desperado

He's right, newer motors with knock sensors will pull timing to get rid of the pinging that you experience from poor gas. If this is a computer EFI motor, you don't need to worry about it too much. But if it's a carbed motor with regular electronic ignition then it can be a problem. There are ways of dealing with it though, but some are better than others. First thing that you can do is get an MSD ignition box with variable timing, this puts the timing on a knob in the drivers compartment. If you get some pinging, back off the timing to get rid of it. Another cheaper way of doing it is to run a bit less initial timing, which is wat the timing is with the vacuum advance disconnected. Then bring the timing advance slower as the RPM's rise. This requires stiffer mechanical advance springs in the distributor, and get an adjustable vaccum advance unit to also customize the timing curve. And learn to either read spark plugs or buy a bore scope so that you can look at the heads of the pistons. There are distintictive marks that show up on the piston tops if you are experiencing detonation. And detonation is BAD. The other reason to do this is that a hot motor, with headers and flowmasters or what ever is typically loud, sometimes too loud to head the detonation occuring. There are also kits that put a knock sensor in the motor that was not originally equipt with them but it feeds a gauge, not an ignition computer to pull the timing out so you have to be aware taht its' occuring and get out of it before you screw up the motor.

I am sorry man, but you got owned big. I have no idea if you are into that or not and don't care. But that was too funny. As far as cops with their lights off. If they are running radar and pull you over it's entrapment in Ohio. They HAVE TO have their lights on. The silly local yocal in Johnstown tend to try to get away with this here lately, and since I know what he's up to I make it a point to pull over where he's at and ask him if he needs a ride back to the station. And make some off handed comment about I know that you would NEVER run traffic without your car legally iluminated as that is aginast the law and you being a really honest and upstanding officer of the law would never knowingly break the law. Of course it's said really smartassed too. This typically get s me a dirty look and followed through town. But what the hell. I have now resorted to calling the police station and reporting a broke down police crusier.

as far as why that car will not turn over, chances are that either the motor is froze up from all the gas thinning old the oil, or there is so much gas in the cylinders that it's hydralocking. Gas, like all other liquids, can not be compressed. and it there is a large amount in the cylinders then the motor can't turn over bacause the gas is stopping the pistons from coming up. While this sounds really odd, try taking the spark plugs out of the motor and turning it over, but make sure that you ground the plugs or if I am right you counld end up pumping a bunch of gas out only to have it ignite and turn your car into a really hot ride, litterally. But taht is worth a try.

Yeah, but if you don't put a GOOD tranny cooler on it, you will be doing this swap the transmision thing real quick.

What is ALOT of horsepower????? That is a loaded question. Also what is the application, is it in a really light race car or a truck with 35's on it

700R4 They are not a bad tranny, as long as it's not a diesel engine, the tranny's are plentiful in wrecking yards so I would jump on it.

Try to dissconnect the tempature sensor on the thermostat housing, this will put the motor a default setting. See if it starts then. What happens at times is that the sensor gets out of calabration so to speak. And it leans out the motor thinking it's hot when it ain't

I think that Kenny Whimer is still out in Heath. Whimers Cycle. Curious, what is it that you are looking for???

That I didn't know... Thanks for the info.

While you might think this as far as NOS, they have been in business for a long time and deal with all markets from little import power adders like wqhat we are talking about here to 1000+ HP systems that a custom one offs. Experience rules. My sugestion for what it's worth is call all three, tell em what you got as far as motor and the mods to it. See what the support people are like and what they have to say in general. Then you will know who you will want to talk to later when you want more power and what it will take to get it, or if you have installation or support questions.

I would have to agree, once you disconnect the MAP sensor, you put the computer into an open loop, it knows that something is wrong and goes to the factory presets on all sensors. My sujestion is hit the AutoZone, or the car parts place you like and buy a Haynes manual for the car. It will tell you how to pull the codes. And the codes will tell you what sensor is really acting up. Before pulling the codes though. Discconnect the battery for 30 min to clear the computer and then start up the car and let it warmup. Reason it that you WILL get a MAP sensor failure due to you haveing ti disconnected while it was running. That may mask the other problems.

