I just took my vette to Vetteran auto in Crystal Lake to get the full diagnostic on her. Joe gave me the full list of what I need to do to get her in top shape. (FYI, this is not a rant at Joe or Vetteran, Joe did a GREAT job of showing me exactly what needed to be done on each part, and they did some real nice work, I am extremely happy with them.)

I couldn't afford to do it all, but I did get some stuff done, including:

-New balancer (coudn't time the car since it was broken)
-New left header gasket (much quieter now!)
-New plugs and wires (the guy who tuned up my vette before put the wrong wires on for headers, and he routed them up top instead of under)
-Fixed a tranny leak, some leaky seals
-Repacked my front wheel bearings

So when I drove it out of there I was happier than the day I bought it! And the power difference was phenominal (remember the car could not even be timed before.)

Ok - so sorry about the wordy intro but wanted to give you the background - here is the question: Joe estimates my vette at about 360 hp. Not going to go into the specifics of the engine (you can see some in my sig) but take his word for it.

I'm just still not sure if the engine is putting out/running like it should. I took it for a good ride yesterday, and even though it runs as smooth as a top - real nice - it seems like there should be more to the power. When I punched it going about 20mph, it went fairly good, but not what I expected. I was able to hammer it once off the line and it barely broke the tires loose - now I don't have a habit of flying around punching it, but I wanted to see what would happen, and I just would have expected this car to do some kind of decent burnout with 360hp - yet like I said, the engine seems to be running real nice.

Am I expecting too much out of this engine? Could I simply be too used to the speed of the car since I got it? I don't/haven't raced anyone on the street (not into that) so I don't really have a comparison that way - but its just nagging on my mind. The new rebuild has only 11k on it...

any comments suggestions? Sorry for the long post.

Tom

 

I think your problem, if you have one, is your gears and transmission combination. I'm betting you have an automatic and economy gears, like 2.89 or 3.08. Even with the power you should be making, those gears are not going to give you the off the line acceleration and especially the rolling start acceleration you want. Also, you probably have a stock torque convertor as well.

 

Grrrr...its always something! :cry ...Isn't changing your gears a big deal and expensive? I do have an automatic. What does the torque converter do? I have never understood what it really is or how it works...I assume there is no simple way for me "fix" this...

T

 

There is a simple way. Change the converter and replace the rear gears. You said simple not cheap. The converter is a connection from the motor to the transmission. Stock converters are tight at a low rpm (no slippage). Therefore they don't let the engine build rpm before hooking to the trans. A performance converter is a little "looser" at the bottom end allowing the engine to build some rpm before fully engaging. The higher the engine rpm the more power it has. A looser converter and some performance gears will make a big change.