Re: Not for Nuthin' But Close!
 

For what it's worth I just purchased a 2004 Sunfire 2.2L to attempt to do like Billy. Wish I had his experience and I wouldn't be so uncertain about my abilities to make it run that well. We'll see how this goes but it looks like fun.

Re: Not for Nuthin' But Close!
 

Good deal! Don't forget to do a "Build Thread" or add to this one!
BTW, buddy-up to a computer literate kid!!!

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BTW, buddy-up to a computer literate kid!!!

IO hope my 30 year old delivery guy here at the store is one. At least he seems to be but baby on the way not sure if his wife will give him enough space to get away to fool with this.

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See Billy. I'm not even good with posting on this board by my previous post. LOL. I wanted to do the Neon thing but found the Sunfire first so here it goes.

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So are you still running the car in Open Loop? Correct me if I am wrong, but this seems to be the simplest way to change the fuel tune, leaving out many other parameters in closed loop?

Re: Not for Nuthin' But Close!
 

Yes open loop.

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Billy can you set the fuel/O2 and timing tables to be able to run in closed loop?

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I would love to try it, but the issue is that there is no way to change what the desired O2 reading is. When it was in closed loop, it was commanding as rich as 11.8:1 by the end of the track, so it was decided that giving the tuner ultimate control was better than letting the ecu do its thing.

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So, if I set up to run Open loop, does it still adjust timing based on IAC and ECT but not oxygen?

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This car I was able to tune around any timing adjustments the computer tried to make. I set up the base spark table to a point where as soon as you give it full throttle, it would be at 29 degrees. It also has a "minimum spark vs. rpm" table I was able to play with, and for the added "lockout" effect, I (riskily) disabled the knock retard.

Re: Not for Nuthin' But Close!
 

Awesome, thanks for the advice. One more question - Did you make any transmission shift adjustments that really picked up the car? or what about the torque management? IE: I messed with the torque management, but it seemed to slide into gear, so I went back to factory settings..

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This car had the same problem after getting rid of the torque management, so I added about 5psi at a time to the shift pressure table until it felt good.

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Which HP Tuners setup did you start with? Picked up my 2005 Sunfire on Friday. Previous owners says it jumped timing so first thing is to get it running and see where to go from here. Having to bring shop equipment from home shop 200 miles away to get started on it next weekend. Just trying to get my ducks in a row on this project. Thanks for posting this thread. It should be interesting if I can match your results.

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I've spent a couple of hours removing the power brake booster and making up an "adapter" to mount the master cylinder in the stock location and not have to mount it under the windshield. I haven't changed the pedal ratio yet as I want to give it a try as it is first. The power assist was really giving me issues when I was staging the car. It didn't seem to bother Doug though. Hmmm.
The next step when I can find some "me-time" will be getting going on a header.
I sure would like to find out why I can't post pictures on here anymore. It never used to be a problem...

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I got an update from Mr. Billy the other day with news that the header is done. He was unable to upload the pictures, so he sent them to me to see if I could get them uploaded, so here they are. Couple miscellaneous pictures of the car in here as well.

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That's not Billy's trailer, is it? ;-)

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How long are the primary pipes?

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35" and that's not the collector that I'll be using.

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Someone vandalized it and took off the patina when he wasn’t looking....

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Hey all of you "Dime Rocketeers"! We got a mention on the latest Class Racing Today podcast! The one with the Autumn Greene interview. Good kid and a determined Racer. We need more like her!

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Amen Billy, I was pitted next to Todd and Autumn at the Baby Gators last year...good people. Everyone should read Todd’s build thread, the dedication and passion is very evident.

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The header is done and on the car! This is the most obnoxious sounding thing that I've ever played with. Gotta love it!
I'm hoping to get to Cecil on Saturday if my tuner/driver isn't busy.

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So............... what is a header worth on a 21ST Century, high-tech car??? I was shocked.
More later.

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Still waiting holding my breath!!!!!!!!

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Sport compact cars were going around Bristol 1/2 mile dirt in 21 seconds, same as the cup cars in 1961. Track record for cup is now 14 something on asphalt. Come on Billy I am going to say you picked up 17 with the header. Tom

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The last time we had it out the car ran it's best run to date. 2.149 60ft, 9.638 @ 71.55 1/8th, 15.085 @ 89.88 1/4.
The air was about 200ft. better yesterday and by noon the wind wasn't a factor. With the new header in place, we started with the factory tune back in it as to try and not hurt anything. After sneaking up on it all day it finally went 2.133 60ft., 9.594 @ 71.63 1/8th, 15.055 @89.43 1/4.
So it picked up ........nothing......
It does seem to be falling off after the 1/8th and the numbers support that. It wants a few degrees less timing and about 5% more fuel with the header.
Back to the drawing board!
Doug, drawing boards are what designers used to use before lap-tops.

