vortec350s10

Yep boost only going to the regulator.

camaro1122

iTrader: (1)

Would it matter where the port is on the hat? As in is it better to have it on the back of the hat rather than the side? Or its all the same?

vortec350s10

All the same. Wherever.

camaro1122

iTrader: (1)

Thanks, got all the parts for that. Another question i forgot to ask, what spark plugs are you using? I have right now accel 574s plugs which im sure arent ideal

vortec350s10

AC Delco R45LTS gapped at .025 to be safe

camaro1122

iTrader: (1)

Do you think you can send a link? This was the only plug on advanceauto website, not sure if its the one you have http://shop.advanceautoparts.com/web...lts#fragment-2

vortec350s10

I take that back. They are R43LTS. 45's are hotter, 43's are colder.

camaro1122

iTrader: (1)

Do you by chance know the heat range of the R43LTS plugs? I cant find any info on that plug

vortec350s10

It's one or 2 heat ranges colder than stock.

camaro1122

iTrader: (1)

Well good to go on the spark plugs. I have a question about your distributor, can you run me through what i need with locking out, etc? I have the stock hei distributor with that programmable 6al-2 box. I'm pretty confused on what needs to be done

vortec350s10

As far as all that goes, I'm still not sure exactly how I'm going to lock my distributor out. I bought a MSD 6AL-2 as well but won't be installing it till spring when I get my car back out of winter storage. I think we need to connect the box using the wiring from the pickup coil. (Purple and green?) then connect up all the rest of the wiring as shown with the instructions. Oh and I think I was wrong on my plugs again. I'm pretty sure they are R42LTS's. I'm going to buy a new set to troubleshoot a misfire and will probably go with NGK TR6's or the next range colder plug.

camaro1122

iTrader: (1)

Well i can give you some help on locking the distributor out and i spoke with a tech help from NKG and they recommended the tr6 so that is what i bought. I now have my car started but as of what i can see, its way out on its tune.

vortec350s10

Just a little update for you guys. The Moser 9" is assembled and mostly installed. Just finishing up minor details and then I will measure for a new driveshaft. Anyone have any recommendations? I was looking at 3" steel shafts from Strange or Spohn's "Extreme Duty" shafts which I may be the same exact thing. Any thoughts?

sailtexas186548

iTrader: (2)

Circle track driveshafts are cheap, and pretty strong to hold up to dirt track stuff!

vortec350s10

I ended up going with a drive shaft from Spohn. I think they are the same as Strange.
Pulled off all of my hotside piping and turbo exhaust housing and dropped it off to get it all ceramic coated. Noticed one of the flex joints had mushroomed out inside the pipe and was choking it down the 2.5" pipe down to about 1.25" inches. I knew about the internal mesh on flex joints coming apart but I didn't learn about it until after I had everything welded up. I'm not sure how long it's been like that but I know it won't be any worse when I get it back together. I'm hoping to have my heater box modified to clear my down pipe and the turbo and all exhaust reinstalled this weekend. Can't wait!

vortec350s10

Wow it's been a long time since I've updated this and since it's the thread I've put the most into, I might as well consider it my "build thread" from the last couple of years.

This summer, or season as we call it in the north, I've spent most of my time rebuilding my 9" rear end. Three times actually. Why? For the fun of it of course! Well it's actually kind of a long story, I won't get into it here. That's a whole different thread that is hopefully almost over.

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/tran...g-i-build.html

So besides the rear end stuff, I managed to ceramic coat my entire hot side including the section of down pipe under the hood and the exhaust housing of the turbo itself. The coating has actually been twice. I guess it's my summer for repeat projects. The coater guy recommended going with the black ceramic coating for all of the headers and piping before the turbo because of it's higher temperature rating. So I went with black on everything but the down pipe. My passenger side Hooker shorty header still had the original ceramic coating on it and although dull was holding up just fine with two years of turbo heat.













