REAR END:  Race Prepped ZR-1 Super Dana 44 W/3.45 Ratio Cryo Treated Gears & ARP Bolts.... I previously had a built up Dana 36 with 3.73 Gears in the car, and decided to make the switch to a much stronger (Custom built) Super Dana 44 with a set of Cryo treated 3.45's in it....(With the 3.73's) On the street, with Mickey Thompson ET street drag radials, I was having a great deal of trouble with traction while using the bottle right out of the hole in first gear (and first gear was over so quick since my transmission already has a pretty deep first gear ratio itself)....The switch to the 3.45's helped this issue quite a bit, and the cars best previous (3.73 geared) 60 FT times at the track were actually bested with the 3.45's (Previous 1.58/Now 1.55)... go figure, lol.... (Bottom Left "fully assembled" rear-end Picture) Just Filled up with Royal Purple 75/140W MAX GEAR Full Synthetic Gear Oil, and ready to go in the car. ....... FUEL PUMPS:... Nitrous Oxide Systems "secondary" In-line fuel pump with fuel by-pass for when the pump is not in use. (Pump is only turned on when the nitrous system is armed and/or in use).... This "additional" fuel pump is simply to insure that there will be NO excessive fuel pressure drop during runs under extreme load.... As with any fuel system that your setting up for a specific intended purpose, test runs (in-car) should be made (with a visible fuel gauge in your cars interior) so that you can confirm "EXACTLY" what's going on with your cars fuel pressure under full load runs.... RACETRONIX Fuel Pump "In-tank".>>>>Link text ....Link text
CYLINDER HEADS: Lloyd Elliott Fully Ported LE-2 Heads (Casting #643) Fresh back from Lloyd @ WWW.ELLIOTTSPORTWORKS.COM.... "CLICK HERE">>>> Link text....... For those wanting to know... Aside from the #643 castings(like mine here)... the # 374 castings are the "other" really good casting heads to start with if your interested in "all out" maximum effort portwork with these heads.... Just stay away from the #561's for "all out" type port work.... The #561's were on a lot of LT-1 cars in late 96 thru 97...The #561's flow "slightly" more than the "good casting" number heads in 100% bone stock factory form... but when trying to maximize a cylinder head port, they are VERY thin on the "intake port roofs" where important material needs to be removed (With a margin of safety) to create the correct efficient high-flow port shape.... Also, Take it from someone who's delt with MANY of the high-end porting shops & engine machine shops out there....Lloyd is GREAT to deal with...Very High-end work, Fair prices, and dependable timelines....hard to find all three now a days.... FLOW FIGURES & OTHER INFO: Lloyds Flowbench (which seems to read fairly conservative IME) showed 273 Intake / 197 Exhaust @ .600 valve lift / 28 inches of water (With NO cheater pipes or fixtures of anykind).... A
3rd party flow bench near me (same type of SuperFlow 600) showed the intake port flow at 292 CFM @ .600 valve lift and 201 CFM on the exhaust @.600 lift / 28 inches of water...these 3rd party flowbench numbers (Like Lloyds) were also "without" a cheater pipe, or fixture of any kind to "jack" the numbers up.... Then, with a horn style pipe (that this place near me had), the exhaust port flowed just a hair under 240 CFM at the same .600 valve lift / 28 inches of water.... So be VERY careful what your buying from some of these "other" guys.... Some places out there very commonly "jack" their web-advertised flow numbers using cheater fixtures on their heads... Change their flowbenches water input setting from the 28 inches of water depression that is considered the "industry standard" for head flow comparisons... Change the bore size on the Flow-bench to pick-up flow numbers... and/or even "flat out lie" and simply just make up flow numbers out of thin air that just happen to beat out their competitions heads flow numbers, LOL.... I've ran into plenty of shops over the years that practice "exactly" these kind of manipulation tactics to sell their porting work .... EXAMPLE: One local shop in my area will take a mediocre (at best) exhaust port on a particular head type that they commonly port, that barely flows over 170 CFM using "honest" industry standard techniques... they then put a cheater pipe on it so that it shows a much higher number... and of-course they fail to ever mention how they derived their flow numbers on their heads (on their web-site), knowing that most people don't know enough about the flow process and testing to ask questions about specifics.... They're customers think they're getting something really exceptional, when in fact.. it's not much better than stock.... PS: Another GREAT place to deal with for highend head-work (aside from Lloyd Elliott) is www.advancedinduction.com 
"Checker Springs"  (Picture Below) installed for checking & measuring Valve to Piston Clearance....I do "one" cylinder at a time with lightly oiled clay placed on the top of each piston (covering the entire valve relief area).... You want to oil the top of the clay so that the valves don't stick and pull your clay off, ruining your measurement's.... yup, that's "on and off" with the heads 16 times in total.... Not counting the time that they go on permanently.... I think I need to pick up some more checker springs for next time, LOL.... Seriously though.. it's about an extra hour of messing around, doing "every" cylinder ("and" one at a time), but this way you know for certain that you've made NO mistakes, and you'll have "EXACT" measurements for each of the 16 valves (and NOT just depth measurements, but also your valves VERY IMPORTANT "radius" (IE: eyebrow) contact minimums as well).... and yes, they can "easily" vary from cylinder to cylinder (depending on the equipment) , sometimes coming in at a dangerously close measurement that "NEEDS" attention.... I've had to break out the Iskenderian piston Fly-Cutter tool on many more than a few occasions, Unfortunately, LOL. Here's the fly-cutter tool that I use whenever I "NEED" to increase valve to piston clearances with the pistons still assembled in the block (and engine usually still "in-car") Link text


INTAKE MANIFOLD: Lloyd Elliott Fully Ported LTX Intake Work....Lloyd Removes close to 3 LBS of aluminum from these for his fully ported LTX intakes.... He's one of the few porters out there that understands "exactly" what these particular intakes need to deliver "Awesome" midrange and topend power "without" sacrificing anything at all on the lowend.... This Intake port work was one of the VERY last Engine mods that were made to my combo.... The car picked up just under 3MPH in the quarter with it....
