Blue Angel [COTW 5/30/11]

[Kabul SS]

Doc,

Great build thread and I like the way your car turned out. I'm running the same size tires as you and it's about time for coilovers. I was wondering how far did you drop the car with the coilovers (looks perfect) and have you had any ground clearance issues?

[CamaroFemme]

You've got to have the most unique cars in your neighborhood!

And just a reminder about that Basani exhaust vid!

[Doc]

I've purchased a new twin disk clutch and flywheel from Mantic that will be going in next week along with a performance cam. The Mantic ships with a beautiful case! After spending awhile researching clutches and flywheels I chose the Mantic 9000 because it has the features and weight reduction I was looking for.

Here's the case it ships in:




Here's the flywheel which is billet steel; this whole combo of flywheel and clutch is SFI 1.1 safety rated. The bag contains the mounting hardware:


Weighing all the pieces to get a total assembly weight.






The total weight of everything including hardware is 35.1 lbs. I believe the factory flywheel and clutch weigh 57 lbs but I've been unable to find reliable info from internet research. I'll weigh the stock setup once it's off the car. If that figure is correct then I'm saving 21.9 lbs of rotational weight.

The nice thing about this setup is the Mantic designers understand the importance of not only reducing weight, but where to reduce it. Removing the weight from the outside of the flywheel has more of an impact on performance than just a lighter flywheel. The farther from the rotation center weight is, the greater the performance penalty. I was looking at aluminum flywheels because they seemed to be the only ones that could get down to the lighter weights but I'm not overly keen on the idea of aluminum for a flywheel. I was very pleased to find Mantic's 15 lb flywheel was billet steel and properly designed with weight reduction, as well as being fully SFI certified which was a very important consideration.

Next week I'll have more photos, before and after dyno charts and driving impressions. Unfortunately I won't be able to do a before and after dyno with just replacing the clutch because the shop that's doing the install is doing the clutch and cam at the same time. On an average the lighter clutch would normally allow about another 10 hp and torque to make it to the rear wheels. The bigger improvement is how fast it reaches maximum power and torque. It should get to peak levels anywhere from 2-4 seconds faster than stock. The before and after dyno comparison is going to be very interesting!

[IOM Black Diamond]

Very nice set up I will be waiting to see the numbers.

[Padre]

Great update Doc. Nice to have some honest dyno numbers.

What cam are you going with? I LOVE mine. I imagine you've put a lot of research into it, so I'd love to see what you come up with and share it with us.

Padre

[5thGenCamaroKid]

Doc - just read through your entire build. I'm floored with your the high attention to detail you've put throughout your build process. This truly is a spectacular build.

[Doc]

Originally Posted by Padre

Great update Doc. Nice to have some honest dyno numbers.

What cam are you going with? I LOVE mine. I imagine you've put a lot of research into it, so I'd love to see what you come up with and share it with us.

Padre

Went with the Comp Cam XR275HR street/strip cam. It's a step above the GM Performance "hot" cam, but not too radical. Just picked the car up today and it's a blast!

Originally Posted by 5thGenCamaroKid

Doc - just read through your entire build. I'm floored with your the high attention to detail you've put throughout your build process. This truly is a spectacular build.

Thank you.

[Doc]

Got the car back today and the final dyno:



The bottom line in light purple is the "before" run with the hood closed. The light green line just above it is the "before" run with the hood open; it shows 414.1 rwhp and 421 lbs of torque. That's the number of importance in this instance because the dyno tune and final number was run with the hood open.

The top line in red is the final run; 468.6 rwhp and 448.3 lbs of torque. That's a gain of 54.5 rwhp, and 27.3 lbs of torque. As you can see from the curve though the torque is MUCH improved and kicks in a lot earlier than the stock cam did and boy can I feel it. Between 4500 and 5500 rpm the Comp cam really produces above and beyond the factory cam.

Overall I am quite pleased with the result. The car now sounds even better than before with a mild lope; not too much but enough to know "it ain't stock". The new Mantic clutch is terrific. I was very surprised at how smooth it is. It takes less pedal effort than the stock clutch and the engagement is smooth, clean and precise. Although I drove home in bumper-to-bumper, stop-and-go traffic and wasn't able to really push the car at all, I could still tell it wants to GO. I need to go easy on the clutch for the first 500 miles to break it in but already I can tell the improvement in acceleration; throttle response is instant.

Tomorrow I'll weigh the stock clutch, flywheel and bolts to get an accurate number and post the results. I did take videos of the before and after dyno runs so you can hear the difference; just need to figure out how to post up videos lol.

[Doc]

Just weighed the stock clutch and flywheel bolted together and they weigh 57 lbs 2.2 oz or 57.13 lbs.



So with the stock setup weighing 57.1 and the Mantic setup I replaced it with weighing 35.1 I've saved a clean 22 lbs of static and rotating weight. Since my car weighed 3740 lbs with a full tank before I did these mods, theoretically it should now weigh 3718 lbs. I'll take it to a truck scale to get it weighed. But assuming the weight of 3718 and the new power of 468 rwhp my power-to-weight ratio is now 7.94-1 beating my target goal of 8-1.

[Padre]

Originally Posted by Doc

The top line in red is the final run; 468.6 rwhp and 448.3 lbs of torque. That's a gain of 54.5 rwhp, and 27.3 lbs of torque. As you can see from the curve though the torque is MUCH improved and kicks in a lot earlier than the stock cam did and boy can I feel it. Between 4500 and 5500 rpm the Comp cam really produces above and beyond the factory cam.

Most excellent Doc!

Looks like the Comp Cam will fit nice with your goals. What a great driver's car!

Padre

[4thGen427CI]

If you have, how much of an increase have you seen in mpg? I'm sure stop and go traffic doesn't help but then again rpms are always low

[Doc]

Originally Posted by 4thGen427CI

If you have, how much of an increase have you seen in mpg? I'm sure stop and go traffic doesn't help but then again rpms are always low

I just got the car back yesterday and haven't had time to check the mpg but that's something I'll check once the clutch is properly broken-in.

[Doc]

Here's an updated snapshot of the upgrade list. Only a couple of things left unless I discover something else . I need to dig up the weight info on a few of those items but what's there so far is accurate. (This is a newly revised list from the one on 12-30-11; I've added some suspension component weights on items 16 and 17).

[CamaroFemme]

Hey Doc! Awesome job as usual. Did I miss the exhaust video? I urge you to put one up because I wanna hear it! Dare you bite the bullet and put a price beside each of those components??? (But seriously, genuinely curious.)