Well over the past couple weeks I've decided to stop on the Red cav eco project that i've posted before, and have a little bit of fun with my Daily driver 96 Cavalier z24

When I bought the car,in december it came with
Short ram intake
No exhaust (most annoying thing ever)
Upper mount insert
lower poly-urethane dogbone
and a 6 puck clutch

and a sweet EGR block off that we just learned about this week.. See the pictures

After i put some cheapy 2.5" cat back side exit exhaust on..I ghetto'd this hardcore, glass pack and me welding, only one bend though so i'm sure it flows pretty well

I got the car dyno'd how i bought it at Modern Automotive Performance in MN
best run was 133whp 142wtrq on a dynojet

Well i decided i needed more power, and to be faster.. couldn't decide what i want to do with it, GM supercharger? I even sourced together a HMT kit for like $800 total , but decided i wanted it to be easily done, reliable and not have to worry about to much power
I got a nitrous kit for around $200 and put that in 35 wet shot N.O.S. kit,

i know its not a huge shot but i want to be safe since i didn't know the history of the car besides that it was Smokey's old car, sold without a motor and the guy i bought it from put a motor in it..
Well when I used to have my 2200 cavalier that i boosted i always wanted a z24, just so i could do the easy JY mods like the secret cams and H.O. mani
then i learned about this 086 head swap. 11.4:1 compression with just the better flowing head ..
I liked the idea of having a N/A dd with some power...
sourced a 456 head (slightly less flowing capabilities but otherwise the same)
secret cams and a L.O. mani for $140 shipped..
Then I found a H.O at the JY and got the cast manifold off of it for $30
Also i ordered up megasquirt v3.0 modified for GM DIS

Well 2 weeks ago i wired up MS, but never got it running with it yet but wanted to stay on schedule so this past weekend we did the head swap. half way through we releazed that we had a bent valve in cylinder #1 (kind of pissed about that) but got a new valve the next day put it together and it ran, but missed fired like crazy..
spent a couple days messing with a few things, then did a compression test from 4-1.....240, 240, 225, 0 well we found the miss fire..
I made the stupid mistake of only replace the one intake valve that was bent, and didn't check the other one that was open with it..dur dur durr......well we took the head off again, 1.5hrs off sat around waiting for parts for 2 hrs, got them at 8pm the head was rebuilt and back on by midnight.. took about 5.5hrs to do a 11.8hr book time job which isn't to bad...but the moment of truth came,

start up the car and...............
it purrs like a kitten on the stock 2.4l ECM !! but i have to baby it until this weekend when i get a chance to work on MS somemore..

But it goes on the dyno next week for sure, unless MS holds me back (which it shouldnt)

and to the track on the 15th of april..not saying any numbers but i have my hopes for some a certain time.. but i gotta see how much we can get out of it on the dyno first.

i guess this is just a really long post because i'm bored..and very very excited that the car runs as good as it does on stock ECM
and onto pictures in no particular order









and my favorite picture

and the car gets a new nickname of the compressor
comments



Edited 1 time(s). Last edited Thursday, April 05, 2007 7:25 PM

Impressive! Can't wait for the numbers!

I wonder howe much that egr blockoff cost? lol

I saw your eco swap thread over on ecotecforum which the red z was getting all the love, glad to see the black one is getting some work too. Thats a good list of parts you got there, I love what you can do to the 2.4 for the money.

the egr was $.26 total.. talk about bargain lol.. or maybe hack

but i've been driving it now for a couple days on the stock ECM and its runs nice, i have yet to be more than 30% throttle at the most.. the car feels like it wants to take off all the time.. i can't wait for the dyno
oh and if all goes well enough.. in the next couple weeks it might have a HMITB.... figure it out

Nice!!! Maybe you can bring back the N/A guys back into the light. Cant wait to see when she puts down

Yea I know I was joking bout the egr, I can add a quarter and a penny lol.

What is the itb's gona be off of?

So I have a question now. Are you using your stock pistons with the new head? I'm also guessing your using the Secret Cams? If your using the stock pistons with the new head and the secret cams what is your CR? What oct of fuel are you using ont he stock ECM with that build? I was always under the impression that the stock ECM would need a huge tune and high oct of fuel to run the 086 head (in your case the 456 head) with the stock pistons and secret cams. If your running fine off the stock ECM and stock internals besides the head and cams my project might get along faster than I thought.




