Ook the moment weve all been waiting for!

Quick cliffnotes for those who arent familiar with my car or build...

Had a stg2 and boltons lsj
Decided it was time for a mini-build with heads and cams

Developed a decent list, got a good few parts, etc..

Decided the engine needed to come out to machine the crank for a damper, as well as replace the trans..

Feb 14th, engine came out
Spent a month or two dissassembling and building with one of my best buds...

I have never built an engine before. This was crazy,











After much trial and tribulation, getting many different unexpected parts along the way, we got it put back together, in, and started.

Cobalt ss/sc first start up w cams:
Got stuff set on kill...



Took it to a local performance shop named Sound Performance to get dyno tuned. Sick shop!



Unfortunately it turns out my car had developed a fuel pressure issue and i needed parts and labor to get it dyno-able.

It was a scramble getting the parts over the last week or two, and as it turns out i had to go to indiana this weekend to see my family for easter. And my trucks brakes are shot. So i need the car ASAP.

And also as it turns out, Almcclure was hosting a dyno day at CJ Racing Engine, not an hour away from my grandparents.

Given the deal Al offered and the extra tuning charges i would have had to pay at SP (SUPER reasonable prices, by the way) i had to cut my losses and take my car to Al. And at SP i wouldnt have my car until monday. So thats that

Got a flash tune remote loaded from Al, and i picked up the car. Due to one throttle setting being a little off, the car wasnt idling well at all, but drove just fine, so i filled her up with gas and went on a 4 hour cruise on a basically new drivetrain!


Made it there and on Saturday, we got up early and got right to tuning.

When my car got up on the dyno, everything was set on kill.



And after 5ish pulls, the first 5 times of the car going WOT, it blew...

Everyones mind, that is!!

Well no, it didnt. But it made numbers. Juicy numbers. Numbers that none of you will know.

Ok i will tell you, but first, mods

Head, exhaust side ported and polished by LSJION
ZZP stage 2 cams
Performance autowerks 80# valvesprings
Crank modded to accept an overdrive ATI SuperDamper
Balance shaft delete
Many new valvetrain components, whole new timing set, blablabla...
Ported and polished M62, Plugged silencer holes
Ported and polished intake mani, intake runners matched, etc
New starter
Arp headstuds


Boltons
80# injectors, E85
2.7" pulley (like a 2.6 with the ati)
Zzp 3" intake
Zzp 2.5" longtube catted header/dp
Zzp 2.5" resonated catback
(Sounds sooo good btw. Not too loud, very smooth, no drone, no rasp.)
Gutted valve cover, new bung welded to run a moroso catch can setup

ZZP stealth heat exchanger
Ottp front mount h/e
Custom made dual pass
Methanol injection, 50/50 preblower, 5 gph nozzle
E85? Kinda?

LSD trans w/20k miles
Gmpp clutch
Zzp stg1 axles
Powell trans mounts
Lnf rear trans mount
Lnf engine mounts


Heres the vid..,

Cobalt ss sc 4th dyno run:
On the left: 574
In the shop: almcclure
On the right: tstone

Riceburners final dyno run cobalt ss sc:
And the results.

Dynojet
Not sure of temp or humidity, it felt like 50 and very low humidity
301.93 whp at ~7300 rpm
270.97 wtq




So not quite the numbers i was hoping for, like 320+, but got in the 300 club so i am very pleased! Injectors were maxed out by then so we couldnt push any further. Al is a very good tuner, this tune is very safe and the car is a hoot to drive now!

My initial thoughts driving it now:
Decently smooth idle, just a bit of lope.
You can hear the blower start whining around 0 psi now

Though optimized for a higher powerband, the car has plenty of power and tourque at any rpm. The power comes on intantly, smooth, and increases all the way to redline!

Cruising around, it drives like stock, but it is definately quicker feeling while driving normal. It is no slouch in the lower rpms. It wants to boost more now, but its great.

The car really wales up around the 6000 rpm mark.

