Turbo V6 Camaro

[Chuck Leeper]

Any compressor wheel parts end up on the spark plugs?

 

[Jon Early]

Any compressor wheel parts end up on the spark plugs?

I would assume not since there's still an oily intercooler in the way, but I guess finer particles could get through. We'll find out when I start taking things apart tonight.

A TA49 should be on my door step when I get home from work.

 

[Jon Early]

A car woke up from its slumber and so will a dormant thread.

This resilient little B fired up on first crank as soon as I hooked up the battery. Never mind the vented tank 3/4 full of 5 month old E85. It didn't even hiccup the whole way home or to work this morning.

I think I need to find a new storage location though. All this corrosion is the last straw. Last year it was mice chewing up the GN's spark plug wires. Who knows what will happen next time. I'm not taking the risk.

To be fair, a lot of this will wipe off with a rag. It's just disappointing to see what a few months in a non-climate controlled space will do. We also discovered that the roof isn't exactly water tight anymore either, so it might as well have been outside. I really don't have the space to own and maintain two toys year-round. I have been looking for new properties with shops, but this really isn't the greatest time for the wife and I to pack up and move. We have a lot on our plates, and our current house is otherwise serving it's purpose. The cars will just have to share the garage without major repairs or upgrades for a while.

Now to address the elephant in the room. Why am I pulling my car from storage when there's still some snow on the ground?

It was never really about that. I just need a place off-site to park for the winter while I work on the other car. I'd rather store both of my cars in my heated two-car garage, but it doesn't work like that when I have to buzz in some floor pans or do a head swap! The Camaro is home so that it can donate its EV1 injectors to the GN. Besides, REAL spring is right around the corner! The Camaro will get the old EV6 injectors back since they work fine. After that I have a lot of plans for this car, but I think it's going to be a light year for updates while I replenish funds. The GN ate all my fun money!

 

[fast86gn]

A car woke up from its slumber and so will a dormant thread.
View attachment 392083
This resilient little B fired up on first crank as soon as I hooked up the battery. Never mind the vented tank 3/4 full of 5 month old E85. It didn't even hiccup the whole way home or to work this morning.
View attachment 392084
I think I need to find a new storage location though. All this corrosion is the last straw. Last year it was mice chewing up the GN's spark plug wires. Who knows what will happen next time. I'm not taking the risk.
View attachment 392085
View attachment 392086
To be fair, a lot of this will wipe off with a rag. It's just disappointing to see what a few months in a non-climate controlled space will do. We also discovered that the roof isn't exactly water tight anymore either, so it might as well have been outside. I really don't have the space to own and maintain two toys year-round. I have been looking for new properties with shops, but this really isn't the greatest time for the wife and I to pack up and move. We have a lot on our plates, and our current house is otherwise serving it's purpose. The cars will just have to share the garage without major repairs or upgrades for a while.

Now to address the elephant in the room. Why am I pulling my car from storage when there's still some snow on the ground?

It was never really about that. I just need a place off-site to park for the winter while I work on the other car. I'd rather store both of my cars in my heated two-car garage, but it doesn't work like that when I have to buzz in some floor pans or do a head swap! The Camaro is home so that it can donate its EV1 injectors to the GN. Besides, REAL spring is right around the corner! The Camaro will get the old EV6 injectors back since they work fine. After that I have a lot of plans for this car, but I think it's going to be a light year for updates while I replenish funds. The GN ate all my fun money!

You bringing either car to BG in May?

 

[Jon Early]

You bringing either car to BG in May?

Hoping to bring both! My wife is planning on joining me this year.

 

[fast86gn]

Hoping to bring both! My wife is planning on joining me this year.

Great! Hope to see you there.

 

[dezldave961]

Glad you dug it out to check up on it. The corrosion hits my car's components when I have to set it out just under a cover, too. Keeping things pristine is a rich man's game, but there's a happy middle ground for fast/functional/fancy when you spend just enough without going nuts.

Someday I will get to cut away and go to events, again, and check that build out. That was my favorite part of the old 3800/GTP clubs 20yrs ago, and I encourage as many fresh folks to do that again, when possible.

 

[Jon Early]

I'm really hoping this is just a starter hanging up. All the cars in the fleet are testing my patience at the moment.

I'm debating the idea of reenabling my PCV and running a check valve between my valve cover and the catch can. The lack of crank case vacuum is not great for a car that's street driven. It might be the source of a lot of the smoking issues I'm dealing with too.

 

[dezldave961]

I ran a myriad of PCV options with cans and valves before going back to a single open breather angled up from the rear (right) valve cover. I even have the components to build a Hobbs-tiggered evac pump, based on the Racetronix setup (relay-triggered Impala AIR injection pump under boost), which I still might throw in place just for extra draw even with the breather. I've also got Moroso exhaust evac components that I bought 6-7 years ago for it, inspired by my dad's 454 BBC mud truck system, but never went that route, either.

