Well I finally had som fun the other day with the beast finally. I havent had my foot too much in the gas because you can easily loose traction down low and I want to wait until I can get an LSD before doing too much of that. But anyway I know a guy at work that has a Chevy Malibu Maxx with the 3.5L V6 in it. Pretty quick actually and we both have about the same curb weight.
At any rate I keep telling him I want to give him a run. So one day he is out in front of me, no idea he's wanting to take me up on the run, and he gets a huge jump on me. Im a good two car lengths behind him. From where we work to the intersection we turn on is at least a 1/4 mile maybe just a tad longer. I hit the gas, boost goes to max, drops to second and in no time not only have I caught him but I have passed him with a good deal of authority, woooot! Thank God for four wheel anti-lock disc brakes cause you can only turn left and right at the intersection. So I was pretty happy with that. I guess if I had went through I would have had help quickly, there is a police training academy the opposite direction we were driving about a 1/4 mile away from where we work.
Ive been itching to make a point with some of the ricers around here. I pray each time I pull up next to one for God to take this temptation from me . Im looking for a smaller S/C pulley and when I get it and put it on I may go hunting. I know where each and every one of them are. Sadly though there are no modified Foci around here. The person that bough my Focus after I traded it in lives on the street behind me and they just put put around in it. Id REALLY like to make a run against an SVT since they have nearly a 1000lb weight advantage.
At any rate, thats the fun I had.
____________________ My car is a synner! It uses Amsoil Synthetic Lubricants.
2001 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP
It whines a lot, but I like it
fx3 wrote: What did the guy say when you saw him at work next...????
Nothing much really. We're pretty good friends but kind of competitive, both performance enthusists. He didnt have to say anything though, I decisively won. It wasnt a matter of inches or perspective, I came around him in a very authoritive manner.
I expected it to be closer because the 3.5L V6 in the Maxx is on par with the 3.8L NA motor in the Grand Prix GT. However, the supercharger on the GTP makes the power band or torque curve rather, very flat, it just keeps developing torque, up to 280 ft/lbs whereas the Maxx only develops up to around 220 ft/lbs.
If I can find a 2006 SS model to run it may be a bit more of a challenge as they have the 3.9L and develop 240 ft/lbs, so it would be an interesting run. I have in the works a ported and polished supercharger which should take care of any such issues in the future . That should put me on par with the newer GTP's which are putting out 260hp and with the other mods Ive done I hope to be around 290 - 295 ft/lbs. Geeesh I need a dyno run.
____________________ My car is a synner! It uses Amsoil Synthetic Lubricants.
2001 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP
It whines a lot, but I like it
ROFL, yeah. You know, I really dont want to waste any time with the Ricers. I want to find the Altima's, Maxima's, Acura TL's, etc and give them a taste of some good ole American horsepower.
____________________ My car is a synner! It uses Amsoil Synthetic Lubricants.
2001 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP
It whines a lot, but I like it
It already has a spoiler on it, but not the big wing. I think Id have to give the car away before I tortured it with one of those wings.
I do have stickers though. I have my Amsoil sticker on it (good for at least 20hp ya know), I have a windshield emblem (Reads "Pontiac" across with the Pontiac Arrow head logo on each end and below "Pontiac" it reads "The Muscle Car Lives"). I also have Vinal Inserts on front and rear bumpers. The rear bumper has Pontiac impressed into it and I put in some silver vinaly inserts to make it stand out more and on the front where the license plate would be in some states it has Pontiac impressed in smaller letters and I have vinyl inserts for it and below that I have a vinyl sticker that reads "Supercharged" in the Pontiac font that is used on the engine cover.
All that I estimate gave me about 30hp and roughly 13 ft/lbs.
Okay, Im waking up now, LOL.
I do have the graphics mentioned. I got another coming for the lower side skirts/rocker panels that will read "Grand Prix" in the font Pontiac uses. Then another that is a checkered flag design that is kinda pointed at one end starting at the lower corner of the doors and fanning out wider back to the rear wheel well, all this in silver. It will look good even if I havent described it well. Well in fact I can show you:
Here is the overlay/inserts I have on the front:
Here is the rear bumper overlay/insert I have:
Ive painted the calipers and will have some decals for them too. If you look at the newer, '04 and up, Comp G Grand Prixs you will see that they have painted calipers and some overlays on the calipers that read I believe GTP, Grand Prix or something like that, mine will read simply Pontiac similar to below except my calipers Ive painted black until I can find a silver I like and if that fails I'll just have them coated, not anodized, I cant remember the term right now.
