I picked up my car today and took it for a half hr ride after the hyd. roller to solid roller swap.
Very smooth power, likes to rev, feels alot different than before. The x-pipe made the car alot quieter, people watching said there is extremely quiet on the road, it just looks like "it goes."
It honestly doesn't feel any faster, even if all I picked up was 25hp. You can feel that in the seat of your pants right? Maybe the lack of sound makes it feel less powerful.
It is bloody murder with the 12" loaner converter I got, putting it in gear bucks the whole car so hard it feels like the ring and pinion is going to fly out the back of the rear end, and I have to footbrake it at stoplights to keep it from idling at 600rpm, it bucks like a manual at low rpm throttle jabs and doesn't absorb the shifts from the new shift kit at all. I can't wait to send my darn converter in ! Even if it ate 90hp as a bad converter, it still was more fun to drive than this. I got the engine up to 5200rpm, thousand rpm shy of my max, but I was in overdrive...
Anyway, when I was picking up the car today, the guy said if I was going to do the chassis dyno, to do it with this converter because it will skew the #'s less, and he said the engine will get 480-525 hp @ the wheels all day long. I don't know if I want to know or should care.
Even if its not faster, it quieter, more refined, and less pig ish and more fun to drive, even if my brakes don't work at 1000rpm moving into the garage (its scary!). They work fine (great.. the best thing hands down I ever did to the car was the baer track system. 110-40 before you can blink your eye) when driving around normal still.
the steering column now hits the headers, I need to fix a couple aesthetic things in the engine bay, raise the whole car about 1/2" all around, do a safety check, then I should be ok to think about hitting the track.

matt

Glad to hear someone is able to drive their car graemlins/thumbsup.gif

Matt,what are the specs for the new convertor that will be going in?

Sorry I've been away for a few days.

I was actually wondering about the converter. If they are going to cut it open and fix it, (if its broken), it will probably need to be repaired/restalled anyway (if its not broken, at my expense).
The guy who built the motor said it needs to be kinda "slimy" (his word..) down low to keep it from bucking/dying at idle and to make shifts a little smoother (they are tooth rattling right now), but he said as long as it grabs between 2800-3200, I am ok. He said the one that was in there was too loose, in his opinion. They put in a fairbanks shift kit, I am not sure about the governor, but I never remembered the transmission shifting at 5200 in any gear. I might try the governor out of a TH400 vette, I've heard they shift at about 6000, which is fine for me while I am still getting the shift by hand down pat.
The torque "peak" is about 500-550ft-lbs from 3000-5500-6000, hp is about the same from 5500-6000 at about 550. I was thinking something like 3000 or 3200, kinda loose on the low end, then grabbbing at those numbers. Thats what I was suggested anyhow, he said a stall any higher would really be overkill.
What do you think? I have to mail the thing in tomorrow.

Matt

I got the engine up to 5200rpm, thousand rpm shy of my max, but I was in overdrive...

wow what rear gear? you must of been doing 130+ ?

Same thing I said. It didn't feel that fast, nor could I get to 120 that quick judging by past 1/4mi performance.
I am thinking I hit 5200 in a different gear than what I thought. I know my speedo is off, I have 3.31 speedo drive in the trans, but 3.90 gears.
I am thinking it was 5200 in 2nd w/ overdrive (1.15 trans gear if I did it right) which I think is about 100.
I need to figure out what color gears I need to correct this.


matt