Turbo V6 Camaro

[Jon Early]

This was a pain and I may come up with a better thermostat solution down the road. For a number of reasons I found it easier to keep the stock location for now. As the car progresses, I will find a better way to run it in line or something.

Welder couldn't get in here, so I had to cut more off.

He buzzed what he could, but it would still for sure leak water. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

The actual intake was going a little better though.

ooo baby! If this is all worthless for performance it should at least look cool when I'm done!

 

[Jon Early]

Since I'm running M90 heads, the intake injector bungs are worthless to me. I have to plug them.

3/8" NPT pipe plugs work well.

It seems worth it to port the protrusions though.

Hmmm. I know people have plugged these holes before, but I'm curious if they bother to clean up the ports. I haven't decided if I should leave them alone beyond this, or try filling the voids with JB weld.

Moving on for now. Finally blasted all that gross paint off. Temporary front cover plate is on.

tapered entry is cut to fit! That took a while.

This is where we stand for now. My welder is going to get the side pipe welded on soon, and I'll start fitting the pipe from the throttle body to the plenum after that.

The plan is to run an LS1 throttle body which means I'll need to add an LS1 throttle cable and accelerator pedal. These throttles are the same as the Northstar except different cam for RWD so it's a nice upgrade for the 3800. I'll have to also get an LQ4 MAF, swap the PCM over to a '98 operating system, do some minor work to my wire harness, and hope like hell that everything still works like I think it should. I hear that there might be some issues with my gauges, but I'll believe it when I see it. Worst case scenario is that this intake needs to wait until I get Holley EFI.

 

[Jon Early]

The old Comp G is a gift that just keeps on giving! The only set of rails I have that will work without major modifications came from the intercooler kit. I just had to drill and tap the unused boss on the intake manifold for them to fit. Unfortunately the supply fitting is on the wrong side. I'm hoping to plug it, and drill tap the other rail once I figure out where my plumbing and regulator lands. The crossover hose can be shortened quite a bit too.

The weather in southern Indian was really nice until yesterday, so I pulled the GN out and took some pushrod measurements with the new lifters. I went with GMPP LS7s. They may be a bit overkill in terms of price, but the supposed quality gives me piece of mind.

I used two methods of measuring. One was by coloring the valve tips with sharpie and reading the contact patch. The other was by setting the rocker to 0 lash and counting the wrench turns to full torque (25 ft-lbs). It helps to have an adjustable pushrod so you can dial in the ideal length.

The ZZP 7.00s were a little short.

Setting my adjustable to 7.025" pushed the mark down a ways and while putting my preload around 1.25 turns. It didn't make a nice mark on the valve tip like the 7.00 did either, but the not pictured witness I saw was a slight overshoot to the outboard side. I forgot to check and see how much preload I would have with a 7.00, but I think it will be about perfect. A shorter push rod should amount to less lifter preload and the pink mark above is not bad. I figure that mark should move to the center of the valve tip once there's some oil pressure at the lifter.

This is all just the way I learned it though. Let me know if I'm missing something or doing something wrong. I've never done this before, so I'm glad I'm not messing with super low travel lifters or anything like that!

 

[dezldave961]

Congrats on the life stuff, and I like what you're doing with the intake. For the injector ports, I did the same exact thing on mine. 3/8"NPT tap and plug, I believe, then blend it (also didn't add anything to risk it falling back out... bonus tip: use AL plugs to let it grind at same rate).

My plenum extension for this season will be similar, but just spent ~$150 to get it from Australia...
(already hand-made a thicker one for the lower section to lift it above my fuel logs, and going to trim the MACE upper to fit nicer than they made it... my TB is still on the driver's side, unlike how they mod for Holden turbo space)

I know people say the F-body #1 port is hamstrung, so hopefully your work improves that. I look forward to all your efforts hitting the road/track.

 

[Jon Early]

Thanks! I had a lot of people recommending the Holden intake but I really only like how they look on FWD cars. I don't want the throttle off to the side either.

I hadn't heard of Cylinder 1 being crippled, but I'm not particularly surprised either. Being right up against a wall cannot be good. I hope I'm not aggravating that problem with my big plans, but I don't think I'm helping to solve it either.

