LQ4 into a 3rd Gen/1972 Nova by frojoe

3 minute(s) of a 891 minute read

So I slammed the car back together on Saturday, drove it out of the garage Saturday night at 10:30pm, and cruised to a car meet Sunday 10am!

Car runs real well. I pressure tested the renewed fuel system to 90psi, no leaks. I have it set at 44psi base fuel pressure when at idle, ramping 1:1 with each pound of boost (to an estimated total fuel pressure of 65psi as viewed by the pumps).

Meanwhile on Sunday morning Marktainium also dropped his gas tank replaced a bad Walbro 255, and got the car roadworthy for the first time in a year, and I met up with him at 11am! Fun day with the boys, making whistle noises.

My drive to the car meet was my first real boost tuning session, so I had a couple times when I rolled into boost a bit too quickly and I guess the Holley couldn't learn-correct my AFR's quick enough, and reassuringly my AFR warning cut spark, and car fell flat on its face. The rest of the way I slowly rolled higher into the rpm's and deeper into the boost, building a decent fuel map learn table. I'm running the lowest springs my wastegates came with.. I believe 6psi, and I eventually made my way up to 180kPa or 11.5psi boost.. holy crap, this thing already hauls so much *** with such deep torque yet such precise throttle response.

It's fun on the highway in 5th or 6th gear pulling good vacuum just humming along at 15% pedal and 16-1700 rpm, then I move my right foot little bits and I can exactly see my boost gauge spike correspondingly to specific vacuum numbers or even barely into boost, and hear a range of whistle tones... it's like owning a foot-operated musical wind instrument!