Just picked up the car, and feel semi-screwed. Overall car is in good shape, some niggles here and there, but The car just doesn't have anywhere near the power it should. I've owned several F-Bodies before and can say this one feels like it's only running on 6-7 cylinders.

Now 1st question will be why in the hell I bought it like this, trust me I'm still asking myself the same ? but the price was right I thought even in this condition

But it runs fine at idle and just kind of normal driving. Doesn't shake or give indication of problem there. Does seem down in torque, but might just be spoiled by my 393 rwhp Z06 I dunno. It's when wide open throttle is attempted that it just kinda falls out.

To better describe, the car will rev, but there's just a hell of a lot of racket(crappy flowmaster cat back) w/out alot of power. Not a lot of vibration to suggest major internal problem. The tranny makes a fair bit of noise, but it does have an aftermarket shifter and I think trannymount or torque arm mount is going out(another story) so I think most of the noise is from that.

So I'm thinking, plugs, bent pushrods, or timing retard??????????

Plans include fixing the tranny mount/torque arm mount and doing a tune up on the car.

Now I do have my stock 01 Z06 cam, springs, pushrods somewhere that were taken off my car with 10k miles in april of this year. Was thinking of swapping those in for a few more HP and seeing if that would cure problem.
Then again, if I'm into the motor I might just pickup a "cheater cam" package as with stock manifolds and basic bolt on's I should be able to get 350-375 RWHP out of one of those combos. I know people are in love with headers, but I don't want to dump a ton of $$$ into this car as it's supposed to be more of a daily driver type car to give my Z06 garage queen status

Oh one more thought! Car has centerline rims(probably heavy) with Nitto ZR 285/40/17 tires, which I think are a bit "taller" than stock height. Any experts care to comment on this. I would assume this would in effect cause some loss in SOTP accell almost like switching to a numerically lower gear.

thanks for your help

 

I would first cover all your basic tune up needs, because there is no telling when the previous owner ecer has. You might want to change the fuel filter too. If its really dirty, fuel flow would be restricted and would be most noticible on heavy loads like WOT. If none of that helps, I would do a compresion check to see if you have a bum cylinder.

 

Get the car dyno'd, that'll tell you if the power is missing or not. Having a 390+ rwhp Z06 would be like having a 430+ rwhp f body w/ 3.90 gears. You may not be missing any power at all.

 

My brother had bought a 98TA that felt exactly like your describing...Before this buy I had two previous LS1s and I told him that it felt good but WOT.It felt like it was running out of breath...

We changed plugs,wires,fuel filter...basic tune-up but it still felt down...We went ahead and changed out the fuel pump and BAM...The car then felt the way it should...Had big beach ***** for power..(stock power anyways... )

Might want to check that out or,injectors...Check the easier stuff of course before you dive into the fuel pump...-Milt

 

I did change the drivers side plugs last night, was a moderate pain in the ***. Looked at the passanger side and gave up for the night. Will tackle that this weekend.

Also, I ran the car after the drivers side plug change and was able to discriminate a bit more of the problem

off idle torque LOW, like I said, I can't break tires loose and my 98 LS-1 camaro would from a rolling start. From 2000-4500 rpms mid range is OK, still low but not missing etc... At about 4500 rpms you can feel car fall on it's face. Still continues to rev towards orange/redline, but what's the point really! There are no strange mechanical noises I can hear from motor. It starts and idles great, no piston slap I can tell.


One concern of mine though is that I found the passanger side clip of the SLP airlid to be "popped" up. or in otherwords came undone all on it's own. Took the lid off, checked filter, a bit dirty but not bad. But when I physically took lid off of MAFS I about crapped myself as there were about 6-8 bugs stuck on the screen. This clip must have been doing this somewhat for some time and letting unfiltered air through . Now this is concerning obviously, but I dont' THINK it's caused the problem I'm speaking of above. I think if the rings were shot or there was major internal wear on engine it wouldn't run and idle good. Then again, I'm not a mechanic so I'm just guessing to a point.

My plan is to change passanger side plugs, and then go from there. would be nice if I could data log a few runs, but nobody I know has autotap and I'm not sure how much it is . Will have to check on that. I have a laptop so that's not an issue.

So much for being a trusting SOB.

thanks for responses

also I bought a fuel filter that I'm going to change just in case. If that doesn't work I will try the fuel pump
thanks

 

CoronaL,
Keep us updated on what you find out. I'm curious about this fuel pump thing also.

 

changed plugs and fuel filter
Car runs quite a bit better and seems to have almost normal power. Still breaks up a bit over 5k though. Almost like an LT-1 with bad opti lol. Well, will get fuel pump changed out and see how that works.

 

Coronal -

I feel for you bro.

I got screwed on ebay buying a fake WS6 which I just had delivered Monday AM.

The thread is in this forum.

Good luck, my car felt the same way, turned out to be a plug wire was off.

It was making a ticking sound before that, sounded like an exhaust leak or a bad valve, put the wire back on (it still needs new wires) and the ticking went away and the car smoothed out.

Howard

 

One bad plug wire can make an LS1 stumble or hesistate while accelerating.

Changed my wires to Taylor Thundervolts along with new plugs, ran like a champ once again.

The only other thing besides fuel pump or filter related if the tune up doesn't work is do a compression test to make sure all the cylinders are firing.

 

ok long time no update
but pulled heads and 2 bent intake pushrods
cyl #1 and #6
#6 was really bad

doing my cam/heads/header install as soon as I can get crank pulley off etc....

I should probably do my motor mounts too. I bought some poly mounts along with poly trans and torque arm mounts. However, they sent me LT-1 mounts. Are the LS-1 and LT-1 mounts the same???
thanks

 

btw heads/valves looked ok despite the bent pushrods and the pistons show no nicking

the cyl walls look ok. Some vertical scoring a bit , but nothing that I can really feel with my fingers. Hone marks still evident.

 

i got 95,000 miles would you guys suggest...new plugs, wires, fuel filter, fuel pump, there all original stock ones...so far..and they all got 95k on them?

think i'd feel a difference if i changed all this

 

i'd clean my MAF wires or even get a new one if it was runing for too long without lid secured properly. You can use electronics cleaner in a can spray or rubbing alcohol+qtips