🔧 BUILD LAME Turbo V6 Camaro

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Hello! Welcome to the shit show! I am updating this post in 2021 to explain what new readers are about to witness. If I knew that this thread and build were going to explode into what it is today, I would have started it out a lot different.

This car was (and still is) a basket case. The whole inspiration for starting this project was to start learning how to modify engines in a car that I didn't like. That way, if and when I screwed up, I wouldn't be ruining a nice car. It spiraled out of control from the first moment that I felt boost. I loved what I had created, but it took a ton of work to get to where I was. As soon as I got the car running nicely I was always saying "I'm going to fix______, and THEN I'll just enjoy driving it." You know the drill. Drive, break, fix, repeat! Before I knew it, I enjoyed driving and working on this turd more than the nice car I was trying to preserve!

The point is that the focus of this thread shifts A LOT. To complicate matters, I never have just one ongoing project open at a time. I listed some thread contents with links below. I will update this as new milestones or big updates happen. Just know that even if you click on the shortcut, you may have to scroll past other project posts to reveal the outcome. There are also some mini-projects and very helpful advice from other members in between, so read the whole dang thing if you want!

2018-2019
1. A late introduction
2. Discovering how a PCV works (and plugging it)
3. Custom grill for intercooler
4. Fuel pump trap door
5. Learning that I'll never learn anything from my goofy wide band gauge
6. Deleting AC completely, but retaining heat
2020
7. Low profile heater hose fittings
8. Deleting an air bag without setting a light on the dash
9. Starting a second round of floor repairs
10. ABS delete and line lock installation
- A separate thread for the electrons
11. Installing catch cans with nice brackets (Way overkill)
12. Figuring out the "blow by" problem once and for all (F-body intake plug)
13. Second clutch job, first rear cover job, and preliminary transmission swap research
14. Floors are "done", and Interior is installed.
15. I don't know how to tune, but this wide band might help.
16. Poly trans mount. Yeah, it actually deserves a link.
17. I waved the tuning white flag. Dyno Brian sets me straight!
18. T5 Pro5.0 shifter
19. New shifter was too much fun. OG T5 explodes, and my transmission conversion ideas start to get serious.
-TKX conversion
-TKX swap official write-up
20. Reconfiguring my exhaust for a quieter and less leaky future
21. I'm not done enjoying this car for the year, so I install a $100 T5 instead of a bulletproof conversion. SPOILER ALERT: It only lasts two months.
22. Minor repairs/updates that make the car livable (lighting, stereo, speedometer re-zero, and a clutch master cylinder that actually does it's job!)
23. Wheels and addressing rust again since I got time!
2021
24. Custom center caps
25. 1.9 roller rockers and LS6 springs
26. CAI V2.0
27. TKX is delayed so it's time to address the little annoyances.
-OE pan is junk. Dorman pan gets hot rodded
28. TKX is still delayed, so I install just one poly engine mount and beef up my flimsy turbo drain plumbing
29. TKX does NOT ship the following Monday. Flywheel bolts upgraded to ARP M10 x 1.0
30. When you're on a Chinese garbage budget, you better be ready to work harder. (Oil drain fitting hot rodding)
31. Finally repairing the oil sender pig tail, replacing the other engine mount, and test fitting the TKX.
32. Finally addressing rear brake lines while I wait for more transmission parts.
33. Modifying an ICM for a WOT box
34. Dash gets re-instrumented so that diagnostics become possible.
35. N2MB WOT box
36. Porked crank key. PSA: Be careful installing your balancer!
37. Car runs great after plug change, but the rear main seal needs to be changed again.
38. BURNOUT! Also, I kinda bought a cam.
39. Turbo drain finale (better be) and full exhaust commenced
2022
40. Downpipe V3 and BMR strut tower brace
41. Panhard bar and relocation for bro truck exhaust
42. Muffler, driveshaft, torque arm, and giving up smoking.
43. First trip to the GS Nationals (feat. time slip)
44. The very custom AC project is born
45. New dyno results (up 50 hp!)
46. Exhaust hanger repair before Michigan/S.S. Badger/Wisconsin trip
47. Sizing a better turbo
48. Painting but still not installing the IS3 heads and Monster clutch unboxing
49. Firewall brace
50. New ECM
2023
51. Out of storage and SC engine buy failure #3
52. Modified double roller and spitballing crankcase evac ideas
53. Completing the rear suspension. UMI rear control arms.
54. Cracked headers and L32 swap begins
55. My newest L32 was trash. I'm upgrading the L36 instead
56. Side project: The ultimate-ish intake manifold takes shape


