[kropscamaro16]

Originally Posted by Corbs09

Makes complete sense, and I figured next steps for you was caging the car or a roll bar. At that point it would likely make sense for fixed buckets or something of that nature.

I actually reached out to Studio RSR the other day and they already have a really nice offering for Camaro folks.

I have been following your build ever since I got my car and saw yours at an ECR event, you have one of my favorite track Camaro's I've seen!

lots of other half cage brands out there after my experience and many of my friends camaro/corvette i wouldnt send my worst enemy there but hey you do you sir!

[sr71bb]

Originally Posted by Corbs09

Makes complete sense, and I figured next steps for you was caging the car or a roll bar. At that point it would likely make sense for fixed buckets or something of that nature.

I actually reached out to Studio RSR the other day and they already have a really nice offering for Camaro folks.

I have been following your build ever since I got my car and saw yours at an ECR event, you have one of my favorite track Camaro's I've seen!

Thanks I appreciate that.

[Corbs09]

Originally Posted by kropscamaro16

lots of other half cage brands out there after my experience and many of my friends camaro/corvette i wouldnt send my worst enemy there but hey you do you sir!

What do you recommend? I only know them from the M3/4 world. I would probably go with something custom if I did this.

[kropscamaro16]

garage therapy is the one i have but there is a few other good companies also cms competition and rpm are 2 of them i know

[That1guy_tim]

Originally Posted by Corbs09

What do you recommend? I only know them from the M3/4 world. I would probably go with something custom if I did this.

RPM Rollbars are probably the best fitting rollbars out of all of them. I can't even fit a piece a paper betweeen my hoop and the roof. I also have FULL interior with this rollbar.

[sr71bb]

You guys may have noticed I have NOT posted any really NEW info on this car for a couple of weeks now. I only had ONE track day recently with the SCCA people on track night JUNE 7th with the new setup (LME 416) and it ran GREAT.

Now SHORTLY after that track day though I was having all sorts of electrical issues like the TACH not working, an Engine MISFIRE on just ONE of the cylinders, an ENGINE LIGHT issue, and an overly RICH running condition.

Once I got the car BACK to AMP, they diagnosed the problem as a A BAD engine harness. Now wondering WTF made it go bad, you have to go back to the very FIRST basically stock LT1 that was in the car. The current engine, the LME 416 is the THIRD engine I have had in this car.

The VERY FIRST engine I lost at a track event when a valve spring broke and caused a catastrophic engine failure. Since the car at that time was basically stock with no mods., then GM was kind enough to replace that engine. The fact that there had been a recall due to a bad batch of valve springs apparently helped get the approval done on the replacement process.

Now in looking at THAT repair invoice from GM, I notice that there was SOME damage to the engine harness noted at the time this engine cut loose. While the prudent thing would have been to REPLACE the harness with a NEW one, they actually REPAIRED that harness with new connector ends on several of the harness ends that terminate to the various engine sensors.

This engine harness (on National Backorder BTW) is not CHEAP at around 500 dollars and I know it took AMP about 12 hours labor to install it. So the GM repaired harness from the engine THEY replaced (first engine) then HELD for a period of time but upon expiration of the SECOND LT1 with all it's oil splash apparently set the stage for some connectivity issues which showed up shortly after the LME 416 was installed.

The bottom line is, ALL IS GOOD NOW and we will be running it again hopefully at an HPDE event THIS weekend. AMP just got through with the harness install and they dynoed the car in this 100 degree heat and the result is below. The MSD was ported but showed really no gains over the non-ported state but at the same time it wasnt 100 degrees when we did the last dyno either.

They ALSO did a compression check on ALL the cylinders and they are ALL are showing roughly 200 PSI. THAT I was told is the highest they have seen on an LT1 engine so THAT confirms that there was no MECHANICAL issues , they were all electrical.

[sr71bb]

I am posting this separately because I think MOST people overlook it(I Know I did). I wasnt aware that there is NOT an easy way to check your trans fluid level because there ISNT a damn dipstick..

The reason this came up is that AMP mentioned to me that I was getting some gear slippage in my A10s tranny in FIFTH gear. I never really noticed it quite frankly.

So..........apparently there is a fluid level check plug on the tranny on the BOTTOM of the tranny pan can only be seen when the car up in the air on the rack. This will indicate how full the tranny is with trans fluid once you do the proper procedure to do the fluid level check.

Look at this nice little 30 minute video that shows you how to do that:



Or you can say *uck it and let someone else do it that knows WTH they are doing (thats ME in this case).