The tapered "side pipe" is mostly welded on.

I was hoping this fanned entry would help with distribution. Going straight in but offset away from the runners would for sure put cylinder 1 at a disadvantage.

Nobody sells a nice LS1 throttle flange so I bought an adapter plate for an LSJ M62. It just needed to be ported a little.

Fixed!

I'm still not 100% sure how this is going to work. Right now it's looking like I'll be flipping the throttle and flange upside down so the that the cable is on the driver side and pulling the bottom of the spool. I think then I can mount a cable bracket where the L36 fuel rails were.

If that doesn't work, I might have to ditch some parts and get a Northstar throttle. It appears to be exactly the same except for the throttle spool being reversed. This wouldn't hurt my feelings because the LS1 throttle I have is kind of messed up. The idle air hole is plugged. Perhaps it was too big for the V6?

Also, it doesn't even open all the way. Not sure what's up with that. The cracking powder coat that's going to be a big pain to remove is so thick that it may be stopping the motion too soon, but I think the stop itself is bent too. Regardless, this thing needs some work and it may be easier to just start over with a bare untouched throttle.

 

[Jon Early]

I tried to get this long block together once and for all, but I've never set up a valve train before. This has been quite the adventure without adjustable rockers.

I started by tooling around with the ZZP adjustable pushrod and a sharpie. In hindsight, I made a lot of mistakes and ended up buying a set of Manley 3/8" chromoly pushrods. All of them are 7.00".

On another forum I was asked by a more experienced builder if I had accounted for the hydraulic lifter preload which I had not. Somehow I knew this would bite me in the rear, but none of the videos I watched had mentioned it. I looked up the lifter travel for the consensus seems to be .060 - .100" but shoot for .080" I decided to add .080" to my adjustable pushrod and try again. However, I noticed the rod length being inconsistant. It doesn't have a lock nut and seems to spin no matter how careful you are with installation.

so I made an atttempt to fix that before moving on. I started by threading it the entire way.

Threads are terrible, but they'll work. The new ones will only thread the lock nut anyway.

I found a nut in my stash. It's unfortunatly thicker than I hoped, so it gives me a minimum length of 7.05". Oh well. I knew that if anything, I was going to need longer pushrods anyway.

I adjusted up to 7.08" and gave this another shot. That's when I noticed this.

Huh. That's no good. Now I understand why these otherwise pretty titanium retainers look so hammered on the edges. I know the previous owner of these heads wasn't doing anything special with his valve train, so he just let it ride. Hopefully the guides are okay....

I also did a recheck of the sharpie trick which resulted in my mark being pushed down quite a bit. I was discouraged, but determined to figure out what I was doing wrong. I wondered if the rocker to retainer contact was telling me something.

After some research on the issue, I learned that these are LS style valves which are longer than stock. I also learned that ZZP makes pedestal shims to correct this exact difference. Perfect!

Deburred the edges and installed.

 

[Jon Early]

It's very close, but it's clearance!

Sharpie mark looks close enough to the middle to make me happy which doesn't make sense to me. Since I already had the 7.00" pushrods, I chose to try a different method. Instead I would count the wrench turns from 0 lash to full torque.

The passenger side stayed at around 1/2 turn which is on the loose side but in spec. The driver side was horrendous. The front cylinder was at the very bottom of the spec at about 3/8 turn. The back two were very loose at only 1/4 turn. This basically means that there is no preload on the lifter at all. In fact, 0 lash was never acheived on cylinder 5. They were still loose at full torque.

That was disappointing becasue I really wanted this behind me. I have eight 7.05" pushrods ordered, but it will be a couple months before they ship according to Summit. Had I known that, I would have bought ZZP pushrods to begin with. I hope the 7.05s will be what I need. The travel on these lifters is a lot smaller than stock and I want them on the quiter side, so I will get picky if I need to!