Now back to 2018!
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Now that this car is running and driving, I figured I would start a thread dedicated to all the questions I’m about to pummel this group with. This is the first time I've really built anything to move quicker than stock, so I'm hoping to learn a lot from you guys before I make unnecessary mistakes. I also have a thread in the Turbobuick.com 3800 section, but I'm not getting as much input there due to a lack of audience. Here goes nothing...

The car I have is a 2002 Camaro with only ONE factory option (rear window defogger). The story supposedly goes that my buddy's dad was looking forever for a new Camaro because he never buys anything for a penny more than the best deal. He almost ran out of time as this was the final model year for the F-body, and '03s were already on the market. The dealer from which he found this car bought it for the sole purpose of being able to advertise "Brand new Camaros for under $10k", so this was the one he took home.

Fast forward to 2018. The car was structurally a wreck from living in the rust belt, but has a great interior, okay black paint, a third pedal, a 3800 (which is a plus in my book), and a lot of sentimental value since I remember riding in it when it was brand new. My buddy’s dad handed me the keys in hopes that I would enjoy it and make it a race car. To be honest, I don’t care for F-bodies, but I couldn't resist this one for the reasons above despite knowing that the floors were in desperate need of existing again.

I already had my dream car which is a 1986 Buick Regal Grand National. As much as I love that car, I like it the way it is in fairly stock form and modifying Buicks has gotten terribly expensive anyway. I figured a black 3800 Camaro could easily fulfill my childhood dreams of racing a badass turbo Buick V6 car while being on a budget, so here I am.

The car is now equipped with:
-6765 ebay turbo
-Precision PW40 wastegate
-Custom turbo exhaust utilizing a stock Camaro and FWD manifolds
-Air to air ebay intercooler
-AEM 50-1200 fuel pump
-Siemens Deka 80# fuel injectors
-Open 3” downpipe
-Custom 3” charge pipes
-Intense mail order tune
-Very ugly but functional upright radiator conversion (the core support was all just rust anyway) :dunno:
-Custom space saving AC delete without bypass pulley
-Midwest Chassis bumper support modified to mount my intercooler
-Spec Stage 1 clutch kit

The car is far from refined and has a lot of little issues to sort out, but I will leave the first post as sort of an introduction to that. I hope you enjoy hearing about it. It’s been fun to build!

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v6buicks

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Try this:

Go to
Engine>Fuel>Power Enrichment>Throttle>Hot

Change every cell there to 30.


It looks to me like it's entering PE way too late, then it can't dissipate the heat quickly enough. Try that and see if that helps.
After cooling down from that little 'sode I had yesterday I went in and changed a bunch of crap over to the GTP specs because I agree that PE was coming in way too late. I noticed the turbo spooling up pretty good with my wideband still stuck on 14.7. I know a lot of it is going to apply more to SC stuff than turbo, but most of it seemed to be a lot better than the NA stuff I had in there. When I went for a drive, the car FELT a lot better. It's hard to describe what my initial complaints were, but it was almost like the power came in stages instead of progressively. I'll have to post the logs after work. Despite all that, the KR didn't get much better.

