PROJECTS

Almost 10 years ago, Carlos (the owner of the car) showed up to our house with a brand-new Camaro! After being playing around with small 4 cylinders late 90’s and early 2000 technology we get our hands on a whole new platform. 

Then a Injen intake was added to the car.

We went to Salinas Speed to test the car, not knowing a lot about Drag racing just trying to have fun and learn. We were able to run a 14.6 @ 96-97 MPH on the 1/4 mile, obviously not the time that the car should run while trapping 96+ mph but we were just having fun.

On the dyno the old Dynocenter the car made 277! A little over the norm for those cars but we were happy with the results.

Later on Carlos decides to upgrade the rear end (differential) to a 3.91, that’s when he bought the HP Tuners to tune the car in order to fix the speedometer for the new rear end, we were 3 young guys without a clue on how that works, just had experience with Apex VAFC, megasquirt, Honda Crome and Mitsubishi Ecuflash. We started reading about it on how to properly tune a newer GM Platform with a computer that works completely different than the previous ones that we already knew. 

I still remember the first day that we moved some parameters on the laptop using the HP Tuners and we went for a test drive that when Carlos did a power shifting to 2nd gear the car went a little sideways (before the tune the car had all kind of controls that avoid that) we were so’ excited about it! It was a whole new car. 

Then Carlos took the car to Tittiao Motorsports for a custom exhaust. With a custom muffler setup along Vibrant resonators and a Cherry Bomb Glasspack Muffler. And some mild throttle porting job was done to it.

 Later on, Carlos showed up with the idea about a nitrous kit, remember we are working on the V6 version of the Camaro.

Not a lot of options to improve power without doing an engine swap. We installed a NOS nitrous kit, and during the process came out with the idea of making a "box" that will allow us to change the tune on the fly without performing an ecu reflash every time that we decide to use the nitrous without installing extra devices to retard timing or add fuel to the tune.

Going a little deeper on that "box" for those interested on how stuff works, the logic behind it is a circuit that intercepts the air intake temperature sensor with a resistor that when the "nitrous system is on, it enables the box which have 2 stages one for the intake temperature sensor making the computer see a fixed temp were we can go to those air intake temperature timing compensations and retard the timing to were we need to take that 100+ shot and also the 2nd stage is to engage the NOS around 4,000rpm only when is at WOT ( wide open throttle), 100% tps, pedal to the metal!

We started spraying a 100 shot, on the dyno we get almost the 100 hp gain, for some reasons the number were lower, some differences are different spark plugs, different spark plug gap for the nitrous.

Then the clutch didn't hold. That's when the Spec Stage 4 clutch upgrade was installed. As right now we are spraying a 125 shot. As right now the car still being driven some days and Carlos is planning on work some more upgrades to the car.

Another project car that we got involved in 2021 is a Honda Civic Si 2008 sedan. This cars are very popular platform since they come from the factory with the famous K series engine, specifically the K20Z3 with factory 6 speed transmission and LSD.

When we first received this customer [at our shop in Lake City FL] he asked us how we can help on getting his car dialed in since he started doing some bolt ons modifications that included a cold air intake, header, exhaust and RDX injectors. The car was running rich and poor but still managed to produce 201whp on our dyno. 

The first step was to get him on a Hondata Flashpro to get his car dialed in along with the modifications but with open options for the future mods. After installing and dyno tune the car with the Flashpro, with gains of over 20whp / 20ftlbs tq in the mid range and a peak hp of 215whp and 152tq, the car was working better than ever before.

He had never been on a dragstrip before and we invited him to one test and tune that we were attending at Gainesville Raceway. Instantly he liked the track and the drag racing. On his first time out he managed to run a 15.0 and then followed by a 14.5 @ 98mph! Is not an easy task on this heavy Honda Civic on a all season tire full weight and just his 2nd time ever practicing drag racing.

Then he asked us what will be a good option to get some more power out of his car while keeping the drivability and street able configuration. We recommended him to go with a PRL Motorsports turbo kit that was available at the time along with a Precision turbo 6262, Fuel injector clinic 1200cc injectors, AEM 340lph fuel pump. Instead of the common gauges that are usually used on cars we decided to use the AEM CD5 carbon dash to display all the data that we may need. In the meantime we also installed a Competition Clutch stage 4 with a Competition Clutch Lightweight flywheel.

