I use to daily a GTP, did a walbro255 fuel pump, high flow exhaust, k&n intake, 180 T-stat, ngk tr6 plugs and 3.2 pulley. Man what a fun car especially for being fwd automatic. It would fry the tires, great blower sound and still get over 22mpg on highway...if you were easy on it lol
Something tells me that everything in Richard's life encompasses "Suck, Squish, Bang, Blow" - from work, to eating, to the significant others, , and to content creation. All joking aside - I don't see how this channel only has 172k viewers. As car people - we need to tell all our car people friends about this. Such invaluable and interesting content. The effort that goes into all this - as well as the delivery by Richard - is awesome and a joy to watch. Thank you for doing all you do!
@@backdoormailman And there is nothing wrong with that. It is amazing what you can buy these days as a crate engine. But these videos really illustrate the principles and science behind what works and doesn't.
Great testing, would have loved to have seen some IAT logs as well as the pulley changes. We've got a E85 and pulley swapped L67 in a RWD Commodore here in Australia that goes pretty good
@@STREETMACHINETV oh the old one? Last I knew you were still assembling and I've been watching the dad's ute series waiting ever so impatiently. I'm waiting on a flex hone as there was some storage marks post machine shop. Installed my pistons to rods yesterday so I'm keen lol.
I've had a couple of these engines! Found that ZZperformance is a great resource for helping build more power! These are pretty good little engines to play around with
I always love the progression that you take with your testing. You can keep adding cam/head flow until you reach the ultimate power potential for that blower, but at some point (probably around 400-425 hp if I had to guess), your gonna run into the problem of adiabatic efficiency; spinning it faster will just make more heat and as a result, air density will decrease. No matter what engine you put it on, it will only move so much air. It'll be fun to see just what the ultimate power potential of that blower is, though, so keep at it!
I had a supercharged 3800 in a FWD Buick Regal. Car ran amazing other than it would break the motor mount and yank the power steering hose out of the Rack and leak all over the place.
The pull starting at 1:42. Look to the right of the gray coil boot on the coil nearest the bell housing. It looks like there is occasional sparking through the run.
Mace Engineering in Australia did dyno tests with the stock exhaust manifolds years ago and were surprised by how good they flow. With port matching and smoothing of the castings the OEM manifolds were equal if not better than long tube headers for street use as the 3800 V6 makes most of its torque down low. I mean who cruises around at 6000rpm every day to pick up their rolls of toilet paper and bread and peanut butter? 😂🤣😋
@@fourcam150 the buick 3800 is a solid engine, i have had cars literally fall apart around the completely serviceable 3800. i keep my bonneville SSEi out of the salt because it's in nice shape, i know it will run forever but if i run it in the winter it will be junk in a couple of winters. it's survived this long and still is doing well. it deserves a chance to live. it was such a premium car when it was new. today SSEi's are mostly used up, fairly low production numbers in the first place.
GM Holden in Australia did their homework with these manifolds too and even changed the hockey stick manifold to a more shorty 3 into 1 cast iron design. Probably won't fit on the American East West engine layout though.
This is great. I like that you did all the other mods and let it trip on the cam and the ports. It'll be satisfying to see how the torque and power curves shift and see that magical "boost down, power up?!?!" take place. Any plans to run a sandwich air-to-water IC? I'd love to see what increased charge density (and timing tolerance) can do on this combination, especially with compound boost.
I like how you can watch the bend of the headers at 2:48 glow. if this was in a rear drive application that would be less of an issue and i think headers would make more of a difference.
I've been dying to see this series! Another cool Other Guys engine would be the 3.8 supercharged V6 from the Thunderbird Supercoupe. I'd love to see a back to back with this engine. I had a 1990 SC back in the day and I miss it.
Or a short bed standard cab S10. Or the ultimate a Monza or Buick Skyhawk that was factory equipped with a 3.8 and 4 speed, put Richards engine with a third gen t5 in it. Nice little street car, good on gas and nice power to weight ratio, probably easy to get it running low 12s and drive like stock. Maybe port the heads.
Wish this video was around when I had my 99 GTP. I did the pully and air induction and headers on mine. I noticed the increase in power but never had it dynoed.
are injectors needed putting under drive pulleys on the blower,if so try it for more...??the header change made it "stumble"..with 0 gains.....not shocking....awesome vids.....subbed....
The M90 really holds back the power, its perfectly fine at stock levels but really starts making a lot of heat with smaller pulleys. I went though everything on a Ford 3.8L SC (M90) with cams, ported heads, headers, and larger intercooler. The thing that made most power, Ditching the M90 and installing V1 Vortech with Ported NA intake setup. Cam + ported heads were worth 40rwhp @ 15psi (smaller pulley) The Vortech added another 30rwhp @ only 12psi and finally got the heavy Supercoupe into the 12's. Should have kept that car and built a turbo for it.
I agree I've had my m90 ported, rotors coated, biggest throttle body possible. Heat soak is horrible on these blowers. If you respect the blower for what it is it ain't bad. I kind of went same route but the GM. I dumped so much money into building my Buick regal. I own a 2012 mustang 3.7 that runs mid-high 12s, dependable and makes same 300whp.
Headers may not have added anything, but probably lighter, and if ceramic coated would lower underhood temps on the street. Probably still worth doing. Cool test. Always wanted to see a pair of these remote mounted on a sbc with a tunnel ram. 😁 Thanks Bald Dyno Jesus!
