I told myself I would not do anything to this car, well I lied I guess and I'm going to start the process of making it a little more interesting.

Im starting with increased diameter sway bars, sport suspension upper arms, and a tune to sharpen it up a little. New brakes will be installed at this point to increase bite. I'll post once I have everything on the car and any improvements

Next will be long tubes and main cat deletes and electronic dumps right past the headers with otherwise stock exhaust. There will be some changes to other systems mainly the induction system will be getting deeply ported and I'm going to have a custom intake snorkel made to swap in place of the factory one. Oh and larger rims/tires to get at least a 245 track width

I already have a second engine on the way for the final phase, I'm calculating what valves and springs are needed for the desired redline still but the stock crank combined with much better rods from Manley and pistons from JE will be used to reach the 7500-8000 goal I have in mind. I am not at decided on cams since that will come after I have the heads heavily ported and flow tested to see what their curve is like so the cams can be cut to match them. I'll also be making sure the stock type timing component bearings can withstand my intended redline. I am hoping for 300 CFM peak with a 230-280 average for 80% valve overall lift but I have no idea what these heads are going to be able to do and I doubt I'm going to be seeing Chevy/mopar numbers out of them. I am also going to calculate the VVT swing to make sure it doesn't cause valves to hit and install limiters if needed ala HEMI style.

My rational for this is simple, the trans will not need to be built up since peak TQ is not going to increase much and power up top will be decent. This will be far easier than the last project I did simply due to the lack of a need to mess with a trans/T-case/diff

The goal is to slightly exceed the power of the GSF and reach a 0-60 of no more than 4.0 seconds and a 0-100 of no more than 10

 

How much of these parts have you already sourced?

 

Tune, engine, rods, pistons, bushings, sways, upper arms. Machine shop has been told to take it slow since this is very low priority right now overall with my other life occurrences lol!

Working on rims I like that can accept the desired tire size. Ordering a spare intake tube later today to start messing around so I can have one custom made once I figure out the dimensions

 

What year and package do you have? When you get to doing the stabilizer bars, can you measure the old ones with a micrometer and see if there is a part # stamped on it, or what part # you think it is? And which stabilizer bars are you replacing them with (and their measurements)?

I'm also curious how you will be redesigning the engine air intake - are you designing it for aesthetics, or reengineering the fluid dynamics/airflow turbulence/cfm, or just relocating it to accommodate other mods?

Sounds very interesting!

 

2002 base model (literally zero options except sunroof), I'll measure old vs new and list the maker provided they fit without me needing to play with them.

The actual intake will be ported deeply by my machine shop to increase port cross section and smooth out flow and the intake snorkel will be altered/custom made to increase the air that makes it to the air box at the expense of noise and vibration with it being actually redesigned and tested in a wind tunnel to 150 mph simulated. No additional clearance will be needed for anything since it's a pure NA build

I've already learned it's a total pain to add on forced induction/extra coolers/an oil accumulator to an engine that doesn't have one factory since you are forced to relocate stuff to other areas and it becomes a nightmare at times. Not doing it again. The fuel system on the other car was insanely annoying to setup since it went from a 3/8 returnless to a 3/4 inch feed and 1/2 inch return with the 3/4 spitting to two 1/2 inch for each rail with a boost referenced regulator piped to the intake. All the while having to be safe and route somewhere sane to meet fueling demands of the 8 90lb/hour injectors on E85

 

Have you thought about the Tom's supercharger kit? Hard to find but they do include a modified ecu with the kit. It may come out to be cheaper than a high revving NA build? I know you said you dont like having to add extra coolers and modifying the fuel system but I think the Tom's kit is bolt on.

 

I did look at it but it's not going to hit the power goal I want nor will it have the character of an NA engine. It's also way harder to play with a forced induction system fueling wise since you have to fight intake pressure with the fuel pump to keep the injectors at a known PSI for the ECU to accurately control fuel and the toms kit only has a map to 350hp so it would then fall to me to figure out something to get it past that without pressure falloff. I am trying to only alter the actual engine this time instead of having to change most of the car

 

Striker, good luck! Will be learning a lot from your build. any plans to obtain the ECU from Russian tech company?

 

So I like your style, but the only thing that I worry about is the transmission taking the abuse. Sure torque may not go up, but fluid temp will because you will be driving it harder. So maybe a 2nd trans cooler (after the radiator) would be a good idea. You want to do it after the radiator because trans fluid that is too cold isnt good either. Use the heat from the rad to get it to operating temp.

 

Its on its way as we speak, I'm hoping he can figure out the final tune as well since it being an NA build will be fairly simple.....I hope.

 

Yep, going to place it in the cavity up front with possibly an oil cooler as well but I'll see if it will need that since I don't plan on tracking it. I have never had an issue with AN based oil coolers but I will admit I'm always nervous about having any oil lines on a car

If it blows a trans.....well $550 and 4 hours fixes that issue. Same story for the rear diff from an overheat, that will be getting a cooler only if absolutely needed since it would require a one off diff cover with fitting a for a cooler to be made.

I would be surprised though since I have already flogged the hell out of it and have had no fluid deterioration issues

 

I'm leaning this way for cams right now, doesn't require too much crazy changes and should get me what I want.

https://www.kelfordcams.com/global/c...shaft-set.html

The springs for these engines are so cute compared to domestic V8 hardware, the upgraded springs have 80lb seat pressure and I'm used to seeing 130+ lol!

https://www.lextreme.com/forums/inde...e-ported.4428/

The heads are concerning though, .300 lift is extremely low compared to what I'm used to and the flow numbers look like garbage stock. I'm hoping it can at least hit .400 and 250 cfm on a stock casting without cracking risks. Gonna likely buy a extra set of heads to play with so we can figure out how far they can be cut before doing the final pair. I'm not used to dealing with such small heads though and I have no idea what the port velocity is going to look like and I don't want to kill it on accident. Gonna be a fun time since this a new world for me, I'll have to remember that the engine is very small so lower numbers but high velocity will be fine. I'm used to 6.0+ size engines that flow 300 at .600 lift though so it's strange seeing those figures

 

Yea I run a 600 lift cam in my ls1 with pac1218's, but I guess thats a DOHC vs pushrod engine difference? If/when my fbody fails me that engine/trans may end up in this ls430 LOL, unless 4th gen prices rise, but that wont happen for another 15 years.

$1600 for cams is a tough pill to swallow for probably 30hp.

 

Tell me about it. I was *****ing about my $650 billet cam (246@.50 .589lift) for my Mopar V8 but it more than doubled the stock flow, this multi cam stuff is gonna hurt price wise. I'm praying with the heads worked over and 8k rpm cams that the 4.3L worth of engine moves enough air below 3k rpm it won't be a dog and the heads keep up past 6k to allow the power to happen.

Not going to be an easy time relatively speaking for sure, an LS engine in one of these would objectively be a better choice but then again it kinda ruins the car

 

LS engine with 1000 ponies mated to a built 4l60E would make that LS430 a dependable screamer....