In the planning stage for an all American TRD Cavalier.

i am runnign fine with 92, and stock tune.. but under very light loads.. i would never trust the stock tune for WOT pulls and have yet to do one..also using the stock pistons.

i am under the impression that the SCR is rate around 11.4:1 with stock bottom end and the 456 head and secret cams.. can someone please correct me if i'm wrong.

i kind of want to get the HO cams, and such but i hear they don't work with stock pistons ( i do know where some are) also they move the power band to high i believe..i should have MS going by tomorrow, enough to get me around until dyno time. it needs to be on the dyno by this weekend in order for me to race it next weekend...so i'm kind of rushing a few things..

sounds like a fun project......


???




SPD RCR Z - '02 Z24 420whp
SLO GOAT - '04 GTO 305whp
W41 BOI - '78 Buick Opel Isuzu W41 Swap

lol we didn't have the "specail" tool to turn the cams to get them timed right.... so we made something, pretty much the highlight of the swap..especailly when you have to do it twice

Love the special "J" tool. I usualy use 2 bolts and a prybar.

looks nice man. have you not been posting much on here about the other build. i'd really like to check that out. the custom tool is big pimpin

Keep us updated !, How did modifying the block water passages go ?



My Cav
I give up...
i'm buying a VW those people love trees, so they should love eachother too... "Andy"

the lemur wrote:looks nice man. have you not been posting much on here about the other build. i'd really like to check that out. the custom tool is big pimpin

Here is eco project build post.. i haven't updated it yet but the un assembled block is sitting in the engine bay.. once i get this thing tuned and a couple other minor things done.. the eco will be getting to the machine shop.. i have everything but the bearings for the bottom end.. once i get it assembled i will post updates but thats atleast a month out..but heres a picture for that project also



Short hand
it wasn't anything that a drill couldn't handle easily


also things are going well enough that the ITB's should be in the mail this week ..but don't get to happy, not doing anything pretty with them, just making them work and tuned correctly..even if that means couplers and cutting of a stock manifold


Edited 1 time(s). Last edited Sunday, April 08, 2007 9:45 PM

sweet i wanna check this stuff out one day im not too far away, just in rogers, if you ever need some help just get ahold of me

RyZ96 wrote:i am under the impression that the SCR is rate around 11.4:1 with stock bottom end and the 456 head and secret cams.. can someone please correct me if i'm wrong.

Yes...that is the correct static compression with your 96' pistons

You have mail


-

"Youth in Asia"...I don't see anything wrong with that.

so.... you gonna do anything to remap the ignition timing on that bad boy or do you think fuel tuning alone is gonna do it? You might be able to get it to run safely without doing anything for timing, but I'd put good money on it never coming close to the kind of power it COULD put out with a complete remap.




Arrival Blue 04 LS Sport
Eco
Turbo
Megasquirt
'Nuff said

yes i'll be tuning ign timing and fuel with megasquirt v3.0 modified for GM DIS

Glad to hear Far too often, people on here are so concerned with fueling that they forget (or are simply ignorant of the importance of) ignition timing.




Arrival Blue 04 LS Sport
Eco
Turbo
Megasquirt
'Nuff said

Ryan, what is the status on the Megasquirt? I am interested to see how the ignition setup works for you.

well everything is wired in, but something is up because i'm not getting a RPM signal to megasquirt, so the injectors are not firing ..i'm going to be working on it hard core tomorrow... hopefully the weather holds out

well..
i went to the junkyard today, snowing and 30 degree weather... which wasn't to bad since i'm in MN and it gets to like -billionaty degrees here 30 feels like summer.. but i got myself a different IDI cover with coil packs, ICM and wiring...wired it up and everything works
its runs on megasquirt.. now i'm trying to see if i can get some tuning time tonight if not tonight sometime before saturday night since i am going to the track on sunday.

i'll keep everyone updated, i'm so happy.

So you hooked up the 95-below IDI cover and icm, and your running the engine with megasquirt running ignition and fuel? Also, where did you get the tack signal from? I have an msd dis-2, and it has a tach output, so I would going to use that. Also, for your base ignition maps...did you open one up with hptuners to look at the stock ignition map and use the same one or did you just generate one yourself?

lol well i just spent an hr on a dyno, got absolutely no where. making a ign map from scratch is tough.. but i will be going back before this weekend with either me or some one else tuning the car.. I am racing this car on sunday.

Megasquirt gets its tach signal from pin h on the older style IDI dis system, i doubt you can hook up you MSD there,
also when i have megasquirt hooked up, my stock tach doesn't work, some how i need to incorporate the TACH output from the older style idi's, into the stock ecm some how. not quite sure how yet though

explain your setup a little further....I am quite interested as to how to hook up the early style dis ignition system with a 96 inorder for megasquirt to have the capabilities to tune ignition. go into detail, take pics, whatever you gotta do! haha, good luck for sunday!