I broke in the new coating as directed but within a few days of driving it, it started to flake off of the thinner passenger side header and the crossover pipe under the oil pan. The coater guy told me that happens every once in a while and he felt really bad about it. He said beat the hell out of it and see how many parts are effected and then he would redo for me for free. So I ran it most of the summer with the flaking black coating. Since the silver coated down pipe was holding up perfect I decided to take a chance and had him recoat everything in silver the second time around. The turbo housing was holding fine, so I kept that black. I haven't done any real long boost pulls yet to really test the silver coating's heat resistance, but so far so good. The real test will be next year at the track, when I can actually hold it at WOT for more than a few seconds at a time. Cops are everywhere out where I live so it's risky breaking the speed limit which really sucks for testing and tuning.

vortec350s10

Here's with everything coated in silver. The coating guy knew how much it sucked tearing everything back apart so he told me if I had anything else to throw in I wanted coated he'd do that for free too. So I grabbed my old stubby exhaust tip and threw it in the pile. I'm back to running the shorty exhaust until I get to the track next year and see if the full exhaust was what was zapping 4-5 mph out of my 1/4 mile trap speed.

I can't say with the coated exhaust if it helped my spool because I never had the same setup before. One of the flex joints ballooned inside and was choking down the pipe to about half it's normal size, and back when the flex joints were good I was running locked out timing at around 20 degrees, where now I'm running an MSD 6530 box so I can run aggressive timing before boost comes on. And now with the shorty exhaust, it spools ridiculously fast in my opinion for a big diesel turbo. I'll post a video soon below.
















The other project I accomplished this summer was to get my cheapo ebay race seats mounted. I ran the drivers side part of last season with some half *** temporary mounts that allowed it to flex all over. I used some small angle iron to make frames to fit the seat sliders and then adapted them to the studs in the floor. It actually wasn't too hard and I'm happy with how they fit. They are a little narrow (probably modeled after smaller Asian guys in China). I'm pretty small myself so they feel great on me. HUGE difference from the old sofa feeling stock seats. These are one of my favorite upgrades. It's amazing how nice it is being able to rail a corner and not have to hold yourself in position the whole time. I wouldn't have guessed how nice it would be having a seat with some real support. Definitely worth the $200 shipped or whatever they were. The fabric is pretty thin and cheasy, but the foam, overall frames and sliders are pretty decent.

vortec350s10

Since I'm becoming more and more like an old man everyday, I like running the quiet exhaust. But it doesn't tolerate as much timing as the open setup, and it's slower
To combat the lower detonation threshold I decided to install water/meth injection. I bought a setup from AEM (30-3300). I was going to piece it all together like I do most things to save money, but this time I just said the hell with it and bought the kit. The progressive controller might be nice once I go EFI (probably this winter) but for now a simple on/off activation with a hobbs switch would be just fine. I mounted the 1 gallon tank in the back compartment which I totally forgot was even back there lol. I mounted the pump to a piece of aluminum and got it nice and low under the reservoir alongside the "frame rail" in back. The pump is big and clunky but it seems to work well. I haven't played around much with tuning yet with water injection, but I will soon enough. For now I'm still going relatively easy on breaking in 9" build 3.0 and not concentrating so much on going fast at the moment. Feels weird even saying that!






The one feature I thought was cool with the AEM controller is it's got an output wire that it grounds out should there be a fault with the motor (open/short0 or low fluid level. I should be able to wire that into my Megasquirt when I build and install it so I can utilize either a timing retard or maybe trigger table switching, so I can beat on it with or without water/meth working and it should be safe for the motor. I'm really not sure exactly what I'm going to end up doing yet with the Megasquirt project.

Part of me wants to add injectors to my Performer RPM and keep the dual plane setup, and part of me wants to just build a whole new bad-*** engine with a Dart block, forged rotating assembly, nice heads, roller cam and a 4L80e trans and shoot for 800+ rwhp like Orr89RocZ. Haha where do you stop when you already have way too much money into your car???

Jay_rich

iTrader: (4)

I dont know how I missed this build. Great job. Love the setup.

Jay

vortec350s10

Thanks Jay, it's been a hell of a lot of fun that's for sure. Just back from ripping around this morning. It's about 50 degrees and the street tires won't hold first or second gear even at just 7psi. Haha loving it!

vortec350s10

So I'm starting to plan what I'm going to do this winter. My plan is to convert to EFI. I've successfully been running a Megasquirt (MS2) in my boosted Honda CRX for a couple of seasons and I really like it. I'm going to do the same thing to the Iroc.