I smoked pretty good whenever I was trying various PCV pathways, and even when the fumes had to take a path to the can with an open breather on top. I went back to the safe method until I decide to put a vac/boost gauge on it, since I also did some over-drawing in 2021 when I turned the front seal into a chirping harmonica at ~2300rpm as I pulled air in past it, apparently.

Sure, having some draw would be nice to keep things cleaner, but with a turbo, the pathways require a good mapping out with check valves and such (even my EcoBoost truck attempts it, but I still had to add catch cans to help it out). It's way easier on 3800SC's and N/A's to dial it in, but my threshold for attention on the turbo car is low enough to go years between re-attemps at it.

 

[Jon Early]

I ran a myriad of PCV options with cans and valves before going back to a single open breather angled up from the rear (right) valve cover. I even have the components to build a Hobbs-tiggered evac pump, based on the Racetronix setup (relay-triggered Impala AIR injection pump under boost), which I still might throw in place just for extra draw even with the breather. I've also got Moroso exhaust evac components that I bought 6-7 years ago for it, inspired by my dad's 454 BBC mud truck system, but never went that route, either.

I smoked pretty good whenever I was trying various PCV pathways, and even when the fumes had to take a path to the can with an open breather on top. I went back to the safe method until I decide to put a vac/boost gauge on it, since I also did some over-drawing in 2021 when I turned the front seal into a chirping harmonica at ~2300rpm as I pulled air in past it, apparently.

Sure, having some draw would be nice to keep things cleaner, but with a turbo, the pathways require a good mapping out with check valves and such (even my EcoBoost truck attempts it, but I still had to add catch cans to help it out). It's way easier on 3800SC's and N/A's to dial it in, but my threshold for attention on the turbo car is low enough to go years between re-attemps at it.

Good to know. I sometimes fail to realize that the factory has yet to come up with a great simple solution for this. Last year the car was super stinky and smokey. I'm not sure what's changed since then, but it's been pretty clean this year. I just want to stay on top of it. I think I'm still confused as to what the "safe" method is though. It sounds like you have an open top catch can like mine, but do you have a PCV valve that draws any vacuum on the seals? No check valves? By "safe" are you referring to lack of KR induced by the oil fumes?

I keep referring back to my GN and how it seems to be doing just fine with its "HD" PCV valve and open breather on the valve cover. I always thought that would result in a vacuum leak until boost closed the valve, but nobody has ever seemed to complain about such things. Maybe I can get away with the same on the 3800?

 

[dezldave961]

I've had the stock 3800 PCV valve plugged with RTV since Day1 of turbo'ing it, and blocked the draw path to the TB with N* adapter (both of which would see boosted air, of course). The 3800 valve might permit some light leaking in the center or outer edge, but doubt that's as much of a contribution to anything. Not sure of exact pathways for your UIM/LIM, but probably similar to other L36 routes.

By "safe," I mean I have just the open breather on an angled-up oil cap neck, so there's near-zero pressure in the +/- direction. It's better than going too hard either way, but not optimal, of course. It'll live forever, just could be better with lots of tinkering.

I've tried a fresh air draw from pre-turbo at the air filter, and venting via valve cover tubes to a breather can with check-valve to UIM vac port, but that never got happy, either.

 

[Jon Early]

I've had the stock 3800 PCV valve plugged with RTV since Day1 of turbo'ing it, and blocked the draw path to the TB with N* adapter (both of which would see boosted air, of course). The 3800 valve might permit some light leaking in the center or outer edge, but doubt that's as much of a contribution to anything. Not sure of exact pathways for your UIM/LIM, but probably similar to other L36 routes.

By "safe," I mean I have just the open breather on an angled-up oil cap neck, so there's near-zero pressure in the +/- direction. It's better than going too hard either way, but not optimal, of course. It'll live forever, just could be better with lots of tinkering.

I've tried a fresh air draw from pre-turbo at the air filter, and venting via valve cover tubes to a breather can with check-valve to UIM vac port, but that never got happy, either.

I see. Yours is pretty similar mine then. I used to have just a breather filter but it was making a BIG mess.

I don't remember if I ever went over it in this forum, but I had a hard time figuring out how this worked. I was sure that if I plugged the PCV that there was no where else for boost to enter the crank case except for past the rings. Obviously I was wrong, but instead of looking for an issue I went wild with two valve cover ports and dual catch cans. I later learned about blocking the separate intake hole and how I shouldn't have needed all those catch cans.

I'm down to just one catch can now. I still randomly see a bunch of smoke coming out the back of the car, but at least I'm not pushing tons of oil into the catch can or busting seals anymore. Everything I drain from the can looks like water and smells like whiskey. lol Maybe PCV isn't my problem?

