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 Back in a Formula Again 
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
chevypower91 wrote:
Any updates on your car?


Not really at the moment......she's been tucked away under her cover for a good month at this point.

About the only thing I have planned to do to it this winter is to fix an oil leak that has developed between the timing cover & oil pan. It was really nice to finally have the car to the point I was just able to drive it this summer......I really didn't have to do any work to it at all. I think the last thing I did to it was make a couple slight tweaks to the tune that seem to have cleaned up the throttle response in a few areas of the map.

About the only other thing I've been contemplating is possibly finally stepping up to 1.6 ratio rockers. I'm on the fence about it at this point. They really aren't that expensive, and the job really isn't terrible to do, but I'm skeptical about the power they would realistically gain.

I will continue to share as I go though! I also have another project I'll be involved with in the spring which I plan to share on here as I progress too (stay tuned for details)!

I'll throw the question back at you...….any updates on your car??

For that matter, what is everyone planning to do over the winter?


Sat Dec 07, 2019 4:49 pm
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Joined: Fri Apr 15, 2005 10:29 am
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Location: Milton
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
auto_god wrote:
chevypower91 wrote:
Any updates on your car?


Not really at the moment......she's been tucked away under her cover for a good month at this point.

About the only thing I have planned to do to it this winter is to fix an oil leak that has developed between the timing cover & oil pan. It was really nice to finally have the car to the point I was just able to drive it this summer......I really didn't have to do any work to it at all. I think the last thing I did to it was make a couple slight tweaks to the tune that seem to have cleaned up the throttle response in a few areas of the map.

About the only other thing I've been contemplating is possibly finally stepping up to 1.6 ratio rockers. I'm on the fence about it at this point. They really aren't that expensive, and the job really isn't terrible to do, but I'm skeptical about the power they would realistically gain.

I will continue to share as I go though! I also have another project I'll be involved with in the spring which I plan to share on here as I progress too (stay tuned for details)!

I'll throw the question back at you...….any updates on your car??

For that matter, what is everyone planning to do over the winter?


Since you have the cam, it may be beneficial to upgrade the rockers. I'm looking forward to seeing your other project.
The updates I had done to mine. I had the brakes done all around. Last time the brakes where done was back in 1996. At that time, the front rotors, pad were replaced, the rear disc were machined and new pads were installed. I am having some rattling coming from the exhaust around the cat area. I discovered that the curve of the exhaust pipes from the cat are rubbing. Also, I will have to have my suspension checked as I feel a slight clunk when I go over a bump. I need to sort that out. I will be replacing the cap/rotor. Where abouts do you live?


Mon Dec 16, 2019 11:09 am
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Location: Barrie
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
chevypower91 wrote:
auto_god wrote:
chevypower91 wrote:
Any updates on your car?


Not really at the moment......she's been tucked away under her cover for a good month at this point.

About the only thing I have planned to do to it this winter is to fix an oil leak that has developed between the timing cover & oil pan. It was really nice to finally have the car to the point I was just able to drive it this summer......I really didn't have to do any work to it at all. I think the last thing I did to it was make a couple slight tweaks to the tune that seem to have cleaned up the throttle response in a few areas of the map.

About the only other thing I've been contemplating is possibly finally stepping up to 1.6 ratio rockers. I'm on the fence about it at this point. They really aren't that expensive, and the job really isn't terrible to do, but I'm skeptical about the power they would realistically gain.

I will continue to share as I go though! I also have another project I'll be involved with in the spring which I plan to share on here as I progress too (stay tuned for details)!

I'll throw the question back at you...….any updates on your car??

For that matter, what is everyone planning to do over the winter?


Since you have the cam, it may be beneficial to upgrade the rockers. I'm looking forward to seeing your other project.
The updates I had done to mine. I had the brakes done all around. Last time the brakes where done was back in 1996. At that time, the front rotors, pad were replaced, the rear disc were machined and new pads were installed. I am having some rattling coming from the exhaust around the cat area. I discovered that the curve of the exhaust pipes from the cat are rubbing. Also, I will have to have my suspension checked as I feel a slight clunk when I go over a bump. I need to sort that out. I will be replacing the cap/rotor. Where abouts do you live?


I have run the simulations for 1.6 rockers on this engine. Simulations are suggesting only about 4 hp & I don't think that's unrealistic. 1.6 rockers would push the peak lift up to .544" intake and .550" exhaust, likely well beyond where these heads stop flowing. 4 hp definitely isn't going to be felt in the seat of the pants!

This spring's project is going to revolve around the car in this thread.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15929

Super clean car, but it definitely has some issues to work through. As long as the owner is fine with it, I'll bring everyone along through the process. Once the bugs are worked out, the plan is to spend some time with the laptop seeing what kind of steam I can get from it...…..looking forward to spending some time tuning on an LT1.

Speaking of tuning on a LT1, I believe the plan at this point is for this car to get a little love from the laptop too once it rolls out of storage in the spring.

