G Atsma

OK, then the RW HP is actually close to accurate.

Woody80z28

Oops. Guess I never posted my pre-race video. haha Working on my drag video right now.


But I did get the throttle body to work better, and I changed the hot air intake to cold air. Had to ditch the Beretta coolant reservoir and get creative with a Saturn one, but it works fine...has the same steam ports and the low coolant light sensor plugs right in.

Woody80z28

Drove this heap to the drag strip, I and got the old man to come with his Roadrunner too. He was diagnosed with liver and pancreatic cancer in August and it's not good. Not good at all. So we're trying to live life to the fullest with the time we have.

His car is a 68 Roadrunner with a 440 4spd. I've driven it and was fairly unimpressed, but I've also been underwhelmed with the 4.8 power, so we figured running them would be fun. He hadn't raced since 2005, and I hadn't since I sold the last Beretta in spring of 2021.


I freakin smoked that junk. And I finally just got my datalogging working - and discovered a spark problem. So I band-aided the tune and gained 8mph the next pass. Felt a lot better! It's still slower than I'd like, but I made a couple changes in the last few days and it's feeling really good now. So I'm gonna take it back next weekend and see if I can squeak 12s out of it. Maybe?

LSswap

Very happy to see you got the father and son thing going.

Woody80z28

Yeah the last time we both went racing together was 2005. Amazing how fast the time goes by...and it's not unlimited.

Jimbo1367

Great job. That’s the way GM should have built them. V8

Woody80z28

My little v6 was still faster so far though. haha

Woody80z28

Changes felt good, and it ran faster. But still couldn't beat the 3400 ET! I did out-trap it by a few MPH though, so it will beat the 3400...but not this year because I went to the last track day of the season. My shocks just aren't controlling the rear axle like they need to, so I'm going to buy double-adjustable Vikings. Won't need much 60' improvement to beat the 13.29. Just a 10th should do it.

So I'm going to hold off on my power upgrade for right now. I want to see what this stock LR4 can do. The goal is still 12sec 1/4 mile and 30mpg highway. 13.45 and 26mpg isn't that far away. I think they are both within reach.

Kinda sad that the weather has changed and I gotta put it away just as I'm getting it dialed in and working AWESOME as a summer beater.

Woody80z28

I bought a new tuning tool: OBDX Pro VX that uses USB cable instead of bluetooth. It's a huge upgrade to the cheap tuning for $80!

Main thing in my case now...I can flash from the OBD2 port in the car in 3 mins, instead of pulling the PCM out and 12min flashing from a bench harness and putting it back together. That's like 20-25mins down to 3. And I was also able to successfully do a "calibration-only" flash in less than a minute. My OBDlink bluetooth failed every single time I tried doing the shorter flash, it only worked with complete clone flashes. So that's about 25min down to 1min for a flash.
Quick datalog in my Blazer also looks like it datalogs much faster. The other obd2 got about between 1-4 data points per sec, with WOT being really slow (EMI maybe?) and the Blazer at WOT was a solid 10 samples/sec. So I'm happy with that.

LSswap

Yeah, I went for the USB cable version as well for my benchtop flash setup.

Woody80z28

I set a budget goal of $5,000 to build this daily beater LS swap. Nothing crazy, just a great daily/highway/burnout car...and some racing. It's done (mostly) and I love it. But those dollars add up quick, even when you're being cheap. I could have pinched more pennies, but I'm still real happy for how it turned out. Bang for the buck is still excellent.

Mr. Black

Keep forgetting to check up on this build. Awesome to see the track passes!

I was doing some google searching this morning on the ole G plus throttle body (got one for free that looks brand new) and the whistle problem.

Your video pops up lol.

Funny enough we put a new FiTech 92mm tb on my sons camaro SS and it whistled like a mother ****** at idle. Idle was high and it cruise controlled bad when you let off the throttle. Ultimately I also completely disabled throttle cracker and the cruise controlling went away and coincidentally the whistle stopped. I never put two and two together on the whistle stop!

Woody80z28

Yeah even after porting it the whistle was still there a little bit and the tuning basically eliminated it. And I haven't noticed any adverse driveability after that change either.

Officially announcing my worst kept secret! I bought an aluminum L33 to throw in the Beretta. It's more cubes, more compression, more cam, better heads, MORE POWER, and less weight. And it has the better gen4 rods, but still 24x crank reluctor so it works with my existing truck wiring and it was only $500. I can prob sell the 4.8 for that. haha I'm going to convert the DBW harness to DBC and use it in another project...or maybe just sell one. I probably don't need five 5.3s around...but I ****** em when they're cheap. I'm averaging about $400 for running LSs.

Woody80z28

Daily driving the car for a month or so last year made some needs for winter upgrades clear. And drag racing launches required new adjustable shocks so I picked up some Vikings. One of my brake master cylinders was leaking and I needed to adjust the bias bar, so I took out the dash and wired up a 2-step and elec defroster while I was in there. I fixed the friggin POS custom axles from Moser Engineering, and I also still had a little leak in the gas tank, so I took care of that too. This car is ready to daily drive now, and next month I'll be racing my old man's Challenger for bragging rights.

runpasthefence

iTrader: (2)

Woody80z28

That one looks good too! Little tougher to see trafftic...haha

ryeguy2006a

iTrader: (27)

Great updates man! Glad to see you out driving it!

Woody80z28

I bought custom Moser axles to fit my 5x100 drag wheels directly without an adapter and give me more fender well room for the slicks. I ordered them with Explorer brake pilot and Beretta wheel pilot and dual 5x100 and 5x115 pattern, so I could eventually fit 5x115 DIY beadlock drag wheels. $600 was a lot for axles on this budget-conscious car considering the entire 8.8 rear was $200, but it would allow me to do what I want.

Imagine my disappointment when I put them in and they vibrated by 45mph, when the junkyard stuff was fine at 80. The brake pilot was cut too small, so the rotor didn't center on the axle. I contacted Moser and they told me they couldn't fix them and they were custom so they couldn't be returned. I came up with my own gameplan to fix them (with minimal rework by Moser) and they still refused. So I fixed them myself on the lathe at work by turning the pilot down and making my own hubcentric ring pressed onto the axle. And I made my own GEARHEAD center cap...cause F Moser. The first test drive at 75mph was smooth sailing. That was more labor than it should have been, but at least the axles aren't $600 scrap.






And here's the video I made on DIY beadlock wheels for my Blazer SAS project. I'm going to be doing the same kind of thing with my Lumina APV minivan wheels for the Beretta. I think the sawblade beadlock ring looks freakin awesome.

ryeguy2006a

iTrader: (27)

I missed that you'll also be swapping to the L33! That will be a nice upgrade. I'm running an LC9, which is virtually identical just Gen4 with the SDPC LS6 Power Max Plus Cam and it runs great. Uses stock LS3 valve springs which makes for a great budget cam.

Mr. Black

That's pretty shitty that Moser set you up for failure and then wouldn't do anything about it.

Good job on the easy fix, even though you shouldn't have had to.