tortuga

we could use one each on the 442's new engines

looks nice, still deflecting, im suprized you didnt look into a collar to tie it to the blower snout. all we'd have to do is machine the snout a bit more than usual for a smaller pulley and you can make a 1/4in thick "figure 8" tiebar

Turbocharged400sbc wrote:

we could use one each on the 442's new engines

looks nice, still deflecting, im suprized you didnt look into a collar to tie it to the blower snout. all we'd have to do is machine the snout a bit more than usual for a smaller pulley and you can make a 1/4in thick "figure 8" tiebar

Got it handled


That's pretty much what I've made now. two heim joints (one standard thread, one left hand/reverse thread), a union I made from 3/4" 303 stainless hex stock to connect the joints, a shank nut to connect the joint to the alternator stud nicely made from 3/4" T6061 aluminum hex stock, and then the carefully engineered clamp made out of 1" thick T6061 aluminum (usual stuff same material as the bar)

and the result..







So far, it works awesome. It's finely adjustable and install is a breeze. Took some tweeking to make the clamp tolerances right and whatnot but it's done!


In other news, I got a replacement nitrous bottle heater in today so I can probably start tuning that too but I kinda need a pressure gauge still.

oooo! fancy! Looks good!

That is what I call some serious pursuit of boost. Looks like you found it. (+)

PS - are you concerned about possible contact between the nut and IC cooling line?

looks tits

AA wrote:

are you concerned about possible contact between the nut and IC cooling line?

That's the fill neck (just a piece of hose) it touches. It just kinda hangs out there. That's one of the little things I plan to change once I get some time.I'm probably gonna end up making something to nicely hold one of the cobalt IC resovoirs. The dick hose fill kit isn't cutting my standards lol

Wow, how'd I miss that? Agree, there's got to be a better way!

Codith, I ain't never seen a riv like yours. Cannot wait until you take it for some runs on the track. Highly anticipating videos of the action. Thank you for sharing your updates!

charlieRobinson wrote:

Cannot wait until you take it for some runs on the track. Highly anticipating videos of the action.!

You're tellin' me!
Aside from the grossly underqualified transmission which I've grown a driving style/tune around, I need to figure out this weird KR thing and then I'll run it. Not knowing real KR from false KR is not cool.

the tinkering neva stops.

I finally made a status indicator for the perfshift addition. I've been using the perfshift function but it's bugged me not knowing positively what mode I'm in unless I pay attention to shifts and then I know but in some cases that's too late.
I was toying with the idea of transplanting the perfshift lamp cover out of a grand prix gauge cluster and sticking it in where my seat-belt lamp is in my riviera gauge cluster but aside from more work, it would have looked funny since the rivs labels are curved and the grand prix is all straight.

so...
I ordered a 29mm green led indicator lamp off ebay for 3 bucks and cut it down in length and then made a holder for it to attach to my existing boost gauge pod.








The holder I made at work out of a 1" diameter piece of aluminum stock. The front I tapped for the M22-1.5 thread so the light housing can just screw right into it instead of trying to use the nut it comes with. The back had a 9/16" gap to slide around my gauge pod neck and the screw goes through it. All the rest of the fancy work on it is just clearance.

Hankook iPike W409 (winter tires)

Finally!!!

This winter is not gonna suck too much

Nice. Thought those were Hakkas for a second!

By 'Perf Shift,' does that mean performance shift programming, or perfect shifting like in NFS drag races?

IBx1 wrote:

By 'Perf Shift,' does that mean performance shift programming, or perfect shifting like in NFS drag races?

Shift program like what comes stock in most Grand Prix's and Regal GS

Pretty cool. Bet that light stays on 100% of the time.

(Mine would be if I had one. I can't turn PS off.)

