I know its long.. but you asked...
youre a street fighter.. just like me. Youre going the exact same route as i am. exactly.. Ok, first off, why is your car stock, except for ported heads? who did that, you, or the previous owner? remember, these are not 302's or 350's. They dont flow as much air, but what air they do flow, they flow it a WHOLE HELL of a lot quicker than pretty much any other car out there.
You need torque, not horse power. Granted, if you want to get serious with a car youve been toying around with, and you guys decide to take it to the 'service drive' like we do on gratiot avenue, for some serious all out racing, youre going to need a little top end. We'll get to that later. What you want now, since youre going to be probably cruising, while youre looking for a fight, is good heat management first off. After about an hour of lappin'/racin, my heat soak just destroys my performance. Totally. Ill break it down, for a quick street racer.
Heat management: 1. good rad. try a newer camaros. 2. Good electric fans, with either the option of them turning on quicker than stock, or just a manual switch you can control yourself. 3. a 160 thermostat.
Weight savings: Theres things you can do, to yank a pound here or there. Some of these parts are hard to find, some arent. I'll list em for you just for your own knowledge. There are things like 'glass doors, yankin out the rear seat, locating the battery to the trunk, yankin the whole heat/air system etc etc but those are hardcore racing tips, and i doubt you want to do that, as some of them are hard to do, and sometimes irreversible. Well start with the typical ones. 1. aluminum rear drums. 2. aluminum bumper reinforcements, and mounting brackets. 3. mini starter 4. lighter battery (dont worry, you shouldnt be cranking your gn for 30 straight seconds, at zero degrees anyways man, the car RUNS off your alternator) fiberglass trunk and hood, dumping the spare/jack, and NOT having a 200 pound 'kicker' system with 4 amps.. (rediculous) running manual seats, and putting the good power ones in the garage for safe keeping, so noone spills coke on em (hint hint) the camaro radiator also weighs a lot lighter too. And finally, getting some turbo T rims. Theyre stock to the buick world, and lighter than the stock steels. please, dont throw some exotic 18" 'chip foose' blvd. crusier rims on it... Now that shes lighter, and cooler
Suspension: You can start, with tires. Everythings worthless without a good set of tires. Right now, the best overall rated street tire, is the yokohama advan neova. not necessarily the stickiest, but remember, its the street, not a quarter mile strip. TOTALLY different battlefields. sidewall stiffness/cornering, highway mph's, and wet traction actually mean something to our cars, unlike all the rest of these 'strip monsters' that cant even go above 55 for more than 10 minutes, cuz their slicks wont handle it. The 2nd best tires behind the yoko's, are the bfg g-force t/a KD's. both great tires. Or, run a bfg up front, and say, a mickey thompson street radial if you live close to your racing area, if you so choose. After that, your rear end comes next. yank your rear, upper control arms, and lower trailing arms. You can either go the cheaper route, and reinforce them with some flat sheet stock steel, and a welder, then replace all their bushings while theyre out, then put em back in, or you can go to umi and get theirs for pretty cheap too. (id box em personally) after you got the control/trailing arms and bushings done, you can yank that pencil thin sway bar, and put a better one in, and either replace all your springs, or just do the airbags for the rears, and do the fronts for now. though i dont suggest that. id just do all the four corners. after that, make sure the shocks are decent. you can go with tokico, koni, kyb or bilstein. theyre all good but i found the best performance for the price, was bilstein. mine ride sooo good. If your front sway bar is stock leave it alone. its fine the way it is. next you HAVE to do your rear seat braces from kirbans. while youre at it, do the other 3 (fronts) and the engine strap. that helps you, when youre brake torquing for a good launch, so you dont break a motor mount. I already broke 3. (my older regal)
ONLY AFTER you get this stuff done, should you be adding torque to your car. our cars already cant handle the torque they came with. ive seen everything from cracked roofs, cracked A pillars, broken motor mounts, sheared poly race mounts, and one cracked rear window.. yep.. hes on this board. a terribly smart TR guy too.
