Ever have one of THOSE mornings.. (a good way)

[BackyardTurbo_FTW]

I have been driving the Balt for the last week to 10 days again, I had been driving my Subaru a lot recently. Anyway, during this time driving it, I was just driving like a normal person (weird lol). My overall MPG Avg went up to 29.8 just to clarify things LOL!

So this morning I was going to merge onto the highway, some tart wasn't going and I was just hovering in 3rd right around 50-55 waiting to see if he shot to the left lane or what...He didn't and it was just too perfect to NOT go WOT and see where my 60-100 was at these days. The car pulled like mad and fought for grip slightly in 3rd. It had been awhile since I felt THIS car pull like this, really felt great! Cracked a 4.8 sec 60-99 (I let off just early it looks like) w/DP, Box Mod and Tune. The current tune is pretty tame at 22psi, .86 lambda tapering to .88 up top, 15-16* timing. Really nothing too special, just dialed in nicely!

I'm not trying to brag or anything like that, just saying it had been awhile since this car made me happy and I was able to have fun with it. I still need a trans since 2nd gear is shitty going in and out of it, but that will come in spring time.

Happy boosting guys

[roadconetuning]

its always fun when you forget how quick a car is... thats one thing i loved about my mustang when i put drag radials on it tho... on street tires it would spin horribly in 1st and 2nd but with the bfg's it would dead hook in first and just extend the front struts to their limit.. the cobalt has yet to make me say "damn that was awesome" tho... hopefully 22psi and sticky tires will do that tho

[BackyardTurbo_FTW]

Yea, exactly what I was saying, glad it came across right Def reminded me of why I liked messing with it lol

[Pandion]

You guys are making me miss my car more than ever!! I have only 3 more months till I am back from Iraq and then I can drive it again

[gmtech16450yz]

Ok Nick, I know this thread wasn't a "let's see who has the fastest 60-100 times", but I'm so friggin thrilled with what my car did tonight I had to share! I know my times aren't the fastest out there by any means, but I think they're doing pretty good for a Kappa, plus I made an interesting discovery too.

Ok, since I've done a few engine mods to be able to pull safely to 7500rpm, I've been trying 60-100mph pulls in 3rd gear. (Kappa's stock won't make it to 100 in 3rd.) So tonight I pull off a 4.72 second 60-100 in 3rd gear. Rpm at 60 was 4500, at 100 it was 7300. So there was some discussion on one of the other forums about the usefulness of being able to run an LNF out that high, and some guys were saying there's no reason to run it that high because there's no power up there with the stock turbo (which I still have). My argument was that even though it's not building power beyond 5 or 6k, sometimes it's still useful to run out the gear instead of shifting. I was told the stock turbo was only efficient to 4500rpm, so going much past that will only slow you down instead of shifting to the next gear.

Sooo, if my theory was correct, my 60-100 times in 3rd gear should be close, or better than my times in 4th, which would be in the "meat" of the power and where guys were saying you should be anyway. So I go to the exact same stretch of road, minutes after doing the run in 3rd, and do the exact run in 4th (I'm trying to do the pulls without shifting to eliminate that variable). Guess what, it does a 4.74 second run! The 4th gear run started at 2900rpm @60 and ended at 4800 @100. So the big discovery is, judging from these results, these LNF's can be tuned to make "relatively" flat power from 3k rpm to 7k rpm! That's pretty amazing from a 2.0L 4 banger. To have a motor that turns almost identical times in 3rd gear and 4th gear is pretty crazy.

Oh, I did a 60-120 run in 4th gear and it was 8.71 seconds. Not sure how that compares to anything else but it sure seemed to get there pretty fast. Like you said, trying not to brag but geez these cars are impressive, and pretty damn fun too! And yeah, I also agree, it's SO rewarding messing with these motors, I've never seen any motor that you can change so much just by moving some numbers around in software. A little change here, a little change there and all the sudden you have a car that's totally different. (Sometimes better, sometimes worse!)

