Cruised to an 11.51@116 with turbo 5.3 (video)
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DCkwtT71E0

Running at 10psi, leaving on the footbrake with 3psi, the ol' turbo truck surprised me how easily it ran my goal time of 11.50. I'm signed up for Drag Week this fall, so I can't turn in a faster slip than that due to safety rules. The truck was super easy to steer and control, the launch was very smooth but pulled like a beast through the gears. The torque this little 5.3 makes on the boost is unreal. I had the shift points set at 5300, it was shifting at 5500 due to the inherent delay that's always present between the command and the actual shift.

Not bad for a truck I've put 4000+ miles on since May!

Here's a timeslip from an 11.48 pass:
https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...1f&oe=5619801D

I'm re-doing the exhaust for a 4" electric cutout, hence the open downpipe in the video. It'll be nice and quiet (sometimes..muahhaha) next week.

Re: Cruised to an 11.51@116 with turbo 5.3 (video)
 

How much room did it feel like you had before you came over the brakes?

Re: Cruised to an 11.51@116 with turbo 5.3 (video)
 

Not much. My brake booster is busted so that was all manual pressure. I'd like a hydroboost setup.

Re: Cruised to an 11.51@116 with turbo 5.3 (video)
 

Nice truck....

Re: Cruised to an 11.51@116 with turbo 5.3 (video)
 

Nice , not even struggling to get there . E85 is great .

Re: Cruised to an 11.51@116 with turbo 5.3 (video)
 

Love it. Laptop open playing a movie, water bottle with in arms reach, just out for a sunday cruise. haha

Re: Cruised to an 11.51@116 with turbo 5.3 (video)
 

Heh, all true except the movie! One has to data log of course. I ended up putting a ton of miles on the truck this summer, participated in Power Tour and Drag Week (11.57@116.5 average) and pretty much have not turned a wrench since fixing a worn out junkyard 4L80E. It's amazing how technology allows easy power and stock street manners.

Re: Cruised to an 11.51@116 with turbo 5.3 (video)
 

Nice run steering wheel doesn't even move the whole run nice setup hope mine handles the same whenever I finish it

Re: Cruised to an 11.51@116 with turbo 5.3 (video)
 

sweet

Re: Cruised to an 11.51@116 with turbo 5.3 (video)
 

RedHead steering gear is the key. So much better than any parts store re-man I can't even describe it. Zero slop.

Re: Cruised to an 11.51@116 with turbo 5.3 (video)
 

Update.

Upped the boost to 16psi, was then blowing through the converter pretty bad.
Still managed:
60' -1.63
1/8- 7.14@97.7
1/4 - 11.16@121.07

The whole run felt bizarre due to the converter slip. I have done zero drag race prep to the truck other than bolt on 275/60/15 DRs. I really want a 10 second slip, and without having PTC re-stall the converter it may be out of reach.

Re: Cruised to an 11.51@116 with turbo 5.3 (video)
 

Heavy - I'd like Cline to comment on this too, because I'm starting to notice something that I considered an anomaly before; WAY more 4l80e and its other lockup brethren are coming by with "flattened" stalls converters.

You know that feeling of coming over the converter? The squishiness of it, the "lag". I'm seeing cars come through that ,feeling not just off a footbrake, but in low-tps medium load situations, which made us start looking at it more. They'll be well filled, well cooled, properly spec'd.....but on the dyno they start acting weird, and getting the above feeling on test passes or road tuning.

