Vacation Bench Racing

The custom grind camshaft I got for the car is close to the Comp Cams XR273HR cam, just some difference in the Lobe Seperation Angle and the advance of the cam. I ran the XR273HR through CamQuest, modeling the L33 with it's LS6 heads, headers, free flowing exhaust, a .030 mill of the heads to bump compression to 10.6:1, and the XR273HR combo should be good for 429HP and 380 ft/lbs of torque. Surprisingly, the two step smaller XR265HR models to 460HP and 401 ft/lbs of torque in the same combo, with a slightly stronger lower end. We'll have to see how it works out. Either combo should put the car in the deep 12s, if not knocking on 11 second timeslips at over 110 mph.

I took a couple pictures after cleaning up the harness. For a small, waterproof fuse block, I use the 6 position weatherpack connector with a clear cover. It provides three fuse positions, and a nice flat area for a label of the fuses using a Brother 1/2" tape label.












Here is the modified harness. I took out a few pounds of wire, reterminating nearly all the connections on the PCM. The Carolina Auto Masters tuned PCM is on the left side of the picture.

Tuning at Carolina Auto Masters

Drove out to Durham, NC yesterday to visit Jeff at Carolina Auto Masters. Selected Mutt's cam from the boneyard of small cams customers upgraded from, and got a good little cam to give Mutt a bit more go along with the free flowing exhaust and headers, and a small shave to the heads.

While there, Jeff reprogrammed the PCM to remove unnecessary emissions, match it to the cam, set the right tire size and rear end gear ratio, and tune the transmission. About the only negotiation was on the WOT 3-4 shift speed where I asked Jeff to back it to 130 MPH. Past experience open road racing showed the car cruising between 130 and 145, and I thought 130 would have the car downshifting too much if I open road race again. The difference in shift speed is around 600 RPM, taking it from just over 6000 rpm to just under 5500 rpm.

Carolina Vacation

Took my knitting along on vacation. Actually the engine harness and PCM. Repinned the engine harness to take out many feet of excess wire.

Just in Time Shipping

Ordered up headers from Street and Performance two weeks ago, and they arrived Friday, right before I headed off to the east coast on vacation. This was timely, allowing me to figure out O2 sensor wire length for the harness rework.

My restored gauges also showed up. I had my amp gauge and oil pressure gauge restored and modified. The ampmeter was converted to a voltmeter, and the oil pressure gauge changed from 60 psi to 80 psi.

The tach is a aftermarket VDO tach. It was refaced with a corvette replica face and a 6500 redline (motor redline actually 6600, but close enough).

Speedometer was cleaned up, and a new odometer installed. No more rusty black face. Along with these gauges, had the fuel/water gauge restored, and the clock restored and had a quartz movement replace the original fire-prone unit.

Belt Routing

After weeks of work on brackets, last weekend I finally figured out I wasn't routing the belt the most efficient way. This became obvious as I was designing the tensioner bracket. I'll need rev 2 of the bracket - I need to pull the base away from the steering linkage a bit, but I'm pretty close. Tensioner also needs to be moved closer to the block a bit to center the pulley. A final belt needs to be purchased - I cut down a used belt and safety wired it together to give me something to work and use as a template.