Finished 99 GT 3S-GTE Swap from Dr. Tweak UPDATE W/PICS AND VID Page 3, Titled "The Thing That Should Not Be" Options

[Fastbird]

"The Thing That Should Not Be"

This was a swap that should have never happened, and suddenly in April, a decision was made and the rest is history. Anyway,

Swap is DONE! Sadly, we didn't get to dyno tune it today due to a slight glitch, but it's running at pretty much 100%. Here's what was done:

JDM Gen II 3S-GTE w/ECU
eBay Downpipe
Custom 3" Exhaust system from ST Performance (all stainless, pieced together mandrel bends, Magnaflow muffler and resonator)
ATS Racing TB Inlet Pipe
ATS Racing GM Knock Sensor kit
GReddy Electronic Boost Controller
Perfect Power SMT-6 Piggyback
HKS BOV
Whalbro 255 LPH High Pressure pump (whines like a mofo!! )
Autometer Nexus Gauges in a Lotek Pod (unfortunately, Autometer forgot to include a power cable in the controller box, so they're not working yet).

I left the exhaust setup choice up to Dr. Tweak, and he did us right. My wife and I both popped a huge grin when we first heard the car. Sounds completely AWESOME.

We turned up the boost to 15 PSI, car seems to run really well. Down low is nothing to write home about, but at about 3000 RPM the boost comes on HARD and she pulls like a mofo on the top end.

Given that there wasn't a dyno tune, how much power and torque do you think I'm putting to the wheels??

Dr. Tweak, a review.

Dr. Tweak has been nothing but outstanding during this whole endeavour. His customer service is certainly top notch and he's done an outstanding job with the swap. He was having issues with getting the SMT-6 wired in last night and ended up staying at the shop until 3:30 in the morning and only got two hours sleep before coming back in to get everything polished up. If that's not a testament to his dedication I don't know what it. EVERYTHING works on the car, from the A/C back. Nothing but perfection. Everything was installed where and how I asked, cleanly done. He even installed a couple of "feeder wires" through the firewall in the event we decide to install anything in the future that needs wiring through the firewall.

Money wise, his estimation was almost spot on. Due to a couple of unforseen events I had to pay some out of pocket, but nothing terrible and certainly an understandable deal. I consider what we got to be well worth the money, and for anyone even contemplating paying someone the swap, I would highly recommend getting ahold of Dr. Tweak. He will go out of his way to make sure that you, the end consumer, is happy. A TRUE professional.

Feedback on dyno numbers please people. I'd love to have an idea of where we're at.

Lastly, videos to come. Took a couple today and will download and edit them into one vid when we get home tomorrow (parked in the middle of North Carolina for tonight).

This post has been edited by Fastbird: Jul 23, 2006 - 6:35 PM

[lagos]

car looks nice. i like how bone stock it looks right now. but clean up that engine a bit. paint the heatshield. it will do wonders for the engine bay. i bet those stock wheels are really easy to spin. haha

your a/f ratio is a little too lean and you did get detonation in that run. probably because its tuned too lean . there really isint much fuel to work with on a jdm ecu. it normally runs at a nice 11.5:1 ratio at 15psi and thats perfect. whoever "tuned" it, was probably just trying to lean it out and much as possible to give you some type of gain from having an sm6 in there. problem is, that when u lean the fuel out, the ecu advances timing, and this is a BIG no no. you said the a/f ratio has been good all day... do you have a wide band in the car?

oh btw,... your new redline is 7,300ish, not the 6,3000 the dyno driver was hitting.

This post has been edited by lagos: Jul 23, 2006 - 9:17 PM

[Fastbird]

car looks nice. i like how bone stock it looks right now. but clean up that engine a bit. paint the heatshield. it will do wonders for the engine bay. i bet those stock wheels are really easy to spin. haha

your a/f ratio is a little too lean and you did get detonation in that run. probably because its tuned too lean . there really isint much fuel to work with on a jdm ecu. it normally runs at a nice 11.5:1 ratio at 15psi and thats perfect. whoever "tuned" it, was probably just trying to lean it out and much as possible to give you some type of gain from having an sm6 in there. problem is, that when u lean the fuel out, the ecu advances timing, and this is a BIG no no. you said the a/f ratio has been good all day... do you have a wide band in the car?

oh btw,... your new redline is 7,300ish, not the 6,3000 the dyno driver was hitting.

Actually, that took quite a bit of leaning out (not to mention that most of all the rest of the runs were at 11.0 and it was creeping up with heat soak because we were back to back thrashing it). Even at 15 PSI when the car pulled 240 untuned, the A/F was dipping below 10:1 and we had done nothing but turn the boost up. It was HORRENDOUS on the factory boost. I've actually added a bit of fuel back in up top and taken some out of the part throttle ranges because I was seeing spark knock on the highway at the top of the powerband and the part throttle driving was just pig rich (typical black puffs out back).

There really isn't a point to take the motor to 7300 RPM because the power and torque were both dropping off at that 6300 where the driver was shutting it down. No reason to continue to spin a motor harder when there's nothing to be gained by it. Once we toss a CT27 on there and see how high it pulls........well.......

Engine bay is being worked. I'm scheming. I'm ordering all black couplers tomorrow (still have a couple rubber ones on there) and am planning on having the heat shield and possibly all intercooler piping ceramic coated, and want to do the valve cover in black, and then polish anything that's left over. Simple black and polish looks, no colors, just a nice understated engine bay. I'd actually like to get my hands on a manifold to polish while I'm at it.

And it will blow those stock tires away. Tuesday I'm mounting the new tires to the HPR5's (215/35's on an 18x8) so we'll see how those fare. Then it's some E.T. Street Radials for a pair of the stockers for some stickiness at the track. Broken parts here I come.

is that the greddy type-s you have in there?

can you post a pic of where the knobs are set? ive been playing around with mine today, and want to see where you have yours at for comparison.

Yeah, I'll get you a pic tomorrow and post it up for ya.