I've had it!!! I WANT TO GO CARBERATED!

[Da Hawaiian Punch]

Aloha to all you fellow vette owners, want to be vette owners, and soon to be vette owners!!! I need some advise on something. I used to own a '78 Pontiac, grand prix. I put a chevy 400 small block in it, with a mild 224/ 234 duration, 488 lift, 114 lobe seperation cam, stock 400 heads, 1.5 roller rockers, 750 edelbrock carb, performer intake, msd box, switched from a one legger 273 gearing to a 373 limited slip rear end out of a S.S monte carlo, stock trans other then a shift kit. !3.8's at 102 miles an hour. I picked up the car for 300.00 bucks from the wrecking yard, and slowly fixed it up to a pretty good looking automobile! started with a 16 sec 1/4, and worked my way down untill I was able, finally to beat my buddy (Hawaii 5 Lo on the C-5 forum) and his '87 vette before he got the C-5, I was using him as a measuring devise to see my gains on the 1/4 mile track! I can't seem to get a hang of this fuel injection thing! and I'm really getting ****ed off at this computer thing also! I do admit though, that the gas milege is great! But, I refuse to deal with this injection thing any further! I want to switch to something that I'm way more familier with!! I can't take it any more! Can somebody give me addivse on how I can acomplish the feat of going carberated and none computer? Mahalo (Thank you) in advance!!

 

[69MyWay]

Change your fuel pump out to say a....1990 Chevy camaro that would have come with throttle body injection instead of tuned port injection (they will interechange in the tank) so that you have lower fuel pressure.

Yank the intake, replace with your favorite intake, carb, and you will have to change the distributor to like a 1975 HEI with vacuum advance. Carefully tuck your wire harness back out of the way because you will get sick of this too, and will want to put the EFI back on later.

Get a good quality fuel pressure regulator with a return line and mounit it on the fuel system on top of the intake where the lines terminate before the EFI. Set it to about 4 psi at first, then play with it from there.


You will have some hood issues unless you run a serious drop down air cleaner.


Now if you have come to your senses, contact www.tpis.com and have them send you a miniram, 52mm throttle body, fuel rail kit, and the related gaskets, etc. Call Summit racing and get a pair of nice headers. Badda bing, badda boom........that L98 will be a screaming demon in no time and you will be like...carburator what? Trust me on this.

 

[Fiddler's Gold]

Some more info.

Well, I run a H750 carbed and bored over L98 (383) and it is one hell of a fast car. (when it doesn't have other problems)
I am not saying that I would have preferred this changeover & on the way back home on the HW it got really good MPG but in town and light to light, it gets REALLY BAD MPG, plus I think I have a couple bad ignition wires.

In any case, if you want more info, let me know. I can tell you exactly what I am running on mine.

Aloha (my wife is from Hawaii!)

Andy

 

[Da Hawaiian Punch]

O. K. , sorry it took so long to get back to all of you . Here was the problem. I went to the tracks last night , and did not do well at all , my car was acting erratically , I only got a fourteen point eight , and 94 miles an hour, and that was it for me for the night. it was the first time since we first pick up the car. the first time I went to the tracks, I got a fourteen point six, at 94 miles per hour, and that was with a lot of things wrong with the car. so I figured that once I get these things squared away , I would at least in the low fourteenths or better. so last night with all those changes, I still didn't do any better, in fact I didn't worse. a couple of days ago, the car started acting stupid! it first started running and at idle, then it started its to miss off idle, and in the worse , and worse!! by the time I got to the tracks, it could barely idle!!! I tried to get it running right, last night, but I couldnt get it! I messed with the tps, iac sesor, tried timimg and retiming, couldnt figure it out. I changed the wires and plugs, along with roter and cap, a week ago, so that was the least thing that i thought could be wrong, so I didnt even bother with them! Today I changed the gas filter and replaced, again the tps, still running crappy!!! Now I'm super ****t!! I almost tore my poor wifes head off when I didnt hear her come up behind me when she came home from work. i was concentrating so much on what I was doing, she scared the Kukai ( hawaiian for doo, doo) out of me!!! and to top off the fustration, we have locally what is called an annual "Toy's for Tots parade" where all the car clubs of the islands, gather at a spot at Ala moana beach park with either, toy's for the needy children, or food for the same reason. After all the clubs meet at the spot, we get a police escourt, and parade through Waikiki, on Kalakaua ave, then meet at the end of the route to give out the toy's and food! Anyway I've been waiting for two years to do this, and of course....this...thing happens to my car!!! I could not believe it! two years waiting!!! The last time that I was able to make this event was when I ownd that '78 grand prix i spoke of earlier......Oh! by the way, when I mentioned the part about working on something when my wife rose my heart beat a few hundreds? I finnally decided to go ahead and check the wires and plugs, clean them up and put them back........ of coarse.... load and behold.... that was the #@%$ problem all along! now it runs like a top!!

