Turbo V6 Camaro

[Jon Early]

That's really cool Jon, the A/F gauge fits perfect. Nice job.

Thank you! I'm pretty happy with how all the instrumentation turned out. I have a question for you and the other guys running E85 though. Are the narrow band readings in mV supposed to be same as if it were running E10? My understanding is that O2 mV is in relation to lambda which is the same regardless of fuel. I just have to look for different A/F ratios. Right?

 

[fast86gn]

Thank you! I'm pretty happy with how all the instrumentation turned out. I have a question for you and the other guys running E85 though. Are the narrow band readings in mV supposed to be same as if it were running E10? My understanding is that O2 mV is in relation to lambda which is the same regardless of fuel. I just have to look for different A/F ratios. Right?

I am on E85 this is true on both of my W body's but I don't have a good answer for ya. I had them tuned for it and don't mess with it and I do watch my A/F numbers and they are different than say 93 but... Maybe some of the other guys will chime in with a good answer I would just be lying to ya. Sorry it is somewhat over my head.

 

[fast86gn]

Some stuff I know but if I don't I'll tell ya.

 

[Jon Early]

Dang. I'm not tuning mine myself either, but I like to monitor certain things for piece of mind. Unfortunately my tuner quit on me after doing the base tune due to health issues, so I now need to find somebody else to make tweaks. Have your dealings with Intense been pretty good?

 

[Jon Early]

I went for my first drive yesterday! It felt great to finally get the old girl out of the garage. Not everything went smoothly from there though. I think there are multiple issues in my tune. One issue is that I cannot go into boost at all. When I lay into it, the ignition cuts back hard and my fueling goes super rich. I also eventually got stranded for an unknown reason. The car cruised around fine for its maiden voyage, but after a letting it sit for dinner and going for a ride up to my buddies place it stalled out at a stop light and wouldn't stay alive. After fiddling around with unplugging sensors and trying again I still had no answer. I was eventually able to get it to start again and drive it home with everything plugged in, but it ran pretty poorly. Hopefully my spark plugs will tell me something.

 

[fast86gn]

John has been great I know it's a can tune but it's pretty damn close. No issues.

 

[Jon Early]

Plugs still look brand new, but the oil looks wayyyy over full and smells like fuel.

 

[Jon Early]

So... I'm a newbie to E85, and didn't realize that my plugs are in fact indicating a rich condition. That black ring is no bueno. My tuner has been flakey and taking forever to give my ECM back, so I decided to get this fixed elsewhere. My ECM is on it's way to Intense. I look forward to talking to them on Tuesday.

 

[fast86gn]

John is a good guy, give all the details you can the more he knows what you have and what you want out of it the better. Good luck.
I did a unlimited tune with him which I highly recommend.

 

[Jon Early]

Thanks for the recommendation, Dave! I just got my ECM back from John along with some helpful suggestions. The first drive was fairly uneventful, but I guess that's a good thing! As he and many others have told me, my turbo is WAY too big for what I'm doing. Right now I'm keeping my foot out of it because I'm trying to cure all the exhaust paint before I start freaking out about underhood smoke. However, I can't get this thing to spool when I try rolling into it nice and easy. It finally makes a few psi once I'm about to hit my rev limit. LOL Does anybody have any super spooly turbo suggestions for a fun daily? Right now I'm using an Ebay 6765. I was thinking about getting another ebay turbo, but with ball bearings and maybe a 6262. If I'm not mistaking that's the size that comes with the ZZP kit.

 

[fast86gn]

What converter are you running?

 

[Jon Early]

What converter are you running?

I have a third pedal

 

[fast86gn]

Oh well... We'll see ya. LoL just kidding.

So a 6262 would work better with a stick?

Maybe a old school turbo like a TE44?

 

[Jon Early]

Haha I'm not expecting to win races with the T5, but it should be pretty fun to drive with that and the 3.42 gear.

As far as the turbo sizing goes this is just what I've been told by a few people with more experience. However, I wondered if my tune could just be lacking in ignition timing too. I will have to set one of my scanners to display that and reanalyze. Come to think of it, when I was on my stock NA tune, and just putting around the neighborhood it felt a lot more responsive than it does now....

 

[Jon Early]

By the way Dave, what kind of oil are you running in the E85 cars? I was told that the 15w-40 diesel oil is a little better for the zinc qualities and is less susceptible to contamination with the fuel in the crankcase. Do you do anything special for that?

 

[fast86gn]

Nothing special really 5w30 full synthetic on both W bodies.
The GN is on 93 pump and Meth injection and run Driven 10w30 in it.

 

[Jon Early]

Nothing special really 5w30 full synthetic on both W bodies.
The GN is on 93 pump and Meth injection and run Driven 10w30 in it.

How often do you have to change it? Do you normally have a lot of fuel mixed in or floating on top? Thanks

 

[fast86gn]

I've only changed each once and my DD had done here at the shop never saw the old oil. And I'm changing it every 3k. The silver car I only race it, I'll change it at least twice a year maybe three times. It kind of smelled funky when I changed it last but it looked normal.

 

[Jon Early]

My Series 2 calls for 10w-30 but has lower oil pressure than the Series 3. I just put a Series 3 oil pressure spring in and filled the engine with 5w-40. I just worry for my turbo because I don't have a restriction for it.

Anyway, I drove the car to work three days in a row. It runs fine as long as I stay out of boost.... the suspense is killing me. I'm going to close the plugs up a little more. Right now, I'm running Autolite 104s at .045"

 

[fast86gn]

If you were running a lot of boost I would say you might be blowing out your spark but I don't think so yet anyway... but you may need a tighter gap. Did John at Intense give any recommendations on what to gap the plugs at?