One thing I have to figure out if I should add injectors to my existing intake manifold or go with something else. I'm running a Performer RPM non-air gap now. I've got Vortec heads so that severely limits the choices available, especially in the EFI world. I've already bought a 4150 style throttlebody, so I can retain my cold side piping, carb hat, throttle cable and all that junk. I can swap FPR springs and keep my fuel system as is for the most part.
My cam is pretty small at 212/222. It makes decent mid range power and it also keeps the stock rotating assembly happier with no need to exceed 6000 rpm. I've switched to 3.25 gears so it's common to cruise in OD at 1500-2000 rpm so I wouldn't want to give much low end. I'm thinking I should keep running the dual plane manifold based on the rest of my engine combo. I know there is talk about the single planes having more even air/fuel distribution but I don't think I'd be as happy with a single plane. Do you guys agree?

Since there aren't hardly any dual plane 4150 style Vortec intakes available, I'm thinking about adding injectors to my Performer RPM. I've found a few threads where people have done it and you can buy injector bungs that can be epoxied (yeah sounds a little sketchy I know) or welded in place. Obviously I would have to figure out a good way to align and drill the holes for the injector bungs. Has any of you done this before? Thoughts?

86trbota

Looks great man. How much did the solid motor mounts raise the motor? Are they the moroso ones?

vortec350s10

Thanks. I don't think the solid mounts raised it at all. It was my understanding that they kept it the same height, but I didn't do any before and after measuring to check. Yeah they are the Moroso ones. Fit great.

vortec350s10

I finally weighed my car! 3620 with a half tank of gas, shorty exhaust, nodular iron Ford 9", race seats, fiberglass hood, sbc with iron heads, 700r4, and full interior with sound deadening and stereo. It's pretty close to what I was expecting. It weighs 20 lbs lighter than my friends '68 GTO with a twin turbo 5.3.

vortec350s10

I've been doing more research about single plane intakes and it seems the general consensus is that single planes are fine for basically all efi applications. Obviously intake runner cross section and length still play into it, but there are very few choices for a sbc w/ Vortech heads and an efi intake that works with a 4150 style throttle body. I think I'm going to go with an Edelbrock Super Victor EFI intake. It may be a little over kill on my mild 350 but it'll be a pretty awesome intake for if and when I build a bigger cube Dart block engine in the future.

My megasquirt should be showing up any day. I ordered a MS3 with the 3.0 PCB board. I'll built the board and start accumulating the necessary parts for the efi swap. Injectors, fuel rails, etc.

vortec350s10

I noticed an issue with my 700r4 transmission the other day, where second gear is slipping under boost and the 1-2 shift is now pretty soft. I'm pretty sure my band is gone, which kinda sucks but I've got 4 hard summers beating on it since I built it so maybe that's normal? So I'll be pulling the trans this winter as well and freshening it up.

On a good note, at least the Moser 9" is still alive! I think I've made it past the point of where my other two 9" builds where the ring and pinion ate each other up. The Valvoline oil must be doing it's job unlike the cheap Master Pro that didn't help the last two times around.

Jay_rich

iTrader: (4)

Typical 700/4l60 issues lol. I beat the hell outta my 4l60e for multiple seasons with my 383 LT1 running 11.70's. First time it saw a 7psi WOT shift it crapped out. I went to a 400 after and never looked back. I say upgrade to a 4l80e! Actually pretty interested to see how my buddies car turns out. 65 Chev 2 with a 5.3L S476 with a 200R4. I hear they can be built to handle a good amount also.

Jay

Orr89RocZ

iTrader: (20)

Looks awesome! I considered coating mine but i think the wrap works better for insulation and isolation of heat to surrounding components

vortec350s10

Yeah I hear ya. I knew before investing in my second 700r4 (first one was at TCI unit that worked fine NA) that a 4l80e would be a better option and the last one I'd probably ever need. The trans was one of those things I really couldn't justify the expense or extra work at the time and it seems no matter how much I try to REALLY plan for the future by making all of my upgrades overkill, it's tough to guess at what power level you're going to stop at. I feel for a 500-600hp car a properly built 700r4 can be reliable enough, although many would argue that.

