OK... It took a WHOLE weekend (stayed up overnight one night)...

The car ran ROUGH - REAL ROUGH....until I got the timing sorted out. Oh, yeah and the spark plug wires melting on the headers wasn't good either. ONE ACTUALLY CAUGHT FIRE!

A new set of plug wires/adjusting the timing, etc... and it's running better. I LOVE the 'blub blub blub' idle it has. I can tell the computer is 'learning' a bit. It will actually idle on it's own now.

Although I haven't been able to 'punch it' yet - I can't say there is much difference yet. Seems kinda slow...maybe slower. I dunno, maybe it's just the torque that I lost. I'm sure I'll find more power once I can feed it enough fuel to get up near the RPM limits (I hope).

Anyway, over the next couple weeks, I hope to iron out all the details. Appears I damaged the front seal on the oil pan (small drip) and the intake may not have sealed completely in the rear (looks like a *light* coat of oil on the rear firewall).

Anyone with any helpful advice let me know. Other than the Trick Flow 23* heads, Comp Cams XE274H, headers, flowmaster, airpump delete...the car was stock. I KNOW I need to get an AFPR... Will I need bigger injectors? Would it be safe to assume I am now running lean?

I know I kinda did this backwards - starting with big things like heads/cam instead of smaller bolt-ons...but I had the means now - don't know if the opportunity would come around again.

What do y'all think?

 

I would venture to guess you're running rich at idle. Not as much vaccum as stock. Did you change the converter? What gears you got? Is this a tpi car? If it is you may want to look at the prom board. Speed density? Going to have to have a chip, maybe larger injectors.

 

Hmm. I understand the lack of vacuum. No converter yet. Stock 3.23 gears in there. It is TPI. It is speed density. prom is stock (for now).

I've noticed the car wants to idle high...like 1200 rpm. As the car is loosening up, it's starting to feel better. I noticed a tapping (pretty loud) under the valve covers today and I think it's a loose rocker (I could feel it by touching the cover in the driver's front...all other areas of the valve covers don't have the sound or vibration).

Still doesn't feel as fast as I would have thought. Hard to say tho. Will it take some time to loosen up a bit more?

 

Isnt that a roller motor? Just curious as why you switched to a flat-tappet cam???

Also, that XE274H wants a stall converter....at a minimum, you should go to some 3.73's until you get a stall.

 

Hmm. I figured I'd need a converter at some point. What's the best 'bang for the buck' converter out there?

I suppose I need something in the 2200 to 2500 RPM range?

 

Go here: http://w3.one.net/~rcheek/impala/faq...sion_converter

If you have a 700r4 then take this guy's advice and get the S10 converter, which should be exactly what you want. And at an inexpensive price, too

 

Being a veteran of the Impala SS community, I have heard good and bad things about the S10 converter. When that was originally written, folks had a good chance at getting a 'NEW' unit...nowadays, most of them are rebuilt and are not nearly as good.

I've also noticed that my car is using a LOT of gas. It must be running very rich - maybe trying to compensate for the extra airflow? I know I NEED to get it reprogrammed. It's a big cam - and even bigger with the 1.6 rollers in there.

 

Oh, yeah. I checked out the tapping...it was HORRIBLE.

Turned out that one of the adjusters on the rockers had loosened up and the rocker was coming all the way up and hitting the valve cover. I set that bad boy back down on there, set zero lash, set the pre-load for the lifter (3/4 turn) and torqued the lock nut. Much better. Normal valvetrain tapping still, but the loud 'clack-clack-clack' is gone.