3.4L Camaro ideas...

[SlickSixxx]

I have an automatic '94 3.4L Camaro with nothing but basic bolt-ons... Pro-flow muffler, hi-flow cat, and K&N intake. I'm looking to do something extreme, along the lines of Tiago Salies' turbocharged Firebird [www.forcefedfab.com], but perhaps even more extreme. I read on the Engine Swaps page that someone has done a head-swap putting the 3x00 DOHC heads on the 3.4L Camaro engine... I followed the link to the pictures page, and searched the forums, but alas, I could not find any detailed information about this. I was curious as to how difficult such a swap would be, as it would definitely help out the engine in the higher revs. I took her to the track and ran a best of 16.744 seconds, and noticed that a lot of this seems due to the fact that after about 3500 RPM she just falls flat on her face... Quadruple cams and a turbo or two seem like the best way to add high-end horsepower to me! So anyway, what do you guys think?

[StudlyCamaro]

you cant put DOHC heads on a pushrod block, and a DOCH motor wont fit in a camaro's engine bay

[614streets]

I think you can do alot better with a stand alone ecu , a custom roller grind (solid) and boost. Less headache more power potential with a roller cam and convert back to mpfi.

[SlickSixxx]

Yeah, I was definitely thinking about boost. Tiago has had much luck with that. Hmm, I saw the info about putting 3x00 heads on a 3.4L and just assumed there was a way to get the DOHC working as well... [3x00 Top End onto a 3.4L Camaro] So, the fact the aluminum heads can go on have nothing to do with the DOHC heads... Shoulda figured that out. I saw some 32V heads for SBC engines [Arao Engineering], which I originally thought was some innovative DOHC setup for SBCs, but it seems that those still use a single cam. Hmm, well so much for that idea... Now the question is, if I get the aluminum heads, that will give me better flow, but also a higher CR... So would it be worth my while to do the aluminum heads, get a more radical cam to improve my higher end, then perhaps go for some dished pistons, and maybe even shorter connecting rods to give me some room for the boost? Or just forget about swapping heads and do a nice valve job on the iron heads? I like Tiago's low 13 runs, but I'm sure more power could be had somehow

[jmgtp]

you cant put DOHC heads on a pushrod block, and a DOCH motor wont fit in a camaro's engine bay

True, the dohc heads wont work with the pushrod block. BUT, I have seen pics of the dohc (lq1) in an f-body. Wish I remembered more about the swap or the website but unfortunately I dont.

[StudlyCamaro]

if you do a 3X00 swap you will have to get a dished piston according to most people, im looking into getting a thicker head gasket to reduce the CR, but it dosent seem to promising

but if you run any ammount of boost you will DEFFINETLY need dished pistons if you are running a 3X00 topend..

and there are many ways that tiago could get his car to go faster

[SlickSixxx]

Dished pistons... Sounds like a plan to me. Yeah, Tiago's running off of a stock bottom end and "NRT heads and intake..." If I recall, NRT is Norris Racing Technologies. To the best of my knowledge, they used James Montigny's 95 'Bird as a testbed for head/intake work, but he decided to get rid of the end result and sold them to Tiago. The shop's website seems to be defunct, but this seems to be the contact info for them, if anyone's interested. In any case, the heads look like the basic iron heads, I'm guessing with a mild valve job, and the intake has a LT1 TB slapped on it. I need to get my hands on some compressor maps and start plotting world domination here, but from what Tiago's found on his dyno runs, his setup seems ready for more boost... So perhaps I should start with twin-T4s?? And, I've only read about halfway through my turbo book, but it seems that since he has his turbo feed coming from way down by the collector, that may be a source of lag... Sure, it's a pain in the ass to do custom headers, but if I'm going through the effort of slapping aluminum heads on, I might as well go all the way, right? That, combined with a lack of extra computer management, seemingly small injectors, and naturally, the stock internals, leaves lots of room for experimentation here. For those who haven't checked out Tiago's page, I highly recommend it as a source of inspiration for V6 modders... I've heard lots of people say it's a waste of time to work on a V6, but his dyno numbers prove otherwise... 336RWHP, 397RWTQ, all on a stock bottom end pushrod 3.4L. After checking the forums here and seeing 94Camaro's nice ~30 RWHP increase from the aluminum heads, I can't help but think that a reliable, streetable 400 RWHP car can be in the works here! Obviously, running 12psi all the time (that's how Tiago acheived his magic number, bumping it up to 16 just created more heat) would make for a rather tired motor pretty quickly, but with the cam, heads, intake, pistons, turbos, computer, etc. all selected and tuned appropriately, I see no reason why I couldn't slap on some nice engine management, make a nice little terminal in the glovebox (I am in Computer Engineering after all), and have easily controllable, comfortably streetable, not exorbitantly expensive power... And with the wonderfully beautiful gas mileage and insurance of a V6 (Okay, so the gas mileage probably isn't going to happen... Meh.) So, it seems that this is where my odyssey begins... For the most part I plan on saving cash and researching for now, and perhaps snatching up any good deals I find on parts... Hopefully by mid-summer I'll at least have everything planned out, and then, if I'm lucky, over x-mas break I can tear down and do what I need to do, assuming I can save up enough cash. Any ideas are appreciated, and as soon as I start getting stuff accomplished, I'll be sure to post tons of pics and detailed info on my website (which I'm going to get around to updating one of these days...).

[StudlyCamaro]

the NRT heads have a lot more than just a valve job, they are ported , and flow very well (not nearly what a gen !! or gen III head flows though)

wasnt itago running over 110 octane when he was running the 12 lbs of boost on the dyno while spraying the inter cooler with CO2? .. thats not stretable horespower just so you know

"Sure, it's a pain in the ass to do custom headers, but if I'm going through the effort of slapping aluminum heads on, I might as well go all the way, right?" ...yes, dont take the easy way out and have an extraordinary ammount of plumbing before the exhaust gas even gets to the turbo

just keep reading the book, and dont forget that cokry bell mainly builds cars for road racing, therefore many of his thoughts are his alone. he slams water/alchol injection systems and other turbo guys praise them, make sure that if you read his book and are interested in 1/4 mile performance that you read other people's literature also

you sound motivated to do it all, hopefully you do it, i'd like to see someone go low 10's, and ive realized that its not gonna be me

[SlickSixxx]

Hmm, I just realized something quite important... My girlfriend's Malibu somehow ended up with only a half a quart of oil in it and naturally, it started some knockin'... It didn't seize up and still ran after we filled it up with oil, but considering the chances of something going seriously wrong in an engine with rod knock, I got an engine from a junkyard with half the miles of the original and just swapped it in, runs like a champ now... BUT, I have a rough-running complete MY 2000 3100 V6 sitting in said friends' yard... Perhaps the head swap can be off to an early start It's been sitting outside for a few months now, so I dunno if it would still even run, so I was planning on junking the block. Now I'll just take what I need for the head swap. If anyone is interested in parts from it that I wouldn't need to do a head swap, I'd be willing to let them go hella cheap... And assuming that in the early summer I get a chance to throw the heads on (assuming all goes well and they're still in good shape, of course), then I'd be willing to let my sexy iron heads (only 85,000 miles on them, bone stock, ready for some porting/polishing/etc.) go as well. Seeing as how all these parts are either not ready for sale or still on my car, it's not quite ready for its own buy/sell/trade thread, but if anyone is really interested, let me know. Especially in the 3100 block, over Easter I was planning on selling it for scrap unless someone is interested, I'll have my friend take some pics of what I've got over the weekend.