If any of you read CHP regularly then you are probably familiar with the My Generation Camaro portion of the magazine that shows up every few issues.

Well this month they were able to test the car at the track with the new non catted 386HP 355 with TES headers, flowmaster cat back, 3.73 gears, TFS aluminum heads, performer intake, crane roller cam, and stock Q-Jet carb, K&N dual snorkle and some suspension mods, they also had the tranny rebuilt and are using a torque converter (didnt specify stall) and all they are running at the track is 14.78@90.75MPH. What the heck is up with that, im running 15.294@88.44 with the stock heads, cam, intake, and tbi on my L03 and im sure with the new tbi spacer, no aircleaner, and some tuning i can possibly get into the 14.9-15.0 range with a good launch.

Other than using the stock carb, what else could be their problem, they dynoed 386HP @ 5300RPM and 423lb-ft of torque.

 

some serious traction problems?

 

they installed some Mickey Thompson slicks and they did not mention in the article that they had any traction problems. They are afraid the air cleaner is holding them back and they think the fuel pressure is dropping under 4psi during the run, so i dont know what their problem is.

 

i second that... i think the biggest problem with that car was between the seat and streering wheel.. LOL

Just out of curiosity (sp??)

How fast does your car go 0-60MPH???

 

gotta be somethin cause im out puttin out a little over 350 hp 380ft lbs of torque with 373's with 275 radial ta's on the back some new springs and stock control arms and my best was 13.7

 

doesnt say anything about 0-60 but i think that car had issues from the beginning, the baseline was 17.45 @78.64MPH on an 87 carbed 305, i know those things are slow, but not that slow.

 

Tim Moore?

 

that is really bad, I ran 16.5s missing gears with tall *** tires and NO traction. (btw 99% stock 87 lg4 formula)

 

What did they do wrong?

I have a Feb 03 issue, and TWO April '03 issues, but no March issue, so pardon me if I'm shooting blind. I've searched the CHP site of "Part IX", but I can't find it - it stops at "Part VII".

What cam did they use? All the current article says is "Crane roller", which tells me nothing. It's very possible that they mismatched the heads to the cam. Peak lift and flows at 0.600" don't mean much when average lift is at around 0.385 and flow in that range is critical to cylinder fill.

I had a 355 that made 423HP at the crank with a POS Holley and stock (ported) heads, with a pretty mild Crane flat hyrdraulic cam (.477/.477). A roller-cammed engine should be able to do better than that, although they probably didn't touch the heads as they came out of the box. Even Vortecs flow better than the TFS heads. Too bad.

They also neglected to announce their launch RPM 0and (important) TC stall RPM, as VJO indicated, but even the stock 1,600 TC should have done better than that. Maybe it DOES have something to do with the steering wheel nut.

But really, they just don't offer enough info to make a good diagnosis, but I think they're going to waste a lot of time analyzing the EPORM and timing. And HyperTech wouldn't have been my first choice for a custom PROM. Well, maybe they could handle an LG4 PROM...

I wonder if anyone even though to check the knock sensor.

And in case anyone is reading, 3 PSIG is plenty to feed the E4ME and maintain a bowl level. Speaking of that, has anyone even bothered to lift the lid and look inside the carb? If the pressure is falling below that, maybe that almighty Holley fuel pump isn't "all-that" after all. It takes more than a pump to deliver fuel.

VJO is probably right - that car has issues that someone is overlooking. I wonder if a trip to a chassis dyno would be revealing at all. Has that 3.73 rear been opened?

 

Something's definitely amiss. The MPH just doesn't sound like anything near 385 HP. If I'm allegedly making that much I'd be real disappointed with anything less than a bottom-basement 13 at WELL over 100 MPH with traction.

They sometimes drive me buggy how they swap a bunch of parts all at once, but everyone has time constraints, I guess.

There isn't much tuning an a computer controlled carb chip. It basically just gives the carb a "full rich" signal and the rest of the fuel metering happens just like it would in a non-computer controlled carb- through the jets/rods. Spark maps are really the exclusive area of the chip programming and I can't image if they were anywhere close to correct it would make the motor such a dog (massive false knock being one sue way to hand back a boatload of power).