In New Zealand and Australia we had these engines in holden commodores in RWD from the late 90s to 2003 , went well but always leaked oil badly from the valley and valve covers ,every one had leaks repaired under warranty when i workded at a Holden dealer .to much crankcase pressure maybe. Horrible engine to bleed the cooling system on, had 3 bleeders to help this
Boost is a different story; if you have positive pressure on the intake side, scavenging (via vacuum) on the exhaust side has a negligible effect, as this video demonstrates. The most important thing in a boosted application is simply getting rid of the exhaust gasses as quickly as possible, which is why zoomie headers work so well. Now NA requires many factors to be discerned to the tiniest detail, and that's where an exhaust comparison will make the most sense. In fact, like many of Holdener's other videos, what is interesting to see is what intake manifolds, heads, cams, and exhausts work together to which effect. To that end, however, engine masters on motor trend has demonstrated that headers are headers, and headers with dents and kinks and welds and more dents are still headers with minimal power losses, a surprise to both of them. The lessons I've learned from watching Richard for a few years is that heads, cams, and intake are actually more important to the power curve than exhaust (when talking NA), which he - like me - seemingly accepts as either headers or not, and that boost is king.
@@RyanMcIntyre except the design of the headers available for the fwd engines dont scavenge well at all due to the cross over pipe. The most important thing in a boosted application is charge cooling.
@@jacobburskey3044 I apologize for not including that in the factors I mentioned, I was mostly focused on the exhaust equation. Of course there are other things that matter with boost, but what I was saying about exhaust is honestly that it doesn't matter (with boost), just get rid of it.
@@RyanMcIntyre if he did the pulley swap first you would have seen less gains with the pulley. The headers essentially "un corked" the engine. I must have fitted over 100 pulleys and headers in our shop. The headers help a hell of a lot. Notice how the boost dropped?
Yes I agree lol. It's been argued about a lot. I've always understood headers to be a great compliment for engines using a cam with tight lsa. To help scavenging. But very few engines in this world just wake up because you put headers on it. I think most people's ears and butt dynos are out of calibration lol
@@mael-strom9707 this was back in the mid-2000's mate. Unfortunately the GTP is long gone. Got hit by an uninsured illegal, got it partially fixed, and ended up selling it to some kid driving around in a ratty old '78 Mustang II that made me an offer i couldn't refuse. He never drove such a 'fast car' before
I have a Holden Commmodore in NZ with an L67 goes well with XP Hot cam, ported heads, ported GenV M90, 3.2" & 2.8" pulleys, tune with IAT in LIM, trying out AEM water/meth. Interested to see the next episode!
3800 upgrade order. Intake, u bend delete, thermostat, tune, injectors, cam, heads, headers, catback, ported lower intake, ported blower, nitrous. If you want all this to last a good bottom end will be necessary. It might last but its nice to know you have bulletproof stuff.
I’ll never understand why people are so impressed by boost numbers, I am glad that you are showing the burst curves to show the restriction is what is pushing the boost number, not that it’s making more power efficiently. The only other thing I’d like to see is I let air temps on this test, another telling tale of inefficient boost
Hi, I would like to see what could be done with a turbo Corvair. In the old days seemed that people would turbo the poor flowing engines as seemed to offer more power gains then high performance engines. The big valve and ported NA Corvair puts out 140 hp the turbocharged engines put out 150 and 180 hp (not much of a power increase by todays standard). These turbo engines used a small side draft carb to limit boost, a large slow reacting turbo, no intercoolers, no wastegates, no pop off valves, no fuel mixture sensors or nox sensors and sensor feed back loops. The 164 cubic inch turbocharged Corvair engine only made 180 hp. The new 2.7 ford ecoboost has 165 cubic in and makes 325 hp. They say this ford engine will make 375 hp when programed for performance gasoline. In the day hopping up the turbo Corvair without the improved aux equipment meant blowing head gaskets and holing pistons. The turbo power by feel didn't hit till 3500 RPMs in third gear. Modern turbos seem to spool up faster. The intercoolers now reduce knock, waste gates allow for limits on over boosting. Carbureted turbocharged engines could lean out at different RPMs and you would not know it. Could a modern turbo system bring these engines up to close to 300 hp? Maybe even more important could the boost come on at a lower RPM?
Love the content. Regarding that "radiused" air inlet...In my experience, bell mouths/velocity stacks look great and can create a small velocity gain. However, we have seen that the real value is in a short radius flow, with little to no (inlet air) neck/nozzle. In other words, the boundary air, after the bell mouth with your inlet setup, nearly negates any velocity gain. Mount that same bell mouth direct and you should be able to see that value. It will be small, but not zero. Worthy in exhaust gas flow as well, when transition from resonators and CATs to smaller diameter out pipes. Helps induce scavenging.
Your video shots show it connected via a silicon tube. Looks too long, plus creates a slight transition. Try a butt connection from a short bell mouth to the throttle body. @@richardholdener1727
I got a 99 Camaro I swapped in a l67 gm performance heads professionally ported lower intake heads to match gaskets and the m90 I have a 2.4 zzp pulley 80 psi zzp injectors zzp 2.0 PCM zzp stage 2 blower cam 1.6 zzp roller rockers zzp long tube headers ls throttle body made a 4" pipe to relocate throttle body 4" pipe to use as my cai still has stock t5 transmission 5 speed stock 7.5 02 ss Camaro rear g80 3:42 posi had to trash that single traction lol runs 11.8 @ 114 mph and I drive it everywhere
Add a stock intake system/filter and see if that effects the boost curve. Blowers like to push air and don't like intake restrictions. I'd like to see Air temps before and after the blower.
