Ever get tired of the feeling that you could lose, or that you cant race that person, because you would undoubtedly lose? I hate that feeling. I haven't lost yet, and i never want to. I feel i owe it to the people who made these cars this damn good to do the best i can with it. What can i do with $1000 to drop my time to low 11's? I run 12.8's right now. I have 36lb injectors, ported intercooler and turbo, southside traction bars, competition engineering 3-way adjustable shocks, red armstrong 108 chip, ATR pitbull street chip (oddly the street chip seems faster), and taylor spiro 109 wires. I am willing to do nitrous if it is safe enough for the car. Also, is scantool worth the money? Please let me know your thoughts.
Well I would say go to a bigger turbo, probably either a new 50 series or the old trusty 60. Also I would put in a set of either 50lb injectors or the new 57lb ones. Then of course a new chip. The street chip may seem faster because it uses less timing so you can run more boost, but the race chip, when using the correct gas and good tuning, should be a bit faster. Nitrous, IMHO, is a complete waste. I would go for an alky setup as a last resort. You do have good tires right?? If not then you need them, more hp is just going to make you slower if you can't put it to the ground. And a resounding YES!!! A scantool is vital to tuning these cars, without it you're just hunting in the dark. If you don't have good tires and you also have no way of tuning the car, ie scanmaster, then my guess is you haven't even reached the full potential of your car in its current configuration. The 36lbers are said to be good into the high 11s, safely that is and I'm only talking like 11.8 or slower. I would get a scantool first and see where that takes you, you might be really surprised.
If you want to go with a new turbo setup, check out www.aggressiveauto.com for some package specials on turbos right in your price range.
If you want a bunch more turbo, though, you are probably going to need more converter. For now, if you stepped up to a 9" convertor in the 3000 stall range you would see a huge gain in your et's (I would think low 12's but probably not 11's though others may disagree). Plus, your car would be better set up for a bigger turbo in the future.
I would go converter first, though, unless you have the money to do it all at once (turbo, injectors, chip, and converter). Doing it all with a TE63 or so would get you into the low 11's.
Geoff
gdouma@comcast.net
This is from the gnttype list:
The same exact setup, minus the south sides, put my GN into the LOW 12's, 12.03 @ 111 was the best. This was on slicks, of course. You MUST
have some type of scan tool, or at least gauges to let you know what's going on. I ran a Cyberdyne A/F meter and a knock box in my first GN, I would consider this bare minimum. Use part of the $1000 and get TurboLink or something. There's a lot more in your car than you're seeing.
Fast Freddie
I'm going to buy a scan tool. What should i look for in price? Also, im running 275/50/15 nitto extreme drag radials. They hook up pretty well, but like to spin a little off the line and 2nd gear.
Low 11s from 12.8s (what MPH??) with $1000, and no scan tool yet? Hmm... and I though I had lofty goals. :-)
A scan tool (data logger), is more than worth the money, it is a necessity. Saw a couple packages on ebay you might be interested in, otherwise, see if Ken @ Turbolink can do something for you (he use to come across cheap laptops), or Bob @ BM Computer Source for a DS package ( http://bmcomputersource.com/store/ ). To help you decide, I wrote this up a while ago, and updated it recenty: http://home.pacbell.net/sfnelson/turbo_regal_scantools.htm
PREsuming you have a boost & FP guage...
DS or TL: $250+, and you need a laptop.
Audible KR alarm: $50
Low -z injectors & Bailey ECM: $500+.
Got Pump? No? $160+ with Hotwire harness.
Your grand is gone. Then the turbo & converter: $1400.
Dean
(The opinions expressed are that of the writer, and are not intended to be representative of the rest of the membership. Opinions are like... well, let's just say everybody has one.)
If you run 12.8's on nittos, you could probably run a low 12 on just ET Streets. As far as scan tools, if you don't have a laptop, the Scanmaster works really good. It gives you the sensors you need to tune, plus when you go to WOT, it records your highest knock readin and lowest O2 sensor reading (plus the mph they both occurr at). It's not as good as the laptop stuff, but it is effective for tuning.
I think you could do a converter and a scan tool for $1000 - and you will probably improve a lot.
-Geoff
I would hope you have alot of change left over from that. My tc cost somewhere around $200, maybe $300 at the most, I found a local guy who is very good with them for our cars. His converters are in two other cars I know of that run or ran low 11s, who knows what they do now.
I've heard the Nittos are really good tires, maybe you need to heat them up some more? Ideally you don't want to spin at all, maybe air bags could help as well. Those are about $60-70. I don't think what he's trying to do is that bad, but it will require alot of work tuning and getting the power to the ground. You definitely can't bolt the parts on and *poof*, there's your desired e.t., that would take all the fun out of it.
I know it takes a lot of work to get an engine running perfect. My car has been proven 12.27 with slicks @ 111mph. I run at 104mph at my current times. The nittos are good. Unless i rev up at the line past 3500rpm, i dont really have to worry about a damn thing with them spinning. I would seriously enjoy a torque converter with 3000 stall. I think that would be the best thing for it right now. Everyone tells me that. That and run my induction through the drivers side bright light. I've heard good results, but i dont want to uglify the car.