After having the turbo on my car for the last 3 years I think about building a Dart block engine more and more. A 4L80e would definitely happen at the same time. For now I'll patch up the 700r4 and keep it for as long as I'm running my all cast 350. Although I can't really complain about the 700r4, as I haven't had it break on me yet. Can't say the same for the 10 bolt.

vortec350s10

I pulled the trigger on a single plane EFI intake. I went with the RHS 12903 and it comes with fuel rails too. It's not the cheapest thing out there at $515 but it will work with vortec and conventional gen 1 heads. I think that'll be good to have if and when I build a new engine, I will be able to run any heads I want. The megasquirt build is coming along, I've got the board about half soldered up. I blew my head gasket in my CRX a few weeks ago so I've got that torn apart and upgrading to head studs and a MLS head gasket. Hoping to have that out of the garage in a few days and then I can tear into the Iroc. First thing I'm going to do is tear out the trans and see why it's slipping 2nd gear.

vortec350s10

Well I've got the tranny out. There was nothing in the pan that indicated any issues, so I could rule out any catastrophic failure. Now last time I drove it, my issues were a soft 1-2 shift, slipping under boost in second gear, and intermittent TCC lockup. The TCC has been acting up for a long time which I've figured has been a partially broken wire (internal or external) or just a junky or sticky solenoid.

Being that second gear was the main issue, I measured the clearance in the servo cover. I could move it about .200", where as when I first assembled it, it was at .075". So I could tell there was definitely some wear on the band. Nothing looked wrong in the servo assembly or the 1-2 accumulator housing that would cause a low pressure situation.

Next I pulled the pump and discovered something interesting. The snap ring and spring retainer that is normally in the reverse drum stayed in the trans while the drum came out! So the snap ring somehow came out of the reverse drum and the spring assembly and snap ring were just floating in there for who knows how long. I'm not sure what kind of symptoms this would cause. It could have been like this from the very beginning, 4 years ago. I would expect the clutches in the reverse drum to be worn out from the piston not being held back by the return springs, but they only have .020" more clearance than when I built it.

Then I pulled the band and it's definitely worn thin and has gotten hot. Most likely from slipping the last few times I drove it. The has some wear marks on it, but not heat marks since I didn't let it slip much once I noticed it wasn't the tires spinning. The band is wide Alto carbon band.

I'm trying to figure out why the band is already shot. I've got maybe 15,000 miles on it, although many of that is on the track and I'm not exactly easy on it. The 9 BW high energy 3-4 clutches show very little wear and are in great shape.

junkcltr

iTrader: (1)

What size hole for the 2nd gear feed in the valve body plate?
Was the 2nd gear accum spring larger? How about the 2nd gear accum spring in the valve body bushing?
I assume it has a corvette servo in it.

I have my 2nd gear hole at .090" but going to .110" in the separator plate.
Once trans broke the 2nd band holding tab hooked to the case right off the band.

vortec350s10

It's currently at .096 but after talking to Dana last night I'm going to open it up a little to around .104-.110. The 1-2 shift was never that harsh so I think it might help a little. I'm going to run a BW high energy band this time too I think. It might last a little longer as long as it doesn't physically break.
I'm running a Sonnax super hold servo for 2nd and the stock 4th gear cover. The 1-2 accumulator spring is whatever Transgo/Dana included.
I'm not sure what you mean by the 2nd gear accum spring in the valve body bushing.

So you are currently at .090 and are changing yours to .110? Did I understand you correctly?

junkcltr

iTrader: (1)

Yes, currently at .090" 2nd hole, but going to re-drill to .110". It has the transgo shift kit in it with a BW Hi-E band. Corvette servo. Servo pin was welded & ground to give .065" of free play. The reverse drum I put in was perfect. I would check that surface given the condition of the band you posted.

The shift is not firm at all with that setup, but it is a 5K lb vehicle and a 2K rpm stall.

