1985 Monte Carlo SS known as Barney

[Ben@SpeedTech]

sounds like the progress is winning, and learning new stuff is a good thing!

[SSLance]

It's the little truck engine that defies Hot Rodding logic...but I like it!!

I strapped Barney to a chassis dyno once again yesterday and made some pulls to test and verify that the changes I made this winter helped...and I'm happy to report that they did. The peak HP and Torque numbers didn't change that much since the last time I had it on the dyno 2 years ago, I lost a couple of peak Ft Lbs and gained about 15 peak HP. The big difference though is between 4000-5000 RPM I picked up around 25 HP and around 15 Ft Lbs and the overall Torque and HP curves are much flatter and more consistent completely across the board. This backs up what my butt dyno had been feeling since the upgrades.

To catch everyone up, what I changed to accomplish this was pull the 30 year old carb, distributor and CCC ECM from the car and replaced them with a mechanical Q-jet, MSD Billet Distributor and a MSD 6AL Programmable ignition box. The new parts help feed and spark it better on the top end which is an area it sorely needed help in.

What was interesting to me was the timing changes we made during the 6 pulls. We started out with the total timing at 34* all in at 2800 RPMs. We made 2 pulls and liked what we saw, there was no pinging and the engine pulled strong all the way to 5500 RPM. Just to see what would happen, I took 1 degree of timing out...and it picked up about 5 HP across the board!! So I took another degree of timing out (now at 32*) and made another pull...this time it picked up another 2-3 HP across the board. What the heck, lets try one more...put it at 31* still all in at 2800 RPM and it picked up another 1-2 HP once again across the board. Air Fuels were steady at 11.75-12.25 all the way through every pull. We left it there at 31*. That's where it made the most power but more importantly, it's a very happy engine there...and safe.

We made 6 pulls within a half hour stopping only to examine the chart and adjust the timing between each pull and the engine never got hot enough to kick the electric fans on (we did have the floor fan pushing air into the front of the car). What I have here is a rock solid stump pulling engine that puts 300 HP and 400 Ft Lbs to the rear tires just about across the board that is very comfortable in daily driving situations and can light the tires up at will or run great times on course...without skipping a beat or getting hot. I love it.

The dyno printer was malfunctioning so I didn't get an official printout of the graph, so I took some pictures of it with my phone. This picture shows the whole screen but has flash glare right in the center of it. The blue line was the best pull from 2 years ago and the red line is the best pull from yesterday.



This one shows the curves a bit better



Here's a video of the last pull of the day.



I the left the shop and took the car to the fab shop to let them get started on the roll bar installation. Hopefully in a week or so I'll get it back and can start putting the interior back in the car again to get it ready for our first event April 11th...

[Ben@SpeedTech]

That's some good figures there for a not so radical motor. Nice.

[waynieZ]

You should notice a nice difference on the course with the improvements.

[SSLance]

Thanks Ben, I agree... It also got 14.8 mpg on the first tank after upgrades...with me beating the snot out of it just about the whole time.

I agree Wayne, I can already tell where it helped the most just by street driving it.

I still have a set of 1.6:1 roller rockers to put on it as well which should help a little bit more across the board.

[SSLance]

Originally Posted by SSLance

I got the ShineSeal kit in, I ordered the Master Kit which is says is good for 80 sq ft. Here it is along with the diapers I'll use for applying the sealer and the microfiber towels for polishing.





The bottle on the left is their Bio Cleaner which I mixed 1 oz with 16 oz of water in the spray bottle. This is used to clean the metal surface of any contaminants before the sealer is applied.

The Metal Sealer is the bottle second from the left, this acts and works very much like Sharkhide. It's the sealer that gets rock hard and protects the aluminum from anything penetrating it. The third bottle from the left is the Slick Finish, this may be what separates this kit from the other aluminum finishes on the market. It goes on like a wax but you don't let it dry on the surface you just keep polishing on it until it is all taken back off of the metal. It's the cat's meow... The 4th bottle from the left is a Brite Shine Metal polish that you use should you ever need to clean the Metal Sealer back off of the aluminum. I guess if you ever wanted to polish a shine back onto the surface you'd clean the sealer off with this, then polish, then reapply.

I cleaned the outsides and the insides of all 6 wheels with the Bio Cleaner and a microfiber towel. This wasn't a big deal in my case because I had just polished all of these wheels with Mother's Billet polish so they were already what I'd call very clean but the directions said to so I did.

I then used a diaper to apply the sealer to the outsides of all 6 wheels. It goes on kind of like Rain-X, is very solvent smelling, and is tacky and kind of hard to tell if you are getting an even coat on, especially in all of the nooks and crannies most wheels have. I'd much recommend anyone that is doing this project to have the wheels off of the car laying flat and everything that can be taken out of the way (center caps etc) off the wheels as well. Once I was fairly sure that all of the outside surfaces had a good coat on them, I flipped the wheels over and coated the hoops on the inside. I didn't spend the time or materials to do the back sides of the spokes as they'll never be seen. Then it had to dry and set up. I ended up letting them set for about 24 hours. You can tell if it's not set up by running your finger on the surface, if it smears...it still needs more time.

After BioClean, before Sealer



Same wheel after Sealer applied but not dry yet.




Brand new wheel before Sealer



Same wheel after sealer



All 6 caps...can you tell which two are brand new?