I don't remember what the chart for hot throttle consists. I think that was the one that I subtracted 10 from all the cells, but I can confirm that in my notes later. PE is probably still coming in a bit too late.
 

v6buicks

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Man, Fbody pcm's suck. They have nothing mapped.
YEAH! It really friggen blows! I have so much hope while watching Goat Rope Garage on YouTube because he's really good at explaining stuff, but when I go into my editor to try and follow along I notice that my ECM has NONE of the stuff he's tweaking. WTF. It was already tough enough not having the ability to go SD, but I can't even fix my PE like an LS. This is a special breed for sure.
 

v6buicks

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Ahh yes. Hot throttle is the one I went -10 on everything. GTPpower GTPpower you think I should go 30 all the way across?
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Dang. Yeah, PE came in when my MAP was already maxed so I must have been in boost.
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Attachments

  • Mad Jon post cruise changes lots of stuff - see notepad 5-25-20.hpt
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  • After lots of changes 5-25-20.hpl
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v6buicks

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I'll keep my fingers crossed. I remember HP tuners' limited support for certain 3800 cars being a big complaint. What kind of tables do you have that I don't? As much as I would like to finish what I started, spending another penny on tuning tools isn't gonna happen unless I managed to find a smokin' deal on DHP like right now. lol I think I'm closer to turning the boost down to 0 and sticking a stock tune back in the car before that happens. I really want to start depending on this car as a temporary daily so that I can list my current daily for sale. I'm very tired of not having a truck that can tow my cars around.

...but before any of that, I'll try the 30s.
 

v6buicks

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SOB!
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While cussing about that for a minute, I thought about the change I just made and when the KR was showing up during the cruise. It seemed to start right as PE would be kicking in whether I was beating on it or not. I decided to experiment with TPS delay. I was really hoping to have a ramp rate adjustment, but I don't. Delay was all zeros, so I put some ones (seconds) on the low end of the chart.
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Uh huh... well that did something. I still have KR but it comes in later and not as intense. When I went to play some more I found that the chart will not let me enter fractions of a second. That sucks. A full second of bad tune is forever if you're pushing it hard enough.

By the way, I know I sound like I'm lecturing. I don't do this because I think I'm smarter than anybody. I'm just thoroughly explaining my thought process in hopes of you all picking it apart and setting me straight! With that said, this PE tab among others looks pitiful compared to all the examples I've seen on YouTube. Do I really need to start hunting for a DHP to supplement my investment in HPT? ?‍♂️ SOB!
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  • pe ramp rate too high 5-27-20.hpl
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  • PE delay adjusted.hpl
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  • nope.hpl
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v6buicks

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I cant see your scans but I can see your screenshots. I see that you never went WOT you just went partial to late throttle. Why are you doing that?
Oops. Yeah I forgot to attach those so people can look. If I see KR while I'm still in the gas, I let out. If I have KR at part throttle won't I just aggravate it by giving it more? I don't wanna hurt it.
 

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Well the idea is you see 5° of KR at a certain point of the airmass/throttle percentage and you go in and take that amount of timing out in that particular area. Then you do it again and see if you have more. That's the fine tuning, the WOT tuning you've been seeking is completely different. If I only had to tune a car for WOT it would take me like 5min. It's the partial throttle stuff that takes time because with a turbo there's so much more load at lower RPM than there is with a useless blower.
 
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v6buicks

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Well the idea is you see 5° of KR at a certain point of the airmass/throttle percentage and you go in and take that amount of timing out in that particular area. Then you do it again and see if you have more. That's the fine tuning, the WOT tuning you've been seeking is completely different. If I only had to tune a car for WOT it would take me like 5min. It's the partial throttle stuff that takes time because with a turbo there's so much more load at lower RPM than there is with a useless blower.
Hmmmmm okay. I think I follow you.

When you say "what you've been seeking" do you mean that's what I SHOULD be seeking right now? Because in reality I have no idea as to what I'm seeking. :ROFLMAO:. I really just know that KR is bad, and boost is fun. Everything else is new to me.


