[Ollie]

Between the shifter and a Pro Stock hood, that will scare anybody off.

[TheSilverBuick]

I've been doing some research for a turbo and have a rough idea of what I "think" I can use, but I've never actually bought a turbo and put it on an engine for practical experience. So looking for some guidance and thoughts for choosing one.

Some guidelines, I expect to "grow" into the turbo as needed by changing and upgrading various parts of the engine after initial installation, but the general goal I'm going for is 600 flywheel horsepower, and peak around 5,500rpm with a slightly bored over 250cid (4.1L) engine. A broad boost curve would be nice, but given the HP goal, I wouldn't expect boost to really come on down low, but if it can, great! I'm expecting to need around 20-24psi of boost to accomplish that goal.

Based on some estimations/calcs/scenerio's I've ran it appears around 21psi at 5,500rpm would get me to the goal and using a t4 flange, 70mm wheel with a ~.80 a/r turbo. I found one turbo with close specifications, but cannot find a compressor map for it, grrrr.

[TheSilverBuick]

I did the first in car test with the Raspberry Pi, and other than the expected slow boot up and the cursor in the way, the test was successful!

I need to solve the cursor issue and I still want to work on the boot up time, but I think this is a pretty good test of the proof of concept. I will probably try and make the desktop background black so it shouldn't flash so white on start up.

https://youtu.be/PuRptJNBIMA

As a reminder of what I'm ultimately going for.

[Formulabruce]

Damn thats nice!!

[TheSilverBuick]

Drove into Salt Lake City this morning (~250 miles). Not sure what fuel mileage it is getting yet as I haven't put gas in the car yet, but it seems like its going to be over 25mpg, despite driving 80mph for ~100+miles of the trip.

Flying by the Bonneville Salt Flats.

[Formulabruce]

way cool Picture! Thanks!

[TheSilverBuick]

All is not as it seems it seems. After tallying up the numbers I'm getting the same 19mpg (13 around town) I was getting with the 4.56's =P Its the same story with the Skylark, I've tried a variety of gears from 3.08 to 3.89 and the car gets the same mpg. I'm guessing though the 80mph plus some pretty high winds offset any likely gains of a lower cruising rpm.

I'm going to try some different fueling strategies with the injection. I've switched it to finish injecting fuel just before the intake valve opens at lower rpm and throttle. I've been running only injecting fuel when the intake valve is open and as much as possible while the exhaust is closed. I also re-ran the compression tests, and the worse one is 12% off, but its always been that way (not surprising how crappy the bores and valves look), but I decided to take those numbers and put some minor fuel trims in each of the cylinders figuring if they are not all pulling the same amount of air they don't need the same amount of fuel. I'm tempted to wing in the ignition timing trims too. Its practice if nothing else.

I also noticed I had my TPSdot(sensitivity) set at a ridiculously high 120, so I lowered it to 20 and not surprisingly it got more zing off idle.

I'll do some datalogging this week going to work and see if I can further optimize the tune at cruising speeds.

Worked on the intake some more today. Still needs lots of finishing work, but it's progress!

First my template for drilling and eventually holding the injector bungs. The two ratchet straps and the claps working together held the angle iron in place surprisingly tight.


Drilled out the runners and fit the steel injector bungs. It took a little finishing grinding to get the shape needed to actually fit them in to place.


I will have to cut the angle iron up in a way that I can remove it after tack welding the bungs to the runners.


At a 45º angle the injector bungs fit very well.


More clean up work will need to be done after they are welded in. I may to a rough cut on the bungs before installing them to reduce the amount of grinding required in the port.




I also bought a bulk supply of the sealer I'm going to slather over all the welds =P

[Formulabruce]

If this was factory circa 2015, there would be a thick aluminum spacer on the intake side with injectors, and the rest all plastic air runners.. Your concept is on the right track though !

