AGRV8D, frustrated, almost calling it quits

Ok - so in an effort to put something down, quell the nay-sayers, get more out of the truck and make it fast, I've done what I could. Its really got me right now.

The guys at LG Motorsports put the G5X2 cam in (232/240&.595/.608LSA114). They went to tune it, it won't show a torque curve on the dyno. They state their not quite done, but with other crappy factors playing in, they're not going to be able to do anymore with it for about a week. They said it dyno'd 355rwhp.....ugh...compared to the LS1 hotcam? I though for sure 15 - 20 and that without the tune.

So I took it out to see what's up.....pretty much not a darn thing!

It won't break the tires loose, not even if I stall it with the brake depressed. Can't even feel the thing shift, almost like its shifting from 2nd (but you can't even feel it shifting to 3rd or 4th) - though it appears to, cause I took it up to 80mph.

So I'm fed up.....AGRV8D.....you win, call me pussy all day long. As this thing sits right now, I doubt I'd be much of a challenge to a Honda Accord.

Farmtruc - if you've got any ideas......the ears are quite open, but no, I don't currently have the plans to drive to SA within the next week or two. Besides, after what I've spent (basically could buy an old used car) this past week, I'd have some EXTREMELY HIGH expectations.

D*MN FRUSTRATED!!!!!!!! !!

swap the headss with me and call it a day...

So was it the cam itself that didnt add the power, or the guys workmanship? thats crazy bro, good luck with it.

WOW man, that sucks. Why are you not getting the performance you paid for? :duh:

Why can't they continue tuning it? The majority of the tunes I do are street tunes and they come out better than dyno tunes believe it or not. Have them do a street tune and get max timing, a/f ratio as good as they can, shift points, firmness, etc. You don't need a dyno to get it tuned 99%. What was the a/f ratio?
I don't see a big difference from 12.5 to 13.0 on a the heavily modded engines.

Just as a comparison, I tuned a trans am a while back, it had an aggressive cam 232, cutouts, headers, tuning, maf and it put out 389rwhp. That's on my dyno, a tad lower compared to the other ones.

With your mods, sounds like you should be over 420rwhp.
How does it feel on the road, besides the burn out problem? I figured you'd loose some low end, but not a whole lot.
If it's really low on hp, wonder if the cam is installed correctly. I've see them a tooth off before and they don't feel strong at all. Pushrod size? Springs?

Hang in there you'll get it!
Once you do, it'll be a very strong truck, should put you easily in the 12's.

allen

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(AGRV8D &#064; Mar 28 2006, 05&#58;29 PM) [snapback]48533[/snapback]</div>

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swap the headss with me and call it a day...
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HA - If I&#39;m not happy, ain&#39;t no one gonna be happy because of my fate.......the heads stay on the slow A&#036;&#036; truck and I just brag about what it use to do. Meanwhile, everybody I try to race in the meantime says I&#39;m full of :bs:

Hi Farmtruc,

Here&#39;s feedback for the questions you asked.

Why can&#39;t they continue tuning it?
They can continue tuning, but not until next week. One of their employees broke his ribs and is out 4-6 weeks. In the meantime, their &#39;high-profile&#39; clientelle takes presidence over me. Which I understand, "money talks and BS walks".

I&#39;ll pitch the street tune to them. Though they&#39;ll probably want to charge me more for it. Not sure what the a/f ratio was. They stated it was running a little rich (before was running pretty lean).

I could understand a T/A putting down more than me, my drivetrain hurts me as I&#39;ve mentioned before (2-piece driveshaft, 8.5" axle) versus a T/As drivetrain.

How does it feel on the road, besides the burn out problem?

This thing doesn&#39;t rev. Yes, you can rev the engine.
What it feels like on the road is there is no torque, at all, in any gear. It won&#39;t downshift and it seems like instead of holding the gear, it drives up to the next shiftpoint (whtout holding the gear) and shifts "too soon". There is no firmness of the shifts. It seems like the truck has 355hp, but 50lbs tq.