 

[dezldave961]

Those heads seem similar to what I rebuilt for the Buick last summer... stock rockers, upgraded everything else. I still got to use stock-length 7.05" pushrods, and also went to 3/8" for strength as I went up with springs. Most of my focus was on install height/spring rate checks, since it appeared my exhaust rockers were coming off and mushrooming the top of the valves at some point in recent years.

It's better that you're checking than not, since these problems tend to hide under the valve cover until they crap out. I don't look forward to messing with my adjustable T&D's on the Tischler heads I have for my RWD 3800 project.

 

[Jon Early]

I don't have much to say in terms of updates, but a lot of little things have been happening on the side while I get the GN ready for nats.

The intake hole was finally cut. This is when I discovered that the tapered pipe on the side is no longer longer round. It appears that my welder buddy clamped it on pretty tight before buzzing it on so the piece for the front doesn't fit like I hoped. I would say that the correct way to fix would be to cut it off and start over, but I'm probably going to leave it and make my inlet pipe fit instead. This will be an ugly and tedious process and I'm not about to micromanage a friend who's doing me some big favors.

Anyway, I've been staring at this sad and unfinished intake as you see it for the last four months wondering what to do. I really wanted to avoid this since I really don't have the space, but I think its time to get my own TIG welder. I've been shopping around for respectable hobbyist machines and I'm kinda stuck between the Vulcan and AHP stuff. I just haven't pulled the trigger because I'm hoarding money away until my family's medical issues are sorted. We'll be fine, but now is not the time to be going down an expensive rabbit hole.
In other news, none of those fuel rail options I was excited to try were going to work. Both the modified Comp G rails and the custom L36 rails failed to clear my alternator. Instead of butchering nice parts and force fitting, I decided to make an educated bet on an expensive option.

These will work!

This fitting might be a small issue but I think replacing the banjo with a 90 will clear the UIM.

Then I got a little distracted. I found these Comp roller rockers on marketplace and couldn't resist the urge to further complicate my valvetrain.

I bought them very cheap knowing that they were obsolete BBC rockers with modified trunnions and pedestals to fit the 3800. I also bought them knowing that they were in sorta rough shape. Lucky for me, there was a set of 8 NOS rockers of the same part number on ebay. I snagged those too and was all in for less than a set of Yella Terras.

Simple but effective.

Once they were on the engine, I wasn't very happy with them. They look cool just sitting here....

...but there are some parts that wouldn't work for me or just didn't appear correct. First of all, this is what the pedestal looks like for each rocker. The only contact with the head is the bottom of this sleeve. I assume that this would work fine with lighter springs but be unstable with heavier springs. That's a shame given that the rockers themselves are very heavy duty.

 

[Jon Early]

Even if I was willing to try it actually doesn't work at all with my taller valves and shims. The pedestal just punched through the holes and messed them up.

I also just wasn't very happy with the funky looking geometry. I'm sure somebody smarter than me could tell me it's fine, but I don't know enough about this modification to say one way or another. I debated getting some custom sleeves made, but decided that it was better to sell these for a fair price and keep my engine a bit simpler with the tried and true stock rockers and pedestals. I made some money, and I think the buyer got a good deal on some cool parts.

I waited forever for Manley pushrods to show up only for the estimated ship time to get pushed back for another few months. I returned what I had, cancelled the outstanding order, and did what I should have done from the beginning. I went to ZZP for another set of shims and the pushrods that I thought I needed. The set-up was a headache, but I hope it's done. Without adjustable rockers, I really couldn't even out the preloads like I wanted, so they're all over the specified range. I think it will be fine because in spec is in spec, right? In the end, all of the pushrods are 7.05" except for one in a middle cylinder that's 7.00". It's kind of strange, but that's just how it worked out.

Getting the valvetrain finally torqued down and happy was a big milestone. I think the next job will be removing and selling the original rear end, test fitting the new DIY 8.8 housing because it's very unknown so far, and sending it out for powder coating if it turns out to be good to go.

 

[dezldave961]

Odd. I knew we had a BBC-related rocker geometry, but it stinks that it's still too different to have something 1-for-1 to use in the aftermarket. Sounds like YT's are the only remaining option, unless I dig for info on what my T&D p/n's are (pretty $ure they'd gladly du$t off their note$ to $ell $ome). I know ZZP said in a recent podcast that their latest rockers are a custom hybrid of LS3 and BBC or 3800, where they use the pushrod side of 1 and valve tip end of the other in the casting mold.

