mikahb

So, to be able to run in ST2 with NASA next weekend instead of SU, I had to go take the car over a dyno. I got hooked up with Horsepower House in Bowling Green and we made 3 pulls this morning.

I think my best was 332hp/338 torque. I'll post up the sheet as soon as I get it via email.

This tells me that the car likely does NOT have the '04 LS6 crate motor it was purported to have by the seller, and instead probably has the original 2001 LS6. Everything else on the pulls looked good, no signs the engine is unhappy, just WEAK!!!

So, I guess my options for this year are:

1) Leave it as is and get my a** handed to me on a fairly regular basis.
2) Upgrade this motor with whatever parts are different between the 2001 and the 2002 LS6.
3) Buy a crate LS6 from GM and drop it in.

At this point, I'm probably leaning towards #2. #1 seems like it would lead to a lot of frustration, and I don't really have the cash to do #3 at the moment. The car only has 11k miles or so, so this engine should be relatively fresh.

Anyway - it's pretty frustrating. I'm going to get in touch with the guy(s) who sold me the car, but at this point there's really no recourse for me other than to let them know I'm unhappy.

wallyman424

what kind of dyno? I assume dynojet if youre dynoing for ST2. That does sound pretty low.

Did you get the AF ratio recorded?

How do the curves look? Does it look like they dropped off up top?

you could probably buy a used longblock for less than it would cost to upgrade your existing motor.

I'd do a compression test and make sure the motor is happy before pursuing other options.

mikahb

Dyno was a Dyno-Jet 224. Yep, we recorded everything. A/F looked pretty good, though it was a little on the lean side all the way through. Other than that, everything from the OBD2 looked normal. The only funkiness on the curve that Jessie pointed out was that the torque didn't really come in until 4k rpm, but everything looked nice and smooth up top.

Long block. Sigh. Sounds like a lot of work, but you're right - that might be a better option.

Falcon

Running it too lean is not good for the engine.

Since you will probably take the engine out in case #2 or for a used long block, I'd seriously consider a crate motor. It' cost $5 - $6,000, but you'll know for certain what you have and you can run the heck out of it.

With a used long block, you could spend all that money chanign it, and end up pretty much where you are now.

I'm glad you decided to get into ST2 instead of SU. Those guys in that class are horsepower intense.

Oyishdog

Wow, thats odd...my stock 1998 LS1 made 326/345 (ls6 exhaust manifolds and straight pipes). Im trying to finish up my winter project that added some goodies to hopefully compete in ST2. I chose to to tinker with the stock motor over a crate engine primarily for the knowledge gain.

Timz06

It does seem low, but that could be from a tuning or other issue, such as wires, plugs, etc.

My 01 dyoned at 345-even with that power if you drive the wheels off of it, you should do well.

I would check to make all is ok, o2 sensors, etc.
Tim

96CELT4

Sounds like a 2002 and up LS6 motor to me. If I remember correctly the cam was really the only change between the motors and was mostly responsible for the added horsepower.

BuckeyeZ06

what fuel are you using? Is it fresh?
Are the catalytic convertors on? If yes, are they new? If not, remove?
Air Filter: clean or not?

PM me on whose car you bought. I likely know it,

RAFTRACER

Valve springs dead ????

I am wondering why you didn't take the car to VetteSport and have Dr. Doolittle play with it..............

How lean was it ???? Lean enough to knock??? Getting knock and going into the low octane spark table will turn power off...

People are amazed at what a fresh set of vavle springs will do. Especially if that thing has been buzzed to 7k alot over the past season or two...

Take it to VetteSport.

BuckeyeZ06

Danny the Great, you are right. Forgot that one. I seem to remember new valve springs making a HUGE difference in Ingles car. Not hard or expensive to change.

RAFTRACER

Yeah, they are really inexpensive something like $7-$8 @ . Need to overlay dyno data over a known good or previous good dyno sheet. See where power is dropping off.

David P., Are you stuck in the same snow storm we are ????? We've got something like 16-17" since yesterday morning Makes it hard to get into the race mode....

BuckeyeZ06

Yes, but not as bad as Cinci. We "only" got 10-12 inches, but more comning tonight. My 4 1/2 HP snowblower crapped out today, so I had to go buy a new one ($900!). I bought the last medium sized one they had and was lucky to have them deliver it this afternoon.

My trailer had to be moved early in the week in anticipation of going to Atlanta Friday, or I would have been driving the Viper down I77...

Hopefully this is it for this winter season. Global warming anyone?

73-84 IMSA Widebody

Sounding like a rebuild.......aren't there block stamping #'s to tell what it is? I'm not familiar with "newer" LS6's.

yakisoba

Have not heard about a compression test either. That is easy to do and can tell you if something is drastically wrong. Before I rebuilt my heads, one cylinder was down to 75#, while the others were over 100, but none were consistent. Now, after rebuild and new valves, much more consistent. Is it smoking? Burning oil? Oil analysis is also cheap and can tell you alot about what's going on in the motor.

Falcon

Snowblower??? WTF is a snowblower?????

RAFTRACER

While doing valve springs , that would be a great time to do a compression check.....the spark plugs will already be out...

Still curious to know about if there was spark retard and how many degrees of ignition advance it was using..

mikahb

Yeah, I need to check everything out to make sure it's all working as expected. Jessie (dyno owner/tuner) said based on what he saw we may be able to tweak timing/fuel a little bit, but we're talking in the 2-5hp range, not the 30+ I need to get up to even a marginal T1 level.

I think with the fast C5's making 375+ at the wheels, no amount of driving on my part will be able to compensate for being down 40hp.

mikahb

Yeah, I had been misinformed that Jerry had a non-Dyno Jet dyno (not by Jerry, of course - my fault for not following up).

So, here's more detail - what I know anyway:

- Car is a 2001, was built at Phoenix late in 2004
- Car currently shows 11,750 on the odo and there are 9 races in the SCCA logbook
- The cats are still on the car since they were required for T1 when it was last raced. I don't know if they're stock or not, but I think the rules required them to be stock units.
- The dyno is a Dyno-Jet 224, he didn't have any stock LS6 runs to compare it to
- He said the knock-retard pulled 1 degree of timing just under 4k but it went right back out almost immediately
- He commented that the timing wasn't changed much at all from stock and there might be some to be gained there
- When he said the mixture was lean, he said he'd probably normally tune it out, but it wasn't something I needed to really worry about. I don't know what the actual #'s were, trying to get the logs from him
- Part # on the intake manifold that I can see is 12561184 - google tells me that's an 01-02 F-body manifold?????
- Heads show casting # 243 on the front, that's the only # I can see on them
- He said the curve looked good and smooth up near the top - I asked specifically if it might be a valvespring issue, he highly doubted it
- Air filter is a clean FRAM, oil is fresh Mobil1 10W-30

I think that's about it. I have to get my master electrical cutoff installed tomorrow, but if I have time left over I'll try to compression test the cylinders and see if there are any clues there. I also need to get a Dr. Gas X-pipe ordered and get those cats out of there - who knows, maybe they're plugged.

The weird thing is the car didn't FEEL that wheezy to me down at Roebling. But, I hadn't had my '02 on track in like 8 months, so maybe my ***-o-meter was out of calibration.

Thanks for the help all. My buddy has a saying that seems to ring true on a daily basis lately... "Ain't nothin easy!"

wallyman424

i think all ls6's have the same heads, and that 243 is the correct casting number for them.

It might be worth it to get a dyno run on another dyno, just to be sure.

Burnsey