Turbo Pig
05-10-2012, 09:06 PM
I bought a 418 LS3 with a baby cam in about 2 months ago... Got it shipped to me and ran into an immediate small problem.. No biggie.. There was corrosion on a harness to the throttle body, so it was going into limp mode... I sent it to Mayhem Motorsports to fix it..
They fixed that and got it running nicely, then I said go ahead and dyno and tune it, might as well make sure it's all good... Well, that's where my journey really starts... I knew the claims from the original owner was off... He was claiming 522 rwhp from the 418 with mild ported heads, Fast 102, and a very small cam for that cubes... My buddy has an c6Z with a big cam and mild porting that made 525 rwhp so smaller cubes and smaller cam going through my gforce 9" I expect 500 ish...
Well, it made 440 and I almost died... They tuned it up to 452 and said the compression tests were not real bad and it was running... We talked it over and decided to yank the heads off...
Bingo... There was just bad work on the heads... The heads them self were fine, but they sanced? or something I hadn't heard of.. Basically the wrong length valves made to work... The wrong locking springs were used... They were trimmed back so far that all the harden parts were gone on some... The valves were mushroomed and it was EXTREMELY obvious that oil was getting through and it was losing compression with what we saw.. So I clean up the heads and was going to send them off to TEA to get them ready for proper valves and springs...
Then Mayhem found me a nice reasonably priced option... I got GM performance heads and kept my baby cam for now... Got new valves and springs and built a new CAI...
Mayhem worked their magic and got me back over 500 rwhp... Those guys were awesome and helped save me from getting screwed over... It's obvious that the guy who sold me them car knew it was burning oil and down on power, but that's all water under the bridge... I've got my 500+ rwhp LS3 418, 9" rear and axles and drive shaft, racing wheels, full coilover, etc etc etc running right...
I will pick it up tomorrow and get some pics this weekend...
Here's the cam btw...
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a375/silver2000svt/049f67fd.jpg
I'm happy as crap to go pick up my car!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They fixed that and got it running nicely, then I said go ahead and dyno and tune it, might as well make sure it's all good... Well, that's where my journey really starts... I knew the claims from the original owner was off... He was claiming 522 rwhp from the 418 with mild ported heads, Fast 102, and a very small cam for that cubes... My buddy has an c6Z with a big cam and mild porting that made 525 rwhp so smaller cubes and smaller cam going through my gforce 9" I expect 500 ish...
Well, it made 440 and I almost died... They tuned it up to 452 and said the compression tests were not real bad and it was running... We talked it over and decided to yank the heads off...
Bingo... There was just bad work on the heads... The heads them self were fine, but they sanced? or something I hadn't heard of.. Basically the wrong length valves made to work... The wrong locking springs were used... They were trimmed back so far that all the harden parts were gone on some... The valves were mushroomed and it was EXTREMELY obvious that oil was getting through and it was losing compression with what we saw.. So I clean up the heads and was going to send them off to TEA to get them ready for proper valves and springs...
Then Mayhem found me a nice reasonably priced option... I got GM performance heads and kept my baby cam for now... Got new valves and springs and built a new CAI...
Mayhem worked their magic and got me back over 500 rwhp... Those guys were awesome and helped save me from getting screwed over... It's obvious that the guy who sold me them car knew it was burning oil and down on power, but that's all water under the bridge... I've got my 500+ rwhp LS3 418, 9" rear and axles and drive shaft, racing wheels, full coilover, etc etc etc running right...
I will pick it up tomorrow and get some pics this weekend...
Here's the cam btw...
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a375/silver2000svt/049f67fd.jpg
I'm happy as crap to go pick up my car!!!!!!!!!!!!!!