The results? First pull on the dyno the car made 335whp at only 5.6 psi all this on 93 octane fuel.

One important note on this build is the mileage of the car- 249,000+ and still has the original engine.

That being said we don't want to push everything to the limits, we decided to bump the boost just a little more taking it to the 7psi area were the car made 357whp.

We also verified the actual weight and balance of the car after installing the turbo kit and with full interiors minus spare tire the car weight is- 2,854 lbs without driver. 

Now we know the weight and the power, is time to go back to the dragstrip and find out what is this vehicle capable of. We went again to Gainesville Raceway, knowing our limits- street all season tire, stock motor, stock transmission. We decided not to push the car to the limits and just do a couple passes to make sure that everything works as it should. With the weight of the car + the power we came to the conclusion that at least we should trap 110+ mph in the 1/4 mile. The time was not our main concern because depending on how good is the launch = 60ft, that can change a lot.

First pass ever on the turbo setup myself driving it ( Jorge ) and the car owner as a passenger to teach him how to properly launch a fwd on street tires at the dragstrip we managed to run a 13.862 @ 111.76mph with a weak 2.502 60ft and a 9.362 1/8 mile.

Second pass I drove the car with no passenger, full interiors minus spare tire, very soft launch, crossing the 1/4 mile mark at 13.318 @ 113.17mph with a 2.250 60ft, 8.910 to the 1/8 mile.

Third pass the owner jumped on the driver seat and on his very first pass on the turbo setup he ran a 13.892 @ 102.79mph (he let off early) with a 2.592 60ft and 9.364 to the 1/8 mile.

The results are promising with this project, we drove the car to the track and back to the shop after 3 successful passes at the track (btw- it was grudge racing, we got ourselves 3 wins on our first time out) There's room for improvement on the car even at the same power level if we change the tires for something like drag radials or even better- Slicks! Let's see we we take this project in the near future! 

One of the projects that we are working on is this underrated Camaro LTG 2.0 Turbo. We were not able to see how fast it was on the 1/4 mile before starting to work on some mods, but shortly after installing a new air intake, larger throttle body and Intercooler/ pipping (all   from ZZP Performance) and doing a muffler delete (dowpipe still oem), we decided that was time for the dragstrip. Luckily there was a test and tune going on that week at Bradenton Motorsports Park. The results were quite interesting-

First pass of the night was a 14.332 @ 102.35 with a slow 2.404 60' and 9.46 @ 80.17 to the 1/8.

Second pass was a 14.006 @ 102.28 ALMOST ON THE 13's!!! Doing a better 60' @ 2.19 and 9.43 @ 79.31 to the 1/8.

So, we knew the power was there to run a 13 second pass so all we needed was to get a good launch; remember, we still using the stock wheel / tire which is a 560 treadwear!

Then the last pass of the night was-

13.85 @ 102.45, 2.110 60' 9.002 @ 79.36 to the 1/8!

Then after doing some research, we decided that it was time to start looking at the tune. We began with a safe approach to the tune since there was no time that night to go to the dyno and then back to the track, but the results were better than we expected. We knew that we may be seeing some improvements. I was telling the guys- I think we may be able to see at least a 13.7 and maybe 1 more mph down the the 1320. So I uploaded the car's tune and went to Bradenton Motorsports Park the night of March 14, 2020. With a half tank of fuel, no weight taken off the car, we adjusted the tire pressure and first pass of the night we were able to run a new personal best-

13.544 @ 103.44, 1.976 to the 60', 8.735 @ 81.99 to the 1/8!

Then we did a second pass trying to launch it harder but didn't work because we wheel spin all the way through 1st gear.

14.431 @ 102.05, 2.471 60' and 9.539 @ 80.44 mph to the 1/8

After that pass we just lined up again and were able to run a last pass of-

13.669 @ 103.91! 2.10 to the 60' and 8.88 @ 81.83 mph to the 1/8

We are very happy with the results so far, we still running on stock boost levels, no weight reduction, stock tires. We're looking forward to a dyno session to see how much power we're currently making and how much power this little 4 banger can make.

We will keep you guys updated on this new project!

Stay Tuned!