i didn't know where else to post this. I was wondering if anybody had any suggestions about building a sleeper. i'm not asking for stuff you did, or whatever, i just want to know which areas i should focus on to make more power without anybody else knowing. thanks

 

looks and sound. I am trying to keep mine factory appearing. As for exhaust, thats why cut outs where invented.

 

Go with the largest displacement smallblock you can get your hands on, and keep the air cleaner stock looking.

Leave all emissions controls in place.

Remove any decals from aftermarket parts and paint them factory color.

Run hi-flow exhaust manifolds, and quiet hi-flow exhaust. It doesn't have to be loud to be free-flowing.

Stock rims with drag radials.

Anything internal to the motor cannot be seen. You will hear a difference in the exhaust note with a high overlap cam though. Might want to focus on the cams that have low/no/negative overlap. Those will sound stock, and give gobs of torque down low. If you get a well designed one, it will still pull to 6k. Get some good aftermarket aluminum heads, and paint those stock color as well. If they have their manufacturer moniker stamped into them, have it filled in.

Hide any aftermarket ignition components and run all the wires in factory loom.

Nitrous lines can be ran in frame rails and under body panels. No need for those to be visible.

Run your stock gauges, and have a flip down panel somewhere with something like an oil pressure gauge and a high visibility shift light.

That should get you going pretty good

 

run stock valve covers, air cleaner, timing cover, oil pan, paint your new intake black, run a 383 or 406 if you can,(cubic inchs can't be seen)

If you run aluminum heads, paint them black or dark grey.

Run quiet mufflers to hide the exhaust note. don't use chrome exhaust tips.

as said above, stock thirdgen wheels(pick whichever ones you like best, as long as they came stock on a thirdgen)

idea is to keep the car looking stock.

When people ask about what you have under the hood, show them, and act like an idiot, say you've got a 305 with a K&N, headers, and a flowmaster, and your gonna kick his ***. Say stupid stuff like your headers gave you 60hp, and your K&N gave you another 40hp. They'll never see what hit them.

 

This is best performed when money is involved as well. Make sure you don't get caught in your lie though, most people don't like being hustled

 

if you want TRUE sleeper look, make sure your engine bay is really dirty.

 

don't buy a cowl hood like me and try to keep it a sleeper.

 

here's some tips I've used in the past.........


- As mentioned, use stock "tin" ( valve covers, air cleaner, etc. ) BUT to make it BETTER, take some steel wool and scuff the parts so they start to surface rust....

- Run some exhaust dumps that you can open up RIGHT before the race...once you're on the line, it's too late for him to back out when you're quiet "stocker" opens up like a Winston cup car..

- The Nitrous "bait and switch" This is what I did ( this involved alot of money racing on the street ). I installed my nitrous system...I took out the HVAC, so I hollowed out the "squirrel cage" and installed my bottle in the area where the blower motor and all would be...I ran the lines inside black heater hoses...not very visible at all. I then had a SECOND, empty bottle in the trunk...I would SHOW them this bottle and show them the dummy lines to it that were NOT hooked up. So they'd think I had nitrous but it wasn't hooked up..this worked very well.


- TRACTION on the street... install a couple of junkyard GM washer fluid pumps in the trunk and a pair of washer fluid tanks....drill small holes in the wheelwells RIGHT above the rear tires, and run the lines from the tank / pumps to these holes. fill the tanks with VHT traction aid, rig a switch, and when you're ready to race, hit it, soak the tires and burn 'em a bit to get 'em gooey......works well with street rubber for some good launches..


- Don't make the car QUIET...make it sound HORRIBLE....I know plenty of guys that would loosen a PS belt just so it would squeel, or run the PS pump low on fluid, an annoying noise like that takes away from the engine and how it sounds....they assume the whole car is a POS...


- PRIMER... MULTI-COLORED PRIMER....works wonders.


- Leave the flashy Monster tach at HOME. Install a small shift light somewhere where only you can see it...like where the cig lighter would go ( so you can cover it when you need to ) ....then just set the RPM you want to shift at....


Hope these help..

 

Check out my web page. I've kept the exterior stock with the exception of removing all decals. My exhaust taipipe is tucked up tight and not really visible unless you look under the car.

I was not concerned about a factory appearence in the engine bay.

I cannot tell you how many Mustangs have tried to screw with me on the street. They seem to think it still has a 305!

www.geocities.com/dzperf

 

That's got to be one of the best ways I know of advertising "I'm a poser wannabe and I have no clue about what it really takes to go fast!!" I'd almost consider adding one, as sucker bait, just so that I'd look like yerbasic Honduh owner that thinks that one of those hilarious things will get his grocery cart from 17 seconds to {gasp} mid 15s! all by itself.

