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View Full Version : General My Car (LS1 DeLorean) Used For An Episode of Car Fix on Velocity! Airs Sept. 12, 2014



Nicholas R
07-31-2014, 06:52 PM
TL;DR-located at the end. :reading:

Last week my car was used in the show “Car Fix” for Jared and Lou (the hosts of the show) to perform a head and cam swap on an LS engine.

It all began back at the Celebration Exotic Carshow here in Orlando this past April. Jared (the host) and the show’s producer (Brian) were walking through the DeLoreans when they stumbled upon my car. Now I use the word “stumbled” loosely because the truth is that Lenny here on DMCtalk was parked next to me at the show. When he saw the camera crew walking around, he immediately ran over and said something along the lines of “If you want to see a DeLorean to video, you need to check out this one in the corner.” Truthfully, if it hadn’t been for Lenny, I think it’s unlikely that this even would have happened, as I doubt the crew would have walked to the back of the DeLorean section where I was parked. I definitely owe Lenny one.:thumbup::cheers:

Anyway, at the show they asked about the car, what my future plans were, and how I work on it. I explained that I had made the rear fascia and bumper section easily removable for maintenance, and that in the future I was hoping to do a head and cam swap. They liked the idea of the easy engine access and they asked right there if I was interested in being on the show. At the time I thought they were either joking, or that this was just them putting out feelers for potential cars for the show. Of course I said yes and gave them my info, assuming that they probably wouldn't call.

The following Friday I got a call from the show’s producer asking if I was still interested. I couldn’t believe they actually called back, but they certainly did. They tossed around different dates as well as different parts to use during the show. The original schedule conflicted with DCS but they were totally cool about working around my schedule, which is how we ended up in July.

The final decisions were made that they would install Lingenfelter heads and a Lingenfelter cam, and then perform a full Dyno tune on the car.

I brought the car to the studio for the shoot; they shot the episode over 2 days. The first day was in the studio doing the bulk of the engine work, then the second day took place at the Tuning shop where the car was dyno tuned. It was a blast!! And it was really awesome to see how they weave the shooting into the actual work on the car. The whole episode is only about 25 minutes, but Jared and Lou actually did do the majority of the work on the car. They don’t shut down the cameras and then have another team come in to turn wrenches. Both Jared and Lou are super knowledgeable and capable car guys that love what they do. They also found out pretty early on in the shoot that I wanted to help turn wrenches on the car, which they were totally cool with. When the cameras would stop, I got to jump right in to help out. :wrenchin:

So in the end, they installed Lingenfelter LS1CNC-C heads, which are Gen II (I had Gen I) LS heads that are CNC ported and polished with CNC re-profiled and oversized hand lapped stainless steel valves, built up with dual valve springs with titanium retainers. Also installed a Lingenfelter GT11 high lift and duration camshaft designed for street use.

Before ordering parts they had me talk directly to Lingenfelter so that they knew exactly what my intentions were for the car. I told them that the car gets driven a lot, mostly just around town, and that I didn’t want to trade power at the low end, to have super power at the high end (since the car typically lives between 2000-3500 RPM). I also explained that I had already installed an LS6 intake manifold and LS6 PCV system, as well as Hooker headers on the engine. Lingenfelter spec’ed out the parts based on that.

The car was trailered to the tuner where they did a full mapping of the car through the power band and dyno tuned it. The car is now making 420hp at the wheels at the top of the power band! With even 10-12% drive train loss that’s about 475hp at the crank shaft. Whats even wilder is how quickly the torque is applied. At 3,000RPM the car is already producing about 350ft/lbs of torque. The pickup in the mid range is really wild.:race::burnout:

Throughout the process I told them that I did have concerns about the transmission. With Toby’s coupler I was pretty confident in its ability when there was only 350hp at the crank but this new power made me nervous; especially with how quickly the torque is applied now. I think they even reference my concerns on the show and that I’m working to improve the transmission. I do keep this in mind when I drive, however; I have reconciled with myself that if I shear the input shaft, I can just fix/replace it (at least until I finish my ongoing transmission project). I was told that we could likely squeeze more out of the engine with more testing and tuning, but I didn't like the idea of doing a bunch of dyno pulls right now.