Ok so the bottom LINE is I was 2 quarts LOW. Since the tranny holds roughly 7 quarts of tranny fluid, then that was low enough to cause some slippage in fifth gear (dont ask me why, I dunno). Once tranny fluid was changed out and filled to capacity I was good to go and the slippage went away.

I was told on a car that is tracked regularly, that this is NOT an uncommon issue. The car has about 43K miles on it so there you have it. CHECK YOUR TRANNY FLUID.

[s346k]

Originally Posted by sr71bb

They ALSO did a compression check on ALL the cylinders and they are ALL are showing roughly 200 PSI. THAT I was told is the highest they have seen on an LT1 engine so THAT confirms that there was no MECHANICAL issues , they were all electrical.

this caught my eye. 200 lbs compression on a 14:1 motor?

[sr71bb]

Originally Posted by s346k

this caught my eye. 200 lbs compression on a 14:1 motor?

YEP on a normal LT1 with stock compression you should see 175 to 180PSI per cylinder. I guess to get the EXACT compression on this LME416 you would have to cc the heads to get the exact chamber size and then take into account any milling done on the head surface which I believe was .060 and a 040 head gasket was used. I believe Brian at LME told AMP that the static compression was BETWEEN 13.5 to 14.0 to 1 with it being CLOSER to 14:1. The Cam can DEFINITELY affect the readings with the more OVERLAP you have.

All the compression readings were within 1 to 2 PSI of each other. Usually anything within 10% of each other is considered acceptable. Obviously this engine has much tighter tolerances than that but thats what I paid for.

[s346k]

Originally Posted by sr71bb

YEP on a normal LT1 with stock compression you should see 175 to 180PSI per cylinder. I guess to get the EXACT compression on this LME416 you would have to cc the heads to get the exact chamber size and then take into account any milling done on the head surface which I believe was .060 and a 040 head gasket was used. I believe Brian at LME told AMP that the static compression was BETWEEN 13.5 to 14.0 to 1 with it being CLOSER to 14:1. The Cam can DEFINITELY affect the readings with the more OVERLAP you have.

All the compression readings were within 1 to 2 PSI of each other. Usually anything within 10% of each other is considered acceptable. Obviously this engine has much tighter tolerances than that but thats what I paid for.

my stock ls1 car showed 200+. my stock lt1 showed 265+ cold on 2 different gauges.

[sr71bb]

Originally Posted by s346k

my stock ls1 car showed 200+. my stock lt1 showed 265+ cold on 2 different gauges.

\
Well I will defer to AMP on this one because I dont know how they measured it by I know they have tuned literally thousands of engines and have to quite frequently diagnose problems and they mentioned that 200PSI was the highest they had seen on an LT1.

[Corbs09]

Damn, that engine harness ordeal sounds EXPENSIVE! 12 hours of labor?! Did they have to pull the motor again or something?

[sr71bb]

Originally Posted by Corbs09

Damn, that engine harness ordeal sounds EXPENSIVE! 12 hours of labor?! Did they have to pull the motor again or something?

No but they had to remove the front end to get access to the ambient air temperature sensor.

Hell I just spent over FOUR hours myself installing the VELOSSA TECH Ram Air scoop WITHOUT removing the front end. THAT was real pain in the ass also.

[sr71bb]

Ok,

Well after I got my car back from AMP after they fixed one of my wiring harnesses that a broken AC belt damaged while at the track (https://www.camaro6.com/forums/showthread.php?t=606911), I installed a VELOSSATECH Design Ram Air scoop (https://www.velossatechdesign.com/pr...01f81901&_ss=r)

Now first off, this thing is a pain in the ass to install because there is a nut that is virtually impossible to get to that is the main bracket that holds the air scoop in place. This was complicated by the fact that I installed this WITHOUT removing the bumper. The SMARTER way would to have been to remove the bumper as per their instructions but I am NOT a body man so I avoid messing around with things that MIGHT not go back together right (LOL).

The second thing I did was that I VERY CAREFULLY removed one of the grill bars with a DREMEL tool so that air would be unimpeded into the scoop. If you look closely at the CLOSEUP pick you can see where I cut that away. I also trimmed out the back edge of the bumper edge with body side molding so that it would blend into the bottom portion of the grill bezel. This area is where NORMALLY your SS emblem would be (for you SS guys). It is the area right below the drivers side headlight.

So on a scale of 1-10, install difficulty was 7-8. Now will it make a performance difference??? I dunno but perhaps at higher speeds YES would be my guess. VELOSSATECH supposedly has documented this so will see.

What's NEXT???

Girodisc rotors should be here TODAY to replace my OEM rotors which need to be changed out but held up very well. I will also rebuild the calipers with vented caliper pistons with seals and boots. If I have time before the next track day, I will have the calipers re-powdercoated.