13 ZL1, we are changing the top pully (2.55), the snout was worked and the brick reinforced, the bottom pully 9.17. I am keeping the Eaton blower and thinking of porting it. There are claims of 40-85 hp with mods. Are those reasonable claims? And thanks for the live chat series too! I hope that shirt message wasn't for me. We had the BTR 3 and went 4 and now I fret about it ...lol... the motor is assembled just waiting final assembly. (edit) We are also running E85 with pumps it really woke it up before the new mods. The Afco dual fan helps the heat issue.
Will the 3800 fit in a 4X4 JEEP XJ with supercharger ON THE ENGINE? Can this engine be turned lengthwise and hooked up to either a manual six or seven speed or a normal Automatic? I need lots of horsepower and great low end torque, no I don’t want a diesel! Thanks for considerations! Love the channel, saving the vids to binge watch!
did similar on my mates L67 here in australia. 10psi pulley, small cam, tuned on an unlocked stock PCM, made basically 300hp atw through a T5 on very humid 38 degree day. Pump fuel too. The stock cam in these motors suck ass. Then the second biggest issue is the absolutely horrendous IAT post blower, we talking like 130c IAT. After that its the usual valve springs, ratio rockers and dual row timing chain. TBH we gave up on the blower setup as we decided the bang for buck factor starts to go out the window vs the gains. We are moving to a top swapped L67 bottom end with a single turbo. Guys have easily made 400-500hp with turbo on stock internals with a cam/ratio rockers lol.
The headers help alot after the pulleys have already been added like some have stated. The 3800 fwd cars front manifold design plages them with horrible KR and if you turn the boost and timing up like that with stock manifolds on the street you WILL chip a piston. I have an 04 Impala SS and even bone stock it sees KR all the time on hot days or if the fuel isn't perfect. It needs p-logs and a I bend delete. And a pulley and a tune but, lol
Headers are not beneficial on these engines until over 300+ whp. Smaller pulley helps but you run into KR or spark knock without an intercooler and/or e85. Zzp is probably your best resource if you have one of these cars but keep in mind, anything over 300 and the stock 4t65e transmission is on borrowed time.
If I remember correctly from the past people didn't go with tubular headers for more power but for knock control when dropping pulley sizes. The extra air in wasn't getting out fast enough with the stock manifolds.
I don't understand the hate for V6's that you see a lot in the car community. Sure they can sound kinda buzzy sometimes and they don't make crazy power stock (they are smaller engines than a lot of V8's) but they do make decent power. I enjoy my V6. It makes pretty good power and sounds pretty good too.
The setup i had on my '01 GTP was tuned for a 3.4 pulley with ported exhaust manifolds (PEMs) Thrasher intake, 1.7 rocker arms (or were they 1.9? Can't remember..) 3" downpipe to 3" exhaust with stock mufflers. Autolite 104 spark plugs worked great (Richard) Never had it at the track, but i regularly beat a friend with similar setup in a Regal GS who ran 13.7s at 100mph. I also used to get 100 octane gas at one of the local gas stations. These L67/L32 engines are sheep waiting to be unleashed in wolve's clothing.
I had a 98 Grand Prix pace car (basically a 2 door GTP). But with mine I still ran on 93 octane pump gas (that's what we have here in Texas) but it had the 3.4 pully, 1.9 rockers, a throttle body spacer, 3" down pipe and gutted cat. It ran 8.8 in the ⅛ and well into the mid 13's in the ¼.
Hey Richard, I'm sure you have all your test plans figured out, but there has been some big debate in various 3800 groups about headers. I've always argued that they aren't power adders, but more of a compliment to get the most out of a cam with tight lsa numbers for the scavenging affects. Others argue that they can help reduce kr on builds running pump fuel. Curious to see if you might do some various cam testing with and without them headers? I love watching your stuff. Satisfies my curiosity lol. I personally am hoping to see some results using water methanol injection pre-blower running 93 pump fuel. This is also an option some guys use, but mostly gets ignored. Not much info available. I have a top swapped 3800 build that I'm considering water methanol injection on. I have zero clearance for an intercooler. Take care and keep testing! 🤘
@@PureCountryof91 GM Australia upgraded the whole L67 engine design and were shocked it outperformed the V8 they were flogging to consumers at the time. Can't have that, so they detuned it into a wheezing slug but those in the know soon overcame these obstacles.
Dooooood. Cam. Are aftermarket heads avail? Would bowl work and port matching etc on stock heads make a decent amount of power? Another example of why I love the channel. Really cool real world testing.
For the street, a lot of things like reliability, tractable power, efficiency, cold starting, overall efficiency long term durability come into play for engineers on stock engines. For the GP the 4L65 + FWD combo has trouble not smoking the tires from a dead start, so the boost curve is about right, and I was interested in making more power up top, so the header swap seemed like a possibility, in spite of my bias for stock manifolds for street/daily driver apps. I see that they cost too much, deliver too little, and man the labor on that engine compartment! So far, the pulley adapter and swap is the shit, and thanks for the heads up swapping down one inch on the belt.
Can't wait for the compound setup test. Those 3.8L BUICK V6's are dry turds waiting to be polished by a skilled and caring hand. Good job, Richard ! 👌🙂👍
For the higher boost on E85 it would be interesting to see what happens if half the fuel is added to the blower inlets to provide some additional intercooling effect. Could that be done without throwing off the individual cylinder AFR's too much?