Imagereceived_2336126216475223 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

Lastly, I live in the south end of Barrie.


Mon Dec 16, 2019 1:02 pm
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
Given that the number of days that the weather has been nice enough to take the car out this spring has totalled up exactly 1 so far, I decided to spend an afternoon tackling some scuffs and scratches that have accumulated over the past couple years since I did this last.

Image20200413_125851 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

Now I'm not going to point any fingers, but my wife walks between my tool box and the RF fender of the car everyday on her way to her car to go to work...………….that RF fender almost took as much time as the rest of the car did to polish out. Draw your own conclusions! Lol!

Luckily pretty much all the little scuffs and this one BIG scuff all came out.

Image20200413_130802 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr



Imagereceived_243071753410772 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr


Sun Apr 19, 2020 8:45 am
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
Looks really good. What did you use as a polish to remove the scuff?


Thu May 07, 2020 11:38 am
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
chevypower91 wrote:
Looks really good. What did you use as a polish to remove the scuff?


I had this stuff left over so I decided to use what I had (easy decision given what a nuisance it is to buy anything currently).

Image93674997_575492373064861_6933483856188145664_n by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

Worked really well when combined with my polisher which is similar to this.


Image8864944 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr


Fri May 08, 2020 6:49 am
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
So back when I got the car out this spring, first start up resulted in the car only running on 6-7 cylinders. After a few quick checks I found the culprit under my distributor cap.


Note: This is just a representative pic.....mine was actually much worse)
ImageOIP by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

After getting in there with a wire wheel on my Dremel, the car returned to running as it normally does. I was a little surprised at the amount of corrosion in there, but given that this was a cheapy cap & rotor I picked up at the local parts store way back when I bought the car and was working on just getting the car to run, I guess I really shouldn't be.

Fast forward to last week and once again the idle right after a cold start was getting to be a little rougher than I'd expect & the car seemed to feel lazy to me. Once again I had a look under the cap only to find another layer of corrosion starting to form. Well, that's enough of that!

Image20200622_194458 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

Image20200622_194452 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

A new cap and rotor with all brass terminals has been installed in place of the cheapy one with what appears to be aluminum terminals. Hopefully that should be the end of the corrosion forming issue.

It has certainly resolved the driveability issues. Car is running fantastic again, best its run all year......maybe ever!


Tue Jun 23, 2020 7:39 am
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
auto_god wrote:
So I would now upgrade my assessment of the car's braking performance from "adequate" to "pretty good". A little more power & initial bite from the front brakes would earn the car an "Excellent"......hopefully that will happen this week.


Well, that never panned out. Even after fully bedding in, the brake performance never improved beyond what I had at this point.

The brake balance front to rear was much better, but my feeling was that what I had for brake performance was just the result of economy parts.

So given that I'll be driving this car for at least a couple more summers, I've decided to make an attempt at improving matters.

Normally Akebono Performance Ceramic pads are my go to choice, however they aren't available for this application. So I'll be experimenting with a different line of performance pads.

Image20200622_175339 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

Image20200622_175354 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

The brake rotors on the car are still the ones that were on it when I bought it. They've always had a slight pulsation to them.....just enough that you notice it driving the car, not bad enough to prompt you deal with it! Lol!

So I've decided to resolve that problem while everything is apart too.

They definitely needed some love!

Image105996801_1184761898531972_2153181379715316181_n by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

After heading back to the shed and putting them on the brake lathe I can see why there was a brake pulsation too.

Click on image for video!

Imagevideo-1592861637 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

Rears are all complete.

Image104975252_2595306344062516_4714175659184349641_n by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

After going out for a quick drive to bed in the rears, I can definitely feel the inital bite and power coming up in the back of the car........looking forward to getting some time to give the front the same treatment.


Last edited by auto_god on Sun Aug 02, 2020 7:14 am, edited 1 time in total.



Tue Jun 23, 2020 8:08 am
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
Spent yesterday tackling the fronts. Was interesting to compare the pad that was on the car to the new ones that went on.

Old pad on the left, new pad on the right.

Image106732917_2678449222257344_6855536109533194504_n by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

There is significantly more pad area contacting the rotor with the new pad.

I came across the same issue with both front rotors regarding the pulsation the car had.

The inboard side of the rotor was more or less fine and cleaned right up with 1 pass through the brake lathe.

Image106378980_588646092025660_8365901079965862849_n by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

The outboard side needed a little extra attention.

Image106353138_193348005416637_279344677337756359_n by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

With a few more passes the outboard sides cleaned up nicely too.

Click image for video

Imagevideo-1593439197 by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

So at the end of all this I'm pleased to say the braking performance of the car has improved DRAMATICALLY! Any brake pulsations the car had have been evicted, & braking power has gone up significantly. Prior to this, I'd almost need to have the pedal on the floor before I'd get to the point of brake lockup.........now that kind of brake power is readily available with much less pedal effort required to get there. At this point I'd say the Raybestos Performance Specialty brake pads are performing to my expectations and I'd definitely buy them again.

