Well this is a long time coming but Im glad to say that the Trans AM... My lt1 powered slow piece of shite that Ive stuck with for the past 3 years or so is finalyl in my possession again..

Last season I faced CAVI in some fun runs and after being whooped soundly from a dig and a roll, I broke my transmission... Yes.. Evidently it is quite possible to destroy a t56 when you have bruce lee styled shifting down to a T...

That being said, I had it towed to a shop that I had trusted with NUMEROUS projects in the past.. I have to say, in the past these guys were dead on with their quotes and the end results... I would of never thought in a million years I would get taken to the cleaners in such a way..

Long story short.. The transmission shifts like butter now. The Speedometer works when its wants too, not sure if its just a connection issue, or something more sevear... The ABS light is now on too, and the ABS most certainly doesnt work. Id almost call that one a godsend, but none the less.

While the tranny was out I bought a Comp Cams XFI 292. I instructed this speed shop (now out of business) to install it, with what ever else is needed. Which ended up being Springs, retainers, an electric waterpump, new dual timing chain and a host of other things... Sounded straight forward.

Word to the WISE.... If you go with a big ass cam, and the guy putting it togther says... Your stock pushrod length is fine.. DO NOT Believe him. You will need to measure your pushrods with a Pushrod checker.. If you do not the following will happen...

First and foremost your parts are going to break. Pushrods will snap, Valve stems will break, piston to valve interaction/collision will occure, Rockers will break, roller lifters will shatter, engine will be SOL... Any speed shop should know this as gospel. After enduring this, Im most certainly a preacher.

Long and short this business went under. I got stuck holding the 3300 dollars in repairs ontop of the money that they were paid. So... You would think that after that type of coin the car would be fast as hell eh?

Its not.

There is some addional tuning that needs to happen, but it makes way less low end grunt and the top end is marginal at best... This is what happens when you have ran your budget into the ground, and went with fresh stock heads vs the ported ones of yesteryear...

Hey Dan? Why did you go with Stock heads???
Glad you asked that Dan... Let me tell you... Aside from not measuring a critical clearance, they also didnt understand that when you make a crimp connection, you need to Yank on that sucker and make sure tha there is a good solid connection. If this connection is bad... Your ported Aluminum heads will melt down into something useless... when you have a nonfunctioning electric waterpump.

So... Here we are.. the car is faster than it was for sure, Ive picked up 3-4mph in the quarter with the tires on fire all the way through the traps.. Im hopefull that it will trap in the teens somewhere with traction all the way through the quarter..

Im about to swap suspension parts over for an agressive road race setup, planning on using this TA as my on deck car for hpde events.

Ive been driving it about a month now... Completely new valve train, roller rockers, lifters, pushrods...seats, seals, guides...

The motor reves all the way to 6500, but I have questions whether or not the stock castings are breathing up there. Im thinking probably not, but I havent got it on the rollers yet.

Hp.. Im going to guess that with the increase in trap speeds that my whp level is somewhere around 380ish. (mustang dyno numbers, at 38 tp that for a dynojoke number)... Pathetic when you can get a stock evo10 to make more power than that with a flash and an exhaust..lol.

She is sporting some camaro ss wheels, some mickey thompson rubber, ATE super blue brake fluid and I ditched that Choke Master exhaust for a good flowing and substantially quieter Hooker Areochamber.

All in all Im happy wtih the car. Looking forward to chasing down some DSM tailights soon.

You know, they make these things called Temperature gauges to let you know when the motor is too hot... (yeah yeah I know it doesn't work long with no coolant flow)


Glad to hear you got it back together. I will see what I can find out on the stock manifold/heads breathing at 6500. I'd be thinking with No porting/polishing, the bigger cam will make a little difference, but it's still probly choked out up there. My dad is a long time Chevy mechanic/engine builder, so if you ever need any more work done let me know.

Are you still running the Comp Cams XFI 292, or did that get damaged?