Good luck getting it together for some events. I'm also digging into some punchlist items after driving the Regal for a week and seeing what's ready/not.

 

[Jon Early]

Odd. I knew we had a BBC-related rocker geometry, but it stinks that it's still too different to have something 1-for-1 to use in the aftermarket. Sounds like YT's are the only remaining option, unless I dig for info on what my T&D p/n's are (pretty $ure they'd gladly du$t off their note$ to $ell $ome). I know ZZP said in a recent podcast that their latest rockers are a custom hybrid of LS3 and BBC or 3800, where they use the pushrod side of 1 and valve tip end of the other in the casting mold.

Good luck getting it together for some events. I'm also digging into some punchlist items after driving the Regal for a week and seeing what's ready/not.

That's neat regarding the ZZP rockers. I assumed they were totally custom.

I know of two people running these Comp rocker setups and I'm not entirely sure why they're sticking with them. They both told me that they're having instability issues and planning to build custom girdles. This seems like a ridiculous amount of work when stock rockers and Yella Terras have worked fine for so many people. I'll probably spend the money on Yella Terras or T&D's eventually. Frankly, I just got tired of waiting forever for parts on a valvetrain that should have been completed months ago.

I hear that Yella Terras have a very long lead time at the moment. It doesn't help that Intense supposedly quit taking new orders and started closing down shop. I hope that someone else will be able to supply them here in the states for a reasonable price.

 

[dezldave961]

Ya, I think I snagged a Stage 4 blower cam from Intense last year right before John decided to throw in the towel (honestly, a long time coming, but he was probably making just enough to be worth it, selling remaining inventory and drop-shipping rockers/cams until now).

I've had stockers on mine forever, finally getting a set of legacy T&D's as a bonus when I bought my 2nd set of ported heads. I know stock probably has some deflection issues with these 130#+ springs pushing 350-450# at max lift, but we never got a stable replacement option to stick around the market before it died.

I really wish ZZP and/or Intense had invested in making some F-body 3800 turbo kits and such (they did some RWD race builds themselves back in 05-06), which would've scooped up a huge market left to mostly the V6 pony car crowd famous for ruining an OK car with just window tint, ugly wheels, neon lights, chrome trim, 3M taped vents, and a crappy Flowmaster. They somewhat remedied that while chasing the base model Camaro/ATS gang now, but I think that isn't a market with people doing much modding (cul-de-sac dad's and such).

 

[Jon Early]

Oh man. It's been a while. I haven't progressed on this as much as I'd like, but family comes first. Most of what I've been able to do is research stuff and jump of good deals when I find them.

Found an intercooler that should easily allow 1000hp worth of air across it. The "3 inch" intercooler I was using actually only had a 2.5 inch core and is known to get restrictive pretty quickly. Knowing that I was going to be rebuilding everything in front of the wheel wells, I figured it was worth getting an intercooler that would meet my goals with confidence. It's a used 4" Huron speed which cost less than the crappy ebay part it's replacing.

And yes. I'm rebuilding the front end. I'm not exactly comfortable doing the whole RSM tubular kit given how much needs to be removed and how much still needs to be figured out on your own once its done. However, I will not be dealing with band-aiding and covering up the rust problems any longer. The frame channels are still solid, but there is not much holding the radiator. I guess that means I need to design this around a more worthy radiator as well.

Apart it comes.

Naked face!

 

[Jon Early]

Time to start drilling spot welds.

I took a ton of measurements and pictures with notes on them before making any cuts. The plan is to cut a piece off, rebuild it, weld it in, and move on to the next section. I know it's not how a pro would do it, but it's the only way I know that I'll get things to line up. The first thing I made was a fender mount.

It already looked so much better with this piece gone!

