hey gang,
i finally got around to starting to do some researxh work using my cav as the test bench.
dead stock the car ran 19.834 adn had a best speed of 67.17mph at a weight of 2660lbs. that works out to approx. 63-67hp at teh wheels(impressive ain't it)
well i took it back to teh track wednesday night wiht only 1 mod. i took the factory air box(very similar to the f-body one, just a little smaller)and cut teh sides out of it to make it into an open element. with this installed i cut a new best et and mph of 19.674 at 67.28mphat 2688lbs(new stereo weighs more than the stock stuff did). that is about 64-70 hp at teh wheels. a gain of approx 3 hp.
for one run i took teh air filter off completely to see what kind of a gain i coudl get from completely free breathing. teh result was a similar et(19.704) but a noticable increase in mph to 67.80. that is a gain of about 2 more hp at the wheels.
i know that doesn't sound like a very a very impressive, but remember the scale of this. the cav motor is 2 liter adn the f-body motor is 5 liter. when you scale the gain it works out to about 7-10 rwhp on a 5liter motor. that looks right since most guys seem to pick up about 1 mph of trap speed from an open element.

i have a tb prepped with ultimate mods that i am gonna put on next. teh tb will definately show a lot larger gains than the air cleaner stuff did i think. i am hoping to get at least 1.5mph from it, not exactly sure how much et taht will be though, hopefully enough to get into teh 18's.

later
tim

 

What year is the Cavalier that you are working with? How long did it take you to do the Ulitmate TBI mods?

 

I sure hope that's a pre'95 Cavalier.

I had to DRAG my buddy to the strip (he was a virgin) to get him to run his '96. With a K&N and a straight pipe (he wanted the "fart can" sound ) he ran a best 18.3xx ET. And it's a base model Cav., not a Z24. I think it's a 2.2L ???

You must either have a lot of miles on that thing, or it's the "Tech 4" POS.

But anyway, keep up the testing. Even if the car's slower than a turtle, maybe you can make it the fastest turtle on the beach.

AJ

 

Im tempted to go outside and do the ultimate tbi mods to my 91 Cavi just because I have mod withdrawl. I miss my car

 

my car is an 84. it is very very slow, but coming along nicely. if every little thing works out this well i will be running 17's in no time...lol
the ultimate mods took about 5 hours using all hand tools. i didn't get teh tb installed in time to get to teh track today, but it will be in and i will prolly go to the track thursday night to run it. i will post the results afterwards. teh only problem is that i will nto have a scale to use at atco, they have one but it is a total piece of junk. so when i do the minor weight reduction i will weigh teh stuff and just subtract from the weight i saw at e-town. it si the same distance drive, so i will fill up before i leave and i shoudl get there with teh same amount of gas(or really close)
i am gonna go to the bone yard tomorrow to look for a few things to help with the long term goals a bit. i wanna find an intake and head to port and polish myself adn install to see how much that helps. i also found out that some of the later year cavy's came with tubular exhaust manifolds, i figure if i cut the stock pipes off and use the flange i can make my own header

hehe, sad that i can get this much satisfaction out of such a weak car. oh well, til i have the new motor built it is all i have to play with

later
tim

 

Cavalier's are weak, but they are fun cars , the 82-94 cars are designed in a way that reminds you of a thirdgen fbody.

Which years came with tubular exhaust manifolds?

 

from what i have seen and heard, some of the cars starting in 86 got them. i am not sure though, my old 86 didn't have it.
guess i will find out if i see one in a yard.

later
tim