Am I chasing my tail by not focusing on WOT first and working on part throttle later?
 

Mr_Roboto

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Can you just dump the PE out of it entirely for now? The reason I'm asking is the Megasquirt guide typically says tune fuel at steady state before adding PE and it may be worth considering in your case.

One thing I will ask is there anything that adds fuel as injector pulse width? Bumping the injector size would mean they would add LOTS of fuel if that's the case. I've had that fun with the 'squirt as well and 55s.
 

v6buicks

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Can you just dump the PE out of it entirely for now? The reason I'm asking is the Megasquirt guide typically says tune fuel at steady state before adding PE and it may be worth considering in your case.

One thing I will ask is there anything that adds fuel as injector pulse width? Bumping the injector size would mean they would add LOTS of fuel if that's the case. I've had that fun with the 'squirt as well and 55s.
I don't know. Hopefully somebody else will chime in about that. I really wish that I could put HPT on my work computer so that I could think about this stuff during the day.
 

v6buicks

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Can you just dump the PE out of it entirely for now? The reason I'm asking is the Megasquirt guide typically says tune fuel at steady state before adding PE and it may be worth considering in your case.

One thing I will ask is there anything that adds fuel as injector pulse width? Bumping the injector size would mean they would add LOTS of fuel if that's the case. I've had that fun with the 'squirt as well and 55s.
I took screen shots of all my tabs in HPT because I'm hesitant to answer anybody's questions with confidence. Hopefully it'll help our communication. I don't see anything in here that actually changes the pulse width except for the offset table. From there, everything is airflow based. Is this (first pic) the table you're talking about?
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Engine - Airflow.png


Engine - Exhaust.png


Engine - Fuel - Cutoff DFCO.png


Engine - Fuel - General.png


Engine - Fuel - OL Base.png


Engine - Fuel - Oxygen Sensors.png


Engine - Fuel - PE.png


Engine - Fuel - Temp Control.png


Engine - Fuel - Transient.png


Engine - Idle.png


Engine - Spark - Advance.png


Engine - Spark - Retard.png


Engine - Torque Management.png
 

Mr_Roboto

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This may be a dumb question but has anyone ever advised you about the AE Multiplier and how it affects output? If it's PW based you could be dumping shittons of fuel in if you've never reduced it to compensate. I'm not familiar with this box or altogether well educated on HPT that's just going off my general tuning knowledge and trouble I've had.
 

v6buicks

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This may be a dumb question but has anyone ever advised you about the AE Multiplier and how it affects output? If it's PW based you could be dumping shittons of fuel in if you've never reduced it to compensate. I'm not familiar with this box or altogether well educated on HPT that's just going off my general tuning knowledge and trouble I've had.
I don't recall anybody saying anything to me. However, just by looking at my pictures I don't think I have the ability to change that. That doesn't mean DHP can help though.

I'm worried about what I'm going to do next, because I really want to drive this car to and from work. The 240 could use some loving, and I no longer trust the Camaro to take me anywhere. lol
 

SaturdaysGS

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Sadly, I have no clue. The only guy I know who USED to tune 3800s in Indy won't even talk to me about it. Apparently the community didn't treat him well, so he only tunes LS and Coyote stuff now.

Maybe reach out to Clint John on the 3800 Facebook pages, he bought my turbo 04, and I gave him a power tuner with it... didn’t know anyone locally would need it. No idea if he still has it or needs it or anything but I believe he does some tuning too. Might be worth a shot.
 
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Sadly, I have no clue. The only guy I know who USED to tune 3800s in Indy won't even talk to me about it. Apparently the community didn't treat him well, so he only tunes LS and Coyote stuff now.

Ha, that's why I stopped tuning local cars. I was doing it for fun but so many trolls in the community I just stopped doing it.
 

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