Autozone sells a 3 piece kit of allen keys for $9. There is a 12MM, 14MM, and 17MM in the kit. It works great for us because it has the sizes necessary to R&R the drain/fill plug on the ZF and dink with the pivot ball.

Where do you run at? There's a couple of us that go to Cecil County / Capitol quite a bit. I'm not sure how much a haul that is for you, but I can let you know next time we roll out if you want.

Reckless, your links are broken.

Dan-
I think you'll be happier with a custom bar from a local fabricator. However, you seem pretty set on the one you linked, but there really isn't any reason a fabricator can't make one that will allow the top to function.

It's a little weird that the highest MPH run was the slowest MPH in the 1/8 mile.

You were 2 MPH slower, but 3 MPH faster on the big end. So, the car picked up 5 MPH over previous runs on the last half of the track. That's a 30+ HP difference at least.

Have you data logged the car? I wonder if it's pulling timing somewhere in the runs and bringing the power down.

Or, maybe the 1/8 mile timer is a little early in the left lane.

You were .06 faster in the 60 foot on pass 2 than pass 3. With my car, every increment gained in the 60 foot was a reduction in ET at a factor of 1.59. So, .06 gain at the 60 foot marker should be worth approximately .095 total ET. You were about .08 different in 1/8 mile ET, so again that points to the 1/8 mile timers being a little out of whack in the left lane.

Of course, that's all BS and speculation, it could just a be "one of those things." I wouldn't sweat it too much.

1.7XX is great for a street tire. Keep after it and see what you can get out of it!

Also, if you are using that set up with the dual mass, you are double dampening the drive train with the internal spring in the flywheel, and the springs in the clutch disc.

I've never seen that done before, but it seems like it would be a great thing for drive train longevity.

The fidanza set up, as pictured, will not work with our cars. Like I said though, swapping the slave for a hydraulic throw out bearing will make that fidanza set up work in our cars.

Look again, the pic above is a push style clutch. Yours is a pull. That is also a valeo pressure plate in your picture.

In order to convert to the push style you install a hydraulic TO bearing to actuate the pressure plate and release the clutch. The only change you have to make is to remove the slave cylinder and get a new pressure line made to go between the master cylinder and hydraulic TO bearing.

Eventually, the extra pressure will smoke the seal in the stock master. Converting the metal master offered from McLeod will cure this issue. (I don't know if the master is still available, the last time I bought one was a few years ago before B&M bought McLeod)

It's probably different for every car a little bit. The best way to figure out the 'correct' length is to put the car on jack stands so the rear suspension droops. Then, put a jack under one of the rear knuckles and jack it up until the half shaft is level. That's the point where you want the snubber to contact the knuckle.

That way, when you ride the snubber, the shaft is level, and you've got the maximum strength possible out of the independent set up.

I think your problems are probably install related as opposed to component related. It sounds to me like the fork was never fully seated on the TO bearing.

Regardless, I have stock pressure plate if you want it. I'm in Baltimore, you can drive down and pick it up, or I'll ship it to you if you catch the shipping. It's got the TO bearing on it, so you can work on swapping TO bearings, or use it if you go back to stock.

Thanks Dan.

Are you hitting the extended snubbers on your car?

I probably missed it, but what kind of power did it make? I assume the tuner discovered these issues on the dyno, right?

Lemme know when that happens, I'll try to make the trip.

When I worked for the speed shop in NC, we noticed the long flat HP line sometimes meant that a component was maxed out. Sometimes it was the cam shaft, or maybe the intake manifold. It seemed like something at that level had reached it's maximum ability to fill the cylinder. I would guess that the super ram is finding it's limits, but I don' tknow for sure.

Also, stock base timing on that car should be 6 degrees, not 14. Not sure if I'm reading that right, but thought I would mention it.

Car sounds great to me. Fun and reliable, which is freaking awesome if you can achieve it on a budget.

I would expect 350 +/- 15 RWHP on a dynojet 224 from that car.

Since it's got the forged slugs in it, how long before it sees some spray?

98 KPA is within reason for WOT. I don't think I see 100 in my car every time I floor it. Most of the tables in the tune go from 95-100 KPA, so at 98 you are using the WOT settings.

What is the elevation where you are? When I lived at elevation (4500 ft) the KPA readings on the car got a little whacky.

Doesn't the MAF max out in the tune at 255 GPS? I thought that was the limitation of the hex code used to write the software.

I would take the MAP sensor off and look at the hole it, see if there is some crap or something in there. Also, what does the data logger show the MAP reading is when the car is not running? If you aren't seeing 100 KPA there, the MAP sensor is probably bad.

