Steve's G8 GT Blog

How to tell you're getting old..

2011-08-19T12:55:00.000-07:00

I recently had the 'pleasure' (not really) to drive around a few times in a certain Scandinavian Sedan (not Volvo - I LOVE Volvo's!) This particular car was a 2011 'Turbo' Version of a '95' and I was told it had 'a lot of pull' etc. It obviously felt much better/zippier than say a Civic, but looking at the specs we're looking at 0-60 in 8.2 seconds, 220 Horsepower and all for a 'measely' $38k... are you kidding me?? Consider me severely disappointed!Flooring it - yeah it pulls a little, but boy not even a serious contender for the G8 and the G8 was even cheaper when new! It did however remind of a few things that have been on my mind about my G8 regarding how it drives & sounds..

It also made me realize I must be getting old!

Gripe #1) My car is too loud

The other Sedan was WHISPER quiet inside & out.. and I LIKED it...
Can you say Old fuddy-duddy? But it's true! Even with my stock Mufflers, and the extra 12468 Mid-Muffler, here I am complaining my car is too loud.. Not from the exhaust mind you - you can barely hear it's even running at idle from the rear - but from the front! While the engine sounds a LOT smoother since I had Ellis install the new trunions I still sometimes cringe at how it sounds on the outside especially at idle/startup. Driving it, really is not bad at all - obviously it's not as quiet as a run of the mill European or Asian Sedan, and it never will be with the stroker under the hood, but sometimes you just want to have it quiet! I'm seriously tempted to see if someone still has their manifold cover and put one back on (I threw mine out a few years ago) to see if that quiets down the engine noise a little bit (the whole reason why GM supposedly installed that piece). Another option I've even started to consider is to get a smaller cam with less lift etc to quiet down the engine noises.. but then giving up power... not a big fan of that.. Of course it's all relative since I'm pretty sure for having a modded car (with a STROKER even) etc mine is one of the quietest ones, so maybe I should just suck it up and turn up the Stereo, because how often are you outside of your car when it's running anyway? ;)

Gripe #2) My car rides too stiff
Again the other Sedan felt like it was gliding on air over the road.. parts where normally I'd be driving carefully watching for potholes, & other uneven sections it just went over with barely even noticing they were there.. Man it's nice to not always have to examine the road with a magnifying glass as you're driving!

Getting back into my car I felt everything (where sometimes it feels like you've hit a brick wall with your car.. THAT type of bump) and I had started to feel driving was actually getting laborious since I had watch for anything & everywhere (ok big bump in left lane in 50 yards so get in right lane, stay more left by this sign, stay more right by this exit etc etc) and I suddenly had enough..

I talked to Crazy Paul to see if it would be viable to install the Magnetic Ride Control from Holden in our cars. That unfortunately wasn't an option..

Now if you recall I'm actually running Pedders XA Coil-Overs and of course one thing about them is you can set how stiff they are. When I first got them I was running high 20's (INSANE), then high teens, then something like 12.. and then I thought I had them put softer still.. Apparently I hadn't...

So what does this old geezer do? That's right.. Bump those suckers down to ... "ONE" - you read that right.. "1" , One, Uno, Eins.. Whatever you wanna call it.. and WOW.. whilst not as soft as previously mentioned Sedan it is SO... MUCH.... MORE.... COMFORTABLE... Yeah you're not going to corner as fast on the 'twisties' blablabla, but for my daily commute that's the way to go! My rear-suspension is still set to something like 10 because I haven't had time to crawl under the car yet, but I'm actually sort of liking this combination. It is actually nice & relaxing driving to & from work now!

I have been thinking though that It would be awesome to install something like Electronic Damping Control in the car so you can just change it as you're driving!
http://www.tein.com/products/edfc.html
http://www.tanabe-usa.com/teas.asp?id=17

Gripe #3) I still Bottom Out in some places
Now usually these are really 'f-ed' up driveways that already to me look like they would be an issue for a civic or any 'low' car. and though I love the look of my 'lowered' car, I'm ALMOST tempted to perhaps add at least an Inch to the back to get it off the ground a little more. Of course if the engine were a little quieter I could take out the mid muffler which is the new 'rubbing point' and all would be well too..

Decisions Decisions...

Trunions Upgrade Kit Installed

2011-07-01T11:01:00.000-07:00

So I finally had some time on my hands to get my Trunion Upgrade Kit from Brian @ Reckart Performance Tuning installed. I decided to make the drive up to Ellis Groo over at Speed Secrets who had rebuilt my stroker since he had tuned it and it also needed a little tweak to the tune.

The trip going the 'long' way turned out to be about 70 miles. I had reset my trip meter when starting and I was pleasantly surprised to see that my total was 21.2 mpg including a bunch of stop & go traffic on the freeway! Not too shabby :)

403 Stroker getting 21.2 mpg? NICE!

I had never been to Ellis's Shop before but seeing how it's a bit of a drive I definitely got a renewed appreciation for him coming to pick up my car & delivering it back to me when he was doing my stroker rebuild! Not a drive I'd like to make frequently because the roads are horrible and let's be honest here.. Seattle Traffic SUCKS Big Time! Next time I think I'll try the east-side approach through Bellevue instead.

The shop had 6 bays and 1 lift, and every spot was full! Good to see business has been steady for Ellis - he definitely knows what he's doing and deserves the business.

The official "Speed Secrets" Shop

Ellis is a busy guy!

We decided to simply pull the nose of the car in enough to work out of the on & off drizzle that was happening at the time. Obviously the engine was hot from the drive so Ellis put a fan on the manifold for a bit to get things in the workable temperature region. Once the actual work began it was as Brian @ RPT had mentioned a fairly simple job (but one I'd still prefer the professionals to do for me ) and didn't take very long.

Coils & Valve Covers Removed

Stock Rockers Removed


New Stock Rockers w/ Trunion Upgrade Installed

After the install Ellis took it for a test drive to make sure everything was running as it should. Then it was on to the tune. Since Day 1 I had an issue where if you tipped in the throttle just a tiny bit, much as someone unfamiliar with the car would do, the RPMs would drop to around 700 or less and sometimes it would stall all together. This was painfully evident at my last oil-change where the tech could NOT get the car going because he kept stalling it and I had to drive it up the rack for him (& off too because he didn't wanna touch it anymore). I had learned to just wait for the car to start rolling before applying the throttle and then to push through that first 2-5% throttle travel so it was second nature for me.

However, I wanted it fixed. That way if I ever had to drop the car off at the dealership, or the wife needs to drive the car, there are no unfortunately accidents with the car stalling when it's supposed to get going. Ellis probably spent more time on the tune than the rocker install as we kept stopping & going through the area while he monitored data on his laptop. He did indeed find that for some reason the throttle was actually closing in that scenario causing the issues. After a few revisions & relearns the car seemed to respond MUCH better and I was totally happy with the tune.

After a quick oil-change (& switching to synthetic) I was ready to head back out by lunch time. The drive back was a total joy and the car practically felt like new again. The engine was DEFINITELY much quieter than before and especially when warmed up, which is what I was hoping for. No matter what speed the car just purred along so I am definitely VERY pleased with this upgrade and would highly recommend it to anyone!

Also if your LS based car needs ANY work and it is at all possible to drive to Snohomish, GO SEE ELLIS!

Speed Secrets (owned & operated by Ellis Groo)
Phone: (425) 922-8944
Address: 1422 Ridge Ave,
Snohomish, WA 98290
http://www.ssefi.com/

Trunion Upgrade Kit

2011-06-14T13:05:00.000-07:00

There have been some posts in the last months on the GRRRR8 Forum about upgrading Trunions in our engines since Comp-Cams released a trunion upgrade kit (part# 13702-KIT ) which replaces the standard needlebearings with some nice upgraded ones. Per Comp Cams's description:
"... rocker arm retro-fit trunion kit that replaces the cageless, loose OEM needle bearings and powdered metal trunion with a premium 8620 steel alloy trunion and caged roller bearings for added durability. The new design from COMP Cams® utilizes caged roller bearings that greatly reduce the possibility of the bearing failure experienced with stock LS1 needle bearings, which can send loose needles throughout the engine upon failure."

While a lot of people would say this may not be a common failure (or at least not until you start getting into serious HP) a lot of people are doing the upgrade just for peace-of-mind. Also the people who have done the upgrade say it also quiets down the valve-train noise a decent amount. This instantly got me curious since I'd still like to quiet my engine down some more (exhaust is SUPER quiet ever since the mid-muffler install, now it's just the engine noises that are loud ).

I contacted Brian of Reckart Performance Tuning who seemed to be the go-to guy for this upgrade. What's really nice is that he doesn't just sell you the bare kit like most other vendors - he also offers to install the kit in either new or core-exchange rockers, so that you don't have to have any downtime (or you can even send your rockers in and he'll install the trunion upgrade for you and ship them back ASAP).

I recently received the rockers and I must say they look & feel super solid yet rotate very smoothly. I've heard people compare the stock rockers to feel/sounding like loose marbles in your hand when you shake them, but these things are solid!Now I just need to have them installed so I can give a full comparion to the 'before' vs 'after' sound.

So if you're interested in this upgrade, contact Brian over at Reckart Performance Tuning or find him on the GRRRR8 Forum as 'Brian@RPT'

Fuel Mileage

2011-06-05T12:12:00.000-07:00

It's been a bit of a boring few weeks - no new developments, no new mods - just commuting to work and that's it. A while ago I found myself getting gas at a different location (& different brand) than I normally do; I usually fill up with 76 Premium (which is only 92 Octane here + of course the lovely 10% ethanol...) at various gas stations, but instead I filled it up with Chevron 92 Premium. Driving around for a week or so on that gas I checked my avg fuel mileage and I'm seeing 13 mpg instead of my usual 11-12.. now that's not much to write home about, but I still found it interesting.

Then I've recently found there is 1 particular '76' location where with the gas from that station I swear my car runs/idles smoother and I saw even a 13.5 mpg average - I've repeated this experiment 3 times now and between the two different 76 stations I frequently visit, this one consistently gives me a smoother running engine (at least that's what It sounds like to me) & better mileage. Obviously this measuring is not a fully scientific method and there willl be tons of people saying : Premium 92 at one place is the same as Another or All brands are the same etc etc, but I tend to drive similar/the same enough on my commute and based on how I hear the engine run and the dash-display I have to believe there's something to this. So it looks like I've found a new place to get gas ;)

Also just for fun - one day I happened to get gas and did only in-town driving. Lots of errand-y stuff and it totaled out to be about 13 miles all together. The gas-mileage for that little jaunt was a whopping 5.3MPG!
No wonder that while I can hit 22-25mpg on the freeway, as soon as I get into town it just starts to plummet down towards the low teens!

So today's word of advice: If you're concerned about fuel-economy... don't build a stroker ;)

Transmission Linkage Redux

2011-05-05T15:29:00.000-07:00

So Before Christmas last year (hey does that mean I've already had my car back for over 6 months since the rebuild?? woohoo!) I had the - from what I gather rather common - Transmission Linkage come out. I had manually pushed it back in, but didn't have any E-clips at the time so it was just a ticking timebomb for it to happen again. Meanwhile I had been driving very carefully, never even popped it in Sports/Manual mode! , since I wasn't too comfortable with how it was put back together by yours truly.

Few nights ago ( so after about 4 and a half months) I notice the 'looseness' again in the shifter where N doesn't really line up with the real neutral, R is past 'R' etc.. it just feels wobbly so I already know it's on it's way out. Jack up the car and what do I see? ( well what does my cell phone see, because my jack only goes up so high and it's really hard to fit my 'rotund' torso under the car ;) )

Excuse the shaky camera work - hard to figure out what you're recording when you can't see the screen... But as you can clearly see the linkage was out yet again & barely hanging on..

Of course this time I was prepared with my 1/2" inch E-Clips. Was a PITA to get one on so I actually used a little squirt of wd40 to get it on there. I did have to cut the longer legs of the white plastic clip that was on there and I accidentally ended up snapping off one of them.. at this point I was getting aggravated and instead of trying to trim them to length with a knife under the car I just snapped all 4 of the longer legs off and called it a day - it slid right through the shifter hook-up and once the E-Clip snapped into place it seemed like a pretty solid fix. I probably should've tried to snap it on from the top or spun it around (anal - i know lol) but at this point I was tired and figured good enough for now ;)

Maybe I'll actually get to enjoy some sports-mode or manual shifting this weekend without fear of getting stranded! ;)

3 Year Anniversary

2011-04-02T15:20:00.000-07:00

Well it's hard to believe by today it's been 3 years exactly since I picked up my Pontiac G8 GT #470 out the First 888 series. Is it me, or as you get older do the years really fly by FAST? It's been quite the journey, especially the disastrous last year but I'm optimistic that's all behind me.

What's also sad is that looking back many familiar faces in the community who had been involved moving on to other vehicles etc. Luckily a lot of them, if they move to a Camaro or new Ford Mustang tend to stick around over on GRRRR8.net, but with others you just can't help but wonder where they disappeared to - for instance, where did the infamous 'Penguin' go? Also then there's the inevitable wrecks.. Dwindling numbers on a car that's no longer being made is pretty depressing - especially from a mod-market perspective.

Anyway - My , what i'll call 'lifter tick', issue seems to have corrected itself after Charlie suggested I'd at least get an oil change with some quality oil instead of whatever the muffler shop who installed my Magnaflow 12468 decided to throw in.I did and it's been a few weeks now and it sounds much better.

Here's some videos of a cold start :

And after a 30 minute drive:

As you can tell the TAP TAP TAP TAP is gone and now it sounds much more like it should (best way to describe is it sounds like a 'Rolling R' sound).

As far as what this year will bring - not much I'm afraid - the mod money is basically dried up so I have to pace myself. I still have a wishlist of several things like getting a Bear Brake Kit and some kind of supercharger. I've been going back & forth between Maggie or the EdelBrock E-Force/Harrop Stealth-Force for it's OEM Look. I sorta discounted the Pro-Charger setups because of the AirIntake location eventhough for my needs (daily commuter car) it's behavior actually would probably be a better fit. Then WreckWriter on GRRRR8 posted this little nugget and all of a sudden I'm back at square one, because IMHO this, with maybe the cog-drive upgrade, would look BADASS on a G8!

But I've got plenty of time to make up my mind at this pace ;)

30,000 miles

2011-03-11T10:52:00.000-08:00

Well today I'll be hitting 30,000 Miles - of course this doesn't mean much since barely anything bar the block itself is stock (so I've probably only got around a 1000 miles on this current setup). I've had my car back now for about 4 months and I recently made it a little more quiet with the extra mid-muffler. I'm not sure if this is the cause for me paying more attention to the noises coming from the engine, but a LOT of people have been writing about bad lifters recently so any sound instantly becomes suspicious. I decided to record a few clips of my car on my phone (not the best quality) so you can hear how quiet it is in car, but how loud the engine is (then again it IS a 403 Stroker with a pretty chunky cam) and a noise which has been bothering me.

Here's a video of it when first started in the morning - there's is a distinct knocking/tapping sound (which I guesstimate to be 4 times a second )I am concerned about but it usually goes away (or at least seems to lessen) when warmed up.It also seems to be slightly louder on the drivers side. Perhaps (hopefully) it's just the valvetrain echoing in the headers.

Next up is one driving down the street after getting in - you can tell vaguely that same sound is present (hard to tell in the video) but overall you can tell how quiet it is inside the car. (yeah I know it's rotated 90 degrees - sorry about that ;) ) I accelerate slowly near the end (last 5-10 seconds) and you can hear the tapping turning into more of a gurgling noise. You can see also that my oil pressure is doing quite well at 4-5+ lines at practically idle

Lastly a video of what the car sounds like after a 20 minute drive - you can tell it has smoothed out a bit, but still sounds pretty 'unpolished'; again I know i'm running quite a setup here and I'm just paranoid about any noises.Oil pressure at idle sits at 4 lines on the display so that's nice & strong.

Anyway so far i'm still really happy with my car and just hope that these noises are 'normal' for my setup and that I don't have a case of lifter eating cam-shaft like others have had..

Update 3/14: Here's another sample that shows the sound at cold start on the inside... sounds like a sewing machine/machine gun

Clearance Measurements

2011-02-18T13:57:00.000-08:00

I was talking to a fellow GRRRR8.net member about the mid-muffler and the discussion ended up around how much the muffler actually 'sticks out' and how much clearance I have. It's been going on almost 2 weeks now since my mid-muffler install and keeping away from known trouble areas (e.g. part of my driveway with a tree root under it ) i haven't had any major scrapes (just one teensy tiny one). So it was time to crawl under the car and see exactly what's going.

At first I did the super-duper-scientific method: I stood a small piece of wood up under the car and marked the level of the lowest point on my cats (my previous lowest point). Then I moved the block to the mid muffler and did the same. Looking at the marks they were within basically a few millimeters of each other right around 3". So officially I have 3 inches of clearance. Of course that is with how much my car is lowered which is who knows exactly how much... The discussion then circled back to 'but how much does the muffler stick out' etc because every one's car is different as far as how much it's lowered. And really stuff like "651 mm" as described by Pedders (measured to the bottom of the rim) never made any sense to me since i'm running 20's.I know there's probably an easy conversion i'm missing (add/minus 1 inch probably?) but I figured I'd measure on the body instead.

Some quick measurements came up with the following points
Front Driver Side wheel - Straight up through center from Ground to Fender : 27"
Rear Driver Side Wheel - Straight up through center from Ground to Fender : 27"
Front Door Line - Eyeballing while standing from the edge to the ground: 6"
Between Front/Rear Door Line - Again eyeballing while standing; 7.5"
In front of rear Wheel well - again eyeballing; 9"

Now the Line I was following was the 'upper' line (if you paid attention while washing your car you know it slants up while it curves under. I've made the following photoshop to make this a little clearer:

So that at least gives a baseline for how much my car is lowered etc. which if someone else were to measure their car would give a possible indicator how the muffler would sit. (e.g. say that mid part is 9" instead of 7.5 it'd be safe to assume they'd get at least 4.5" of clearance depending on fitment etc.)

For the final measurement I went back under the car and measured from where the cross-member used to sit to the ground. The actual Measuring Tape is about 2.5" tall when it sits up like in this image:

So the total clearance from the ground to the crossmember is about 5" inches (the angle of the camera makes it look a little larger, but when measured from the side it was 5 inches).If we take that with the 3" of actual clearance that we found earlier it would mean that my muffler sticks out 2" past the body line where the cross-member used to sit. Seems a lot - but so far I am quite happy I installed this because the car sounds a LOT more refined and not having had any scraping issues really so far makes for 1 happy camper!

GTS = GT Stealth?

2011-02-06T19:46:00.000-08:00

In the past I've made the (cheezy) pun of my GTS Badges meaning "GT Stroker".. After my most recent mod I guess now I can call it "GT Stealth" or perhaps I should get some of the Holden 'SS' badges for a GT SS / 'Stealth Stroker'. What is it you ask? It's the - at this point - infamous Patrick G Drone Killer Mod, aka the Magnaflow 12468 Muffler in the tunnel brace as discussed over here on GRRRR8.net

Back in September Patrick G had posted that people with long tube headers could install a magnaflow 12468 right in the location where the tunnel brace is to really get rid of some of the drone some people had. With my stroker build I had already switched back to Stock mufflers since the sound was basically unbearable... I guess i'm starting to get a few gray hairs here and there because loud just doesn't do anything for me.. Smooth & Quiet is the way to go ( & it keeps the family happy!). However , even with the stock mufflers I had a metallic sound I was never happy about, and a NASTY ass rattle.

The rattle was because my exhaust was laying on the tunnel brace. Several shops that looked at it in the past could NOT do anything about this which was a little frustrating. I still think my ARH must've gotten tweaked in shipment or something since I notice other peoples systems don't seem to sit as low as mine, hence my dented cats etc and why I keep raising my car to avoid scraping issues! Pretty frustrating and I guess point of continual pain....

I've had the muffler since December 2010 and one day last week after work I swung by the local Bucky's - yeah I know right.. Not a super 'speed shop', but I know some of the guys there and they're always very nice! Thanks again Marvin & Randy! - and they were able to get me in after I showed them some of the pictures and how it would be an easy install. At first I was thinking to keep the original pipes so I could swap back to non-muffler, but with Dyno runs by Patrick G showing there's no loss except in the 'nasty sound' department I figured what the hell and just had them stick it in. Took them about an hour roughly so it was a fairly straight forward job!

The Magnaflow 12468 Fits snuggly in the tunnel.

Bolting things up

The drive home - wow, what a difference.. my car I swear sounded almost stock on the inside - no drone, no rattling, just humming along! From the outside it still rumbles but very refinedly so. I figured i'd give it a quick wash since I hadn't in ages. As I start hosing it down the guy over at the vacuums comes over and says "Hey is that a G8?" and starts a conversation about it. Doesn't happen often (read: at all) to me so I was pleasantly surprised!

After a quick wash - my car was FILTHY!

In the end I am REALLY happy with how it sounds right now. It still has a rumble etc, but the raspyness is gone and it seems to have a little more bass to it - in one word (ok two...) "Classy Muscle"... My only concern right now is STILL the clearance on the bottom.. I put a block under the car and put marks on it to measure how far my cats and this new muffler now sit from the ground. As you can tell from the picture it sticks out quite a bit and it turns out from either the cats or muffler I basically only have 3 measly inches for clearance...

Yeah that sticks out by quite a bit.. 1" i'd guess?