It would be interesting to see you test the zzp intercooler block for this blower! There's a guy that jist installed one on his 3800 swapped Fiero and he is going to a very small pulley so excited to see what it ends up
I remember my Buick regal GS same motor. 3.2 pulley ported blower, dhp pcm, j pipe delete 300whp. For it's time it was fast. I hurt quite a few ls1 Camaro feelings, poor 2v mustangs never had a chance. Almost 20 years ago
What about the Bonneville SSEi. I've got a 2003, I've done a few mods its quicker then stock but much of the aftermarket is geared towards the w body. Frankly they made far more w body then they did Bonneville SSEi or park ave ultra. I did a PCM tune, colder plugs, 160 thermostat, gutted airbox, power log, and 3.6" pulley. Wondering what else I could do cheaply. Is 3.6" where I should be or can I go any smaller and still not hurt her?
Go the 3800! I bet if you did the pulley swap first you would have seen the difference in gains with the headers. Putting the headers on first you removed a restriction as evidenced by the boost drop. Install a big cam and boost will drop again and will need a smaller pulley. Should see way over 400hp.
Litterally car shopping for one of these cars rn for a parts getter/beater. How much would you gain from an intercooler the intake temps must get crazy and also heard theres a set of longer rockers that can be used,those with a smaller pulley was my kinda plan untill my other project gets finished
I use to daily a GTP, did a walbro255 fuel pump, high flow exhaust, k&n intake, 180 T-stat, ngk tr6 plugs and 3.2 pulley. Man what a fun car especially for being fwd automatic. It would fry the tires, great blower sound and still get over 22mpg on highway...if you were easy on it lol
I see a lot of stuff about a 180 t stat. What is a t stat and what dose it do for performance
@@you_dont_know_me6583it’s the thermostat. It’s what opens to let coolant thru and cool the car. A 180° thermostat keeps the coolant at 180°
Also I love the 3800 tests you are doing! 3800s have been a favorite engine of mine for many years.
Same, this is great
Something tells me that everything in Richard's life encompasses "Suck, Squish, Bang, Blow" - from work, to eating, to the significant others, , and to content creation. All joking aside - I don't see how this channel only has 172k viewers. As car people - we need to tell all our car people friends about this. Such invaluable and interesting content. The effort that goes into all this - as well as the delivery by Richard - is awesome and a joy to watch. Thank you for doing all you do!
Otto cycle reciprocating engine
I think more people buy power now vs building.
@@backdoormailman And there is nothing wrong with that. It is amazing what you can buy these days as a crate engine. But these videos really illustrate the principles and science behind what works and doesn't.
go tell like 1M of your friends
@@theangrymarmot8336 if you can afford it. I cant 😂 so I'm out here trying to make my 1999 tech keep up with the latest and greatest.
One of the best engines of all time
This only supports my theory that Richard is a robot from the alien planet called " never sleep "
we can schedule post times
@@richardholdener1727 yeah but your computer time says 11:43pm 😎
Great testing, would have loved to have seen some IAT logs as well as the pulley changes. We've got a E85 and pulley swapped L67 in a RWD Commodore here in Australia that goes pretty good
Does it? I've still not seen it go.
Need to see the supermang out again, 👌
@@bigsohc I was working on it today. Will be running again shortly
@@hayden6056 did you miss the dyno video?
@@STREETMACHINETV oh the old one? Last I knew you were still assembling and I've been watching the dad's ute series waiting ever so impatiently.
I'm waiting on a flex hone as there was some storage marks post machine shop. Installed my pistons to rods yesterday so I'm keen lol.
I've had a couple of these engines! Found that ZZperformance is a great resource for helping build more power! These are pretty good little engines to play around with
We're all part of the Richard no sleep crew
Dang Richard, it’s 11:00 AM here in England and you are awake posting videos? Bravo! That’s dedication to your fan base and your craft!
no doubt, this was posted about 5:30 AM in Cali. I think he's ready to go home!
Depending on his internet speed he was already at home sleeping, 10 to 15 minute videos I've heard people having a 3-4hour wait time just to upload.
I always love the progression that you take with your testing. You can keep adding cam/head flow until you reach the ultimate power potential for that blower, but at some point (probably around 400-425 hp if I had to guess), your gonna run into the problem of adiabatic efficiency; spinning it faster will just make more heat and as a result, air density will decrease. No matter what engine you put it on, it will only move so much air. It'll be fun to see just what the ultimate power potential of that blower is, though, so keep at it!
I had a supercharged 3800 in a FWD Buick Regal. Car ran amazing other than it would break the motor mount and yank the power steering hose out of the Rack and leak all over the place.
1:50 to 2:00 you can see on the rear cylinder the plug boot at the coil may be arcing
came here to look for this comment, i thought it looked like that too
The pull starting at 1:42. Look to the right of the gray coil boot on the coil nearest the bell housing. It looks like there is occasional sparking through the run.
Wow thats a good eye dude
not a spark
Mace Engineering in Australia did dyno tests with the stock exhaust manifolds years ago and were surprised by how good they flow. With port matching and smoothing of the castings the OEM manifolds were equal if not better than long tube headers for street use as the 3800 V6 makes most of its torque down low. I mean who cruises around at 6000rpm every day to pick up their rolls of toilet paper and bread and peanut butter? 😂🤣😋
Thank You. I have been waiting for your 3800 vids and I am not disapointed.
Loving this series I can't wait for the compound boost setup
Finally COMPOUND boost!!
I'm more interested in compound/intercooling with a Slushie in Stage 1.
Would be interesting to see a comparison between this engine and supercharged 3.8L thunderbird engine.