Not sure about pushrod size, the springs are good to .650 lift (Comp 921).

I&#39;m approaching Fastchip (who put the original tune in). I&#39;m gonna give LG next week like they&#39;ve asked for (they should have more time). If things don&#39;t change, I&#39;ll likely ask for Fastchip to upgrade their original tune with the new cam specs...that&#39;ll cost &#036;150. I&#39;ll see where things go from there.

Thanks for the encouragement.

Suck it up and go to SA. Allen graciously sent most of the day monday w/ me runnin up and down the freeway tuning my truck. It was as perfect as it could be and feels strong. Pay the &#036;500 to Nelson Performance and you&#39;ll agree its the best &#036;&#036;&#036; spent on the truck. Paid for my tune almost a year ago, have gotten at least 4 tunes in the mail after mods and near a full day of tuning on MOnday. NO ADDITIONAL CHARGE. My opinion, he&#39;s too nice. He&#39;s busy, but he likes to see a truck run right and will take the time to do it.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(93Ext5.7ltr &#064; Mar 28 2006, 08&#58;23 PM) [snapback]48578[/snapback]</div>

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They can continue tuning, but not until next week. One of their employees broke his ribs and is out 4-6 weeks. In the meantime, their &#39;high-profile&#39; clientelle takes presidence over me. Which I understand, "money talks and BS walks".
This thing doesn&#39;t rev. Yes, you can rev the engine.
What it feels like on the road is there is no torque, at all, in any gear. It won&#39;t downshift and it seems like instead of holding the gear, it drives up to the next shiftpoint (whtout holding the gear) and shifts "too soon". There is no firmness of the shifts. It seems like the truck has 355hp, but 50lbs tq.


Thanks for the encouragement.
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:sad: that&#39;s too bad, I disagree.

Everything else quoted above is exactly what is corrected with a street tune. The problem with only dyno tuning a truck is, anything below redline is questionable until you get the car home.
During a street tune, shift points, firmness, up and down shifts, max timing, a/f ratio (almost), drivability, ltrim tuning, idle, start up, hesitation, acceleration, etc, etc is corrected. That&#39;s more important than a high rpm horsepower number. Get a wideban installed and there&#39;s no need for a dyno, just for numbers.

Go back and get it corrected, I&#39;m sure there is another 50hp waiting to be unleashed.

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Thanks stssilverado, I hope your truck is doing better. I&#39;ll be here for the next tuning session after the mods are installed.

see ya later,
allen

Okay - so I go ahead and pay for the truck today, knowing its in need of more tuning. They guys have done nothing to it......but here&#39;s the kicker; I start it up, drive it about a hundred yards and boom, the thing lights up just like it use to&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;

So drive it the exact same route I drove yesterday and it remains consistent the entire time.

I go back home, happy as a clam, let it sit for a while, go get back in it and boom, same thing as yesterday - won&#39;t downshift worth a darn. I try switching the gears manually, responds exactly like it did yesterday.

Now, it does not seem to do anything but respond the way it did yesterday....no downshift....

What the heck is going on????

Okay, explain a little bit more details here. You&#39;re having problems with the transmission not shifting? What transmission are you running? Do you have a 93 4L60e or the 4L60e the came with the LS1 engine?

Hi RedHeartbeat,

I am having problems with the tranny not shifting.....but they are periodic and literally differ each time I start up the engine...sometimes it works fine, sometimes it won&#39;t downshift (the problem I&#39;m trying to work out).

Actually neither.... 1993 tranny won&#39;t work with a 1999 LS1 computer setup. There were changes made to the way the tranny talks to the computer (about as much as I understand), so you can&#39;t make my original tranny work with the setup (and keep it electronic/computer controlled).

What I have is a built 4L60E - maybe someone could give me pointers on where the serial number is on these and I&#39;ll post it.

Anyway, for what its worth, just "ran" to the grocery store and played with a stock 02&#39; Mustang GT - dispatched easily.