I don't know about you guys, but I'm already hearing the scraping sounds in my head unless I raise it a whole inch or so.. (which would put me back at what... stock height???... Oh well.. guess I'm getting too old for some of this stuff and when picking between lowered or stealth sound I'm going to have to give the win to stealth sound. (i've had my car practically slammed when I first got my Pedders... while it looks AWESOME , driveability & road conditions around where I live & work just make it impossible..).

In review here's a quick history of my exhaust:

Stock = Is this thing even on??
Stock + H-Pipe = Hey if I stick my head in my muffler I hear a nice rumble
Stock + H-Pipe + Axle-Backs = Nice rumble
ARH + Axle-Backs = even more rumbly (but always a little metallic)
ARH + Axle-Backs + Stroker Setup 1 = Holy crap - LOUD!
ARH + Axle-Backs + Stroker Setup 2 = Animals fleeing, Small Children crying
ARH + Stock Mufflers + Stroker Setup 2 = NOT Bad, LOUD on startup, but very passable when warmed up - though a bit metallic still
ARH + Stock Mufflers + Stroker Setup 2 + 12468 Muffler = VERY Clean & Deep - just about perfect!

New Year Reflections

2011-01-06T13:04:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year Everyone!

2010 was not a very pleasant year on the car front since I spent more time without my car than with.
But I've had it back now for over going on 2 months, it's been great to have it back so here's to 2011 being a much better year!

To kick off with a little rant of sorts: Someone pointed me towards a thread on 'that other site' from a few months ago where people were actually commenting on my build - wow I guess some people actually do read my blog ;-) While for the most part i've received supportive statements from people in regards to what happened, some of the comments ( well one in particular) I took issue with.

To summarize my build; I never felt comfortable putting blowers/cams etc in the engine without beefing up the internals. If I ever was going to make serious HP I'd make sure that everything in the engine was upgraded & top notch first. That way I could easily do things in stages. Get the engine bullet-proof first built by professionals who know what they're doing, then probably upgrade the transmission/rear diff/axles etc before finally slapping on a blower. My whole approach - which IS backwards from most people - was: Build it right and Build it only once. Most people just go for the high-hp mods like slapping on maggies or 200 shots on stock internals and then just fix things like transmissions etc as they would break along the way. To me they were just asking for trouble. I wanted to get all the 'supporting' mods to hold any extra power in place first before adding the actual power.

Fast-Forward to the Moment of Irony: Many of those cars are still totally fine (just check out VegasNates!), while my 'never break' build died within 2 months basically because of some idiot at the machine shop installing a wrong size 10 cent piece of rubber... (Oil pump comes with 2 O-Rings and you need to pick one or the other depending on your particular application. Machine shop picked wrong..BOOM...)

That Said, Let's look at some of the comments I read that require some clarification:

"Well at least others can learn from his mistakes. ALWAYS change the O rings! lol"
As you can read above they WERE changed, by the machine shop who one would think knows what they are doing, to the WRONG kind. If I had personally installed the wrong thing , then yeah shame on me. "My Mistake" was thinking a machineshop that's been in business for decades knows what end is up.

"When I read "I'm not the richest man...", I knew he was ****ed. If money is in any way an issue, these types of things should not be attempted. Only go big if you can afford for everything to go up in a ball of fire."
Yeah You know I sorta agree with this guy - hence why I took me so long to finally do this build because I wanted to make sure everything was just right, I wouldn't have any issues etc. had some reserves in case it did etc. With any build there's always a chance of 'failure' but with all my meticulus prepwork & research I thought I had all bases covered. Though I don't feel I 'went Big' since my failure was not because of LOTS of HP/TQ etc (if anything i'm probably BELOW a lot of folks who go cam-only since I LOWERED my compression quite a bit), but simply an installer failure for what I considered a common stroker build. Again the one factor out of my control - the skill level of an individual at a shop - proved to be the down fall here.

Now the icing was this post:

"I REALLY hopes he likes that car when it comes back (hopefully done correctly) because he is gonna take a bath on that thing if he tries to just unload it.

This is a perfect case of a good car subjected to a not-so-informed & overzealous owner.
I see it all the time with guys that have Mustangs.

Sucks for him, but he brought it on himself."

Ok this guy .. what can I say.... Really??? WOW...
But Yes, I Like my car ('that thing') a lot better than I even did before after the first build, and it's done MUCH better by Ellis from Speed Secrets! I highly recommend him for anyone in the greater Seattle area for any work on your car. Thank you for asking :)

Now 2nd part "Not-so-informed & overzealous owner who brought it on himself".. Say what now? Seriously? Not-so-informed on what? overzealous how?

I spent months ( over a year literally ) researching, getting the right quality parts together, picking the brains of anyone who knew anything, talking to & screening vendors & shops, talking to their customers to see how satisfied they were with the job performed etc making sure that this build would be bulletproof. Machineshop selecting the wrong O-ring out of the oil pump box does not equate me being 'not-so-informed'.
To me, Not-so-informed would for example be trying to overbore the stock block to a 4.125"+ bore. Had they selected the right O-Ring my engine would still be running 100% strong.

Overzealous? a 300 Shot or running 25 PSI on a blower to me is overzealous..Someone trying a cam install by themselves while they dont even know what a torque wrench is , is 'asking for it'. But having a forged stroker built by (supposedly) reputable shops with quality parts with the entire premise being reliability so that you have room to grow over the years - that's somehow overzealous and 'bringing it on myself'? Not in a million years buddy!

In Closing - I think what perhaps some of these people were 'trying' to say may be the classic line: "You have to pay to play". Modify your engine and it dies, then you (or responsible parties should) get stuck with the bill. Some people would perhaps try to go to the dealership and try to pretend it was all stock etc if something like this happens, but since I agree with the 'Pay to Play' credo - and I knew it was because of this build, why should GM have to pay for my modifications? So it was on me - or actually it should be on the machineshop since their mistake was the root cause of the engine failure.

Unfortunately, they for along time denied any wrong doing. I tried to be very reasonable and work out an arrangement with them that most people would consider more than fair ( less than 1/4 of the value of new parts/labor required to get it back up & running etc) but they claimed they did not give warranty on performance engines. After more back & forth which ended up with them finally saying they'd 'look at the engine' after I had already lost confidence & had Ellis @ Speed secrets start working on it, it simply wasn't worth the stress & aggravation of trying to work something out (or going to court) and I ended up eating it all.

Lesson Learned is that when messing with the engine past the point of intakes & exhaust there is ALWAYS a chance of failure (then again, sometimes even with only intakes you can screw your engine as some people with hydrolocked engines can tell you - I'm sure they 'didn't bring it upon themselves' by simply installing a certain model CAI), and it's best to either EXPECT it to happen and/or at least be prepared for it so that in the unfortunate event it happens - and I hope none of you ever has to go through this - you can get it taken care of ASAP by a shop that knows what they're doing!

Transmission Linkage

2010-12-09T13:44:00.000-08:00

So ever since my snow adventure I had noticed an interesting issue with my shifter. Usually when parking I just slam it from "D" to "P", but when I did this a little slower I noticed that the actual 'shift points for Neutral and Reverse did not seem to line up anymore with the actual location on the shifter base. Neutral was practically in reverse, Reverse was halfway to Park and Park sometimes would not engage unless I tapped the shifter forward while it would technically already be in Park.

Quick search on the forum came up with the transmission linkage being the probable cause. So I went out and got some basic jackstands + jack, but then after that I got busy with life and simply didn't get around to doing anything about it. Last Thursday night coming home from work I could tell it was acting up again and finally when I pull into the garage it simply would not go into Park.. I tried putting it back into Drive to try again when I hear a loud CLUNK under the car and now I can move the shifter to Park (but not out of it), yeah the Display still shows I'm in Drive.. OOPS..

Quick Call to the G8 Emergency 911 Tech Center (A.k.a. Charlie ;) ) I get some directions on where to look, and what to do. I jack up the car and I take a look and what do you know - there is the transmission linkage just laying on my exhaust..


Yeah.. that's not good..

Getting further under the car to get a good look you can clear see where the linkage must have been rubbing against the bottom of the car as it was on it's way out.

Surprisingly enough after inspecting the white plastic clip seemed to be fully intact! (Shocker after how many times that thing must've been taken apart since I've had the car).. So after moving pulling on it to put the actual transmission in Park as well and some careful finagling I managed to get it back into position.

I did my best to make sure the plastic tabs were all the way through the rubber grommet that's in there. Let's hope it doesn't come out again! Meanwhile I've purchased a 1/2" metal E-Clip which will supposedly fit so that I can put that on when I'm under there again. Sure would give more piece of mind than a 1 cent piece of plastic..

Winter 'Fun'...

2010-11-23T22:41:00.000-08:00

Well we had some 'interesting' weather here the last couple of days in WA State.. usually we have fairly mild winters, and once in a while there will be a nasty one.. like apparently this year. We already got a little preview of that this Monday. I think most people weren't prepared for it (including me).

Monday morning driving to work there was a little snowfall - which while early by at least 2 months - was nothing major so I figured no big deal. On the way I passed several spun out cars already and even a pickup truck that apparently had flipped over. So much for the 4x4... guess people forget that doesn't help much with stopping when there's ice on the road.
By around 10:30 I happen to glance out of the window at work and HOLY CRAP it's a freakin blizzard!

Quick checkup on the weather (which I rarely do, hence my surprise at the whiteout) and discussing with my coworkers and it seemed they were expecting this to keep up until at least 10pm or so, so I figured I'd try to make a run for it instead of sticking it out at the office and hoping it'd get better in the evening.

Now the 'fun' part is i'm running only All Seasons - Bridgestone Potenza RE960 AS's with 285's in the back.. not really what I'd call a 'Winter setup'. Last time I tried anything in the snow was with the Eagle RS-A's that came stock and that was a nightmare. Now I was running better tires but also a good amount more HP because of my stroker. First problem was getting out of the parking lot. Luckily I had the foresight to park close to the road so that ice-skating rink was actually not that much a problem (much to my relief).

Now the main road to the freeway was already crawling with traffic and as the cars kept driving over the snow they were compacting it into solid ice. SUVs and Pickups alike were spinning their tires on this stuff, yet like lemmings people kept driving over the icy tracks. I pulled into traffic and could instantly tell that was was going to be a butt clenching ride... I had to drive over fresh snow to have ANY traction but luckily because most people didn't do this there was plenty left for me. Still several times I end up sideways even going as slow as 5 mph because zero traction! I almost decided to pull over and wait it out, but I was stubborn.

Several accidents already along the way (rear-ended, slid into a pole etc) it took me over half an hour to get to the freeway moving inch by inch which normally takes just about 10. It felt like an hour though since my tune is still not 100% when getting on the throttle from a standstill (you need to give it a little extra otherwise it may die) which obviously is NOT something you can afford to do on a sheet of ice.. But with some fenagling of the shifter between M1,M2 and N I was able to manage and keeping plenty of distance since my ABS was going crazy...

Just when I thought I made it to the freeway I noticed a semi had scissored and was blocking the onramp. A whole bunch of people got stuck behind him and had nowhere to go. Luckily I noticed and was able to take a detour to get on the freeway at another location. Usually the freeways are pretty clear because of maintenance and the amount of traffic, but as luck would have it - barely any traffic and no sanding or anything yet, so they were just as bad as the other roads!

Finally though it was to feel like I was getting somewhere.. doing a whopping 10-20mph. As I cautiously made my way down the freeway I passed at least another 6 accident scenes with people having slid off the road, collisions, another rollover.. just overall nastyness...

All in all it was a nightmare driving scenario and not something I'd be looking forward to do again in the G8.. I think having a High HP Car is great in a warm State Like Nevada or California, Texas Etc.. but up here it's not that practical in the winter time.. Perhaps it's time for a dedicated winter driver, even if it's beat-up truck or something..Or maybe invest in some rims & winter tires instead of this 'all season' stuff.

Rebuild Stroker - 234/242 114LSA+2

2010-11-20T22:17:00.000-08:00

OK so as you may have read previously on here my first adventure into cam/stroker land went horribly wrong and I had to get it rebuild.. Last Sunday Ellis from Speed Secrets was kind enough to personally come drop the car off. This was great as it was perfect final 'test drive' for him to drive it down and that way we could drive it together for a bit to go over everything.

The Cam-Shaft was a 'Patrick G' spec-ed

234/242 .602”/.605” 114LSA +2 advance

Obviously quite a bit more agressive and more lift than my 228/228 115 LSA .

The only two things that still are 'amiss' are that:

a) The tune is a little touchy about applying throttle from a standstill - if you do it too slowly the RPMs seem to drop and I got it to die on me. But apply a heavier foot and you can work around this.

b) I have an obnoxious rattle going on that sounds horrible especially when cold. At first I thought it was the engine running rough, but luckily that turned out to be not the case.

I also was able to switch back to the stock GT Mufflers since the Stolen Fox's were just too loud on my old setup (and I didn't even want to think about what it would do with this cam!). The car sounds very nice warmed up and not too loud at all.. if anything I seem to have more noise coming from the front-end than the rear mufflers ;)

Other than that the build is pretty much the same as before with the same rotating assembly but slightly longer pushrods (7.425).

How does it drive though? Well let's just say I'm getting used to it again.. After having driven a practically silent 90hp gutless wonder for the last 6 months (Yes that's how long it's been) this thing rumbles & shakes like there's a wild animal under the hood waiting to get out... which if you step on the throttle takes off like crazy! I definitely feel its faster than my previous build when doing WOT runs (only did a couple so far) and Ellis commented on how much it pulls too..

So far I'm getting a whopping 11mpg lol.. guess I NEED to add a supercharger now to get some fuel economy back ;)

Ellis took pictures throughout the build and once I get those I'll post them up and once I clear out my video camera I'll try to shoot some video of it idling/reving etc

First Signs of Life

2010-11-04T09:22:00.000-07:00

Well, we have first Start-Up...

It's been over six months now since I first starting having this issue and at times it seemed there was no end in sight, but yesterday Ellis was nice enough to send me a quick cell-phone video of First Startup. Hard to tell how it sounds with the sound quality, but at least we have oil pressure above 0 ;)

STILL waiting....

2010-09-25T10:16:00.000-07:00

It is now END of September and you guessed it: I'm STILL waiting for my car to be done. Only last Monday was the block finally picked up from the Machine Shop (seems to be a recurring theme with Machine Shops that their work takes about 3 times longer than they say it will). Meanwhile parts had been trickling in with the last thing being the cam-shaft which got in a few weeks ago. At first there was hope all this would be done mid September, then that become End of September, which now has become mid October apparently at the earliest (Ellis @ Speed Secrets is a busy guy!)
He said he had some other urgent jobs to finish up first so who knows.. Wonder how they are more urgent than mine since in my frustrating experience I've only had the car 2 months out of what'll be 10 months so far , IF i'm "lucky".... Would think that fact alone would bump me up the priority list LOL!

Being without the car for so long definitely has taken the fun out of it and seriously makes me consider selling it since I am already used to not having it. So if you guys in the PNW are looking for a Nicely Modded (with brand new engine at this point) G8 GT hit me up !

Meanwhile here's some more pictures Ellis has sent my way:

Rebuilding from the pieces

2010-07-19T19:34:00.000-07:00

Just a short update on the rebuild process. So far it seems we'll be needing:

New LS2 Block
New Cam
New Oil Pump
New Lifters
Cam Bearings
Main Bearings
Head Gaskets
Rear Main Seal
Front Main Seal
Piston Rings

For a bit I was looking for an Iron Gen IV 6.0L Block but quickly gave up. The Gen III LQ9 block doesn't work because of the knock sensor location, and the block used in the LY6 engine, which seems to be only production Gen IV Iron block, is not available by itself unless you get lucky in a junkyard... The other option of course would be a juicy orange LSX Block, but that's just not going happen with it's 2K price tag..

Basically as far the inside of the engine the only thing re-used are the Heads, and the Rotating assembly (Piston,Rods & Crank) oh and push rods. Adding all this up gets pretty depressing, and so far neither Bud's Machine Shop, nor Norpac Street Performance has stepped up to do anything besides saying "oh that's terrible"...

Well my engine is F*cked

2010-07-17T10:33:00.000-07:00

Well it would seem I'm in need of new block. Consensus now seems to be that the wrong O-Ring was used on the pump/pickup assembly which allow air in from day one and eventually sucked in the O-Ring. That starved the cam bearings etc. Probably because I had a high pressure pump it lasted as long as it did. Here's what Ellis said:

"I do not have good news. The cam looks like it has been starved for oil. Upon further investigation we found at least one spun cam bearing maybe two. I have included a few pictures of the damage we found on number four cam bearing which from what I can tell is the low oil problem. The other bearings are hurt also. It looks like number five may have spun also and that would ruin the block for sure.

I talked to my Machinist and the oil pick-up problem is the most likely cause for this to happen. I actually found a post on the web today that lead me to pull the cam first and check this. Glad I did as we found what we were looking for."

In the first Picture you can see the cam bearing is spun up against the lifter and the lifter is chewing up the bearing

In the second you can see how the cam bearing has spun far enough back to uncover the main oil feed dumping all you oil pressure

Well it's official.... It's a Mechanical issue

2010-07-01T11:32:00.000-07:00

Ellis Groo @ Speed Secrets picked up my car last Friday (and used quite a nice trailer for it!) to start investigating my Engine Problems.

Obviously started at step one was to see what the different gauge readings are:

According to a scan tool, once warmed up we saw:
6 PSI @ Idle
35 PSI when revving (don' t know the exact RPM's but doesn't really matter)

Once he was able to get a mechanical gauge hooked-up we saw:
6-8 PSI @ Idle
40 PSI when revving

That means officially it's no longer just a glitchy wiring harness or something, but something is seriously wrong inside my engine. Ellis will be pulling the pan and front cover here soon (and cut open the oil filter, but I doubt anything is in there since the dealership changed that the first time it happened). I'm keeping my fingers crossed for something 'easy & stupid' like a stuck-open relief valve in the pan or so...

All in All pretty depressing news so far :(

June Update - STILL the same issues

2010-06-24T12:52:00.000-07:00

Well what can I say... Besides the fact that I have spent more time without my car this year than with it...

I went to pick up the car last weekend from Norpac - they were working on the Oil Pressure Issue, crank sensor codes, A/C Pulley fix and a leaking coilover. The Oil Pressure issue went away (by itself?) and the guys thought it was fixed. So I told them to try a dyno run... They figured they'd take it easy and not go over 4500 rpms, but during or right after the Check Engine Light came back on and when looking at the car Justin also noticed a leaking rear Pedders Coil-Over.

The funky results from a partial dyno-run

The CEL was not only the P0521 but also two crank sensor codes. They replaced the cranksensor since it was showing bogus readings even out of the car and that took care of the crank issues. Coil-Over was an straight up swap so no issues there. That leaves the P0521 / Oil Pressure issue...

Upon starting it definitely sounded rougher (valvetrain noise) in the engine bay than I remembered - then again, so did the exhaust! Holy crap ,My car is LOUD! Right then and there I made the decision I need to go back to the stock Axle-Backs for good! The Atari gauges showed 2 lines at idle - Low, but at least there was something showing up. Justin mentioned though that manually they measured 10-15 psi at idle.. ugh that's way too low... As I take off I noticed my A/C doesn't want to come on. Great, I think - now what else is busted!? Luckily that only turned out to be my radio faceplate being loose and thus the buttons not registering (Broke the clips a long time ago and haven't replaced them all yet).

However, literally not even 2 miles in to the 70 mile drive home what do you know.. *DING* Check engine light comes back on and the oil pressure disappears again. I call the shop right back and talk to Justin - Basically we agree that now we'll really have to rip open the engine to see what's going on since they couldn't find anything electrically. With their busy schedule that would at least be another 3 weeks or so...

I had meanwhile heard good things about Ellis Groo @ Speed Secrets in Monroe, Washington. That's a decent drive away from me (similar to Norpac's but opposite direction), but Ellis had already told me that he could look at it if needed. Knowing he has quiet a bit of experience with LS-based engines I figured he'd be the guy for the job. Justin @ Norpac agreed that taking the car to him probably would be the best approach since he has more expertise and he could probably get to it sooner. We figured I should be 'ok' to drive home where Ellis could then come tow me. I just kept the RPMs up (2k+) so I would get a solid 4 lines on my atari gauges (so that's at least 30+ psi). Naturally, I'm sweating bullets the entire way home as I'm listening to every little sound my engine makes.

Once I got home I hooked up my Vector Cable and ran their scan tool to at least get the Error Codes out and this time they were:

P0521 = Engine oil pressure sensor/switch range/performance
P0522 = Engine oil pressure sensor/switch low
P0575 = cruise control input circuit.

Supposedly the Cruise Control uses the Accelerator Pedal Position (Sensor) which relies on the same Ref Voltage A and Ground as the Crank Sensor & Oil Pressure Sensors. So possibly I have a mechanical AND electrical issue going on..

Now it's just a waiting game until Ellis comes to tow my car and figures out what the heck is wrong with it....

Crazy Paul has been a HUGE help throughout this ordeal. He's been an invaluable source of information and knowledge. Sending Schematics, Trying to make sense of the symptoms we were seeing etc etc. He even sent over a fabricated 'T' piece that would fit in the Engine Oil Pressure (EOP) Location so that you could have the stock sensor in there, but have a tap for a manual gauge to help in testing.

Crazy Paul's EOP 'T'

For anyone looking to hook-up a manual gauge in combination with the stock sensor I highly recommend talking to Paul to get your hands on this high-quality piece!

