Experienced TPI guys front and center...

[supercarvideos]

How many TPI fellas do we have here? Looking to swap performance info and ideas with........

I have a 1987 5.7 TPI IROC that I am in the process of (trying) making a Mustang killer out of..... I'd like to install a set of Vortec heads ( I know I need to change the lower intake manifold base) and was wondering if the typical 82-92 Shortie headers will bolt right up to the Vortec heads....? And what camshaft would be best for this setup? I need to make some new TPI, LT1, LS1 friends...LOL!!!! All my buddies are Mustang heads (with modified Mustangs), and I'm tired of them making my L98 last in line...



~SuperCarVideos
Winchester, Va.

[KaotiKCamaro5]

i know there are plenty of TPI guys here (i dont happen to be one) that can help. I'm glad you're making a mustang killer, im not much for mustangs.

[89IROC&RS]

Ohhhhh goodie

Engine-

I totally support the vortec/TPI combo, im doing it myself but with a 302cid sbc and an accel superram intake. If you are going through the trouble of pulling the heads and intake, i might suggest you also go far enough to pull the pistons and put in a set of good forged flat tops and gapless rings. a good port and polish job, modifications for higher lift cams. manley street flo valves, and comp cams beehive springs. The intake baseplate for the vortecs flows much better than the stock unit, so you should also add a set of higher flow runners and a larger throttle body. say the 52mm units (i think thats right) an adjustable fuel pressure regulator, higher power capasitive discharge ignition system. for a cam i would look at a strong Xtreme energy cam from Comp Cams, computer compatible of course. hydrolic roller and all that. somewhere along the lines of an XR260 cam. The headers are a great choise, i put a set of edelbrock TES headers on and they were definatly a strong performance increase, i just cant change my spark plugs. followed up with a good cat and exhaust, and youd be making some good power. say around 350-400 and some major torque.

keep in mind that with these extencive mods you are going to have to have the PROM reprogrammed to have the car run to its true potential, even with the highly adaptive MAF system.

Tranny

you should have the TH700R4 in that thing, here is what i did to mine and was floored in the difference in performance, probly the best performance related investment yet. I threw out the stock stall converter for a 2600rpm stall unit with a kevlar lockup clutch. then had the guts replaced with a B&M trans kit and stage two shift kit, then i tossed the weak camaro 1st to 2nd shift servo with a high pressure corvette unit. This provided the strongest seat of the pants change in performance, it shifted so hard coming off the line the first time i took it out, i accidentally pulled it from drive into first gear on the 1st to 2nd shift.

Driveshaft

get an aluminum unit out of a fourth gen, you might have to swap the yokes, but thats not hard.

Rear end.

You didnt say if you had the ten or nine bolt rear unit, so concidering the rarity of the nine bolt, ill talk about the ten bolt unit.

The ten bolt has a bad rep for being a weak in the knees rear end but it can safley handle 400-450hp if proporly put together. I would suggest ditching whatever rear end you have, as well as your axles which are both 26 spline units, and replacing them with the 28 spline units from a 89 and up camaro or firebird. You have a miriad of choices regarding what to put in the rear which is kinda limited by your budget. Personally for what youre looking to put together a good eaton or auburn posi would be good, and even a torsen rear from a fourth gen Fbody would work well up to around 400hp. If money isnt really that much of an issue, a detroit truetrac is basicly a performance torsen that will not be prone to the problems of the factory unit that tends to have breaks in the carrier around 450hp. Up the ratio from the stock one to a 3.73 or 4.10 something like that. If you plan on doing alot of highway driving id keep it no lower (higher numerically) than the 3.73. Make sure the settings are within spec and the rear is spaced and gapped proporly to avoid wear related damage, and finish it all off with a rear diff girdle cover that will have two screw down buttons to hold the carrier caps in place under high power acceleration.

Suspension

Camaros have a great rear end setup, decent front end setup, and a weak frame setup. For any performance application subframe connectors will be a must. there are many other parts that should be concidered, to get a pretty complete list, look up the total system offered by Hotchkiss performance. Its a single 1300 dollar kit that has just about every suspension upgrade available for the car in question.

These suggestions are quazi budget baised around a simple street/strip car running pump gas and naturally asperated. obviously there are also more extream things you can do involving forced induction, engine swaps, (383 - 454 cid sbc), and all that so if you are planning something more major then feel free to ask for somehting along those lines, i pretty much just covered the basic points.

[89IROC&RS]

oh and welcome to the forum

[wrightz28]

Wow, well 89IROC&RS pretty well covered it all. All pretty much the same set up on mine (305TPI). There are some people out there that will flame the use of the TES headers, I have em and I'll tell ya they are a major boost over stock, and if you live in a emissions tight area like I do, they are about the only ones you can use and not get your plates suspended if you know what I mean.

And, yes the drawback, plugs swaps are a pain. 3 out of 8 no prob. The rest, a combination wrench, training as a contortionist and a lot of beer are the way to go. First time took me atleast an hour. Then I had to do it the next day because the darn service manual had the wrong gap spec. but got it done in half the time (of course injected by anger).

But definatley, getting more air in and out and the suggested mods to do it, you will be happy. A friend of mine has a 68 'stang, no emission and duals, pretty well hopped up, guess what, even with all the smog goodies, I still get him everytime.

Good luck, welcome and shoot all the detroit silver ponies you can!

Oh, 89IROC&RS,

I think the TB you were thinking of is the 58mm. But in there lies another contraversy. When I did my research for mine, alot of peolpe were complaining that on MAF systems they lost some of the top end power, something about the sensor, but speed density systems seemed to fair well. So for mine, kept the stocker and removal and by-pass of the coolant lines, and polishing out of the EGR induction ports worked well.