OBTW, anybody with any comments/advice, please feel free.

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We tried different exhaust manifolds and pipe sizes with no help, that did nothing. Now we could bolt on a 2.4 intake manifold [bigger] using everything else the same and pick up 10 HP. Do you think with two exhaust valves per cly and OE the uses a anti reversion cone in the exhaust pipe that by adding a cone in each tube would help? Also tube size would play a big part.

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Billy, I probably told you this, but when we got the Monte, we took it to the track, completely stock, 200K on it, 2.91 gears..just some shorter street tires.. It only ran in the 16's but enough MPH to run the index in DF/S.
The last run, we took the complete exhaust of the car, from the cat. , back... It should have picked up something, just from the weight loss....It picked up NOTHING!
I kinda figured it couldn't richen itself up, accordingly, so the lean-ness killed it.
Yours sounds like a torque, or lack of it, situation. I wouldn't take the header off yet. Unless maybe back up on the exhaust, and change the final drive and put a fairly tight 245 mm converter with the lock up plate removed....If it likes that, then go back to the header..Just a thought or two..

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Oh, we can richen it up enough. When we made the first pass, we put the OEM tune back in it (20% more fuel) and it didn't like it one bit. After making little changes and making little progress and looking at a busy day when we weren't going to get many more runs, we put the 15.08 tune back in it and it went a 15.108 but the MPH is down. Next run we added 5% fuel and removed 3* of timing(now 26*) and it went the 15.055 but still 1/2 MPH slow from last year even with 200' better air. Without breaking down the whole time slip, it ran it's all-time best ETs and MPHs in the 1/8th by a good amount and lost more and more to the 1/4. It doesn't seem to be a torque problem. Next time out, we've got to try lowering our shift points(6700) at least on the 2-3 shift. The OEM specs are 140 @ 5600 and 150 @ 4000 (and it IS still stock) so we might be at a point where we're just too far past the peaks.

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I didn't mean to imply that yours was lean. I know you've got a handle on that
FWIW, The Monte didn't like to be rev-ed up either, even with the headers..It dropped off rapidly at 5700.

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This^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
wound up being a major PITA to make right. Removing the booster made the car difficult to stage even for Doug so I've spent the last couple of days "re-engineering" the stock pedal assy. The OEM assy. is quite complicated so I went to my favorite place (junkyard) and got another Cavalier assy. and an 80s Camaro assy. and "blended" the two together. I now have a 6-1 pedal ratio (OEM was between 3+ 4-1) and a nice feeling brake pedal.
My plans for this week are to build a couple of different collectors and see if I can make the header work a bit better.

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Here are some pictures Billy sent me to upload on here.

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Hey all you Mopar guys! Check out the Neon (with chute) that was stalking us all day.

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Billy, You should have just ordered those brake parts @ Summit or Jegs

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What front tires are those? Are they Circuit Racing Slicks?

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I would guess that they are some sort of an asphalt "circuit" slick. Hoosier 19.5x7-13.

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Well, in the openness of "fair-and-honest" reporting I guess that I should mention our last outing at Cecil. I don't really WANT to as it wasn't a banner day but I guess that it could have been worse. I at least learned some stuff.
The brakes worked out great! Doug could hold the car at 3 grand if he wanted to.
I built 2 different collectors for the car. The original one was 2 3/4" dia and about 15" long. I built one 2 1/4" and 15" and a second 2" and 24" planning on cutting it down.
I don't have my timeslips and notes with me but we made 7 runs all between a 15.25 and 15.28. Not too bad for changing things between runs. It wasn't a very good day, low baro., high humidity and head wind but at least the sun was shining. As I changed the collectors, we started to see a pattern develop. It went it's best MPH (by 1 full MPH!) with the 2" collector cut to about 10" long but it went it's best ET (15.25) with the original collector.
This past week, I was able to find some specs on the original cams and although they're both very small, the exhaust cam is really small. I'm starting to think that the restriction that is cast into the original exhaust manifold is there for a reason (duh, gee do ya think?). At any rate, Comp DOES make a "streetable" cam set that is a bunch bigger than the original ones and is under my .430 lift limit. I guess that I've got to buy some cams.

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Billy,
Since it is DOHC. Have you thought about playing with the phasing of each cam before you try new cams? Unlike a single cam setup you can change LSA / overlap.

Stan

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Yes, I have and the exhaust lobe is seriously retarded. If there wasn't anything commercially available, I would have "played" with moving the existing cam c/ls around. It does need (at least) a larger exhaust lobe.

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Billy,
Thanks. Maybe I have confused this with one of your other threads. I was thinking this was as low a $$$$$'s build as possible.

Stan