The 3.58L Ford engine was a pile of crap underpowered.
@@chrislemaster2695 he was talking about the 3.8 V6 not the 3.58 engine
The Buick 3800 was a much better engine then the Essex 3.8. The Thunderbird did have a factory intercooler
@@andrewdonohue1853 judging by how many more 3800s are still on the road today vs ford 3.8s I'd say you're probably right.
@@fourcam150 the buick 3800 is a solid engine, i have had cars literally fall apart around the completely serviceable 3800. i keep my bonneville SSEi out of the salt because it's in nice shape, i know it will run forever but if i run it in the winter it will be junk in a couple of winters. it's survived this long and still is doing well. it deserves a chance to live. it was such a premium car when it was new. today SSEi's are mostly used up, fairly low production numbers in the first place.
Great motor. Other guys are my favorite videos on this channel!
Woop Woop. Buick Power . Loving it.
Stock manifolds are actually a decent looking piece.
GM Holden in Australia did their homework with these manifolds too and even changed the hockey stick manifold to a more shorty 3 into 1 cast iron design. Probably won't fit on the American East West engine layout though.
This is great. I like that you did all the other mods and let it trip on the cam and the ports. It'll be satisfying to see how the torque and power curves shift and see that magical "boost down, power up?!?!" take place.
Any plans to run a sandwich air-to-water IC? I'd love to see what increased charge density (and timing tolerance) can do on this combination, especially with compound boost.
L67 for the win.
Sweet! Them SuperCharger Boost numbers looks like TURBO numbers!
love what you do with the 3800's thank you!
On my 04 gtp , the best combo I found to be was water meth injection, and blower inlet mod. Oh and an awesome tune from tunedbynishan.
Some of us never sleep 😁
I like how you can watch the bend of the headers at 2:48 glow. if this was in a rear drive application that would be less of an issue and i think headers would make more of a difference.
So glad I found this channel really informative and excellent explanations and presentations
Thank you man. Been wanting to see this for a while! Grand Prix GTP dont give up on me! We gon be makin booooooost!!!!!
Also. The pulley will make less and less as the engine gets warm. An efficient engine will make power no matter what temp. Love the video.
I've been dying to see this series! Another cool Other Guys engine would be the 3.8 supercharged V6 from the Thunderbird Supercoupe. I'd love to see a back to back with this engine. I had a 1990 SC back in the day and I miss it.
Those things sucked I had a few and after so many head gaskets can swap the heads in 40 minutes
Just with a bumpstick and an IC, this would be a nice little engine for the Nova.
Or a short bed standard cab S10. Or the ultimate a Monza or Buick Skyhawk that was factory equipped with a 3.8 and 4 speed, put Richards engine with a third gen t5 in it. Nice little street car, good on gas and nice power to weight ratio, probably easy to get it running low 12s and drive like stock. Maybe port the heads.
I learned I want to swap this into my money pit project car, 04 Pontiac Aztek!
Wish this video was around when I had my 99 GTP. I did the pully and air induction and headers on mine. I noticed the increase in power but never had it dynoed.
Im suprised that the headers didnt drop more boost. Keep up the good work Richie
These little motors are strong!!!
are injectors needed putting under drive pulleys on the blower,if so try it for more...??the header change made it "stumble"..with 0 gains.....not shocking....awesome vids.....subbed....
The M90 really holds back the power, its perfectly fine at stock levels but really starts making a lot of heat with smaller pulleys. I went though everything on a Ford 3.8L SC (M90) with cams, ported heads, headers, and larger intercooler. The thing that made most power, Ditching the M90 and installing V1 Vortech with Ported NA intake setup. Cam + ported heads were worth 40rwhp @ 15psi (smaller pulley) The Vortech added another 30rwhp @ only 12psi and finally got the heavy Supercoupe into the 12's. Should have kept that car and built a turbo for it.
I agree I've had my m90 ported, rotors coated, biggest throttle body possible. Heat soak is horrible on these blowers. If you respect the blower for what it is it ain't bad. I kind of went same route but the GM. I dumped so much money into building my Buick regal. I own a 2012 mustang 3.7 that runs mid-high 12s, dependable and makes same 300whp.
Headers may not have added anything, but probably lighter, and if ceramic coated would lower underhood temps on the street. Probably still worth doing. Cool test. Always wanted to see a pair of these remote mounted on a sbc with a tunnel ram. 😁 Thanks Bald Dyno Jesus!
Thanks for testing the headers, Richard.
In New Zealand and Australia we had these engines in holden commodores in RWD from the late 90s to 2003 , went well but always leaked oil badly from the valley and valve covers ,every one had leaks repaired under warranty when i workded at a Holden dealer .to much crankcase pressure maybe. Horrible engine to bleed the cooling system on, had 3 bleeders to help this
You guys always seem to get cooler versions of what we got. We bought the crappy fwd cars these came in just for the engine lol
@@ianm432 erm the Buick Series 2 was the the Gen 4 F Body.
@@shadowopsairman1583 what are you trying to talk about?
@@ianm432 no kidding.. Barra powered "explorers" the falcon family of cars.. the gm stuff that had v6's and rwd, Commodores..
I've found the a small hole drilled into the t stat, solves the bleeding issue. At least in all my experiences it has.
Would be great to see that exhaust comparison later as so many people believe headers are one of the best mods
Boost is a different story; if you have positive pressure on the intake side, scavenging (via vacuum) on the exhaust side has a negligible effect, as this video demonstrates. The most important thing in a boosted application is simply getting rid of the exhaust gasses as quickly as possible, which is why zoomie headers work so well.
