1 - LT1 cam
2 - Vortec Heads From SDPC
3 - Vortec - TBI Intake Manifold
4 - Dynomax headers

My question is this?? Will it run on the stock chip, untill my friend gets the money to buy an ED WRIGHT custom chip???? I know it wont run perfect, but will it be driveable for school and work???? any help is appreciated!!!

 

bump up the base timing and fp and it should make it

 

Don't bump up the timing!!!! Vortec heads don't need much timing to make it's full potential power and they don't have EGR! Set the base timing to 0* until you can hookup winaldl and make certain there are no knock counts. If your friend gets knock counts because the ecm advances the timing thinking there is EGR you'll run into problems like bad gas milage and all that jazz. You need to use some sort of scanner to make sure there is no detonation even at zero degrees, just make sure, don't play that game and then say, "hey, TBI sucks, I'm going to a carb."
You might want to talk to Brian Felts about Ed and his chips. He basically got screwed and it wasn't much different than the stock eprom.

 

For what you'd pay for a custom chip, why not just get the stuff to burn EPROMs yourself?

 

don't get dynomax headers

 

I'll second Tas's stay away from Dynomax headers comment. Some of the tubes on the set that I have came unwelded/weren't properly welded up to the collector and caused a horrendous exhaust leak.

 

Explain this more....why the ecm advance the timing thinking there's EGR? Does this only apply because he's getting vortec heads w/out EGR? What i get from this is that the computer advances the timing to compensate for the EGR, but because the vortec heads don't have EGR, it's making the timing to high, causing a knock. This is just an educated guess.....but if i'm way off, correct me...just trying to learn something new here.

 

Another thing to think about on the timing is whether or not the head will be milled. What compression ratio will it end up with in other words.

 

I am doing the same to my Suburban but, if you check out www.paceparts.com and call them they sell a Vortec head kit for about $1450 that includes a updated chip. They say you need to have the updated chip, especially if you ever plan to put in a cam. The kit comes with everything but it is for trucks. They have some pretty smart tech guys though.

 

I just need to know if the car will run or not????

Vortec heads $600
Used Vortec-Carb manifold $150
Vortec -TBI adapter $15
LT1 Cam - $50
Gaskets - $50

 

As soon as they tell me how the Burban will do I will relay exact specs over to you!

 

$1450 is a whole lot for a vortec conversion. A lot of guy's on here do the mod without a chip I think. I'm sure they are throwing the EGR code though.

 

For the $1450 YOU GET EVERYTHING IN THE KIT, $460 HEADS, THE $400 INTAKE, $275 CHIP, HEAD BOLTS, ALL GASKETS, EXHAUST MANIFOLD FOR THE EGR AND THE LINES AND SOLENOID. IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE A FULLY OPERATIONAL CONVERSION!

 

$275 for a chip? wow.

 

I thought it was a little steep. I talked to the guy who programs the chips and you can tell he has done a bunch of them. He told me he would set it up for the vortec conversion and a cam if I gave him the cam specs. When it comes down to a factory GM guy doing a chip in a dealer it has to be guaranteed for 12 months or 12K miles if they sell it to you as a repair.

 

you have to add some advance to get teh car to run. the larger cam will require a higher basse timing number to support itself until a chip can be burned. even a slight change in the cam size will require this until a custom chip is done. when i switched from the stock rockers to the 1.6's i had to add some advance to get anything out of it. the heads are not the issue for base timing, the cam is.
so advance it a bit until the idle smooths out and you have good throtttle response. do the same with the fuel pressure.

later
tim

 

the car will run, just put a little timing in it and raise the FP a bit to compensate. you will be ok for a while, but you will need a chip to get the most out of it.

later
tim

 

If you advance the base time on a computer controlled engine it will raise the timing advance under load and cause the engine to "KNOCK" so it may work temporarily but it is not a fix by all means to advance base timing. How do you guys raise fuel pressure on these Camaros. I haven't seen how they do it on the trucks yet.

 

You can get away with running less base timing with a different cam but you can't afford to get knock when the ecm thinks there is EGR and there isn't! If you don't understand how EGR works it's rather simple. It lets exhaust gas go back into the engine. It produced a cooler "charge" because there is no longer any (much) oxygen in the exhaust. So the engine runs less fuel and more timing because it can. This is why the new LS1 gets it's awesome gas milage on the highway and why you shouldn't get less than 15mpg on the highway with any well tuned EGR small block.
If you don't have EGR the computer will think there is EGR, advance timing and you'll get knock = bad gas milage because the ecm will then pull out between 8 and 12 degrees of timing just to get rid of the knock. It's hard to explain but you can't just pull out a couple degrees of timing to get rid of knock, once it starts to detonate it takes about twice as much timing to remove the knock.

 

Dudes right, if you aren't running EGR and your ecm is compensating for the inert ehaust gas that is supposed to be introduced into the cylinders at cruise (which cools combustion temps and reduces NOX emissions) and it is not there it can cause some serious troublesdiagnosis wise. People always want to remove emissions equipment, I dont recommend it now that I know what it all does.

 

I know how EGR works....but I didn't know the ECM raised timing because of it......but now I've got the whole picture...thanks

 

Another thing to think about. If you raise fuel pressure and bump timing like you need to with a cam, you will have to run higher octane gas ,which will get you a code 43 if you go too high (failed knock test) like I did. I've done some thinking on this and the reason why I think I threw the code is because I ran very high octane gas after bumping up the timing to prevent detonation. When the computer performed the knock test by advancing timing I got no knock which threw the code 43!!! This then sent me in 'limp home' mode, which, I'm not sure if any of you have experienced this, but it's no fun. This happened to me with a well-functioning EGR system. Moral of the story: You've GOT to burn your own chips when you start changing cams.

 

YES! contact Jim Pace Pontiac www,paceparts.com, they have a GM tech who does custom chips.