Anyway that’s my story. The episode is set to air on Friday night September 12 on Velocity as the season 3 season finale of Car Fix! If you’re like me and don’t have Velocity, you can also get the episode on iTunes or Amazon Prime once it airs.

Oh and if anyone is curious, no I personally am not in the episode, just the car (unless I accidentally got caught in a shot at the dyno place).

TL;DR – My car used on “Car Fix” TV show because it had the LS1 engine; installed Lingenfelter cylinder heads, Lingenfelter camshaft, now makes 420hp at the wheels ~475hp at the crank, Episode airs September 12 on Velocity as the season finale; also available on iTunes and Amazon Prime; Jared, Lou, Brian and their whole team at Car Fix are awesome!!!:thumbup:

Pictures! Lots of pictures!

Rich W
07-31-2014, 06:56 PM
Awesome story Nicholas !! Looking forward to seein the whole show in September !!

jawn101
07-31-2014, 07:26 PM
Wow, awesome!!

Jimmyvonviggle
07-31-2014, 07:43 PM
That's pretty cool, thanks for sharing.

Bitsyncmaster
07-31-2014, 08:04 PM
That is great.

Dangermouse
07-31-2014, 08:11 PM
Big mistake trying to open this thread while on my phone. :)

Nicholas R
07-31-2014, 09:16 PM
Big mistake trying to open this thread while on my phone. :)

Sorry about that. That's what the TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't Read) was for! :biggrin: though I'm sure all the all the photos wreaked havoc as well...

Silverbullet
07-31-2014, 10:16 PM
Way Cool.... So the show picks up the tab for all the work done... and your car is even better than it was.... Awesome!

Craig

dmruschell
07-31-2014, 11:08 PM
That is a lot of power. Being a Corvette guy first and a DeLorean guy second, I love this car.

SIMid
08-01-2014, 12:47 AM
Wow! Star of the show and free upgrades! Congrats!!

Going to be hard to watch it here in OZ.

opethmike
08-01-2014, 09:07 AM
Wow! Star of the show and free upgrades! Congrats!!

Going to be hard to watch it here in OZ.

You can buy episodes of the show on Amazon Prime for $2 US.

Evildeli
08-01-2014, 09:45 AM
I liked their episode when they worked on an older vette. Looking forward to this episode. How many BTTF jokes did they make?

OverlandMan
08-01-2014, 10:13 AM
Thanks for sharing and congrats! I'll definitely set this on my DVR.

Rich_NYS
08-01-2014, 10:33 AM
NICE! :thumbup2:

Nicholas R
08-01-2014, 11:29 AM
I liked their episode when they worked on an older vette. Looking forward to this episode. How many BTTF jokes did they make?

Actually, this was kind of a part of the show. At no point do they ever actually mention Back to the Future, Marty McFly, Doc Brown, or anything like that. There may however be a few very subtle, round-about BTTF references....

NightFlyer
08-01-2014, 12:07 PM
Very COOL - looking forward to the episode :thumbup:

Josh
08-01-2014, 12:21 PM
This is awesome. Right on Nick!

Dangermouse
08-01-2014, 01:39 PM
Sorry about that. That's what the TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't Read) was for! :biggrin: though I'm sure all the all the photos wreaked havoc as well...

Yeah, when you open the thread, tapatalk buggers off and starts loading all the thumbnails and you can't even scroll down to the summary :(

On PC now and it looks great. Looking forward to watching it in a couple of months

vwdmc16
08-01-2014, 07:14 PM
That is so cool Nick! You are really making me want to do Ls swap to my car now.

Rich_NYS
08-01-2014, 09:06 PM
That's awesome!

Nicholas R
09-10-2014, 12:25 PM
Just a reminder, the episode airs this Friday at 8:30 on velocity! It will re-air at 11:30pm on Friday, then 11:00am on Saturday and 11:00 on Sunday. Also available on amazon prime and iTunes.

elfking
09-10-2014, 03:57 PM
Very nice! I am sure it was already nice and fast before... Those Land & Sea / Dynomite / Dyno's are by far my favorite to use they have given me the most consistent numbers across all the cars I have owned / run on them VS say a hub based dyno.

