually don't use the a/c much. Makes for uncomfortable commutes home in the afternoon, especially if it rains.

And, I'm probably going to need a dual-pass radiator for the Firebird when the new engine goes in.

Your project looks like fun. Too bad you don't have the additional time to clean things and make them all look pretty. Still, considering the time you don't have the project is looking good.

It was a challenge, but it's actually going to work just fine in the end.



This didn't turn out to be a drop in unit. I measured it all, but I apparently can't use a ruler. It needed to be about 1/2" less wide and/or 1/2" less tall. However, we got it in there.



It's been fun, but it's been a ton of work. And pretty is over rated.....

Anyway, the radiator is installed, the power steering cooler is installed. I could go make up AN lines and make this thing run tonight, but I'll not get the Accusump in it in time. And, since we have a tuning issue, I'm not going to push it. I'm going to go to Nashville without my car.

Anyway, the radiator was a snug fit, but some work with a hammer made it all work out. It took a "bunch" of banging to get it all in there, but it's in there. It even looks like it wasn't too much work (by the look of the final result).

In the short term, I hung the power steering cooler on the front of the radiator. I don't like doing that, but I figure I have enough radiator at this point that I should be able to get away with it for a while.

The fitting did clear the power steering, but it was tight (and this car has no AC). And the drivers side fan is rubbing the tank (we've not run the fan that way, but we saw it). I'm going to make a spacer for the top and set it back until it clears. That should take care of that (I hope).

<sorry for the hijack Kevin>

Gene,
You likely have another problem. These cars were run in Texas all their life with donut-smackin, fried-chicken-finger-licken boys behind the wheel and I guarantee they never turned off the AC. Check that your system is holding good pressure (cap? pinhole?) and make sure no debris (I find plastic grocery bags really LIKE to get sucked into mine) got sucked into the cavity and is blocking the condensor/radiator. It is easy to undo the top of the radiator and lean it back and use an airchuck to blow all the crap back outta the front of the condensor. Maybe weak water pump?

Miss B4C does fine (had an issue with a pinhole leak in the t/b coolant hose that NEVER made a drip to the ground but kept temps warmer than normal especially as you describe) and b4c2 will get the ac charged here pretty quick. Matt said he had to charge it every year or so. I'll likely be doing a compressor on it soon (happy joy fun).

<unhijack>

Got the wheel today Kevin, thanks!!!

Costas
cars and such...

Nice program ..

have you blast time at AV8SS Open Track on your Teal Camaro? Beat Corvette #5?

<Sorry, hijacked again>

I've checked all that. In fact, the car ran significantly cooler after replacing the radiator, (although it wasn't a factory B4C radiator, they aren't available any more), and, iirc, one of the cooling fans. The car runs about 160 most of the time, except when sitting in traffic, when it can go north of 220 deg. Once we get going again, it cools back down albeit slowly. Unlike our 9C1 and Impala SS, though, there is NO way the thing will just sit there at idle with the a/c going and not overheat. Cap has been tested, thermostat has been replaced, hoses have been replaced and everything. The car runs great, and other than just that little issue of running warm in traffic, it is still a blast to drive.

Back to your regularly-scheduled conversation about 92 Camaros.

Hey Dusty, it was great to meet you and your girl friend (Mitzi, wasn't it? I'm terrible with names)!!! I'm glad you made it out to the track to visit.

I did get the car out for two sessions. I'd be getting ahead of myself if I give the update here. When we left this thread, the car had no oil cooler lines and I was leaving it at home.

I was up until 2am on Thursday night making 10AN lines for the oil cooler and remote filter. I put them all together and found that the Moroso oil line adaptor was leaking at the block. I tightened it down, it still leaked, snugged it more, still leaked, etc. Moroso didn't send torque specs and I wasn't sure how much I could lean on the bolts. I snugged it a final time and decided that it was too late to fire up the car again and I went to bed.

At 6:30 AM my phone rang. It was Brad (Brad and Liz post as 4manracing here on frrax) asking if I needed the trailer and saying that he'd drive 30 miles to drop it off if I did. While he was here, I started the car and he said that it was no longer leaking. I checked and he was right. I set the car down and started packing the garage (which was a complete disaster and all landed in boxes in utter disarray). We got rolling about 11 am and made the track at 6:30 or so.

I'll try to get some pics of the plumbing and add them to this thread soon.

I'm off to get dinner, my wife is staring at me and waiting on me to put the laptop down and get some food.

I'll finish up later.

Anyway. I installed the hose to the mechanical oil pressure gauge on Friday night. The line really didn't reach the remote oil filter location very well, but we hooked it up. On Saturday morning, I had to go install an ignition box into the Darkhorse Racing Mustang and left Garrett to move the oil pressure fitting to the input side of the block adaptor for me.

We learned that we lose 4 psi of oil pressure through the filter, cooler and lines. It went from 62 psi at idle to 58. It also went to almost 90 psi with a blip of the throttle. This told us that the stock gauge is worthless. It shows about 50 psi all the time. 45 on the low end and about 56 on the high end. The autometer shows 58 at idle and almost 90 with RPM. We also got the oil temp gauge working. I hooked it up late and swapped two of the connectors. That gave us oil temp (which was useful). I had also hooked up a mechanical water temp gauge. It proved that the stock 3rd gen gauges are worthless. The 3rd gen gauge showed "160-ish", "220-ish" and "240-ish". The autometer showed 140-242 in actual operation. When the autometer was showing 230+, the stock gauge was still at 220. It seems to be a 3 position gauge in the factory cluster and it is about as useful as the oil pressure gauge.

