🔧 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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sktchy

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The thing I don't like about a smoke machine is it doesn't recreate the forces of vacuum and boost while in use but if your happy there's no leak I'll roll with it. You just changed injectors right? And you had the car tuned on the old ones right? I know you probably looked and this would probably be obvious but there's no way this is in the individual injector skew is there?
 

v6buicks

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I was talking with dezldave961 over on turbobuick. (The OGs might remember him) He's convincing me to do some math and throw a little more into the MAF table. I can always revert back and toss the stock rockers back on if I can't figure it out.

While Dyno Brian did a good job on my car with the stock valvetrain, he might have leaned (pun intended) a little lighter on fuel than the factory did. Dave also explained that the rockers wouldn't be such a worthwhile upgrade if the engine didn't benefit from a tune post-install. Therefore, it seems possible that the engine is running like poo due to properly installed high ratio rockers. Makes sense to me. I'm not WFH anymore, so I'll have to dick with this later.

Ambition is restored since I shouldn't have to pick up a wrench or troubleshoot a bad pro link for a while. :LOL:?
 

sktchy

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I'd say he's correct to a point as I also had to put a lil more fuel in for the rocker change. (If you set your histo up right it'll do it for you and it's copy and paste) but I don't think it's going to clean up a sloppy idle or low vacuum issue unless it's terribly lean like 17s or 18s but timing will help for sure. My car needs to be around 15⁰ at idle or it's going to run like ass and like I said previously it wouldn't ever hold steady until after a good boost until I messed with it and then it was close but not perfect.

Feel free to message me when you get to messing with it I can send you over what I have for my car to compare and see if you don't have somethin weird going on
 

GTPpower

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The maf will compensate for any extra airflow at idle and cruise and likely at wot, but thats something to check with your wideband.

I've done a few rocker upgrades on cars over the years, and not a single one changed how it idled or cruised.

Your maf can compensate for huge changes without any problems at all, and I would call rocker ratio a very small change.
 
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v6buicks

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The maf will compensate for any extra airflow at idle and cruise and likely at wot, but thats something to check with your wideband.

I've done a few rocker upgrades on cars over the years, and not a single one changed how it idled or cruised.

Your maf can compensate for huge changes without any problems at all, and I would call rocker ratio a very small change.
Is it normal to have <2% duty cycle with 80s at idle or is that a vacuum leak indicator?
 

sktchy

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To be fair I kinda think we all may be having maf problems. Having to have an elbow right before the maf especially on these f cars could mess with airflow right? Like say it got cocked off to one side rather than the other last time it got put on that'd change the way the air hits the sensor?

Whatever it is with both you guys cars I hope you get it figured out before I get mine back together these aren't fun issues to fight at all. :bowrofl:
 

Mr_Roboto

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If you've got a process (not just punching in #s) I would probably go through it again and see if you got hit by the tolerance bug. If you're punching in #s it may be something worth researching. I've had all sorts of idle weirdness in the Astro and a lot of the teeth cutting is attributable to dead time on the injectors.
 

v6buicks

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How do the long term fuel trims look? That's usually a good indicator of how far off the MAF is unless you're running open loop.
Even if it is a vacuum leak I've learned you can kinda tune it out by tweaking the MAF curve to some extent :LOL:
Full time open loop. Brian did that, and I wish I knew why.
 
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sktchy

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I had no choice but to run open loop because my trims were dead rich no matter what I did to it. Looking back I wish I would've tracked down the cause of it id probably be further ahead but I wonder if yours isn't the same kinda thing I had going on that drove me nuts last winter.

Also you can tune around just about anything, even a dead hole, and make it run smooth, maybe put down a good 260 to the wheels popping on 5 cylinders but I wouldn't know anything about doin that lol
 
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bs009

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Really shouldn't have any problem running closed loop on the stock cam unless something is going wrong with the O2 or MAF or there's some exhaust leak. Suppose open loop is going to be more consistent than closed loop though so that could be why.
Once you get the wideband working I would add a log for MAF correction in HPTuners if you can. Should be a way of adding your own custom formula PIDs I think right? Basically going to be something like: '(MeasuredAFR - TargetAFR)/TargetAFR'
There's probably a better formula out there that someone else using HPTuners has tried but that could basically be your correction factor that you can correlate with your MAF to see how far it's out. It'll be different across the MAF curve for sure. I'd do baby steps in adjustments just to be safe too.
 
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v6buicks

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Really shouldn't have any problem running closed loop on the stock cam unless something is going wrong with the O2 or MAF or there's some exhaust leak. Suppose open loop is going to be more consistent than closed loop though so that could be why.
Once you get the wideband working I would add a log for MAF correction in HPTuners if you can. Should be a way of adding your own custom formula PIDs I think right? Basically going to be something like: '(MeasuredAFR - TargetAFR)/TargetAFR'
There's probably a better formula out there that someone else using HPTuners has tried but that could basically be your correction factor that you can correlate with your MAF to see how far it's out. It'll be different across the MAF curve for sure. I'd do baby steps in adjustments just to be safe too.
That's essentially what the chart above my line graph was doing. It was looking at my commanded vs actual AFR and spitting out a percent error for every five hits of the MAF cell. Since my wideband is screwed up the numbers are outrageously incorrect, but you can see how it's doing all the math for me. Once I have a bunch of numbers to play with, I'll go to the MAF table and multiply it by the percent error log.
 
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