Lastly - I had someone look at merging a GTS and G8 Bumper together, but today I got word that no matter what they use for 'rod' material when trying to plastic weld - even if they use the actual bumper material - it just won't stick together for some reason. So as of this moment the plastic-welded hybrid bumper is basically DOA. Now I've gotta figure out what I am going to do with all the extra parts I had to finish the bumper... Talk about a waste of $$$...

This has NOT been a good year so far for G8 #470..

P0521 - the Nightmare continues

2010-05-26T15:40:00.000-07:00

Here's a recap of what's going on with my car:

Got a Stroker Built using VMS Cam Kit, Livernois Stroker Kit, & Melling Oil Pump. Took a few tunes to get where i'm at now. Had regular non-synth 5W30 from day 1, then after about 500-700 miles changed to 10W40. Atari's sat at 3 little blips at idle and at 5 blips (under the number '3') when driving all this time. Voltage usually for me sat around 10-11.

After 2 months(!) of flawless behavior driving with the car running just perfectly (minus I noticed the A/C not cooling) one day the Check Engine light comes on and my Atari's start showing '0' blips at idle and up to 3 or 4 when revving - The computer gives a P0521. Sensor Range error. I also notice voltage on the Atari's is now around 14?!?

Dealership checked wiring harness at Oil pressure sensor location and found no problems
Dealership replaced sensor, still the same problem.
Dealership put manual gauge on sensor hole and reads 'in spec' oil pressure. (numbers unknown)
Engine sounded just like before, and they had no other ideas so they sent me on my way so I drove it home, with at one time hearing a weird squealing noise (like a belt slipping).

Speed shop came to tow it just in case. They start testing things. Found a pulley/tensioner issue with A/C (probably what that squeal was) & recharged system.

Wiring harness looks OK. They read 18-25 psi at idle and up to 50 PSI revving , and SOMEHOW the atari's show normal again. CEL Went away. "ok Weird, but if it works it works" right?

They proceed to dyno after a few days. CEL comes back, Atari's read low again, computer now says 8-9 psi at idle (think < 10 psi is trigger for CEL?). Also now they lose the RPM Signal in the log and get some kind of crank sensor code.(P0335 and P0336)

They go over wiring & grounding again and say everything look good & tightly connected, and no visible pinching/melting etc etc.

Based on schematic, the Crank Sensor & Oil pressure sensor share 5V & Ground from the same source (ECM I'm assuming) so to me that looks like a possible clue..

I talked to a few people and opinions vary widely:

Kirk @ VMS Says: Probably Oil pump O-Ring ; But wouldn't it have been 'constant' - either from day 1, the time of picking up the car, or when 'whatever' happened to the engine (something broke?). I'm puzzled by the 2 months of perfect behaviour, then the problem which goes away by itself only to come back later in combination with another issue on top of it...

Andy @ livernois was saying "the pump blew up" or pickup depth wrong, or machined too loose, but all those sound like so catastrophic you'd either hear something, wouldn't drive around normally for 2 months, and you would NOT be getting normal oil pressure on a manual gauge..

Other suggestions have been: Oil Pump or Oil Pan pressure relief valve stuck open, Wiring harness damaged, ECM toast, etc, etc. At this point STILL nobody knows..

I'm having them retest the oil pressures manual & per computer back to back, and go over the harness with a magnifying glass to see what the heck is going on.. Next step to try is I guess getting a new ECM, and possibly dropping the pan anyway just to see if there's anything going on internally...

P0521 - Oil Pressure Sensor CEL

2010-04-23T09:17:00.000-07:00

So I'm heading into work this morning and I heard a *ding* sound and the check engine light comes on. I don't really notice anything wrong with the car right away, but pay close attention to any weird noises etc. Everything seemed OK until I noticed my oil pressure is way low - The below picture was taking while cruising 60mph.

When actually coming to a stop and sitting at lights the oil pressure would be showing absolutely 0. Scary since I didn't want to screw up my engine! I called Charlie, and he asked if the engine sounded like it wasn't getting enough oil etc and it all sounded like it was running just fine. So pulled into an O'Reilly's (previously Shucks) and use their scan tool to check what the problem is. I pull the codes and they turn out to be a :
P0521

According to the person behind the counter this was most likely indeed just the sensor/switch (and more specifically the range that it's reading out since when applying throttle the pressure goes up to about the '3' mark) and that while I should get it checked out ASAP, it seemed OK to drive to the dealer still etc since the engine did not seem to be showing any signs of actually having low oil pressure.
I have to go in for an oil change anyway so I guess I'll be calling around to see who has a sensor in stock!

April Update

2010-04-22T09:35:00.000-07:00

Well the weather has been warming up a little bit here so I finally took the time to wash the car again (and naturally it promptly rained the next day leaving me with these little pollen spots all over the car). So much for keeping the car clean!

With the temperatures getting warmer it was time to have the A/C do a little more work and what do you know; It doesn't seem to cool. Either not nearly as much or not at all. I had the car baking in the sun (outside temp claimed to be 71) and no matter what setting I turned the A/C to all it was blowing back at me was the same warm moist air.. yuck! So it seems either one of the fittings of my A/C system isn't 100% clamped on, or since it was 'evacuated' at the time of my stroker install it may need a so called re-charge. So now I'll have to either go back to Norpac or deal with a dealership (& accompanying lecture about aftermarket mods) to take a look at it. Guess it's never done!

As a Side Note; VegasNate, who is running a cammed + 2300 blown G8 GT, posted on the forum that his transmission "finally" kicked the bucket (and of course 'finally' is relative since it seems like he's barely had his car in the current configuration). It seems to show that around the 600hp mark you start asking for trouble with the transmission. It would seem if I want to keep this a daily driver and still put that Maggie on I may need to get mine rebuilt beforehand so I won't be grenading things. Supposed options are Fred Brown Transmissions ($3200), Rossler (~ $3k) and Circle-D has a rebuild option for $1350, but I'm not sure how much different this is from the other two.

Lastly - As posted before I've had the plan for a hybrid front bumper for... well basically as long as I've had the car (see old post here). As is common for me, I've been sitting on these bumper parts for over a year now before doing anything with them. I had yet to find a place to do any plastic welding, and the one shop that seemed interested was over an hour away and naturally would want to see the parts in person first, which with my schedule was just a real pain in the neck to get there. I recently did another round of emails & phone calls to see if I could find any local places, and to my surprise I found one within a 5-mile radius that said they had some experience welding bumpers. I stopped by and dropped off both bumpers with some preliminary photo-shopped print outs. They're going to take their time (since I'm in no rush) to see what they can do. The 2 inch difference definitely makes it a little tricky to merge these two together so I hope they can figure something out!

Happy 2 year Anniversary to me!

2010-04-02T09:35:00.000-07:00

Yes it's already been two years since I first picked up my G8. Sure doesn't feel like it has been that long, yet at this point this car is basically NOTHING like how it was in stock form.

Also it has taken this long for me to start seeing some more G8s on the road. Some of these people I know visit the forums etc, but I definitely spotted a Red, a Silver, a Stryker Blue, and a Panther Black in the last month that I could not place. Every time I see one I still think: "Damn that's a fine looking automobile!" only to realize I'm lucky enough to actually be driving one myself!

What's really amusing to me is that I remember when I first started this blog and I had my list of mods vs my 'mod wishlist'. The list of actual mods for the longest time was 0 and the wishlist was practically a laundry list of everything possible. Now looking at the right hand side of this blog it's the exact opposite. There's 3 items on my wishlist (Brakes,Bumper & Supercharger) while everything else is already on the car. That's not to say I may not one day put more or different parts on (compared to most people I'm fairly light on the suspension work like BMR or SPOHN parts), but do I see a need for it currently? Not really.... All in all I'm really content with my car at the moment and I can't wait to get those last big items on there - preferably before 2012 when the world ends and all that ;)

Raising the GTS

2010-03-29T10:52:00.000-07:00

So it's been a couple of weeks since I got my car back with the 403ci stroker in it and it was getting to be time for an oil change. Also I still wanted to raise my car and do a dyno run to see what kind of power I'm making and check my A/F ratios etc because I suspect I'm running fairly rich.
So, off to Norpac it was.

Dyno
Well hate to disappoint, but after how long everything took & my schedule we simply did not have any time to get it on the dyno. So yet again my HP/TQ numbers remain a mystery as do my A/F ratios.

Oil Change
Based on Kirk's ( @ VectorMotorsports) recommendation to help with break-in etc I decided to go with a 10w40 for this change. I had checked the oil coming out of it and it looked surprisingly clear & clean still, and the engine had barely eaten a drop of oil. The catch can was also emptied and there was maybe a couple of tablespoons of oil in there, if that. All in all it seems the engine is performing as expected and very well behaved!

Raising the Car

Yeah I said GTS in the subject of the blog since I'm rolling around with GTS Badges which now actually make sense. (GT Stroker ... see what I did there? ;) ) I know some people are probably wondering "why the **** would you raise your car back up?!?" (ok, maybe one of my 2 readers is haha). Don't get me wrong I LOVED the way my car sat lowered.. really looked amazing in my opinion.

Looking good!

However, I had my XA Coilovers set pretty low, so much so that a lot of speedbumps/drives etc I was bottoming out and scraping the hell out of my cats. One even has a pretty nasty dent in it because of this!

That's NOT a pretty sight. It was just getting to be impractical to drive certain places with how low I had the car so that's why I decided to raise it again. We decided on anywhere from between a 1/2" to an inch would be needed. Just did the front first and then adjusted the rear. It turned out a little higher than expected in the back, but I was content with it and it gave the car a bit of a rake which I think looks pretty good on these cars. Also, now it was able to simply get on & off the alignment rack without the need for pieces of wood and other 'help' items which was nice for a change!

I'm pretty sure that's what the front looked like stock haha

Working on the rear

To be honest I was surprised to see any 'red' back there still with how dirty my car gets (excuse the blur)

Back on the ground

It's quite a bit higher than before, but it looks good and at least I won't scrape anymore

The Front looking just about perfect

Looks like I got a bit of my 'rake' back now

Notice how my cats are sticking out - I still don't understand why this does not seem to be the case on other people's car with ARHs, but at least I have more clearance now.

For some reason my car is always filthy when I go to Norpac

Justin (from Norpac) after a hard days work

Before

After

I'm still getting used to the 'new' look so we'll see if it sticks. It's at least comforting to know if I ever want to go lower again it's pretty simply to do so with the Pedders XAs!

Stroker Fuel Economy

2010-03-11T08:53:00.000-08:00

Someone on the forum asked me recently about what kind of fuel economy I was getting after the stroker install. I hadn't paid much attention to it, but when I checked it turned out to be 14.4 mpg or there about. I normally on average was getting around 16-17 mpg so that looked pretty good to me. I had not yet however done the CASE(crank) relearn which some people claimed (online, so you know what that means haha) would actually help with the fuel economy. I reset my trip counters when I did the relearn and when I checked after a while I noticed it had actually dropped to 13.5 mpg! Now looking back this number did include a fair amount more of city driving vs more freeway with the higher number.

This morning I decided to reset the counters again and see what I was getting on just the freeway. I drove probably for about 15 minutes with speeds between 55 and 65, and no crazy business (WOT Throttle runs etc etc). Basically I was driving like I was a granny in a Honda or Toyota (minus the acceleration ;) ). Doing this my indicator read 22.6 MPG Average! That's not too shabby for a juicy 403/6.6L! Now came the interesting part - 6 minutes of stop & go with about 6 traffic lights (stopping at each one...) with a max speed of 35. The average now plummeted in this short amount of time from the 22.6 to a meager 18.6.

Conclusion: Highway driving this thing is a miser still, but putting around town in stop & go traffic can bring your average MPG down close to single digits REAL fast!

Blue & Black G8s

2010-03-08T12:36:00.000-08:00

I hadn't had a chance yet to do a crank (CASE) relearn after all my work since the shop didn't have the right tool for it, and I did not have a Dashhawk. 'GrandMacPubah', one of the 'local' (over an hour away) forum members, had one and was kind enough to drive all the way down to meet me and let me borrow his Dashhawk to complete this procedure. He has a Stryker Blue G8 GT which looks absolutely gorgeous! (See pictures below). We'll probably end up doing a muffler swap since he could use a little more sound ( I could barely even tell his car was running!) and I could use a little less!

It turns out the Crank Relearn is a fairly simple procedure taking only a few seconds that the device guides you through step by step - It was so simple in fact I felt the need to do it twice just in case I missed anything! - Basically you warm up the car with the engine running until the coolant gets to a certain temperature (158?), then parking brake on, foot on brake, rev the engine till somewhere in between 3k-5k rpms untill you hear it cut out and then you're done!

I can't say I have noticed much difference so far in doing that , MPG now says 15.something, but we'll see where it is a few weeks from now. Powerwise I don't notice any difference before and after either this crank relearn either. I still need to schedule some time to raise my car - Pubah's sits quite nicely! One thing I did notice that between mine and his, while we both got the ARH system - him in 1-3/4, me in 1-7/8 - my exhaust near the cats seems to stick out way more on the bottom of the car, which is where I'm always scraping. I wonder if the headers bent or so during shipping/install.

Also I need to get on the dyno sometime to see what kind of numbers we are making - pessimistingly i'm going to say i'll be lucky if I'm around 400... "Why?", you ask when people with CAI/Headers & Cam have hit the 450 mark?

Well... take the following into account - Optimistic people say I should be between 450-500 hp at the wheels. I'm however seeing the following 'issues' (and I'm just giving some random arbitrary percentages here that make sense to me with what I have seen):

-5% - Dished Pistons - lowered compression to 9.something : 1, so i'm doing the opposite of other people who are increasing their compression to get higher HP numbers
-5% - 'Mild' 228/228 Cam - I don't want lope and need daily drive-ability.
-5% - Crappy 92 octane gas with 10% ethanol - not much you can do about this stuff!
-5% - PNW Crap Factor! (In case you hadn't noticed - people with the same amount of mods make a good 5-10% less power in the Pacific Northwest Regions vs people elsewhere - Not sure if it's the crappy gas, the lack of available Shops & Tuners... who knows!).

So if I roughly take a -20% of 500 I end up with 400 hp at the wheels. If I get anything above that, it will be pleasant surprise!

Some Pictures & Short Video

2010-03-05T09:05:00.000-08:00

With a little sunbreak yesterday I figured it was time to give my car a quick wash. I hadn't in months and instead of a nice deep dark black it had turned into a dirty, crusty, gray color. I went to one of those high-pressure DIY washing places since I'm paranoid about taking my car on any carwash that a) has brushes, or b) even if they are 'touchless' then the track would most likely damage my rims. There is one carwash I know of, where you drive yourself through (no tracks) but that wasn't a viable option since that was at least 30 minutes away. Luckily for me I had a sponge and some basic supplies in the trunk still so I was able to give it a good scrubbing - which it desperately needed! The dirt & grime was so caked on that just using the high-pressure wash did NOT get it off... that's pretty bad!

Afterwards I could definitely tell I was getting more looks and when I went to get some gas, a gentleman even approached because he wanted to check out the G8! Guess that means my car looks pretty good when it's clean! I snapped some pictures just for the heck of it, and tried to capture some video on my cellphone of how it sounds right now.

What engine modifications do you speak of Mr. Dealership? ;)

403 Stroker with 228/228 115 LSA Cam

2010-03-04T13:14:00.000-08:00

Since I've made several posts about the cam/stroker kit etc over time (over a year!) I figured i'd be handy to summarize things a little to give a clear picture of what I had done and by whom - At 26,232 Miles on the stock block I ended up with:

End Result

403 Cubic Inch (that's around 6.6 Liter) Stroker (4.005" Bore x 4.00" Stroke) with -18 cc Dished Pistons
228/228 115 LSA CamShaft
CNC Ported Heads with Valvejob
Ported Throttle Body & Intake Manifold
Sounds like a much louder version of stock - no real lope to speak of
Power: Unknown at this point but seat of pants and losing traction in 4th gear @ 60mph says 'faster' ;)

Shops

Norpac Street Performance - Pulling engine, stripping down, shipping parts out, re-assembly
Vector Motorsports - Tune & DOD-Delete Cam package
Livernois Motorsports - CNC Valve Jobs & Porting of Heads, Stroker Kit
Bud's Machine Shop - Machine work, installing crank/rods/pistons - building small block
Fasterproms - Ported Intake Manifold & Throttle Body

Parts
Vector Motorsports DOD-Delete Cam Package Containing:

1x 12599296 - GM Valley Cover
4x 12595365 - GM Lifter Tray
1x 12557840 - GM Pulley Bolt
1x 12586481 - GM Camshaft Sprocket
3x 12556127 - GM Camshaft Bolts
1x 12626407 - GM Timing Chain Tensioner (NOT USED)
16x PSI-LS 1511ML - PSI Valve Springs
16x 17122490 - AC Delco Lifters - Part# HL124
1x 134-3610 - ARP Bolt Head Kit
16x 7795-16 - CompCams Pushrods
1x CompCams CamShaft - 228/228 115 LSA
2x GM Head Gaskets

With additions:

1x 12579145 - LS2 PCV Outlet Plug
1x 12588670 - LS2 Timing Chain Dampener (used instead of 12626407)
2x 12617944 - Exhaust Manifold Gaskets
1x 12612350 - Oil Pan Gasket
1x 12574294 - Engine Front Cover Gasket
2x 12610311 - Coolant Pump Gasket
8x 12569427 - LS3 Hollow Stem Valves
1x 12594779 - PCV Hose - (NOT USED - Installed Catch-Can Instead)

Further more I added:

1x HME-G68V-2 - Timing Chain (C5-R)
1x MEL10295 - Oil Pump

The Actual Livernois Stroker Kit contained:

8x -18cc Coated Diamond Pistons w/ rings & pins
8x Callies Compstar Connecting Rods with ARP Bolts
1x Callies Compstar 4.00" Stroke Crank
8x (16 halves) Rod Bearings (I mistakenly thought these were Cam-Bearings at the time!)
1x Main Bearings Kit

I also added

1x DM Performance - LSX Girdle, which caused some issues
10x 12556127 - Main cap side Bolts (Same as Cam Bolts)

In the end I was still missing:

Cam Bearings, Front & Rear Crank seals

Install Timeline:

Day 1 - Nothing happening here
Day 6 - Engine out and goes to Machine shop
Day 13 - Have baseline Tune, Machineshop has block totally bare
Day 22 - Little Parts confusion + Porting of Heads & TB/Manifold
Day 26- Few parts I forgot to get: Cam Bearings, Front & Rear Crank seals
Day 34 - Issue with the Girdle not fitting due to unique L76 oil pan
Day 37 - Machineshop is done - small writeup on them
Day 45 - Picking up the car! Definitely needs some fine-tuning still
Days after pickup - Tune issues and power-steering leak
Today - Seems to run great and no more leak!

No more leak & Good Tune!

2010-03-04T13:13:00.002-08:00

Power Steering Leak
After I discovered my power-steering leak the other day I contacted several people about the possible problem and solutions. Crazy Paul was the one who came up with detailed schematics of the problem area and even pictures of what it would look taken apart etc and several things that could be the issue. I swear this guy is a wiz when it comes to technical data!

He mentioned the copper 'gaskets' they use with the banjo bolt could be the problem and that even worse it could be the rubber o-rings inside the pump if the banjo bolt had been tightented too tight. I talked to Justin @ Norpac and he told me they only took out the Banjo Bolt and not the Part underneath (The High Pressure outlet). With his information I decided to take the plunge and take out the bolt, and clean up the copper and put it back in. Paul mentioned that if I was lucky this 'could' possibly fix it.

Armed with a torque wrench and a 19mm socket (seems an odd size, but it fit) I took it out and gave it a bit of a cleaning and then put it back in. I then torqued it to the spec he gave me of 43 ft/lbs.. A quick left/right test showed no signs of leakage! After this mornings drive into work when I popped the hood I didn't see any leaking either - so i'm hoping it's fixed! Thanks to everyone who has helped me with this and gave any info they had! (CP, Justin@Norpac, Greg@Pace, Charlie & 'Wickedmom')

Tune
As I mentioned before - Kirk had sent me a new tune to battle the hot-start and dying when slowing down issues. I hadn't really had the chance to drive around yet so this morning was the big test for this as well. The engine started right up with any issues, and ran fairly smooth ( As smooth as to be expected from a 403 ci stroker!) As I took off I kept a close eye on my rpms etc and from what I could tell it all was good! No weird low rpm dips as I had gotten previously so I was happy!

After getting to work I turned off the ignition and decided to start it up again to see how it would like that. It fired right up without any hesitation so that was good too! Meanwhile on the drive I had decided to open it up a little bit.. I was in 4th gear and just had taken an long offramp so I gunned it to about 5.5K rpm from a roll at 60mph. Within what seemed like a blink of an eye something attraced my attention to the dash which was showing weird lights... No, not a check engine light, but the 'overspeed' (which I have set at 80mph) had come on in combination with the ESC Traction Control... Traction problems in 4th going over 60mph..... now that's the good stuff! :D

If there was ANY doubt regarding Kirk @ Vector Motorsports being able to remotely tune your car , this has proven to me that he can totally deal with these types of scenarios since this project was way more involved than just a CAI and some headers. It also shows the value of having the cables/software to log your car as it's running since this way he can see what's going on, almost as if he was in the car with you. Yes I don't have any dyno numbers yet, and i'm sure 'in person' a good tuner could get some more HP/TQ out of it, but for doing this remotely Kirk has managed to get my car driving just great, and if you can't find a good tuner in your neighborhood (then you must live near me! ;) ) then talk to Kirk!