Things that work the best: stock wheels, stock air cleaner, stock exhaust; full interior; lots of suspension work, so your car will leave hard; no apparent visible or audible mods. Well, maybe a "noisy" gear drive, since that's more BS poser stuff; although if you're "racing" another poser, he/she may not get the same message that one of those sends to a genuine motor builder.

Back when I had a halfway decent motor in my car instead of this weenie California smog thing I have in it now, I kept my exterior absolutely bone stock, period. (I still do actually.) Any visible alteration to the car tells somebody that you've been working on it. Again, somebody that knows what they're doing will realize that decals don't really weigh much, and aren't worth the trouble of removing, but rather will look at stuff that really matters; but that leaves out about 99.99% of all street "racers".

 

But to answer your question, you can make more power with better heads, higher lift cam or higher ratio rockers, non-restrictive (yet quiet) exhaust, lighter pistons & rods; but the real payoff comes from HOOKING IT UP. It doesn't matter how much power your motor makes if all you do is go up in smoke at the line. Better gears, higher stall converter, and suspension work to plant the tires, will make a massive difference. All of that is tuff that doesn't show from the outside.

 

He's right, it's all in the suspension setup and dialing it in.

My last TRULY fast street car was a early 80's Malibu ( G-Body ) with a 408 and some other goodies. I even left it the ugly tan color with a the nasty, stock bench seat interior.

The MOST work involved was getting it to hook consisently. It had steel wheels with no hub caps, worked stock manifolds etc.

With 3.73 gears, posi, airbags, boxed upper and lower CA's, and a couple of other tricks, that car would DO EVERYTHING it could to lift the front tires on launch....

I loved the column shifter too...even though it had a reverse manual valve body Turbo 350 in it... and with the converter I had...my ***...stop lights were an adventure in themselves...

It ran a high 10 second 1/4 mile the only time I ever took it to a real track....and the 60's weren't as good as they should have been.

NOTE : that was with LOTs of compression, single plane intake, lots of carb, and a pretty wicked cam...


But it was low-tech, low-$$$ and it was BIG FUN...

 

as far as street racing and sleepers go, nitrous is king. the thing with nitrous is it can't be seen if you do it right. you can run the lines under the intake or even make them visible, but like the other guy said, use two bottles. one that is out in the open that you can unhook with them sitting there and one that is hooked up and full with the bottle warmer on. using nitrous is the best not only because if it's hidden factor, but it's traction factor. with nitrous you can get about 50 feet out then have the extra big shot to get you moving instead of coming out full force. run a milde gear ratio with a pretty good stall speed to make the engine run smooth from the cam. this will also keep a very solid shifting trans from chirping the tires on the shifts.

drag shocks painted black or old worn out shocks from the junkyard work best for a plain look and launching it. run a sway bar in the rear to keep the launch as straight as possible and a small sway bar in the front. for springs, you want a a set in the front for a 4 or 6 cylinder and in the rear usually as stiff as you can get in the right rear like would be found on one with the performance suspension option and the left rear a standard one. keep all the control arms stock, but stiffen them by boxing them in and put in black poly bushings.

for the engine, try to run a 400+ cube small block with as much compression as you can since most racers won't be able to pick that up and it also smoothens out some bigger cam's. i'd recomend using stock type valve covers with roller tipped rockers or roller rockers with tall valve covers that have been painted black. you want to use the best air cleaner you can as they can be a big power robbing feature and yet still look stock. if it came with options like a/c, leave the compressor on it and removed the other components for that system. since you can smell race fuel, it's good to roll around on a light mix if needed and run a small hidden fuel cell for when you are on the juice full of alcahol or straight race fuel. running all stock guages in their best working order and keep the stock shifter. you can easily set up a trans to shift itself in drive at the rpm you want it to shift at, no point in fancy parts to pull off what the trans can do by itself.

there are obviously a ton of little things that can be done, but these are good things to start with and some of them have already been pointed out.

 

Anything but this...

 

put the sc 2.8 multiport decal on your back bumper

 

That car looks absolutely ridiculous in my opinion. I'd probably laugh at it - unless its a "reverse sleeper" - A car that looks like the owner is wanting it to look fast when in reality it looks ridiculous but this is all a ploy to get people like me to laugh at and think its just a slow car with a kid who cut a hole in the hood thinking it'd be cool. BUT it actually IS fast? Now that'd be a good sleeper.