 

[69MyWay]

Bad plugs and wires will make a car run pretty strange.

So, what is your decision? Carb, or EFI?

You know, a bottle of NOS on a ZEX control module could do wonders for you ET at the drags, and it would require very little mods to get it in and do it right.

Nothing like 12 seconds in a bottle.

 

[Da Hawaiian Punch]

Bad plugs and wires will make a car run pretty strange.

So, what is your decision? Carb, or EFI?

You know, a bottle of NOS on a ZEX control module could do wonders for you ET at the drags, and it would require very little mods to get it in and do it right.

Nothing like 12 seconds in a bottle.

Yeah I'm seriously thinking on that nitrous stuff!! but I know that my car isnt at least as fast as my buddys old '89 vette! thats why I'm so fustrated with the situation. He get's his car, and it pretty much does what it's suposed to do with no problems, in fact he did less mods to his then I did to mine since I raced it last, and his improved.... cant sat the same for mine!! I get my car, and I not only do what my car is supposed to do, the next time I'm pretty confident that I'll do much better than the car was supposed to do out of the factory........ the darn thing gets stupid on me! After all this time I waited to go back to the track, because the car is running like a top, 2 days before I go......it goes mental, like it has a mind of it's own, and it's telling me..."No, I dont think so!!" To answer your question, Id really like to go to something that I'm more familier with, but my buddy keeps saying that I'm going to lose a lot of tourqe if I make this switch, and not only that, it's going to be a bear having to re-wire the computer, because it runs pretty much every thing in the car. What do you think? and about the nos thing, I have an L-98 with 114000 miles on it, could it handle the juice? how much of a shot were you thinking of? and finally, how much would it dent me pockets?

 

[Da Hawaiian Punch]

Re: Some more info.

Well, I run a H750 carbed and bored over L98 (383) and it is one hell of a fast car. (when it doesn't have other problems)
I am not saying that I would have preferred this changeover & on the way back home on the HW it got really good MPG but in town and light to light, it gets REALLY BAD MPG, plus I think I have a couple bad ignition wires.

In any case, if you want more info, let me know. I can tell you exactly what I am running on mine.

Aloha (my wife is from Hawaii!)

Andy

cool!!! what part of Hawaii is she from?

 

[69MyWay]

I have had limited NOS experience, and only really got into the plumbing, running, setting, tuning of it on two cars. Neither had any failures as a result.

The ZEX system is state of the art and uses a smart module to graduate the NOS blast for maximum performance and long life of the engine. I don't think that engine will suffer, and if it does, at least it will go down in a blaze of glory that you can brag about for years! Then, you will have a great excuse to rebuild it, bigger, better, and stronger! It is all good.

I would suggest you look at two things. Your current intake manifold vs. a TPIS miniram, and your rear gears.

I just finished putting Richmond 3.75 gears in my 90, but only drove it about five miles before I had to put it on the trailer and take if for some short term storage. However, let me tell you something. That little bitty gear swap from 3.33 to 3.75 is amazing. It drives normal around the neighborhood. When I drove out on the main road and nailed it, I thought I had a bottle of NOS on board because it has never accelterated that hard, and this is the same car that just ran 13.4 @ 106 mph with a nearly 3 second 60 foot! Brother, if I am not a solid 12 second car now (with good traction), than I am throwing in the towel myself.

