Hey guys, a little long but I'm full of **** and vinegar tonight so here you go. Everyone has opinions about what mods do what, and way too much of it is BS. I'm a results oriented guy. If you haven't run it down the quarter mile or strapped it on a dyno, to me it doesn't mean a damn thing.

I've had a goal to see just how quick an L98 350 TPI car can go down the 1/4 mile, while spending the least amount of money to do it. I'm as cheap as any other 3rd gen penny pincher out there! Stock chip, no headers, stock TPI, stock heads and cam, stock torque converter, stock gears.

Last weekend in Tucson AZ at 3000 feet elevation (about .4 slower than sea level), it went 13.92 @ 97 mph on a 1.97 60 ft.

That's great, but the crappy horsepower curve of the TPI, and the fact that it falls on its face above 4500 rpms has now officially driven me crazy. I'm putting my Stealth Ram on now.

I'm going to tune it on the dyno with fuel pressure and timing and post the dyno results.

Then I'm going to post the track results and show you guys how the ET and mph are affected by loss of torque / gain of horsepower.

Then after that I'm going to have a custom torque converter built from Yank and show you what happens when you put every bit of the power you have to the ground as efficiently as possible.

I think we might be surprised with the results. I'm excited to see what happens! Look for this post to come back to the top in a few weeks.

 

Why Yank over Vig?

 

First because I bought a converter from Yank for my C5 vette and got 7 tenths and 2 mph, when he told me I'd get 6 tenths.

Second because Vig. doesn't go to the extent Yank does to maximize overall performance for every aspect of the converter and its application. I love Mike Senia's ability to look at your exact setup and build you a converter that nails your potential.

For starters, go to both websites.

Yank: http://www.converter.cc

Vig: http://www.converter.com

 

Oh by the way, I leased my C5 Corvette for 4 years and it was the most painful experience of my life. ($600 + $200 insurance) Hence why I'm now a penny pincher. Now days it's much more fun to embarass the C5's at stoplights, for 1/5 of the cost.:rockon::

 

Cool

I am in Mesa. I have my 700R4 at Automaster right now being built up for my 383 Superram setup. I have been looking at both Yank and Vig. I am leaning toward Vig as that is what most C4 vettes with SR setups run, seems to work as they are deep in the 11s. I notice that alot of the C5 vettes run the Yank unit though. Either way whoever runs either of these units swear by them. Gonna get about 3000 worth of stall no matter what I buy.

Peace, see ya around the track once I get the barge back together.

 

Cool! Yep both converters are quite superior to anything else on the market.

 

I followed everything you said until that. I doubt very much you are gonna embarass a c5 with a high 13's car.

As for the yanks over the vig either one is a great choise, I picked up ~.5sec with mine. Can't even compare it to the stock one.

 

Which do you run? What is current stall speed and gear behind that 406?

 

Opps have to add that to the signiture.

Its a vigilante 3200. i wouldn't trade it for the world, and actually think its has better drivability than my stock one. The stock one behind this motor would have been annoying.

The gears are 3.07s. The picture in my sig, is with the 350 and that tranny and converter. It was nearly pulling the tires off down at E-Town with a leakdown of 50%+ on the cylinders. That was the last time out with that engine. It turned a 12.8@106

 

How is driveability with the 3200? I have read that 2800s are kittens on the street until you lay a bunch of power into em. I imagine that the 3200 is a bit looser though.

Most SR dyno charts I have seen make nearly equal TQ from 2800-3200 rpm, give or take a few ftlbs. So I have to wonder: do I go with a 2800, 3000, or 3200 rpm unit? What made you pick 3200?

 

ski dwn it- I guess we're not on the same page. Don't be so quick to call BS before you understand the entirety of what I'm talking about. I'm very aware that stock C5's are low 13 second cars. I drove one for 4 years and went 12.6 @ 112 after modding it.

First notice that I said embarassing C5's at STOPLIGHTS. As in....0 TO 70. Not in a half mile or on the freeway. What got me started learning about drag racing was when a stock motored 305 TPI car beat me by 3 cars in a 0 to 70 stoplight race. Since then, I've learned a lot about traction and suspension to make a car launch and hook and out quarter mile a car that has 70 more horsepower.

Second, my high 13 second car right now with the STOCK torque converter will absolutely beat a stock LS1 car on street tires from 0 to 70. That's because of drag suspension, sticky tires and lots of torque. I believe it will beat them much worse with a torque converter and more horsepower. Hence the reason for me starting this post.

Does a C5 have a lot more peak horsepower than my setup....absolutely. Will they run 6 mph faster than me in the quarter...absolutely. Does it have much to do with beating them in a 0 to 70 stoplight race....not at all.

This is my favorite page about setup optimization. The typical "Road and Track" reading C5 driver looks at advertised horsepower numbers and quarter mile times and thinks he's got a faster car than you. This is how you leave him scratching his ***** after a street race, not necessarily at the drag strip.

http://temp.corvetteforum.net/c4/beach_bum

 

By the way, that is one hell of a setup. Definitely would NOT want to run into you at a stoplight or any other time on the road. Didn't see that you were a Corvette Forum dude. I want to take the route Beach Bum did, doing things one by one and documenting all the progress.

