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Camaro write up/story
Well per request I will document the procedures I went thru, parts, labor, etc to the best of my knowledge. Let’s start in June of 06’. Well up to this point I had done a lot of supporting mods and did not have a vast understanding of motors, inner workings, etc. So at this point I had done SLP ram air, MSD coils, took it to a shop for Pacesetters and Magnaflow…that was about it. Well one of my friends, Tim (blown00) was in the market for a new car and ended up getting a GTP. Needless to say the GTP shut me down big time and that’s when I decided to make to the move to start going turbo. Shortly after being dealt this loss I began talking to many people, signed up on this very forum, and started parts acquiring. But most importantly, I read and read and read. I tried to learn everything possible about anything concerning our motors. Once I had talked to enough people and gained enough knowledge, I took the plunge and wrote my first email to Lance at Abbott Racing Heads.
I asked one or two questions about the stage 3 heads, and before I knew it I ended up with a set of heads and ported intakes. My next move was to acquire a cam, for this I went with Stattama stage 3 turbo cam (don’t know why I didn’t go with the stage 4 right off the bat.) I also bought 65lb fuel injectors, double roller timing chain, 1.7 comp cam pro mag roller rockers, hardened push rods, and a complete gasket kit for the build. It was at this time I also bought Jessie (Radcat’s) turbo system (the first one ever built by FFF.) Now at this time my knowledge of the motor was just that….knowledge, I had never actually torn into one. So I sought out someone to do the head, cam and turbo swap for me. I came across a guy who built GN’s basically for a living. He gave me an awesome quote for the work, but when my cylinder heads came in…all my calls went unanswered. I sat at work one night and just said “**** it, I can do this ****.” So that night I called up Tim and we began tearing down the car of the swap.
First of all what a pain in the ***, we were very unfamiliar with the motor at this time and were lost for a start….After a day or 2 of work we had removed the throttle body, upper intake, fuel rail. The most major set back during this first build was the engine removal bracket on the passenger side rear of the motor. We struggled with this single bracket forever (two days.) Finally got this bracket off and continued onwards. From here on out the rest of the build went pretty smooth for the most part, got the heads off in a timely manner, removed crank bolt, front cover, cam bolt, plate etc. We had the car up and running in just a little over a week, which for someone who at the most has done oil and intake, I was pretty impressed. The car ran great, the head and cam package made such a difference it was unbelievable. The first thing I noticed was that on the launch, my wheels practically wanted to hop right off of the car. The car shook so bad, that anything I had tucked into my visor spilled out. It was a this time I did, Edlebrock torque arm, AMI Lca’s, panhard, and KYB AGX adjustable with a new set of Sumituma hhrt4 wheels to go with it. The car gripped awesome after this, with the addition of the MSD DIS 4, and a few other small odds and ends, I drove the car for just about 2,000 miles.
It was now September and there were plenty of friends itching to go the track. Seeing as how I was going to be putting the turbo kit in within the next few weeks, I figured it would be a good idea to try to get a baseline to where my car was just heads, cam, and ported intakes. In my first run ever, I did no burnt out, just went straight up to the line against a moded srt4 none the less I figured I would take him. Now in the mean time I had done just a bit of tuning, messed with my advance, adjusted shift points, etc. I believe at the time I was shifting around 6300 rpms. Anyways, the tree goes down and we take off, I had him real well off the line with a 2.0xx 60’…..as the car was ready to make its shift out of second (or should have been) I noticed it really start to lag. The car made it up to 6,500 rpms, before I had to let off so the car would shift. Hit second, and got back on it, still noticing a complete lack of power. As the car was coming up on 6300 rpms again from the 2-3 shift I noticed the same thing start to happen, again, I had to let off to allow the car to make the shift. Well at this point clearly I was worried, the car lagged really bad, didn’t shift…..but none the less ran a 15.3. I pulled it over after the race and started to hear the beginning of what I can only describe as a high pitched metal on metal pinging noise. Instantly I shut the car off and went to check the oil level. Of course the car was hot as hell, and with the crappy dipstick, I could not get an accurate reading. I figured it best to just add oil, and retune. I added 1.5 qrts, took my advance WAY the hell down, and adjusted all **** points to 4000 rpms. Well the car lasted for a week until it finally gave out on me and spun a bearing and seized up.