There are two accum springs for the 2nd shift. One is under the cover next to the valve body. The second spring is in a bushing inside the valve body. They provide the accum function on a 1-2 shift.

vortec350s10

Yeah I will throw in a fresh drum for sure. I remember helping my brother install a Transgo SK kit in one of his 4L60e's and there was a spring in the VB we had a choice on that I think is the little spring you are talking about. I remember the instructions stating the spring you installed was based on which 2nd gear servo you had. One for the stock servo and one for the corvette servo. I'm guessing that would be the one?

vortec350s10

Well I haven't done much with the tranny, it's still sitting half torn apart like in the last photos. I've been too excited with all these new parts showing up for the EFI setup that I've been working on under hood stuff lately. My intake showed up as well as a bunch of other stuff so I've been playing around with all of that. Here's what I am running/changing to:

RHS 12903 single plane efi intake - from a performer rpm
Ebay 4150 4 barrel throttle body - from a Mighty Demon 650 carb
80lb Siemens Deka injectors, overkill for now but good for future Dart build
MS3 ECM running batch fire injection, timing off a crank trigger wheel
Keeping the MSD 6AL-2 programmable box, triggering with the MS3
Keeping the Aeromotive 340 fuel pump
Keeping Aeromotive FPR, just changed springs to the stiffer EFI spring

I'm going to run the Megasquirt wires out of the original ECM pass through in the passenger side kick panel. Should work out well.
Here's some pictures. I had to make a homemade throttle and TV cable bracket since the fuel rails are right in the way. I'll have to bring the cable's mounting points out about an inch or so from the side of the throttle body to clear the fuel rail.

vortec350s10

Made a lot of progress in the last 2 weeks. I had a bunch of vacation I had to burn up with work so I have been spending pretty much everyday, sometimes all day, on the car.
Things accomplished are:
-Intake installed
-Complete wire harness made from scratch and installed, under the hood and all tied into the interior.
-Heater box is back in the car after 3 years of having a bare firewall






-Completely rewired the power distribution for the car
-Installed and wired a vehicle speed sensor
-Installed an electronic boost controller that will be controlled with the MS3

-Added 0-5V pressure transducers for fuel pressure, oil pressure and trans pressure that can be displayed on the MS3 and my tablet once mounted in the car.
Some of the features I will now have with the Megasquirt setup:
-Datalogging to an SD card via twisting the wiper spray **** on the column
-Control of both stock electric cooling fans separately and can disable with speed. Turning my wiper switch to high overrides both fans and forces them on
-Boost will be able to be ramped up with speed to maintain traction
-Water/Meth controller fault output triggers table switching to have separate VE, spark, boost and AFR target tables
-Launch control buttons are each wired to the MSD box and the MS3 so I have 2 step options
-MS3 is triggering the MSD box for ignition output
-My tach is now driven off the MS3 so it should show accurate rpm during rev limiter or 2 two step operation
-Installed a knock sensor that is wired into a stock GM ESC module which sends a knock signal to the MS3. I have a super bright blue LED mounted on the A pillar that will flash when knock is detected.
-Added another flashing red LED to the A pillar setup as a spare programmable output so I can have it come on for overtemp, low oil pressure, etc.
-More that I can't think of, ha

But I'm pretty damn excited that's for sure!

I gutted the rest of the 700r4 and found everything but the band and drum to be in good shape. Since my rear end grenaded at 70mph a couple years ago I figured I better check the output shaft for cracks and whatever else it might have affected.



Ran the new engine wiring harness through the stock pass through. I just filled it with RTV. The original wires were encapsulated in like a wax type stuff.



Picked up some aluminum fabbed tall valve covers to get rid of the old "crate engine" chromies.

vortec350s10

I had some issues with hooking up the throttle and TV cable with the way the fuel rails sit on this intake. I couldn't find much info out there so I wanted to share how I made them work. Basically I retained the original cables and made just one new bracket that bolted to the throttle body. The interference comes from using tall injectors (I'm using 80lb Siemen's Dekas) that cause the fuel rail to sit high in the way of the linkage and cables. I was pretty sure none of the store bought 4150 throttle brackets were going to clear the fuel rails without modification, so I choose to modify what I had. I had an Edelbrock brand bracket that originally bolted to the two rear intake bolts (vortec style intake). The bracket had to be spaced out to the side quite a bit to clear the fuel rail. So the bolts had to be long that connect to the cables to keep them parallel to the valve cover so they weren't shooting over at an angle. I tapped the linkage for 1/4- 20 bolts and was able to maintain the exact geometry I had with the carb. I think the picture should show it better than me trying to describe it all.