I then met up with a older modded foxbody - guess mid - late 80s? Anyway, he hung with me about like the SRT-4 I raced a while back (about a length to a length and a half back) and we definitely pushed this one up - well over a 1/4 mile. Had he not turned off, I&#39;d have asked him what his 1/4mile time was.....he he

Still confused about this.....

The program in the PCM controls upshifts taking into consideration the throttle position percentage. If you consistantly accelerate at about a 30% or greater TPS load it should upshift religiously. If your internal shift solenoids do not have the built in filters you should replace them just for safe measures. I had to do that on my trans when I rebuilt it. You could also have defective downshift solenoids.

Does your trans shift 1-2 fine but when you expect 2-3 shift it free revs like you stuck it in neutral? Do you have a stall converter greater that 3200 rpm? If so, you&#39;ll have to disable a couple PCM codes to keep this free-wheeling from happening. I drove mine like that long enough I eventually destroyed the transmission. Does your transmission have a vacuum operated fluid pressure device on it and if so, does it have a good vacuum source to it?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(RedHeartbeat &#064; Mar 29 2006, 11&#58;05 PM) [snapback]48708[/snapback]</div>

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The program in the PCM controls upshifts taking into consideration the throttle position percentage. If you consistantly accelerate at about a 30% or greater TPS load it should upshift religiously. If your internal shift solenoids do not have the built in filters you should replace them just for safe measures. I had to do that on my trans when I rebuilt it. You could also have defective downshift solenoids.

Does your trans shift 1-2 fine but when you expect 2-3 shift it free revs like you stuck it in neutral? Do you have a stall converter greater that 3200 rpm? If so, you&#39;ll have to disable a couple PCM codes to keep this free-wheeling from happening. I drove mine like that long enough I eventually destroyed the transmission. Does your transmission have a vacuum operated fluid pressure device on it and if so, does it have a good vacuum source to it?
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Thanks for the info. The truck shifts fine in normal driving conditions 1, 2, 3, OD, R, P, N. It just doesn&#39;t want to downshift when at part throttle and then you mash it. The stall is somewhere between 21 - 2300rpm. Not sure about the downshift solenoids, but this could be part of it I guess. I don&#39;t know if the tranny has a vacuum operated fluid pressure device. How can I check/confirm?

Thanks for the help man&#33;

Just look for a vacuum line running to the transmission from the engine. I can&#39;t remember which side of the transmission the vacuum line runs to. A lot of performance transmission builders use the Transgo vacuum modulator on the 60E&#39;s for consistant fluid pressure control.

Check your throttle position sensor connector for good contact and functionality since it helps to trigger your downshifts.

Wrote a message to Tony Mamo @ Air Flow Research (maker of AFR heads). He replied with the following, which didn&#39;t make me feel better, but gave some insight into why I&#39;m seeing the smallish gains:

"Shorty headers are useless and the big question is why didnt you baseline the combo....That trans will sap lots of rearwheel power as well....especially with a converter....are those locked or unlocked numbers??

I think the results are in line all things considered....A vette with a baby cam and an A4 with shorty&#39;s would be lucky to crack 400 RWHP. I bet your driveline is sucking 140 HP from the power eqaution...LOL

You get the picture....

Good luck...keep me posted

Tony
__________________
Tony "Morpheus" Mamo invites you to take the Blue Pill...welcome to the "real world" "

I had the same problem, wound up being 1-2 shift silinoid and force motor being turned up to much

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ULuze2 &#064; Apr 7 2006, 07&#58;41 PM) [snapback]49587[/snapback]</div>

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I had the same problem, wound up being 1-2 shift silinoid and force motor being turned up to much
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Hi - got the 1-2 shift solenoid thing - but what is this about?

"force motor being turned up to much"

Thanks.

when i had the shift kit put in he turned up the line pressure by turning the force motor up which caused a problem making my truck short shift and not down down shift because the computer saw like 190psi in reverse and like 90-120psi in any foward gear