[h018871]

Originally Posted by 20Bluezl1

I'm assuming you did the front only as you don't have the part numbers for the rear? Is the ZLE rear pistons also vented?

Only the fronts, the rears do not really get hot enough. If GM made vented for the rear, I'd run them.....I figure that they are not necessary.

[h018871]

Dropping the pan every time for a transmission service is messy and the fluid is HOT.
So....during the last service I swapped back to my original pan, after I cut the tube to the correct ZLE length. A friend welded the bung in the aluminum pan, the pan was drilled and cleaned before I took it to him. Took 5 minutes.
The hex plug is barely lower than the aluminum crossbar behind the oil filter. But many other things, notably the exhaust, are lower. I'm not concerned.
I don't change the filter every time, so this makes a fluid change easier. Even when the filter is changed, the fluid can be drained before the pan is dropped........much less chance for a mess and getting burnt.

Weld in aluminum bung: Jegs (058-)78-00002, 06-AN female o-ring port female, 9/16-18 threads
Hollow hex plug - 9/16-18 UNF: MSC# 72518269 (Parker# 6 HP5ON-S)

[h018871]

I'd been wondering for some time if the F1G3 305/30s would work on the front 10 inch wheels. I decided to give it a go, yes they work!
But, with some fiddling. Further info: Usually I run 2.50 degrees camber and 9.50 caster

1st try: I used an 8mm spacer with the camber plate fully outboard (top of strut at OE location). Everything cleared when static, no problems driving and turning lock to lock. Unfortunately in a sweeper at speed there's enough deflection that a new tire rubs on the bottom of the spring perch. Not real bad, but bad enough.

2nd try: Removed the spacer, put the camber plate to the 6th line and re-aligned to get back to 2.50 camber. No rub and no poke.

The additional grip up front now has the car handling near perfectly neutral. A very welcome improvement. The tire doesn't stick out from the rim much at all, still looks normal-ish, you'd have to really look to notice it.

Pics:
305 on 10in rim
305 on 11in rim
tire rub
spring perch

[h018871]

Unsurprisingly, I would like more power.

My plan was to do it in three steps:
1st: Foundation mods that don't wipe out the powertrain warranty.
Added a cold air intake, supercharger reservoir, flex sensor and a boost-a-pump. I had added an oil cooler and upsized the intercooler previously.
2nd: Additional foundation mods that do void the powertrain warranty.
Basic bolt ons, headers w/ hi-flo CATS, LT5 throttle body and tuned for flex fuel. It was loud, particularly on cold starts, so I added a resonated X-pipe.
3rd: Real power adders without generating more heat, ie not turning up the boost.
More bolt ons (everything bolts on, right?), port the OE blower, cam/springs and port the heads since they're off for the cam swap (makes sense).

The 3rd step will be done in a couple of months when it gets hot around here. The car has not been on a dyno yet, it was a remote tune so all I have is the butt dyno. Even on 93 octane there is a noticeable difference, when it's running blended E60 there is a huge difference. To be honest step 2 is plenty of power. But, E is not always available where I go. So step 3 is to get me a bit above step 2 power on 93. I doubt that I'll run E much once step 3 is completed. But you never know, several of my friends like to drag race and have been dogging me to go with them....... that may be the time to run E

[h018871]

Well, it's hot here so it's time to take advantage of the AC in the garage and do a cam swap!

The main reason for all of this was to increase high side fuel capability.
I left the engine in the car, this means removing the radiator and either a) separate and swing the condenser out of the way or b) vacuum the system and remove the condenser with the radiator. I have a friend who vacuumed the AC system and would refill it after I'm through, so I went with option b. The cam swap is really straight forward so I won't cover the normal things, only the things that I didn't plan for.
The supercharger and heads have to come off to eliminate the DOD lifters. So it's an easy choice to port them both. The head porting is not the best $/hp choice for my particular build, but I feel as though the increased efficiency will help keep the temps down at the track.

As part of the upgrade, I swapped the timing chain to a C5R version. This highlighted my shortsightedness. In order to change the chain, the oil pump needs to come off, I planned for that and bought the "oil pump aligner tool", this is a must if you plan to reuse the oil pump. I did not know that the oil pan has to drop down to get the pump off or on. There are no gaskets for the front cover or pan, so the old goop needs to be scraped off and new goop put back on. This implies that the pan can't be lowered a bit and then put back on, it has to come out/off. The GM procedure is to support the engine from the top and remove the front cradle. So off to HF to get an engine support and order cradle/control arm bolts, they are TTY. Overall, it only added a day's labor to the swap and since both the heads and blower were still out it didn't delay anything. Only added expense, ~ $90 for the support and ~ $50 for bolts, I already had a 2nd tube of goop.
The second thing I did not foresee was that the cats would be showing signs of collapse after such a short amount of time/mileage. Apparently I'm not alone with cats collapsing/failing.
There's a thread here: https://www.camaro6.com/forums/showthread.php?t=592866

I took my time, replaced any disturbed gasket/o-ring and followed the GM manual (I have a copy of the 2016 version) even though it doesn't have any LT4 info and I paused when things didn't seem right. It took about 10 days, including the time waiting for SC and heads to be done and then another week-ish to complete the tune and data logging. I have not been on a dyno yet, but I plan to. Actually it should have been on the dyno last week but the guy with the dyno caught covid and I broke the car at the track Thursday. More on that in a bit, but nothing to do with the motor or any of the mods that were done.

[h018871]

I'm not sure of the root cause or of the failure order. All I know is what I need to replace.