Anyway, building a "sleeper" is kinda pointless. I know quite a few people who have gone through all the trouble of making their car appear slower than it is. What happens? They race 2 people and everyone in the world knows its fast - and usually think its faster than it actually is. I know guys that couldnt buy a race due to that. So why go through all the trouble of building a car thats going to be useless after a few runs?

When I'm in a parking lot giving a car a look-over the last thing I care about is how stock it looks on the outside. Take a look at the tires - a fast car that expects to hook isn't going to be on pepboys radials. Take a look under the car at its suspension. Slow cars don't typically have fancy suspension or fun stuff like ladders bars. I could go on and on... Theres all kinds of little stuff that you can't hide that wont pass by the untrained eye.

 

Definition of a sleepr is: A fast car that looks bone stock (or worse).

My 'Bird is an unfinished project, but if you look closely there must be a reason for the hole in the hood as the carb is above the hood.

When I figure out how to cover it without having a 12" high hoodscoop (visibility impedement), I will do something about it.

As far as suspension, there is absolutely no need for fancy expensive items when careful redesign of stock will perform just as well (not to mention it won't draw unwanted attention). If you don't think so, you should have been out on the road with me last weekend after grenading the rearend. Took me a good half hour and a 3/4 full coffee can to get the crap off the road. When this engine fires, you can be absolutely sure that noone mistakes it for anything other than what it is.

As far as the "kid with a hole in the hood" comment, my kids are in high school and I would bet that I have more years experience building cars than you have on the planet.

To the original poster, what you want is the most powerful engine in a car that transfers the most weight to the rear on launch while retaining bone stock appearance (except maybe minor detailing. To do this I would suggest a large displacement sbc with low rpm torque curve. This would enable you to keep the rpm's down and use a more restrictive exhaust to keep the tone down. Work on the suspension and chassis to get the power to the ground.

 

what exactly is the reason with the hole in the hood? i don't see much there showing any reason for the carb to be sitting that high...

 

My guess is a roots blower.

I would also guess that 88IROC350TPI wasn't trying to offend--prolly just called it like he saw it. Though your car may well be quick, I've seen too many cars like that that weren't. No offense intended from me--and no, I don't think my 305 is quick.

 

Without getting too far off topic:

I was not offended, picture was meant to be a visual of what NOT to do for the original poster.

This car was rushed out of the garage incomplete due to urgent need of space. I have not even thought much about what to do about the hood yet.

I have not had the car to the track yet, but by the stopwatch and a 1/4 marked on the road it ran just shy of 10...but stopwatches are not the most accurate way of testing obviously. This is with street tires and a lot of smoke. Car ran 2 passes then on the third, wasted the rear going into 2nd gear.

Here is 590 N/A ponies:

 

590 hp, in the 10's, on a tunnel rammed SBC? I'm not disputing that the car is fast, but those are some heady numbers--could you detail the rest of the combo?

 

if i had to guess, i'd say that story holds water like a strainer. i could be w***g, it's happened before.

 

1. You can bring your car over and have some fun.

2. When I can figure out how to get video onto the computer, I'll post it.

 

As a matter of fact, you are only like 10 miles from me. Bring your car and wallet. I should have a new rear end in this week.

 

Why unbelievable? NASCAR runs 800 hp N/A

See link:

https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...hreadid=242538

 

NASCAR is a completely different animal, I think he was inquiring about your setup

I think it's great if you have that kind of power, fast street cars are awesome. I'd also be interested in seeing what your runnin'.

EDIT: Nevermind, I just clicked the linky. Thats a pretty stout setup, nice job

 

Never said unbelieveable, just asked for details on the beast.

Nascar motors must cost six figures, and have who knows how much R&D invested, they hardly resemble anything that found its way into a production vechicle (which is unfortunate--I'd love an SB2 based motor).

Did you get the figure from an engine or chassis dyno?

 

i'm buying a camaro this week so at the moment i have no race vehicle. i've got plenty of work from the area to back my knowledge on the subject. let me get this right, you have a firebird that on street radials with a th350, a single 700cfm carb, "worked" never heard of camel back heads, and your own intake making 590hp running 10's? just where did you run this 9 second pass at? any time slips or dyno numbers to back this? i can bring a stock hooded s10 around for you to play with.

 

dress it up like a carbed lg4 with a carb aircleaner then get a holley c950 throttle body and put it ontop of a performer rpm.
looks pretty slow!

 

run shorty headers but get the felpro steel donuts for the outlets and leave them a little loose (sounds like a crappy old chevy).

