Uneducated info for upgrades

[garrett181]

I have heard livernois is developing pistons for the sho, i would like to do turbo upgrades on my car as soon as december because i will be selling my 69 camaro. i have a tune from tuningbyjames.com eibach springs and a K&N CAI. I was trying to avoid meth injection so i don't waste money because i am nervous to tune my car specifically to run with meth injection. has anyone heard when the pistons will be ready for public, or any ideas to a reliable way to do turbo upgrades safely. where would i send the turbos to for the upgrades i will be able to pull them out and ship them off somewhere. The tune i have in my car has been great, i have had problems with my cai on rainy days for some odd reason, but my car is running quick, i have yet to get it out to the track but plan to when it gets a bit cooler in florida. Any suggestions or information would be great because im going crazy without a very fast car capable of street driving because my camaro is going bye bye. what other parts will need to be changed for turbo upgrades. i plan to put a boost stat controller to turn down during my daily driving days, but for track days i want the extra power of stronger turbos. i have also heard a rumor of the inner portion of the turbos on the sho eating away at the housing for the turbos. has anyone heard this besides me? Thanks
Garrett West Palm Beach Florida

 

[EcoBrick Bob]

Methanol Spray is the cheapest way to gain HP, as it cools the charge and therefore allows for more boost from the existing turbos.

Turbo upgrades will change your A/F ratio and REQUIRE tuning. Livernois has them available. A shop in Detroit takes stock turbos and makes them more efficient. There is no room for larger turbos, so getting more volume from existing turbos is the only solution.

As for forged pistons, they are currently available. Their purpose is to allow for more boost, with less chance of damage due to the internal pressures from that boost. I do not believe that they have a higher compression ratio. They are very expensive and require a complete tear-down of your engine, out of the vehicle. I am not aware that any of the guys who are running the new turbos and larger downpipes have installed the forged pistons.

How did James tune your vehicle? Did he use an SCT Tuner or another type?
On Dyno or a canned tune?

Methanol injection of 50% Water/Methanol (boost juice) up to 100% Methanol spray is only spraying when the boost levels exceed a certain pressure, like 7-8 PSI. And... depending on the system, uses either an on/off pressure switch, or a variable controller that considers RPM and boost PSI. The only risk to running these systems is that you need to make sure you don't run out of your methanol solution. Almost all of the time you are driving, you will not be using any, unless you go to WOT and then only for very short periods. When I was spraying in my Flex, I used very little in normal driving, especially when we were on the road between FLa and Iowa. If you do a search here or on EBOF, I believe you can find my thread on various articles and choices for methanol spraying.

You say you have had issues with your CAI on rainy days... What Issues??? You definitely don't want water entering your engine via your CAI. Even a small amount can cause damage, as it will cause a mild hydrolock condition, where your pistons can experience ring-land failures. As water doesn't compress.

 

[darreli]

Livernois does have pistons, and thru them you can have your turbos upgraded if you wish. I just finished up with dyno time and my new numbers are 435whp 521wtq. Still dont have pistons and thats running 20psi of boost

 

[EcoPowerParts]

I'm trying to put together a group to buy some cores and have a local shop upgrade the stockers as well and have Torrie be able to tune for it. Depending on what happens Torrie might be the shop that handles it or we can go direct, everything is up in the air right now. The first thing I need is either a pair of used cores or new cores to be done by the shop. I'll be posting more over time.

 

[EcoBrick Bob]

WHOA... Are you talking about updating some bare blocks with forged pistons etc.???? Are you posting on EBOF???? Darrelli and BPD can help you!!!

BUT... I was the first NON- NITROUS FLEX in the 12's! I have seen what nitrous does in G8's... Great... until you blow it up!

 

[garrett181]

The tunes I have are thru an sct tuner, and james emailed me tunes for my sho which he did originally on a dyno, not my car but another sho, he also made small adjustments for my CAI. The problem i have experienced 2-3 times is strange, the worst time i had an issue when i was driving from west palm beach to jacksonville, while i was off the highway in jacksonville after some rain, when i was trying to accelerate it was shuttering and my check engine light began to blink, i shut my car off and left it over night, and the car ran fine. I have not had any problems since, but im scared to do more upgrades for breakage, i realize when increasing horsepower you run more risk, but my typical daily driving is very heavy footed, and im tired of being spanked by m3's my car as of now, outruns a stock 5.0 mustang, but i want more. can you do the turbo upgrades without the pistons? or is that to risky. if i did the turbo upgrades, i would get my tunes hopefully somehow from livernois. I am very impressed with my tunes, but james which is an X sct flash worker, i found him through steeda because they were the closest that i could initially think of, steeda and xtreme performance both sent me to james. james partner is running a 12.7 with only the agressive street tune. i also have added weight by putting 2 13.5 inch w6 jl audio subwoofers so i have a few disadvantages. I want to get more power. so bob thank you for all the information, you believe in meth injection? isnt it risky not as bad as nitrous but still not good? hopefully i can just do turbo upgrades let me know what you think because this is a daily driver/ but i do have a stock marauder i can use for most things to keep the miles off my SHO and also while the SHO is getting worked on. Im 3700 miles from being out of warantee, which will take little time, since i got the car a year ago this month and theres 32300 miles.
Thanks for everyones information I really need it since I'm probably going to have to sell my 69 camaro
Garrett

 

[garrett181]

darreli what exactly do you have done to your car? did u do pistons?

