I'm so fed up with my car, I feel like an idiot for wasting all the money I have on it.

Went to the track tonight to hopefully get some good times on new Lifters with better vacuum pressure now. (These times are also WITHOUT my Vigilante 3200 and Race Built trans). My previous best was a 13.7 @ 101 MPH with the same mods (except TC and trans) but for those times, I had 3.73s. I had to switch to 3.42s because they were bad gears. So now, with Hot Cam Kit and 3.42s and all my other tons of bolt ons, I was only able to pull these times....

First Second Third
R/T .823 .580 .626
60' 2.052 2.079 2.075
330 5.929 5.980 5.979
1/8th 9.097 9.157 9.158
MPH 78.30 78.16 78.11
1000 11.833 11.886 11.882
1/4 14.160 14.204 14.194
MPH 96.79 97.17 97.51

WTF is going on? These are WORSE than STOCK camaro times It's obviously not my driving, I have great reaction time, my 60' foots are pretty damn respectable for my small amount of suspension mods and street tires, after that it's just foot to the floor. Plus, I have always been consistant in my driving. My car seems to shift kinda funny at upper RPM. I'm hoping that my trans is slipping because I have a Race Built one on the way. I'm also only getting about 10-12 MPG of gas also. I feel like I have checked through everything over and over. I have no idea why my car runs so terribly.

Any ideas?

 

I was doing 12mpg when I had one cylinder misfiring A change of plugs got rid of the misfiring and brought my mileage to 15 MPG on the first tank of gas.

Something its gotta be pretty wrong with your set up.


Marvin

 

So are you saying that you now have your race built transmission. And those are the times that you got with it and your TC? If not have you got that thing on a dyno yet? That will let you know a lot about how your car is running.

 

Geez. They're horrible times for an entire upgrade like the one that you mentioned. There's definitely something wrong.

With my LT4 HC setup, Longtubes, Exhaust, CAI, Throttlebody, shift kit, 2400rpm Vigilante TC, aluminum driveshaft, and 3.42s I went from a 13.6 @ 102.7 to a 12.0 @ 110. My fastest MPH thus far has been 113mph with my setup.

Did you get the computer tuned for the cam setup?

Have you checked your sparkplugs/wires/ignition?

Checked your fuel pressure/oil pressure lately?

I'd have to agree with everyone else. Get that damned thing on a dyno and see what's going on.

 

Don,t feel bad, ever since I put my LTs in I have been putting new parts on.
New:
TPS
IAC
ICM
Water pump
optispark
coil
wires
plugs

I have put everything on but the opti and ICM and water pump.
Doing them this weekend. All this stuff has high mileage on it so I am trying to get everything up to snuff.
After the opti and water pump and coil and ICM the only thing left will be fuel pump and FPR, if I don,t see the gains from the headers after all that stuff I am gonna burn the car to the ground and shoot myself.

 

I would suspect your opti.....one time i went to the track and almost got worn out by a dodge dually....went 15.5's@97 all night......changed the opti and it was right back where it should have been...It didn't act to drive funny down the road but you could sure tell it at the track!

 

Sorry to hear that Wheelman, dispite our differences in the past.

I have yet to get my car fixed too. But it is going in the shop this week to get a new clutch installed and everything else fixed with it. Im thinking my problem is more electrical than mechanical. Along with my misfires Im now beginning to have some starting issues. I will keep ya updated as soon as its all fixed.

 

Get your 'cats' checked. Mine were plugged at 60K and the car only had a misfire for 30 days before I changed the OPTi and got it running perfect again.

 

I let my Z28 go until 130,000 miles with the stock cat, and kept wondering why it was slowly running worse and worse. One day it suddenly got so bad i couldnt even accelerate until 3/4 throttle. After Unbolting the cat and revving the hell out of it, i counted atleast 20 broken pieces of the catalyst shoot out the back. The first piece was wedged solid side blocking the exhaust flow, right in the center of the cat. It was even solid black on one side from being burned so badly.

I didnt even have to gut mine, every single piece blew out, with the exception of what was stuck in the muffler. A new muffler fixed that.

It runs a lot better now, but still doesen't run great. I'm guessing the blockage fouled out all my plugs so they will be the next replacement.

 

I dont have cats so I know thats not my problem.

 

The times I ran were WITHOUT the Race Built trans and the Vigilante 3200.

I'm worried about putting my car on the dyno. I have seen and heard about way too many cars blowing up on them. Is the dyno really worth it?

What can a dyno tell me BESIDES AFR? I mean, can it really tell me if the tranny is slipping, if the Cat is bad, if I have a misfire?

 

You really need to take care of that type stuff before you put the car on a dyno.
A chassis dyno measures your RWHP and if its not running right its a waste of 50 or 75 bucks (whatever the shop charges)
Now a dyno tune with a wideband O2 will help you get your tuning right but if you have a bad opti or bad wires or anything like that its a waste of your money.

 

So where can I go to find out EXACTLY what is wrong? Everyone here agrees that something is not running right, but everyone also has a different idea to what it is. I can't afford to throw money at every area until it runs right. Is there any kind of scanning that could be done to figure this out?

 

IMHO, i before i would do anything drastic. i would get that tranny/TC in and see what happens. that could be the culprit. mine was slipping bad before it went out, now with the new tranny it runs much much much better especially in the upper RPM's.
Jesse

 

Sounds like we're in the same boat. My '97 LT1 has a K&N FIPK, Hotcam kit, LT4KM, headers, Yank 3000, flowmaster catback, 3.73's. I haven't taken it to the track, but after dyno tuning we got it to 274rwhp. Going by this board, thats about 40-50rwhp less than it should be. Obviously something is majorly wrong somewhere.

I've been changing parts here and there on recommendations and so far nothing has fixed the problem. The tools me and a buddy have been using to try and figure out the problem are LT1Edit and Autotap. With those you can check what codes are thrown, if its running rich/lean, misfires, etc... and retune it.

If you're like me though and don't have an SES light and nothing feels wrong, then unfortunately there won't be any exact way to know what to do. I've made some posts here as well and got lots of suggestions. But thats all they are, suggestions. At this point it's just a matter of chaning more and more parts untill eventually the right part gets changed and the problem is fixed. Yup, it's incredibly frustrating.

Personally, I'm not sure I feel like spending thousands randomly changing parts only to potentially still not fix the problem in the end. It's been a tough call, tough enough that I made a post on it here:

http://web.camaross.com/forums/showt...hreadid=160344

Basically, I'm wondering if I should just sell the car and start fresh. What can you do? Unless you're getting codes it's gonna be hard to figure out. The two most prommising guesses I've heard so far from people on this board are:

1) Do a compression check on the motor to make sure thats up to spec.
2) Check if the cats are clogged.

I've received lots of other suggestions, but most of them would probably trigger and SES light (which I don't get). Both of the above though could happen on a car that throws no codes and feels fine (aside from slow track times) so they seem like suggestions worth following up on.

Best of luck. If you ever do figure it out, post your fix here. I'll do the same.