 

put a LS1 in it with a small cam and a 150 shot of gas for cheap insurance

 

how far can you stroke a chevy 350? past 383? does stroking an engine decrease or increase the stroke. why does it make more power?

thanks to anyone who gave me tips, i cant wait to put those ideas to work.

 

Better yet, put a Powered By VTEC sticker on it.

 

Hey my cars got bone stock suspension and it hooks good I'm not saying you NEED suspension but chances are 9 outta 10 fast cars will have aftermarket peices under them which you wouldnt typically find on a 13-14 second "stock" car.

For your car, I apologize for being a little cocky but stuff sticking out of the hood just looks silly to me in most cases. Its another one of those "9 outta 10" times someone who has something poking out of their hood is just trying to get attention. You can fit a super victor, 1/2" nitrous plate (if thats your cup of tea), and a Dominator under a 4" cowl hood with room to spare for an air cleaner. Now, I'm not saying every fast car has those items but typically thats what you'll find under the hood of a 9 or 10 second car. I don't know your combo so I couldnt comment on how necesary whatever intake is on your car is but once again "9 outta 10" times its more for show than go.

This is what I'd laugh at in a parking lot... A car with the motor sticking out of the hood using one of those triangle air cleaners that are notorious for catching fire, sitting on street tires with bone stock suspension. Why? Because I know if this guy were to call anyone out, even if he had 700HP he would never hook it to the road. Making his 9 or 10 second beast an easy target for little 11 and 12 second daily drivable cars like mine. Once again no offense to you or your car, if it really makes 590HP its a beast but thats the reality of what I was saying in my previous post.

 

i'm more than willing to believe his car is 590hp or that it's anywhere near that quick, i'd just like to see something to back it up. i'd also be shooting for a car like that on the street and if i happen to catch him on the street this summer i'll make sure to run him. i'm impressed with the 0-60 times. quite slow for a 10 second car and on top of that if it really spins that bad, how do you get that kind of a reading off of the speedo? just looking for a little verification here.

 

Its funny that everyone keeps mentioning hiding there nitrous. You guys must race with some really nice people. Out where I used to run(before I got responsible and started running at the track instead)If you said you dont have nitrous then you dont use nitrous because when you come back to get your money theres gonna be a couple a pissed off guys waiting for you because they could smell the nitrous you dont have from the second you hit it. Oh and one more thing that makes your car look like a sleeper is a stick holding up the hood.

 

The same thought was going through my mind as I was reading this thread. Granted, it's been almost twenty five years since I've been involved with any sort of serious street racing, but where we used to run in Westchester County, NY, if you got caught running nitrous, you'd probably spend the next two weeks sipping your meals through a straw.

-B

 

Smell nitrous? You guys must have some whacky stuff considering nitrogen and oxygen are both odorless gasses. Most (or all?) "automotive grade" nitrous contains faint amounts of sulfure to stop idiots from huffing it but I have never once smelled it in the million times I've been in or around sprayed cars.

Wanna ensure that nobody could ever smell it? (which is unlikey anyway) Buy some "medical grade" nitrous

 

589 at the flywheel on the dyno

 

As I stated before, I came to estimated times with a stopwatch and a 1/4 marked on the road. 0-60 was done by my speedo (which has been calibrated and verified for accuracy).

I also stated that a stopwatch is obviously not the most accurate method of timing, but until I finish up a few things and get to the track, it will have to do.

 

I designed the engine around the engine...not the car. Not my fault that GM didn't give me enough room to fit it under the hood.
The triangle cleaner was thrown on until I decide what I am going to do about the hood.

I never said I had bone stock suspension, but it would take a trained eye to figure it out. Simply study the existing design, find the flaws and fix them. The stock suspension was designed to do more than get traction, so sacrifce the uneeded other reasons for the one that counts.

 

NASCAR cost estimates are based on average rate equations including hourly labor for r&d and assembly, tuning, testing, etc...

What makes you think that I didn't spend just as many hours into design and development on my particular engine? If I was to pay myself the going wages for a professional engine builder, it would cost an awful lot. I do my own work, including ground up development and fabrication. I have over 200 hours in fabrication alone on this particular engine. At the average mechanics rates in this area, that would be over $15,000.00 dollars not including development, CAD design, assembly, testing, tuning and every other facet of engine development. For instance, I made my own molds and forged my own pistons, let's see any one of you do that...what do you think that would cost to have outsourced?