Another thing in the works, possibly as soon as early next year is having my motor and tranny cryo treated ( http://host58.ipowerweb.com/~deepfree/home.htm ). For those of you not familiar with this its becoming a pretty popular technology. Some of you may already have rotors treated like this depending on how high end you went. For rotors it nearly eliminates warping.
However in the case of doing a motor and tranny it is a wonderful thing. HEAVILY reduces friction which as you can guess does a few things. First, it reduces heat. Reduce heat and your reduce wear by virtue of lower friction. Secondly, if you reduce friction guess what goes up? You guessed it, mileage. Ive read articles reporting upwards of 50% increases and beyond. Can you imagine a supercharged V6 getting nearly 50 mpg? Lastly, because of the temperture everything is treated at it reworks the metal, for lack of a better way to describe it, on a molecular level and everything is hardened up, not to being brittle but to being tougher more durable.
One would think this would be unattainably expensive, it aint. Costly? A little up front. I can have my motor and tranny done for less than $1000 and Ive seen it as low as $700. So what Im looking to do is find a really low mileage motor and tranny and sending them to be treated. Its a 5 day turn around for the process. I guess I could even take a week or two of vacation and have a local mechanic pull my motor and tranny and have it treated then re-installed but that would probably be more expensive than the treatment itself.
If I truly get the mileage increase that the areticles Ive read report then that alone would pay for the process. I drive about 2000 miles a month and at a conservative $2.50/gal for premium with me running roughly 31mpg all highway which works out to about $160/mo on gas alone. Now if I could get the 50% or so increase in mileage (and that conservative as well based on the info) or lets just round it to 50mpg my gas bill drops to around $100/mo. That will pay for nearly 3/4 of the treatment in the first year alone.
Its in the works and I hope to be able to get it done soon. What may hold it up is the modifications. I want to get my performance parts first so they can be treated (rockers, springs, pushrods, etc) but once that is done I'll decide whether to yank my motor and treat it or get a low mileage one.
Anyway, just some of the stuff Im doing.
____________________ My car is a synner! It uses Amsoil Synthetic Lubricants.
2001 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP
It whines a lot, but I like it
Yeah yeah, I know, long winded and all. Just wanted to give all the details.
I installed a larger front sway bar yesterday. 3mm larger than stock, in fact its off an '04 Comp G Grand Prix. When the sway bar went in I also put in urethane bushings. I hopefully will be able to pick up a larger rear sway bar and front strut tower brace tomorrow.
Im considering a rear strut tower brace, but I havent decided on it. I think I'll get some GTO spring blockers and work on keeping the rear end from squatting, after that I'll get some urethane top motor mounts and I think I'll be done with suspension then. Body roll and squatting are the two things I try to get out of a car. I aint big into lowering springs and adjustable set ups like that.
Oh, and PFF, you can get an Eaton M90 S/C off ebay pretty darn cheap actually. They are so freakin' easy to rebuild too so if you got a shotty one you'd still be able to do something. As long as the rotors are in good shape, all else is pretty easy to fix. Now, adapting it to the Focus would be another matter, but I have seen one guy adapt the M90 to a Taurus I believe it was.
As for me, as soon as I can do so Im going to replace the M90 with a Whipple Charger and Im gonna cram 20 - 25 psi down that motors throat and listen to it sing to me
____________________ My car is a synner! It uses Amsoil Synthetic Lubricants.
2001 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP
It whines a lot, but I like it
I don't want to go that route. I would like to go with an upgraded JRSC. I can mill my own pulley for more boost... plus then I don't have to worry about jerking around with the computer and sensors and shit. Right off the bat this time around I'm hooking up my NX kit and setting it up for a 50hp shot. Once my wife and I have our lives more settled (i.e. own a house, steady jobs, etc.) I want to build a s/c'd ZETEC to drop in (along with lots of other goodies to help).
The sway bar is a dream. I LOVE it! I havent picked up the strut tower bar or the rear sway bar, but I hopefully will have time this week. If they make the improvement that the front sway bar did then it should become a really fun ride.