That is where I would start. I don't think you'll see more than 255 out of the MAF sensor, and I think there is something wrong with the MAP sensor. I can't imagine that you'd be seeing enough of a restriction via intake tract to significantly decrease the power.

The nittos are great, I have a set of 315's on my car as well.

I don't know what kind of experience you have drag racing, so maybe some or all of this is old hat for you, but here's how I would go about it if I were you:

Depending on the track, sometimes I can make nearly unlimited passes in one afternoon, hot lapping over and over. Other times, I'm looking at 2-3 passes a night.

I would try to find a night where I could make a ton of passes. You've got a D36 (right?) and while Dan and some others have had great luck with them, I would still be nervous. I broke D44 components at the drop a hat with 260 RWHP, so that's the other end of the breakage spectrum compared to Dan.

I would start with probably 30 PSI in the nittos, and a small burnout just to clean them off. I would come up on the converter and then roll into the throttle. My goal would be 3-5 tire revolutions, and to have the throttle WOT and the tires hooked by about 10 feet out. I would play with tire pressure and burnout to achieve that. This will not net the fastest 60 foot times, but it will be the easiest on the drive train.

If I hit my goal of 3-5 revolutions, and WOT by 10 feet; and I still hadn't touched the 12's, I would starting looking for more hook, and to be more aggressive with my throttle squeeze. Maybe 1-2 revolutions, and WOT withing 2-5 feet.

Next would be the Dan method... Hard on the converter, hot tire, low PSI, and look for the dead hook and a quick progression to WOT.

Next, hard on the converter and just wood the throttle.

Next, back off the converter some, maybe bring the RPM to 1500 or so then wood the car to let the converter flash. This is the hardest on the car, but if the tire will take it this method will produce the best times.

I think you'll see your 12's with little to no wheel spin, and something in the neighborhood of a low 1.8 high 1.7 short time.

That's all bench racing though, only one way to find out what works for you!

Edit - I just re-read my post and I come off like an expert preaching the 'right' way to do stuff. I'm not an expert, on top of that I have a 6 speed, and I have absolutely zero experience drag racing an automatic C4. The above is just how I think I would try to achieve what you are looking for, it may work well, work some, work a little, or not work at all.

Good luck with it man, you'll get there. Even if you don't the practice sure is a shit load of fun!

The 13.2 to 13.0 was all in the first sixty feet. 1.84 is really great on street rubber. Good job man.

You can have any hose shop build you a braided steel line with the appropriate ends on it. You'll need to take the old hose in so they can match it, but it shouldn't be difficult for them.

The new line won't have the section of hard line down near the slave, but it will work with a normal 90 degree fitting.

I've had various hose shops do them for me, and cost has ranged from as little as $7 to as much as $40. It really seems to vary from place to place.

Also, it might not be worth it to you, but taking the slave apart and checking a few things is a good idea. You can check to make sure the seal is installed the right way. If you've done any reading on the hydraulic issues we have, you know that a good portion of the slaves out there had the seal installed backwards.

I've lost track of how many slave/master/clutch jobs I've done on various ZF6 C4's in the last few years, but it's more than 20. Out of all those slave cylinders, not one of them was clean inside the bore. There was always crap laying in the bore, just waiting to damage the seal.

I like to check the seal orientation, and clean the bore when I get a new slave. For awhile I was installing 2 star washers to hold the boot in place, but I kinda quit doing that. I check the masters as well, but they are much less problematic. Some of them still have the dirty bore, but it's more like 40% as opposed to the 100% rate the slave cylinders have.

Chances are you'll be fine without doing any of that, but I thought I would throw it out there.

If you have a mighty vac, you can do it yourself. I've done 25 or more ZF hydraulic systems in this manner and never had an issue:

One hose on the mighty vac sucks, the other blows. Open the bleeder on the slave and attach the blowing hose to the bleeder. Stick the sucker end of the mighty vac in your brake/clutch fluid. Slowly pump the mighty vac.

You'll fill the system through the bleeder screw from the bottom up. The air wants to go to the top, trying to bleed it out the bottom makes no sense, why GM designed it that way is beyond me. It would be almost impossible to force an air bubble out the bottom of the slave.

If necessary, you can unbolt the slave and hold it in such a manner as to make the steel inlet tube the highest point. That way, as you pump fluid in the bleeder valve, all the air goes up and out the line.

Have someone watch the master so you don't over fill it and dump fluid all over everything. There's no need to pump the clutch to move the master or anything, the system will fill properly with no movement of the master cylinder.

Hopefully, that makes sense. If not, let me know and I'll try again.

It looks like mine made peak power at about 4600. Yours is right about 5,000. I would probably attribute the increase in RPM more to the runners and/or port work on the intake; rather than the cam.

With the same engine configuration and a 60 RWHP shot of nitrous, my car went 11.99 @ 112 (the slip in my avatar).