I'm happy to finally be able to give the brakes an "excellent" rating...........should have done this a long time ago.


Tue Jun 30, 2020 7:00 am
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
Crossed another item off my list of stuff that's been irritating me yesterday.

About 10 years prior to me buying the car, the previous owner painted the car. When the tail lights were put back in, they weren't put in straight........there were some pretty significant (and visually obvious) gap differences.

ImageTail light gaps by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

Well after owning the car for 6 years now, fixing that finally became my priority yesterday!

Image20200731_121241 by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

Now if I could only get the hatch to fit properly!




As another tidbit of information, this thread is up to 90,000 views.

I was really starting to question if it was worth posting anymore, but obviously there are plenty of people reading still, so I'll continue.


Sat Aug 01, 2020 6:39 am
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
So apparently low dusting is not a feature of my new Raybestos pads! Lol!

But given the choice between low dust and good braking power, I'll take braking power every time.


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Sun Aug 09, 2020 7:26 pm
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
Got tired of looking at this for the last 6 years.

Image20200921_112804 by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

The previous owner jacked the car up by the wrong spot and this is the result.

I'm not a body guy by any means, but it certainly fits MUCH better now. It's not perfect, but it doesn't draw attention to itself anymore.

Image20200921_124909 by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr


Tue Sep 22, 2020 8:01 am
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
While doing some cleaning/detailing etc. a little while ago I discovered that this old girl is a little heavier than I thought she was.

When I first got the car I did some quick reading on the matter and seemed like the general concensus was these cars weighed about 3350 lbs, the lightweights of the 3rd gen F bodies. This is the weight I've been using in Virtual Dyno all this time.

The door stickers can still be read on this car, so I actually had a good close look at them. A car's curb weight can be calculated by subtracting the Max Load on your tire placard from the Gross Vehicle Weight Rating on the load sticker.


Image20201005_080221 by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

Image20201005_080253 by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

So when we do the math 4228 - 701 = 3527 lbs!!


Substituting the correct weight value into Virtual Dyno shows the old girl is actually making a decent head of steam for a mild TPI setup.

ImageVortec Voodoo 350 by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr


Mon Oct 05, 2020 8:25 am
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
Got a start on this winters to do list. Got a few things I want to get done.

Image20201207_174725 by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

Put the car on the hoist and pulled all the wheels off. Time to rotate the tires, but as many of you know, the front and rear rims on these cars are different and require the tires be dismounted and moved to the appropriate wheel in order to rotate them. A bit of a nuisance for sure, but the wheels are in the back of my truck now should some free time come available at work in the near future.

Once the wheels are back on the car, I've ordered a gauge to allow me to set the camber on the front wheels. I've been fighting an issue with the car tram lining like crazy the past couple summers, so I looked up what the camber spec is supposed to be. The documentation I have shows it to be .25 deg neg camber. Now even without a gauge, my eye is telling me there is considerably more than that. I used an angle finder on my phone and it showed about 2.5 deg of negative camber, so I'm fairly certain that is where my tram lining is coming from. I plan to deal with that this winter as well.

The last order of business I plan to attack has kind of escalated over the past few days. Originally I planned to deal with a slight oil leak I've had that is coming from where the block, oil pan, and timing cover all come together. This is obviously going to involve the oil pan getting lowered to solve this issue. This is where things escalated. In my mind I reasoned that it really isn't THAT much more work to pull the timing cover off and adjust the cam timing.............my simulations show that installing the cam on a 109 deg intake centerline is worth approx. 11 hp. So while I was on RockAuto ordering water pump and timing cover gaskets I happened to click on rocker arms........wouldn't you know they happened to have 8 Sealed Power 1.6 ratio rocker arms in stock!! Now I only have adequate clearance to put 1.6 rockers on my intakes, so 8 1.6 rockers went in my cart as well!!

Between the altered cam timing and the 1.6 ratio rockers on the intakes, simulations are suggesting there is 13-14 hp to be had. Basically more power everywhere from about 2000 rpm on up.

ImageWinter 2020 Upgrades by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

So the plan is to start with the tires. Once the tires are back on, set the camber on the front wheels (I'll likely need to double check the toe in the spring when the car comes out again). Once the camber is set, engine mods.......anxious to see how that turns out.


Mon Dec 07, 2020 7:28 pm
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Post Re: Back in a Formula Again
Awesome, keep the updates coming!

_________________
86 IROC
LQ4/T56/3.50 8.8 (next step..TC76)
Build thread: http://ls1tech.com/forums/conversions-hybrids/1819001-1986-iroc-turbo-lq4-t56-build-ac.html
Formerly 95 LT1 [LE2.2]/T56/4.11 9 Bolt..12.6@114MPH


Tue Dec 08, 2020 11:51 am
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