[TheSilverBuick]

Been side tracked on the intake because I pulled the engine out of my Buick for an oil pan and cam upgrade (as well as general clean up of it), but I have the Firebird washed up and going to take it on the Car Craft Anti-Tour to Morro Bay next weekend.

[TheSilverBuick]

The wife and I are heading out for the Car Craft Anti-Tour later today. Going to take a leisurely drive to the mountains, then out to the coast before the start then up to Morro Bay for the car show there (part of the Anti-Tour). It'll be a a bit over 1,500 miles when all said and done. Hoping for a trouble free drive and a fun few days I wanted to visit the sailing rocks in Death Valley on the return, but it appears to be a ton of dirt road and actually more worrisome is running out of gas! Will have to check that off the bucket list another time.

[TheSilverBuick]

Well so much for a nice trip to the coast and back. Failed to make it to the event when the left front wheel bearing went out on me 380 miles from home. I tried having it changed in a small town, but the spindle was trashed, so I had my brother bring my truck and a u-haul trailer out and pick my wife and I up with the car. Ironically enough, last year on the Anti-Tour my Skylark trashed a front left wheel bearing too, but in that case the spindle was just fine and I changed it out on the road. Moral of the story is I'm now going to be pulling the bearings apart for inspection at least annually! To add insult to injury, I have a complete disc brake conversion kit ready, new wheel bearings and all, that I just hadn't had time to swap on. D'oh!

At least I break down in scenic locations


Here is a shot of what I saw when I pulled the wheel off =/


Once I realized it needed a tow truck, and the tow truck was about 2 hours out, the wife and I had a wine and cheese picnic along the side of the road. Hey, figured I wouldn't be driving for at least 3 hours =P


Got back home last night so did the disc brake swap today.




I didn't change the master cylinder or porportioning valve, so it may need a little work, but I have a nice firm pedal and it doesn't nose dive. The only real issue is during a panic stop the rears lock up before the front, so it should be addressed eventually. I'm glad to have it back on the road already.

On another positive note, I did manage to register my Skylark for Drag Week this year from the hotel room =D

[Grokk]

I bought my bird back in 1995 the drum brakes sucked so bad hardly no pedal, the drum brakes on my 66 dodge pickup was never that bad, In 1996 I found a conversion kit in the paper for 200.00 they were used parts off of a 72 Nova, at least I pedal, bolted right on. In 1997 took my car to sears for a brake check, they said I needed a 2000.00 worth of brake work, whatever I know they needed work but not 2000.00 worth.

[TheSilverBuick]

The drum brakes stopped just fine, hence my lack of urgency on changing them out.

[TheSilverBuick]

Just been uneventfully driving the car to work daily. I've been too distracted with my Skylark's engine to progress any further on the intake manifold. However, the next town over (90 miles to the west) is having a Run Whatcha Brung event at their airport on June 20th and I'm going to try and go. I work that day, but am going to ask for it off to take the Firebird and see what it can do. I'm told it may even be a full 1/4 mile. So looking forward to that. Maybe in the next week I'll drive to the next town south of here (25 miles) to the public truck scale they have and weigh the car.

A picture of the current distraction. I'm actually waiting for a new cam to arrive, so it's not really bolted together yet.

[TheSilverBuick]

Took the car out to he scales and it weighs 3180lbs! Whohoo! Will likely only go up from there though. The turbo system will add weight, an eventual 9" rear will add weight, and a hopefully needed then cage will add weight as well.



It was a nice drive out there, stopped and ate at the road side cafe next to the scale.

[TheSilverBuick]

Last night I washed and loaded up the car with a few tools, an awning and chairs. Heading out in about an hour for hopefully a good day at the run whatcha brung event.

[Jeff Hamlin]

Give it hell & best of luck!

[TheSilverBuick]

Drove the car 90 miles to Eureka, ran down the track 8 times, and drove home without any hiccup and calling that a win. The car was quite slow, but got some good data running down the track.

The engine seemed to like 36º timing, it slowed down at 38º and 34º, liked to shift at 5,200rpm and slowed down when trying to wind it up to ~5,600rpm, and it liked about 40% throttle at 1,600rpm at the line for the best 60ft. I ran it around 13.0 AFR as best I could across the board. I had one lean pop running a bit leaner than that, and started as rich as 11.0 when I got there and progressively leaned it out.

The plan I followed was, first three passes I adjusted the shift point RPM with a bit of leaning it out, leaving timing at 36º, the next two passes I leaned it out incrementally, one more with more rpm (and slowed down), then tried 2º more, then 2º less timing and both slowed down.

So the numbers.
Eureka Airport
Elevation: 5,954 ft
Temperature ~93ºF
Density Altitude according to the Airport computer: 9,100 ft.

My best ET and MPH were on the same run at 18.345 seconds at 77.13 mph with a 2.095 60ft. My best 60ft was 1.983 on a different run.

Extrapolating from the Wallace Racing calculators I get a corrected 16.23 seconds at 86.65 mph, for a corrected 174.54 HP, which is about spot on for the low compression 1bbl engine's OEM rating.

I'm going to re-look at the cam timing and may even stick the slightly smaller 1bbl cam back on the engine as it could be a better match for the compression.

In any case, I have a successful day going down the track and have a baseline to start with! And that nearly 10,000 foot air sucks!

[TheSilverBuick]

This morning I picked up a '92 4L60e from a 3/4 ton chevy truck from the local classifieds. The data sticker from a rebuild company shows it was rebuilt in 2006 and the guy was also selling the blown up Chevy 350 it was attached too, but I had no interest in that. I'm hoping its good to go, but I'll eventually open it up and take a cursory look as well as put a mild shift kit in it. This will be step one in getting the drivetrain set up to handle the turbo setup.

A microsquirt for $339 from DIYautotune.com can be configured to control it and tie into the existing MS3 on the car. I think there might even be a plug and play harness out on the market as well. Its going to be a while before I get to this, but it'll be nice to have when I get to it. As part of the conversion, I'll have to make a decision on the electric speedo. May bite the bullet and pick up a digital to mechanical converter box, or simply go full digital. In either case, that is a ways off.

[TheSilverBuick]

Drag racing the Skylark was a success (plus 4,320 miles of driving) and now, other than a few minor maintenance type things to do on the Skylark I can get back to this project.




This weekend I drove the car 250 to Las Vegas and Tuesday it should make it home. It appears to be getting just over 25mpg when I stuck to 70-75mph.

Its pretty warm but did pretty good over all.


Finally got the Raspberry Pi to work as intended and not blank the screen after ten minutes. Crap linux programming I say... So I may actually be ready to put it behind the dash now as I finally solved the last issue I was having with it.



I'm going to be down on disposable funds for a few months or so, so I started eyeing the M-30 supercharger I have on the shelf again. Since it may be another six or more months before I can purchase a turbo, intercooler, etc, I'm looking at finishing up the intake manifold I started, but also possibly throwing together an adapter to bolt the supercharger to that will bolt to the stock manifold. I've looked at it before, and to get the belts to line up it's going to be ungainly looking, but at this point I want it on there.

I have the M-30 unit, which is the earlier, smaller, 3800 series engine one. I've removed the serpentine pulley from the supercharger and am looking at bolting on a dual groove alternator pulley to it, which is likely a smaller diameter than the stock pulley to overdrive it a bit more, plus I think the OE crank pulley is a tad larger than the 3800 crank pulley to overdrive it a bit more. I think in stock applications they were good for 12psi of boost (the later ones definitely got 14+psi), but if I can get 6-10psi I'd be pretty happy with it. I may have some belt wrap issues, meaning both the alternator and supercharger may not have enough belt traction, but I have some ideas to address that if its the case. Running two v-belts will help, but it may need more help. Should be interesting if I can get this to work.