It was at this point I decided I wasn’t really that pissed, I wanted a motor making 8.5:1 compression anyways, and unless I gutted the L36 it wasn’t gonna happen. I got back on the phones and called Ed Morad, a large supplier to the GTP guys, cause I had this crazy idea of dropping in a L32 (04-05 gtp motor, 3800 series 3, 8.5:1 compression, forged connecting rods.) I picked up an L32 with only 13,000 miles on it. While the motor was still on the crate I installed the new Stattama stage 4 turbo cam, and oer lifters. Also now I had done some talking to Tiago at force fed fabs, and had decided to go with a forward sweeping header setup in favor of the under the K turbo kit I already had. We raced through the tear down, and had the motor out of the car within like a week or so, it pretty much all went off without a hitch. We removed the entire top end of the motor, and took both the motor and tranny at once……that would be exactly where my luck would take a horrible turn. Well after getting the motor and tranny out, the car sat for about 2 weeks until I could find help to start putting it back in. Well then after 2 weeks I decided I wanted to do stall converter, so I emailed Fuddle racing for a 3800 stall…..and I ended up going with a 4000. Ok so got the converter was completely unaware at the time of how to install one correctly. At this time I had a full tranny build kit that I planned on using. It was supposed to re-enforce the transmission up to 500 hp 600 ft-lb tq. Anyways, I didn’t have the time to take the tranny to a shop and have it built with this kit. The plan was to just put it back in as is, and then worry about having it dropped out and built at a later date. In the process of mating the tranny to the motor, we noticed nothing was lining up right, we even heard a snap all of a sudden…..bottom line something was wrong. Upon further research, I realized I had put the converter on incorrectly (by putting it on the flex plate, rather than sliding it on the transmission first.) It was a complete Noob mistake, but in the end I more than likely had broken my transmission pump. Well now the dilemma, get a new tranny pump, and take it to a shop with the build kit…..or….contact this new company named performabuilt transmission and look
Well per request I will document the procedures I went thru, parts, labor, etc to the best of my knowledge. Let’s start in June of 06’. Well up to this point I had done a lot of supporting mods and did not have a vast understanding of motors, inner workings, etc. So at this point I had done SLP ram air, MSD coils, took it to a shop for Pacesetters and Magnaflow…that was about it. Well one of my friends, Tim (blown00) was in the market for a new car and ended up getting a GTP. Needless to say the GTP shut me down big time and that’s when I decided to make to the move to start going turbo. Shortly after being dealt this loss I began talking to many people, signed up on this very forum, and started parts acquiring. But most importantly, I read and read and read. I tried to learn everything possible about anything concerning our motors. Once I had talked to enough people and gained enough knowledge, I took the plunge and wrote my first email to Lance at Abbott Racing Heads.
I asked one or two questions about the stage 3 heads, and before I knew it I ended up with a set of heads and ported intakes. My next move was to acquire a cam, for this I went with Stattama stage 3 turbo cam (don’t know why I didn’t go with the stage 4 right off the bat.) I also bought 65lb fuel injectors, double roller timing chain, 1.7 comp cam pro mag roller rockers, hardened push rods, and a complete gasket kit for the build. It was at this time I also bought Jessie (Radcat’s) turbo system (the first one ever built by FFF.) Now at this time my knowledge of the motor was just that….knowledge, I had never actually torn into one. So I sought out someone to do the head, cam and turbo swap for me. I came across a guy who built GN’s basically for a living. He gave me an awesome quote for the work, but when my cylinder heads came in…all my calls went unanswered. I sat at work one night and just said “**** it, I can do this ****.” So that night I called up Tim and we began tearing down the car of the swap.