Now NA requires many factors to be discerned to the tiniest detail, and that's where an exhaust comparison will make the most sense. In fact, like many of Holdener's other videos, what is interesting to see is what intake manifolds, heads, cams, and exhausts work together to which effect. To that end, however, engine masters on motor trend has demonstrated that headers are headers, and headers with dents and kinks and welds and more dents are still headers with minimal power losses, a surprise to both of them.
The lessons I've learned from watching Richard for a few years is that heads, cams, and intake are actually more important to the power curve than exhaust (when talking NA), which he - like me - seemingly accepts as either headers or not, and that boost is king.
@@RyanMcIntyre except the design of the headers available for the fwd engines dont scavenge well at all due to the cross over pipe. The most important thing in a boosted application is charge cooling.
@@jacobburskey3044 I apologize for not including that in the factors I mentioned, I was mostly focused on the exhaust equation. Of course there are other things that matter with boost, but what I was saying about exhaust is honestly that it doesn't matter (with boost), just get rid of it.
@@RyanMcIntyre if he did the pulley swap first you would have seen less gains with the pulley. The headers essentially "un corked" the engine. I must have fitted over 100 pulleys and headers in our shop. The headers help a hell of a lot. Notice how the boost dropped?
Yes I agree lol. It's been argued about a lot. I've always understood headers to be a great compliment for engines using a cam with tight lsa. To help scavenging. But very few engines in this world just wake up because you put headers on it. I think most people's ears and butt dynos are out of calibration lol
I also remember some guys modding the intercooler from the '03-04 Cobra 4v engines to adapt it on L67/L32 engines. ZZ performance was my best friend
Also, try Mace Engineering Australia... they have years of expertise and upgrades for these engines.
@@mael-strom9707
this was back in the mid-2000's mate. Unfortunately the GTP is long gone. Got hit by an uninsured illegal, got it partially fixed, and ended up selling it to some kid driving around in a ratty old '78 Mustang II that made me an offer i couldn't refuse. He never drove such a 'fast car' before
I have a Holden Commmodore in NZ with an L67 goes well with XP Hot cam, ported heads, ported GenV M90, 3.2" & 2.8" pulleys, tune with IAT in LIM, trying out AEM water/meth. Interested to see the next episode!
3800 upgrade order. Intake, u bend delete, thermostat, tune, injectors, cam, heads, headers, catback, ported lower intake, ported blower, nitrous. If you want all this to last a good bottom end will be necessary. It might last but its nice to know you have bulletproof stuff.
I’ll never understand why people are so impressed by boost numbers, I am glad that you are showing the burst curves to show the restriction is what is pushing the boost number, not that it’s making more power efficiently. The only other thing I’d like to see is I let air temps on this test, another telling tale of inefficient boost
Thank you, I have 2004 Grand Prix GTP, please do a 1999 mustang cobra engine
Loving the vids ! Can’t wait for the BARRA ! And also the Ameribarra!!
@RichardHoldner any chance you can cover the ignition setup and how you got the crank and cam signals to jive with the holley?
yes-that info was given to us by someone else
I remember porting the blower, opening up the inlet and outlet, being a popular thing with the 3800sc guys.
Run a 2.8" intercooled on E85 with 1.9rockers!!! Thats what I had it was a torque monster!!!
Make sure you upgrade the transmission or that will become its weakest link.
Can we possibly get a Ford 3.8L SC vs the series 3 GM 3.8 SC
THAT would be awesome too see.
try a eaton m112 blower or a m122! just need an adaptor plate! very common blower swap here in aus!
Hi, I would like to see what could be done with a turbo Corvair. In the old days seemed that people would turbo the poor flowing engines as seemed to offer more power gains then high performance engines. The big valve and ported NA Corvair puts out 140 hp the turbocharged engines put out 150 and 180 hp (not much of a power increase by todays standard). These turbo engines used a small side draft carb to limit boost, a large slow reacting turbo, no intercoolers, no wastegates, no pop off valves, no fuel mixture sensors or nox sensors and sensor feed back loops. The 164 cubic inch turbocharged Corvair engine only made 180 hp. The new 2.7 ford ecoboost has 165 cubic in and makes 325 hp. They say this ford engine will make 375 hp when programed for performance gasoline. In the day hopping up the turbo Corvair without the improved aux equipment meant blowing head gaskets and holing pistons. The turbo power by feel didn't hit till 3500 RPMs in third gear. Modern turbos seem to spool up faster. The intercoolers now reduce knock, waste gates allow for limits on over boosting. Carbureted turbocharged engines could lean out at different RPMs and you would not know it. Could a modern turbo system bring these engines up to close to 300 hp? Maybe even more important could the boost come on at a lower RPM?
Love the content. Regarding that "radiused" air inlet...In my experience, bell mouths/velocity stacks look great and can create a small velocity gain. However, we have seen that the real value is in a short radius flow, with little to no (inlet air) neck/nozzle. In other words, the boundary air, after the bell mouth with your inlet setup, nearly negates any velocity gain. Mount that same bell mouth direct and you should be able to see that value. It will be small, but not zero. Worthy in exhaust gas flow as well, when transition from resonators and CATs to smaller diameter out pipes. Helps induce scavenging.
direct to what?
Your video shots show it connected via a silicon tube. Looks too long, plus creates a slight transition. Try a butt connection from a short bell mouth to the throttle body.