From what I have heard and read. The ceramic piston top coatings will have some effect with keeping the temp of the piston down. But it's something that is going to make an additional 5 hp maybe 10. So if you are building a balls to the wall racing engine do it. If you are building a street motor that's gonna run pump gas. You are only going to end up getting a layer of carbon over top the ceramic and it not doing any good. This is from the stuff I have read mind you not actual experience so you make your own desision of course but I figured that I would pass this along. BTW, this coating is layed on the piston at a very high temp.. And doing it yourself may not be the best option. It's sort of like teflon in slick50. there is NO WAY that engine tempatures reach the point that anything is going to "bond" to the metal. The fact is that 75% of the teflon in that additive ends up in the oil filter within 10 minutes of firing it up. There have been a few cases of airplanes engines locking up and causing the plane to crash, and the FAA found that the oil filters on these planes had clogged with teflon (air plane motors do not have pressure bypasses for clogged oil filters like factory cars do). Do some research on the web and you'll find out about this. There are other superlubricants in most additives and they do reduce friction, but if it says bonds to metal don't believe it. Take a look here PTFE Stuff Teflon coatings on pistons however are form what I hear are reasonable for a street motor and are not so expensive, in fact SpeedPro offers several of there pistons with the coating, again if you try to do it yourself. If you get it to bond, the pistons will need to first need to be machined down the thickness of the coating, then remachined and polished to take off any high spots of the coatings. Here again, don't bother trying it yourself. It's not cheaper, the chemicals might be, but having piston walls machined is no cheap endeavor. [ 01. October 2003, 08:52 AM: Message edited by: Desperado ]

This may sound stupid... but are you sure that you got the right part. I have worked on several vehicles that the pivot pin had several sizes that it could be. Alot of the auto zone guys will hand you the fisrt part number they come to. This may be the case. You said it was a GTA right, those had an upgraded front suspension from factory and yo might have the wrong part, also you need to remember that chevy will rob peter to pay paul. If they were running GTA's that day and ran out of spindles, beleve me that you might have got stock spindles on that car even thought the car is SUPPOSE to have the upgraded spindles.

From what I know about it (not alot) it's pretty much the same other than you can go to 35 psi boost without problems, the detonation factor is much higher.

