Welp revive it is! im going to try and restore the pictures, Like i said above there were alot of things i did on this car when i was younger that i would have never done now. I got the car back knowing it was terribly slow for some reason and just never felt right after going from the 6.0 to the aluminum 5.3. thinking that something maybe with this 5.3 i put together was messed up, i preemptively purchased my own crackhouse on wheels that was powered by a lq9.
anyways, this thing should not be anywhere near as slow as it is to be honest and i really wanted to figure it out. First thing i noticed was fuel pressure was all over the place and i could not get it to build over 20 psi. pull the fuel pump octopus out of the tank and everything is fine.... I decide to just crank the fuel regulator all the way down and find man that that thing does not want to tighten up easily... I find this.....
Amazingly i was able to unclog it, cleaned the spring and threw it back in. amazingly it still works. crank up the fuel pressure to 58psi and the car runs and idles good. threw in a set of tr6 plugs and took it for a drive. Man its UNGODLY slow, at least by my standards, i pin the wastegate shut and its still taking about 4 seconds wide open to build 6 psi boost. I just start problem solving at this point, i send datalogs to friends they look and yea other then the fact its a turd and wont rev past 4k everything looks totally fine. i start looking at things and this is where my personal issue with my past work comes into play. i thought long and hard about it, with a 66/73 borg warner knock off, lq4, ls1 cam, ls1 springs, ls1 intakeand stock converter the car ran 11.4@125 at 9psi. With the new setup on e85, gtx4202r(76/75), the same lq4 but a 228/230 cam, tbss intake, circle d 3000 stall converter and pac 1218s it ran 11.003@127 at 10psi. I start looking at the time slips and thinking man something is really holding this new combo back, the later time was a much better 60 foot as well so thats where i made the time up... Maybe it was just being young or forgetting, i dont know, but i cant believe i didnt notice that before. after having this revelation, i pulled the coupler off of the throttle body and drove the car. It was faster then with the turbo hooked up. I just thought man this turbo has been nothing but problems since i installed it, i was about to just throw the stock lq9 in and order another 66/73 and call it a day. I then decided to just pull the inter cooler, checked air flow out of the compressor pre and post turbo and it was a massive difference. i decided to non intercool the car and test drive it.
the car has never been this fast. i can honestly say this is the fastest car ive ever driven. my tuning map was so messed up i went from a 34%dc on the injectors to about 90 percent at the same boost level. this intercooler has been strangling the car since i installed it. i think the reason it felt fine with the 66/73 is because in comparison it moves a whole hell of alot less air. this is the ic setup for those curious.
3.5-2.5 pipe
ic size compared to a 92mm throttle body
tiny id on the intercooler
took it out for another non intercooled rip and this happens
get t boned right down the street...........
the build is not over, after finding that power that was hiding i have new resolve to fix the car and get it on a drag and drive event.
more updates later today