Project VF Part V - The VF Chronicle Continues...
So having gone bigger with the exhaust side of the engine in the pursuit of power for no gain, we thought it time to step on the intake side. The 6.0L had always shown some minor restriction through the throttle body never giving 102kpa (typical atmosphere) at wide open. Step No1 was to get the smaller 1 3/4" primary pipes back on and FAST Intake fitted up. Having worked with FAST since 2002 with their first release for the LS1, we called on a favour and got a nice new shiny LS3 Intake over. The above picture shows the spacer that is required to use LS3 OEM style rails and injectors with FAST 102 intake.
OEM LS3 type intake removed
Couple of hours messing around and the FAST 102 and Nick Williams 102 throttle body is fitted up and ready to go!
So to the dyno...but no graph? Using the dyno to configure air fuel ratio and getting the timing in the slot showed less that a 5hp gain at peak...disappointing but let us get the black top to tell the story...reason for no graph is the shape of the curve shows a loss of power in the mid range but better power from 5500rpm on...enough to be an improvement?
To The Track- MAST, FAST and NW102 Go For A Blast!
Once again Shane Joyce gave his time and took Project VF to the track for some back to back loving...part of the success to the testing we are doing here is keeping the same driver in the car doing the same thing. Thanks again for giving your time Shane!! So now to Project VF...what did we see?
Keeping in mind with the MAST heads dressed with factory intake we had a best of This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. mph...it just WENT SLOWER!
WOW lap after lap there was no improvement BUT it had actually gone BACKWARDS! Looking at air conditions etc there is nothing in that...nore is there anything in tyre slip. The car just doesn't accelerate as well as it did with the smaller intake. Looking closer at the 60' times it is near .5 of a tenth of a second slower to the mark. A little history... back in 2003 when we tested one of the first 10 FAST manifolds ever made we then found a similar result on 382" LS1 based engines. The extra airflow on the flow bench was negated by the larger plenum volume dropping velocity of the charge entering the port... are we seeing the same??
MAST, FAST, MW102 Out For Another BLAST!
31/3/15
Well summer and work got in the way of Project VF and after the disappointing results from the last Years testing, we thought we would give the FAST another shot at picking up some time over the 1/4 mile. Better luck this time?
Stuff me but that is the same thing we saw before the hot weather halted play...
I reckon we gave the FAST 102 intake a real fair shake of the tree in this one. We took it to the track twice and tried to deliver some power from it but it made the car slower. There is no doubt that as a bolt on for a 6L motor this thing offers little to no value. I have seen 20-25rwhp on 416/427" engines but with the little 6L...there was nothing on the dyne worth bragging off and less down the track. We even tried new tyres hoping it would bring the 60' around but no...BIGGER PIPES= SLOWER. BIGGER Intake Manifold= SLOWER! Again, any time we haven't improved midrange, the car has gone slower. Now that has had me thinking for a while now...
MERGER!
26/4/15
After the disapointments of the large pipes and big manifold the bug in the back of my head got the better of me. Now Project VF was to test off the shelf products in the real world...but seeing as I am having cams ground and heads made to suit these little engines in heavy weight cars...why not do something special with some headers? Darren Di Filippo stepped up and supplied SQP a header kit that I then went on and modified with a merge collector of some specs I had used previously in Sprint Car racing back in the day. Now I started with a 1 3/4" primary as this had shown us the best accelleration so far in testing. I then merged this into a 2 1/2" collector before megaphoning it back out to 3" to pick up the DFcats we have been using. Why would i put pictures of this online? You can't see inside!
Looks too small to work hey? Big is better so they tell us...should we be fitting 2" primarys?? Haha. So how is this going to work? The theory is that keeping the charge compressed out of the primary and maintaining that velocity through the collector will increase midrange whilst not impairing top end. Everything after this high velocity point is then less restriction than the venturi. All this without increasing pumping loss on the exhaust stroke...tricky game hey?
Again running it up and touching up the tune on the dyno gave us nothing worth printing as far as real gains on a dyno graph. But Project VF is about gains in the real world measured against the 401m timers...she is no dyno queen and unless you are posting numbers out of this world...relevance is lost on the main stream punters...they pay for graphs regardless of how inflated they are!! So to the track we headed to see if it was any quicker...we want a faster car.
"Well Pickle Me Grandmother!" We picked up over a 1/10th of a second!
and look at that mph climbing as well!
Air starting to go away but the consistency is so damn impressive!
Well it was a great Anzac Day for Project VF. We still had the FAST intake on the motor that had seen times slow to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . The SQP spec merge header picked it up a 1/10th of a second and 1mph over the 1/4 mile! That is impressive considering a step up in camshaft of 8 degrees duration only gave the same sort of result. The real impressive thing about these headers is how much they smoothed the idle and mid range power out. With a FAST intake, they can tend to be a little two stroky because of the shorter runner as they pass through intake pulses...the headers tamed this and calmed the reverberation at idle through the header making it idle like an engine with much less camshaft than what was in it. Heavy Car + Small Pipes + Merge collector = FAST!