So now what? Well since I'm getting more and more into 'stealth' and really don't want a loud rumbling car (as cool as it is), it seems like I will be switching back to the stock mufflers - 'GrandMacPubah' on the forum is kind enough to come down with his dashhawk to do a crank relearn (still haven't done that!) and since he wouldn't mind upgrading to something a little louder we will probably do a swap!

Stroker - small issues

2010-03-02T15:50:00.000-08:00

Two nights ago the car died on me twice (so no power steering/brakes etc! scary!) while slowing down in traffic and I still had the check engine light. Charlie figured the first was due to the tune needing more adjustment and the check engine light must've been a loose connector of the rear driver-side O2 sensor or maybe the wires were touching the exhaust. I emailed Kirk @ Vector about this, and yesterday morning I woke up with a new tune in my email. I loaded it up and drove to work.

Car sounded a lot better, less shaking, overall much smoother power delivery etc. The Check engine light was now off too! So that's great. However, second red light the car died on me again... I drove to work without further incidents (including several lights), so it seems the car runs better when it's warmed up. I decided i'd do some idle logging and emailed Kirk the results. The log looked pretty good he said , but he made some small changes to help with it dying on me and he emailed me a new tune within an hour.

I sent him another log file after loading that tune just in case but was hoping this would be the final tune... but what do you know: This morning the car died in basically the exact same spot while driving to work! Also when the car is warmed up it actually takes a bit of throttle to get it started up, otherwise it sounds like a chain-smoker hacking up a lung! Also there's some kind of pulsating buffering / surging going on under 5mph when coming to a stop.. Hopefully Kirk can fix these issues soon (I'm sure he's tired of me pestering him!) and he just sent me another tune after I emailed him a little earlier today. Kudos to him for the quick turn-around!

Today at lunchtime I noticed a red puddle of fluid under where I parked.. GREAT i think.. after talking to Charlie it was clear it was either transmission or power steering fluid. F-in Great...Just my luck - what else can go wrong?!?

I was hoping it wasn't the transmission, and an initial check did show my power steering on the low side, but without being able to do anything about I parked in a 'clean' spot to see where the leak was.

I then went back out a few hours later to see if it was dripping again and here's what I found -a nice puddle right behind the front drivers side wheel, which upon closer inspection actually had definite signs of 'splashing' on it.

I then decided to take a better look under the hood and notice there's quite a bit of spray going on in the engine compartment. You can see it on the header, and the black subframe.

Upon closer investigation I follow the lines from the reservoir, which seem ok, to the actual pump where i find a decent amount of fluid collected on top right where there seems to be a bolt with a high-pressure line. Perhaps this is not as tight as it should be and i'll try to tighten this one ASAP!

Also noticed the red fluid in the crimp connector where the rubber hose goes into the metal line which could be another problem area, or it could simply be funneling the fluid there, who knows at this point..

As soon as I get home i'll see if I can clean it up a bit and tighten that bolt and hope that fixes it. Otherwise i'm sure some shop locally will charge an arm and a leg for something that'll turn out to be really simple!

Stroker Install Complete - Day 45

2010-02-27T15:30:00.000-08:00

Just picked up the car.. still taking it easy because of breaking in and still need to do a crank relearn!

I have a check engine light for
P0036 HO2S Heater Control Circuit (Bank 1 Sensor 2)
P0054 HO2S Heater Resistance (Bank 1, Sensor 2)
P0141 02 Sensor Heater Circuit Malfunction (Bank 1 Sensor 2)
So I emailed kirk@vector to see what that's all about. (from the sound of it it almost seems like the O2 after the cats are turned back on somehow?)

Also - it's LOUD... thinking i'll have to switch back to stock mufflers or put in some extra resonators under the car...

Haven't dyno'd yet , so will do that later on.. definitely excited to have my car back!

Bud's Machine Shop - Short Review w/ Pictures

2010-02-19T12:55:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in previous posts the block had to be machined by a machineshop to get the new rotating assembly installed. Not sure if I mentioned the actual shop so I figured i'd do a quick little write-up on them. The work was done by "Bud's Machine Shop" .

Bud's machine shop is ran by owner Bud (Right in picture), and his 'main guy' Bob (Left in picture) - Apologies for the poor picture quality - one of those cheap little disposable cameras! (As always - click to enlarge any of these pictures)

Both Bud & Bob (boy that's a lot of B words!) are very knowledgeable and will take the time they need to get it just right! They were in constant contact with me and every time I stopped by or contacted them they took the time to talk to me about how far they were along and answer any questions or concerns I had which I always appreciate.They even were nice enough to take some pictures throughout the entire build process for me!

Bob overboring the Block

Just a smidgen more as according to Bob the bore they measured was around 4.001"

A somewhat blurry photo of what looks like 1 rod installed on the crank with the girdle loosely laying on top as they're checking for clearance issues (bottom up view of engine)

That is a pretty darn tight fit - you can see where the girdle has a little recessed area right by the rod, but they decided to be safe and grind it down a little more

Delicious Over-bored Goodness - have you had yours today?

Not quite sure what's going on here but it looks like they're machining the caps/block together to get a good fit on the new crank (at least that's what I'm guessing!).

Balancing of the Crankshaft etc

Beautiful -18cc Coated Diamond Pistons going into the block

Front all together after a lot of fenagling

(and boy that looks like a dirty stock oilpump, but I called to verify and that IS the new one. All the dirt/grime must've been a result of all the oils/machining etc..)

Overall the experience at Bud's Machine is that they're a great shop that cares that they do a quality job and take the time with all their customers to ensure it's done right. As with many Machineshops though, at least from what I've heard this seems to be common, they are SWAMPED and depending on the time of year you're easily looking at a 2-3 week wait before they can even touch your block. However, it is well worth the wait to let Bud & Bob, with real expertise and eye for detail work on your engine!

So if you need any machining done on your engine I highly recommend Bud's Machine Shop!

Buds Machine & Engine Shop
12019 Pacific Hwy. SW #C
Lakewood, Washington 98499
Phone: 253-588-BUDS (588-2837)
Fax: 253-588-9926
Hours: Monday-Friday 8:00 am - 4:30 pm

Stroker Install - Day Whatever.... (ok 34..)

2010-02-16T14:35:00.000-08:00

Yeah this is still dragging on... way... too... long...
However, The end is in sight!

First a quick segway: Nick @ TurboTech was kind enough to post some comments on my complaints I had with their install of my headers/torque converter last year. I'm not quite sure where it went or what post he actually responded to - but when I find it I'll link to it so everyone can see it. (Edit: Found it here on the actual Headers Post) I think while I disagree with some of the 'options' he lists as what could have caused some of my issues, being in a hurry to get going probably was one, if not 'the' major factor - thus time for a 'thorough' after-install wasn't available to possibly spot some of the issues. Their response is fair enough imo to close the book on this one. So no more griping about them from me :) Thanks Nick - appreciate you taking the time to respond in detail!

Ok so.. what's going on with this nightmare project....The machine shop was done last week already - just didn't have time to update. They ended up putting it together and taking everything apart about 5 times from what they told me to make sure everything fit JUST right. Minor tweaks to the pistons, overbored the cylinders a smidgen to fit the 4.005"s in there, rebalanced the whole thing. All-in-all they were extremely pleased with how it turned out and the quality of the parts I had provided which made me feel good.

The only major problem they ran into was with the Girdle (you knew that was coming didn't you? ;) )
While it already had some beveled areas for clearance where the bottoms of the rods get close to it - they cleaned them up a little more to make sure it could never hit which was great. However, apparently with the G8's oilpan being a little different etc there were 2 things they ran into - one was the oil pickup screen / tube assembly didn't line up right because of the gridle and was off by 1/4 - 1/2 Inch - that took some major finagling to get to work - Then once they got that under control they ran into the issue of the oil pressure relief valve that's unique to the L76/LS3 oil pan. The girdle was designed for LS1/LS2s etc and while the block technically is a LS2 block, that valve in the oil pan was actually sticking out and in the way of the girdle.

The main Machine shop guys (Bud & Bob) ended up exchanging emails & phone calls with Demetri from DM Performance (great guy with great service!) and it was decided they could safely notch the girdle to make room for this nuisance piece. (inside the red marked area)

This makes me wonder whether or not we could switch oil pans to something a little more 'normal' and perhaps not require 9 quarts of oil... hmmmm. More questions for Crazy Paul! ;)

My intake manifold & Throttle body are on their way back, and my heads are already back as well,though Livernois forgot to send back the valve covers & spring seats that were sent with it - OOPS. Rick @ Livernois jumped on that though and is making sure they get there ASAP! So really now it's just a matter of putting it all back together and hope it actually works!

Anyway - so far I've come to this conclusion: (and some of the recent comments - thanks for those! really appreciate it - echo this sentiment as well):

Anyone thinking of going a stroker: Just buy the damn shortblock and move your heads etc over. You'll get more options (LS3 base, LSX Base etc), Will save you TONS of time and probably will even be cheaper in the long run as well! (especially when you figure in you can sell your entire old short-block, but it's hard to sell just a stock used crankshaft/rods & pistons etc). Oh well.. lessons learned I guess, but hey at least I'll have an unique engine combination :)

And for the guy being nervous about doing just the DOD delete cam - that should take from what I've seen about 4 days max or so. Mine is just a nightmare because of the entire new rotating assembly & machining involved and 90% of my time was spent just sitting waiting on the machineshop , which you luckily won't have to deal with :) (and while irritating it took that long I DO appreciate them taking their time working on it making sure everything was 100% satisfactory so in the end NO bad words about the machineshop!)

Stroker Install - Day 26

2010-02-08T15:47:00.000-08:00

This is getting more and more painful - what I was hoping would be a 2-3 week project is now going on 4 weeks and it looks like I won't have my car back until after the Holiday...which will make it at least a 5 if not 6 week endeavor.

On the plus side the machine IS actually working on the block right now - however they called me with some 'bad news'... What I thought were cam bearings (just glanced at them) were actually Rod-Bearings and no Cam bearings were included - This actually makes sense since normally with a cam-package you don't swap those out because everything stays in place. This is one item that despite all my preparation efforts was obviously overlooked. The machine shop was going to get these though (Clevite just like my other bearings) so that's fine by me.

The other thing they were going to get was the front and back crank seal since that was not included either with the Stroker kit. I'm not sure if the old ones could be re-used safely so we're just going all new. This basically means that except for a FEW items (The actual Block/Heads - and they're getting ported) I basically have a brand new engine when done (who knows when that'll be though! lol) so I'll have to baby it for a bit before I can really open it up.

Hopefully if there are no more other unforseen delays the machineshop should be done with it sometime this week so i'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Stroker Install - Day 22

2010-02-04T12:09:00.000-08:00

Well what's new you're wondering? Not much unfortunately! The waiting game continues... The machineshop has been swamped and then when they were just about ready to start on things we found out they accidentally gave the main studs (for use with the girdle) to the other shop in some confusion. Basically the other shop was going to be picking up the new valves and other 'head' related items from the machineshop (who had all parts), and somehow these got mixed in. So that sorta put a hold on things on top of all the other delays.

After talking to the machine shop again today we now have a more firm ETA of supposedly EARLY next week that they'll be done with it. Overboring etc should actually be happening today or tomorrow! I'm keeping my fingers crossed.. it's over 3 weeks now and it's killing me!

Meanwhile the heads are over at Livernois getting ported and a valvejob and my throttle body & intake manifold are at Fasterproms getting ported and I already have an updated tune from Vector. So with some luck it will all be put together next week - But with how things have been going my bet would be on after President's day! :(

Stroker Install - Day 13

2010-01-26T09:08:00.000-08:00

Day 13.. (or day 9 if you don't count weekends) and not much to update: Livernois will be getting my heads it looks like this Friday for the valve job and the porting. Guessing that'll take a few days + shipping back so it'll be at least a week before I get those back.

Stopped by the machine shop today and they were swamped too. (Even have 2 other GTO blocks they're working on supposedly!) They don't even think they'll be able to start on it until MAYBE next week at the earliest. This is taking way longer than I'd hoped (I was hoping to be close to putting it back together by this point) so we'll see. I was able to snap some pictures of my block that was all stripped down & cleaned. You could definitely tell it was the newest block around ;)

Kirk @ Vector was gracious enough to already provide the tune based on the engine specs so at least that part is taken care of. Now it's just a waiting game until the machine shop gets to the overboring & stroker install.

Here are some pictures of my nice clean shiny block :

Stroker Install - Day 6

2010-01-19T12:57:00.000-08:00

Well not much of an update. The block is out and stripped down to basically a short-block and now the machine shop will go to work on it. Not sure how long that will take, but unfortunately they didn't sound too optimistic when I talked to them about a time-frame so i'm not sure if this will be done this month or not..

Also when the engine came out, my 'bellhousing' of my transmission had quite a few loose bolts... Geeh I wonder who could've screwed that up.... Simply by installing headers & a converter I go
a) Disconnected/Broken Air Intake after the Install
b) 4 Loose Sparkplugs and Oil Dipstick placed so that it would constantly PULL OUT another plug
and now c) Loose bolts in transmission housing...

ugh... nvm

Anyway - No pictures as of yet - but I've been told at least a few have been taken and the machineshop will take some too.

Finally the time is here! Stroker Kit - Day 1

2010-01-14T13:58:00.000-08:00

After a long wait trying to get everything lined up "Project Stroker" was officially initiated yesterday! Dropped off the car yesterday so today will officially be the first day they're working on pulling the engine.

I did make some last minutes changes as to which party does which part of the job and which parts to use. Nothing major really though: I had the hollow stem valves (stock in LS3's) and was contemplating whether or not I should stick with my solid ones. A LOT of people gave me input but it was clear there was no obvious end-all-be-all answer. In the end I decided that since I HAVE the valves already I'm just going to use them - and its not like they're so bad since they come stock in the LS3s!

Also I had been going back and forth on porting the heads or not. The initial plan was that the machine shop was going to just do a basic valve job. After again seeking advice from several people it was basically concluded that a) a stroker engine could benefit from ported heads quite nicely b) So could a supercharger if it ever comes to that, and c)they heads are coming off anyway so you might as well!
And really - what can you say about point C ;) Livernois will be taking care of that part of the project for me so I can't wait to get the heads out to them.

Lastly - I was seriously wanting a Dyno run beforehand to see some base numbers. Problem: My car was too low to even get on the dyno (if you read the suspension story before you'd remember I couldn't even get onto the alignment machine normally because I was so low!)... so having to raise it would then mean lose a day upfront before work could even start on pulling the engine. In the end I decided to skip the base-line dyno run because when it comes down to it, while a nice point of reference to say "oh all this added 'x' amount of HP/TQ", as soon as as the new parts go in, the old number is, for all intents and purposes, null and void and no longer relevant. So we may do a limited dyno run either to tweak a break-in tune, or otherwise I will for sure after a 1000 mile break-in.

On a somewhat related note: I was going through some pictures of my car and I noticed I did not really take any pictures of it since it was dropped (Can you tell I was sorta 'out of it' with modding the car?) so I never had a a good shot of the stance. I took two as a 'memento' since it's going to be raised up by a bit at the same time since I keep bottoming out when trying to get in and out of parking lots etc. (Click for larger images)

Hopefully this anxious process will be over soon. I've been without my car for one day and already miss it! Estimated time: 2 weeks, so if I'm LUCKY I should have my car back by the end of the month, but who knows.... keeping my fingers crossed though!

Happy New Year Everyone!

2010-01-05T15:43:00.000-08:00

Hello Everyone & Happy New year!

Wow it's been already over 2 months since my last posting here. The Holiday season is always busy for me so I haven't done much to the car.. Had a slight mishap with a gate opener when the gate started closing before I was through and hit the car.. Left a BUNCH of nasty scrapes on the rear quarter panel, but luckily 99% buffed out. I can't tell you how pissed I was though! Of course the spot I worked on now looks all clean and shiny while the rest of the car is just filthy right now. Looks a little weird and it definitely needs to be washed & waxed BADLY, but with the weather the way it is (rain all the time now) it just seems like a waste...

If you've read my previous postings you might have seen me going back and forth on doing this stroker install. After long debate I'm setting the wheels in motion (how's that for an automotive pun!) and getting all parties involved lined up. 1 shop will be pulling the engine and stripping it down to a short block (or long block.. gotta figure that part out still), the second shop will machine the block and install the stroker kit and new cam parts, while a 3rd will be porting the heads & giving it a valve job.

When it's all said and done the 1st shop will put it all back in the car and then i'll have a 4th shop do the tuning... Talk about a lot of details to figure out - Let's hope it all works out! I'm hoping most of them can take pictures of the progress as it happens which I can then post here in updates for everyone to see. I'll probably also post a thread on GRRRR8.net when the time comes :)
For now, stay tuned for 'Day 1' of the Stroker install write-up, coming hopefully sometime this month!

What the......?!?!

2009-10-22T12:40:00.000-07:00

So it's been a while since I washed the G8... Between being busy busy busy and simple not caring I just never got around to it. Today it was suddenly really getting to me how filthy the car was so I decided on my lunch break to go to one of those DIY car washes. I typically don't like these types since there's usually barely any pressure, but drastic dirt called for drastic measures. I never use the brush that's there since I know some hill-billy just scrubbed the wheels of his 4x4 after what looks like it was a mud & gravel-diving excursion.. yuck!

So I start spraying the car down with the high pressure washer and I get to my rear wheels and what do I see? A HUGE chunk missing! WHAT THE #%*&!%?!?! It's in a place where it makes NO sense, close to the center of the wheel. It in a spot where you would not see it unless the wheel has that part facing down (or you're on the floor looking at the wheel). I KNOW I have never hit a curb in this car and no one else drives it which really makes me wonder what caused it and how long it's been there!

Wonder what else can go wrong for me with this car....

Update & More Suspension Issues

2009-10-16T13:20:00.000-07:00

So it's been a while since I posted.... Besides 'stuff' going on & being busy with work and things in day-to-day life I've just been burned out on just about everything: Work, Hobbies (I have a few, and all of them bore me at the moment), and especially car stuff. I just lost all interest in modding this car for whatever reason. I'm just irritated by it and the entire (especially local) 'scene'.

Also it doesn't help to see your buddy blow his engine and needing a brand new one. It makes you reconsider the "do I really want to push this any further?" question, especially for a Daily Driver. I haven't even opened the car up in ages and usually cruise at 60-65 max. It really is a shame though since I have a full Cam-Package + Stroker kit sitting in my Garage and I have a Holden GTS Front bumper sitting around somewhere (Thanks for keeping an eye on that Tony). Haven't decided if I'm going through with it or if I'll just sell it all...

If anyone's interested in any of these (preferably local) let me know.

To top it off the suspension noise from before came back with a vengeance which totally pisses me off. It makes me wonder if I'm the latest victim of the at this point well known Ball-Joint issues. (and here)

So now I have to take this POS to the dealer again, which I'm sure they'll try to weasel their way out of warranty work since they already commented on my Pedders install last time. So it'll be "interesting" to see what they say now.

Anyway, for your viewing 'pleasure'.. some noise videos

Suspension Issue

2009-08-28T11:27:00.000-07:00

Recently I noticed some Groaning coming from the front drivers side when I turned the steering wheel full left. Also there was was sounded like an annoying 'clunking' sound when driving over bumps. So I decided to take a look when I pulled into the garage last night and what do I find behind my front passenger side wheel?

The Link that connects to the sway bar & strut had come loose and was just flopping around!

So off to the dealer it was. Once it was on the lift it was clear to see that the link was just laying there and the nut had just fallen off. The dealer thought perhaps the previous shop never hooked it up right, but I think when I Went to T&T Tire Factory to raise my car that one time they just didn't tighten it right. (I know Norpac installed it perfectly!)

Not sure how visible it is, but at the drivers side the nut was about half-way off!

90 bucks later (took them forever to find the right nut) I was on my way again and the noises are gone. Guess that goes to show you that if you hear a noise that's not supposed to be there, something is wrong! lol ;)

DM Performance LS Girdle

2009-08-04T12:30:00.000-07:00

As posted previously I had ordered a Main-Cap Girdle to go with my stroker Build. It got delivered today so I figured I'd show what was included.

First the actual girdle:

This thing is HEAVY and rock solid - a very nice piece of fabrication!

Second was the Stud Kit

It came with 20 studs, 10 chrome nuts, 20 black nuts and a bag of washers (didn't bother counting them , probably 20 :) ) Not sure why I have more nuts than bolts, but so be it :) maybe they figured you'd want to mix it up a little and put the chrome ones on the inner or outer only. 2 of the bolts are shorter than the rest which was interesting.

The measurements for the bolts are:
18 x 5" bolts (with 1 side having a 1" coarse thread and a 1 5/8" fine thread on the other)
2 x 4 5/8" bolts with 1" coarse thread and a 1 1/4" fine thread

Instructions that came with the package says the two shorter ones should be placed in the outer front main cap holes (nearest the timing chain), but if you have a GTO oil pan they should go on the right side of the block on the outer number 2 and 3 to clear the oil tube running to the back of the pan. Not sure if that makes any sense to anyone who's ever had these engines apart..

Also i'm not quite sure how these compare to the normal ARP studs as far as length goes. I'm guessing these are little bit longer to account for the girdle taking up some space.