I rode in a turbo GTP that had all the suspension did and all I can say is WOW! Sucker seemed like it never rolled at all. He's putting down somewhere in the area of 450hp to at the wheels.
____________________ My car is a synner! It uses Amsoil Synthetic Lubricants.
2001 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP
It whines a lot, but I like it
How is your over/understeer? I would think a FWD car that size with a stiffer front suspension would have serious understeer issues. What kind of rear suspension is under the beast? From my understanding, FWD cars need a stiffer rear suspension to catch a little more oversteer? Or did your GTP have enough oversteer already?
ProjectFocusFast wrote: How is your over/understeer? I would think a FWD car that size with a stiffer front suspension would have serious understeer issues. What kind of rear suspension is under the beast? From my understanding, FWD cars need a stiffer rear suspension to catch a little more oversteer? Or did your GTP have enough oversteer already?
Prior to the front sway bar, it understeered a little, noticeably, but not terribly. Indeed the wheel base is the big contributor to that. With the front sway bar, in a off ramp I take to work, the car was nearly flat, VERY good improvement from what it was.
On the rear its all stock. However I have found a rear swaybar for it and a strut tower brace I hope to be able to pick up soon. I would say that to have a stiffer rear suspension or not would be dependent on wheel base. Something like the Focus isnt as long and therefore will not 'twist' as much. With something like the GTP and its wheelbase you can get a good improvement from the front sway bar obviously, but its almost a necessity to do the rear as well.
The problem with FWD cars as you probably know is rear end squat. Im going to have to work on that. A set of GTO spring blockers and stiffer shocks should take care of that enough for most launches. Im getting level in the twisties with the suspension upgrade, I need to get it leveled out in the launches and thats in the works.
This week, hopefully, I will have the following mods ready to go:
1. Larger rear sway bar w/urethane bushings.
2. Front strut tower brace (I doubt I'll do the rear as I think it would pose a problem in bad weather conditions. A little flex is a good thing).
3. Ported exhaust manifolds and cross over pipe. (Will compliment my 3" exhaust nicely).
4. If I can swing it, I'll have a GM enhanced parameter scan tool so I can start getting into seeing what is going on and recording some data to see what I need to do next.
At the first of the year I'll be getting a configurable PCM so I can tune it all up, as well I'll be getting roller rockers with OR pushrods and higher pressure springs. Then, THEN I'll be jumping on a smaller S/C pulley (roughly 20 - 25hp there alone, should take me to somewhere around 10 - 11psi)
I 'hope' to be around 300+ WHP at that point. I dont think the drivetrain losses are as high in the GTP as they are in the Focus as I have the heavy duty tranny but for the sake of argument we'll say 15% which would put me about 205 - 210 WHP stock. With the mods Ive done thus far (exhaust, intake, inlet temp. mods) I estimate to be around 220 - 230 WHP. I'll get a dyno done once I get the ported manifolds on.
____________________ My car is a synner! It uses Amsoil Synthetic Lubricants.
2001 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP
It whines a lot, but I like it
Thats a pretty dang good time. Quick too. Most of what Ive read of the GTP is that its running low to mid 14's bone stock. Do they make an intercooler for the supercharged Focus?
I can get one for the GTP, but I dont want to consider that until I can get an SLP ram air hood. I know just the entry level intercooler for the GTP drops temps down about 80* which is substantial but the stage 2 IC drops it down about 125* or so. There are guys with that IC running a full inch smaller S/C pulley making insane amounts of power.
____________________ My car is a synner! It uses Amsoil Synthetic Lubricants.
2001 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP
It whines a lot, but I like it
The Vortech s/c has an available aftercooler setup. That Focus was running the Vortech Powercharger at 16psi and aftercooling. I'm not sure yet if I'll go centrifugal or roots type. I'll definately save up and get the whole kit 'n' kaboodle, though, so as not to have to screw with the baseline tuning and stuff myself. Simply upgrade the stuff I got to get more boost.
From the way I understand FWD handling, you want a super stiff rear suspension and a somewhat softer front suspension. Reason being, you want to "carry the inside rear wheel" through the curves. This will give you more oversteer. Stock, FWD cars are prone to understeer because the front wheels are doing 2 things: steering and powering. It's a lot easier to break out of the "grip circle" of your tires when they're trying to do 2 things at once. So to gain some oversteer, you need to lessen the contact patch in the rear. During weight transfer while cornering, it is possible for a car with a nice stiff rear suspension to literally lift the inside rear tire off the ground, literally cutting the rear contact patch in half. The load and force is too much for the one rear tire to handle in it's "grip circle", allowing the back of the car to slide.
