My First Hot Rod

[Darin Morgan]

Ordered the cam, Titanium retainer and Titanium locks along with the 26918 beehive springs today.

Comp 222° 236° at .050 114LSA .566 gross lift. The 1.8 rockers will bring the lift up to .599. The Ti locks and retainers will make up for the increased mass of the high ratio rocker arms. I have always been a fan of increased valve velocity using rocker arm ratio when RPM allows instead of putting the majority of lift at the lobe. Dyno testing has always shown me this to be a better way to go. I will make plans to install all this and get it on the dyno when summer arrives. Right now its cold, rainy and freezing here from day to day so I have no ambition to work on my car.

[litle88]

Hello Mr. Morgan, I have a few questions if I may. I am new to this vvt stuff and have Been told different things by different shops.
1. Will you be using stock heads and doing cam only first?

2. Will you be using the 4 "mechanical" lifters?

3. If you are do you think they will last?

4. Which cam phaser will you be using?

I know the L99 folks on this board would appreciate the cam only results. I know I would greatly appreciate it if you can answer some of my questions.

Thanks
Zeke

[Darin Morgan]

Originally Posted by litle88

Hello Mr. Morgan, I have a few questions if I may. I am new to this vvt stuff and have Been told different things by different shops.
1. Will you be using stock heads and doing cam only first?

2. Will you be using the 4 "mechanical" lifters?

3. If you are do you think they will last?

4. Which cam phaser will you be using?

I know the L99 folks on this board would appreciate the cam only results. I know I would greatly appreciate it if you can answer some of my questions.

Thanks
Zeke

(1) The heads will be fully ported and extensively modified. I will be documenting all the cylinder head porting and welding work. I have ordered some good Beryllium copper valve seats for the heads. I will be taking out the stock powdered metal seats because I need to weld the combustion chambers. By welding the chamber I can maintain stock valve drop, modifying chamber shape and squish-quench pad and inevitably increase compression without increasing detonation threshold. The best of both worlds. More compression without decreased timing. I plan on taking the compression to 11.5:1


(2) Although my original plan was to see what power increases where possible while using the DOD lifters I have changed my mind. I have heard to many story's of catastrophic engine damage caused by either over revving or working these lifters to there limits. I am going to take those junk DOD lifters and throw them in the trash where they belong. Its just not worth it guys! The more I thought about it, the less sense it made. Look at it this way. Your putting a cam in an engine in order to boost power and the lifters are not only going to limit the power increase, they may end up damaging your engine that you just trashed the warranty on! Its just not worth messing with these weak suck lifters. Why go to all the time and expense to put a cam in an engine to gain 25-30hp when you can get 80-90!

(3) The stock Phaser with a Comp limiter and some other mods that Mike at New Era Performance does.

[litle88]

Sir you have answered my question regarding those lifters!
In otherwords heads come off, get them milled and ported, get arp head bolts, Ls7 lifters and have a shit load of fun!
Got it!
Thankyou Mr. Morgan

[Tmedlin]

any updates Mr. Morgan?

[Darin Morgan]

Originally Posted by Tmedlin

any updates Mr. Morgan?

Nope, Not until this summer.

[Darin Morgan]

Well, it looks like the time has come.
I will drive to New York the first week of July and install my cam but while I am there we will be conducting some serious testing. When this whole thing started I was just going to drive up to New York and install a set of my ported heads and a cam. Now things have become a lot more complicated. I have two sets of heads and will test each set to find out which set makes more power. I have a new CNC ported LS3 casting that a business associate of mine designed and he is about to unleash this beast on the market. These heads are much stronger than stock heads, have the best parts you can buy and are CNCed with the best port designs. The best part about them is they are now priced out at $600.00-$700.00 less than anyone else on the market. They will be THE head to get for any LS3 engine wanting to make 500-700HP+. I have a set of stock LS3s that I hand ported just like the ones I did for Mike’s car at New Era. The plan is to conduct camshaft testing with stock heads then install my stock hand ported heads. After we get some good baseline numbers on those heads, we will drop the LS3 CNC ported heads on this engine. These heads are exceptional and should surpass the fully ported stock heads by 10-20Hp. We will be conducting all this testing under the watchful eyes of the magazine writers who will be there to oversee the testing and write an article about the results. I cannot talk about which magazines may be featuring this article but you probably read them every month. Let’s just say I like to read “Hot Rod” magazines and I have a “Super Chevy” in the garage.



Mike at New Era Performance has been hording some very good information about the L99 VVT system. He has been testing, testing, testing and his experiments have shown very interesting results. He has shown that his cam installation technique on the L99 VVT engine shows huge power gains over what every one else is seeing using the VVT and the magazine article will show everyone the results of his work. Lets just say most people should see gains of 30-40ft/lbs of TQ under 5500rpm using his technique on the L99 VVT system. I had to promise the writer an exclusive so I can’t give away any details hear. Sorry, but your going to have to wait for the article.

Stay tuned!

[PatrickfromMD]

Originally Posted by Darin Morgan

Well, it looks like the time has come.

Stay tuned!

Hmmm, ok, toss us a bone and then take it back.
Yes, having a VVT cam designed in conjunction with a specifically optimized VVT phasing profile, is the holy grail.
And you are going to keep it from us! Do you know how long it takes a magazine to publish a test, and yours hasn’t even been completed yet. It’s going to be months before you can give us the details.
If we are going to have to wait a while, what we need in the end, is a user installable kit. IMHO

[Darin Morgan]

Originally Posted by PatrickfromMD

Hmmm, ok, toss us a bone and then take it back.
Yes, having a VVT cam designed in conjunction with a specifically optimized VVT phasing profile, is the holy grail.
And you are going to keep it from us! Do you know how long it takes a magazine to publish a test, and yours hasn’t even been completed yet. It’s going to be months before you can give us the details.
If we are going to have to wait a while, what we need in the end, is a user installable kit. IMHO

A lot of installers have been keeping this stuff under their hats. VVT is not the huge issue most think it is. It was designed for fuel economy not power. Is there power there? Yes, but not as much as most would think. The article will show the Pros and Cons of using it verses not using it and then the readers will have to make up their minds which route they will go on their own build. I would love to spill it out all over the internet but that would not make the magazine writer very happy seeing as how he and a lot of others have invested time and money in this project.

[se7en]

Great job with the work and the write-up! Fun to read.... thanks

[Darin Morgan]

Update,,,

I changed my mind about the camshaft grind, springs a couple other components. I have decided to go with a 230° 240° .620 .620 cam with about 10° overlap. It should run strong from 4500-6500 with the shift at 7000rpm. I will be using some very strong dual springs with 165lbs on seat and 450 over the nose. This will control the valve train to 7000rpm and last much longer than a single coil. I have also taken the aftermarket hollow steal valves and lightened them down to 106.5grams.

[critteral]

keep the updates coming!

[prostock69]

Am I the luckiest wife or what!! This may be Darin's 1st "Hot Rod" but it's my 4th and my daily driver! However, my first 3 didn't have nearly the amount of hp this car will have. I can't WAIT for this cam/heads install (6 days and counting). It's going to be a BEAST!

[critteral]

Yes you are!