Congrats and I am sure I'll check out the episode at some point!

Nicholas R
09-10-2014, 09:00 PM
Very nice! I am sure it was already nice and fast before... Those Land & Sea / Dynomite / Dyno's are by far my favorite to use they have given me the most consistent numbers across all the cars I have owned / run on them VS say a hub based dyno.

Congrats and I am sure I'll check out the episode at some point!

Thanks! I agree, it was definitely the nicest Dyno I've been on. They told me this one could handle cars up into the multiple thousand hp once they started engaging the eddiecurrent roller brakes. At 420hp I was just free spinning the main drums alone. None of the brakes were required. Sounds like a lot of hp to us but in the muscle and racing world, that's nothing, haha.

OverlandMan
09-11-2014, 08:17 AM
Thanks for the reminder. I had forgotten about this. Will definitely set the DVR and check it out this weekend.

Nicholas R
09-12-2014, 04:27 PM
Just a heads up; 4 hours until this episode airs! Hope you can catch it! :D

elfking
09-12-2014, 06:13 PM
Thanks! I agree, it was definitely the nicest Dyno I've been on. They told me this one could handle cars up into the multiple thousand hp once they started engaging the eddiecurrent roller brakes. At 420hp I was just free spinning the main drums alone. None of the brakes were required. Sounds like a lot of hp to us but in the muscle and racing world, that's nothing, haha.

The one that I have access to is a giant single roller which limits it to 2WD. I have seen some pretty high powered cars run on it 2JZ's, LS1's, LS6's and various other Ford variants with some high power too. Everyone used to like watching my RX7's throw flames when doing pulls and my Jeep I put a 7.5L Ford 460 in liked to throw all sorts of bits of tire off the back of the roller! When running Diesels the brake is the only way to get accurate torque numbers.

I think Land & Sea was telling me it would handle over 1000HP/ Torque which I could believe since its really just a giant weight and bearings with a pickup on the side of it... I think the highest we ran on it was in the 700 range. I do miss spending hours sitting on the Dyno adjusting my RX7's fuel maps. :smile:

Lenny
09-12-2014, 08:24 PM
5 minutes till show time.

Nicholas R
09-12-2014, 09:13 PM
5 minutes till show time.
What did you think Lenny? After all, you're practically responsible for setting this up! :biggrin:

Lenny
09-12-2014, 09:21 PM
I think they did a great job. Not to many BTTF jokes and they were complementary about the car. I liked it.

They were also complementary about you. They talked about how you did it right and didn't just slap the engine in there. At least 3 times they mentioned you were an Engineer and put thought into everything you did.

What would it have cost you to have this done by a mechanic, my wife asked me. I told her $2,500.00.

Timebender
09-12-2014, 10:36 PM
Looking forward to getting it on iTunes!

rileydawgg
09-13-2014, 03:59 AM
Watched it. They were very complimentary of your car. It looked great. Ironically it was very uninformative for me as a new D owner though... Haha. Congrats, that had to be pretty cool seeing your car on TV.

Squall67584
09-13-2014, 08:16 AM
Cool! I'll have to check out the rerun this morning. What sort of accessory drive are you using on the LS? I asked on one of your YouTube videos but figured you would check here more often.

Nicholas R
09-13-2014, 09:28 AM
Watched it. They were very complimentary of your car. It looked great. Ironically it was very uninformative for me as a new D owner though... Haha. Congrats, that had to be pretty cool seeing your car on TV.
Yea that was kind of the case. I dont think the show was ever really meant to be about DeLoreans. The purpose was for them to have an interesting car to do a head and cam swap. The format of the show is typically "today we're going to show/teach you how to do 'this' thing on a car, and explain the different parts along the way." Sometimes it's exhaust, sometimes, it's brakes, turbos, tires, suspension, carburetors, EFI, etc. Plus they always like to have cool cars in the shop. This episode was about heads and cams.