Now I guess the other thing I need is the 'side bolts' which normally are parts of the main stud package.. bet those will be hard to find separately! :(

Win a V6 Roto-Fab Intake!

2009-08-02T09:54:00.000-07:00

For you guys ( & gals) who have a V6 based G8, be sure to make a post here for your chance to win a Roto-Fab Cold Air Intake for your car!

http://forum.grrrr8.net/showthread.php?t=9133

Here's a copy of the post:

It's been a while since our last give-away but thanks to Roto-Fab here's our next one!

Feel there's no love for the V6 owners? Not here! This month's prize is
A Roto-Fab V6 CAI Kit!

You can read up on the intake on the Roto-Fab site here

Rules:

ONLY People who own a V6 G8 can enter! Show a picture, signature , describe your car etc.
If you Have a GT or GXP you CAN NOT enter (unless you own a V6 as well )
Simply post a reply (only once please) to this thread for your chance to win.
DO NOT post in this thread unless you want a chance to win these
This thread will close end of day Friday August 14th 2009.
Saturday August 15th 2009 a random winner will be chosen from the people who entered and announced here.
Winner will obviously have to provide their mailing info.
If we get no response from the winner within 2 days a new winner will be chosen.
Moderators for GRRRR8.net ARE eligible to enter as well.
As always - previous winners ARE eligible as well!

To Enter follow this link and post a reply on the forum!

LSx Main Girdle

2009-07-31T09:06:00.000-07:00

Ok so I got my stroker kit, now what? Well.. me having the 'but what can I do to make sure it doesn't break' OCD syndrome decided to look around and talk to some people about what preventative measures I could take to make sure this would all hold up long-term to the power levels I'm planning.

The L76/LS2 is an aluminum block which is obviously not as strong as an Iron Block. Of course the benefit is that it's a good deal (relatively , since it's still a back-breaker) lighter. However, Apparently under heavy load the main-caps tend to 'walk' a bit which is not a good thing.

So how do you keep them in place? Well you put them in a girdle. No, not that lacey thing your grandma has in the closet... one made out of metal!
I Found one made by DMPerformance.

From their site (which gets a little repetitive with every line starting with 'the lsx engine main girdle..' haha) :
"The LSX engine main girdle increases block rigidity and torsional stiffness, by boxing in all the main caps. The lsx main engine will not let your block twist under load and keep all the bores square. The LSX engine main girdle adds horse power, By decreasing friction in the piston area and also decreases windage significantly when used in conjunction with the factory windage tray .The LSX main girdle will increases your horsepower and torque. The lsx girdle does this by decreasing the bending moments and shear stresses experienced by a high performance engine. The LSX engine main girdle will stabilize the bottom end of the cylinder block by evenly distributing the load across the main caps. The lsx engine girdle will virtually eliminate main cap walk seen by all lsx's even at the 500 horsepower range, which wreaks havoc on your bearings. The lsx engine girdle achives this by locking in the main caps at the top, which will minamize the movement at the bottom of the cap .The lsx engine girdle will let you run upwards towards 1000 horsepower with out dropping a sleeve or breaking a main cap . The LSX engine main girdle has been up to 1500 HP + on Ronnie Dukes world record trans am."

I ordered mine Monday so hopefully it'll get here sometime next week. I also had Demetri@DM include the ARP Bolts that are needed (probably a little longer to account for the actual girdle). Once I get it all in I'll post up some more info/measurements & pics.

The 403 ci Stroker Kit has arrived

2009-07-30T11:55:00.001-07:00

Last Tuesday I received my Stroker kit by UPS (and the UPS guy was NOT a happy camper lugging around 80 some pounds! :) ) It came in 3 boxes which contained the following:

Box 1: Pistons, Rings & Pins

Neatly organized inside - the pistons and a box for the rings & Pins

One of the Actual Pistons

The Rings

And finally the Wrist Pins

As you can see I did not unwrap everything right away since I still need to transport all of this to the shop I wanted to keep everything as neatly packed as possible (which unfortunately translate in to less fun for you, the viewer at home).

Box 2
Next up we had a box that had the Connecting Rods and bearings in it.

Cam Bearings

Main Bearings

Connecting Rods

Box 3
Finally the biggest & heaviest box of them all (weighing in at over 50 pounds) is the box for the crankshaft. That sucker is HEAVY! I took a peak at it by moving some of the wrapping inside the box and it looks very nicely crafted! Just didn't feel like taking it out with how heavy it was so all you get to see is a picture of the box!

Update: Ok I gave in ;) here is the crank!

HSV Fog/Driving Lights for Hybrid HSV/G8 Bumper

2009-07-24T11:31:00.000-07:00

I received a package today from Crazy Paul for one of my upcoming projects. This one actually has been in the works since last year but it all came together finally and the rest of the parts are finally on the boat.

A lot of people over the last year expressed interest in a 'hybrid' bumper much like this photoshopped image:

As you can see the top half has the typical Pontiac look but the bottom is the HSV look. Some people opted for a total HSV conversion that involves also changing out the hood which I actually LIKE with the scoops etc. The HSV hood is just too bland and boring, and I also didn't like the upper half of the front bumper as much.

So I decided way back when that instead of hoping someone would make it (late 2008 noone stepped forward to make one) that I'd purchase a HSV bumper and a new G8 bumper and try to merge them using plastic welding.

I had Crazy Paul help me find a bumper on the cheap (ebay.au, used, damaged - but since I was going to cut it up anyway it didn't matter). Once it was acquired a few other people came up with the same idea and contacted CP as well. So it was decided to hold off on shipping until every got all their stuff together and CP would organize a shipment by boat.

Meanwhile a G8 owner by the handle KLRG8 who runs EvolutionAutoDesigns was working on a custom fiberglass hood and bumper and got interest going into a HSV/G8 Clone. After a few false starts that project finally took off recently for which I applaud him. Target price if I remember was going to be around $600.

KLRG8's photoshop of prototype

Of course for me , being already in the hole for all the original parts (which are way more than that!), it's 'too late' , but it's not all bad. I do prefer having a real plastic bumper anyway. Also since his design is basically from scratch it'll be slightly different than how I envisioned mine. For instance - his design will feature only foglights (from the G8) instead of FogLights & Driving Lights, which came in todays shipment:

A Cool thing I noticed is that foglights actually have the HSV logo engraved in the front! I tried to take a closeup picture of it with my cellphone but it didn't turn out too great;

Now it's just a matter of waiting on the actual bumper & other misc. parts (not expected by boat until at least end of August), taking it to a bodyshop to have it cut-up & plastic-welded , and then painted & installed. Who knows when the heck I'll be able to finish this project, but hey at least the lights are here ;)

403 ci/6.6L Forged Stroker

2009-07-17T08:15:00.000-07:00

If you have been reading my blog for a while (and I don't imagine a lot of people do, but let's pretend) you know that I've been wanting to do the cam-shaft upgrade for a WHILE now (since 2008) and that I had finally gotten all my Cam-Kit (took a few additions before I was totally happy with everything) in May (and more parts in June). Yet here it is, still sitting here in the box, while countless others are driving around in their cammed G8's. So.. why the hold up?

Well besides the previously mentioned issues of finding a shop to do the work (but I did: Go Norpac!) and making sure that everything that 'should' be replaced was going to be replaced and/or upgraded I had an ulterior motive. The thought that kept nagging in my head was that if I was going to have my engine basically open to the core I should upgrade as much as I can (even if that means I have to wait a bit). That, plus the fact that I really want to run a supercharger eventually (even my cam is 'supercharger friendly') but wanted to make sure beforehand the engine would hold up to all the extra power. So the option I decided on was to go forged.

There were three ways to go;

Do I buy a new block already built, and drop that in and then try to sell my old block (Lots of $$ upfront, but low down-time and possible recoup some money later on)
Do I buy the bare block & rotating assembly and transfer components (Medium $$ upfront, Medium downtime)
Do I work within the existing block (Least $ upfront, but more downtime).

Since I'm not the richest man (and opposite to what some believe, I DO NOT get free parts (except once :) ) or tons of money for running GRRRR8.net) I decided that re-using as much as I could would be the way to go (but someday that juicy LSX Block will be mine ;) ).

Now when you're replacing the internals of an engine with stronger parts, why not push them a little and increase the displacement? This is basically what I opted for by slightly 'overboring' to a standard size and increasing the 'stroke' of the crankshaft ( hence the name 'stroker kit'). So I started my search for stroker options and found a LOT of conflicting & confusing information. To start at the beginning let's look at the engine in the G8 GT, the L76.

Overboring the L76
According to the stats the L76 6.0L is an aluminum block that has a bore of 3.988" (101.3mm) and a 3.622" (92mm) stroke. Now according to 90% of information out there you can only safely bore any LS based block (especially aluminum) by a maximum of 0.010" overbore because of the thin cylinder sleeves. In our case we'd end up with 3.998" - a very odd (and 'useless') size indeed that would require custom pistons.

Now here is where some confusion starts coming in.
First - some people claim they, or 'someone they know' overbored a LS2 engine 0.020", 0.030" or more and it was 'just fine'. Of course this really is nothing more than 'hear-say' and I had a hard time just believing these statements just because they were on the Internet.

Secondly - As you may know the L76 runs the L92 heads which have received rave reviews. One interesting tid-bit is that GM says you need a minimum bore size of: 4.000" (or 101.6mm) Now really 0.3mm is a really tiny difference when you look at it on a ruler, but in an engine it could make a lot of difference! So are they saying the L76 is 4.000" or is it 'close enough' to work with the L92's?

The Third interesting thing is the block-casting number (12568952). This is the exact same number as the 4.000" bore LS2 engine. So did GM inform us wrong that the L76 has a 101.3mm bore and does it actually have a 101.6mm bore? I started getting hopeful! I talked to Livernois
who actually measured one and quickly my hopes & dreams were shattered because they confirmed the L76 actually has the 101.3mm bore.

Now what? I took some time off mentally from the subject for a couple of days and then decided to read up (yet again) on the LSX Block(thinking maybe I should just go that route) when I noticed they ship it with a 3.XXX bore so the machine shop can bore it to your spec. Talk about a light-bulb moment!! The LS2/L76 are the same Block, different bore, but the LS2's 4.000" bore can be overbored just fine to 4.010" or 4.005". I realized that they probably simply UNDERBORED the L76 vs the LS2 instead of using different sleeves. I couldn't find anyone to confirm this, but when I talked to Texas-Speed they actually said they've overbored past 4.000" a lot on L76's without issue and that it was the same block.

The Stroker Kit
So after talking to them and Livernois again about my goals and plans it both suggested I'd go with the 4.005" bore and a 4.000" Stroke giving me a total of a 402, or 403 ci (depending on calculations) Forged Stroker. Basically it comes down to a nice even 6.6L (Watch out GXPs!) Also because of the intent to go with a supercharger we went with some deep dish pizza ehmm I mean Pistons to get the compression down to a more friendly sub-ten level for supercharging. Just like my camshaft by itself, this means that in a N/A setup it would not be making the same power as someone running normal pistons etc, but when I do put the supercharger on I'll be able to crank the boost up much more and safely so.

When it came time to actually make the purchase I was stuck between Livernois and Texas-Speed. Both have excellent reputations and both put together a quality kit. They both were excellent in their customer service and communication with me. In the end it just came down to which brand-names I liked better in the kit and didn't mind paying a little more for those; The vendor of choice became Livernois (Also Livernois was already an established vendor on the GRRRR8.net so I knew what to expect from them and I like to support our vendors!) with their Callies Crank and Diamond Pistons (vs Eagle/Wiseco - eventhough texas-speed does offer these as well). It could have gone either way and I highly recommend either company! A 3rd option would've actually been my local machine shop with Eagle/JE Pistons, but I preferred the Callies.

Some people push it even further with 4.010" bore or larger stroke, but then I really started getting worried about rod-angularity (google it) which already could be an issue with this setup. If I ever want to go bigger I probably would save up for the LSX based block and take it from there, but I doubt that'll ever happen because by that point I doubt I'd even still have my G8 :) (though right now there really isn't any other car I want)

Now the adventure begins of actually pulling the entire engine out and gutting it! Already have a quote from the machine-shop which isn't 'too bad' but it will probably be another month (maybe even two depending on what other 'upgrades' I may want to add) before this install will happen but at least I feel confident in knowing that nothing's going to break!

And the Next Upgrade is...

2009-07-16T17:07:00.000-07:00

Well, As you may have noticed I've been sitting on this cam-shaft package for an awfully long time. This because for months I felt I should do some 'other things' at the same time if the engine was being worked on. So the last couple of days things have been falling into place and after saving for a long time I've finally decided on my next project (besides the obvious , by now dusty, cam hahaha). So What is it? Well, More details after I actually order it :D

p.s. Others have been discussing this mod 'recently' but I've been agonizing/researching it for months (detailed in the upcoming post) so I take dibs on being first ;)

The Sweet Sound of American Racing Headers with Stolen Fox Axle Backs

2009-06-25T09:10:00.000-07:00

So I've had my 1-7/8" American Racing Headers on for quite some time (Over six months already!) but I had never gotten around to actually record some good footage of them on the car. I recorded some video when I first picked up the car, but since it basically was running on 6 or 7 cylinders it was not really how it sounds.

Last week someone asked about them and how they sounded since they were going to get a set themselves and I figured it was about time to whip out the trusty old camcorder and record some footage. The only problem with these little hand-held cams is that they really don't capture the full sound of the exhaust system. You usually miss a lot of the bass and the relative volume is hard to determine. (e.g. Is it loud? or is the camera just too close to the exhaust for the mic to record it properly? )

0-20mph (windows closed) 0-30mph (window open) in city traffic

Cruising at 55mph and WOT to 80mph

Remote Start Idle

This next video to me sounds more realistic than the previous one
'Normal' Start Idle

Start, Idle and a few Revs :D

While I was shooting the last 2 videos with my buddy Neil we both noticed the following: When I first picked up my car after the headers were just installed I thought it was SO loud, now I start up the car and don't even notice it's running anymore - has the volume changed? No, but my hearing must have ! ;) Just a week or two ago I heard 'ChristianCoach's Magnaflow Cat-Back system (He did a great SS-V front Conversion!) and was surprised how quiet it was. It makes me think back about how quiet the stock system really is. I doubt most people would even hear it idling!

I guess it goes to show you just get used to these changes much like the power of your car. And that, is just nature's way of letting you know you need to start saving for your next mod! ;)

Cam Shaft Upgrade - Part III ; Timing Chain & Oil Pump

2009-06-08T11:19:00.000-07:00

So I think I FINALLY got all the parts I want/need for this cam-swap. I know that a lot (read: Most/99.99%) of people don't swap all of these out, but like I mentioned before in previous posts - I'd rather do it right the first time and not have anything break on me.

New Timing Chain

Basically there were two options available that I was interested in, both made by a German company called 'IWIS'. First is a chain with part number: SD3SR602 which runs about $50. The Second is the so called C5-R Chain with part number: HME-G68V-2 which runs about $130 - $160. After doing some research it basically came out that the $50 chain is better than stock (and more than enough for most people) and that the $130 chain is better than the $50 chain. Of course with my obsessive "can't have it break EVER" attitude I chose the $130 chain. Apparently in the past some companies have tried selling the $50 chain AS the $130 chain so to avoid any confusion i ordered HME-G68V-2 direct from KaTech Engines.

Next up the oil-pump - I NEVER even saw any mention of upgrading this on any cam-swap project untill I stumbled across it on an Australian Forum. Apparently the 'DOD' oilpumps have a much higher flow rate which if you take out the DOD can lead to trouble such as pumping all oil out of the pan. Now I don't know all the details and I doubt this would happen with the 9 quarts of Oil the G8 takes (I think some people swapped out the oilpan for a stock LS2 pan which made the problem worse) but after talking to several people in the know the concensus was that if you get rid of DOD you really should swap out the oil-pump for a 'normal' one instead of high-flow. I ended up ordering this one from Lingenfelter:

Melling LS1, LS2, LS3, LS6 Standard-volume High pressure Oil Pump

Part: MEL10295
Price: $108.95
Shipping Weight: 5.00 pounds

The 10295 provides users of stock crankshaft short blocks a quality replacement for the original stock LS1 oil pump. The inlet and outlet passages have been optimized to improve oil flow entering and exiting the pump which improves overall pump performance. The design of the pressure relief has been updated to improve low RPM performance. The pressure by-pass setting has been increased 10 psi, with the installed spring. An additional pressure relief spring is supplied which will reduce the by-pass back to the stock setting. The pump cover is CNC machined from cast iron and coated to improve performance and durability. The oil pump housing is CNC machined from cast aluminum and hard-coat anodized to increase hardness and improve durability.

So now I SHOULD have everything needed for my cam-swap and have it be rock-solid. The only thing holding me back now is the possibility of doing forged internals at the same time....

OH also - I guess the 1.8 rockers are out of the question since there will NOT be enough piston to valve clearance - so if you're doing a cam stick with the normal 1.7s!!

Cam Shaft Upgrade - Part II ; More Parts

2009-06-01T15:01:00.000-07:00

Somehow UPS, whom I normally prefer over anything else, managed to screw up on 2 packages for me! My head gaskets that Kirk@Vector sent out ASAP have been stuck in their terminal back east somewhere now for over 20 days, and some of the other parts I mentioned in my previous post were shipped without a full address... Just fantastic! But I managed at least to get that last box thanks to Greg@PacePerformance.. now if only those gaskets would show up!

On the plus side it really doesn't matter since I'm not ready financially nor time wise to install any of this stuff anyway but it sure is frustrating when you see other people leap ahead with mods you've been planning for months while you're sitting with (some of ) the parts right next to you. However, It actually fits how I approach every project on my car: do the research, make sure you fully understand all the options, then get the best one available for my particular needs , and then finally do it. While I'd love to slap on a supercharger I'm not doing that until I'm forged so that I'll hopefully never be in the situation where my engine throws a rod because it was just too much stress on the engine etc. Slow but Steady (& reliably!) is the way for me :)

The dangerous thing about NOT jumping in right away though is that it gives your mind the opportunity to keep thinking things over and I tend to do that a LOT. Especially about parts that would make sense to replace/upgrade at the same time since you'll have the engine open anyway. So after some thought & research I decided to add on one more thing to this Cam-Swap, and that is a set of the Yella-Terra Roller Rockers which I got from Mike @ New Era Performance. I figured since I was going to have the heads off and basically most of the internals replaced anyway I might as well upgrade these as well. While some people say the stockers are just fine - and I really don't doubt that - I just liked the look of these and they seemed to be a good match to go with everything else.

Yella-Terra Rockers

The Stock rockers are using a 1.7 Ratio which in combination with my new cam-shaft gave a .588 lift on the intake and a .571 for the exhaust ; With the new 1.8 rockers I will now have (not rounding up) a .622 lift on the intake and a .604 for the exhaust; They also make a 1.85 rocker but that would result in a .639 intake lift and since my new PSI springs (PSI LS1511LM) are only rated for a maximum lift of .625 that was out of the question (without having to get yet another batch of spring upgrades which I didn't feel like spending the money on). Also on the Australian forums people expressed concern about the PTV Clearance - basically Piston to Valve clearance so I didn't want to push it too much to the extremes and possibly damage anything. Though supposedly these 1.8 could still be too much! So I may end up not even using these if it turns out there's an issue.

(p.s. Looking at pictures the Yella-Terra's look suspiciously similar to the SLP rockers and I would almost venture to say they are the same thing, except not as expensive :) )

The other part I will now have to add is a better Timing-Chain. This was not included in the original cam-package (nobody does) but since Charlie saw a stock one break and cause major damage it just seems good sense to not risk that and replace/upgrade the stock timing chain (which at this point already has 20k miles on it).

As for the parts that did arrive - here they are:

1x 12579145 - LS2 PCV Outlet Plug

1x 12588670 - LS2 Timing Chain Dampener

2x 12617944 - Exhaust Manifold Gaskets

1x 12612350 - Oil Pan Gasket

1x 12574294 - Engine Front Cover Gasket

2x 12610311 - Coolant Pump Gasket

8x 12569427 - LS3 Hollow Stem Valves

As an aside - Anyone else ever notice they get 'used' to their cars power? I'm bored with it again so I can't wait to get this cam-shaft in. I've been driving like a grandma over the last couple of days hoping that if I stand on the Gas pedal it'll maybe make me appreciate the car again but so far it's not happening. Right now i'm just not feeling it, because I could floor it and find myself just yawning thinking "yeah.. not fast enough..." Maybe this Cam will be just what the doctor ordered to snap me out of this rut!

Cam Shaft Upgrade - Part I

2009-05-01T09:52:00.000-07:00

For a while now I have been wanting a cam-shaft upgrade. Several other people who have gone this route have managed to get low to mid 400 HP/TQ numbers and that is just VERY appealing! The big factor was though: Do I keep DOD (Displacement on Demand - where the engine can run in 4 cylinder mode to save fuel) or do I get rid of it? The consensus seems to be that DOD is possibly more hassle than it's worth, and having noticed that it barely came on for me anyway (must be the way I drive ;) ) I decided to go with a Non-DOD cam upgrade.

As far as which vendor to go with it there were several big-name choices:

New-Era is the King when it comes to DOD Cams and they have a Non-DOD cam package as well. I had seen videos of ManOfSteel69's car with their Non-DOD cam and while it was 'cool' it just wasn't for me for some reason; it's NOT that one is better than the other or anything like that, but it's like car colors - sometimes you click and sometimes you don't.
Livernois seems to be a very popular choice for people. They upgrade the valve-springs to some type of dual-spring with new retainers etc. They also offer Valve-Jobs etc.
Vector Motorsports is another popular choice offering an optional Hollow-Stem LS3 Valve upgrade and they do valve-jobs too. Big Difference is also they use a beehive type valve spring vs the double type. Since they already did my tune and I have my powerflash coming from them I decided to just go through them for this upgrade.