The Intakes Throttle Body Bores Were Later Opened Up To 60mm.
(The Picture "UNDER" This Paragraph) The little holes that can be seen there in the top of the intake manifold ports (The Top in the picture anyway) are the IAC passage holes (there is "ONE" hole per port), they route a small amount of air from the IAC circuit, which is the hole right between the Intake Manifold's throtte bores ( In The Picture "DIRECTLY" Above This) "OUT" to the individual intake runners...these are there to help with idle, and off idle quality....The problem is, 99% of ALL LT1/LT4 Intake manifolds have jagged, sloppily drilled, varying size holes (from port to port in the intake), mine even had some aluminum burrs blocking a couple of the IAC holes most of the way....When you have your intake manifold off the car...Remove the large "allen wrench type" screw-in pipe plugs (They're underneath the oil splash trey on the bottom of the intake manifold)....find your "largest" IAC hole out of the 8, then "drill match" ALL of the 7 others to that size drill bit....Having all of them "even" can help even further with idle quality...this "especially" comes into play when you go up considerably in cam size over stock, and/or install cams with narrow LSA's (IE: increased overlap)....PS: When your RE-install the (allen wrench head) pipe plugs, don't forget to coat the threads of each plug with sealant....Plumbing type Teflon paste is alright, OR Permatex # 2 (the "NON"-hardening sealant) is what I like best for these plugs because it holds up to excessive heat without flaking. 
TPIS HEADERS: (Right Picture) This is a "port matched" header gasket that "perfectly" matches my Cylinder heads exhaust ports...you can see how bad of a mis-match this would have been if left alone, and what needs to be done here.
HEADERS CONT: (If your interested in attaining MAXIMUM power out of your particular engine combo) Don't Forget This VERY Important Step that MANY guys never bother with....For those unaware, It's VERY common to have a Cylinder Head "Exhaust Port" to "Header Primary Tube" Mismatch (like this "would" have been without the Header flange and Primary tube port matching work shown in the pictures)....Anytime Head-porting has "raised" your exhaust ports to any substantial degree "higher" than the factory port location previously was (as is "commonly" performed for further increases in airflow)...this area needs to be checked, and/or corrected so that your exhaust gasses aren't hitting a partial wall (on the header flange), but instead, flowing un-interrupted from your cylinder heads exhaust ports "into" your headers primary tubes.....Many, Many times on the engine dyno over the years, I've seen simple Head/Header Mismatches similar to these, be responsible for power losses in the 15-50 HP range, ofcourse depending on the exact engine size and combo.... I always thought to myself, why go thru ALL the effort and expense of having an AWESOME set of cylinder head ports that'll flow all kinds of air (and fuel), only to leave something partially blocking the ports, ya know.......To do this the right way on yours.... (A grinding tool such as a dremel with a sanding stone on it works well, Or a Makita GEO-600 (or similar) like I use for porting work).... First, match your header gaskets "EXACTLY" to your cylinder heads exhaust ports (I use a few bolts to attach the gasket to the cylinder head, this way you can easily remove it to grind some, and then reinstall it quickly back on the head to check your progress) TAKE YOUR TIME, LOL.... With a sharpie, Mark one header gasket for the passenger side, and the other for the drivers side, this way "each cylinder head" has it's own designated matched header gasket in-case your head ports slightly vary from head to head (which most times they will, even on many CNC ported heads)....after you have each gasket matched "perfectly" to each head, then bolt your finished header gasket to the correct corresponding header flange (gasket facing "EXACTLY" like it will be on the car installed & running).... Then (if needed) simply port the header flange and primary tubes of your headers, to match your header gasket ports....if you have the room on the headers (ofcourse, without get things TOO thin), make the header flange and primary tube opening "a bit larger" than the header gasket ports....This will give you a small reversion lip which can further promote flow (IE: Think smaller hole flowing into a "slightly" larger hole)...take your time (usually a couple to a few hours for everything) and you'll have a PERFECTLY flowing system, from heads to headers.... In the bottom "left" picture here, I was just about finished matching the two "center" header tubes.... you can see the "outer primary tubes" that weren't started yet.