 

[Jon Early]

I bought an AC Delco PCV just to see how truly bad it is. I can blow right through the nipple with lung pressure which means boosting the crankcase will happen really quickly. I returned it. I can't remember if the original green PCV had an oring in it like the GN ones, but I'm kinda over the idea. There's an NOS valve on ebay, but I don't think it's worth sucking oil vapors into my intake. I've reimagined my idea a bit.

How about an external vacuum source? It seems to be getting popular to use electric vacuum pumps to evacuate vapors. I would need to switch to a closed catch can, but Racetronix makes a cool harness that incorporates a hobbs switch and plugs directly into a popular GM vacuum pump. If I ever get back around to playing with this car, I will probably go that direction.

 

[dezldave961]

Honestly, you've probably never had the breather setup done quite right, from the sounds of it. If you haven't fully plugged both pathways before running the breather, your UIM air is still going places unexpectedly. When I start customizing air pathways, it's best to eliminate all OEM ones I'm about to circumvent, so they don't fight the new stuff. You should be able to eliminate smoke issues with a properly converted open breather setup, and if you want that still routed to a can with breather for safety, go for it.

Once you're in control of that situation, then it might be time to tinker with add-on items like an evac pump. Pretty sure my 14Apr reply mentioned the Racetronix-style stuff I've had in-hand for a bit, but am holding off as the car started behaving once I stopped trying to re-invent the wheel.

 

[Jon Early]

Honestly, you've probably never had the breather setup done quite right, from the sounds of it. If you haven't fully plugged both pathways before running the breather, your UIM air is still going places unexpectedly. When I start customizing air pathways, it's best to eliminate all OEM ones I'm about to circumvent, so they don't fight the new stuff. You should be able to eliminate smoke issues with a properly converted open breather setup, and if you want that still routed to a can with breather for safety, go for it.

Once you're in control of that situation, then it might be time to tinker with add-on items like an evac pump. Pretty sure my 14Apr reply mentioned the Racetronix-style stuff I've had in-hand for a bit, but am holding off as the car started behaving once I stopped trying to re-invent the wheel.

As far as I know they're already blocked. The one that goes to the front of the throttle and the valve are plugged. I did want to check if the spring holding the valve into the LIM was maybe too weak? I see most of my issues when I let off the throttle from WOT or I'm engine braking. High crankcase pressure below and and high vacuum above could be pulling the PCV plug off its oring seat, but I think the spring is pretty strong.

 

[dezldave961]

You could shim that spring, if you're concerned, but I've never seen that as an issue in any config. With an open breather, it shouldn't even have the ability to build more than a psi or two, well within range the components hold up to in OEM settings.

If you're really going to put more thought into this, do as I did, and buy a spare vac/boost gauge or sender to put in the system where it'd see what's happening in there (opposite bank as valve cover vent would probably get a decent reading away from the breather vent).

 

[Chuck Leeper]

I bought an AC Delco PCV just to see how truly bad it is. I can blow right through the nipple with lung pressure which means boosting the crankcase will happen really quickly.

We had that same issue some 15 - 20 yrs ago... Always had to "test" every valve for proper operation.
I guess not much has changed. Still producing junk.

 

[dezldave961]

Which is why I immediately fill the top with $0.25 of RTV and never worry about it, again.

 

[Jon Early]

I needed a cart filler for free shipping so I bought these.

It's amazing how many options there were for bushing types. Poly on the body side and solid on the rear end seemed like the best option for how I use the car.

I was pretty surprised to see that the original rubber bushings had been replaced semi-recently. This was good for me becasue the bolts once again came right out without drama. I've been much too lucky with this car in that regard.

I was almost a bit disappointed about that though. I wanted to feel a big difference with these stiff new arms.

Man, this car is gross. Luckily the ugliest parts are attached to the rear end. An 8.8 conversion is slowly moving its way up the priority list.

To my surprise, I still felt quite a big difference when launching and turning. This car still has an open rear end so launching still sucks, but at least it just lights up the tire instead of bucking and clunking around. The rear end in general feels a lot more confident.

My boost is only getting up to wastegate pressure, so I'd say that my crappy boost controller nit the dust. I'm going to install the mac valve for my AEM boost gauge/controller this weekend along with a set of new plugs. This car needs to be on standby in case the GN continues to play games with me!

 

[dezldave961]

Question... if someone (me) was working on a 1996 one of these for a young enthusiast in my squadron, and was debating starting upgrades (either 3800 turbo or LS-swap) while the underbody looks just as crusty... is there a standard approach to reviving/protecting the unibody structure? It seems like surface rust more than the structural cancer my GTP chassis died of after 15yrs of NY/MI/WI/MN winter fun.