Waiting dude!

 

Ha! OK. If the weather cooperates when I'm off I will. Right now I am putting a little money into the suspension. Starting with the rear springs, shocks and a sway bar. A supercharger and the FE1 suspension just doesn't jive.

 

Can't wait for the cammed video Also i'm wondering what kind of exhaust setup you're running. i just swapped my exhaust, and it sounds horrible

 

I am running the Cobalt addiction header($200), ZZP 3" downpipe($200), and a ss magnaflow muffler($80 online coupons at Advance makes things really cheap sometimes). I realize its not a full exhaust but I call it that cause its close enough. I just don't want to cough up the money for a cat back and end up having $800+ tied up into the exhaust when there are other things that I want right now. I got rid of the major restrictions anyway. Besides, I really like the way it sounds and I have gotten a few compliments on it. It sounds good with the stock resonator and mf muffler. Its pretty mellow until I am above 3500 then it gets pretty loud, but not loud enough to drown that whine I originally purchased the catted downpipe option, but gutted it this spring cause I thought it was rattling. Turns out it wasn't and now I have no cat It was the heat shield.

This is the drive by vid from before(prior to cams) and this is the exact setup: header, catless dp, stock resonator, magnaflow muffler.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnn11_Ie6r4

 

Thanks man On my 2.2L, i'm rockin the cobalt header, ZZP downpipe, and a ( FREE ) stock HHRSS cat-back with the resonator upped to a 3" dia. resonator. It sounded great with a 2.4L header & downpipe, and the SS cat-back, but when i got the new exhaust put on it sounded like pure rice After crawling under and investigating, i found out why. Major exhaust leak... the downpipe and cat-back are bolted together by a 2-bolt flange, which is blowing out the bottom side of the flanges. I gotta change it out to a 3-bolt flange setup. Anyways, your ride sounds great, cant wait to hear the cams, also, any gains with the gutted cat? performance or sound?

 

The gutted cat changed the tone a lot. It added a subtle raspy note at certain rpms when your idling down. The lower rpm note is really good(>3k) with a sweet throaty sound. Performance gain was minimal, so don't do it for that, but the tone is good. I think at that point the biggest restriction is the stock muffler. I liked the sound of my exhaust with the stock muffler and gutted downpipe the most, but the muffler was a major restriction under boost. The stock muffler is pretty restricting with our higher flowing headers and downpipes.

 

Sure sounds like a lot of fun! I wonder if I could put that together without my wife finding out? LOL I suspect that she would not be happy with me having another toy. Nice job putting that all together!

 

No good vid yet. I have a leak in my exhaust. I checked everywhere. I think its the flex in the downpipe. Hopefully I can teach myself how to weld when I get a welder next month so I don't have to buy another. I did however hit the track for the first time...and I have poor results though I am not embarrassed to post them considering my issues. I am in the midst of resolving them over the next few weeks and hopefully have a good showing next time.

I did 5 runs and achieved a best of 15.1 @95.5

Problems(more than a few):

Driver. My best reaction time was .65. My slowest competitor was .23. I was told by a few that I should be hitting it on the 2nd to last light so I am just moving as I hit go light. Also, holy crap, the traction is wild. Of the 5 runs I did, I almost stalled 3 times. I normally drop the clutch on the street(slight slip to save the drive-train) at ~2500rpm and the wheels spin instantly. So I was intending on doing this at the track, no dice, more rpm. So I should fair much better next time.

Wheel hop. I was going round and round and my engine got hot! I know this because of two things rear trans mount that I made out of poly a few months ago started to melt from the heat off the downpipe! The wheel hop got so bad after the 3rd run I was babying it in 1st. I thought I broke a traction bar and the next morning I noticed my mount was fried and it oozed out(I'll post pics when I take it out). I ordered new ones and will actually have them tomorrow...I hope they fit(I'll let you know). The other is my thermostat went bad. I noticed on the drive home that my coolant temp was dropping on the highway and wouldn't go above 170. Popped out the stat and noticed the rubber seal deteriorated.

3rd gear. I expected this to happen actually. My best runs at 95mph were bouncing the rev limiter @ 7200 for 2 sec. If I tried to shift 4th I was 2mph slower.

The best part of the night was watching the sickest Nissan GTR ever! It ran 8.9 @ 169mph and multiple low 9 sec runs


I have some more plans in the works as well:

Cooling mods: Dual pass, Phenolic Spacer(both ZZP products), also either a heat shield of some sort or exhaust wrap.

Neutral shafts: I want to rev 7800(that would top out 3rd at ~103) so I'm going to give it a whirl.

Larger TB(LS4 upgrade): This has gotten some mixed review from many of the cobalt guys that do it, but I've got one and I think I can tune it with a revised intake as well.

 

All right. Phenolic spacer and dual pass is on the way. As well as a new TMAP sensor and harness so I can monitor the IAT2. The ZZP kit only allows you to read IAT. I have been tuning off IAT and got some flak about it from some members on the cobalt forum since IAT2 is all that really matters, but I did not know about this and I will resolve this issue. I also got my LS4 throttle body. It is ginormous. I will show a comparison pic when I am ready to install it next week with the cooling mods listed above.

Here is a pic of my rear custom transmission mount. It was stock rubber mount and I filled the rest in with polyurethane (3m Window Weld). I thought this stuff would be better with the heat. It dries hard like rubber. Needless to say it did not like the mostly unshielded heat from the downpipe and round and round at the track.




It worked fairly well for a long time, but is nothing compared to the TTR mounts I put in:




Also here is the thermostat that also decided to go on track night:

 

Love this thread!!! I need to Stick this is my HHR!!! = )