Project: LS1 Chevette

[romulus22]

I think with a little more tuning with the tires/engine/trans it has the capability to be a low 11.3 to 11.2 car as it sits. But........ I've already worked out a sweet deal on getting my longblock rebuilt. More details will follow about that later. Just need to pull it into the garage and start pulling the engine out.

Also need to replace my windshield and I was given my warning about needing a roll bar. So that's also on the list for next time out.

I'm happy with the car. It's exactly as I hoped it'd be. Well, I wish the drivers fender and rear bumper weren't so bent up. But it adds to the beater-ness of the car.

[romulus22]

Get out of here stock engine, you're too slow

[OUTLAWD]

And as far as the DA goes, I've heard the term but have no idea what it is or what it does.

I was trying to explain it, but Wikipedia does a better job...haha

Density Altitude: the altitude relative to the standard atmosphere conditions at which the air density would be equal to the indicated air density at the place of observation. In other words, density altitude is air density given as a height above mean sea level. "Density altitude" can also be considered to be the pressure altitude adjusted for non-standard temperature.

basically the lower the DA, the "better" the air, or more dense the air should be, Depending on the car, the DA can largely affect the power. From a hot summer day to a cool fall night, I can see 0.1-0.3 difference in ET with my street car.

[romulus22]

Makes sense. I've never really considered that into my times. While the weather was really good for max HP. I think the track was still a little worse for wear. They actually moved it from sat to sun as it rained all day the fri before. And it was still in the 40's. It definitely improved as the day went on. But it could've been better too.

Either way I'm excited for 10's next time out

[romulus22]

Might as well picture update this one last time before my Photobucket account goes down.

Engine is almost done so I'm tidying up the small things.

I cleaned and and made a removable core support/ radiator mount. Then added alum hood pins to hold the hood down.




Then I cleaned up my harness. Not perfect but worlds better than it was. Also you can see some of the nose job weight reduction I did.




Then I purchased some new wheels to get rid of the cheap non balancing steel wheels I was using. Between the front wheels and the weight reduction off the nose and front sway bar. I've removed 48 lbs from the front end alone. The street rear wheels are still in the mail. There was an error in shipping so I had to return the wrong ones but the street wheels are the same weld wheels but they are now 15"x8" running a Hoosier 225 drag radial.



Lastly I mounted up a seat so my tuner won't have to sit on the floor again.




The engine should be done soon. Along with all the new gaskets, seals, bearings. I'm running PRC stage 2.5 heads, Brian Tooley Racing stage 3 Cam, and a Fast 102 intake with 102 throttle body. I'm hoping for 450 whp but time will tell.

[RC10th]

Looks good, I can't wait for a new video will your old exhaust flow enough with the new engine?

[romulus22]

I think I will always have a restrictive exhaust due to not having ample room for good flowing headers. But I did purchase a bunch more pipe and some V-bands to re design my headers so they should be "less restrictive" than they are now. But truthfully without doing back to back test on headers before and after I'll never know how restrictive they are. If I go turbo down the road the exhaust will be no problem.

[jwscab]

i don't think exhaust will really be much of an issue on the car. ridiculously fast plus or minus a couple tenths doesn't matter much unless you are competing......

[romulus22]

I'm not a fan of bracket racing of dial in racing where you're basically racing the tree and yourself. But I wouldn't mind running some heads up classes just for fun.

And as for the exhaust. 450 hp is still a relatively low number. If it was a big cube 600+ hp engine then the headers would really start to show their limits. As with anything I'm looking to squeeze every tenth out of the car I can. The biggest reason I pulled the engine so quickly is how fast the oil was finding its way out of the engine. Since the engine was out I figured now would be the wisest time to upgrade.

[romulus22]

I'm going to try out this picture re-sizer app and uploading the pictures to this site. I'm only viewing from my phone so let me know if the size is too big or small viewing from a computer and I'll try to adjust accordingly.


While I was looking at the general rules per times I mistakenly thought I needed a battery disconnect. Either way I now have one for when I break into the 9's. I found out one of those cheap hand brake tubing benders make great large gauge crimpers. I've added a rubber grommet since the picture so it wouldn't rattle too.

[RC10resto]

Pic size looks good, takes up about half the width of the page on my desktop.
Just lost my Photobucket links today

[jwscab]

Yeah keep those settings, fits the page nicely on a cell phone.

[romulus22]

Cool, thanks guys.

[romulus22]

Engine is back. Won't be long now.

[Diamond Dave]