I have the quote in my hand but I need to hear from other members who have gone v/8 power.
does your cruise work? I have been told my early 2006 should be no problem. Do you all agree?
Will the stock rear end hold up to a beating from an LS376 "bomber" @ 525 h.p. GM motor (hot cam LS 3)?
How can I tell if my rear end has limited slip (LSD) type rear end?
If it doesn't have LSD will the car go in a perpetual circle on hard acceleration?
Will the stock 3.73 gear ratio work for all that H.P.?
Should I go ahead and upgrade to a better rear end?
I am updating the braking system, new transmission (T-56) dropping the car at least 1'' inch adding dual exhaust with a quiet muffler system (wife won't go in a loud car anymore old age suxs!)
Anything else I should do here?
I am going to keep the stock rims but want a tire that will glue itself to the road. I have been reading and it looks to be safe I can get a way with a 245/45 but some have said a 255/45 or 255/40 will work. I think with the drop in height I can get away with a 255/40?
Thoughts?
Thanks!!!
Welcome to the forums.
There are several of us who have converted cars. Three that I know who have the same motor / transmission combination.
The mechanical conversion is a reasonably well understood process now. Mallet, Werks, Wade's garage and DDM Works have or are doing conversions. Mine was done by DDM Dave.
To the best of my knowledge the basic tune converting the Kappa to the LS is all done by Ken Kelly using LS2 Edit.
CARPUTING.COM
My cruise does not function. My car started as a 2007 2.0 car and has a different ECM than the 2.4 cars. I know individuals who have both flavors of cars. Several of them have non-functioning cruise control. Mine does not function. Some of the people I know of with non-functioning cruise control are 2.4 cars. In the beginning . . . the early conversions some of the cruise worked and some did not. And Ken did not know why. The tune was identical in all cases. I have been told that they "solved the problem" for the 2.4 cars and that they are "close" to solving the problem for the 2.0 cars but the fact is that some work, many do not and there is no universal or even set of fixes that once applied solve the problem. There are a lot of good reasons for this lack of undestanding but the bottom line is that you will not know if the cruise will work until after the conversion is done and they test it. And if it does not, they may or may not be able to get it working. Several of us are still waiting. For a few years.
My car dyno'd at 460 HP at the wheels on the DDM dyno. Dave told me that the weak links are the stock transmission and the stock axles. Since you are going to the T56 (as we have done) that is not an issue. The stock axles are apparently "good" to about 400 HP. If you ever manage to actually connect with the pavement with the TC and stability control turned off then there is a very high liklihood that the axels will fail. There are after market units that are rated to something like 600 HP. I am still running the stock axles on my car, but I run with the TC on which manages the power to avoide failures, and I run stock size tires which while they provide plenty of traction for the street, do not hook up well enough to cause the axles to fail.
I am running the stock 2.0 differential and its fine for me. 1800 RPM at 75 in 6th gear. The ratios 1-5 are pretty close together but it works well for me. Others have changed out the differential ratio and can speak to their experience.
Without traction control and stability control there could be dirvability issues. Keeping it pointed straight ahead would be a challenge. With a LSD rear end and no active control, you will be swapping ends on a regular basis. Without TC or LSD, you will be spinning one rear tire nearly every time you accelerate. With my car, at 6000 ft altitude if I take it easy starting out and give it full throttle gradually, the rear end will start to break loose every time till the TC kick in and stop the wheel spin. Without it I can see where driving the car would be an interesting challenge.
Another lesson learned is you really want your own copy of the ls2 edit and cable. It costs about $550 but it gives you access to the ECM software so you can make your own changes and more importantly it buys the service of Ken Kelly who had updated my tune 7 times to refine it and make it run great.
Feel free to come back with questions. :thumbs:
