- Two and a half years in the making, but I FINALLY got to put the Camaro on a chassis dyno today and make some runs! Actually, I had it on the dyno the first time about 2 weeks ago, but I've had to do some work to get it where it should have been to brag about it here. ;)
- In the above picture, take a look at the red line. That was the best of my runs from my first dyno trip. The car made a best corrected 426 rwhp. While nothing to sneeze at, I KNEW the car had more power in it. While watching the runs, my fears were realized as I watched the fuel pressure as the RPMs increased. My 45psi fuel pressure dropped to about 20psi over 5000rpm or so. UGH!
- Time for a new fuel pump... Now, when I purchased my EXPENSIVE Rock Valley fuel tank, I paid an extra $100 to 'upgrade' the intake pump to one which supposedly supports 700HP. Ha! I'm not close to that, but my fuel pressure sure dropped off anyway. I'm NOT happy about this, and a phone call to Rock Valley was fruitless...
- It just so happened that a local car guy had a brand new Aeromotive pump for sale, so I picked it up. After a frantic search for the necessary fittings to attach the lines, I started the process of dropping the Rock Valley tank (MAJOR PITA, btw...), and installing the new lines. I ended up using -8AN lines from the tank to the new pump, -8 lines from the pump to my filter, and I left the original -6AN lines from the filter to the fuel rails and back again. I did this simply because I couldn't find the fittings to attach the -6 lines directly to the new pump. It worked out fine though...
- I have to say this... This new pump is LOUD!!! I mean, LOUD! I don't like it, honestly, and I'm going to try to quiet it down some as best I can. But, it definitely is doing the job now. I could tell on my first drive that the car majorly picked up in the upper rpms. I had to retune my fuel maps at WOT, but that's ok. It's worth the trouble. :)
- Once I had the maps tuned, it was time to revisit the dyno. That was today, and you can see the results above on the blue line. :) 452 rwhp and 396 ft-lb of torque. While not exactly what I was hoping for, those are very good numbers, and they WILL get better. :) At the moment, I am runnning straight 50W oil in the car (I was using this to diagnose my oil smoke problems), and I also have over 7 quarts in it (so I'm sure the crank is sloshing through it as it spins). I plan to run a 10-30W semi-synthetic and lower the level somewhat, which should pick up a few more horsepower as well...
- The amazing this to me was how little the curves changed as I adjusted on the FAST ECU settings. I took out a LOT of fuel, and played with the timing quite a bit today, and the overall difference from best run to worst run was only 10 rwhp. I would have thought that major timing or fuel changes would have affected it a lot more, but surprisingly not. That's ok, it means I should be pretty safe with my current settings. :) I'm happy with that...
- I'll get back to the dyno before too long after changing the oil and breaking in the motor some more for new numbers. I'll post them here once I have time to do that.
