Upping The Intake On Our Chevy LQ4 Motor - Horsepower S13, E2

weeks ago the horsepower guys stepped up to the challenge of building a solid 6 liter ls motor for a bare bones budget of 2 grand but phase 1 was just the beginning [Music] after hitting our mark in the first stage and making 386 horsepower last week in stage two we added a hotter cam beehive springs and 185 roller rockers plumbing the power number up to 411. so now we got a fresh motor with new internals and well even a upgraded valve train we can stop right now and have a pretty stout street engine but we're not you see in this phase we're going to see how much air and fuel we can cram into it yep it's all about the intake the stock lsefi intake was a major milestone for gm with good performance for the street but leave it to those gear heads in the aftermarket to make a good thing even better before we install it though we've got to replace these stock valley pad boats with tall heads for the supply butt head bolts it'll give us a little more room this fast lsx intake has a 92 millimeter throttle body opening more plenum volume and longer runners that are tapered for more power right out of the box now this isn't a compliment the comp cams camshaft we already installed and any other components we plan on throwing to this motor later on we're going to use these injectors from fast they are a 24 pound just like the factory one one of the differences it's taller and they create better fuel atomization thanks to four holes in the tip compared to two in the stock injector that's like turning a hose into a pressure washer we're also using a set of their high flow billet aluminum fuel rails now these things have been anodized red and the main benefit is the larger internal diameter which has been designed to dampen the injector pulse and give you more fuel volume you know what happens all the time in performance builds one upgrade requires another in our case in order to introduce more air into our fast intake we need a bigger mouth throttle body i guess that's why they call this one the big mouth it's made especially for our 92 millimeter intake in addition to more throttle control it's got thicker blades to eliminate deflection and beefed up linkage for precise throttle control and that's it for our upgrade from walmart our salvation army hats and our little pails let's hope it makes a pail full of horsepower i love fuel injection stuff plug and play plug and play almost got a half inch to go and i could always weld a little extension plate onto it when in delt drill it out a little more a little more close open good unless you reprogram your efi computer to work with your aftermarket parts it's kind of like trying to drive a race car with square tires now the guys at howell programmed ours before last week's cam swap and that should work well with our new intake but in case it doesn't they also sent us this one which has a richer tune hey you ready ready heard up uh [Music] things moving some damn air [Music] can you hear that warming up the motor and giving the computer time to get acquainted with our upgrades we can see how our first date on the dyno goes way down on power way down all right here we go again it's going away fast the more you run it the worse it gets so far it's kind of like getting the cold shoulder bigger cam rocker arms intake we lost 100 horsepower maybe even like getting a slap in the face damn it man hey we don't take rejection easily time to make a different move using the second computer and it'll take our engine's timing up about 10 degrees all right i'm gonna make one yes sir yeah yes sir now yes sir that's it all right 29 430 horsepower 405 foot-pounds of torque on the first pole and with the computer it's just going to keep learning those parameters and get in sync and really really get tuned in here by itself that's exactly what happened run after run until the motor and computer got thoroughly friendly 514 481 consistent very nice should be a fun little street motor yeah you heard it right 514 horsepower and that's 128 over our baseline a few weeks ago money-wise well about five grand for motor parts everything another way to look at it about 10 bucks a horsepower and that's a good deal any day you happy we just made 514 horsepower with our lq4 on the dyno on premium pump gas now taking its place is our trusty 383 mule motor for a first time fuel test with e85 we use this 383 to test bang for the buck benefits of everything from carbs and camps to intakes and headers and today for its baseline 459 horsepower on premium pump gas but will it make more power burning e85 well that's something we're gonna find out here in a few minutes now as you know e85 is 85 ethanol 15 gasoline now while there's a lot of talk going on these days about its pros and cons here are some fast facts that may get you back on track about e85 ethanol blended gasoline has proven to reduce emissions while enhancing engine performance for weekend racers e85 is a less expensive version of high octane clean burning race fuel for high compression street machines fuel mileage will be lower but so is the price per gallon at the pump [Applause] right now our goal is to make this small block a motor that runs on e85 by making a few cheap modifications to this holley 750 carburetor to get us there we ordered this conversion kit from rob mix services and e85 carbs.com now because the 85 burns faster more fuel has to flow through the carburetor so all the little pieces in this kit were designed with that mission in mind like larger jets needle and seat power valve and billet metering blocks the first thing you want to do is remove the bowls and metering blocks from your car if you have jet extensions on the secondary block which we don't go ahead and remove them so you can reuse them otherwise the entire block is history next remove the four screws that hold the accelerator pump carefully peel the old diaphragm off and keep the spring making sure the mating surface is clean install the new diaphragm using the spring from your old pump and tighten the screws in a cross pattern i replaced the diaphragms in our carburetor because they came new in the kit but here's something to check out the new diaphragm is made up of a gflt alcohol resistant rubber now if you have an older style carburetor you could have a black rubber diaphragm like this which the alcohol will eat right through and you don't even need to take it apart to find it all you need to do is look at the gasket overhang now even though it's hard to tell the new needle and seat is a little larger now remove the rubber gasket and replace it with a nylon one reinstall the needle and seat and the lock down screw which also gets a nylon after following the same steps on the other fuel bowl you're ready to convert the metering block over to e85 which only involves four steps and the first one is installing the power valve the new jets are next and you can actually see how much larger they are than the stock try to use a jet tool to install the jet if you use a flat blade screwdriver you can actually damage it we need to change the idle restrictors to larger ones from the kit and change the position of the emulsion programming plugs since the block was set up for gasoline remove the stock shooters and replace them with the higher flowing ones from the kit now you can reinstall the metering blocks and the fuel bowl back onto the main body now with the fuel bowl make sure the actuator arm is