Its still in there, it wasnt damaged.

guessing stock exh manifolds, intake, etc? also what year?

Edit:
Dad uses this Desktop Dyno program (http://www.proracingsim.com/desktopdyno.htm) which is usually fairly accurate. Here's what he had to say:

with stock exhaust it will peak torque at 4000 and hp at 5500 and drop fast...if he adds headers it will have more torque at 3000..peak at 4500...and have more hp at 7000 than it does with the stock manifolds at peak...est 50-60 hp gain from getting the better exhaust flow....headers are a must to get the increase from a cam

Hooker longtubes, to a hooker Catback.
Intake manifold is ported, throttle body is a twin 58mm bbk.
It has a morroso cold air intake, slp throttle body elbo and running a stock mas air meter.

Ignition is a msd 6al with a blaster coil.
Plugs, wires etc are new.
Aeromotive adjustible fpr.
Walbro 255lph fuel pump.
AEM wideband with Ugeo gage, but the sensor is shot, its only present for monitoring though.

Im sure there is more there, just cant recall.

only thing I could see in there that might be choking you out is the stock mass air. You're probably not getting the full use of the large throttle body at top end with a bottleneck at the MAF. You won't gain much HP by changing it, but should let your engine breath better at high RPM.

Only thing left after that is the heads.

I finally got a report back from the mechanic that fixed the last shop induced errors.

wow.... sorry you had the problems that you did... good job covering your ass there.

Yeah that's rough man, tough luck

Its been a few months, after shelving the car before my frustration wtih it led to something.. criminal, I started in.

Figuring the recent mishap (FTR, I drove it 500 miles with zero issue).
The motor got noisy. I was heading to Morton in the rain, and the ass end kept sliding out heading up the hill.. Thats what you get I suppose when you have ample torque and drag slicks on the back..

So.. I did the only thing I knew to do, I put it in 6th and let the rpms fall off, and made the climb lugging the motor.

Once to the top of the hill, the motor didnt sound race carish... It sounded... Well... Brokish.

Nasty missfireish...

These Optispark distributors are known to hate the water.. Not that I planned it that way, I just kinda got stuck...

So.. I limpted it back home and there she sat for the last few days letting that optispark dry out. There after, started it up... Nasty crunching, metal on metal noises...

So... She sat some more.
Checked out the opti... it was fine. No issues there.. Shouldnt of been, its brand new... Off came the valve covers.

Some how, my Poly locks snapped in half on number 8 cyclinder. The pushrods were hanging out, but not damaged. The guide plates seemed to have saved me somehow.

So.. I got a set of feeler gauges, new poly locks, swapped out the pushrods, just to be sure and am in the process of putting her back together.

Then my phone beeps..
looks like I have a v8 rx7 that wants a piece of the bird.

Whew... What a day. I took the Driverside valve cover off... 2 pushrods bent. 2 more poly locks broken...

So.. the count is up to 5 now... 5 poly locks that snapped in the same exact spot on each one, right at the allen head locking center barrel. Interesting failure.

In an act of desperation, I backed off all the remaining locks, and to my suprise, I snapped another one off, just by trying to loosen it.

Nice to report, that the car is running again. Locks, pushrods have been replaced. The biggest difference I found, right away is that how quiet the valve train is. NOT a peep out of it now. Rpms still seem to climb with a noticable kick in the pants at arount 4k rpm.

I have not stepped on it at all in first gear. Second gear has as much traction as can be expected for some Mickey Thompsons.

Glad to hear you got it fixed up. Think it was just a bad batch of parts?

I think they were overtightened from the get go.

hate to jinx myself... but the motor got noisy again...
How much do you want to bet, that the locks that I didnt replace went belly up?
I got five on it!.

Five

Probly. You didn't replace them all?

hope you have the rest of the set to replace them.

They are changed, and it survived a trip to St. Louis and back. Its good to go.