The tune was the biggest thing I did. The car went from 13.5XX at 101 to 12.8/12.9 at 106. It made a bunch more difference on my car than it did on yours though, I picked up 30 RWHP and 50 RWTQ compared to your 11/7 gain.

You've definitely got the power for 12's. My 91 went a best of 12.84 @ 106 with ~260 RWHP. What kind of short times are you generating?

Based on the MPH and the dyno chart, I'd guess you were a 6 speed, but I could be wrong. What transmission does the car have?

Here's my dyno chart when my car was pretty stock. At the time the car had long tubes, no cats, and a couple other basic mods. The intake was completely stock, no porting, nothing. The heads had never been off the car, stock cam, etc... No frisbee, exhaust mods, and gears.

The red line is the car with the factory tune. The blue line is after I tuned it on a dynojet 224.

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Since it gets worse with heat, I doubt it's a crossed wire. Sounds like a coil to me.

The replacement coil is only about $25, and with almost 100K on it, replacing it is not a bad idea anyway.

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In your expert opinion, what would you have expected it to do?

Edited by Matatk

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I ran some 285 AVS sports for awhile and didn't like them much. I didn't notice any noise, but they didn't last very long and like you mentioned straight line dry traction was pretty limited.

My mom has a 2002 WS6 Trans-Am with a Vortech S/C on it. She runs the Firestone Wide Ovals in a 275/40-17, and I can second that they are great all around tires.

They will almost hook it in first gear (475 RWHP), are quiet, and were good for 20K or so on her car. No problems with wet traction.

If you are opposed to a drag radial, they would be a good choice. Goodyear makes a couple great offerings as well.

I've never had much of anything be useful in first gear until I went to a drag radial of some kind. I ran ET street radials for awhile and really liked their streetability. Rock solid at any speed, and I actually forgot they were there most of the time when driving around.

I got caught in the rain with them once or twice and didn't have any problems.

I wouldn't expect more than 5-7K out of them though.

I run a nitto drag radial now. As long as I've been driving the car for a few minutes and they are warmed up a bit, they'll hook the car in first gear. I haven't worn them out yet, but I would expect 10-15K out of them.

Ya, that's some pretty bad air for the Rock. In the cooler months seeing negative DA out there is pretty normal.

It's still for sale, but I'm not advertising it at all.

Unfortunately, my girl friend had a baby on the 12th so the car will most likely have to go away.

Before anyone test drives the car or anything I want to put a catch can on it and button up a couple other things. Once those things are done (I think I can get it squared away in the coming weeks, I took 3 weeks off from work for the birth of the kid, hopefully I can find time in there to work on the car) I'll start to advertise it more agressively.

If anyone on the guru is interested, 10K takes it home. I'll deliver it anywhere on the East coast for free.

On my 91 (so it might be different on your car) there is a bolt on the back of block in that area that a ground strap is hooked to. That bolt hole hits oil. With no sealant or anything on the bolt, mine leaked like crazy. I ended up taking the wiper motor out to get access to the bolt, removed the bolt, cleaned it, cleaned the hole, put some silicone on the bolt, and re-installed. I'm leak free now.

When I swapped to the AFR heads on my car, it leaned me out a good amount. I realize your a MAF car VS my speed density, but that is what I would guess is going on. Leaning out some, coupled with the load of WOT in high gear, is probably causing the ECU to pull timing. Do you have any data logging gear?

Even after you have a shop tune it, data logging the car at the track is always a good idea. I don't know of a shop in the NC area that has an eddy current dyno, so you're probably going to get a tune based of the way a dynojet loads the motor. It's still going to be great, and be way better than it is now, but the load it will see on the dyno is different that it will see going down the track, so data logging it (at least in the beginning) is a good idea.

Good luck with it. PM me the next time you are heading out the track. Jonecap and I hit Rockingham and Nam all the time.

Also Lc1vette from the other forum built a bad ass turbo set up for his 96 CE. He works for a speed shop in NC now, you might consider contacting him. I'm sure he would be a big help in the turbo C4 arena.

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I disagree with this as well when it comes to a turbo build on a C4. I think he should turbo the stock motor, get all the bugs worked out, figure out how to tune it, and become familliar with the set up. That way, he isn't learning to tune the thing on his $5000 bottom end.

Get it all sorted with the stocker. If the stocker survives it, great. If not, you didn't blow up your new mill.

If you keep the boost low (sub 5-6) PSI, and you don't get any detonation/knock, it stands a chance of lasting for awhile.

The vast majority that do what you are contemplating end up ruining the motor. They all say the same thing in the beginning too, "I'll keep the boost low, it'll be fine." Eventually, they get a bad tank of gas, get greedy with the boost, or the motor just lets go.