 

[darreli]

Hey Garrett...I'm gonna send you a PM, but to anser your questions..I stated in my above post I have not done the pistons, probably wont until something breaks. Anyway, I have catted downpipes, corsa catback, alkycontrol methanol injection, some turbo upgrades, a new radiator and 170degree t-stat, all tuned by Dan Millen from Livernois Motorsports. There's lots of power to be had above where you are now. I dont have much experience on how James does his programming, most guys on here are running either an LMS tune or Unleashed Tuning. I know these tuners have built reliable tunes that most guys run 12's with one of the "aggressive" street tunes. My cars been tuned for over 45,000 miles now and havent had an issue. I ran the best of a 12.11 the other night but spun thru 1st and 2nd gear....if I had a good track or suspension setup I would run 11's no doubt.

I would say some downpipes and methanol will put you where you want to be...there are ALOT of differences between methanol and nitrous..you could spend quite a bit of time reading about that already so I wont post that much on here, if you 'search" this forum EBB has posted some good links to give you hours of reading

 

[EcoBrick Bob]

Both Unleashed Tuning & Livernois have canned tunes available for your SCT Tuner.

You are at a point where getting more HP from your engine is going to increase more heat. Your ECM will adjust for that heat by retarding your timing to avoid knock, so you will not get the benefit of more boost, without keeping the air from heating up. That is the benefit of Spraying with a solution of from 100% water to 100% methanol. Any methanol solution over 50% can burn. That helps keep A/F ratio within the safety limits of boosted engines. There are alternatives to Methanol, like Denatured Alcohol, but having used them, I can't recommend.

Remember, we're dealing with a 3.5 liter engine that is producing as much horsepower as a stock v-8 in a Vette. We are also dealing with a drivetrain that is a modified FWD system, with limitations to how much power that can be diverted to the rear.

One of the biggest hurtles in reaching the 11. second plateau is that this engine likes cold air and puts out the most HP when cold air or cool air is being forced into the manifold. Unfortunately, tires like hot air and pavement. So like Darreli is finding out... More power and less traction is a BIG problem.... I have no doubt that it will eventually be solved.

 

[garrett181]

I talked to my friend who is a mechanic he mentioned intercooler co2 spraying, im not sure your opinion on that or meth injection, I believe maybe doing the turbos and intercooler sprayer or meth injection are my best ideas, i do have nitto nt 420s tires with eibach springs which helps alot with traction, although im not running nearly the power others are, now bob i read you talking about the front wheels spinning and the rears hooking, i know that only certain sho's have a complete shut off of traction and stability control, would this help or does it not apply? i do have the sport and complete shut off choice on my traction controls in which i dont know if it makes a difference. thanks for all the great information everyone. also if i do the turbo upgrades do i need to do the exhaust because i like the fact that my car is still very quiet, but because of the restriction will it be dangerous because of the air flow?

 

[darreli]

I thought about spraying the intercooler as well as methanol injection..but I think now I can make plenty of power without it. Methanol is gonna be more consistent than spraying the intercooler for basically the same price. I think methanol has proven itself in this application and is a great choice

 

[darreli]

Forgot to respond to the other parts...you have to play around with the traction control settings to find out what works best for your particular setup.

And exhaust...I would say of you're planning some kind of turbo upgrade the exhaust will become some kind of issue...I would say catted downpipes and the stock catback might work and keep noise increase to a minimum. The downpipes in my eyes are the second best bang for the buck next to tuning if you're talking real world results

 

[EcoBrick Bob]

With my Flex, I had my front wheels spin faster than my rears which caused the ECM to temporarly shut off ignition. What happens is that the rear drive can only handle about 150 lbs of torque, before it slips and transfers all the remaining power to the front. This happens on all EB 3.5L car drivetrains. Now, perhaps if you can shut T/C completely off, the ECM won't shut ignition off, even when fronts are spinning much faster than rears, but I was told this cannot be defeated as it is a safety issue designed to protect the AWD system from catastrophic failure. A SHO may not have as big an issue due to weighing 400 lbs less than Flex, but remember Darreli having this same issue when we were both running Conti DW's (summer tires) in cold conditions.

I do not have down pipes, but as I have said before, I do have an x-pipe and 3rd cat/mid-muffler delete pipe from NESHO and magnaflows on rear, with remaining exhaust the stock tubing. The x-pipe and 3rd cat delete raised the boost around 1 psi, with no changes to tune or anything else. It was definitely louder, and those in 3rd seat complained. So since I have it designed to be removable, I took it out, but plan to re-install later.(20 min job!)

Flex is currently retired. But.. if I were still spraying and racing it, I would jump on those down pipes. They should help the stock turbos if you do the 3 bar mod, which allows you to accurately tune for boost higher than 14.7. I was consistently getting boost levels of 17 and peaks of over 20 with stock turbos and my 3-bar Torrie tunes.

Personally, I would be very concerned with adequate fuel delivery with larger turbos, boost levels near 20 psi, and no methanol spray. Running 50% methanol, a KB Boost-A-Pump and seeing peaky 20 psi boost, I was seeing major drop-off of DI pump pressure. When I went to around 75% methanol, Torrie was able to tune around this and DI pump pressure was several hundred PSI higher with same Lambda (A/F) results. The Methanol becomes fuel, as it burns when over 50% concentration, besides providing a major cooling effect.

 

[kinder]

Just curious if anyone has explored air/ water intercooling. Maybe just the thing for some added cooling IF there is no room for an upgraded fmic.

 

[kinder]

For cooling has anyone considered going to a Air to Water Intercooler? I run an AWIC in my Legacy Spec B. So far seems to work well. Always cool to the touch.