First of all what a pain in the ***, we were very unfamiliar with the motor at this time and were lost for a start….After a day or 2 of work we had removed the throttle body, upper intake, fuel rail. The most major set back during this first build was the engine removal bracket on the passenger side rear of the motor. We struggled with this single bracket forever (two days.) Finally got this bracket off and continued onwards. From here on out the rest of the build went pretty smooth for the most part, got the heads off in a timely manner, removed crank bolt, front cover, cam bolt, plate etc. We had the car up and running in just a little over a week, which for someone who at the most has done oil and intake, I was pretty impressed. The car ran great, the head and cam package made such a difference it was unbelievable. The first thing I noticed was that on the launch, my wheels practically wanted to hop right off of the car. The car shook so bad, that anything I had tucked into my visor spilled out. It was a this time I did, Edlebrock torque arm, AMI Lca’s, panhard, and KYB AGX adjustable with a new set of Sumituma hhrt4 wheels to go with it. The car gripped awesome after this, with the addition of the MSD DIS 4, and a few other small odds and ends, I drove the car for just about 2,000 miles.
It was now September and there were plenty of friends itching to go the track. Seeing as how I was going to be putting the turbo kit in within the next few weeks, I figured it would be a good idea to try to get a baseline to where my car was just heads, cam, and ported intakes. In my first run ever, I did no burnt out, just went straight up to the line against a moded srt4 none the less I figured I would take him. Now in the mean time I had done just a bit of tuning, messed with my advance, adjusted shift points, etc. I believe at the time I was shifting around 6300 rpms. Anyways, the tree goes down and we take off, I had him real well off the line with a 2.0xx 60’…..as the car was ready to make its shift out of second (or should have been) I noticed it really start to lag. The car made it up to 6,500 rpms, before I had to let off so the car would shift. Hit second, and got back on it, still noticing a complete lack of power. As the car was coming up on 6300 rpms again from the 2-3 shift I noticed the same thing start to happen, again, I had to let off to allow the car to make the shift. Well at this point clearly I was worried, the car lagged really bad, didn’t shift…..but none the less ran a 15.3. I pulled it over after the race and started to hear the beginning of what I can only describe as a high pitched metal on metal pinging noise. Instantly I shut the car off and went to check the oil level. Of course the car was hot as hell, and with the crappy dipstick, I could not get an accurate reading. I figured it best to just add oil, and retune. I added 1.5 qrts, took my advance WAY the hell down, and adjusted all **** points to 4000 rpms. Well the car lasted for a week until it finally gave out on me and spun a bearing and seized up.
It was at this point I decided I wasn’t really that pissed, I wanted a motor making 8.5:1 compression anyways, and unless I gutted the L36 it wasn’t gonna happen. I got back on the phones and called Ed Morad, a large supplier to the GTP guys, cause I had this crazy idea of dropping in a L32 (04-05 gtp motor, 3800 series 3, 8.5:1 compression, forged connecting rods.) I picked up an L32 with only 13,000 miles on it. While the motor was still on the crate I installed the new Stattama stage 4 turbo cam, and oer lifters. Also now I had done some talking to Tiago at force fed fabs, and had decided to go with a forward sweeping header setup in favor of the under the K turbo kit I already had. We raced through the tear down, and had the motor out of the car within like a week or so, it pretty much all went off without a hitch. We removed the entire top end of the motor, and took both the motor and tranny at once……that would be exactly where my luck would take a horrible turn. Well after getting the motor and tranny out, the car sat for about 2 weeks until I could find help to start putting it back in. Well then after 2 weeks I decided I wanted to do stall converter, so I emailed Fuddle racing for a 3800 stall…..and I ended up going with a 4000. Ok so got the converter was completely unaware at the time of how to install one correctly. At this time I had a full tranny build kit that I planned on using. It was supposed to re-enforce the transmission up to 500 hp 600 ft-lb tq. Anyways, I didn’t have the time to take the tranny to a shop and have it built with this kit. The plan was to just put it back in as is, and then worry about having it dropped out and built at a later date. In the process of mating the tranny to the motor, we noticed nothing was lining up right, we even heard a snap all of a sudden…..bottom line something was wrong. Upon further research, I realized I had put the converter on incorrectly (by putting it on the flex plate, rather than sliding it on the transmission first.) It was a complete Noob mistake, but in the end I more than likely had broken my transmission pump. Well now the dilemma, get a new tranny pump, and take it to a shop with the build kit…..or….contact this new company named performabuilt transmission and look
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