 

[Jon Early]

I've also hated looking at this rusty frame channel since buying the car. Now that it's bare, I had to clean it up a little even though it's completely out of order. lol

before paint, I had to combine two headlight brackets into one. I'm guessing one bracket is a Chevy specific part where the other is used for both Chevy and Pontiac.

Moving on!

Major satisfaction. lol

I planned to leave these stubs on both sides. It will give me a point of reference to build everything else and it's not rusty. Here it is capped off.

I'm not thrilled with the way this turned out, and I may redo it. We'll see though. I have a feeling it's not going to be noticeable enough with the everything back together to go through all the effort.

Finally made use of my rivnut tool.

Passenger side is pretty much done. I fitted the headlight with the bumper and everything sits just right. Time for the other side.

 

[Jon Early]

Yuck

The fuse block holder makes this side a little bit interesting. I'm planning to build everything the same but keep this wall in tact. I can clean up that little bit of rust and be happy enough with it.

I watched some tutorials and took a little extra time making the bends this time. They turned out much better!

That's pretty much where I'm at with it. I Kind of ran out of steam because I'm not happy with MIG welding all this anymore. I have a TIG welder and I really want the removable center section to be aluminum. Making it removable will allow me to shave a crane in further and yank engines from the top which is much preferred over dropping the k-member. I just hadn't spent the time to put a 220V outlet in the garage yet.

It's easy to get burnt out on fabrication work like this anyway. It's tedious. So I switched my focus over to more research on the unknown aspects of this car. I started looking into my electric AC project a little further and found that I had already made some mistakes. This was enough to push the project into the trash. Literally. I threw all my hacked up HVAC boxes in the trash and it felt great. It was going to cost a lot of money to finish, it wasn't going to fit like I thought it would, and I wasn't even sure if it was going to work anyway.

Since that felt really liberating I moved onto the hot side. I'm hesitant on cutting up these nice headers to fit my application knowing that my welding skills are still needing work. However, they were built for a strange application from the start, and I'll never use them that way. I might as well go for it, but I would need to figure out how to move or delete the belt driven power steering pump.

I almost got to the point where I wanted to fix the old crappy hot side instead because it already fit and wouldn't take much work. Then I finally found what I needed in Australia! The Holden L36 had an idler bracket that's perfect for what I'm doing, so I asked one of the Aussie V6 facebook groups and they delivered.

It will clear the future intake pipe and ECT perfectly once I buy a slightly larger idler pulley. Headers are back on the table!

 

[Jon Early]

One other thing I was unsure about is tuning this beast. I've made a lot of changes and some of them are a bit unconventional like the intake. I really don't want to drag this thing to a tuner not running and untested so I need to either simplify something or get comfortable with HP. I'm going to do a little bit of both. My biggest concern revolved around the MAF since I'm no longer using the stock throttle body. I don't want to muddy up all my pretty plumbing with an LQ4 MAF and I've heard nothing but bad things about the LS7 MAFs.

I found a promising compromise for this as well. As far as I know, there is nothing wrong with the stock MAF. They only seem to be changed out because people want a bigger throttle body. Although I have an AFC to step the signal down to a reading that the ECM can interpret, I'm not sure if the sensor itself will start to flake out at a certain frequency. I plan in sticking the sensor in a larger diameter tube which will help me a lot in that regard. Tuning it well enough to test for leaks and pull the car onto a trailer should be as easy as dividing the whole MAF table by the given amount.... I think. Then there's actually getting the MAF mounted in a new home. I figured that out too. I found an Ebay store that builds and sells custom MAF housings and flanges. I went through their catalog of drawings and learned that VW uses a sensor just like ours. I ordered a flange for one of those with a 3" pipe diameter and prayed.

Look at that! It's a perfect fit!

I just don't know how perfectly it's going to function. I have a decently long stretch of straight charge pipe I can weld this to, but I've always been one of the "don't remove your MAF screen" guys. I know a lot of people get away with it, but I'd hate to have a serious tuning issue related to turbulence and not even having a provision for a screen. Ya know?

I think I'm going to have to take the risk. This stuff may all just a be stepping stone to a Haltech, Holley, or some other standalone unit anyway.

That's all I've got. GN took most of the love this year.