@@richardholdener1727
any change like that won't be measurable
I got a 99 Camaro I swapped in a l67 gm performance heads professionally ported lower intake heads to match gaskets and the m90 I have a 2.4 zzp pulley 80 psi zzp injectors zzp 2.0 PCM zzp stage 2 blower cam 1.6 zzp roller rockers zzp long tube headers ls throttle body made a 4" pipe to relocate throttle body 4" pipe to use as my cai still has stock t5 transmission 5 speed stock 7.5 02 ss Camaro rear g80 3:42 posi had to trash that single traction lol runs 11.8 @ 114 mph and I drive it everywhere
Would love to see more head testing on this. Always seemed like a huge limiting factor.
Add a stock intake system/filter and see if that effects the boost curve. Blowers like to push air and don't like intake restrictions. I'd like to see Air temps before and after the blower.
13 ZL1, we are changing the top pully (2.55), the snout was worked and the brick reinforced, the bottom pully 9.17. I am keeping the Eaton blower and thinking of porting it. There are claims of 40-85 hp with mods. Are those reasonable claims? And thanks for the live chat series too! I hope that shirt message wasn't for me. We had the BTR 3 and went 4 and now I fret about it ...lol... the motor is assembled just waiting final assembly. (edit) We are also running E85 with pumps it really woke it up before the new mods. The Afco dual fan helps the heat issue.
3800 f body guys are definitely waiting on that compound setup video 😤
cut out the firewall lol
@@baddbradd89 or cut the m90 housing.
Will the 3800 fit in a 4X4 JEEP XJ with supercharger ON THE ENGINE? Can this engine be turned lengthwise and hooked up to either a manual six or seven speed or a normal Automatic? I need lots of horsepower and great low end torque, no I don’t want a diesel!
Thanks for considerations! Love the channel, saving the vids to binge watch!
Heads and a Cam really help!!!
Biggest restriction in exhaust on those cars is the downpipe to the cat after the manifolds.
did similar on my mates L67 here in australia. 10psi pulley, small cam, tuned on an unlocked stock PCM, made basically 300hp atw through a T5 on very humid 38 degree day. Pump fuel too. The stock cam in these motors suck ass. Then the second biggest issue is the absolutely horrendous IAT post blower, we talking like 130c IAT. After that its the usual valve springs, ratio rockers and dual row timing chain. TBH we gave up on the blower setup as we decided the bang for buck factor starts to go out the window vs the gains. We are moving to a top swapped L67 bottom end with a single turbo. Guys have easily made 400-500hp with turbo on stock internals with a cam/ratio rockers lol.
The headers help alot after the pulleys have already been added like some have stated. The 3800 fwd cars front manifold design plages them with horrible KR and if you turn the boost and timing up like that with stock manifolds on the street you WILL chip a piston. I have an 04 Impala SS and even bone stock it sees KR all the time on hot days or if the fuel isn't perfect. It needs p-logs and a I bend delete. And a pulley and a tune but, lol
Yes finally 3800 stuff!!
Headers are not beneficial on these engines until over 300+ whp. Smaller pulley helps but you run into KR or spark knock without an intercooler and/or e85. Zzp is probably your best resource if you have one of these cars but keep in mind, anything over 300 and the stock 4t65e transmission is on borrowed time.
I thought these with a Supercharger came with the 4T65EHD trans axle. That is what came in my Supercharged 2004 Buick Park Avenue Ultra.
What if you add an under drive pulley setup? Would it increase boost even more? Potential heat soak increase? Could a interchiller mod help that?
If I remember correctly from the past people didn't go with tubular headers for more power but for knock control when dropping pulley sizes. The extra air in wasn't getting out fast enough with the stock manifolds.
I don't understand the hate for V6's that you see a lot in the car community. Sure they can sound kinda buzzy sometimes and they don't make crazy power stock (they are smaller engines than a lot of V8's) but they do make decent power. I enjoy my V6. It makes pretty good power and sounds pretty good too.
The setup i had on my '01 GTP was tuned for a 3.4 pulley with ported exhaust manifolds (PEMs) Thrasher intake, 1.7 rocker arms (or were they 1.9? Can't remember..) 3" downpipe to 3" exhaust with stock mufflers. Autolite 104 spark plugs worked great (Richard) Never had it at the track, but i regularly beat a friend with similar setup in a Regal GS who ran 13.7s at 100mph. I also used to get 100 octane gas at one of the local gas stations. These L67/L32 engines are sheep waiting to be unleashed in wolve's clothing.
What is that fire looking light behind the blower pulley at 1:57? Is that coming from the blower pulley or the alternator?
I would love to see what a camshaft and head porting would do
Careful. We may find out there is such a thing as a supercharger cam if it picks up a lot of power. I do agree on the head porting.
As a owner a builder of one, yes a cam will help, but the heads are horrible, head porting a must,
The bottom end on these are good for about 500-550hp max, so there are some limitations
what if he tests more than 1 kind of cam?
@@richardholdener1727 this is why I love your channel.
These were a good little lightweight engine in the commodore
You should try commodore headers, pacemaker and manta exhaust make their own sets
1:57 what’s the arc under the alternator?
I saw something too it was glowing red under the alternator, momentarily
I was wondering about that too.
It reminded me of a bearing going out, but that would’ve been pretty noticeable
Spark plug boot is arcing to ground. Needs to be replaced.
I had a 98 Grand Prix pace car (basically a 2 door GTP). But with mine I still ran on 93 octane pump gas (that's what we have here in Texas) but it had the 3.4 pully, 1.9 rockers, a throttle body spacer, 3" down pipe and gutted cat. It ran 8.8 in the ⅛ and well into the mid 13's in the ¼.