I get my kicks trying to do the incredible with the average. Any Joe Smo can work three jobs, by a 350 with x heads, x cam, x intake, x carb, etc... Couple that with x, suspension mods, x tires, x sfc, x stb, and every other top dollar item and go fast with it. To me it's like a cookie cutter assembly line. I prefer to expand my mind and do ANYTHING that is not considered normal. Sometimes it blows up in my face, sometimes it comes out great, but it's a hell of lot more fun than just doing what every other Tom, Dick and Harry is doing.

 

Look, it's the Martha Stewart of engine building

No need to get so defensive. You have to admit, your claims do look a bit bold at face value. If you've been around as long as you say you have, then you know exactly what face value is worth.

-B

 

I don't get defensive, I just want everyone to know that they never need to be constained by already accepted products. These are developed through people that dare to take a chance and I wish everyone else would do the same. I get sick of people that can recite specs on other people's creations and then run around like they are some guru of automotive engineering when all they are in fact is a walking dictionary.

 

In addition to everything else that's been suggested. If you really want to fool almost anyone who looks under your hood, get a big inch motor (383+) and set it up with a miniram or LT1 intake, then fab some brackets to mount a dummy TPI over that.

I wouldn't be posting this if there was anybody from my town who uses this site.

 

Because you're doing things the hard way. Of course, it depends on what exactly your idea of 'incredible with the average' is. From your goings on, its apparently to make power, and lots of it. Custom pistons, homemade tunnel rams, and homemade engine bearings (! ), variable duration cam (in a SBC? sure) doesn't sound like a logical place to focus in light of this goal. And its all for a 327 with factory heads. Wow. I have nothing against a guy who enjoys designing and using his own stuff, but with the state of the art being what it is with pistons and wet flow manifolds, I would be surprised to see someone top it in their backyard, and I'm afraid to ask why you're even messing with bearings. As for the 'cookiecutter' concept, there are countless ways to achieve, say, 200 HP with an SBC, but the path gets narrower as the HP goes up. a few people around here have chips on their shoulders about this 'unique' concept, all the others want to achieve their power goals with a minimum amount of fuss and expenditure.

I'm actually not sure whether this is a joke--you entered this thread by attaching a picture of a ragged out base model late 80's firebird with what look like Buick wheels with white letter tires and a hole in the hood and saying that a sleeper should look like "anything but this..." as if the typical car of this appearance is fast. Then, claim it runs tens on street tires, spinning badly, with a factory headed 327 in an apparently full weight car. I'm not sure thats even possible with only 590 hp on a street tire, though I'll leave that one to the guys who spend more time at tracks. You say things like "tricked out carb," "double hump heads filled and reworked (?) to my specs," etc etc. All of this is circumstantial, but if this was Vegas my money is on this being a joke. If its not a joke then you understand why most will not believe you, and when you run and document the official 10sec 1/4, rubbing it in the disbelievers' faces will be that much sweeter.

Good luck either way.

 

Personally, I would do one better. Build the snot out of a v6 (twin turbos and all), put loud exhaust on it (you can always tell the sound of a 6 cylinder), and have fun.

 

Or pull all your "IROC" decals like me and roll up to guys and tell them it is pretty quick all motor 305, and that it is pretty close with a stock 5.0 mustang. I don't do this, but you could have a NOS Topshot on there too, or a sneaky pete. I have had the enjoyment of absolutely murdering stock LT1's like this.

 

 

Question for ya... Why did you create custom pistons? In a post by you dated 5/5/04 you said you had TRW pistons in your motor then 19 days later you posted as to having custom pistons made by you? In 19 days you designed and forged pistons from the ground up by yourself? I can imagine how long piston manufactorors take designing, testing, and redisigning their product for maximum strength, performance, lightness, ect. Of course, for all I know you could have been designing your pistons for 10 years but it seems weird you'd put TRW's in your motor then suddenly switch to a custom set made by yourself.

Now, I'm not saying you didn't make your own pistons but even if you did ...why? Like I already said piston companies must spend zillions of hours and tons upon tons of cash designing and casting/forging pistons. I know you said you like being different but that seems VERY excessive in my opinion... VERY. Would it even be worth the risk? Why spend all the time and money on building a 590HP engine to have it grenade on you because you wanted to be different and forged your own pistons? If it was me I'd much rather fork out the $1000 for a custom set made by a company that specializes in such areas... But, thats just me... If you do have custom pistons and they work out well for ya, thats awesome more power to ya but it just doesn't seem worth it to me.

If I lived closer to ya I'd take ya up on the "bring your wallet" offer... Because even if I lost the money it'd be no big deal ...It'd be worth seeing if its the beast you claim it is and if we raced and I lost big deal I lost to a race car, if I were to win, it'd be wow, I beat a race car with my street car