However, if you aren't adverse to building a motor, I think you should go for it.

You might consider a 355 instead of the 383 for forced induction. It's easier to keep the wrist pin out of the ring pack, I think the piston speeds are better, etc... Just run 2 more PSI of boost to make up for the power difference between the 355 and the 383.

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Yes.

I put the tester on my daily driver and the same thing happened. For the time being I'm going to treat it as normal.

I left the tester on it over night, and after 24 hours the system still had 6 PSI in it.

The car was stone cold. It had sat overnight, so the temperature of the coolant didn't change throughout the test.

I have two stock half shafts that I don't need. They have been gone over with a brass wire wheel, so they are ready for polish or paint.

$120 plus shipping for the pair.

If you'd like, I can add in heavy duty U-joints for $30 per shaft. If you want, I'll install them before I ship the shafts.

I pressurized the cooling system in my 91 with a coolant system tester. The system dropped from 19 PSI to 12 PSI in one hour. There are no visible leaks. Should I be worried about an internal leak?

I have bought a couple things from Skip White with no complaints. I got some valve covers once that were damaged and they sent me a new set with relatively little drama. I wouldn't steer someone away from them.

As far as scat/eagle; both are at the budget end of the spectrum, and I don't feel there is a ton of difference. I had a scat crank in my LTX 383 car a few years ago, and have an Eagle crank in my current 383. No problems either way.

You didn't mention peak RPM or power level, those could affect the choice, but as long as you aren't doing anything outside the norm, I don't think you'll have a problem.

I don't know. I've never had a drive shaft made before, so I don't have a basis for comparison. It seemed like a good deal to me, Denny's wants $200 a piece for their aluminum ones. These should be stronger than those, for almost the same price.

I asked about just balancing my aluminum ones, and they would do that for $120 a shaft. That seemed pretty high to me, but maybe it's a more involved process that I realize. That puts the bulk of the expense in the balancing, not the construction of the shafts.

Do you mind checking with your drive shaft builder and getting a price? The shafts are about 20 inches long and take 1350 series yokes. If he will do them for less money I'll buy them from him instead of the shop I'm working with now.

I talked to the shop again today. If we can get 5 people to go in (that'll let them build 10 shafts) they will do them for $424 plus shipping per pair.

They will come balanced, and have heavy duty spicer U-joints installed.

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That is great. I'll dig around and see if I can come up with a GM part number for the steel shafts. I doubt they are still available from GM, but that atleast gives me a starting point. Thanks man!

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The steel ones should be stronger. I don't have any empirical data as to how much stronger steel is than aluminum; I can't tell you that at XXX torque the aluminum shafts will fail and the steel will handle XXX+. I don't know if anyone could tell you that. I think it's common knowledge that steel is stronger than aluminum, but I can't think of an appropriate way to quantify it in this situation.

If jeffvette is correct, and GM did use steel half shafts in certain cars, that would indicate to me that at some point GM was worried about the strength of the aluminum shafts in cars with stock power. That alone is enough to get me thinking about using steel shafts; couple that with the fact that I've broken two aluminum half shafts (with moderate power, 415 RWHP) and making the move to steel shafts makes sense to me.

However, assuming jeffvette is correct, GM could have been moving from steel to aluminum to save weight on the shafts. It might not have been a strength issue at all. I've never heard of steel shafts in a stock car before, maybe jeffvette can tell us what the intent was behind certain cars having aluminum and others having steel.

I didn't know you could get a steel half shaft from GM. On my car the shafts are aluminum. Maybe you are confusing the half shaft with the outer stub axle? The outer stubs are steel in all C4's. Here's a pic of a half shaft, and a pic of how I keep breaking them. I have broken 2 in this manner, and I'm hoping that steel replacements will hold up better.

If I can get some more people to go in on it with me, and the shop can do a run of more than two, the cost will go down.

The round O-ring will stretch around the cap. Slide it over the cap with the cap on the bench. Then start the screws that hold the cap down. Then slip the O-ring off the cap down onto the housing. It'll stay in place that way.

I had a wicked experience with an MSD opti in 2006/2007. I hadn't heard that they owned up to a mistake though, so maybe mine was one of the bad units.

If there is an interest in steel half shafts, I think I can round some up. If there is enough interest we might be able to get some kind of group deal going.

Right now, they would be about $500 plus shipping a pair.

The red stuff on the threads is an anti-galling compound, not a thread sealant.

The directions that come with the sensor will tell you that you need to use a thread sealant of some kind because the manufacturer did not install thread sealant, only anti-galling compound.

Your convinced that the hinges changed because a kit you bought on E-bay came with 2 different sized bushing?

Did I miss something? Or are you basing this off just an E-bay sale?