What is your suggestion? Turbo-Link or Direct Scan? Also, how much memory and how big of a hard drive will i need?
For complete specs on TurboLink, take a look here:
TurboLink Web Site
or
Accelerate Performance Web Site
Recommended set up:
- A decent Pentium II computer of 266-366 MHz (or better ... faster means smoother graphics and quicker load times)
- Serial port or USB port with a USB converter
- 128Mb of RAM
- 200 Mb of free disk space
- Any version of Windows (95/98/2000/NT/XP)
Minium requirements:
- P166 Pentium
- 64Mb RAM
- 125 Mb free disk space
- Any version of Windows (95/98/2000/NT/XP)
We've actually got a few folks running TurboLink on "lesser" machines, but they are patient souls!
Also, v4.0.4 now supports many 3800 vehicles, additional electronic transmission equipped trucks, F-bodies, etc. with unlimited record time (limited only by harddisk space).
Ahh, so your car has been close to the 11's already, course it still takes a good bit of work to get low 11s. I really don't know what the system requirements are for the latest versions, you'd need to check out the links on Dean's page. It's a hard question to answer really. I use TL and I like it alot. The boost sensing is great but with it limited to the ALDL rate, you don't get that many frames and you're looking at going even faster which will mean less frames. The frames on DS are amazing but I don't think it has anything for boost sensing, not to mention it's not plug and play like TL is. It could come down to which one will work on your laptop. If DS has boost on it now, you don't have many passengers or use the car for daily use and/or you have or get an extra ecm, I'd maybe say go with that(sorry Ken) because you are getting into a range where you will want to see as many frames as possible. I only say those extra things about daily use and passengers because of the laptop and the connection with the ecm. I'm not sure entirely how it runs, I believe a connection on the ecm with a ribbon cable to the laptop, which means you'd want your ecm in a very easily accessible position if you use DS alot, and I wouldn't want anybody(unless they are really careful) riding in the passenger seat, I can just see them accidentally kicking the ecm and breaking something. I'd think an extra ecm would be best that way you just unplug the whole thing when you want to take the DS setup out. With TL you just unplug from the ALDL and then your power source(mine is the cig lighter), and you can put the laptop in the backseat if somebody needs a ride, the ecm is safely away where it's always at. But depending on price, you may want to go with TL, especially if you don't see yourself using it that much, it's just plug/unplug. Plus it's easy to swap between cars, if you think that may come up. I would take a good look at the comparisons of the two and just think it over and figure out which will be the best for you. As far as the car goes, if you've been 12.2 with no scantool, it would be interesting to see how much more you could get out of it. I would get a scantool first and then tune the car for awhile and see where you get. Then after you think you've got it dialed in pretty good, ie can't get much more out of it, then I'd look into upgrading. Also by then you might have more money to play with.
I'm still sticking by what I recommended though, that's probably what I'd do if I had the money. The one guy I knew that ran low 11s had the 50lbers and a 60 turbo, I think a homemade 3 inch downpipe and *I think* just a modified neck intercooler, he ran 11.30s. That was with alot of tuning and a nice cool night, on slicks. Good luck.
with DS - you dont need to have your ECM exposed at all. Mine's tucked away in the stock location and you'd never know it was setup with DS. You can tuck the cable under the ECM and the DS box behind the passenger plastic cover under the dash. All you have sticking out is a parallel cable to plug into the laptop - which I tucked under my console and it exits right next to the passenger seat. You dont see anything looking in the car as the cable hides under the passenger seat.
Just wanted to clear that up. I'm a DS-guy myself - never saw a use for boost sensing other than watching the gauge. I prefer the framerate, data fields, and interface over TL, but that's just my opinion.
Thanks Jay, I was hoping somebody who uses DS would verify some of that. I've only seen it used once, maybe twice at the track and they pretty much had it out everywhere. I didn't know the guys or really had much time to talk to them about it.
I would think that too, about just watching the gauge, but I usually find myself looking straight ahead at the track. And you would figure if your boost is stable you wouldn't need to look either but with just quick glances mine would seem okay, until you ran back the files and then I saw I had a boost problem, it was fluctuating....weird huh? I'm waiting on some new parts to hopefully get it fixed, they can't seem to get here fast enough.
Here is the situation for me. I race 1-2 times a month, otherwise my car is garaged except on the weekends, where i take it out and cruise. I dont really have that many passengers with me, ever. Maybe a friend, but no more than one because im paranoid about tire rub. So, having a laptop in the car is no big deal. Which should i get? TL or DS?
Really Adam, that's a question only you can answer. It's like asking if you should get a blonde or brunette.
Atleast you have it narrowed down to just two. And you could always get both. Not sure if they have a 30day money back guarantee or not, and again DS needs some work done for a connection. Either one is a good choice. Keep us posted on the car, I know I'm curious since we've got similar builds and close e.t's. My 12.56 was on recap dot race tires, so who knows what it would have done on slicks. Not to mention the conditions were terrible. Good luck.
I would go with DS.
BTW, the DS program is only 252kb, 104 second 18.2fps data files are 156kb... no "big" hard drive necessary.
Dean