CAI Semi-complete

[95SleeperAcheiva]

Bad tunes will do that. But, the situation of the weight I first gave you was wrong. My crew informed me that I didn't do the weight reduction until after my first scale reading. So I stand corrected, we had a total of 3 passes that day, 14.84-14.91, through stock exhaust, everything still on her. The only thing removed was spare tire and jack. It was 2 weeks later I pulled the exhaust and gutted rear bumper, and we saw 14.70's with the fastest pull of 14.50's. Now stripped down further has yet to yield faster times, but I still think that's a traction and trans issue.

Also, I still have almost a full interior. I can legally carry a front passenger, belts are still there, full seating in rear, headliner, carpet, and map lights. They don't work...must'a ben ona do-s 'ittle plastic boxes I dun throne out, ya'all feel me, "REDNECK" style.

[95SleeperAcheiva]

Also gel.....

We're starting to go down a road I don't wanna travel. I happen to like your GA, she looks good, motor is awesome, you can drive yours daily, you did a real nice job on her. Plenty of Pros. I kinda wish my motor and bay looked that clean and pretty. Actually come to think of it, I wish my car looked that clean too.

Point is, it's not really about how much money you throw at it. We've had this discussion before in here. You can throw cash at something, bolt on all you want and still get crappy performance. They all got to be mixed together proper. Radical cam, and no work on heads give you eh performance. Radical head work and stock cam gives you good performance. Who said that again?

Differences between your car and mine could be the FDR, shorter tires, sticky compounds, colder day, more moisture in my area then your, the fact that I'm running an Oldsmobile and your in a pontiac :P Any number of things could be bringing us this close. TBH it's probably the low stall converter that's keeping you out of the 14's. But go high stall and forget driving it on the street. You can, but you'll burn her up.

6 years ago I ran a '92 Z-34 Lumina. She had knock retard on 89 octane in 105 degree track temp heat. 4-6 degrees iirc. We ran 92 octane and dropped the retard to 2-4 degrees. Ran 100 octane and 0-2 degrees. Ran a mix of 116 leaded and 92, roughly 1:1, and we had no knock retard.

110 is what i could get and i had no data to go by from past runs of 3 year old gas. Thats why 110. I'm not a ricer who does stuff, " 'cause its cool." I'll try things but if it don't work or make real sense I move on.

We all have our little quirks tho....I wanted Dual pipes, even if they do look "REDNECK"

[robertisaar]

lingenfelter did the cam/head quote, IIRC

[Alxsmt]

with a real radical cam i could see 13s. look at superdaves build

btw i have stock heads other than reground, springs and retainers. good luck fitting bigger valves in, i wanted to but relised there isnt exactly room between the valves that are already in there

[geldartb]

didnt mean to imply the ricer card with the octane thing.

honestly we can put all the crap aside and be friends right. were all here for the same thing right.

the 14.8-14.9 seems to be the point people hit with 3400 swapped cars. one of the guys from the beretta forum hit 14.9 with his 3400 obd 1.5 car.

honestly i dont have that much money in the engine. i collected parts for awhile before they ever made it to the car. the way you see it now is prob the best it will look, basically just gonna run the shit out of it and enjoy it.

id love dual pipes but at the same time i have to worry about inspection and the whole cops dont like loud cars thing. im still contemplating a before the rear tire dump.

ive been thinking of weight reduction for awhile now. just gotta figure out what to trim. got rid of the back seatbelts already but no one ever sat back there anyway. back seat is still there but its just foam anyway.

im kinda just buying my time with what i have now. no money plus alot of plans for the car get depressing quick. which reminds me i need a higher stall tq and a better tranny.

but with all that said lets let the bad feelings go away and just be a bunch of car guys.

if you werent so far away it would be cool to get together. you know just a couple of guys with cars hanging out.

[95SleeperAcheiva]

God I wish I had more 60 deg peeps around me. I was the outcast at the car show last month. But the neat part....not one of them goes to the track, so they are all show and no go.