The same thing is achieved during RWD drift- just in a different way. The "grip circle" of the tire is exceeded when the tire is forced into hard acceleration while turning. When the grip circle is exceeded, the tires will slide.
Understeer is what happens when the front wheels slide, oversteer is just trhe opposite.
I wrote an article on FWD handling once, I'll try to find it.
I would say wheel base has a large factor in that. If you got a short wheel base, super stiff front sway you have little body twist due to the wheel base. Longer wheel base will be easier to twist and necessitate more of a need for a strong rear sway bar.
I had read at one time that some of the people beefing up their suspension on the Focus, particularly the ZX3, were going with nicely oversized sway bars in the front and rear and then also doing a rear strut tower type bar and was stiffening up things too much and loosing the rear end all together. This is in no way desireable to me.
When Im chasing storms I want some (little) body roll or flex, not a lot, just a little so when Im in turns the body itself is absorbing some of the g-forces or I should probably say the g-forces have something to act upon. If all that force in a turn is transfered to the wheels you're in trouble. You got wet weather to begin with, so therefore reduced traction, transfer more of the g-force to the wheels and you're certain to swing one end of the car out from under you. So while I do want a stiffer rear end, I dont want it overly so.
I have traction control, so if in a turn the front wheels should loose traction and the traction control system kicks in and applies some brake or up shifts those g-forces that were already acting on the car have to go somewhere and after the traction control kicks in the front end will be okay and all that force goes to the rear and if there isnt a little flex to absorb that then it could potentially swing out the rear end and Im no better off. Worse in fact as I certainly dont want to be rolled in a ditch with an electrical storm bearing down on me or even worse, a tornado, LOL.
But I understand the principles you are stating. I would like to see the article you did though. In the grand scheme of things you can adjust/adapt/learn over/under steer. However I would prefer it to be neutral. Understeer means you got to turn tighter and so you loose some range to adjust, as well with oversteer. If it oversteers (I think NASCAR would refer to it as being either loose or tight) then you turn less than would be normal, whereas if its neutral then I have full range steering.
Anyway, enough about that I guess. Im crossing my fingers (figuratively) that I get the rest of the suspension components today if I can get the time to meet up with the guy that is.
____________________ My car is a synner! It uses Amsoil Synthetic Lubricants.
2001 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP
It whines a lot, but I like it
Oversteer is much easier to control than understeer. Especially on a FWD car! If you get the rear end loose on a FWD, all you have to do is point the wheels where you wanna go and keep your foot on the gas. RWD is a little more tricky. But FWD understeer can easily become uncontrollable.
Yeah, I had them backwards.....geesh....anyone seen my brain?
Well I dont know about you, Id prefer it to be neutral. No play in the steering wheel (read: immediate response) and full range of turning without loosing something to compensate for under/oversteer. Now if I were going to be turning in one direction only (closed track racing) then it may change.
On a side note, I nearly got a chance to take on a Mustang GT last night, a 2002 or 2003 model. He pulled up next to me all revving his motor, and I though okay, you lead. He happened to turn down the very street that was the turn I needed to make to get to my house. I was in behind him and we turned onto a two lane road. He took one lane, I took the other. I ramped it up, the S/C was a whinning and exhaust a roarin' and he totally either A.) Chickened out or B.) It wasnt his car and didnt want to risk it. Oh well, it would have been interesting. On a numbers comparison, he had a tad bit more horsepower and a bit more torque so it would have been fun to run a V8. Oh well, maybe I'll see him again. I have to admit to being a little intimidated, the Mustang is a torquey car and can definately launch but I REALLY wanted to find out how I stacked up.
____________________ My car is a synner! It uses Amsoil Synthetic Lubricants.
2001 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP
It whines a lot, but I like it
. Im looking for a smaller S/C pulley and when I get it and put it on I may go hunting. I know where each and every one of them are. Sadly though there are no modified Foci around here. The person that bough my Focus after I traded it in lives on the street behind me and they just put put around in it. Id REALLY like to make a run against an SVT since they have nearly a 1000lb weight advantage. 