Kingtal0n

Wow! I too rebuilt a 700R4 about 10 years ago, with Dana's rebuild kit and the trans-go shift kit he supplied. I had that trans in and out 3 times fixing mistakes I made, the first was the snap ring in the photo (in the haynes manual) above the planetary gear set it looked like it wasn't set down in the groove. So I left it out of the groove (WHAT was I thinking? I was 17!) So of course, the minute I put the car into reverse it locked the output shaft and would'nt move and inch!

LOL so the second thing... There is a picture in the trans-go kit of where to drill a few places. Drill here, there, there, ok so... You know the picture where it has an arrow pointing to drill a hole between the separators in the valve body? You drill sideways through one of the walls... Well, I drilled straight down THROUGH the valvebody instead! ALL the fluid was just pouring into the pan through that hole... no line pressure... no shifting. hahaha.... mistakes !

So I got that fixed and it ran really good after that. part throttle accumulation... right right stuff. Second gear as you probably know is due to that band, yep, it comes on and thats second all right. So slipping in second is certainly the band... What comes to mind here, is the sanding, the smoothing, using the right grit and preparring the wall of that drum to the proper finish, for the band to grab well. Dana made lots of specific points (we were probably only the phone for 40+ hours by the time I was finished) about where to sand and file inside the transmission, to make it "high performance" is more than just putting in the right parts. If the band was slipping with all the right parts and clearances, check the finish on the drum next I would guess. I am not an expert! But there is alot to be said for preparation.

edit:
It dawned on me you have a real motor in front of that thing, I bet the drum finish etc... was all fine, you are just making enough power to warrant a quicker shift, which is why you made the "hole" bigger at the valve body. Ah ha! You had it all figured out already, I just took a minute to catch up. It hit me, when I visualized this thing running, that band trying to stop the reverse input drum behind real power. Yeah man get it to come on quick, that sounds like best next thing to try. When I had mine I was only putting down peanuts, maybe 350rwhp tops, so it was no big deal. I'd love to run another auto like that some day, behind a turbo sbc, mass jealous

vortec350s10

Yeah there are definitely a lot of ways you can screw up when you build a trans. I've been lucky I guess and so far all of my builds have worked right away. But it can be frustrating when you spend all of that time building something only to realize 30 seconds after it's all installed that you missed one little thing and it has to come right back out!
I'll be getting the trans back together here soon along with rest of the car. My garage and basement are a disaster right now with all the car parts spread everywhere lol.

vortec350s10

I've got it up and running! Actually a couple of weeks ago. I was having issues with the rpm signal and after a bunch of trial and error I found out I just needed to move my hall effect crank sensor farther away from the trigger wheel. It was getting false readings since my dampener was so close. Once I managed to fix that, I had it running in no time.

Next my Summit brand mini starter started getting really weak. It had been kind of shitty for the last year or so and wouldn't always mate with the flex plate every time I would go to crank it. It would just grind on the edge of the flex plate. No amount of shimming or even grinding better lead-ins on the starter teeth would fix it. So I did some research and decided on buying a late model GM mini starter. It's used on late 90's 4.3's and 5.7 vortec engines. It's way smaller and lighter than my "mini" starter even. Pretty sweet piece and a brand new AC Delco one only costed me $118. Slapped it on and it works perfect. It's so much smaller my 4" down pipe going past it no longer needs to be flattened out at all. Hell you could probably fit a 5" DP past it. Pretty sweet.


I made some baffles for the new valve covers and got those installed too. Had to bend the dipstick tube quite a bit to clear the tall style covers. The passenger side sits pretty close to the heater box too but it clears.








