hehe not necessarily... My main thing was I was a little surprised to have gotten a 15.2 bone stock, there was a magazine article in GM high tech performance where they got a v6 to a 14.99 with only free mods, and one of the mods be pulling the belt. My goal was just to squeze a 14.9 out of it to copy the magazine, and I hit it but wasn't satisfied with having a "perfect" run, so went like every wed and fri night the track was open for like 6 trips in a row, every time out I got a new best then I hit, a 14.4, after that I started having clutch issues. Not wanting to spend money and since my clutch worked on the street I really laid back on racing. Later found my clutch fluid was cooked, I drained, swapped it with synthetic, and took it out a few more times and its been gripping just fine and doing well. I later added LSD, I am hoping ot hit a 1.9 60' on street tires, but its gonna be hard, especially since I am using some worn yokohama AVS ES100s on firebird 5-stars that I picked up all 4 wheels and tires for $60.

But just having fun with a low budget.

 

I have an aftermarket airbox lid and an exhaust cutout, that's it. I've never run it with the cutout. With just the lid my best time is 13.38 @ 105.42.

 

whoa whoa whoa, where can I get more info on this??

 

What more info do you want. It's simple.. Honestly he got lucky and I'll tell you why. He unhooked his exhaust, Which depending on where it was unhooked can either be good or bad. It's like people running open headers can slow down instead of going faster. When the exhaust pulse exits to atmosphere it sends a reversed pulse back to the engine. If this isn't in good time with the valve event you harm the scavenging ability. you can also run into a problem with Harming exhaust volocity. WHen you exit like that you get a TON of flow. Which is good, for high RPM. But you can harm volocity. velocity is what makes your average HP number work for you. Like I think I said above somewhere, just like adding a cutout before the cat it might look good on a dyno as peak HP but your average HP (which is what makes you faster in the 1/4) can suffer. There is a LOT that goes into exhaust theory that would make unhooking the exhaust a potencial bad idea. The best aspect of it would be the weight saved if you literaly took it off the car.

Another bad aspect is the belt. The idea is to remove load from the drivebelt system. The theory is sound and it does work. But again there are things that can bite you in the ***. One is temp. When you ditch the belt on a 3.8L you lose the water pump. you might think that as long as you don't run the car long then you will be ok. You might also think that as long as the temp gauge doesn't read high your alright as well. but thats not always true for 3 main reasons.
1: Temp VS timing curve: GM has it set up in thier cars to pull timing based on coolant temp sensor voltage. As the temp increses it will pull more timing. This is standered practice for GM. So unless your finding a way to keep the car around 175 the hole run then your actualy losing power

2: Temp and knock: Again unless your being able to run around 180 degrees your in trouble. As the temp raises the combustion chamber temps rise. What do you get when gas enters an extreamly hot combustion chamber? Detonation. Any detonation will be picked up by the know sensor and will retard the timing acordingly. If you have ever driven a car with a faulty knock sensor that was pulling a full 30 degrees of timing you know just how doggy it felt. Same idea here. Not only is detonation bad for performance, but it can also easily do motor damadge. Thats why the knock sensors are there.

3: stationary flow: If the collant isn't curculating trough the motor then you basicly have a heat soak. you might not think thats bad since the temp gauge isn't reading that high. But the temp gauge is only going to read as high as the collant around iit is. In reality the coolant in other places would be VERY much higher. Especialy around the heads and middle cylinders. When you get these high heat pokets you can actualy have spots where the collant will boil inside the head which means the air around it can super heat causeing catastrophic (sp) high head around the whole area. for that reason I point you back to number 1 and 2 above...



The belt also effects another aspect. Charging system. you might think that your battery is more then good enough to hold the load without an alternator. For some aplications your right. But computer controled fuel injection systems are different. The PCM NEEDS it's 12 volts to run correctly. Without it the PCM can send faulty voltage to sensors and get incorrect feedback. Even a fully charged battery will drop under 12 volts in no time under this stress. The other bad thing is the ign system. The GM waste spark ign system used in the 3.8's are extreamly high voltage. It has 3 coils and each coil fires 2 times when it hits. Without enought charging system voltage the voltage output of the coils an suffer especialy under the high load of WOT when dwell is at it's worst..

Sorry for the typo's, I am in a hurry to get done to go to work and I just woke up..

 

sounds to me like u r dissing him for the way he has approached his way of getting better times outta his car! if he is only doing it for the track. then b4 he leaves he puts the belt back on, then the next morning he puts his exhaust on. i really dont see why there was the need for the bashing! hopefully you understand what i am trying to say!
or maybe i misinterpreted what you had said

 

What I am saying is that from a technical standpoint he might actualy be able to get ever better times by changing the aproch of what he is doing. he could very well be hurting himself by going about it the way he is. Weather or not the hurt is more then the gain would be impossible to tell unless he went through and did everything the normal (the way that requires money) Way and compared the results. There is just no way to tell for sure given the highly volitile results of modifications..

 

i am trying to grasp what you rare saying man, believe me. but if u can get there with spending the least amount of money, why not do it?

and his times seem pretty good, cuz not many other people are running what he is! so i think whatever he is doing is somewhat right (or atleast helping his times!)

 

Lots of people tell me everything I am doing is wrong.

But I am getting results from it...


For the exhaust, it is unhooked at a factory point, It goes, manifolds, to y-pipe to CAT, then to S-pipe. And unhooks just past the behind the front of the driveshaft(Directly above the flimsy crossmember) As for weight savings, I leave the catback on, just unhook and move it to the side.

As for the Belt, people tell me I woudl run faster with it on, etc.... etc.. but BELIEVE me, I have run it every which way possible, I gain on average ~2-3/10ths, and 1.5-2 mph I have made 7 runs, rolling window up and down the whole night and running the lights down the track on a 2.5 year old battery, may be better for me to replace/upgrade my battery.

I know my temp guage is not accurate, I show up early, sit outside, let my car cool for about 30-40 min(usually like 10th in line) They open the gates, I sit back drive up to ~3k in 1st, coast to paying booth, pay, get my form, ride up first shut the car off and coast to tech. Start up ride to like 2500 rpms, shut off and coast to starting lanes... And put a ice on the intake. I drive up clean the tires off, run hit the turn around, ride 1st gear up and shut the car down and coast to to the timing shack, drive up 1st, 2nd, shut the car down and coast to the staging lanes.

Then the car sits for ~45 minutes with ice on the intake.


I have a good 60-70 passes on my car, ~30 of them have been in this setup.


I was never aiming to hit world records or anything, just looking to have some fun with my Camaro without spending that much money on it.

 

And for those wondering if its alot of work, not really...

All I need is a
-flat head screwdriver
to take the intake off... I suggest leaving the first rubber piece on, if you take it off when you jump off the throttle it stalls the motor
-1/2 in socket, 15mm stocket
1/2 to get two bolts off of flimsy crossmember, 15mm bolt to get the the bolt off the factory clamp, unhook it, hook the crossmember back up
-15mm socket, push down on tensionor to get the belt off.

And recently I have been pulling the frotn sway bar, just need a 1/2 deep socket(just on botl with a thread on the head, regular 1/2 will work on the other 3) and a 13mm flat wrench and 13mm deep socket to do the endlinks.

 

you should stay tuned to my website.. I'm going to be releasing a 3.8L product that I am testing on my friends car. I think it will work well on your aplication...