The first session out, on the 3rd or 4th lap, once the tires are up to temp I experienced a shake like a tire imbalance in an accelerating left hand sweeper, not a bad shake but noticable. The tire pressures are good on the DIC. Nothing the rest of the lap, but then again in the sweeper. Throttled back for a lap, all good. On throttle again and shaking in sweeper and got a 'service differential' message. Came in and read the codes. They were all over the place, buss errors, comms errors, bad oil pressure sensor........Cleared everything and went back out, after visually checking the tires and lug torque. Same thing!? Packed up and drove home thinking something wrong with the ELSD, either controller or clutch packs. There were 21 hours on this fluid, so getting close to change time.
On the drive home, with trailer, the shaking is now happening during acceleration and goes away on decel. Thinking gears/bearing??? Axleshaft maybe?

Lifted it up and noticed that a bolt was missing from the front driveshaft coupler. There are 6 bolts in each coupler, 3 attach the coupler to the driveshaft and 3 attach the coupler to the trans or diff flange. The one missing should have been in the trans flange. Placed the order for a new coupler, comes in a kit with the 3 driveshaft bolts/nuts, and ordered a new set of bolts/nuts for the coupler to trans flange.
Then removed the front coupler and noticed that the other 2 bolts on the flange were not loose, but were not tight either. This kinda makes sense because of the vibration and added load on them. Then I noticed that the flange was not tight on the output shaft, meaning that the nut was not tight. Pulled it off and noticed that the nut was not 'staked' to the output shaft. Looked at the end of the driveshaft and the seal was damaged and looking closer saw that the bushing was torn and the housing was swollen.
Ordered driveshaft, includes 2 couplers, 3 more nuts/bolts for diff flange, trans flange and nut, everything will come in tomorrow.

Lesson(s): Periodically check torque or paint the bolts on the couplers, inspect the nuts/flanges for looseness (I will stake the new nut after torque). I will add these to my check lists.
The axles are good and I sent out a diff fluid sample for analysis.

[JTRATX]

Good advice on the checking all the driveshaft related bolts. What are the torque specs?

[h018871]

Originally Posted by JTRATX

Good advice on the checking all the driveshaft related bolts. What are the torque specs?

Driveshaft to coupler are 67ft-lbs, coupler to flanges are 66ft-lbs & carrier bearing to body are 43ft-lbs. I painted them so I can verify visually
A big thing, I think, was that the trans flange nut was not staked

[h018871]

Got it on a dyno last week

745hp/786ft-lbs
It's fairly spirited now

[arpad_m]

Originally Posted by h018871

Got it on a dyno last week

745hp/786ft-lbs
It's fairly spirited now

786 rwtq and he calls that "fairly spirited"... understatement of the year

[mlee]

Totally been missing this thread and had to sit down and do some reading to catch up with your summer mods. Those dyno numbers are excellent.

I know we are in TX but why not just ditch the cats altogether? On previous Camaros I've never had any issues at inspection.

Also, what resonated X-pipe did you use?

[h018871]

Originally Posted by AndreZ

That dark green is a killer color, happens to be my favorite color although I usually like the army green instead of darker... darker works good on this one.

Thx
When clean and in the sun, it really lights up

[h018871]

Originally Posted by mlee

Totally been missing this thread and had to sit down and do some reading to catch up with your summer mods. Those dyno numbers are excellent.

I know we are in TX but why not just ditch the cats altogether? On previous Camaros I've never had any issues at inspection.

Also, what resonated X-pipe did you use?

I put cats on mostly to remove the smell.

It’s real quiet with the magna-flo 3” dual in and out. It’s not a true X, it is a dual Y. They make a true X but it is 2.5 ID so I chose the 3” one

EDIT: It's MagnaFlow 12469

[h018871]

There were oil spots under the car. Nothing one day and lots of drips the next. It looked like it was coming from the head (really hope not) or the clean side oil separator tank, hoping that it is/was the drain tube o-ring.
The valve cover gasket was dry, not that.
In order to get the oil separator off the back of the water manifold, the supercharger needs to lift up. Since the SC bolts need to be changed, I just removed it. The insulator and valley cover were soaked with oil and the oil ran between the head and oil separator tank. So it wasn't the head.
There were 2 issues:
1) the catch can was allowing quite a bit of oil into the SC
2) the lifter oil filter plug was pushed up into the bottom of the SC and cracked it

Some background: When the cam was installed, I replaced the lifter oil filter because it's cheap insurance. I also replaced the plug since it too was cheap and comes with sealant on the threads, both OE parts. I didn't want a leak under the SC from something as simple as a plug. Also when the heads were ported, they decked the surface. They told me that they only removed 1 or 2 thousandths........that is what I would expect but don't know for sure.

To fix #1, I have a larger CC, so I put it on and will see if this takes care of it. Jury's still out because I've only had a couple of track days on it so far.
To fix #2, I needed another SC case. They are prohibitively expensive from GM, I did find a 2021 model with ~ 5k miles. Snatched it up and sent it out to be ported.
An interesting thing about the difference between the 2020 and 2021 blowers. The boost port was removed in 2021. This means that there is no longer ECM control of the boost valve. It is fully controlled by engine vacuum from behind the throttle plate. Thx to RUQWIKR for the assistance sorting that out. In pic 4, you can see the boost port on the 2020 blower.
Ordered another filter plug and noticed that the part number had changed. Old # 11588949 and New # 11546667. The old number is still available and there is a huge difference between the plugs, the new one is shorter and smaller in diameter.
A couple of things to add: since there is a new part number, I'm most likely not the first person that this happened to.
The old plug head is just under 6mm high, the new one is 2mm.
There's plenty of clearance between the SC and plug, I checked!

Pictures:
1 old plug
2 machined location in bottom of SC for plug
3 looking through the snout showing where plug came through
4 damage with snout removed
5 damage from the bottom
6 side view new plug on left, old plug on right
7 top view of plugs
8 new plug installed