John Bzdel's LS1/T56 Monte Carlo SS

John Bzdel's

1988 Monte Carlo SS

LS1/T56 Change-over page

January 2002 Project Updates

Camshaft, intake & pulley final installation
Everything went back together just fine after receiving the new timing chain cover and pressing in the new seal. The motor fired right up!

After doing an idle re-learn and tweaking the MAFT to richen the A/F mixture a bit since it appeared to be running a little leaner after the cam and intake installation I dynoed the car again at Turbo Technology Inc .

Of the four runs made on the dyno the best run netted 331 RWHP & 318 RWTQ

This run represents an increase of 31 RWHP and 3 RWTQ from the last dyno session so overall since the motor was first installed I have picked up 44 RWHP and 18 RWTQ without touching the stock exhaust system! The new total RWHP of 331 equates about 390 flywheel HP so I think you can tell what needs to be improved next (EXHAUST!).

So how does the car feel with 31 extra RWHP? Very strong, especially on the top end. You'll notice that on this graphic comparison between the last dyno run and this one that all of the newly found horsepower (blue line) is higher in RPM range than the stock cam right up to the rev limiter which is currently set at ~6200RPM. It's interesting to also note that even though I lost a small amount of torque below 4700RPM (probably due to the larger plenum volume of the LS6 intake more so than the camshaft), the motor is just relentless on the tires in 1st gear.....as a matter of fact once the motor hits the higher RPM range in 1st gear the tires will break loose at only ~75% throttle now on dry pavement :>)

Neutral Safety Switch
I spent all of about 20 minutes connecting the wires to the neutral safety switch on the clutch pedal. I'm not sure why I waited so long to do this but it's complete now and works just like it's supposed to! I should have taken a picture while I had everything apart but I forgot so I tried to take one with all of the steering column wiring re-installed. It's a bit dark and blurred but your can see that the necessary wire to splice into (denoted by the red arrow) is the thick 12 gauge purple wire which comes out of the blue connector attached to the topside of the steering column ignition switch. This wire goes to the starter solenoid and is labeled 3PPL in the Monte Carlo Service Manual.

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