My name is Ryan, Im from Mississippi, and am going to buy a 87 IROC Camaro. The car has some storm damage, and was a very fast car when i was in high school. I have no idea what is in the motor or trans. It has a BBK throttle body on it is all i know. Its a tpi 350 with a 700r4. After it got storm damaged in 2010, Its sat under a shed until now. Rats have eaten part of the wiring harness, but the interior is very nice. The drivers door is torn up and the rear quarter panel but its nothing i can't fix. Its a T-top car. I have a VERY powerful (never been dynoed but estimated 550+ hp) 350 i will be picking up in a couple of weeks as a long block. Came across a deal i couldn pass up.

Question 1. What is the TPI setup capable of on these cars? Im seriously toying with the idea of trying to inject it. (i realize tuning may become a nightmare, but thats what i have you guys for right??)

Question 2. Will my knock sensor be affected by running a solid lift cam? Im trying to not get into a cam swap if i can help it because the one thats in the motor currently sounds great and makes stupid power. (don't know the specs on it, but will be getting them when i get the motor)

Question 3. The new motor has old school double hump heads on it. I know i can mod the intake to fit, but are all the accessories on the car going to fit the new motor?

Question 4. Am i out of my mind trying this, or is it going to be cheaper to scrap the injection all together, and buy a distributor, intake, and carb for it? I would love to keep it injected if at all possible.

I have never gotten into the fuel injection on a built motor before, but im confident i can do it. All my projects have either had near stock motors and fuel injection or been old enough to have a carb unitl now. Any help or input is greatly appreciated.

Edit: Im planning on running a 2500 stall, The truck that the engine is currently in has a 2000 in it, and it does pretty darned good, but i think that 2500 would be perfect, and i have one at the shop so it won't cost me anything.

 

If your new engine has that kind of power then by all means box the TPI stuff up and save yourself the headache and go carb. The TPI system is a great system on a stock or mild build. Mild being the key word.

 

Its very strong. Its in a 68 chevy pickup right now with a set of 295/50/15s on the rear, a posi, and 3.42 gears. It will roast (and i mean destroy) the rear tires at 50 mph. I'd really like to know what it would take to inject it if anyone has anything of the sort and knows first hand. I may very well just carb it, but i would like to know what is involved in keeping the injection. Do these cars have PROM chips? This is my first TPI engine to fool with so i am clueless. I may end up going with a little less cam if it would mean the difference in injecting it or carbing it.


Edit: just got confirmation that the car is a '87 IROC.

 

The intake would hafta be changed, throttle body,injectors, chip burning,slews of sensors,etc so it would be a million times cheaper and less headache for a carb. Or an aftermarket EFI system if you wanted fuel injection.

 

Im not especially concerned about cost as long as it would not be too insane. I plan on putting the new engine on a motor stand in the shop, fixing the car, and driving it like it is for a while. That way i could get some parts together and swap it in all at once. I have a buddy that has a fox body mustang that makes similar power to where i want to be that is injected, and i love how it runs. Cold starts it cranks and idles like a new car. He knows nothing about chevys tho, so he is not alot of help on this project.

 

And he bought that car mostly built, so nobody really knows what all has been done on it.

 

I guess im looking for a little more detailed info into what goes into building the fuel system on these cars to handle more power. I know it would need higher flow rate injectors and the computer tuned. How hard is it to tune one of these cars?

 

Don't buy into the 550+ hp engine BS. Just from what you have said here, I can tell you that engine does not make 550 HP. It would be lucky to make 400 HP, and I'm thinking 350 HP sounds more real.

1) It takes alot of head to make 550 HP. The double hump heads just aint gonna cut it. I ran 462 double humps on mine and I went best of 11.40's @ 118 on a well prepped car and track. I spent over 30 hours on those heads. I'm a performance engine builder by trade by the way.

2) 550 HP in a 350 is gonna take a lot of RPM. The engine will be making peak HP at around 7,000 RPM. A 2,000 stall converter will not do at all with an engine like that. Need a min of a 3500 stall. In fact a 2000 stall on a real 500+ HP N/A 350 would cause the car/truck to be sluggish starting off because it does not let the engine get into it's power band. 2,000 stall is not much over a stock torque converter. Most stock ones are in the 1300-1600 range.

A 500, 550 HP n/a 350 will have a power band of like 3300-7200 rpm.

My 500 HP 355 only made 121 HP at 2,000 rpm
238 HP at 3,000
427 HP at 5,000
518 HP at 6500

 

Regardless of the power numbers it makes, its crazy stout, and its not going to cost me anything to get it. I am trading some junk i have no use for anymore for it. The compression is way too high on it. We are going to pull the heads and install some 0.80 copper gaskets to lower that a bit and *hopefully* it will run on premium. That should tame it just a bit, i do hope to be able to drive it to work once in a while and thru town. Im guessing my best option is going to be to find a good, dual plane non-high rise intake and carb for it and go that route. I don't want to get into hood clearance issues with it, and a standard rise intake should move the power down a bit in the power-band. I would like to drag race it, but thats not going to be its primary use. It has a custom cut bullet solid lift cam in it. We are debating on pulling it and stepping down to a hydraulic 292 comp or something of the sort, but the motor sounds really good like it is, so i may try to keep the cam in it. Its a T top car, do i need to be looking into sub-frame connectors for it? Not sure what im going to do on it at the moment for traction.

 

DO NOT INSTALL THE THICKER GASKETS. That will lower the compression but it widens your quench height too much and the thing will ping more than it did before on lower octane fuel. Research quench and it's benefits.

Subframe connectors should be the 1st mod you do to any F body car be it gen 1, 2, 3 or 4th gen.

Traction is not easy with high HP engines. For mine I had to add
powertrax lock rite locker
weld on lower control arm relocation brackets
adj. LCAs
adj panhard
adj. jegster torque arm
adj. rear shocks
Iroc moog rear springs
Air lift drag bags in rear springs
Nitto 555R 275/60-15 rear drag radials

Then it started hooking good. 1.60's 60' times, but it was too much power and traction for the upgraded 10 bolt rear.. I broke 1, swapped in another one and broke it.
Ended up having to save up for a FORD 9" rear end.