As far as turboing a motor. A couple of sugestions. First is to get two books, thefirst being turbocharging from HP books. Jegs sells this or I can get you a link to it on amazon.com, let me know if you need that. Second book is not something that you so much need to buy as just finding a copy and looking at it. It's the lingenfelter small block book. In it he specifically talks about a 600HP 406 that has good street manors and big block torque. The easiest route to go with a turbo or a centrifical (sp) supercharger like a Paxton is an EFI motor. Reason is this. There are three types of carb setups. Draw through setups that have fuel and air in the turbo, the carb sits before the turbo. These are the least desirable. The other two are blow through designs, the air if forced through the carb. Each has it's limitations. there is the bonnet design where air is forced through the center of the carb. This design has issues with fuel leakage due to the outside of the carb not being under pressure while the inside is. Forcing fuel from any and all unsealed areas of teh carb. Fuel bowls, throttle plate shafts, vacuum line connectors and and body seals. There is a real need for either new carb, or a special (expensive) carb with shaft seals and other mods to keep the fuel in the carb and not all over the motor. The second is the box design. Where a sealed box with a hole in the bottom encases the entire carb. This is preferred as the carb is not subjected to pressure on just the inside, but instead the entire carb is pressurized both inside and out. This eliminates the fuel metering issue with the other design, as well the carb doesn't try to leak air and fuel from every seal either. The last issue with turboing a carb setup is that fuel pressures from the pump are 5 to 7 PSI. When you presureize the floatbowls, you can only get away with 3 or 4 lb of boost before the fuel stops flowing. By 5 lb the fuel pump can not overcome the air pressure in the floats and they go dry. So a special fuel regulator is required to increase the fuel pressure when the boost goes up. This is the one of the reasons for going with a EFI motor. FI pressures are 30 lbs of better. So unless you are going way up in the boost, there is no need to increase the fuel pressure. plumbing is also much easier, with a LT1 or any multiport system, the boosted air flow can just be crammed into the air intake infront of the throttle body, and a bonnet system can be used for a single port system. As far as twin turbos, while this is the high power setup, it's also the high cost setup. It depends on what you what want to build. Is this going to be a street dominator car with 400 HP. Or a hold on to your lugnutz, make dogs vomit 3 blocks away mill that will melt 18 inch slicks, while it twists the front subframe out of the unibody kind of thing. That is someting that needs to be desided up front, because like any motor, all desisions are made in reguards to that. Wastegates are also sort of optional. With the proper setup, the boost will peak at the sweet spot of the motor. The problem iwth this is typically you need a larger turbo to pull this off with a slightly higher A/R ratio on the compressor side, and this will kill low end boost. The way around this is actually simpler than one might think. You simply spray the motor from off idle with a small shot, say 50 HP, then you put a pressure switch in the manifold, so that when the boost gets to a certian level, the spray goes away. It takes some level of tuning to ge this just right so an adjustable switch is desirable here. Now this stuff really applys to a twin hairdryer system, that is boosting to the 20+ psi level. Read that doggie hurl power. Manifolds, this is with a CHevy motor made simple because you can turn them over and install them upside down and backwards with little modification. You just cut the regular ends off and weld on the fabricated turbo plumbing. And doing a single setup is also made easy because the crossover can be made in the front of the motor and not need to be routed from the back. Have fun with your project and keep us informed.

Good article. As far as the paying attention to the road and watching it. This is something that we should all do anyway even when not speeding. I got hit in the ass last week on 71 because the girl behind me was not paying attention when we came up Frank road and the traffic was stopped. I had less time to stop than she did. (Force of habit, I always look in my rear view mirror when braking real hard to see it coming, been hit to may times.) I got stopped, whith about 30 feet to spare and was able to get back in the gas before getting hit to minimize the impact and still got stopped after being hit. I had 100 feet, she had 250 or better and I got hit. So always pay attention. Watch the cars way in front of you, not just the guy in the next car. This will also keep you out of alot of panic stops and possibley keep you from rear ending the guy in front of you when he panic stops because he's not paying attention. As far as brakes, cops watch for brake lights, even if you are not really speeding or they haven't clocked you. If you jump in the brakes, they watch for the brake lights and also for the car to nose dive. It's sort or like seeing a cop car's lights come on and punching it. It's a dead give away that you knew you were speeding and they will get after you every time. Connecting a momentary switch to the brake lights is one option, it needs to be one that when you push it, it opens the circuit, not closes it. The reason for it being momentary is that forgetting it's off is a sure bet for a no brake light ticket or worse yet getting rear ended. Just hit the button as you are braking, make sure that there is no one behind you close or you will get hit. This also will pass the blame on to the guy behind you. You aren't slowing down, according to your brake lights, but he closing the gap, he must have been the one speeding, and make sure to say that if you get pulled over. By your brake lights not coming on the cop will see this. It can work. If you see a cop, and there is no one in front of you. Make sure to make eye contact with him and wave, act friendly, and not guilty They will have a tendency to go after people that know they are speeding. So DON"T SLOW DOWN if you are being clocked. Just smile and wave. The cop will think that you really have no clue how fast you are going. This has worked several times for me. If you get pulled over, say I had no idea, or if you are running on non stock wheel and tires, say that you put them on receintly and you knew that they would put your speedo off some but you had no idea how far they would put it off. And start saying you are sorry and that the rules are rules. You were speeding and have it coming. And that at least now you know that the tires really screw with the speedo. This can convince the cop that you had no idea. I have used this and ended up with a license plate light ticket over it, because the officer knew that I didn't know I was that far off, which in my case was true. I know I sound like your dad, and you all already know this stuff, but it's just a reminder. So that we can all stay safe and keep not only our money in our pockets to buy car stuff, but to keep our cars from being wrecked.

