Today was a great day for me and my '57 Chevy! We spent the afternoon at a business called Next Level Raceworks to get my LS3 tuned on a chassis dyno, which was a first time experience for me. Next Level is located in Gray, TN, about 25 minutes from where I live. I was both excited and a bit apprehensive going into this dyno session. This was, after all, a car that I built in my home garage, with no one looking over my shoulder to catch any of my mistakes or oversights. But fortunately, nothing broke, fell off or caught fire during the dyno session.
I met the tuner named Brandon. Super nice guy, down to Earth. I soon learned how good he is at dyno tuning engines and computer controlled transmissions. The first thing he did was get in my car, connect his laptop to my OBD II port, and took it for a drive. He was gone about 15 minutes. I was beginning to get worried. I'd never let anyone drive off in my '57 before. It was kind of like handing your baby over to a stranger. But of course he came back. He got out and informed me that the fuel mapping was all over the place as he was driving, and in general, it was very lean. With that, he backed the car onto the dyno, and he began his tuning. He'd fiddle with the fuel and timing tables, make some partial runs on the dyno to see the results, fiddle some more, run it some, and so on. Then, he goes for a first full test run. The horsepower number on that run got me worried: just 375 HP. I'm thinking to myself, "Man, he needs to find almost another 100 horsepower in order to get near the number I had in my head that it should make, which was 460-ish. I began to wonder if that much of an increase was even achievable. But, I soon found out that Brandon is the man!! He fiddled with his laptop some more, and made another run. 429 HP, and 499 ft. lbs. of torque! Now we're getting somewhere, I'm thinking! I said to myself, Just find another 30 more HP, please! He bangs on his laptop keys some more, and on the final dyno run........BOOM!!! 469.8 HP, and 536.1 ft. lbs. of torque!!!
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Ladies and gentlemen, that is "big block" level of torque out of a 376" smallblock!
So, after all of that was over with, there was another request I had for Brandon. I'm running a 4L80e automatic, and it is controlled by a U.S. Shift trans controller. One cool feature it has is something called Flex-Shift, which allows me, with the push of a button (which I had already installed), go from normal automatic operation, to full manual shift mode. I needed Brandon to hook up his laptop to the controller and turn on that feature and get it working properly for me, which he did. This feature will be very useful at the dragstrip, not only for manually shifting the trans going downtrack, but when doing my burnouts as well.
All in all, this was a very enjoyable, fun day. It couldn't have gone any better, and I'm very happy with the results! My hat's off to the folks at Next Level Raceworks! Next stop, test n tune at Bristol Dragway, aka Thunder Valley!
Here is a video of the final dyno run.
I met the tuner named Brandon. Super nice guy, down to Earth. I soon learned how good he is at dyno tuning engines and computer controlled transmissions. The first thing he did was get in my car, connect his laptop to my OBD II port, and took it for a drive. He was gone about 15 minutes. I was beginning to get worried. I'd never let anyone drive off in my '57 before. It was kind of like handing your baby over to a stranger. But of course he came back. He got out and informed me that the fuel mapping was all over the place as he was driving, and in general, it was very lean. With that, he backed the car onto the dyno, and he began his tuning. He'd fiddle with the fuel and timing tables, make some partial runs on the dyno to see the results, fiddle some more, run it some, and so on. Then, he goes for a first full test run. The horsepower number on that run got me worried: just 375 HP. I'm thinking to myself, "Man, he needs to find almost another 100 horsepower in order to get near the number I had in my head that it should make, which was 460-ish. I began to wonder if that much of an increase was even achievable. But, I soon found out that Brandon is the man!! He fiddled with his laptop some more, and made another run. 429 HP, and 499 ft. lbs. of torque! Now we're getting somewhere, I'm thinking! I said to myself, Just find another 30 more HP, please! He bangs on his laptop keys some more, and on the final dyno run........BOOM!!! 469.8 HP, and 536.1 ft. lbs. of torque!!!
So, after all of that was over with, there was another request I had for Brandon. I'm running a 4L80e automatic, and it is controlled by a U.S. Shift trans controller. One cool feature it has is something called Flex-Shift, which allows me, with the push of a button (which I had already installed), go from normal automatic operation, to full manual shift mode. I needed Brandon to hook up his laptop to the controller and turn on that feature and get it working properly for me, which he did. This feature will be very useful at the dragstrip, not only for manually shifting the trans going downtrack, but when doing my burnouts as well.
All in all, this was a very enjoyable, fun day. It couldn't have gone any better, and I'm very happy with the results! My hat's off to the folks at Next Level Raceworks! Next stop, test n tune at Bristol Dragway, aka Thunder Valley!
Here is a video of the final dyno run.
