Build Queen: 4T80e Turbo 2001 Park Avenue

General Information

So this car has a ridiculous amount of work already put into it. Overtime I'll try to highlight some of the big points with the transmission swap and some of the other really cool details, but for now I'm going to briefly explain what the car looks like when I bought it and what's going on right now with the build.

20211016_093706~2.jpg


I bought the car earlier this summer in very poor condition. All the high $$$ parts were already on the car, I've put less than $500 into it as of now. Bought the car for a great price, even if I had known everything wrong with it I still would have paid that much in a heartbeat.

20211009_170348.jpg


The 4T80e conversion was incomplete (car wouldn't shift into 3rd gear), everything was leaking except the rear suspension air bags, lots of misfires, horrible squealing from the engine due to improper belt routing, and other things I'm probably not thinking of.

Here's what the car came with:

Engine:
-VS Cam with new GM timing chain
-Cobb Racing one-off turbo kit
-Camaro intake for beautiful routing of the charge pipe through the air/air intercooler
-(Unsure of what turbo is on it)
-No coolant overflow
-Stock Camaro TB and MAF (MAF was getting maxed out with the springs that came in the wastegate and blowoff)
-LS3 MAF installed but not wired up or tuned

Transmission:
-Stock rebuild 4T80e from a 2000
-3.11 gears
-700+ ft-lb rated LSD
-GM axles
-Cheap transmission cooler mounted in front of the driver's side wheel (effectiveness unknown)

Suspension:
-Stock parts, maybe some stock spec aftermarket stuff
-Broken away bar links in front (makes for an extra "exciting" ride when attempting to tame 400+ HP)
-Worn out 225 mm tires

Exterior:
-Rust
-Body panels in two different shades of green
-Rust
-Front end body panels are not from an Ultra (the car is an Ultra)
-Rust

Interior:
-Bone stock with a boost gauge and wideband.
-Lots of broken interior panels
-Heat and heated seats work :)

Fast forward to a week ago...

My friend Daniel has had possession of the car ever since we got it. He's been dailying while stress testing and taking care of little details, repairs, tuning tweaks, and some diagnostics. It's a win win for us because he doesn't need to spend money for his own car, he really enjoys the project, and I didn't have storage space or time for another project lol...

Anyways, even though we knew the mass airflow sensor was getting maxed out, we didn't really worry about it because we weren't getting any knock. During an extended 20 plus PSI pull he blew out one of the head gaskets. I'm sure the AFR was quite lean and I'm thankful we didn't lose a piston. We will be keeping a close eye on the afrs until we rework the mass air flow sensor system.

IMG_20211231_171257131_HDR.jpg

20211230_215206.jpg


Before we can rework the mass air flow sensor, we need to finish getting the car running good. The afrs are all over the place at idle because the oxygen sensor hasn't really been working and the used one I had laying around that we tried to put in when doing the head gaskets also isn't working. While doing the head gaskets we found that the spark plug gaps were very inconsistent from 24 thou all the way up to close to 40. After finishing the head gaskets and regapping the plugs, the misfires are gone at idle and full throttle.

Screenshot_20220104-152551-944.png


Next steps will be to convert the ignition system to LS coils and try another oxygen sensor. As soon as the AFRs are good and the misfires are completely gone at the same time, we will be putting a mini AFC on the stock Camaro mass air flow sensor currently being used.

Turbocharged400sbc

3800 & 4T80E > ALL
TCG Premium
Joined
Jun 16, 2007
Location
hangover park IL
I spent way too long sawzalling a junk block just go get the rail section and pickup fixture.

Only used it 8 times so far.

I have a format of my weld in baffle that has strips n holes to locate at 2 bolt holes for welding it in the proper position without needing a fixture and used pan gasket to align it.

It's just not accurate enough dep on how the buyer bends it.

3800 guys are dumb so I need it to be repeatable or just do it myself if I deem ya worthy of big dog parts or if ya need to get back on the porch and just watch us do work. :s00ls:
 

Turbocharged400sbc

3800 & 4T80E > ALL
TCG Premium
Joined
Jun 16, 2007
Location
hangover park IL
Nah I just need a single wall pan (rwd/fwd type from, spi n others) and desired turdbo drain location if not std w/g/h chassis

That pbucket pic is the Cressida pan, an spi s2 rwd pan on the ln3 (just left out the rear cover bolts) for passenger front drain for the 70mm.