Spool up. Being as about the longest we can actually race, is a little less than an eighth mile, spool up and traction is number one. you can make your car spool so fast, that pretty much no tire around will be able to handle it. Start with engine reliability. triple check any vac leaks. any fluid leaks, spark/ignition. Do a full tune up. after that, do the fuel system. start from the tank, and work forward. does the tank have any sediment in it, if so, cleaning your fuel sock and cleaning the injectors is stupid, if youre just going to lous it all up again. clean the tank. drop the pump. is it a walbro? no? replace with a good pump, and hotwire it in there. check fuel line. any rot? no? do the pressure regulator. stock? yes? replace with an adjustable one. after that, clean and flow the injectors at that point. maybe blow out the rails too while youre at it. fuel systems done, throw a powerplate in there, to prevent any cylinders from leanin out. they work good. now that thats done, the airflow comes next. If your turbo cant breathe, it cant spool...and youll go nowhere fast. Air in: Get a tin man, or big mouth cold air kit, that routes the filter OUTside of your engine bay. next, do a solid aluminum maf pipe, and route that into a ported and polished turbo inlet bell, that you did yourself, or just buy one already done at kirbanperformance. Air out: If you cant afford a good 3" down pipe and high flow exhaust, just polish the inside of your exhaust elbow, and run an open dump where your cat would go. uncork when youre fillin up with race fuel for your sat. nite fun, and cork er back up when youre fillin up with regular gas, for the trip back home. good **** there. cheap too.
Now that you have adequate fuel flow, and good air flow, KEEP the stock headers, and make sure theres no leaks to the headers, and to the turbo. check your crossover as well. ANY leaks TO the turbo, will slow things down a bit. Add a manual boost controller. That should help your control, and spool up a bit too. If your turbos stock, im guessing your torque converter is too. That should be ok. Now, burn a chip for your choice of fuel, like say a 94 chip, or maybe even a higher octane one, if you have a race fuel pump on your local strip like we do.
Remember, when doing all of this, you gotta know what your cars doin. at all times. under boost, any minute problems you may have, are amplified SOOO quickly on a charge air car... what would take weeks to actually show up on a 350, will take minutes on your car, especially racin it. Ya gotta get a boost guage, oil pressure, temp, rpms, volts maybe.. and in the minimum a scan master. If you cant monitor whats goin on, you could very well compound a problem by still driving it, cuz ya dont know its there. Also, now that your car is doing things it wasnt meant to do, your PMCS schedule (primary maintenance checks and services) have to stepped up to pretty much daily now. Your preflight checks should be tire pressure, head/brake/reverse/turn lights, windows, fuel pressure, brakes, trans, oil, oil content by lookin at the cap, airbag air pressure, check your smoke levels at the exhaust tips.. drips... and, before a race night, check your U joints, driveshaft, and anything else by the rear. Ive seen what a broken driveshaft does to a TR... its NOT pretty man. check em. trust me. Get a 'surefire' flashlight. theyre small, handheld, and TERRIBLY bright. keep one in your centre console, for inspection underneath, if you have to pull in the local gas station during the nite, to check a leak/knock/tick/bump.. Also, carry a set of mechanix work gloves, and one of those little 2'x2' rubber pads, that are one, of a set of four from murrays auto parts, for when you do have to get down on the ground, to check something underneath. These are the typical things a stocker can do, to race other cars in the streets, without tearing into your HVAC system, dumpin rear seating, notching the frame etc etc.. and still have a nice car, and return it to stock if you so choose. I spend quite alot of time on the local strip racin, and have it pretty much down to a science. I do these things, amonst others. Do a local recon of the 24 hour FLATBED services in the race area, and put them in your phone. That way youre not SOL when something does go tits up. Yea, when I go out racin, its an all nite thing. I devote the entire day to it, and make a night out of it too. Its quite fun. Ive made alot of friends out racing the local cruise strip. If you need anymore tips, let me know...
damn EPA.
The thread is in the turbo section.