As far as the parts go this is what I received:

1x 12599296 - GM Valley Cover
4x 12595365 - GM Lifter Tray
1x 12557840 - GM Pulley Bolt (I have an ARP Bolt already though I can re-use)

1x 12586481 - GM Camshaft Sprocket (+ 3x bolts 12556127)
1x 12626407 - GM Timing Chain Tensioner
16 PSI Valve Springs - Part# PSI-LS 1511ML

16x AC Delco Lifters - Part# HL124/GM# 17122490
1x ARP Bolt Head Kit - Part # 134-3610
16x CompCams Pushrods - Part# 7795-16
1x CompCams CamShaft - 228/228 115 LSA
Missing were a pair of Head Gaskets but Kirk@Vector got right on that.

If you have looked at other cams you'll notice that the 228/228 is lower than most other people's numbers. This is because I asked Kirk to give me a 'Supercharger Friendly' cam instead of a 'all-round' cam. This will mean that I'll probably end up with lower HP/TQ numbers than other people, but when I do get around to slapping on that supercharger things will work together better.

Since the stock timing-chain tensioner seems prone to breaking Charlie recommended I not use part 12626407 and instead get the LS2 Type Chain Dampener and a few other items which were:

1x 12579145 - LS2 PCV Outlet Plug
1x 12588670 - LS2 Timing Chain Dampener
2x 12617944 - Exhaust Manifold Gaskets
1x 12612350 - Oil Pan Gasket
1x 12574294 - Engine Front Cover Gasket
2x 12610311 - Coolant Pump Gasket
8x 12569427 - LS3 Hollow Stem Valves

Now some kits come with part 12594779 - which is a little bit of PCV Hose that runs from the LS2 valley cover to the side of the intake manifold. However since I'll be installing a catch-can at the same time that will sit right in the path of that hose I didn't order that part. You can see picture of the hose and how the catch-can takes it's place over at the Norris Motorsports catch can page.

Overall based on Crazy Paul's post on the GRRRR8.net forum it seems like I should have everything I need to get underway with the cam-Install except for a place to install it!

I've Contacted Norpac who did my Pedders install about doing this so hopefully they can; otherwise I may have to follow in the footsteps of BobTheMonkee and have a go at this myself in the garage!

Pedders xA Street II Kit

2009-04-10T17:50:00.001-07:00

As I mentioned previously i had ordered the Pedders Street I Bushings and their new xA Coil-Overs, basically making an 'xA Street II Kit'.

After finally receiving all the goods I talked to AutoFX who did an amazing job on my GTS Fenders - They are an official Pedders dealer but for some reason they could not do the bushings at that point in time. I then looked up the second closest (at least an hour away) Pedders dealer which was Norpac Street Performance owned & operated by Rich & Justin Woolley.

I spoke to Justin there a few times and he said they could do everything I needed to get done. After rescheduling a few times on short notice - in which I appreciated their flexibility - we finally picked a date. Time wise we were hoping to get everything done in one day but it would be a VERY tight fit especially with the distance they are away and my limited schedule. Justin had warned me that they were in the middle of nowhere, and he was NOT kidding :) Pasture-land all around and when I asked a local where the nearest 'mall' was they told me "I think Olympia" (30 minutes by freeway at least) ;)

Day 1
So I dropped off my car and since they were out of the way with really no place to go for me Justin was great enough to let me hang out in the office and shop area. He took off the wheels and the rear part of the exhaust first and then started on the Front Radius Rod Bushings (EP6560). He had to use a stand-alone bushing press to get the stock ones out - those things were really in there!

After installing those they moved on to the Rear Cross Member Inserts (EP1169). It was interesting to see the entire rear sub-frame being held in place with 4 bolts. These were definitely the easiest to put in of any of the bushings. Just put one part on top, the other on the bottom , repeat for all 4 bolts and that's it! Then we moved on to the Differential Mount Bushings (EP1167) which is where we ran into a roadblock. Apparently the tool they had was just a bit too small/large where it would not work to get the bushings out - after trying a few things it was decided we'd wait for the correct tool instead of trying to force it. Based on my available time it was just about time to wrap things up and put everything back together. So we definitely did not get as far as I hoped for, but overall had a great experience!

Stock setup

My Car on the lift

Results of Day 1
On the drive back and the following week I definitely noticed two things: The steering felt a little tighter/crisper and the rear end felt a LOT more stable. When doing a quick lane change from a stop the rear end slid just beautifully horizontally across the road vs before where the entire car would rock from left to right. Should've had these bushings in sooner!!

Day 2
After finally finding some more time to get the rest done about a week later I learned that AutoFX in Tacoma now could do the bushings etc. Oh well - I really liked the guys at Norpac and hope to go back there for future work so I went back to them to wrap up the installation. They had received the correct tool from Pedders USA (thanks to Michael White) so the EP1167 bushings were a snap to replace.

Front 2 EP1167 bushings
.

Rear EP1167 Bushing (with Justin working on it) and you can see part of the EP1169 bushings

Rich taking a look at the install

The Coilovers seemed to be a breeze to install. Before I realized what was going on (I was doing my own project on the side) Justin already had the stock shocks/struts (I never know the difference!) ripped out and was ready to put in the coil-overs.

Stock Front Suspension

Front Coil-over installed

When we lowered the car the initial setting looked really sharp so we called it good! This as it turned out later was a bit of a mistake...

Once installed this is what it looks like under the hood - Very clean!

Then it was on to the rear. It was a bit of a pain to get the rears out (not using a spring compressor) so they decided to remove the arms. Then we had to drill the hole for the adjuster extensions. Not sure how 'practical' it is going to be to reach the rear ones without raising the car, but I'm guessing not very easy at all!

After setting up the rear to a decent height we noticed the front dropped quite a bit more - guess we should've raised it a bit more. It looked REALLY awesome but I was worried about drivability. However since we were already way over time we decided to just go with it and get it all aligned. Justin said that if had any issues I could just come back and they would take care of it for me - once again - great service! So as we're approaching the alignment machine it became painfully obvious that the car was so low we could not even get it on there. We had to go around and collect pieces of wood to drive over so we could get on there - Another indicator it was TOO LOW! But we managed to get it all done and wrapped up and I drove off a happy customer.

Results of Day 2
So how did it all turn out? Well I had the suspension all around set to 15 clicks which supposedly is 'Aggressive Street'. It was a busy day and with the quality of the roads and the more firm suspension my head was NOT happy with all the stiffness the car now had. At one point I pulled into a gas station and upon exiting I bottomed out SEVERAL times on those metal covers they put on the ground where they can refill the station. I had to get out and take a look because it sounded like the entire bottom part of my car just got ripped to shreds!! Luckily everything looked OK so I was on my way. The entire road I felt every single bump in the road and sometimes it felt like the entire car was just bouncing of bumps in the road.. This felt a bit too stiff!

Any other ramps etc I could hear scraping on - not good - and the driveway in front of my house, which has a pretty big bump in it, almost proved to be too much for the car. It sounded like a grenade went off underneath the car! Upon closer inspection it looked the High-Flow Cats took the majority of the hit (since they for some reason are the lowest part underneath the car). The car looked like it maybe had less than 2 inches of clearance underneath the rockerpanel. So Conclusion at the end of day 2 was that it was just TOO LOW and felt TOO stiff!

The Aftermath
I was my own fault for rushing instead of taking the time to get it done right and re-adjusting it until it was right so now I HAD to get it fixed ASAP otherwise I would have no exhaust left in a couple of days! Justin called me the next day to make sure everything was to my liking and I had not ran into any issues so he offered to take care of the problem for me. I unfortunately could not afford the time off work anymore (but once again - top notch customer service from NorPac!) so instead I called the usual suspects like Turbo Tech, and AutoFX. They however were all busy and could not get to it for at least another 4 days at which point I was sure I'd have a Flintstone mobile with a big gaping hole in the bottom!

I then remembered I had talked to Frank @ TnT Tire Factory about doing the suspension install so I gave them a call. They said they could take care of it and could just swing by and drop off the car which I did. I showed Frank the tools, the setup I had and told him the issues and what I was looking for and he said he'd get it done by the end of the day. By about 2 pm though I got the call that they were done. When I pulled up to the car it looked really good - Low, but not too low. Frank did a great job getting it at just the right ride-height which involved a few test drives around the block to make sure there were no rubbing/scrapping issues ;) It sits JUST perfect now.

When I first picked up the car I set the front suspension to around '11 clicks' which to me felt similar to stock (perhaps a smidgen stiffer) , this is great for a very smooth ride with no hassle. I experienced no scraping issues any more on any speed bumps, ramps etc so that was fantastic!

I then decided to try running at 20 clicks and 30 clicks which both are definitely way stiffer, but not uncomfortably so, unlike my previous experience at 16 clicks, which I'm thinking must have been because of the bad roads I was driving on (sounded like traintracks.. clunk,clunk,clunk etc). I haven't touched the rears yet because, as I suspected, these ARE a pain to get to. But at 16 Clicks they seem to be just right no matter what I set the front to.

As far as overal driving goes the steering feel is way crisper than stock; The body roll issue the stock car displayed is virtually gone. As a side effect of this, it seems much harder now to kick the rear end out or spin the tires, which I guess is good because I would do that all the time ;)

So after all this, what's the verdict? While in the beginning (especially on the 'morning after') I was rather annoyed with the scraping etc, once everything was taken care of the car now handles dramatically better! If you don't have the funds for coilovers, at least get the Street 1 bushings in because it WILL make a big difference in how the car feels and drives. Not to mention the looks are killer with it lowered and those big 20" HSV Rims :)

The ONLY two sore-points (and only for some people) are actually with the design/use of the Coil-Overs:
a) The rears are hard to get to, to adjust the hardness
b) To raise/Lower the car you actually have to take the wheels off and possible even more to turn the bottom half of the coilovers - so it's NOT something you can just change by pulling over into a parkinglot for instance.

On the flip-side ; once you have a nice ride height there really isn't a need to change it anymore (which would require a re-alignment anyway) in my mind, and if you pick a decent medium for the rear you should be able to play with the front settings and still get the most out of the kit!

so to the Pedders xA Street II Kit: Big Thumbs up!

The finished look

Many thanks to Justin, Rich and Chris at Norpac! They did a fabulous job and even stayed late to make sure everything would get done. And a big thanks to Frank @ TnT Tire Factory for being able to drop everything and take care of the scraping issues.

As far as my project I was working on while they were working on the suspension:

(and for those paying attention: Yes Clear Tails again - don't ask lol - , GTS Logo and Black Pontiac Logo :) )

In closing I highly recommend Norpac Street Performance! While they may be a little ways out there for most people, they do great work and have shown great customer service and commitment to provide top quality work so give them a call! I will definitely be talking to them again for my future projects!

Norpac Street Performance
http://www.norpacstreetperformance.com/
112 Brim Road
Onalaska, WA 98570

Phone: (360) 978-4032
Email: Info@norpacstreetperformance.com

A Special Day

2009-04-02T11:14:00.000-07:00

Today is a bit of a special day. It's been exactly 1 year since I bought the G8. It doesn't seem nearly that long ago, especially when looking at the remaining balance on the loan! Looking at the pictures it was practically a sunny summer day while today is just dreary and drab and frickin' Cold! We even had snow last weekend.. What the heck is up with that...

It's strange how over time your perspective on things change though. When I first got the car I thought it had tons of Power, and loved every single thing (well almost) about it. Then the modifications started and now when I see a stock G8, though it's still a rare treat, i'm thinking to myself "blah.. they're stock...". Before the G8 , while I appreciated a few cars I had, I never was 'into' cars so to speak and was perfectly happy rolling around in a pure 'stock' form. Now with the G8 though things just fell into place and clicked as far as being able to give it personal touches.

While a lot of people think of their car as simply a utilitarian vehicle that transports them from Point A to Point B i've come to the point where if i'm going to spend a lot of my time in the car (commuting etc) I might as well make it my own and make it enjoyable!

Looking back at the car options I was considering I would still consider the SRT8 Challenger a worthy alternative, but i have not test driven one yet which could totally change that opinion; I had the 'privilege' of driving it's little brother , the Charger (albeit a V6), and it just confirmed once again that most domestic cars are under powered , floaty suspension wearing pieces of **** without any refinement or any unique touches. The Interior was just as drab, boring and devoid of personality much like the rest of the car.

So one year down and still loving the G8 - but, more mods to come.. more serious ones.. this 400rwhp stuff is just not cutting it ;)

Gotta hand it to those Australians - they know how to make cool cars!

HSV VE GTS Fenders by Auto FX, Tacoma

2009-03-24T15:07:00.000-07:00

I had been looking around for a shop to take care of my Fender painting & install and like most searches for a reputable business it turned out to be a frustrating endeavor. You would find reviews of one place that were glowing, only to find someone totally slamming the same shop a few lines down. Obviously employees change jobs, get fired etc etc so it's always hard to tell what you're going to get. Pricing varied highly and so did time estimates (multiple days to one day) and the techniques involved (blending into other panels, or simply matching based on color code or to a car part).

Brandon (aka 'BobTheMonkee' on GRRRR8.net) had advised me that he had taken his car to 'AutoFX' in Tacoma to get his Pedders Touring package installed and that he was really happy with them. Clint Cawley @ AutoFX told me that unfortunately can't install bushings when I contacted them about doing my Street II / xA Coilover kit but they COULD do body work! They are literally down the street from 'Turbo Technologies' who did my Converter & Headers so I knew exactly where they were which is quite a convenient location. Out of all the places that I tried to contact they were most forthcoming with information and most responsive - something I really appreciate since I don't have the time to baby-sit and beg a company to do work for me. Also in this economic slump their shop actually seemed to still be busy which is always a good sign!

After talking to Clint a few times about the process & parts I got I decided it was time to get it done finally (the fenders had been sitting around in the garage for a while now!). Since the paint needed some good drying time I dropped off the fenders and inserts and Todd the actual guy who would be painting the parts looked everything over to make sure there were no issues. Thought that was great service. They did suggest painting them on the car and dry-fitting first, but since it's my DD I can't really be without it for a week so we decided to just color match based on Paint-Code (which is 80U for the Panther Black Metallic) and I left my Fuel Door with them for a day so they could get just the right shade. The plastic parts would just be painted a flat/matte Black.

After reading the official 'Technical Manual' it said that once the rockerpanel/sideskirt comes off all the clips would break and that new clips would be required. Crazy Paul (on GRRRR8.net) was kind enough to hunt down which clips were needed... though 2 different sources gave him 2 different numbers so I ended up with getting 4 different types of clips just in case. Part #'s were: 92138009,92138807,92138808 and 92138811

'A.J.' the mechanic doing the actual install @ AutoFX however was able to get to it without taking everything off like the manual suggest (front bumper, hood, wheels, rockerp anel etc etc) which turned out to be a nice time-saver!

Clint was cool enough to take pictures through-out the process of them installing it which I really appreciated! When done they washed & polished making it look like brand new!

So in closing - a big thanks to Clint, AJ and Todd @ AutoFX for doing a fantastic job! And if you need any work done on your car - I highly recommend AutoFX!
http://www.autofxtacoma.com/

Pedders xA Extreme Coil-Overs

2009-03-12T21:44:00.000-07:00

So around last December Pedders announced their Pedders xA Extreme Coil-Overs. I was always interested in a Pedders based setup but was never sure what to get. Just when I had decided that (at least for now) a Street II with Drop was the way to go they throw this in the mix! So I decided why not 'make' a Street II with xA's? Basically all it is, is combining their Street I bushings with the xA Coil-Overs.

Rob @ Wretched Motorsports ran an awesome special on the xA's so it was the perfect time to get them. Since it was a pre-order process everyone had to wait until they came which was last week. Last Monday they finally showed up and they look fantastic!
I can't wait to get these bad-boys installed!

HSV GTS 20" Wheels

2009-02-22T14:23:00.000-08:00

Ever since first seeing the Pontiac G8 Concept vehicle I loved the wheels that came on it. After searching I found out these are the Australian "HSV GTS" Wheels and of course these were not offered on the G8 here in the US. Thanks to "Crazy Paul" I was able to get my hands on some. The process took forever (literally 3+ months) but they finally arrived and I got them installed. They come in 8.5" in the front (weighing in at roughly 42 Lbs) and 9.5" in the back (about 47 Lbs).

For tires I was stuck between the Michelin Pilot Sport A/S (Plus) and the Bridgestone Potenza RE960 AS's. The 'Plus' version of the Michelin means it's the updated version and according to tests they are amazing tires. I could however only find the 'old' (non-plus) version of them (still a great tire - had them on a previous car) and they were quite pricey. So instead I decided to go with the Bridgestone's in 245/35R20 for the front and 285/30R20 for the rears. The HSV GTS stock size would've been 275/30 in the rear but i wanted a little extra width and knew it should fit from reading up on the Australian forums.

The shop I was getting them installed at nearly gave me a heart attack when they called me out and said: "yeah these wheels don't fit on your car - you don't have enough clearance in the rear" WTF?!? Seriously!?! So then they start talking spacers, the shop owner says I've got the wrong wheels with the wrong offset and I should just go get the right wheels instead of messing with a spacer... yeah THANKS idiot as i'm about ready to murder someone... then after i'm talking to charlie about how pissed I am about this entire ordeal the mechanic says "oh wait a minute - it's a double wishbone just like mercedes - when the car is lifted it moves in a bit so it should fit after all!" They raise it a bit what do you know - Obviously it DID fit... DOH! I Swear, I can only find people with an IQ of less than 50 to work on my car or something...

Ok so one heart-attack and several hours later everything is finally on. I must say the result turned out great and these are definitely the best looking wheels in my opinion for this car! The ride feels maybe 1% stiffer and I definitely have more traction which is a good thing! So far the tires seem to be very good and i'm definitely pleased with how it turned out.

HSV GTS Fenders & Wheels have arrived

2009-01-23T13:12:00.000-08:00

So thanks to 'Crazy Paul' over on GRRRR8.net and Holmart I now have the much coveted HSV GTS 20" Wheels and the HSV GTS Fenders to put on my g8! It will be a while before I'll be able to put them on due to serious lack of funds, but as soon as I do you know there will be a post up here with new pictures. For now here are some blurry cell-phone pictures of said items:

Vector Motorsports Tune - Part II

2009-01-22T15:52:00.000-08:00

When I first learned about 'tuning' I figured you had to have your car on a dyno. So when I first heard about Vector last year and their 'remote tuning' by sending you cables & software
I was a little unsure if they could really do a good job. However, concerns about how well they could tune remotely simply vanished when real-life numbers started appearing comparing dyno-tuned cars by others with Vector's numbers. Having a Vector Tune on my car now since August, and now freshly returned I've come to really appreciate Vector Motorsports a LOT for what they offer.

Yes "Technically" on the dyno you can tune much more precisely , but most places have no experience with G8s so they don't quite know what they're doing, Don't have experience with changing the Transmisison Settings on the 6L80 and basically tune for a high 'peak' horsepower number at WOT (Wide Open Throttle) with no regards to behavior during normal driving.

Vector on the other hand has tuned dozens of G8s already in all kinds of different configurations so they can provide base-maps for different Mod-Configurations (CAI, Exhaust etc) based on your specifications that will perform just great out of the box. Vector will even make themselves available if you want so you can be strapped on a dyno somewhere and they'll tune remotely while you're still strapped down so you can give real-time feedback. How's that for service?!

I initially got my tune a while ago which was a basic tune for just my intake. If you're interested in the process & results read my old post where I describe how their system works. This time it was time for a retune because of my new Torque Converter and exhaust upgrade to American Racing Headers. As I was close to Brandon/BobTheMonkee who was just getting his VMS cables around the time I was getting my headers installed he was kind enough to let me use them after him instead of me having to wait for them to be mailed out again.

Before the tune I noticed that the computer would be 'hunting' for the lockup point at times in the 'stock' converter with the rpms going up & down a range (usually around 1500). I mentioned this to Kirk and this was easily taken care off by simply giving him the specs on the new torque converter. I also told him I had the 1-7/8" American Racing headers so that the rear O2 sensors could be turned off (They will throw codes most likely otherwise because the High-Flow Cats take longer to heat up than the stock ones) and I wanted to change up the Torque Management a bit.

My old VMS Tune had 50% Torque Management in place so it's easier on the transmission etc when shifting. People have been playing with these numbers and reporting great results turning them way down (or completely off) so I decided to give this a try as well. I went with 40% in Drive (Normal driving a little better, but still very comfortable ) 20% in Sport (you really feel it shift and pushing you back in the seat) and 5% in Manual (Didn't want to go 0% but you definitely feel it!). I could probably go 10-0% all around if I get a retune though.

So how does the car run afterwards?

Well let's just say I accelerated so hard at one point that my radio front fascia actually came off....
You read that right! It...came... off... Now i do have to admit I accidentally broke ALL the clips that hold it in place so it just hangs by the connectors, but even so I find that pretty damn impressive! Taking off from a dead stop? Wheel spin guaranteed and Traction Control working overtime!

