LT1 Caprice with Gen3 PCM (part 1 of many)

I love my Caprice. It's a beat up old 1995 Houston DPS car that has had way too much abuse in it's life. Plain white, came with an LT1, limited slip differential, dual exhaust, heavy duty suspension, all that good stuff. I bought it after it had already been converted to T56 6-speed trans and 4.10:1 rear gears, so the previous owner saved me quite a bit of work there. It's primarily a daily driver and autocross car and I have done a LOT of work on the suspension. It's surprisingly nimble and fun to drive for a 4000+ pound sedan.

Way back in 1996, I started a project to build a 395" stroker LT1 for the Impala SS that I owned at the time. Many unrelated events and nearly thirteen years later, I am just finishing it up. In the meantime, a couple of really interesting things happened:

• Lots of Gen3 V8 vehicles were built
• A couple of companies created software to program them and they have become very well understood
• One company, EFI Connection developed the parts to properly run Gen1 and Gen2 small blocks with a Gen3 PCM. You can read about that here.

This post isn't so much informational as it is just a quick bit of background on my project. I am pretty excited about using the newer controller since the tuning software I have, HP Tuners, provides a lot of control. There are operating systems for the PCM that will let you tune in real time (as opposed to read, modify, flash, drive, modify, flash, etc), 2-bar, 3-bar as well as speed density.

Over the next few weeks, I am going to be finishing the engine up (it only needs a camshaft, coil mounting and some intake manifold fitting) and trying to get it installed in the car. It's going to be a pretty big project considering I only get to work in it a couple hours a night at the most. The next four months of miserable weather and mosquitoes here in south Florida won't be much help either.

As part of the engine project, the car is getting 1.75" full length headers, dual 3" exhaust all the way to the rear bumper, moving the PCM into the cabin, complete underhood rewiring starting with a 2006 Silverado underhood harness, degas tank deletion, battery in the trunk, rear coil-over shocks, carbon fiber driveshaft, new clutch and a trans rebuild.

More to come.