The trick is getting that car to breath, and it can be done with the EFI, it just takes a little more money and different thought process. You need a good scanner. Check out www.actron.com for some great options. This is the first start to knowing what is going on in that motor/computer and learning how to work around it.

Another immediate suggestion is to go to ta three wire heated O2 sensor. You may have seen lower ET at the track because you were not in closed loop this last time, thus not running with premium higher computer functions, rather on a back up cold start mode. With a three wire O2, you can keep the engine cool for maximum performance, and be in closed loop all at the same time. Again, check TPIS for more info on a heated three wire O2 for your car.

Finally, what do you have for exhaust (CATS)? A bad CAT can kill your performance and cause the car to be inconsistent. The cat will actually collapse on the inside and the parts will rotate around and clogg the exhaust. Our 89 would run circles around our 90, and I could not figure it out either as they were both six speeds, same gear, etc. Turns out the 90 had two bad CATS. When I "cleaned them out", the car ran like a million bucks after.

So, don't loose the faith, and don't go old school yet. YOu have not been beaten, you have just been given a wake up call to get to know that computer a little better.

 

[Da Hawaiian Punch]

Howzit again! 69myway! o.k, I'll give you a little more info on my car.... I did gut only the center cat, I'm affraid right now to do the other 2 because I dont want to lose my torqe at the moment, I have only the stock 259 gearing, I do plan on later puting the 308's on because of the power band of this l-98 engine, from what I under stand, it's suposed to match the curve better then the 2.59 that's in there right now! I have a ported plenum that I'm polishing, and as soon as I'm pau....err done with it, I'm going to set that in there as well, I already have the saimessed runners on already, and along with the plenum, I have a gasket matched stoke intake to go along with it that I'll set in, the holes where the runners connect are smoothed out, I didnt want to go hog wild in porting because of the same reason of losing me low end. Of course I've done the usual, common mods. So what do you think? I've also heard, and you can confirm or disagree, that not only will I have to change out the drive shaft, but also I'll be out of my power curve, and will suffer on the free way, I have an automatic trans. Will this be true or false?

 

[vigman]

Comments

1) Don't you have smog checks in Hawaii?

If not gut the pre cats too! they can get just as blocked. Then go to the local muffler shop and have em run a back pressure test ( under 40 bucks..or so) What kind of mufflers are you running... you MIGHT want to consider replacing the mufflers if the PRE CAT's did disintergrate... and pieces are now sitting in the mufflers!

2) Get the car running correctly ( stock ) first.. if you now start adding stuff upon stuff it makes it harder to trouble shoot.. Have you replaced the opti yet? In your location.. corrosion from the salt air will play a BIG factor in electrical issues.

I would also verify fuel pressure and inspect your injectors!



Vig!

 

[Da Hawaiian Punch]

The stupid problem that I thought I had licked, Is back from the stinken dead!!.....Or should I say, was back!! Mahalo to Steve!! The problem was not only serious! but could have been life threating,:j and only a top profesional machanic as Steve could have, not only find the problem, but, be able to snuff the problem out!!! What the problem was, had something to do with the electrical system!!...................I FORGOT TO TIGHTEN THE DISTRIBUTOR DOWN, FROM WHEN I LAST TIMED MY CAR!!!!! AAAAARRRRRGGGGG!!!!ad I cant believe that I did that!! Steve is in about his mid 30's, and I'm now 41yrs old!! I kept teasing him yesterday when he was gathering up his tools, after he fixed the problem, that, looking at me funtion, is like actually, looking at him in his future!! Forgeting things that you normaly would'nt forget! So this is what he has to look forward to in his NEAR, hear that Steve? NEAR future!!:cry The car runs like a top!......Where the heck did that saying come from anyway?:confused....Just like the saying...."Raining cats and dogs!" what was this person on, when he came up with that statement? Did he see a vision after taking some bad stuff on one stormy day, and instead of seeing water falling from the sky, he saw animals falling instead?:z... Sorry. Mahalo & Aloha!! To all of you who were concerned about my problems, and offerd your inputs! specially to you Steve :BOW

 

[69MyWay]

All is well that ends well.

I guess you would have had the same problems with a carb if the distributor was loose.

Glad you found it, and the love affair can start all over again!