At SQP we often use 1 3/4" primary headers on our 600+rwhp blown packages. We have taken a hit on this via social media where those that have done limitted testing and only have a short period of time in the high perfromance industry feel the larger pipe would make a faster street car. Having built and driven literally hundreds of these cars, I have always felt the smaller pipe accelerates quicker through the mid range and is more responsive on the tip in of the throttle. We need to remember these are street cars...not unlimitted rpm race cars that only operate on 1000rpm power band. Project VF has proven time and time again that the smaller pipe with careful attention is by far the faster combo...on and off the track. And you got that for free by reading the Project VF development. I will wrap this up by adding...2" primaries cost even more power and acceleration on the street...seen it before and now they are in production again! Big is better?? Naaah. Not even with a blower!
MASTer Class.
2/5/15
We have claimed from the outset that one of the biggest advantages of the MAST 4.0 cylinder head on the 6L was it's flexability to allow for far more camshaft to be used in the motor than the OEM style cylinder heads. To recap on the MAST/SQP 4.0 as a bolt on using a camshaft design limited by the LS3 style cylinder head.we saw an increase of 30hp with times dropping from 11.71@118.73mph to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with the addition of the cylinder heads. Adding a FAST took it back to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . SQP custom headers has pushed us to 11.55@120.96mph. So now it is time to stop messing with limitations caused by cylinder head design and get a cam into Project VF that allows us to utilise the extra piston to valve clearance that we have available....but we need to be careful as we don't want to sacrifice our mid range power. With some careful design, the SQ61 was born. Throwing some caution to the wind saw this cam spec out bigger than most of the street 427s we build...but with a twist...we worked hard on the LSA to maintain power and kept the ICL around where we knew the engine "liked" and used lobes more suited to the heavier valve train of the MAST cylinder heads. Little clue to the specs? Bigger than mid 240s at .050" intake and still has .150" piston to valve clearance unlike some of the 238/250 cams we see making their own valve reliefs! Lift comes in at a little over .640"....right in the MAST/SQP head sweet spot.
Cam fitted and dyno tuned...straight to the track. What no dyno sheet again? Showed no extra power at peak but a stouter power curve from 5000rpm onwards...let's let the black top show this one. Just as a note on this again - rolling road dynos are a variable when it comes to showing every change in power production...type of tyre, atmo correction, converter efficiency etc etc are all items that will change how the car looks on the dyno. With what we are doing right now...the changes are so small at times that the accuracy of the machine comes into question. Considering the machines without atmo correction are to -+1% accurate...that is near 5hp without a change at all with Project VF from strap down to strap down. Presently we are seeing power in the mid 470rwhp region.
Want a little revision on this cylinder head? Read HERE.
SQ61 Loses It's Virginity.
9/5/15
Taking advantage of the last Fast Friday Race for the year, Shane saddled up Project VF and got it to the track.
Looks like we gained another 20hp...
Yeha!! We are deep in the 11.40s now! That is damn exciting! To take the 4000lb brick with nothing on the suspension but a set of lowered Lovells and see it push it's OEM fat arse into the 11.40s is great . Don't get us wrong, we have done many faster cars over the years but Project VF still uses the factory 6L80E trans with a 3500rpm converter by Dominator. It is essentially a head and cam package that is making over 560 weight shifted horsepower...not dyno magic pony power! We have over 400 dyno pulls and countless runs down the drag strip out of the stock as SQP calibrated 6L80 trans. How's it shift? Check it out here at the Ford - v - Holden Day. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. that is getting quick!
But The FAST Is Bugging ME!!
13/5/15.
Project VF ran 11.43@121.45mph with the FAST intake and NW102 throttle body on it. FAST and their Australian Distributor have always been a great supporter of SQP and it is bugging me that we didn't see anything from their manifold. So call it squeazing blood from a stone if you like but SQP decided to do another test and give the FAST another shot at redemption...
With the baseline set at 11.43@121.45mph the Fast/NW102 was removed and replaced with the OEM LS3/L77 intake manifold and OEM 90mm Throttlebody. We have always been a little reluctanat to sell bigger TB for these cars as we were able to run mid 9s at 140mph with 90mm TB on Shane Joyce's 427" ute. So with the OEM parts refitted and a touch up on the dyno it was off to the track...results?
hey maybe there is something for the FAST but the mph still looks like the PB...
And then this...
A PB of 11.432@121.78mph pretty much seals the deal sorry guys...the car is quickest and fastest with OEM intake and TB! Shane went for another run but the car actually over powered the track as the air came around and spun hard through first and into second. Check out how much quicker it is through the 60' being a 1.778 also a PB with this tight converter against 1.785 with the FAST.So for those that claim 25rwhp from a FAST? MYTHBUSTED!! FAST will make your 6L FAST? MYTHBUSTED! Actually I reckon it pretty much shows HOW GOOD GM got their piece to start with!
So where to now? The season is in the book now but we plan on going another couple of levels with Project VF next year. Check in August and if the rain has stopped...we will be out again. Maybe a looser converter? Maybe some slicks...or maybe 2300cc of.... See you then!!
On a personal note; i would like to thank Shane Joyce for help and support making Project VF possible. Without him giving his time freely to race it at the track, we would be nowhere near this point in showcasing SQP products. Thanks again Shane!!
<< Project VF Part IV - The Need For Speed Continues...
Project VF Part VI - Naturally Aspirated Wrap Up... >>