HEAD GASKETS: I choose to use the thinner (29 thousandths compressed thickness) Chevy Impala Head Gaskets here for a slight compression bump and a better Quench when compared with using the regular "thicker" factory LT1/LT4 headgaskets..(the Mr Gasket Brand 26 thousandths compressed thickness gaskets are another option that some go with)...But as far as gasket quality, and durability with nitrous use, I have used both, and I "MUCH" prefer the GM Impala gaskets over the Mr Gasket Brand for this application...The Impala headgaskets are listed for Impala style cast iron cylinder heads, but the only real reason they list them for the cast iron heads is because they have a harder material fire ring around the cylinders in the gasket, and the harder fire ring material can brinel(indent slightly)aluminum heads...but whenever you remove an aluminum head from "any" car(with any type gaskets), It should always be re-surfaced before re-installing it anyway...also, the slight brineling effect that these harder fire ring gaskets cause is VERY minor at best...Anyway, they've been proven VERY safe to use for this application
MSD DIGITAL IGNITION: (Kinda long, but I feel well worth mentioning for those out there like myself, that have the MSD Digital 6 and have had repeated issues with it) This is the MSD Digital 6 Plus Ignition box mounted in the "drivers side" front fender well area...One simple, but VERY important thing to be sure to do on these boxes as a precaution is to take some heavy clear packaging tape and run a strip across "ALL" of the adjustment rotary dials on the box....These boxes acording to MSD are supposed to be sealed water tight, but "MANY" out there "including this one" is not even close to being water tight.... I can't even begin to tell ya how many of these that I've personally known of that have had to be sent back to MSD for repair because of water entry around the rotary dials (especially if you've got the box mounted where the dials are facing up, making them easy to access for adjustment)......Heck, just about everytime I'd wash my car, or it would rain heavy, the very NEXT time I would start the car, the ignition box would short out on me and the car would stall out for good "never" to re-start.(IE: Dead MSD box in need of internal repairs "everytime").... Before I put two and two together, still believing the MSD employees that there had to be some type of voltage spike going on that was inherent to "my" specific car, this box had been back to MSD 5 times for repair(for the same thing), and "never once" could they figure out the problem that was causing it everytime... They just told me to get their MSD Voltage/Noise capacitor that would catch any voltage spikes in the lines.... so I purchased the MSD capacitor and the box blew again right after a car wash a week later, LOL.....I tried to explain to them what was happening with the box "perfectly" coinciding with the rain and car washes, and that after closer inspection of the MSD box(by myself), I realised (for certain) that indeed water is "easily" able to get in through the rotary dials.... Literally every single person I spoke with at MSD said it wasn't possible because of how extensively they are sealed, and it still "HAS" to be some type of voltage spike with my specific cars electronics.... so I took a close up digital picture of the rotary dial area(head on with the flash) to show them that you can actually see "right into the box" thru the lower portion of the "first four" rotary dials on it, LOL.... No comment back from them.... Anyway, after sealing the (crookedly set) dials with some clear packaging tape (like in the pictures), The box has NEVER had an issue (years now).... talk about a company knowing a lot about cutting edge electronics, but overlooking the most simple of things that can happen, LOL (good unit aside from that VERY common flaw though, LOL)...........................................................................................As you can see by the dial settings, I'm pulling 7 degrees of timing out when the Nitrous system is in use.
2 Kicker 8in Substations (As far as subs go, I wanted something easy to remove for track days).... MTX 5 Channel Amp is running all the MB Quart Q Series Speakers throughout the car.

BATTERY: I'm not really seeing anything special with these Optima batteries.... I'm on my 3rd one (free replacements) in less than 2 years.... Florida heat is always tough on batteries , but that's pretty ridiculous (maybe I just got a couple bad ones, we'll see.)

Engine Compartment, Totally Stripped down to just the engine block here.. And "yes" I removed the hand file from the lifter valley (holding the paper towels down) when I put things back together, LOL. Getting ready to put the Heads on, and start getting things back together, I hope, LOL....