 

Yeah I am from over yonder on the vette forum.

Did not mean to touch a bone with you, just don't think (unless you have serious gears or something) that you would take a C5 in any part of the track, unless the guy couldn't drive it.

I have raced against many of them and they and the LS1s are pretty tough, even in stock form. On a heads up race they would have eaten my stock 350 to shreds.

Now if your talking about running slicks/DRs and them with stock trim, it might be close, but that is hardly fair.

Everyone of my friends that had one in stock form ran 12s off the showroom floor.

What kind of 60' times you pulling 1/4 etc.

Beach has a pretty good setup, I was wondering why you refered to his site.

Talk to you later.

 

Yeah, i'm with ski_dwn_it here. The only way you're beating a C5 0-70 is sticky tires and hook. And also no doubt due to the average C5 driver being a mid life crisis posterchild who has no business operating a performance vehicle in a speed contest.

But yeah, street racing is all about the hook for sure. Especially in a classically slow car like a thirdgen, it's easy to surprise 'better' cars. Because we get no respect they're more apt to not even try to get the most out of their car. I know when i play with ricers sometimes i'll purposely burn the tires off my rims while i pull ahead just because i know damn well it doesn't matter if i hook or not, so might as well scare the bastard with the show, lol.

Anybody else ever notice that? Actually at the track i've had a lot of faster stick cars miss a shift next to me, IMO because they **** their pants when they see a little old thirdgen pull a car or so off the line. They try too hard to catch up and give the race away.

 

I agree with you Ed. No one has any respect for the thirdgen. And hey, what about the Coan Torque Converter. 1.61'' 60' :rockon: with a 3200 stall on Drag radials. I got mine from www.ls1performance.com and EVERYONE else I know has a VIG. Mine is just as good or better than the VIg.

Later

Chris:rockon:

 

What have you done to that car? If you don't have headers or any thing like that to bring the mph up to those levels? not to mention that i have cut 60 foot times similar to that and had similar traps with my car that runs a hell of a lot better than stock. I have full exhaust that had to be worth an honest 30 hp. I thought i had a car that was a freak of nature. but your car is as fast as mine and you are all stock? Either you have striped 600 lbs out of the car or there is something you are not telling us.

 

I just walked in from the track. Ran twice, here are the numbers. Phoenix is about 1500 feet elevation so it's probably only about 1.5 tenths slower than sea level.

1st run:

1.892 60 ft.
8.73 1/8 @ 78.46
13.69 1/4 @ 99.61

2nd run:

1.890 60 ft.
8.66 1/8 @ 79.05
13.59 1/4 @ 99.93

To say the least I have a grin on my face. The second run was lucky because I was on deck when a dude leaked oil and they shut down the track for 30 minutes, so I got to cool down.

And guys, all I'm trying to say is that I have fun being quick in the 1/8 mile. It's the only thing you get to show on the street.

By the way, an LS1 TA with the new Yank SS3800 and a 150 shot ran a mid 10 at like 130. It was one of the coolest wheel stands I've seen in a while. :hail: On top of that, I got to watch an '01 C5 blow up when he tried to spray a 150 wet shot and backfired through the intake. That composite manifold turned into shrapnel !!!

Well now that we know what the stock combo can do, I'm ready to bolt on the Stealth and see what happens.

 

The car is a '91 auto with stock 3.23's. Here's what I did to it:

$5 Home Depot ram air through the SS hood
Air foil
TPIS plug wires
Bosch +4's
Ported plenum
Base timing at 10 degrees
Relocated MAT
AFPR (dyno tuned- 37 psi, mainly from relocated MAT I think)
No cats
Smog stuff removed
SLP 2 on the left catback
160 stat
TB coolant bypass

70/30 front struts
50/50 rear shocks
Spohn subframes
Spohn anti squat brackets
BMR LCA's
BMR panhard rod
LS1 aluminum shaft
Centerline Tel-stars
165/15's on front
275/50/15 Nitto DR's on back

Total cost of car and mods and paint: $6000

 

Sorry so big.

 

Don't tease us man, bolt that bastard on and go to the track!

 

Were you just at a big gathering with Dirk the other night? I recognize that car from a video he showed of all the cars rolling out.

BTW, you're likely going to ned PROM tuning to have any hopes of getting the stealth ram to be all it can be. Granted the one i tuned on had a big cam to go with it, but it had completely different pump shot needs than the stock chip, so bad that it bogged to death whenever you moved the pedal.

But if it does run OK enough, guess it'd be interesting to see what it can do without tuning.

 

Stop blueballing us, get the intake on there and tell us what happens.

 

Yep I got to meet Dirk. We had a blast!

I know the tuning will no longer be optimized. After we do the first experiment with the stock chip, I'll get 1.6 rr's and long tubes and burn a chip at that time. Then we can see where the stock heads/cam max out.