Also before when cruising at 60mph and standing on the gas the car would speed up, but it would be at a decent pace and at a certain point stop pulling. Now after the tune, before I know it I'm hitting 120+ in 4th gear and it's still pulling hard! Or how about the traction control coming on at 70mph when it shifts because it's sending that much power to the wheels? Good times! :D

Local shops around here keep bad-mouthing any 'canned-tune' or 'mailorder-tune' but Vector delivers! I'm just gonna have to really learn to take it easy and not accidentally end up side-ways/backwards (or worse; upside down) because this car now has GOBS of power, and it's ready to pounce!

American Racing Headers

2009-01-15T15:35:00.000-08:00

When it comes to exhaust choices for the G8 it can be overwhelming what to pick. Axle-Back? Cat-Back? Long Tube or Shorty Headers? Even if you know what you want done, what brand do you go with? I held out for quite some time making a decision to upgrade my exhaust after getting my Stolen Fox H-Pipe and Axle-Backs a while back. I was quite content with the sound and how they rumbled but were not overly loud. Obviously no power gains, but sound-wise I was happy.

During this time several new products were released such as the Magnaflow Cat-Backs which were a very popular choice, and also the ARH Headers. As time went on, SLP released their headers which would bolt up to the stock exhaust and Kooks came out with their headers ( & axlebacks). Since I wanted a full system (to the rear axles since I already had mufflers) the choice was between ARH and Kooks.

Based on user-experiences i found that ARH Provides EXCEPTIONAL customer service (even assisting people who bought competing brands who were having install problems or needed an extra part ASAP), Their products look & sounds amazing and are fantastic quality. Kooks, while a long time player in the header market seemed to drop the ball on initial construction & sound quality (people complaining about things not lining up, drone and/or twangy sounding exhaust) and customer service (people with issues not being responded to etc). While i'm sure Kooks has a 'good' product i decided to go with the American Racing Headers system in 1-7/8" since they really go above & beyond.

Here are some pictures of some of the components - I LOVE the detailed engraved plaque they put on! (since I forgot to take pictures, these are from other people's install :) )

Here's the Header next to the Stock exhaust Manifold & Cat:

I once again had Turbo Technologies in Tacoma do the install (yes should've done it at the same time as the converter, but several things prevented this from happening). They are normally 'Kooks fans' so to speak and somehow had never really heard of American Racing Headers (they thought it was a wheel company). Their initial 'concerns' about the quality of the kit were soon laid to rest when they dug in there and inspected all the parts. "Wow.. this is a really nice system!" I heard one of the mechanics say. Indeed it is! The quality truly is exceptional - it really makes the exhaust almost a piece of art!

Install should've been a breeze, and after roughly 4.5 hours I got the call they were on."Good" I think to myself - that's right about the amount of time I figured it should take. Shocker was that since they 'used two guys' I got charged 7 hours of labor!!! What the !?!? This for an install some people do in their driveway by themselves in 4-5 hours..... so I totally got raped on that one. The guy who installed the kit (main guy I guess...) came out and told me he was really impressed with the quality of the kit and it was so easy to install and that it fit like a glove.
Nick, the guy who runs the front office, said they were at least as good at the Kook's systems they usually install. I took that as a compliment coming from a hardcore Kooks-Fan ;)

Here are some pictures Nick @ Turbo Tech took of the actual install on my car - i'm SHOCKED how clean the bottom of the car is!:

My car hadn't been pulled out of the shop yet so as I'm waiting all of a sudden I hear this loud rumble... could it be? Oh yes, that was my car! As I look the car over and have it idle , the idle is REALLY rough and the guys are like "oh well it just needs to be tuned for the headers". Ok.. i'm a bit of a 'noob' when it comes to all this so i'm thinking 'ok' and take off.

I took it for a few passes up & down the street and something didn't seem quite right. When I had the Torque Converter put in I had gobs of power to spin the tires. Now, It sounded great albeit a little rough, but it simply would not make enough power. (video to follow). I take a peek under the hood, just focusing on the headers and they seem to be on alright. That's ok i'm thinking to myself, it must just be tuned for the headers. As i'm driving back to the office the car keeps idling rougher and rougher and the Check Engine Light came on. A few times it backfired and sounded like it was about to die.. what the hell, this just isn't right I think..

Somewhat irritated that after what altogether was a $1300 bill it's not running right I decide to email Kirk @ Vector what's going on and that i need a new tune ASAP and also call up the Master himself ,The man - Charlie! I describe the problem to both of them and they both almost instantly reply with "yeah you've got a misfire going on". Probably causes would be cracked spark plug or disconnected plug wires. With Charlie still on the phone I go out to the car and as i'm going through the plug wires what do I find? The middle 2 on the passenger side are sticking out by at least an inch too far! Son of a.....

As i'm trying to fiddle with them to push them back in all of sudden I feel a sharp pain, hear a sizzling sound and all of a sudden smell some kind of baked pork product..Hmm is someone grilling a piece of spam? I'm getting hungry... oh, wait...OUCH! Charlie says: "oh yeah and you may want to check this when your car has cooled down! Otherwise it'll be hot if you accidentally touch the headers!" ehmm Thanks Charlie, but too late! as i notice I am missing my fingerprints on two fingers. I start it up again and the car sounds ROCK SOLID all of a sudden, though it still has the occasional dip under 500rpm which makes it stumble. Ok we're all good I think!

Next day i'm driving and it's still throwing the Check Engine Light and the weird idle is still there. Hmmmm I suddenly remember reading something by 'BobTheMonkee' and 'WreckWriter' how for both of them when they had work on their car done their Roto-fab had come apart and was now showing that behavior. I pop the hood and (for the first time since getting all this installed) really pay attention to my intake. What do you know, the hump hose was basically completely disconnected! This must have happened when they pulled the transmission which causes the engine to lean back a bit.

Ok so I fix this on the spot, restart the car and smooth as silk without any stumbles and best of all, NO Check Engine Light! Ok now the real testing can begin. The rest of the drive was amazing.

My initial concerns with the Stolen Fox Axle-Backs were that they'd be too loud!
But when idling or cruising the car almost sounds like before and it's only when I really step on the gas it gets loud (and it gets L O U D ). Though the fun part is, it's not loud inside the car at all, but outside you can hear the car blocks away if you're in the 3000rpm+ zone. That's basically a perfect combination in my mind!

The sound is hard to describe - the H-Pipe gave my car more of a muscle-car kind of sound , that classic "bup-bup-bup-bup" sound. This setup has that sound at idle, but when you get higher up in the RPM band it sounds more like really bad-ass Growl/Scream. From what i've read this is one of the main differences between H-Pipe and X-Pipe, and in the end i definitely love the sound.

The car definitely has more power and pickup as well, and the infamous butt-dyno says "quite a bit more!" Now traction on even dry roads is becoming an issue when stepping on the gas, so it's quite easy now to break out the rear end when taking corners etc. Going to have to get used to that and take it easy :)

All in all, the ARH Headers are what i consider the ultimate upgrade to your exhaust and would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a better sound (even with stock mufflers they sound great!) and a good 30hp+ gain!

http://www.americanracingheaders.com/

Circle-D Torque Converter

2009-01-15T10:22:00.000-08:00

When writing up a review it's always hard to come with good descriptive terms that convey what the experience is like. In case of the Circle-D Torque Converter my initial reaction is best described by Peter Boyle, who played Frank Barone in the Tv-Show 'Everybody loves Raymond'. His catch-phrase? "HOLY CRAP!"

Some people who are not that much into cars may not even understand what a torque converter is. The Converter is what transfers the power from the Engine to the Transmission. It basically is comparable to a clutch in a manual transmission car. And we all know that if you step on the gas and rev up the RPMs before releasing the clutch you get a lot more power to the wheels than if you were to release the clutch at a lowly 1000 rpm. Going with an aftermarket converter is similar to this; it provides a way for the engine to raise the rpms to a certain spot (the stall speed of the converter) so that you're at that sweet-spot in the rpm band faster. (warning: the above explanation may not be 100% accurate and is just to clarify the basic principles to people who are not familiar with torque converters ;) )

Circle-D has been synonymous with quality converters for quite some time now in Ford,GM and Chrysler markets. They have a track record for products that can take abuse over and over using quality Billet front ends and Lock Up Pistons. When we first started looking into available torque converters for the G8 we were basically left with 3 big names: Yank, Precision Industries, and Circle-D. While they all make 'good' products, based on comments & experiences we felt that Circle-D was above & beyond these other converters.

Circle-D offers 3 levels of converters for the Pontiac G8 (6L80 transmission). They are:

Billet Street Series - Stage I
Billet Front & Billet Lock Up Piston
Fully Furnace Brazed & Hand Tig Welded
High Carbon Lock-Up Clutch
Lightweight Design ~ 30lbs
Heavy Duty Roller Clutch
9.5" 245mm - Stalls from 2500-4000
Rated up to ~450 RWHP

Billet Racer Series - Stage II
Custom Billet Front & Billet Lock Up Piston
Fully Furnace Brazed & Hand Tig Welded
Lightweight Design ~ 30lbs
Rigid Billet Front Cover
Anti Balloon Reinforcement Spokes
All Torrington Needle Bearings - 3 Bearing Design
High Carbon Lock Up Clutch
Heavy Duty Roller Clutch
9.5" 245mm - Stalls from 2500-5000

Billet Pro Series - Stage III
Custom Billet Front & Billet Lock Up Piston
Fully Furnace Brazed & Hand Tig Welded
Unique Square Tab Design on Clutches Prevents Rattle
Lightweight Design ~ 34bs
Rigid Billet Front Cover
Anti Balloon Reinforcement Spokes
All Torrington Needle Bearings - 3 Bearing Design
Heavy Duty Roller Clutch
10" & 9.5" 245mm - Stalls from 2500-5000
100 Square Inches of Clutch Lining
And look at their statement for their Stage III: WOT Lock-Up - We dare you to break it!!

I had received mine a while ago, but just had not yet had the opportunity to get it installed. Since I'm new to the entire torque converter thing and had no clue what I wanted/needed I had Charlie come up with a good spec for my car & future plans. He and Chris @ Circle-D ended up going with a 2800 RPM stall speed and slightly larger with 258mm. It comes in an attractive black color (not that you'll see it after it's installed, but at least it avoids the 'pink inside' jokes like with some other converters ;) )

I had it installed by a local shop who had never worked on a G8 before (Turbo Technology in Tacoma,WA) and their quote was for 7 hours of labor at $85/hr. (I'll do a separate write-up on my experiences with them). I had read before about yank/precision saying you needed to break the converter in by 'casual' driving for the first 100 at least. So i took it easy.... until i was out of their parking lot!

Just as a comparison, beforehand if I wanted to spin my tires I would have to brake torque and then get going. If I just stomped on the gas from a deadstop, the tires would 'squeak' just a little and that'd be it.

The street was empty so I just stood on the gas, no brake torquing or anything. Instantly the RPMs shot up like a rocket and besides a roaring engine I heard the lovely squeal/swooshing sound of tires spinning on blacktop. It took off like a rocket going sideways & spinning tires through 2nd... HOOOOOLY CRAP! This thing definitely put a perma-grin on my face the rest of the day! I did several more passes down the street with and without traction control and either way this thing will have you sideways before you now it. I noticed (though this may be purely me imagining things) also that when cruising on the freeway and stepping on it, it gets to the 3000-5000rpm range way quicker.

At this point it's actually HARD to keep traction if I step on it from a dead-stop so i'll have to learn to 'roll into' the throttle instead if I want a good 0-60 time, but it's just too much fun to stand on it and break out the rear-end!

It totally transformed the car into a MUCH more fun/responsive car to drive and i would recommend this to ANYONE looking to improve their driving experience.

So if you're in the market for a Torque Converter I Highly recommend Circle-D!

http://www.circledspecialties.com

converter@circleDspecialties.com

Voice - 713-895-8834

Fax - 713-895-0636

13807 Aston St. Houston TX. 77040

Slow Couple of Months

2008-12-22T17:36:00.000-08:00

It's been a slow couple of Months for updates & modding.
Work has been taking up 99% of my time lately and time, money & other sources of parts have been in short supply! Also I noticed that after a few fairly inexpensive mods the list grows exponentially more expensive to get more performance etc.

A Cold Air Intake runs about 300 or so which is very do-able for most people. CatBack exhaust is around 700, and full headers you're looking at around 1700 which is already a good 5 times more than the CAI. Go Twin Turbo, or SuperCharger and you're looking at over 5000 + install. OUCH!

Luckely I do have some goodies coming my way (just don't know when they'll all get here or when i'll be able to have them installed). Here's the list of what's to come:

HST GTS 20" Wheels

I've wanted these wheels since I first saw the concept pictures of the G8. The wheels are standard on the Australian Commodore HSV VE GTS and with the low exchangerate it was a perfect time to get these.

HSV GTS Fenders

Once I learned more about the HSV VE GTS I really liked part of it's styling better than the G8. The Fenders were one of those items I really loved. The front is great too, but the boring plain hood is what kills it for me. Perhaps one day i'll pursue that and slap on a Walkinshaw Power Hood

American Racing Headers in 1-7/8"

After reading a WHOLE bunch and seeing people's experiences with all kinds of headers like Kooks, SLP, JBA etc one company to me stood high above the rest and this was American Racing Headers. They make a great product and they have fantastic customer service! It was on my 'must-have' list for awhile, but they're finally on their way!

Circle-D 2800 rpm Stall-Converter

Just like ARH, there are some companies that have just proven over time they deliver a superior product. Circle-D is to the Converter market what ARH is to the header market. Amazing workmanship & quality and topnotch service. I can't wait to get this one in the car. We didn't go too high a stall since 'down the line' (whenever that may be) I do plan on a supercharger .

Pedders 'Street II' kit with Xa Coilovers

Much has been said about Pedders. Some people think they just push their plastic bushings and that they are too expensive. Almost every single person who has driven in a 'pederized' car though has changed their mind afterwards. I had been looking at a Track II or a Street II package with a drop. Since I don't go to the track the Street II was a more logical choice but i always pushed it back since I really wanted coilovers eventually. Since pedders just came out with an introductary sale on their NEW coilovers it turned into a great deal I couldn't pass up and by adding their 'Street 1' Kit bushings I basically ended up with a Street II with Coilovers.

January is promising to be an exciting month!

Snow with Eagle RS-A Tires

2008-12-21T17:18:00.000-08:00

So I already figured that the GoodYear Eagle RS-A tires were pretty bad in just about any condition. Dry, Wet all gave mediocre performance & handling at best. We've had a TON of snow over the last few days and with about 8 inches on the ground I decided to pull out of the garage and see how they'd handle the snow. This insane move was partially driven by my employer who's been giving me sarcastic comments about why i'm not able to show up to work when he is able to make it there (he lives 5 minutes down the street, which happens to be the MAIN street of the entire area so it's always iced/sanded etc). Gotta love passive-agressives...

Anyway, I parked nose in so I had to back out. As I start going and almost as soon as the rear wheels hit the snow I already notice the traction control light going crazy. Tires are spinning, snow is blowing everywhere, Ok, not a good sign. I easy of the gas and try again. I Get some traction somehow and manage to pull straight back out. Now I have to turn the wheel to see if I can make it up the driveway (which is pretty steep in places). As soon as I manage that and try to apply some throttle all hell breaks loose again. Tires spinning, the back end going back & forth.
Also I notice the car is just 'sunken' in the snow with the bottom basically scrapping/sitting on top of the snow. Bad move indeed!

Ok not to panic , we'll just try to go straight back into the garage on my existing tracks I think. Straighten out the wheels , try it in 2nd gear and.... nothing but spinning wheels.. Try starting in 3rd gear - same story but this time the engine sounds like it's actually protesting. At this point I almost decided to say "F*** it!" and leave the car outside , but with more snow coming I figured that wasn't a good idea after all. After brushing some of the snow away around the wheels and sprinkling some snow-melting stuff (that barely works) I try again.

This time i stay on the gas and i manage to inch my way forward but the back end is fishtailing like crazy. As i get closer and closer to the garage door i'm getting more and more sideways and for a minute there I think i'll hit the sides... then FINALLY i manage to straighten it out at the last second and with the momentum i had built up just roll into the garage. My wife is standing there with the classic "you dumbs**t, I told you so!" look... and yeah she was right :)

This really makes me doubt any all-season for any winter driving, but we'll see what we end up with once I get some new wheels on the car.

In short: If you have Eagle RS-A's on your car, take'm off , burn'm and do a dance around them because they are the WORST tires EVER!

Holden Sun-Shade / Roof Spoiler

2008-11-18T16:49:00.000-08:00

Always looking for something unique from the Holden site, I had noticed their 'sunshade' a while ago. To me it looked more like a 'roof spoiler' but I guess it was designed to give people in the back a little more shade. (Not like they need it in my car with my 20% tint). Paul from our board at GRRRR8.net (Check out his vendor section!) was kind enough to hook me up with one. It showed up in less than a week all the way from Australia!

Upon closer inspection of the shade it actually turned out that instead of being solid black like I first thought it's actually just very darkly tinted, hence the 'sunshade'. I'd compare it probably to a 15% tint - pretty dark! It comes as one large piece with 2 little brackets you need to attach with some thumbscrews. It attaches to your car with a strong double-sided tape.

To ensure adhesion the instructions say you need to use '3m Primer 94'. 1 little 'ampule' is all you need (costs about a dollar). You just crush the tube between your fingers right behind the brush part to start using it.

After dry-fitting it I applied the primer to the areas on the glass where the double-sided tape would be sitting. Then after waiting 5 minutes I carefully placed the spoiler with some assistance from a buddy and we first secured the brackets, then we peeled off the rest of the backing tape from the main part and pressed down hard to secure it firmly. Then it's a waiting game for about 4 hours so that the tape can fully cure before you drive off.

(Apologies for the bad pictures - dirty car + cell phone pics = not a good combination ;) )

At First I didn't quite know what to make of it visually - it was quite different and I wasn't even sure if I liked it. Now that it's been a couple of days I have gotten more used to it and I actually do like the distinctive look it gives the car. I did notice that along the leading edge of the shade the tape seems to have separated just a little bit (less than or about a millimeter) but it's still on there very secure and at this point it's not budging either way. From inside the car you don't even know it's there, and the 3rd brake light is still very visible.

So if you're looking for something sporty looking to set your car apart from the other G8s this could possibly be an item for you!

Adventures in Tinting - Part III ; Headlights

2008-10-12T12:17:00.000-07:00

A while ago I tried tinting my taillights with some film material. I really didn't like how it turned out , but when I applied some of it to my headlight I actually sorta liked the look of it! The only downside was that you could barely see anything at night and just from a 'looks' perspective I actually would've preferred them even darker.

One night I was browsing the Australian Holden site (as you may know the Pontiac G8 is based of a Holden Commodore) and I noticed under the accessories page that they had a headlight protector kit. Instantly a light bulb in my head turned on. If I could tint these covers I could have my lights basically pitch black, and take them off for driving in dark conditions. I contacted Paul (HSV-GTS-300 over on GRRRR8.net) and he hooked me up with a set.

It's a nice quality kit &Installation is a snap. 2 plastic tabs on the bottom and 1 metal hook on top. They go on or off the car in literally 10 seconds. They also have a black Holden logo on them.

I didn't take any pictures of the tinting process since it's much the same as the tail-lights that I did, if not even simpler. Though I have come to the conclusion i'm definitely cursed when it comes to any painting project. I lightly sanded the INSIDE of the covers with 1000 grid, put painters tape on the front to prevent any overspray, whipped out my can of Niteshades and within 2 seconds of starting to use it, it sputtered a few times , spraying erratically and then died on me... Greeaaaat... luckily I had some RC249 'R/C Car window tint' as backup , though that stuff is even runnier than NiteShades!. I just built up the layers till it looked dark enough and let it dry over night.

When not in use I simply stick the covers in the net in the trunk. Fits just great!
Here's the results

Like I mentioned the light output is totally sub-par at this point, but with it being covers you can just pop them off.

Headlights on:

High-Beams on:

Blinkers on - actually looks pretty acceptable for day-driving

Next to some 08's the dealership still has in stock - Makes a nice comparison between the lights

Some more generic shots

Backup Camera Install

2008-09-18T11:31:00.000-07:00

For a while now i've had a cable from Ed (G8V8 on Forum.GRRRR8.net) that would allow video input into the radio-head in the G8. This is a perfect way to get a backup camera on screen in the car. Ed had bought a nice camera on EBay that wasn't too bulky looking, but when I went looking for it I ended up with basically the same one but slightly different connectors: this one.

Instead of coming with a 32 foot 'all-in-one' cable mine came with just the cam that had seperate connectors for Video, Power & a Left/Right Flip option so you can see the image either like you're looking in your rearview mirror or as if you're turning your head around. After Having tried both settings I 'think' i have decided on having it like the rearview mirror - just seems more natural that way.

I noticed there were several plastic plugs/fasteners in the trunk already so I just took out the middle one and enlarged the hole just enough so I could squeeze the connectors through one by one. Ofcourse I also put a grommet on there so the sharp edges wouldn't be cutting into the wires. Here's a picture before the grommet went on:

Then the fun started of routing the cables. I had bought a 12 foot Cable with RCA connectors from radioshack (Male-Male) and then a 6 foot extension (Male-Female) This proved to be just about the right length all together. I dropped the extension through the trunk lid so it came out where the other wires run bottom right, but since I didn't feel like cutting off the connectors I didn't snake it through the rubber hose that's there. I just wrapped it around it and into the trunk.