[Link85x]

wrightz28, so you have a 305tpi and you pretty much did everything 89 said? I wanna be able to do that stuff to mine pretty soon but i really need to get my self out of debt. Shits killing me. I should be doing most of this stuff be the time summer comes around. Hopefully.

[wrightz28]

Hehe,

We all say that one bud. And if you have fincancing problems now, you're in for the long haul. The usual mistake, "I'll have the money in a few weeks, so I'll atleast get it started by taking it apart." 6 months later, all you have is this coccon shell awaiting fresh inventory that slowly works it's way on over the course of a few years.

I said that one with a project car that "only needed a few things here and there". 6 years later, the only time it has seen road time is when I moved. Atleast this year my excuse was I couldn't afford to register it and front the 6 months insurance as it is road savvy..

Anyway point at hand, the laundry list that 89IROC&RS comprises most of my mods with exception of some new piston, were supposed to go in last week when I was on vacation (see above paragraph). However, the car is an animal. Trying to drive on wet roads can sometimes be an adventure, and when dry, there is no need to brake torque, just hammer and smoke em (probably contriburtes to the wet road problem by way of low treads, but, the heck with it). The 3.73 and shift kit really bring things to life.

[wrightz28]

OH, one thing I did find that wasn't on rather good recipe, BRAKES, you'll need a little upgrading to slow things down a little better. Plenty of kits out there. Larger/beefier calipers and rotors and a disc conversion in the rear I've heard works out (on my list of things to do).

[Link85x]

Originally Posted by wrightz28

OH, one thing I did find that wasn't on rather good recipe, BRAKES, you'll need a little upgrading to slow things down a little better. Plenty of kits out there. Larger/beefier calipers and rotors and a disc conversion in the rear I've heard works out (on my list of things to do).

I know what you mean. It's happened to my 1980 firebird i had. The car was in crap condition and i had all these plans to completely restore and replace everything (I didn't even know anything about cars that much then) but i never really got to get around to it. The car got junk cuz recently my poops tried to start it and the damn thing caught on fire. Funny stuff. The body was rusted all the way through so i needed to part with it although it didn't won't. Where do you find these disc conversion kits for the rear. I got the pst catalog in the mail and they didn't have any except for the vette. I really wanna do that. Also when you say get some 3.73 gears it is just the gears and thats it, nothing else envolved ( i know a posi unit would really help) but what else would you need to get when you upgraded the gears?

[wrightz28]

Alot of guys I've talked to recommend just getting a 4th gen rear end unit with the discs. Would be a substantial savings versus buying a whole new one.

The gear swap comprises of a decent afternoon of gutting the whole differential case. You do have to be intricate and detailed when it comes down to getting it dialed in. Most kits come with instruction, but you will need a dial indicator to say the least. And definately posi, was lucky enough to already have, but clutch pack is letting go from 'driving'.

[Dober89]

Originally Posted by wrightz28

Alot of guys I've talked to recommend just getting a 4th gen rear end unit with the discs. Would be a substantial savings versus buying a whole new one.

The gear swap comprises of a decent afternoon of gutting the whole differential case. You do have to be intricate and detailed when it comes down to getting it dialed in. Most kits come with instruction, but you will need a dial indicator to say the least. And definately posi, was lucky enough to already have, but clutch pack is letting go from 'driving'.

I would just get a thirdgen rearend if thats what you have now. Anything 89-92 will have the good PRB aluminum caliper disc brakes. Hell my rear discs are bigger than my front!



As far as TPI goes, they make great power at low and mid range, but they dont really make much power past 5500 rpms. If your looking for something you can rev the piss out of then you'll have to switch to a short runner intake.

[89IROC&RS]

Oh i agree, the TES headers were a kick in the pants as far as performance was concerned. Definatly did their job, but man, what kinda wrench were you using to get those plugs out??? ive tried just about everything, and im pretty much at the point of thinking ill have to take the pipes off every time i need to do a tuneup. so i would REALLY appriciate any help you could offer on this one.

As far as the throttle body i was actually talking about the 52mm unit. The factory throttle bores are 48mm, the next step up for moderately modified engines is the 52mm unit, and for extreme performance you can get the 1000cfm 58mm unit. for this application, i feel that the 58mm unit is too large, and the 52mm unit would be better.

[grease monkey girl]

hey, not everyone who has a 5.7 tpi here is a fella....myself for example
unfortunately I don't know anything about it, so I should probably shut up about it.

[89IROC&RS]

brakes are a good idea, completely forgot about that but my baby came with the 9 bolt rear and disk brakes already, so i dont have to worry about it.

regarding putting the 3.73 gears in, if you have higher (numerically lower) than 3.08 gears right now you need a new carrier, if you have gears that are lower (numerically higher) than that you can keep the old carrier. As far as a fourth gen rear end, its doable, but there are alot of little parts that have to be swapped and you need to factor in the ABS add ons to them. I agree with Dober in saying you should find a disk equipped third gen rear, and get the master cylender and proportioning valve from the same car, and swap it all over. But not all 89-92 camaros had rear disk brakes, it was an option but not standard.

[supercarvideos]

I have a solution for your plug swapping headache... There is a seller on eBay that sells a machined socket that is shorter and has the end open, which you use together with a 3/4" Gearwrench..... I use this setup and have changed plugs on 3rd generation Camaros with Edelbrock TES headers and Flowtech headers and stock 4th generation LT1's in about half an hour.... you won't believe how simple it makes the job.

~Supercarvideos
Winchester, Va.