BTW Dacco.com they will build you a TC, any stall, cheap! Claim to be a shop and your fine, just tell them your a tech at the shop and its for your car. They can do all kinds of fancy things to it too if you want. But if you just want to up the stall your talking $90 brand new converter. I paid $79 for mine.

[robertisaar]

$90 for a convertor? WTF have i been doing all these years?

[asylummotorsports]

LOOK at my sig! 100% untouched engine with a set of headers and a good tune.

YOU are spinning your wheels my friend. I was 14.50's before the headers ON A STOCK ENGINE, full interior, even the spare and jack on 89 octane!

3050 pounds with me in it.

With all due respect I REALLY think you need to re-think this project.

Because so far it's not all that impressive.

It's still 3050 pounds and I'm short shifting it at 6K, and will run 14.1 all day long ON 93 which is probably still a waste.

[95SleeperAcheiva]

I'm workin on it! PHPPTT! :P

I still haven't tuned it yet! I have yet to send Ben the $90 for the chip. I was close, money order in envelope and everything, it didn't get mailed and i went broke etc etc etc.


Next spring.

[SofaKingWeToddDid]

you get the 20HP when you stick the NOS sticker on the intake...

ya know, this joke is so old i had one of those stickers on my dinosaur to make it a little funnier. but its still good man, still good.

[IsaacHayes]

Did you swap to OBDI?

[AaronGTR]

Hey we've all seen the youtube vid of that "grand prick" doing a 9.01 sec pass, he aint tube framed, and he's a W-body, much heavier. I think we should be able to get a 3400/3500/3900 into the 9's.

Also I forgot, winter mods include, full manual brake set-up (2-line system), line-locks, manual steering conversion, electric water pump, timing cover mod for it, and relocation of alt, maybe tube-headers too, of my own "REDNECK" design dumping out the sides again. I even got compliments on my "REDNECK" exhaust.
Several people thought I bought it from pacesetter or something.

Well, I think you're being somewhat optimistic about the times you'll run and what mods you'll be able to do and what they will yield.... but hey we'll wait and see.

I should point out you shouldn't compare what people do with grand prix's to your car or anyone else's here. Different engine, different platform. It's apples to oranges. The GP guys have several advantages at the drag strip that make it so a grand am (or comparable smaller car) will NEVER be as fast as a purpose built drag GP. Least of which is a longer wheel base and more front end weight bias. We can never get as much launch traction as them. Add to that a stronger base transmission, more after market support, and several years head start in testing and development. Anyway their strengths in some places are weaknesses in others. They handle and brake like shit.

One other comment, I wouldn't do a manual brake conversion. There's a reason all cars use power brakes now... they are FAR better at stopping the car. It doesn't really cost you any power or hardly any weight, so why bother?

[pocket-rocket]

They handle and brake like shit. ?

You haven't had a ride in the right W body yet. Josh's old car (now Bens) car handles like it's on rails. My car did too until things like struts went bad, tires bald, ect. Also my car happens to stop really well, even with bald tires I do want to trim weight in my car, but with as much sound deadening material as the previous owner installed (he did a small amount of sound competition with it), I think I will be fighting a lost cause. We all know W's are pigs in the weight department.

[robertisaar]

the MC handles like a z34... that isn't worn out.

brakes: ehh... i've had worse.

[AaronGTR]

You haven't had a ride in the right W body yet. Josh's old car (now Bens) car handles like it's on rails. My car did too until things like struts went bad, tires bald, ect. Also my car happens to stop really well, even with bald tires I do want to trim weight in my car, but with as much sound deadening material as the previous owner installed (he did a small amount of sound competition with it), I think I will be fighting a lost cause. We all know W's are pigs in the weight department.

Stock to stock N-bodies are better though. Look at my sig I own both. There is a world of difference in chassis rigidity between my GP and my GA. The GA is also about 400lbs lighter and has a shorter wheel base. That will always give it an advantage. I've modified my GA specifically for road racing and I guarantee I'll take any GP out there around a road course.

edit: I should add a lot of it has to do just with GM's development of the platform. It's three years newer, and they used higher strength steel and hydro-forming in various areas as a means to reduce NVH. There also are no mounting bushings between the uni-body and front/rear sub-frames like on the GP.