I am in agreement that you are not suppost to cover the breathers. Unless you have a PCV system on the motor. If the car sat for seven years was it started from time to time or did it just set. Reason I ask is that the cylender walls could have easily rusted, bothe above and below the pistons, and when you started it it would have eated the rings up real quick. Actually as I am sitting here thinking about it more. I figure that is what is going on. When I hear blowby I thing combustion gasses blowing down past the rings. And coming out he breathers. If you cover then and has a PCV system, the inside of the engine will go into a vacuum state, which is what it should to except if your rings are hosed then the vacuum will help even more gasses get by. I assume that the car is smoking from the exhaust. But specifically when. At startup, and after idleing for a time. Like at a light. Or does it smoke all the time? Knowing this would help to better understand the problem.

Those are all good things to check. Something else to look at too. See if there is any rubber line in the fuel line from that tank to the pump. I had an Opel that would "run out of gas" three miles for a gas station where I had filled it up. Found out it had a fuel line that thegas had softened to the point it would suck shut and starve the engine. I would also try siphoning out as much ov the old fuel as possible and then filling up with a full tank of premium and a bottle of dry gas or two. Dry Gas is just ethanol so it's not going to hurt anything to put two bottles in even if it says not to. Just don't put ANY Fuel system cleaner in it. That stuff has a strange way of loosining up every last piece of dirt in the whole system and depositing it in your fuel filter and carb.

Cleaned out huh. What a goof, I bet you all bury the survivors of a plane crash too right??? PM me for the whole story on that.

If you are talking about the module in the optispark burning up, it could be that the coil has a few shorted turns and it is overloading the module. You would still have spark in this situation and the car would run until the unit burnt out. I would have the coil tested (and testing it with an OHM meter, even a digital, is not a good test. The resistance of a primary winding on a coil is normally to low to be acurately tested with a regular meter), or better yet, if you have a buddy with a similar setup you might try borrowing a coil and testing, but with that I am not sure how how long it is taking it to fry. You may also consider just replacing the coil. I am not aware of the price of these coils, but if it's not silly expensive, I would go that route to be safe. Another consideration is have you changed to some aftermarket coil? Reason I ask this is some of the hipo coils have a very low primary resistance (low number of primary turns) if this is the case,you may have selected a coil that requires more power to fire than the optispark module can handle. Here too, it will work for a little while, then it burns out. I would also go over as much wiring harness as possible, wiring can fray and cause interminet shorts that can fry stuff but once you are sitting still measure out correctly. This is sort of like MSD coils, you can take an MSD Blaster coil, and run it with a pretty much stock ignition. But a Pro Power drag coil requires so much power that it will cook an MSD 6 box and pretty much any stock ignition. They sujest a minimum or an MSD 7 series box for this reason. Disclaimer: I have not actually ever worked with Opti Spark systems, just alot of other stuff and I have run into these problems with other systems in the past, so this may help and it may not, but either way, it applys to most anything out there in ignitions, including DIS, HEI, most all stock "electronic" ignitions and even points, although points will tend to either weld together or pit badly with an improper coil or a coil with shorted windings. Hope you find this informative and helpful.

Yes, they can and do clock ppl. One of the old tricks CPD played alot in the past before laser radar was to run a car down the road with a radar gun running. You would slow down because your radar detector was going nuts then speed up once past him. Thena cruiser that was 500 yards back would pop you with instant on radar. They causght a TON of people that way.