scottg

Hi Sammy, For what you go through to get this stuff, you deserve to have it work. I have the ECS tranny brace on my m6, a little more piece of mind even with my lowly 602 rwh. Good luck

CI GS

Hey Scotty. Good to hear from you.
I love tinkering and I like the challenge of doing things a little differently. So buying parts that don't always work is part of that.
When I bought this car, I was also considering buying a ZR1 or a 911, and I decided to buy this GS because I wanted a project, rather than a factory-built supercar.
I have a few other things that I want to experiment with to try to push the envelope of this Heartbeat setup. Watch that space.

schpenxel

Nice looking parts! I am liking the pre-assembed lines for sure

Chiselchst

Very nice, Sammy! You're living the dream, LOL...

With new R888's mine dead hooks now when it's warm. Not too exciting, LOL. I was thinking about taking the next step - which I guess would swapping out the 90mm for something smaller. In the land of 91 octane CNA fuel, I'm not sure. But a better tensioner would make me feel better about running something smaller.

Good luck, I'll stay tuned!



___________

Carson, I was in Aberdeen, NC recently. First time. Nice area, liked it a lot. People are great. Maybe I'll retire there...very soon

CI GS

Thanks. The ECS fuel kit seems to be a completely plug and play deal and everything looks like good quality stuff. The only thing they could improve a little bit on would be to update the instructions on their website (or enclose some instructions). It's pretty obvious what goes where though. I just need to burn out the half tank of gas in the car now though.
The tensioner should make a big difference, I think. I'm going to use the manual tensioner with it, so that I can adjust that to put the spring tensioner in the fully cocked (1 O'clock) position. That should give the ECS tensioner lots of room to take up the slack. That, along with the RPM belt should eliminate any belt slip. We will soon know..
BTW: I've come to realise that one of the reasons my max boost may have dropped from 12.2ish to 11.75ish is that I gutted the cats. I've looked at some logs and realised that it only made 12+ when it still had the cats in. It's a bit louder now too. It howls like a banshee with his nuts in a vise when it gets up into RPMs at WOT nowadays.

CI GS

Hey Mitch. I would throw an 81mm on it and an Alky control kit. Carson has a spare one, minus the pump, since some azzhole in US customs decided to take a drill to it.
I've always heard good things about those triple 8s.
NC is nice. Always liked the place, although I haven't been to eastern end of the state. I have an older colleague who retired to live up there that I've been promising to visit. Maybe this year I'll go, and drop in on Carson so we can go find the ******** in customs that keeps drilling holes in everything I send him.

CI GS

Here's a few bonehead ideas that I may experiment with, to see what this Hbeat can really do, after I'm done installing the parts I just got:
- Heartbeat Camaro lid and CACs. Not sure if this would affect boost, but will increase the size of the plenum and the height/surface area of the CACs, which should give me better IATs. The camaro/Holden Heartbeat cars produce 20ish more rwhp than the vette version at the same boost, reportedly. I've ordered a RK Sport Z06 Violator hood, so that along with 3/8" shorter Hinson mounts should give me sufficient hood and cowl clearance respectively. I'll find out some more before I pull the trigger on that though;
- I'm going to install the BAP on my HX pump. I may install the ZL1 pump as well, but will probably wait to see how the Bosch one handles the extra voltage first;
- since it's clear that magnuson doesn't give a flying phuque about ever getting around to making their disingenuously promoted '108mm upgrade" setup, I'm thinking about taking the throttle body inlet snout off the Heartbeat and welding it up around the flange and then porting the sumbitch out to 102 mm and put a NW TB on it, with a custom CAI. I would really like to see how much boost I can pick up with that.
Anyways, those are my current brain-fart ideas.
Or, I may just take the easy route and build a 416 with TFS heads and insert some spray bars in the blower lid and spray the **** outta it...

schpenxel

Yeah it's a really nice area and pretty much everyone around here is nice.
I didn't realize it (been here all of my life) until I started traveling more and seeing some of the crappier areas and people

I drive through Aberdeen sometimes going on the way to the beach, I'm not far from there, pretty nice area

Not a whole lot going on in that area but if you want peace and quiet you should be able to find it here

CI GS

Take a look at the pictures below. This is the check valve that comes with the ECS Stage 1 fuel kit. It's a -6 ORB male to -8 AN flare check valve fitting that screws into the output/supply side of the pump. It looks a bit restrictive to me. I'm sure that the system will work as advertised and will flow more than enough fuel for my existing power level. But I still think I'm going to change up the whole supply side of the kit and run a -8AN hose all the way up front and tie into the rail rather than teeing into the line next to the tank, and also replace this with a larger inline flapper type check valve. I think that with those changes I won't have to worry about ever having more than enough fuel at the rail. Maybe, I'll call it the ECS Stage 1.5 kit.

schpenxel

That does look a little small.. I'm sure it would work but a little less restriction and larger hose never hurt anyone.