You can see the triangular baffle over the left side back wall that keeps oil splash away from drain. The plastic windage tray with full width knife edged windows tends to direct the oil towards that particular area since the nose of the pan is fairly shallow with the indent for w body horseshoe mount bolts etc.

Edit I'll inc quote so pic is near my post.
 

Turbocharged400sbc

3800 & 4T80E > ALL
TCG Premium
Joined
Jun 16, 2007
Location
hangover park IL
QUOTE="v6buicks, post: 4956561, member: 13531"]
I know it's supposed to look like this, but I never quite got past that.
View attachment 241386
I assume its supposed to scrape above the windage tray? Does it make removing and reinstalling the pan a pain? I might just have to build one and take lots of pictures for James approval. Lol
[/QUOTE
 

Turbocharged400sbc

3800 & 4T80E > ALL
TCG Premium
Joined
Jun 16, 2007
Location
hangover park IL
Sorry lemme clarify.
Only oem were the shitty thin ass double wall pans. All after market are single wall. I swear the spi I did for Terry and hellboi looked identical to the gmp46a and gmp11b

Might all be relabled stampings from the same place.

I do know contours vary on all of em that my scraper is oversize to grind it to fit along the top curve to the right of the pickup kickout. I guess it's just how the sheet forms at time of stamping.
 

Turbocharged400sbc

3800 & 4T80E > ALL
TCG Premium
Joined
Jun 16, 2007
Location
hangover park IL
Try cleaning all the oil out between the dual walls for welding... ya can't. Aside from heating the whole thing dull cherry it's porosity city.

80bucks is cheap for a pan.

Doing all the traps n baffles on the trucks 460 pan I have rough drawings for a kickout and traps around the pickup to drop the oil level down yet increase qts.
 

turtleman

Addict
TCG Premium
Joined
Sep 6, 2009
Location
Villa Park, IL
IMG_20250104_170325.jpg
Anyone else use these nuke rails yet? I was looking at them mocked up and noticed the injectors were all tilted wrong then I grabbed one of my aeromotive rails to compare to and see this. wtf man!

In other news I've been checking out some new more intake options.

IMG_20250122_132514.jpg
holden lower intake

IMG_20250103_140719.jpg
turns out the runners on the holden are pretty much the same as the f-body intake.
I definitely like the freedoms and simplicity that the holden offers up but it's still a fair bit of work

I'm gonna go fuller retarder though and build my own version of the hi-mang.

IMG_20250108_101308.jpg
holley lid

IMG_20250122_130014.jpg
whole bunch of digitalized chicken scratching

IMG_20250120_173427.jpg
tadaa wooden intake base!

IMG_20250120_164936.jpg

IMG_20250120_160631.jpg

IMG_20250120_162334.jpg

I wasn't all-in serious about it at first but I think I need to just do it for the #racecar
It should cost a little less than half what a hi-mang goes for if I do it this way which is basically no-fabrication.
Since it's set up on the f-body lower intake half, it gets bigger, straighter, shorter runners so I guess it should move the power band up noticeably in addition to improving the distribution problem of the f-body upper intake.
 

v6buicks

TCG Elite Member
TCG Premium
Joined
Oct 22, 2018
That's pretty wild regarding the Nukes. I thought those were supposed to be super nice. I know the Volvo guys love em.

I also h8 u for the badassery your commiting with that intake. Wish I had your fancy skills and tools. Lol
 

turtleman

Addict
TCG Premium
Joined
Sep 6, 2009
Location
Villa Park, IL
Snapchat-1924419363 - Copy.jpg
My monday since the weather isn't too bad - finally motor is out (after blowing $80 at harbor freight for a new ram for the cherry picker)

IMG_20250203_192611.jpg
Here's the flexplate :rofl:
What's strange about this is there's no evidence that the, now, two-piece flexplate was spinning around itself thus disconnecting the driveline from the engine like I assumed. But there was a pretty terrible continuous noise and zero power transmission and after thinking about it some more, the fact that the starter still started the motor proves the flexplate was still more or less acting as one piece and the fact I had no park implies something in the transmission quit. I had lost 4th gear almost 2 years prior but it drove normally besides that, well as normally as it ever did with maxed line pressure and whatnot.
So I guess we have a real trans failure. Can't handle the 3800 pah
 
Top Bottom