This morning I went out to see if the sealer was dry, and it was...so I set about applying the Slick Finish. Before the Slick finish, the surfaces were kind of tacky...well not tacky but your finger still stuck to it just a bit as you drug it across. The Slick Finish goes on pretty easy and you just apply it and polish it back off working in small areas as you go along. It turns that somewhat sticky surface into a smooth as glass almost Chrome like finish. It is unbelievable... It also lets you polish smooth the top layer of the sealer if there were any areas where you got the sealer a bit too thick. Those areas showed up after the first coat of slick finish is applied and polished out and you just go back over them with a bit more Slick Finish and a clean microfiber and it polishes the surface out super smooth. This is the step that really finishes off this process nice and I believe it HAS to make the surfaces of the wheels MUCH easier to maintain nice looking. The highly polished areas of the wheels feel just like a chrome surface now.

After I was certain the outsides of all of the wheels were as polished as I could get them I flipped them over and applied the slick finish to the insides of the hoops as well. Probably over kill and unnecessary but remember my goal is to get these wheels as maintenance free as I could get them and that includes keeping the insides of the hoops as nice looking as they can be kept as well.

Here is a close up of a used wheel done...Sorry, it's taken with my phone but again, it'll have to do for now.



The camera makes it looks more scratched than it is...to the eye they look pretty dern good.

Here is a new wheel all done...



As you can see it looks great. I wouldn't hesitate to put this treatment on any brand new aluminum wheel...in fact, I'd recommend that you do apply it to your new wheels as soon as you can. The product does nothing to the shine of a billet wheel except protect it and keep it great looking much easier.


Plenty of Bio Cleaner left over which they say you can also use to clean the wheels with now to maintain them, probably enough Metal Sealer to do the outsides of the wheels one more time, the Slick finish it's hard to see but there is still lots of it left also, I barely used any out of the bottle and never even opened the Brite Shine Metal polish.


Later on after I've driven with the wheels and got them dirty a few times I'll revisit and update with how they have held up. I think it's gonna be good though, it HAS to be better than maintaining just the bare billet aluminum.

A year with over 4,000 street miles, several races and road trips in heavy rain, even a day on wet roads with salt residue on them...and the only maintenance has been the occasional rinse off at the car wash and wipe down with a microfiber towel.












They aren't perfect...they've got some crust in the nooks and crannies and some surface scratches in them...but ZERO water spots and still look pretty damn good considering the abuse I put them through in the last year. Yes...I'd use ShineSeal again on any billet rims I own.

[WSSix]

Nice! I'd be happy with those results, too.

[glassman]

Yeah Lance they do still look great. I'd def go this route if i'd kept my Billet's (if only they were wider....lol).

So this is a very similar technology (nano-coatings) we use in the shower door coating biz....works very well...i had never thought of putting a "coating" on the rims (although i've been putting rain-x on autoglass since the 80's)....

[SSLance]

While I'm certain there are pro-touring or street cars out there on the road with roll bars or cages that are more significant than this one turned out, I'm also certain that there are cars out on the road and track today with roll bars\cages that are not as safe and secure as this one turned out. There are also other cars out there that are doing track days and such that probably should have a roll bar or cage in them...but don't because the owners don't want to make the changes necessary to put a safety device such as this in their street car. I respect all of those owners decisions...it isn't easy making a modification this drastic to ones car. In fact, I had planned this whole thing out...and then promptly bailed...deciding to not make the change myself. I then stumbled on a great deal on the seats you see here...and it was on again.

This is a 1.75" dia, 0.120" wall 4 point roll bar with a diagonal cross bar and a harness bar. The feet of the main hoop are welded to plates that are welded to the floor of the car directly above a structural floor brace that is also right above where the #4 body mounts connect the frame to the body.

Here is one of the main hoop base plates



and in this picture you can see where the welding burnt through the paint on the bottom side of the floor in front of the brace. This shows the location of the base plate directly over the body mount area.



The down bars are straight and go back to the rear seat back area where they are welded to plates that are welded to the body structure directly in front of the #5 body mount. It's harder to get clear pictures here, but the body structure behind the plates is where the trunk floor meets the seat back brace and is directly over the frame just in front of the body mount.

Here is the base plate



And it this picture from the inner fenderwell you can see where the weld burnt through the paint not only on the fender well but also the bottom of the body just in front of the mount.



These cars are built with the body being the main support for the somewhat flimsy frames, not a whole lot different than a typical unibody car. What this bar does is just strengthen that unibody significantly while providing rollover protection as well as a proper shoulder harness mounting location. I'm very happy with how it turned out.

Here are some pictures of the inside. My good friend John bent up some sheet metal based on some cardboard templates I gave him to build a package tray with. This picture shows them in place. I'll eventually have matching carpet that will go from the rear speaker tray down to the floor finishing this area out nicely.







And also a few with the seats reinstalled once again





Just got the interior all buttoned back in place a few hours ago. I'm having some packaging issues getting the 5 point harnesses mounted the way I want...but there is now a plan in place and that still might happen before my two autocross events next weekend. If not, the factory 3 point belt actually fits me very well in these seats.

BTW, I've really grown to liking these seats. You fall down into them and don't move once there and they are very ergonomically correct which makes them very comfortable for a one piece fiberglass seat without a ton of padding. Eventually I'll look into getting them recovered a burgundy color but they'll do like this for now. Now, crawling back out of them, that's another story... I need a grab bar or something to help pull me back out of them when exiting the car.

[DavidBoren]

Great build, sir. I love that you are doing it right (ie. working with Ron Sutton). And the progression in stages with the results of the season at each stage is awesome. I also really like how you and Ron explain the changes you made, and you can verify the benefits with seat time. Thank you for such a thorough build thread.

Nice rollbar, by the way. Car looks really good.