What we found with a few situations is that
a; cars w/ inexperienced owners or dbag driving habits were being given WOT from low rpm in OD. This is something we see from "highway racers" who are driving locked up at 65 and stomping the pedal. That lockup-downshift combo from overdrive is a b!tch. Guys are afraid to break weak rear ends, but think its fine to bomb the pedal from OD. (not assuming you did that).

b; I hold tuners to a painful standard. Cars showing up with wonky lockup settings, illogical shift points, and improper basic trans tuning knowledge. If you really feel delay and strength issues on the shift, its not impossible to rule out the trans tune.If there were changes made to lockup settings and you put street miles on her much, then its possible that the converter slip is also a cumulative damage effect.

c; this is the weird one, which scares me for everyone out there. Certain tuners and dyno operators are kinda careless about how the get good #'s. (cheating the correction factor is bad, but its more obvous). Anyways, if a car isn't making the kind of numbers the place promised, I've seen more than one shop Force the ecm to lock the converter while in 3rd for the pull. This can squeak out a few extra ponies for that all-important final number. The problem of course is that its also a great way to ruin a converter. The worst part is that it won't guarantee damage, nor will it usually result in catastrophic failure, so shops doing it don't get caught in the hot seat doing it.

You may just be straight up pushing past the stall and I'm not even saying these are factors for you, but the more I learn about trans tuning, and the more cars I see come on the rollers with insane things setup in the tune, the more worried I get for the general public getting work done.

Re: Cruised to an 11.51@116 with turbo 5.3 (video)
 

Brew City, great post and thanks for the reply.

I've done all the tuning myself, and used the base Holley 4L80E trans tune but slightly modified shift speeds to my liking.

I have no lockup in 3rd gear, or at any point with tps over 35%. My converter is a single disc and I was vageluely aware of the issues you described from the start. I have yet to put any load on the converter while locked other than normal driving on highways with elevation changes....which is a far cry from any boost torque loads!

The converter functions flawlessly on lower boost. I actually ran a string of 11.50s on just 9psi and the trans temps stayed cool (~180) all night. The higher boost really put a strain on thr temps, they peaked at 220 after the pass...a definite sign of overpowering. Thankfully they began to cool immediately after and had dropped significantly by the time I returned to the pit area.

I really think its just the tricky combo of a lot of power in a 4100lb raceweight truck pushing a wall of air.

Nonetheless, everytime I go to the track I become more in awe of the junkyard LS/turbo combo. It's changed everything I knew about making horsepower and going fast. I hauled a couch and other furniture 70 miles last week, it'll idle thru traffic at 180°, run so quiet with the cutout closed its nearly silent, and absolutely FLY on the boost. Gotta love technology

Re: Cruised to an 11.51@116 with turbo 5.3 (video)
 

Hmmm, maybe I got lucky with the 80e but I always had it WOT lock in 2nd +/- 6,500ish rpm shifting to 3rd at 7,100 (shift lock diaabled) and locking it up again in 3rd at 6,500. Never missed a beat in 5 years with a couple different verters.

These settings were used from its maiden 12.3x @ 3,900lbs to its 10.7x pass at 3,525lbs. All on the same stock 80e.

Min lock up % was set to 99% and max was set to 100%.

I have done other large vetter 80e's in similar fashion with out issue. Maybe I am just getting lucky?

Re: Cruised to an 11.51@116 with turbo 5.3 (video)
 

I wish I could actually tell you, thats part of why it bothers me. The tuning part I'm learning from the best, but the "knowing wtf the auto trans is actually doing" part is where im behind the curve. None of the cars I'm referencing have come off of a tune we did, but (myself included) I've seen probably 5 now that have had aftermarket lockup converters get wrecked by 2 tuners at 2 facilities.

Once the owner told us the tuner had "set everything to lock in 3rd", which could mean anything. Another car had a log showing tcc lock being commanded at almost every TPS, but nothing weird in the tune. That lead us to believe that the tuner had set the TCC apply tables all really low and tried to force lockup through the whole pull, then just set it back....then we had a self-tuned car come in, saying a dyno operator did almost exactly the same thing to his tune because the car "wasn't putting down the right numbers".

Where are you setting your min and max lockup %? I only see the speed TCC release settings (which are all TPS and Speed based) and the Offset TCC table in the other tab.

Re: Cruised to an 11.51@116 with turbo 5.3 (video)
 

I have not touched the Trans tune since going glide, so it should be as was with the 80e. If you are using hp tuners, send me your email and I will give you my file.