No "that's what she said", please, lol

CI GS

LOL! The thought never crossed my mind, since I have never honestly had that complaint...

CI GS

So I did a little research on the AEM pump and it turns out that the pump is rated with and without the chance valve in it.
FYI: The AEM part # for the check valve is 50-200-08. Below are a couple of charts that I wanted to share, which convinced me that this thing will NOT be a restriction for my setup. So, I'm going to install the ECS kit as is. My bad for doubting. It's just that the orifice looked a little small to me.
When I do the install, I'll post up some pictures, since their online instructions are a little out of date.

ls1wolf

Look forward to your write up.

Gonna need your TOC write up soon too!

CI GS

No worries.

I think I had posted something on my trans cooler install, which is very easy and simple, to be honest.
I'm using a Hayden # 679 plate and fin type cooler, sandwiched between the radiator and the AC condenser core, with the radiator bypassed completely. Easy, simple and works for me. It even works with the thicker cored Dewitt's rad. My TFTs rarely go above 170*, even with the 3600 stall.
Here's a few pictures:

Woodstoc

Hey Sammy, nice meeting you in person. Thanks for the quick (really) tour of the island in that beautiful GS. You are a stand up guy. Where do you purchase that RPM belt we talked about? Is is a normal parts store kind of part, or somewhere else? I checked and I have no play whatsoever on my tensioner, I need to get a good belt and back off a bit I think. I believe I went too far trying to chase belt slip.

Nice garage, great place to work on the car too, real class!

Woodstoc

I don't blame you for doubting, it looked a bit small for me too. PSI is everything though....

CI GS

Hi Larry. Thanks for the kind words and I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed your stay here. It was good to meet you too and put a face to a name.
The Gates RPM belt came from Rockauto. The one I have cost just under $47.00. If your tensioner is already fully loaded or "closed", I would stick with that length of a belt. That way you have the full range of the tensioner to take up slack. If you can get it on the pulleys then I doubt it's too tight anyway. The biggest obstacle to making good boost and power with these blowers is that weak *** stock tensioner. As you saw the other day, my max boost has now dropped down to 10ish now, whereas the last time I ran the car, it was maxing at 11.6psi or so.
I'm going to start tackling the ECS tensioner install soon, maybe tonight even, and when I do I'll post up pictures. I've got a feeling there's going to be some skinned knuckles and plenty of cussing involved though.

CI GS

According to that chart, that little pump can supply enough fuel, by itself, through that check valve, for ~850hp @ 60psi. That's a hell of an auxiliary pump. As you saw, the whole kit looks like top notch stuff. I would recommend that you do one of these in the future too, to avoid that BAP problem happening again.

CI GS

Received another part for the next round of mods - a RK Sport Violator Z06 hood. This thing will give me all the hood clearance I may need in the future to switch to the Camaro lid and CACs, if I ever do. Just need to get it sprayed and bolt it on, along with all the other **** I have piling up in the garage. Had too many irons in the fire lately to even get at the tensioner install, but hope to start on all of that soon.

CI GS

Started the ECS HD tensioner install tonight. Actually got everything installed, but had to pull it back off because there's a stupid bolt boss on the water pump that needs to be cut back (per ECS instructions) to avoid it potentially rubbing on the belt, because the tensioner runs about 1/4" away from it in the fully closed position, without the belt on it, so I don't doubt he belt will touch if the tensioner closes fully under load.
It looks like it will work though. The only thing that worries me is how the hell im going to get that damn tensioner open, because ECS wasn't joking around with the spring on this thing.
I actually surprised myself and managed to do the install by just pulling the sway bar. Had to jack the engine up slightly in the cradle to get the tensioner body to clear the steering rack to get it seated in the bracket, but other than that, it was pretty straightforward, albeit punctuated by expletives from time to time. Getting the AC belt back on was a bit of a bitch.
I'll finish it up tomorrow night, if I get a chance to work on it again then.
Still have the ECS fuel system, some Hinson engine and trans mounts, ECS axle hoops and a new hood to install. That should keep me busy for a bit.