At 7200, this thing ***** and gets! A perfect harmony of raw LSJ power and a proper exhaust thrum, muffled by the sound of an 18000 rpm M62 piercing the ears.

It gets to 100 like nothing now, and i even sprinted it up to 150 once. Yolo?

Overall, i feel so glad that it went so well, and to have my car back and better than ever at that,

Special thanks to everyone who stuck with me throughout the build with all my endless questions and concerns.

Tom at crateenginedepot for always helping me find parts and getting then out lickity split every single time.
Zzp, ottp for the great deals!
Various members for great deals as well, like bluelighting on the cams!
Lsjion for the great headwork at a decent price!
Almcclure for the excellent tuning service

And everyone for the support! Mrb, staged07, 574, tstone, spddmn, hockeyman, thexgovenor, kdub1492, just to name a few!

 

This is awesome. Glad to see you bite the bullet and do the work yourself, and you had good people finishing her up for you. And an m62 in the 300s is always yee. Now smack a tvs on there !

Oh and first. :p

 

Finally you posted numbers. Good numbers and she sounds mean, love the blower whine or maybe yours screams at the top end. Glad your car is back together and running well

 

we had one heck of a day!

 

those are some nice numbers!

 

Nice Numbers You Got There

 

2 stepping lsj:

 

It was a great weekend, I'm glad it all went well for you Adam. I'm sure it's a blast to drive now.
I will say this again. Your interior, is one of the cleanest and best looking cobalt I've ever seen!

 

finally!!! wow damm good ass number RB! glad to see shes finallt tearing up some pavement! cobalt looks awesome!

 

Right where you should be. Good job.

 

Congrats, love that whine

 

very nice adam! glad it all worked out for you.

 

Good job man! Now get it to the track

 

good numbers .... why only reving out to 7300 tho ??? put those cams to work Rice should be 8K all day lol

my idc's w. 80's on E85 are at like 75% @ 7K ... does the 2.7 w. ati really need that much more fuel ?

 

2 people were on s2 cams

Both were peaking rght at 7,000. No reason to rev past that on the dyno.
And rice couldn't go any higher because he was maxing his inj.

 

still not inb4rb lol

it was an experience, dude. never would have happened without the help of a lot of my good friends and you guys.

if effing SCREAMS! i'm suprised its making 21 psi though not gonna lie. clogged cat?

it was fun dude, sorry i couldn't stick around for everyone else! what else wound up happening?

it is hella fun to drive! always trying to rip tires in second now.

thanks alot man, a lot of work went into this interior and sans suede wrapped dash trim and headliner it's right where i want it to be

thanks man

thanks alex, can't wait till you're on the same page dude!

soon! finally gonna put these DR's to good use

yeah i don't know dude, hockeyman said the same thing. we were at 100% idc at 7300 so we had to back it out there. so guess bigger injectors and brfps may be in the works soon

 

Congrats!

 

This is 3 cars now I've had s2's peak at/before 7. And rice and stone were both on good heads.
Not impressed with the cams.
Shane made 298 on stock cams/2.7 and peaked the same place. About 6900.

 

good job Adam. 3" exhaust time!

 

this is interesting info .... have you had the chance to dyno stag1 or stage 3 zzp cams ?

If these cams are peaking at 7k and the stock cams @ 6900 ... the cams seem to be not worth it.

 

Good to see everything worked out well and you are happy! Weather is starting to pick up so we should be able to cruise soon

 

Solid numbers. Gotta be happy with that!

 

josh was suggesting that some stg2 cams come kind of out of spec and that skews their functionality or something like that.. if he can expand...

 

yeah thats some B.S on zzp's end ... Advise had that problem when he got his first set of stag 2 cams .. they were all kinds of F'ed up ... i thought zzp fixed that issue tho.

i saw Gov's thread and his were going strong up to 7.5K ... zzp says on their site that these should peak at 7.5-7.8k ... is it worth exchanging the cams with zzp for a set of "good" ones ?

 

idk if they are bad it was just a thought someone had, and even if they were i could do nothing about it since bluelightning bought them originally