Cool! I'll have to check out the rerun this morning. What sort of accessory drive are you using on the LS? I asked on one of your YouTube videos but figured you would check here more often.
My accessory drive is the Camaro style (which I believe they actually mention on the show). I had to do this because of the placement of the alternator. The Corvette accessory drive style has the alternator high and wide, which wouldn't fit in the engine bay. The Camaro has it nice and tucked up underneath. For the most part the engine is Corvette on top (Heads, cam, intake), Camaro in the middle (accessories, alternator, waterpump), and GTO on the bottom (Oil pan, oil pump, oil pickup). The short block is the same for all of them.

By the way, did anyone count the subtle Back to the Future references? They said early on that they wanted the show to be about the car and not constantly promoting BTTF as most shows about DeLoreans do. As such they said they wanted to make subtle hints and jokes toward BTTF during their conversation and banter, but never actually mention or bring up BTTF, so that if you didn't know what you were listening for, you wouldn't even notice.

Squall67584
09-13-2014, 01:05 PM
I caught the hint of the radiation suit, them saying the head was heavy, and mentioned Marty.

DL4567
09-13-2014, 02:04 PM
Watched the episode last night, and really enjoyed it. Never seen the show before. I got the impression that they were very careful with your car, and took their time with the work. That's refreshing to see vs. so many of these types of shows (and real life) where mechanics rush through a job as fast and roughly as possible. It was also nice how they really took the time to explain the new heads and why they are better -- again, vs. just giving a 2-second explanation and slapping it in like most garage shows do.

The BTTF references were indeed subtle, which was also refreshing. I like to think that if a DeLorean owner was making that show, that's how they would do it. Not ignore BTTF completely, but not ram it down your throat as is too often the case.

refugeefromcalif
09-13-2014, 02:10 PM
Looking forward to getting it on iTunes!

+1. That's the only way I'll be able to see it.

George

Nicholas R
09-13-2014, 02:47 PM
I caught the hint of the radiation suit, them saying the head was heavy, and mentioned Marty.

There were a couple others too :)

Spittybug
09-13-2014, 04:52 PM
I just watched it too. That thing's a beast! Too much in-show advertising for me, but I do like a show that doesn't have all of today's interpersonal conflicts or racing against the clock crap.

DMCMW Dave
09-13-2014, 05:08 PM
I just watched it too. That thing's a beast! Too much in-show advertising for me, but I do like a show that doesn't have all of today's interpersonal conflicts or racing against the clock crap.

Actually I thought it was pretty amazing what they could show in a half hour, which is really more like 20 minutes of air time.

Funny thing as we (Julee and I) were watching it, the only thing she noticed was "he needs headliners".

Iceguy
09-13-2014, 05:42 PM
Congrads Nick, car is looking awesome.

Nicholas R
09-13-2014, 05:48 PM
Funny thing as we (Julee and I) were watching it, the only thing she noticed was "he needs headliners".
Haha!! You know I didn't even realize the center panel had a bubble in it until I saw that footage!! That and the rear dome light had popped out and was dangling. Major face palm... Oh well, if those were the only bad things during the shooting, I'll take it.

I agree, I was impressed at how it was edited to show everything in 22min. The shooting took 2 days. The first day in the studio was from ~9:00am-6:30pm. We got to the point of the new heads being installed. The second day they finished putting it back together and then I met them at the dyno shop at 12:30pm. Probably left there at 4:30.

DMC-81
09-13-2014, 06:25 PM
I DVR'd it and my wife and I watched it this afternoon. Very cool! I agree that the show hosts were very complimentary and careful with your car. I enjoyed the show, and it was good exposure for the Deloreans.
Perhaps I'll look into the V12 coolant additive that they advertised.

Congrats!