That powerplant with the turbo would be awesome on a small jetboat....
This was great to see. Will you do a max boost without the supercharger on this engine?
How would one make boost without a supercharger?
If you mean turbo swap, that's different
@@HansBelphegor Ya, I meant run it with his big turbo.
I love these tests
I kinda want to let him borrow my ported aluminum heads to run testing on, I’m sure he’s to far to drive my car there 😂
Love the 3800 but what transmission can handle this sort of power? Preferably manual.
FWD?
Hey Richard, I'm sure you have all your test plans figured out, but there has been some big debate in various 3800 groups about headers. I've always argued that they aren't power adders, but more of a compliment to get the most out of a cam with tight lsa numbers for the scavenging affects. Others argue that they can help reduce kr on builds running pump fuel. Curious to see if you might do some various cam testing with and without them headers?
I love watching your stuff. Satisfies my curiosity lol. I personally am hoping to see some results using water methanol injection pre-blower running 93 pump fuel. This is also an option some guys use, but mostly gets ignored. Not much info available.
I have a top swapped 3800 build that I'm considering water methanol injection on. I have zero clearance for an intercooler. Take care and keep testing! 🤘
I would like to revisit the header test at a higher power level (with a cam)
@@richardholdener1727 I think that would be great. I mean it's only fair lol
That looks like the boost curve of a congested engine. Looking forward to what cam & head work will do for that.
Very lol
In classic production car fashion, they slapped an m90 on top and sent em to the stealership
@@PureCountryof91 GM Australia upgraded the whole L67 engine design and were shocked it outperformed the V8 they were flogging to consumers at the time. Can't have that, so they detuned it into a wheezing slug but those in the know soon overcame these obstacles.
Dooooood. Cam. Are aftermarket heads avail? Would bowl work and port matching etc on stock heads make a decent amount of power? Another example of why I love the channel. Really cool real world testing.
Mace engineering has aftermarket heads if I remember, can be ported to flow 300 cfm...just found this out yesterday so hope isn't lost on 3800s
300?? Whoa! @@monikhushalpuri Super Ritchie needs to know!
For the street, a lot of things like reliability, tractable power, efficiency, cold starting, overall efficiency long term durability come into play for engineers on stock engines. For the GP the 4L65 + FWD combo has trouble not smoking the tires from a dead start, so the boost curve is about right, and I was interested in making more power up top, so the header swap seemed like a possibility, in spite of my bias for stock manifolds for street/daily driver apps. I see that they cost too much, deliver too little, and man the labor on that engine compartment! So far, the pulley adapter and swap is the shit, and thanks for the heads up swapping down one inch on the belt.
Same can be said of a 4.8 with a 4L60 in a 5280 lb truck.
Can't wait for the compound setup test.
Those 3.8L BUICK V6's are dry turds waiting to be polished by a skilled and caring hand.
Good job, Richard ! 👌🙂👍
You obviously haven't come across the venerable Buick Grand National. 😂🤣
At 2:32 I'm guessing that wasn't magic smoke escaping from the crankcase but some other form of smoke from the longtubes.
How much difference is there between 91 and 93 octane fuel in terms of timing? Great videos, thanks....
My guess is that tells me that the heads restrict the flow... in and out. The headers may be too short to have any appreciable scavenging effect.
For the higher boost on E85 it would be interesting to see what happens if half the fuel is added to the blower inlets to provide some additional intercooling effect. Could that be done without throwing off the individual cylinder AFR's too much?
not sure on distribution
Awesome!!!
I image the intake exhaust did more with the smaller pulleys
It would be interesting to see you test the zzp intercooler block for this blower! There's a guy that jist installed one on his 3800 swapped Fiero and he is going to a very small pulley so excited to see what it ends up
see the intercooler video-that is up
@richardholdener1727 I had seen that one but the tune wasn't right on it from what you were saying in the video and believe it was on the l67 engine
Im excited before even watching this video :)
I remember my Buick regal GS same motor. 3.2 pulley ported blower, dhp pcm, j pipe delete 300whp. For it's time it was fast. I hurt quite a few ls1 Camaro feelings, poor 2v mustangs never had a chance. Almost 20 years ago
hurt ls1 camaros feelings...not fucking likely unless they were ignoring you or a woman driver with an automatic and 2.73's
What about the Bonneville SSEi. I've got a 2003, I've done a few mods its quicker then stock but much of the aftermarket is geared towards the w body. Frankly they made far more w body then they did Bonneville SSEi or park ave ultra.
I did a PCM tune, colder plugs, 160 thermostat, gutted airbox, power log, and 3.6" pulley. Wondering what else I could do cheaply. Is 3.6" where I should be or can I go any smaller and still not hurt her?
Go the 3800! I bet if you did the pulley swap first you would have seen the difference in gains with the headers. Putting the headers on first you removed a restriction as evidenced by the boost drop. Install a big cam and boost will drop again and will need a smaller pulley. Should see way over 400hp.
I will retest the header swap at a higher power level
I would like to see what can you do with a dual ohead engine with a s/c an turbo
Litterally car shopping for one of these cars rn for a parts getter/beater. How much would you gain from an intercooler the intake temps must get crazy and also heard theres a set of longer rockers that can be used,those with a smaller pulley was my kinda plan untill my other project gets finished
Intercooler would help with charge temps
My L32 3800 puts out ~400whp with a 61mm turbo and st4 cam on only 10psi and base tune from ZZP (plenty more to go)
that would be like 500 flywheel hp on 10 psi?