[BackyardTurbo_FTW]

Ill try the 60-120 on Monday, you have me curious

The last few cars we dyno'd were quite flat from 3k to 6500 and slightly nosed over to 7k. Cars with the combo tune or Meth seemed to be even better still but you are right, they do make incredibly flat power for a stock turbo car! Once I was able to get them to stop doing that spike then drop, the power curves looked better and better still

[MMGT1]

...... look Ma',... Im goin' fast!!!.... lol

[gmtech16450yz]

Once I was able to get them to stop doing that spike then drop, the power curves looked better and better still

EXACTLY!!! That damn 30 psi hit sure kicks you in the #ss, but hurts everything after that. Getting rid of that is definitely the trick, less KR, less wheel spin, easier on the motor and drivetrain, etc. It's pretty crazy you have to DE-tune the low end on these cars to make them drivable. It's kinda fun to have the totally obnoxious, touchy throttle power but it's just too hard to control. My son is my best barometer of how smooth I'm getting the throttle response, he'll drive it and say "No dad, too touchy, got to take some more of that light throttle, low end power away!" He cracks up at the traction control too, he'll drive it and come back saying "Why does this car even have traction control? It lights up the tires whether it's on or off!"

After many, many tunes I've finally got the low end, light throttle response super smooth and linear, but push that pedal a little further and it's a monster! That's another thing he's given me good feedback on, he's amazed at how smooth the power delivery is all the way through the rpm's. (And he's driving a GTO.) These LNF's are really amazing. And believe me, I've worked on everything from diesel Oldsmobile's to Cosworth's.

[Iam Broke]

Damn, Diesel 350's in the Delta 88's ala '78! You are old!

Me too!

[gmtech16450yz]

Yeah I started out in an Olds dealer, it was a small dealer so the techs had to do pretty much everything from light to heavy duty. One car I'd be setting the m/c solenoid dwell on a carb and the next one I'd be doing a piston pin in a diesel! I did like doing injector pump weight rings on the early diesels, the factory paid like 3 hours and I could bang one of those jobs out in less than an hour. I don't miss the diesel smell and the black oil that was like ink on anything it touched! What a stupid idea GM had with those motors. Funniest ones were when they'd break the crank in half right in the middle. You could crank it over, but the fan belts wouldn't be turning!


Hey and I'm not old, I just started early!

[Iam Broke]

lol. My wife & brother-in-law worked at a small Olds dealer when we got married. Her first new car was a '77 Gutless Supreme, 350, turd brown & a tan landau top. I AM old. I got her '67 Cutlass when she bought the new one. 330 4 bbl & a powerglide, fire engine red & a black vinyl top.

[BackyardTurbo_FTW]

Tried the 60-120 starting in 4th...that was LOL. 9.68 LMAO. Im going to try 3rd into 4th on the way home, should drop a second easily.

[roadconetuning]

if you wanna see another LOL open the sunroof... past about 90 it feels like the car is down 50hp lol... i only know this because some Diesel F350 was flying on the highway and i wanted to see how fast he was going... i gave up at 115 lol

[CarsonTech]

lol, when and where was this?

[BackyardTurbo_FTW]

Did another pull this morning getting on the highway, 4.8 flat. Def ripped the tires a bit in 3rd this morning

[roadconetuning]

lol, when and where was this?

some time a few months ago when russ and i were headed out to BMW to pick up brotha dan to take him to CLT airport... went to the NASCAR museum and tried to race an NSX in downtown charlotte before we got there lol

[BackyardTurbo_FTW]

60-120 you have me beat, 9.1 seconds with starting in 3rd and NLS at 6k since I have that misfire shit still. Someone with a better running car can prolly turn a similar time to yours.

[Iam Broke]

Did another pull this morning getting on the highway, 4.8 flat. Def ripped the tires a bit in 3rd this morning

Cold temps make it tooooo easy though.

[BackyardTurbo_FTW]

And I have the NT05s on the car still lol.

[Iam Broke]

Mine rips the Conti DWS about the same as the BFG g-Force A/S I had on it before, better than the stock Conti's in the cold by a mile though.