above the pump lever the carburetor is done but you're not to complete this conversion in your vehicle you may need to make some modifications to your fuel system like having a pump that's compatible with the 85 and can flow up to 30 percent more fuel plus the lines need to be either stainless steel or rubber with a liner that's compatible with the e85 after setting the floats they recommend setting the idle adjustment screws one and a half turns off the seated position ready get it the motor not only fired right up and ran noticeably cooler and surprisingly required no tuning before our first full run working better pretty good after giving the motor a total of five degrees more timing we were making 12 foot-pounds of torque and almost 18 horsepower more than we made with gasoline 477 over 459. pretty impressive here's a graph that compares e85 with the solid lines to gasoline with broken lines green is torque white's horsepower and notice how those power curves are identical except for the performance gains with e85 and down here this is fuel consumption and well as expected we consumed about 24 percent more with our e85 a little bit of water yeah our kit from e85 carbs.com set us back 295 dollars and they've got kits for any size carb got to point out that e85 absorbs water quickly so it's only recommended for vehicles that are driven on a regular basis modifying a fuel-injected engine is a little more difficult there's a few extra steps and you have to get the computer recalibrated oh one more thing when we went to get our e85 fuel today it was less than half the cost of regular gas at 86 cents a gallon hey welcome back as the oldest kids on the power block horsepower is now into its 13th year believe it or not and from day one heads up grassroots racing has been part of our game plan now that hasn't changed but what has is the amazing speed quickness and record times of some of these race cars [Music] they called it the nmca bachelor streetcar series back in the late 90s and the top dogs were pro street icons like tony christian and his 1957 chef i look to go uh hope it goes in the 470 area somewhere that equates to about a 7 30. here's a 1997 race in bowling green kentucky where tony wins with a 479 at 151 miles an hour same year at rockingham tony's longtime rival pat musi sets a series record with a 471 in his old green camaro you must feel pretty good right now real good yeah hey let's see him beat me that's all i got to say pat beat his own flow this time but the winning run times of streetcar racing would change dramatically during the years that followed year 2005 the place huntsville dragway horsepower's first tv taste of eight foul racing courtesy of the outlaw streetcar racing association but we were impressed with the bad burnouts the wow reel stands and the close heads up shootouts it was also an historic visit outlaw 105 racer terry robbins unloaded his knifeless camaro and became the first in this class to break into the 440s one year later tim lynch brings his turbocharged mustang to the horsepower orska finals and runs a remarkable 4 36. we knew it was possible we weren't sure the track was there for and the conditions were here for it well here we are in the 08 finals several racers run in the 420s but as they say wait there's more same event round two of qualifying and chuck ulch in the left lane runs an unbelievable backed up et of 4 18. they've uh they've definitely set the bar for outlaw 105 racing and far none in outlaw racing the quest for quickness will be a never-ending endeavor build on a budget horsepower projects that save you time and money you know we're pretty fortunate to have a big collection of matco tools here in our shop but hey let's be real unless you do this for a living you're not going to have every tool for every job that comes along so we've come up with some ways that you can make do by making it yourself for example most of you probably don't have the special tool needed to install the radiator hose adapter onto an electric water pump so what you end up doing is using a pair of channel locks and scaring up the anodized finish like this one the manufacturer makes a tool to fit inside these little holes but with all the different sizes who can afford that you can make your own though and it involves using a piece of half inch bar stock and a couple of dowel pins first insert the dowel pins into the adapter then protect the part with a piece of tape now hold the bar stock up to the dowels and tack them together add a little paint and you've got a cool custom made tool to install or uninstall radiator hose adapters and electric water pumps and best of all your new part stays nice and shiny under the hood let's say your motor's got a weak cylinder here you know you're getting sparked to it but you don't know where the problem really is well you could spend 100 bucks on a professional leak down test kit or make a poor man's version you take an old spark plug that fits the engine and knock off the outer porcelain then turn it over and pull off the ground strap then chisel out the rest of the porcelain leaving only the outer shell then after welding an air fitting to it you're ready for a leak down check and this firebirds motor is a perfect candidate it belongs to the muscle car guys and it let go in a big way during a recent road test i think we killed it so we know this motor is hurt we just don't know exactly where hopefully though with the help of our new homemade tool we'll find out we'll start here with the cylinder where we really suspect a problem then we turn the engine over until the piston in question is at top dead center on the compression stroke then we attach the hose to our modified plug now look and listen if there's air coming out of the valve cover it's probably a piston ring and well this cylinder is obviously showing the symptom now if you're air coming out of the exhaust outlet it's likely to be a leaky exhaust valve and well sounds like we may have one of those too now if you hear air coming out of the carb it could be a leaking intake valve and well that's one thing that isn't wrong with this motor well it looks like our poor man's lead down tester works add the cost a one dollar air fitting and one retired spark plug there's nothing worse than digging through a nasty tool box looking for the right drill bit and we all know that the drill bit index boxes don't last but a week so here's something i did in my own shop it's easy and i'll keep you organized get a piece of two inch square tubing and make a mark down one side lay out the drill bits for spacing then using the line as a reference drill a pilot hole let the bit find its home and drill deep enough to create a dimple to hold it upright you can paint it any color to match your shop then you can get creative and make some legs either way you're repurposing a bunch of old parts to laying around your shop very cool and we can call it the bit buddy i like it like that man what a day we've had in the shop 514 horsepower with our ls motor we made a budget friendly e85 conversion oh and made some handy tools for next to nothing what else could you ask for maybe another show next week we'll see you then the bit buddy

Channel: Gunpowder & Gasoline

Views: 122,877

Keywords: powerblock, horsepower, air intake, engine build, Chevy LQ4, motor build, chevy engine, E-85 carb conversion

Id: 04NAYG6MiO0

Length: 18min 2sec (1082 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 14 2020