Believe or not it's about 50/50. Normal mode is nearly stock. Perf mode is pretty aggressive and stays in lower gears, to the point where it will shift almost any time I switch between modes. I'm still playing with getting perf where I want it, especially with a cam that's supposed to like rpm but I like the relaxed bogging affect normal mode has too! The car sounds mean as hell passing people on the highway in OD at 1400rpm and 5-10lbs of boost lol

Yeah, I bet it's fun constantly reminding yourself of the difference between aggressive shifts vs. stock. I gave up on the stock program a while ago. The soft bogging behavior bugs me, and so far don't notice any loss in efficiency by running the hybrid PS program, so haven't changed it. It was a bit harsh when I eliminated TM entirely, so now it's just firm enough when I get on it, lets you know it means business. I have it holding revs in all the gears. I really like the responsiveness in the lower gears. Again, mine's probably not as aggressive as yours.

turtleman wrote:

Believe or not it's about 50/50. Normal mode is nearly stock. Perf mode is pretty aggressive and stays in lower gears, to the point where it will shift almost any time I switch between modes. I'm still playing with getting perf where I want it, especially with a cam that's supposed to like rpm but I like the relaxed bogging affect normal mode has too! The car sounds mean as hell passing people on the highway in OD at 1400rpm and 5-10lbs of boost lol

Turtleman, I just want to see vids of your car on the road! Please give your friend a camera and have him chase cam you! PLLLLLEASE!

I love that you did this from the technicality of it, but I still wonder why you don't just program all the performance shift aspects for anything above say 40% throttle on the standard shift program. I did that and it works great. Light throttle = luxurious easy shifts. Heavy throttle = revs and gear bangin awesomeness.

deekster_caddy wrote:

I love that you did this from the technicality of it, but I still wonder why you don't just program all the performance shift aspects for anything above say 40% throttle on the standard shift program. I did that and it works great. Light throttle = luxurious easy shifts. Heavy throttle = revs and gear bangin awesomeness.

It's not all simply about throttle position imo. At typical cruising/casual accel throttle ranges well under 40%, you can still have a different driving experience depending on the trans tuning. Sometimes I want to be able to get into the throttle some without the car going into 'i wanna race the shit outta somebody' mode or go up a slight grade for a moment without downshifting, but other times i want it to be ready to go and have the line pressure, be in a lower gear before I mash the gas. One known issue that separate modes addresses is the "skip shift" limitation. You can't make the car hold lower gears longer and have a normal relaxed behavior at the same time under light throttle without separate modes. You can get some of the advantage by using the lower ranges manually via the gear select but I find that just doesn't work that well. The transmission isn't intuitive or responsive enough for that imo - not like a porsche tap shift we'll say. This method requires the drive to make one choice by the press of a button on the steering wheel and the car does the rest quite nicely, at least that's what I'm going for. I also like that as far as tuning it, I don't really have to be worried about if something's going to be too harsh or cause bad fuel economy. Basically no compromises whatsoever! There's not a lot of performance alterations that allow that.

uh oh, a big black box


oh thank heavens it's just a bunch of stainless steel pipes

So yeah, there's gonna be another brand new FWI in the making soon! This temporary hot air is killin' me

Turtle, where'd you order your piping from?

charlieRobinson wrote:

Turtle, where'd you order your piping from?

The intake pipes came from Spectre. I found an online store that actually sells them at a reasonable price.
The part numbers for what I ended up using are 97400 and 97690.

Here's what we got

Revised intake for gen5, IC, northstar/85mm maf






I find that no matter what you do, it's really hard to get something that nicely works around the original coolant tank. It really interrupts any straight path from the throttle body to the hole to the fender. I played with a lot of pipes and found the only way I could really do it without putting a second bend and whatnot into the intake was to grind down the bottom leg of the tank a little for clearance and enlarge the hole for the fender toward the front of the car some - maybe half an inch or so. You kinda have to enlarge that anyway to use a 4" pipe and big filter. Overall though, I think this intake is pretty damn good - easier bends than my last one and as few components as possible. And my IATs are very consistent again.

forgot to mention
One little thing I found is the cruise control cable out of an H-body is a bit longer than the riv one so it works much easier with a flipped northstar throttle body

Looks very direct, let's hear it!