Just the quick tweaks I made to get it to idle already have it idling better than it ever has with the carb. And I have spent A LOT of time messing with the carb. So it's obvious the cylinder fuel distribution is MUCH better. I can't wait to see how it runs. I'm expecting it to clean up the low to mid range quite a bit just by how much better the idle quality is.

Video of it idling -

Jay_rich

iTrader: (4)

Awesome work. God this car is so clean. When can I buy it LOL

Jay

zz17iroc

iTrader: (4)

You can't beat that idle with a football LOL. EFI is great!

vortec350s10

Haha thanks guys. It's really not as clean as the pictures suggest. Ok well maybe sometimes it is. My friends give me crap and accuse me of "having too much time on my hands since you can eat off the inner fenders" but it just never gets dirty! I don't drive it in the rain so that helps a lot.
I never thought it would idle so well that low. And that's just running batch fire too. It does seem to idle best around 12.0-13.0 AFR. If I lean it out past 14 it's definitely not as smooth, and that's how it was with the carb too. There must be slight amount of reversion with the cam even though it is very small. For comparisons sake, my CRX will idle just as smooth at 14.5 as it does any richer but it's got a stock cam.

I forgot to mention before the trans is back together and in the car too. I drilled out the 2nd feed hole to .104 and threw in a new drum and BW band. Also plugged the 4th accumulator housing feed(before I had a sonnax pinless piston with super heavy spring) and opened up the 4th apply hole to just over .200".
For the 3-4 clutches, I simply swapped out my .060" thin snap ring back to the stock .090" snap ring. This brought the clearance back from .075 to .045". So they should be good to go for another few years I hope. I'm curious to see how the BW band feels compared to the Alto. Hopefully it'll last longer as well. Now the car can sit for 3 months as it waits for spring in Minnesota...

vortec350s10

Well I'm sure all you guys are just sitting on the forum just waiting for me to post another update. Haha ok probably not! But here is one anyways.

The car's been on the road for about a month already. The trans is working great, the slightly larger 2nd gear feed hole helped out the 1-2 shift. The 2-3 almost seems to have a slight bind to it, like the 3-4 clutches are grabbing a split second before the band released. It seems to be getting better as things break in. The megasquirt EFI project has been a big success. Things are working great and I have the VE table pretty dialed in. Closed loop idle, and fueling is great to have. My favorite thing of all is data logging. I've been geeking out like crazy logging almost every time I drive and always have stuff to change. The vehicle speed sensor signal was getting noise but I got that figured out. The electronic boost controller is sweet. I am just running that in open loop at the moment. I can see in the logs that boost drops off after about 4600rpm so I have the duty cycle of the boost controller ramping up to compensate. This keeps the boost as a steady 10 psi throughout the rpm range. I tested the Siemens Deka 80lb injectors, well one of them and calculated the dead time and flow rates. It matched up almost perfectly flow wise with the specs.
The 9" is holding up well. I'm excited to put drag radials back on and see if I can finally beat my personal record that I haven't been able to touch since I did it in 2013. Seems like my car just stays slower no matter what I do!

vortec350s10

Made it back on the dyno the other day. Last year with full exhaust through a Flowdisaster muffler it made 375hp/400tq at 8-9psi. This time I only ran the straight piped 4" out the door like I've been running all the time now. It was running a solid 10psi on the street on the way there but made 8.5-9.5 on the dyno according to the data logs I had running the whole time. Gotta love the datalogging! Anyways, it made a best run of 418hp and 430 tq. I was happy with that. I still don;t think it was making what it was 3 years ago when I was trapping 123 at the track, as my timing on the dyno was around 20-21 degrees. I'd have to check my notes but I believe I was running 24 degrees at the track back then. Now I'm spraying water/meth too so that's probably not helping much in the power department without leaning it out some and increasing timing to take advantage of it. But I'm sure it's keeping those $8.00 cast pistons happy! I threw a link to one of my brothers runs on here too. I'm pretty sure his truck put the most power of the day. 750hp. Lots more than my car!

vortec350s10

I figured I would post a little update on the Iroc since it's been a long time. The original GM 350 HO crate engine is still holding up perfectly. I'm running the same setup still but have been running 15 psi the last year or so. I was seeing pressure drops in fuel pressure with the single Aeromotive 340 pump on E85 around 12 psi of boost so I added a second 340 pump. I have the second pump turning on around 140 kpa and it now maintains rock steady fuel pressure. The 700r4 is still holding up great too, after I replaced the band and drum a couple seasons back.

