jayyyw

A couple things have happened while waiting on pushrods and intake.

Ended up installing a 12gal fuel cell in the back of the car. It goes through the floor and sits flush with the bottom of the frame rails. This gave me 3 more gallons of capacity, some better weight distribution and a slight weight savings. The plastic tanks are surprisingly heavy. I ended up putting the same pumps in the cell, dual 340lph setup from Racetronix. Looks like the gas gauge is still going to function, although the response is going to be reeeaallll slow. Which, I'm okay with.

Ended up making some panels to delete the door cards. That came out pretty good. I contacted Chris Faircloth to see if he can make them out of carbon, with my template. Likely going to go that route, just for the "bling" factor. This also dropped some weight as the door cards are also kinda heavy.

Finally ordered pushrods. Went back with 3/8 .145 wall on the intake side and stepped up to 7/16 .165 wall on the exhaust. I should get those tomorrow.

Cesar laid down some epoxy on the intake and should be starting to port it soon.

Ordered a 4" VFN pin on hood. Intake should fit under it now with the low ram base. I have some 3/8" shorter engine mounts, if that's needed for clearance. Going to get this wrapped in carbon once I get it. I was quoted 3-6 weeks. See if that's true.

/rant

spanks13

iTrader: (5)

Were your old pushrods insufficient?

Can’t wait to see how it reacts to the low ram! Wish Holley did an ls7 port for it.

jayyyw

Not that I could tell, TBH. Cesar and Erik did show some concern that they might not be stiff enough. Been reading around and it looks like a lot of people run 3/8" with the kind of spring pressure I am running. I did see a few people recommend a thicker rod on the exhaust side since it sees more forces and heat. I also needed shorter lengths due to the new rockers. Erik has some concerns on that aspect as well, but we will see how it goes. Mainly just tryin to get more preload. Had 1-2 instances that felt like valve float and the old rods were at about .035" preload, cold. The springs I'm running are definitely enough to overcome the plungers. Starting to think real hard about making the plunge into that solid roller life. Especially if this doesn't work as I envision.

Really hoping it works well. I know its gonna lose some under 7000-7300, but want it to peak around 7800-8000 and carry a little.

Ryans99ls1

iTrader: (16)

One of the things i like about going solid roller is that you have a chance to see things start going south through the lash checks. The DLC coated steel bushing lifters are very durable. The low lash/low shock lash settings are pretty steady once you get them setup and with how much people like us wrench, i don't think that checking lash occasionally is something that is that big of an inconvenience.

jayyyw

I plan to get some of the Bam DLC coated lifters once I decide to pull the trigger. I was looking at Cam Motion's site and noticed they can pretty much grind ANY cam, ANY specs. Definitely intrigued me. I have a Comp cam I want to run, but the lift is slightly higher than I can run with the current springs I have. I'll probably have CM grind the cam with a little less lift. Just wonder how it's going to perform being that it most likely won't have the same lobe characteristics of the Comp cam. Still trying to do some research on this.

spanks13

iTrader: (5)

Have you checked your springs actual distance to bind? I installed some PAC .700" lift rated springs up at .775" lift with room to spare to coilbind.

jayyyw

Not yet. I plan to do that this weekend when I setup the pushrods. Definitely need to figure that out before moving forward with a different cam.

Any idea on the difference of lobe ramp rates affecting power? I don't think I will find a ton of people that have an answer for that.

Ryans99ls1

iTrader: (16)

The BAM DLC coated and steel bushing solids are what i have going in. If they **** the bed, i will you know lol. I bought them used for dirt cheap and then sent them in to get rebuilt/upgraded. saved about $500 that way..ended up costing less than johnson short travels. kind of another reason i ended up on the solid roller train

There is power and response in ramp rates, which i think you obviously know. But how much will be tough to quantify without comp/btr/cammotion letting you in on their development work without the sales pitch lol. i think the balance most newer lobes are trying to strike is getting aggressive without beating the **** out of the seats and valvetrain and remaining stable. Years ago it seems aggressive meant beat the **** out of everything, now, not so much. At least that is what BTR seems to be preaching with their newer stuff. i read it as no appreciable gain in power compared to older very aggressive lobes, just more durability and stability. That is just my opinion though.

spanks13

iTrader: (5)

Billy Godbold put out a lot of technical content around their low shock lobe development. He posted a lot on Facebook too, and also worked a ton with Ben Strader at EFI University to put out content.


Story directly comparing old lobes to new LST. I just went through the catalog and checked, these are the old LSL lobes which were certainly the go-to for many years. These were a big improvement from the "Extreme Energy" days.

https://www.enginelabs.com/engine-te...low-shock-cam/

One bit of knowledge that Billy gave me when trying to pick between the different available lobe lifts of the same lobe family - "If the spring is happy at that lift (normal installed height and not too close to bind) the design will actually be more stable at higher lift (less loft and crash over the nose at RPM)."

Interestingly he also says he's not the guy you want picking a cam for a combination to make best power. He's an R&D guy. If you hit him up to ask for duration and valve events he would defer mainly to someone else. The lobe profiles, valvetrain development and doing R&D on the spintron was his jam.

Especially with a hydraulic roller I think valve motion control is important as you can really start getting away from your intended cam specs if your lifters can't keep up with the motion you're requesting. We spend so much time thinking about optimal valve events, but don't really consider often what the engine is actually seeing - lost lift from deflection, lost compression from valve bounce, changing cam timing from chain stretch, cycle to cycle variations etc.

spanks13

iTrader: (5)

For my streetable 427 that I wanted to do road race and standing mile events with he recommended me the LGW/LGX out of the endurance solid roller category. For decades my dad has used sprint car/circle track lobes in his drag cars and spring life and lifter lift has been fantastic. Yes it leaves a bit on the table but his big blocks stay in the car for over 1000 runs.

jayyyw

I'm running LST lobes on my current cam.

spanks13

iTrader: (5)

I think you've got the latest and greatest then. Moving to solid roller might gain you some, but hard to say. The endurance solid rollers that can live on the street might be very close to hydraulic profiles.

jayyyw

I would definitely go with something with more duration. I don't feel a "even" swap would be worth the effort. The one I want to switch to is, probably, 10 degrees higher on both intake and exhaust, if I recall correctly. In a solid roller spec @ .050"

C5_Pete

iTrader: (8)

Need pics of the door card delete panels. I’ve looked at it a couple times and haven’t really figured out a workable solution for my C5.

jayyyw

Pretty much looks like this

C5_Pete

iTrader: (8)

What do you use as the seal against the window? Part of the original door card, or some other thing?

Thanks. That looks really slick. I’d be very happy to have that on my doors…

jayyyw

That's still the "factory" part of the door. Just painted the upper part, black.

I'm sure you can do something similar with your doors. I haven't taken apart a C5 door, so can't say for sure. All I did was trace out the door card and then start trimming it how I wanted it to fit. This is 1/16" ABS plastic. Ordered it off Amazon in a big 4'x8' sheet. It was only like $100.

Ls1Rx-7

iTrader: (4)

Whats the before and after weight of each panel? And did you keep the window switch for the drivers side?

what else do you plan to do to shave weight? Poly windows?

jayyyw

I’ll have to get the weight probably tomorrow. But I did keep the driver window switch. Just trimmed it a little

jayyyw

both stock door cards were 21lbs together.