What did you end up doing for the transmission lines?

 

I think that those are very good times and the trap speeds are super consistent. I'd be very happy with those numbers especially with those DAs last night!

 

Gosh, it seems so tame and docile and yet moves out. Nicely done!

 

I re-used part of the factory hard lines up front where it connects to the radiator and used an adapter to convert to AN once it got down by the oil pan, then built some soft lines that ran around the back and to the front of the trans. I might redo those in hard line all the way at some point in time but it's working and not a problem.

 

I was hoping that once it cooled off I could get it down around 11.5 at 121-122 but I think that's going to have to wait for the winter time here in AZ. Our air is just not great at all compared to a lot of other areas in the country.

It really is pretty tame and is just super smooth, on the first pass I thought something was off because it just didn't feel like a mid 11 second pass. I fully expected a 13 second time slip and was trying to figure out what happened on the return road, but I'm used to mid 7 second passes in the 1/4 in the other car so I seriously thought something was wrong. LOL

 

Thanks. Been to down a track a few times and also at high elevation.

Car did good! It was really impressed w/the 60' times you pulled and the consistency is fantastic. I bet if it ran it at English Town or ATCO you'd be lower 11's/~124 or so.

I sure wish modern autos would bang gears. I mean, actually BANG gears like old TH350's/400's etc. did w/shift kits or even a good factory set up. The engine laying down during shifts really hurts the driving experience, IMO. Can you tune new trans's/engines so they don't lay down, during shifting?

 

Yeah the air here in AZ just neuters times especially compared to lots of tracks back east.

I've tuned the TCM so it actually does shift faster and firmer, it just doesn't look like it in the video. On the shift it does have a bit of positive forward motion when it shifts, but it still has torque management in it so it's still doing a very fast timing retard on the shifts. No it's not like a TH400 as it's still doing a cut during a shift but it happens so quickly that it's really not losing anything. The benefit of this is that it doesn't upset the chassis during the shift or induce wheel spin. On my C6 Z06 with a powerglide I can watch the rear tire speed light up on the shift and it doesn't do it any favors when that happens.

 

It adds to the experience, IMO.

With today's tech, we've passed the point where faster≠ "more fun" or a better driving experience. Y'all were talking about how blase' or "muted" the experience of driving down the track was; you thought you ran 13's in an 11 sec car. I can totally relate to that. Thus, I was wondering if you could bring some of that experience/excitement/visceral feel back with tuning of the trans/tq mgmt/engine behavior that is more like what we experienced back in the day with trans's that shifted at (actual) WOT. You can still do it an a stick shift car....but auto shifted cars lay down and it's a pretty anticlimactic experience, IMO. Anyway...car runs good. It's a very cool build.

 

Well my biggest problem with thinking something was wrong during that pass is that my C6Z runs 7.40s at 185 mph in the 1/4 mile and that's what I'm used to now a days, so I really thought something was wrong and didn't expect an 11.7 timeslip. I don't think even turning off the torque management is going to make me feel any different. But overall I'm happy with it and it's a fun driver so far but who knows what I end up doing with it in the future. It's almost too easy to just add a turbo to this thing now that it's all up and running.

 

Awesome build, I'm sure it's a blast. I was curious about your exhaust set-up, is that a single 3"? I'm in the middle of a mild 5.3 4L60E swap and was worried a single 3" wouldn't be enough, but if you are in the 11's with a single 3 I think I'll be fine.

 

Yes, a single 3" with a high flowing muffler and mandrel bends will flow a lot of air. If you have a restrictive muffler and crush bent exhaust then it's a different story so not all 3" exhausts are equal.

 

Nic, there is no doubt that you've got a fast car and are putting down some serious power to the rear wheels. I do wonder if/what power you are leaving on the table though. I'd wager money that you are leaving some power with only a single 3" exhaust. How much? I don't know and wouldn't begin to guess. There is a YT video where an LS swapped IROC owner went from a single 3" the Mufflex single, 4".

I've got the Hawks Sinister single 4" which is the Mufflex system (not installed yet.) I'm sure it'll have more power potential but the downside is that It'll definitely be a good bit louder than a single 3"

 

When I put it on the dyno it made pretty much exactly what every other 6th gen Camaro and C7 Corvette makes with the same mods so that leads me to believe its not much if any. I'm sure if I swapped it out to a 4" exhaust I might gain 5 or so, but I could just do a cutout and accomplish the same thing. Actually, maybe I will do a cutout since it's easy and cheap. LS and LT engines love free flowing exhaust and gain pretty much 5-10 rwhp on every single one I've ever dyno'd with a cutout.

 

For the amount of money and hassle of changing out an exhaust system, I'm not sure how much horsepower gain would make it worth it. If it were only single digit horsepower, I don't think that I'd change it out.

Last year at about this time when I was still deciding on what parts I was going to use on my 3rd gen build, I watched a couple of YouTube videos by "Brandon LSX." He has a video of where he dynod his LS3 swapped 3rd gen with a single 3" exhaust. Here is his video where he dynod his car after installing the single, 4" Mufflex exhaust:
His car went from 406rwhp to 441rwhp. He does admit that the higher hp dyno session had better air.

 

Well there is really only two possibilities here...
1. The dynos were different and one read high and the other low (SAE correction would typically compensate for better or worse air)
2. He had the worlds most restrictive 3" exhaust to pick up 35 rwhp just from changing it to something else

Coming from somebody who has pushed that dyno start button more times than I can even count over the last 23 years, the difference between a good free flowing 3" exhaust and a good free flowing 4" exhaust at this power level is maybe 5 rwhp or so.

 

So I finally addressed the brakes, they were still stock from what I could tell and they were absolutely terrible! The car accelerated probably 3 times as fast as it could stop, I am pretty sure they were factory pads or some cheap auto parts store pads but the part number was worn off so I couldn't really tell. Either way literally one hard stop was all that was required to make them fade and smell. LOL

Baer Brakes has a million different options for setups on these cars and their kits are probably the most complete I've ever seen. It literally included everything necessary to do the swap minus fluids, they even include little rubber caps to use on the brake line when you disconnect it so it doesn't **** everywhere. I chose their 13" Track4 Front Brake Kit so it has some actual modern stopping power and it fits under the 17" replicas that I have. For the rears I picked their 12" SS4 kit so I could still fit 16" rear wheels with drag radials on them for drag duty. It's really cool too that you can print out the templates for the brakes to test fit in the wheels that you have to make sure it will all clear. I can't say enough about how impressed I am with their kits, and no I didn't get any kick backs for saying this!

The front's came mostly assembled on spindles and I just had to remove the old assembly and put this one in it's place and bolt up the calipers, doesn't get much easier than that. The rears are more of a pain in the *** due to the caliper/ebrake brackets that have to be swapped so I got to pull the rear cover and get to the c-clips to remove the axles. Then it's just unbolt the old and bolt in the new brackets and now they work and look like the 4th gen f-body's rear e-brake setup. They include new e-brake cables and everything to make the conversion. While I had it apart it was a good opportunity to throw on the T/A diff cover sitting here as well, every little bit helps with a 10 bolt!

Here is just a dump of the pictures I took when I was putting everything on...