Somehow after all these years I have still have yet to break 11.5 in the quarter! I ran at an 1/8 mile track last fall and disconnected my front swaybar and that helped with weigh transfer a lot. I was able to get my 60 fts down to the mid 1.6's which is about 2 tenths better than I ever had before. I was running 15 psi boost and was able to run a best of 7.14 at 103 mph. So I think I could finally break the 11.5 barrier now. The Iroc hasn't been getting any other upgrades lately, I bought an '01 Honda S2000 and am currently in the middle of turbo-ing that. Running another Megasquirt MS3 , dual Walbro 255's, AN fuel lines, upgraded clutch, and a Borg Warner S300 SX-E 61mm turbo on the stock 2.0 engine. I'm pretty sure it will out roll-race the Iroc without too much trouble but the stock tranny and rear will not be good for anything aggressive under 50 mph. My 5 year plan is to build a new engine for the Iroc - staying Gen 1 SBC. Probably start with a Dart SHP block and shoot for 1000 hp. I already have a 4L80e that I would build and install at the same time, along with a much bigger turbo. Then when that is done, I might think about doing a turbo LS swap on the S2k if I still am addicted to working on cars lol.

Kingtal0n

thanks for the update, its nice to check in time to time.

To answer your question from 5 years ago, (page 3) any air leak after the compressor will raise exhaust gas backpressure, increase IAT, and increase compressor wheel speed. In extreme cases it can cause engine failure (due to high IAT) or turbo failure (over spin compressor), however usually it is just small leaks that add up to overall reduced performance. This is why I pressure test every setup, every time. For example: Replace that leaky PCV valve in my video can be worth 10~ horsepower at the right power output. It is the crankcase pressure reducing power, even if the air leak itself is small and does not raise IAT significantly. The whole point of forced induction is to put the pressure where you want it (airpath), and keep it out of places you don't want it (crank case, atmosphere). It is the difference in pressures that give the benefits (airpath high pressure, crank case low pressure, atmosphere is atmospheric) at safe, desirable operating temperatures.

https://ls1tech.com/forums/forced-in...l#post19588973

vortec350s10

Time for an update. At the end of this summer I ended up loosing first and second gear in my tranny. I took off easy from a stop light, waited until it shifted to second, and then rolled on the throttle and spun a little through the intersection. All of a sudden the tranny lost its grip and free revved. I shifted to third and cruised the remaining 1/4 mile to my neighborhood road. Slowed down for the turn and didn’t have second gear. Came to a stop thinking first would still be there but nope. That killed my broken band theory. I ended up driving the last 1/2 mile in reverse! Today I pulled the trans and tore it apart. Pan looked clean, fluid normal. Nothing out of the ordinary until I got to the rear planetary. I noticed I could spin the inner hub of the planetary without anything else moving. Found the inner splines of the rear planetary are stripped out! Luckily nothing else appears to be damaged and there isn’t much metal to clean up. The shaft that mates with the broken splines looked ok, but I replaced it anyways because the inner bushing had spun and I just didn't trust it. I picked up a new used rear planetary from my buddy LS Mike and slapped it back in.

The 3/4 clutch clearance measured in at about .080". Looking back at my post from two years ago, I had switched to the thicker stock snap ring and brought the clearance back to .045". So this time around I am going to replace the 3-4 frictions. They have been in the car since 2011, I'm very proud of the little guys! New I believe they were around .065" thick and now they measured in around .048-.055. I ordered 9 new .062" BW Hi Energy clutches, so hopefully I can bring the clearance back in around .040-.050 with the thin snap ring. The BW band I replaced two years ago still looks brand new.

I have changed my driving habits a little since then, and have been taking it easier on the 1-2 shifts. The only time I can do a full throttle 1-2 shift is with drag radials on anyways, and I always just run my street tires on the street.

vortec350s10