Henrik
09-13-2014, 09:27 PM
I watched it twice already. They sure put the Delorean brand on a high pedestal and Nicholas' car in particular, being one of the coolest Ds out there, was treated with a ton of respect and admiration. Great show.

tommyrich
09-14-2014, 07:08 AM
Nick,
Awesome show. Your car looked amazing. You must have cringed a little having someone else take your car apart :wrenchin:
But I am sure it was worth it. Did you get the one-piece input shaft from the tranny yet?:cool:
Tom

Nicholas R
09-14-2014, 02:27 PM
Nick,
Awesome show. Your car looked amazing. You must have cringed a little having someone else take your car apart :wrenchin:
But I am sure it was worth it. Did you get the one-piece input shaft from the tranny yet?:cool:
Tom


Thanks!! That means a lot coming from you!! It wasn't too bad because as soon as they stopped shooting a scene, I would jump in and help them out. There were a couple time when I had to show them how to do specific things, just because of how custom some parts of the engine are.

Still working on the shaft.

opethmike
09-14-2014, 08:55 PM
Still working on the shaft.

Yes, definitely have to take your time working on your shaft.

Reaper1
09-15-2014, 06:23 PM
Here's something I've always wondered: who paid for the parts?

I got to do a TV pilot for a car show a few years ago in Daytona Beach for the local media production college thing they have there. It was pretty neat. Dunno that anything ever came of it, but hey, I got to spend some time in front of a real life TV camera and such! LOL

Nicholas R
09-15-2014, 09:08 PM
Here's something I've always wondered: who paid for the parts?

I got to do a TV pilot for a car show a few years ago in Daytona Beach for the local media production college thing they have there. It was pretty neat. Dunno that anything ever came of it, but hey, I got to spend some time in front of a real life TV camera and such! LOL

No one did. The parts (cam, heads, gaskets, bolts, etc.) were donated by Lingenfelter since they got the promotion on the show (however, with the heads, as they said, the show had to first send Lingenfelter a set of LS1 Gen II Corvette heads to perform the work to and build up with new parts). Pretty sure the Mobil 1, VR-12, etc. were all also given to the show for promotion. Then I donated my car for use to promote the show. All of that promotion has a lot of value, even if it's not strictly monetarily. However, the show did cover the dyno tune and dyno time since the shop didn't get any promotion out of it.

I believe that since I "donated" the use of my car, and have no real use in promotion, I received the parts in exchange. :burnout:

Reaper1
09-16-2014, 02:47 PM
No one did. The parts (cam, heads, gaskets, bolts, etc.) were donated by Lingenfelter since they got the promotion on the show (however, with the heads, as they said, the show had to first send Lingenfelter a set of LS1 Gen II Corvette heads to perform the work to and build up with new parts). Pretty sure the Mobil 1, VR-12, etc. were all also given to the show for promotion. Then I donated my car for use to promote the show. All of that promotion has a lot of value, even if it's not strictly monetarily. However, the show did cover the dyno tune and dyno time since the shop didn't get any promotion out of it.

I believe that since I "donated" the use of my car, and have no real use in promotion, I received the parts in exchange. :burnout:

Right on! :thumbup: I think it's interesting how many car shows are popping up in Florida now. All Girls Garage is filmed in Orlando and Highway to Sell is in Bradenton. Too bad that finding decent cars in that area of the country isn't exactly as easy as people think it is. Between the sun and the salt air cars in Florida get hammered pretty hard.

Nicholas R
09-16-2014, 05:51 PM
Right on! :thumbup: I think it's interesting how many car shows are popping up in Florida now. All Girls Garage is filmed in Orlando and Highway to Sell is in Bradenton. Too bad that finding decent cars in that area of the country isn't exactly as easy as people think it is. Between the sun and the salt air cars in Florida get hammered pretty hard.

All Girls Garage is actually shot in the exact same studio (literally the exact same room) as this episode of Car Fix was. The Jeep they just finished on All Girls was in the corner while shooting this episode.

Mark D
09-16-2014, 09:05 PM
I caught the episode when it aired last Friday and I really enjoyed watching. I thought they did a great job detailing the work that went into the head/cam swap too.. Your car looks fantastic and it was cool to learn more about some of the other mods you did like the bolt on rear cross member. I think it was great positive exposure for the DeLorean community, so thanks for being so willing to let these guys dig into your car like that. I'm sure you're enjoying every single one of those extra horses you got out of the deal :thumbup: