Yo...

I test drove many camaro's today.. And I have a question about them on going from 65-120.. Is the powerband not good on them there? It didnt seem like they had much push on them... Could it of been the car?? The one that I expected to have my head against the seat was the 92, Z-28, 350 5.7.... 0-60.. was simply amazing stock.. but shorted out after that.???

 

I'll take a shot at it -
First off you have to remember that the car has 245 horsepower, and 345 TQ (i believe its 345), and the L98 makes most of its power down low in the RPM range which is why the 0-60 is good. But when you start going really fast say when your in 3rd gear, the RPM's dont wind up as fast as they do in 1st gear, so your spending a lot more time in the higher RPM's than you do in first gear. This is the reason why a LS1 shines on the highway, it has Excellent high rpm power. The other factor, is drag.When you start getting up there in mph the drag slows you down a lot. If you are used to driving/riding in a LS1 that a friend has, you have to remember that they have about 100 more horsepower, and make most of there power in the upper portion of the Rpm powerband, so they shine on the highway because as i said when you are flooring it as you'll notice in 3rd gear (on an auto 4 speed for example) your RPM's dont move near as fastly (diffrent tranny ratio's, among other things) so you'll spend a lot more time in that gear, which means you'll spend more time at the upper part of the powerband, which isn't where the tpi shines, the tpi shines down low....maybe that helps you understand. I dont know if all of that is right,later on this morning some people with a lot more experience than i have will read it and tell you how accurate that is. Im writing that at 445 am so it may be a little off from what i was told. I dont know how understandable that is though...Im having a hard time explaining it now, maybe if you dont understand that, or if im dead wrong, someone with more experience could come along

 

jdhommert : That about sums it up

TPI cars are more for streetlight to streetlight racing, and not high RPM highway running. That TPI should keep up with an LT1 to 60, and fair pretty well against an LS1. After 60, when 3rd gear kicks in that TPI will slow down pretty good.

 

I agree to some extent.....The MAIN reason why the TPIs start to fizzle at higher RPM range (4000 and up) is because of the design of the runners. The longer the runner, the more low end torque you will have and the lesser top end you will have. If you take a LT1 intake (with the short runners) for an example, It will pull like a **** all the way up to about 5000 rpm.....then it too will start to fizzle out. Now other parts such as cams,ported plenums,bigger throttle bodys and such can help this....The main culprit will always be the runners.

I love my long runners!!!!!! My tires hate 'em

Later