Anyway, the car was running 242 degrees on track but would cool off as soon as I dropped back for a lap or so. So, the radiator is getting air, but not enough. The oil temps (pre cooler) were pegged at 300 degrees. I don't have a fitting to allow me to take a temp after the cooler, but I probably will soon. We removed the thermostat (as recommended to me by Afco racing who built the radiator) and the car took longer to get hot, but it still got hot. I think we made it through most of a 20 minute session before it got too hot, however, we were not running 20 minute sessions, we were running 30 minute sessions. That seemed to be the problem. I guess I need to get rid of the cross over exhaust, get the pipe out from under the pan and get some air flow ducted in so that the radiator gets good airflow.

The car handled well for being on street tires and I'm not going to mess with the suspension for now. I think I'll leave that as is until I get the rest of it sorted out. It was quite neutral and had no problems running on the banking. It was even perfectly stable running into the brake zone at the end of the super speedway portion of the track. I was braking from 122 to about 25-30 mph and the car worked great.

So, I have a lot of work to do, but we learned a lot as well. Back to the garage....

When I first installed the new engine, oil pressure was lower than I liked. It turns out that the Mobil1 filter was causing most of the restriction. Swapping it out to a WIX or Fram racing filter gave back most of the pressure. I now run a CM remote filter with -12AN lines.

Ok, here are the promised pics of my plumbing disaster. It's getting crowded under this engine, that's for sure. I'll probably change some of this as I get time and get the engine out where I can access some of the other ports better.

The power steering caused me to get a bit creative, but I got it hooked up (I hate to use 180 hose ends).

I originally just had 2 90 degree hose ends on there. We then added a fitting for a mechanical oil pressure gauge.

Then, I added a T fitting to give me a place to port the 3 quart accusump into the system. Now it's starting to get crowded down there. And, no, I'm not happy with this, but I'll try it for now and change it as soon as I find a better way.

Then, I ran over and through the firewall with the accusump line. I don't like having it inside, and I wasn't happy with it outside (no real room under the hood). So, for now I'm putting it inside, though I've not mounted it yet. Here's where we run through the firewall.

Anyway, that's the latest on this project. I also think the power steering pressure hose is leaking. I don't think it's oil under the car (I thought I had a leak), I think it's PS fluid that I'm seeing. It wasn't boiling or anything, but I think the old hose is getting tired.

Today, the dyno:

Our local F-body group had a dyno day and I decided to drive it down and see what I'd learn on the rollers.

I learned a lot. The first pull was 18.1:1 on the dyno wide band from 2,500 to 5,000 rpm. Then, it started to come into line with where it should be (or at least closer). Axoid grabbed a laptop and my prom and we decided to add fuel. However, the VE (Volumetric Effeciency) tables on this car are pretty close to maxed and they won't take a number greater than 100%, so Bill (Axoid) suggested that we lie about the injector size. Sounds good to me, we need fuel. So, we adjusted the injector size from 23.8 lb hr to 22 lb hr, burned a prom and tossed it back in the car. Poof, the AFR was a little fat down low, and decent through the mid and upper range (and was no longer 18:1).

The first pull showed 298 hp and 324 ft lbs, even being that lean.

The second pull showed about the same HP and more torque (299.03 hp/338.62 ft lbs).

The third pull showed a final of 299.62 hp and 338.71 ft lbs.

For reference, my 2002 Z28 with 5,600 miles on it (on a portable chassis dyno) made 299 hp and 317.4 ft lbs.

This was odd to me since most dyno runs I've seen will run ok on the first, better on the second and drop on the third due to heat soak. I'm not complaining, so we'll go with it.

One oddity I noticed is that he was shutting down at the shift light (autometer set at 6,400 rpm). The dyno sheet shops at 5,800? Now, the stock tach is wrong, it shows about 7,000 at the shift light and the dyno shows 5,800? I'm a bit puzzled how we only got dyno numbers to 5,800...unless 5,800 is really 6,400 and the dyno tach is off. If so, none of the numbers are any good. So, I really don't know why it is what it is, but it's what I've got. They also had issues with the dyno and the 4,000 to 4,500 rpm band. It just vanished on two of my pulls. Not sure why, but it's gone without a trace (that was bad, really bad.... ). This was an in-ground dynojet (AWD Dynojet actually) and they said it seems to read 20 hp lower than the portable/trailer style dynojets in the area. Odd.

The engine specs are:

350 Chevy .020 over (353) (0 decked with splayed main caps, ARP studs, lunati "street race" rods and KB pistons)
Balanced rotating assembly
10.6:1 compression
ZZ4 cylinder heads with Manley Race Flo under cut valves and K-motion springs (Skim cut to make sure they were true)
Comp 305 cam (220/230 .510/.510 114 deg)
1.5 Comp Pro Magnum roller rockers
SLP headers and dual cat Y pipe (no cats)
SLP "two on the left" cat back
Underdrive pulleys
Holley Stealth Ram intake
52mm throttle body
MSD Pro Billet "drop in" (dual connector) distributor
Fludamper "Street Damper"

I think that's all the important bits. It's nothing radical, but it made decent power for using such small heads (they flow about 208 cfm at .550 lift). Next up, more heads, more cam and long tubes.....

Here's the sheet.

Did you have to do anything to the engine besides tuning, between Nashville and the dyno? (just curious...)