For the Front I had to take the side panels off the radio and decided to even take off the glove compartment for easier access. once I had all the panels off I simply dropped in the plug & cable that ed had provided, and hooked up my 12 foot cable. I then ran it all along the mid section and took a shortcut underneath the front passenger seat and then ran it under the trim by the doors, underneath part of the backseat, up the side where there is an access area so you can get into the trunk. Not the best looking way (can see the cable under the chair) but I can always tweak it later. Just wanted it IN ASAP! ;)

For power I soldered some wires to the provided plug and then ran them through the trunklid as well to the trunk and tapped into some wires that seemed to have 12 V on them ( a black & brown one in the connecter that goes to the taillights etc) Turns out this is tied to the normal light operation so I guess I Just need to at least have my DRL's on for power. I may try to find a permanent 12V line, but this is fine for now. Fun to look at cars behind you when you're in a drive-thru haha

ONLY real issue I have is the no video while moving crap.. mine cuts out at a whopping 2!!!! yes TWO miles per hour... what the hell?!?! Guess i'll be backing up WAAAY slow ...

Here's the result

Adventures in Tinting - Part II

2008-09-13T10:32:00.000-07:00

After my failed attempt with the film and seeing how rippin 6's had his professionally done to be TOTALLY BLACK i decided I needed something a little more drastic and get that same result.
Seems like the most common method was to get VHT Niteshades so i ordered 2 cans of it from a local place and 2 cans of Upol #1 clear-coat which from what I had read was a lot better than most any other and dried pretty quickly too.

Goodbye normal clear taillights!

To start with I made sure I had all the supplies I needed:

10mm Socket & wrench
1 'big' can of VHT Niteshades ( just used a bit of the 2nd one)
1 can of Upol #1 (hey at least I got spares :) )
1000 grit sandpaper
1500 grit sandpaper

Obviously the first step is to get the taillights out. This process is actually very straightforward.
Simply remove the plastic section that covers the trunk lock by unscrewing the 4 hooks that are used to hold the trunk-net in place and then it lifts right up.

After that it's simply a matter of popping out the push pins that hold the trunk liner up so you can get to the lights. It may help to take out the trunk bottom liner since that tends to get in the way.

Once you see the lights there is a large white connector that disconnects by pressing the center tab.

After they lights are disconnected it's a simple matter of using the 10 mm socket to undo the 3 nuts that hold the light in place.

Ok now we get to the real work: First I used 1000 grid wet sandpaper to scuff up the surface of the light. Talk about a cringe worthy moment.. There's no going back now!

I then taped them up with some old wrapping paper to protect the rest of the housing from the paint.

Now came the part where I screwed up:

a) I did it outside (well i was 'kicked out' ;) ) and it was a little windy
b) I was trying to rush it.
c) At this point in my life I should've learned that I do NOT have any painting skills what-so-ever, even if it's spray paint ;)

Whatever you do ; DO NOT RUSH THESE NEXT STEPS

So on go the first coat(s) of Niteshades. I did two real light misting to avoid runs. Really it's not that noticable if anything it almost seems like stock again minus the scratches.

Just keep adding layers when the previous ones dry (5-10 minutes) spraying from about a foot away. Niteshades is runny stuff and you don't want to spray from too close !

If you get runs wait for it to dry and then sand it down. I was rushing and sometimes the paint wasn't 100% dry.. OUCH.. big mess!

On the left you can see one with probably a good 5-6 layers on it while i had to resand the one on the right because of major drips.

Both are looking pretty dark/about the same now. REALLY if you can try to spray both exactly the same in the same pass. I was an idiot and didn't - so now one light is slightly darker than my other (you can only tell with my lights on).

After it was all dark enough (finished 1 can of niteshades) I sanded again but with 1000 and then 1500 grid. Notice the spots where I screwed up with my runs. Was too rushed to try to fix it anymore (once again. Don't be in a rush when doing this)

Then the clear coat went on - same process : 2 thin mist coats and then just piling on the layers every 5-10 minutes. Once I got about 5-6 thick layers on it was good enough and i let it dry and then sanded it with 1500 sandpaper again. Notice all the runs from not taking my time!! (yeah it looks like CRAP right now)

After putting them back into the car the process of cleaning up the mess started.
First a layer of 3m Rubbing compound, Then scratch-X and finally a couple of coats of wax.
I HIGHLY recommend a buffer for this. I did it by hand and it took forever , and the entire time I was thinking I had just gone and ruined my taillights because they wouldn't buff out.
(wouldn't you think the same seeing these? btw my car is panther black metallic - the flash just makes it look gray in certain shots)

After taking a break though (rest of the day because I was so depressed thinking for sure I had ruined my lights! haha) I really got into and buffed them out to a nice shine using a LOT of rubbing compound & scratch-X. Took a while but the result is 'acceptable'. Here's the final result (Yeah I know - i need to take some better pictures that don't look so dark or make the car look gray! )

Tail lights on:

Blinkers on:

Brakes On:

With the lights off they basically look BLACK except when the sun is right on them, then you can see some red from the actual light shining through. With the lights on, during the daytime if it's really sunny sometimes it's a bit hard to see the blinkers (because I really overdid it with the niteshades - could've stopped 2 layers sooner and still have it be the same darkness At night though (should take some pics) the lights are quite bright enough and everything shows up just fine.

I MAY one day get them professionally done instead but for now i'm quite happy with how they turned out even though i had some moments where I thought for sure they were ruined.

Adventures in Tinting - Part I

2008-09-03T10:13:00.000-07:00

So a while ago I actually decided to tint my tails. Not being able to find a place that did that kind of work I decided i'd go the 'easy' route and ordered some Dark-Smoke 'film' from rvynil.com.
I had been talking to 'rippin 6's' (owner of 'the black pearl' - a blacked out G8 -find him on http://Forum.GRRRR8.net ) and he bought his film just a little before mine and he told me that it just didn't look right. As soon as I started applying the film I could see what he was talking about. It was just too light and made the lights look almost a weird brownish color... I ripped that stuff straight off....

Ok So attempt I - Failure. As i had an entire roll of the stuff I decided to have some fun and see what it would look like on my headlights. Didn't care if it looked 'perfect' , i just wanted to see the effect - here's on headlight first for a comparison and then on both:

I REALLY liked the look of it . Next I wanted to see what they looked like with the lights on:
First pic is normal, second is with highbeams:

While it looked ok in daylight, when i pulled the car out at night to do a quick little test it was just WAY too dark. Even with the highbeams on it was BARELY even up to the same level of light as they were normally with the only the headlights on. It seemed to 'reflect' off the backside of the film which just didn't let enough light through. So while I love the tinted headlights look unless you have 4x brighter HIDs in there, it's just not gonna cut it.. makes me wonder about those cars that have totally blacked out headlights.. love they look but they must not be able to see anything at night! (unless being 'painted' doesn't have that effect... hmmmmm)

Badges - Part II

2008-08-31T19:39:00.000-07:00

Ever since taking off the Pontiac lettering of the trunk of the car i've been itching to get rid of those tiny little 'gm squares' right behind the front wheel. They never looked quite right or like they belonged there in my opinion. You can see them on my car in the side picture of my 'Picked up my G8 GT!' post. I've seen them on some corvettes too and while I was 'ok' with them in the beginning the more I looked at them the more they HAD to go.

When I took off the rear letters I had simply peeled them off by hand on a hot day but that left behind significant 'sticky stuff' which I had a hard time with removing. This time i decided to use some 20lbs fishing line - I don't fish, so I had to go and buy some just for this little project ;) Simply cut to a decent length, grab in both hands, run it behind the logo you want to remove and start shimmying it down or sideways or whatever way is easiest so that you're basically cutting the logo off the car.This left a much thinner piece of the sticky tape behind than on the back of the car. Some people suggest using a hairdryer or heatgun first to soften everything up but I didn't. Most of the remainder came off by carefully pulling it off with my fingers or rubbing it with my thumb. For the last little stubborn parts I simply took a cloth with some 'Goo-Off' on it, and within second it was totally clean. Good stuff :)

I had also received some of the Australian Holden Badges that say : "V8/6.0 Litre" on them which I really liked. Since I had taken the little squares off it was the perfect time to stick them on there. I'm quite happy with the end result!

Badges - Part I

2008-08-29T09:50:00.000-07:00

Boy has it been a quiet month for mods! it's a pain in the ass not to have any money to mod your car the way you want to ;) So it's time for some 'cheap' stuff :)

Charlie , the 'notorious' GRRRR8 on many a forum including the GRRRR8.net forum, made some cool heaterhoses replacements that he sent me. I still need to install those but he included some GM Performance badges that I really liked. Not much of a mod to just stick'm on the car somewhere, but it adds a nice touch I think.

The First one is a 'GM Performance Division' badge that I put on the trim of the glovebox. Some people put it on the right hand side but since I have the 'First 888' logo there I went with it on the left side which balances everything out quite nicely I think.

The second has some technical engine specs on it - yeah they're not 100% accurate but close enough and i like the custom look it adds to the (already custom looking) engine bay.

I have some other badges i'll be taking off and some other i'll be putting on on the outside of the car but that's for another blog entry.

New Forum for G8

2008-08-29T09:46:00.000-07:00

Recently I helped setup a new Pontiac G8 (and future Camaro) Forum. It tries to focus more on the technical aspects and mods in general vs the generic chit chat you'll find on most boards. Please visit & sign up here

http://Forum.GRRRR8.net

I hope you'll enjoy your stay!

Vector Motorsports Tune

2008-08-07T09:06:00.000-07:00

I had ordered the Vector Motorsports ECM & TCM tune a while ago and out of the options of reprogramming your existing ECM or getting a new spare one I chose the reprogramming method since I did not have an extra $300 laying around. For the reprogramming they would have to send out special programming cables that they only have a handful off so it was going to take a while before it was my turn. Also for the TCM to be reprogrammed it would require the cables anyway so it seemed to make the most sense to go this route. After roughly 1-2 weeks it finally showed up.

I meant to take pictures, but really there wasn't that much to see. In the box tightly wrapped in 2 bubble wrap envelopes was:

a USB Cable
The Programming Cable (Usb to a little blackBox which then had what looked like a serial port or db15 plug - didn't care enough to pay attention - to a ODBII connector)
Sheet of instructions
USB Flash Drive with Software & Drivers

Upon close examination of the provided software & cable it turned out it's basically the programming back-end from LS2EDIT by Carputing and the cable looked the same too.

I was slightly disappointed in this since I had heard a lot about how Vector supposedly used very powerful custom software and I had heard a lot of bad things about LS2Edit. (and it LOOKS like a crappy piece of VB Software too - but hey i'm a software dev so i'm a little more critical than the average user ;) ).

The main issues people have with a vector tune seems to be the 'locking' this program does where no other tuning software has access to the ECM afterwards. This can be a GOOD thing if you're worried about the dealership for instance overwriting your tune. But if you wanted to switch to a different piece of software because you found a local tuner or some other reason then you're basically screwed and will have to somehow get the dealership to reflash you back to stock. And i'm sure they'd love to hear from you WHY they need to do that and it wouldn't surprise me if they were to make a note of it for 'warranty purposes' if you know what I mean... I'm not that worried about it since I won't have to retune until either headers/cam etc and that will be a while and even then i'll stick with vector since they are the ones with the most experience tuning G8's.

As far as the process goes the instructions were pretty clear.

1. Install the software from the USB Flash Drive on your computer. Obviously since you need to be next to your car a laptop is almost crucial (unless you have a desktop in your garage ;) )
2. In the Start Menu then select 'Install Drivers'. This installs the drivers to talk to the cable.
3. Connect the USB cable to your computer - it will now detect the cable as a new USB Port and some other messages will pop up.
4. Connect the OBDII Cable to the port in the car which is under the drivers side dash behind the hood-release. I had to get on all fours to see it hiding back there ;)
5. Turn the ignition key to 'run' and leave it there (don't start). Have the ignition on for at least 10 seconds and make sure anything extra (radio, A/C) is off. Also they recommend the door is closed so I simply opened the window and had the cable go in through there.
6. Start the ECM Reader, Select "Read ECM", It will ask you for a filename to save your ECM data as with the extension of 'LS2' which should be your lastname + order number (e.g. Smith1234.LS2) then Click Action->Connect.
7. Once done I cycled the ignition and did the same with the TCM programmer program except that this saves out a 'TCM' file for your transmission.
Both Files downloaded somewhat slow where it felt like a good 5-10 minutes each.

I emailed both files to Vector as an attachment in an email, once again mentioning my fullname & order number at about 5pm PST. Next morning when I checked my email the modified tune was already there. (They renamed the new files with the term 'MOD' e.g. 'Smith1234MOD.LS2' and 'Smith1234MOD.TCM')

The process for programming is much the same as reading the original files but you just have to pick the file to program. Same connection, same items turned off, through the window. Fired up the ECM Programmer, Selected 'Program ECM' and navigated to & selected the new LS2 File. At first my screen sat at 0% trying to talk to the interface. They warn you to not shut down the program or disconnect the cable, but after 20 minutes of sitting there I took the chance and canceled the programmer. I reconnected & re-started the sequence and this time it worked. I noticed that programming took a lot less time than reading the original files even though on disk they are the same size (2mb each). I guesstimate it took anywhere from 2-5 minutes to upload the new files.

While both Reading and Programming all kinds of lights flash on the Dash like "ABS Failure" "Brake Failure" "Contact Dealer" etc and you'll hear several beeps & 'dings'. This is normal so don't worry :)

Started up the car and everything looked OK. Driven about 40 miles in 'Normal' Mode only so far and it definitely has more pull and quicker shifts. Noticed the redline has increased and overall it's definitely a better car to drive than stock. I've yet to try the sports mode or the manual modes but I will probably later today. I did notice also an increase of about 3-4mpg already so that's fantastic.

Update September: Ok really - this tune still brings a grin to my face everytime I Drive. Shifts are a lot quicker & crisper now. When I gun it from a dead stop, traction control will kick in on a 1 to 2 shift and when I turn it of i'm actually chirping the tires when it shifts (sometimes even with it on!)... ohhhhhhhhh yeaaaaaaaaaah :D

G8 Forums

2008-08-06T08:37:00.000-07:00

There are a bunch of G8 boards/forums out there where you can find all kinds of information relating to the Pontiac G8. Some are large with company backing and/or sponsorships, while others are small & privately run. One of my favorite forums is G8GTTech.com .

Compared to some of the other boards G8GTTech.com tends to be more technical driven (as the name implies). The members there are more likely to discuss the latest torque converters and how to get those last extra few HP out of their engines or shave a tenth of a second of their 1/4 mile time than the latest drama about how vendor 'x' sucks. It really cuts through the BS that is out there on most boards. It also has the least rules which is good in my opinion. Want to complain about a vendor ? go for it - but keep it professional & adult and be sure back it up with some data, otherwise you'll (rightfully so) will probably get ripped a new one by other members. Have a great find but it's on some other site? who cares - just link it so everyone can enjoy the benefits of what you discovered. Everyone and anyone is welcome from Master Techs to total N00bs like myself. ;)

While it may not be the biggest board it's the most open where anyone can say what they want without being censored which is key. Sure tempers flare and heated arguments take place once in a while but in the end most are resolved amicably, people have a drink and walk away having made a few new friends.

That's the spirit I think our small G8 community needs. One where we can freely share ideas & innovations without censorship, talk about the good and the bad about certain products, discuss alternatives , but most of all HAVE FUN without a lot of drama & BS.

So feel free to swing on by at G8GTTech.com!

Turbo Technology Tacoma (That's a lot of T's!)

2008-08-02T13:50:00.001-07:00

So I've been looking for a shop to work on my G8 for quite some time now. Most generic shops don't do any of the hard-core work required or can do it, but just not on the G8... how weird is that. The majority of places around here also seem to focus on 'imports' aka Honda's/Acura's etc. Of course there's always the dealership, but they always raise eyebrows when I come in and then proceed to give me their 'Oh this will void your warranty' stories whenever I try to have them do anything out of the 'ordinary' (more than an oil change + tire rotation). Don't get me wrong - the Service people are great there, but just not really that well suited for any after-market work.

Since The G8 GT has a L76 engine in it, basically an 'LS' engine variant, I figured, why not see if I can find a place that has worked on Corvettes etc to see if they can perform any of the work. After some searching I found Turbo Technology in Tacoma. I shot them an email and I received a response back from Nick who works there answering all my questions. He confirmed they could do any of the work i'm planning on (headers, Cam swap, supercharger or dual turbo's , Dyno, tuning etc). He invited me to swing by there which I did and it was a great place and the
workshop looked pretty impressive. They even had 1000rwp corvette sitting there... WOW!

I had asked about getting my intake manifold/throttle body ported and while they don't do that Nick knew of someone that did. Without me even to ask he already tried to contact them to find out how much it would run etc. They also checked out my pulley I was worried about (after closing time even) and told me it was installed just fine. That's the kind of forward thinking & service I can appreciate! So while I haven't had them do any work on the car yet, i'm definitely looking forward to working with them on my car.

If you're in the south sound area , give them a call/visit!

http://www.turbotechnologyinc.com/
Turbo Technology Inc
6211 South Adams St Suite B
Tacoma, WA 98409
Phone:253.475.8319
Fax: 253.474.7413

Intake Cover Removal

2008-08-01T13:43:00.000-07:00

I've had this mod for about a week now , but just hadn't gotten around to writing up on it.

Stock the G8 GT comes with a BIG fancy looking piece of plastic molding on top of it's engine. It seems to be a trend nowadays to just slap that onto any car to make the engine look more neat & organized than it really is. As mentioned in a previous post Heat is not your friend when it comes to your car so anything that helps it cool off faster helps. This thing got HOT and stayed hot for HOURS after driving. So why not get rid of it?

Here's the cover in question:

Like a lot of people first I simply took this cover off to expose the engine to let it cool off quicker. Then it turns out that on top of the engine sat ANOTHER cover with foam wedged between it for what most likely was sound suppression. What the???? I didn't notice it untill someone pointed it out since the cover was molded to look just like the intake manifold.

Here are some pictures of it off - notice how it looks just like the intake:

Here it is totally off the car with the foam insert besides it.

Finally the finished look:

As you can tell from the 1st picture there was 1 stubborn black hose on the drivers side laying on top of everything but that is now tucked underneath the fuel lines for a neat and tidy look.

Credit goes to Charlie (aka. GRRR8 on g8gttech.com) for this mod who has several to his name! I'll write up on his others as soon as I implement them. Now the only annoying thing is the heater hoses just laying on top of the engine, but Charlie is already working on a solution for that as well.

Here are the instructions , edited by me to reflect how I did it.

This will take about 30 minutes max.

1. Looses the manifold bolts, start with the outer and work your way to the center. (8mm socket)

2. Only remove the 2 bolts in the back on each side (4 total) and the black brackets they go through.

3. Take of the 4 10mm studs that hold the fuel rail (10mm deep socket).

4. Follow the black tube that runs on top of the engine to where it connects behind the engine
by the drivers rear valve cover. Disconnect it there by simply pulling it off it's connector.

5. The injector harness has push-ins that hook it to the fuel rail. Pull these out. There is no need to unplug any electrical connections.

6. Now you need to pull out the Fuel rails + Injector slightly. If needed you can use a long screwdriver to carefully and lightly pry up at the base of the front injectors on both side and then the rear. Mine came right out with just a little wiggling upwards on the fuel rail.

7. Lift the fuel rail & injectors up enough so that you can slide the cover out front.

8. Once the cover is out route the tube you disconnected at step 4 underneath the fuel rail and reconnect.

9. Carefully line up the injectors with their respective holes and push down on the fuel rail to reinstall them.

10. Torque all bolts from step 1 to 44in lb from center out and repeat for the studs from the 2nd step at 89in lb.

(I unfortunately never got around to step 10 since I didn't have a torque wrench.. oops.. but as soon as i do i'll torque them correctly)

Tint Thursday!

2008-07-31T13:30:00.000-07:00

Well today was the day that I got some tint installed. Deciding on a tint was a bit of a headache since the 35% legal limit was really light. Other choices would be 20%, 15% or 5% (Limo). Someone suggested that as long as you had 35% on the front side windows that then the rest could be whatever and that 'they' (police) didn't really care. While this may be the case I really can't stand the look of 2 different tints on a car. So it had be to 20, 15 or 5 all around.

5% while looking awesome to me is also an open invitation to any police in the immediate area that screams: Hey check me out! and I'm really not looking for any of that attention. Stealth is the word. So it was down to 20 & 15%. Did a lot or searching online to see samples and it was very hard to pick. In the end I settled on 20% with the main reason being that most people said the difference between 20 & 15% is minuscule yet it's still closer to 'legal' which could be helpful if it ever came to that. Also some people said backing up at night with a 15% or less gets pretty challenging.

Dropped off the car first thing in the morning and about 3 & half hours later I received the call that my car was done. I had my buddy Neil pick me up & drop me back off there since we were getting tinted back to back - read all about his experience here. Driving back we both noticed a HUGE difference already with how much cooler the car felt and how much more relaxing it felt inside the car with the tint with a lot less glare coming in. Looking at the car it definitely looks sharper and unless we imagined it , it definitely turned a lot more heads tinted. You can still see through the car from the oustside if the sun hits it right which is 'ok' but i'm now second guessing myself on the 20% and wondering if the 15% would've looked even better. Oh well... really the 20% looks amazing and i'm sure i'll get tons of enjoyment out of it.

Now i'm actually considering blacking the car out with tinted tail lights etc, but that's for another blog.

Before:

After: