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RATTLE Snake Bite the XLR-V

57K views 153 replies 24 participants last post by  Vernetta 
#1 ·
Today is the first day of Mod Hell for me. I just dropped off my car at Stiegmeier Porting Services for their Snake Bite mod.


The guys over on the STS-V forum have been talking about this mod for over a year, but as far as I know only one of them has tried it and only to the blower. (Coach123 correct me if I'm wrong). Bob Stiegmeier, the owner wants to prove this concept on my car and market it to the XLR-V/STS-V communities so I'm sure they'll be chiming in as the mod progresses.

For those not familiar with the Snake Bite, its basically porting, polishing and port matching everything from the intake to the throttlebody and flow matching the injectors to the increased boost. Included with that is a PatentPending gear drive system to increase boost by 50% and also produces quicker boost rise with no belt slip.

From their website:
Stiegemeier Engine Air Flow moves forward with a new development of the LOUDEST most Powerful ported Eaton Supercharger to date. With Extreme Performance and Torque the SNAKE BITE tm upgrade gives you a 50% increase in boost with stock pulleys. Boost is instant and sticks up high with normal belt tension. For those who love the loud sound of a Stiegemeier ported blower - you are in luck - the SNAKE BITE tm screams at a powerful level. I would give it a solid 30% increase. Return your engine to stock appearance for that sleeper image & collectabilty!

I told Bob several times already that this group thrives on hard number: track slips and back to back dyno runs. So to generate more NorthStar business, he'll be doing several dyno runs: stock, D3 Intake, Snake Bite, hiflo cats, etc. He seems to think 500RWHP should be easy. My goal is 575HP at the wheels so I am holding out for Jesse at Wait4Me to get me there.

I read over in the STS-V forum that the stock injectors are 42lbs on these engines, can anyone verify that for me?

Wish me luck, I'll post more as I get it.
 
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#139 ·
Good bye Florida.



On my way to W4M within the week. We'll tune the Meth and take advantage of the chiller.
 
#143 ·
More rpm is not the answer with a roots supercharger. Centrifugal yes, roots no. The roots upercharger just gets pushed even further out of its efficiency range. Power will drop to the point where it's advantageous to shift gears well before 8500rpm.

Timing and rev limits are easy to tune. I am sure Giz's car has had that addressed.
 
#144 ·
Well this year sucked! My car was in the shop almost 6 months, my mom passed away in April, I've been in and out of depression and basically became a hermit. Shop with my car finally gave it back to me incomplete in Sept and had the nerve to ask for more $ than we agreed *he lost that fight).

Did a couple car shows and Corvette Funfest, but the most fun I've had in the last 2 years was last weekend at the Texas Mile. My little brother went with me as my Crew Chief and we tested out my latest mods: handmade catless headers, 3" X-Pipe midpipe to 3" Billy Boat Fusion exhaust, back to OEM pulley and tune.

http://oppositelock.jalopnik.com/twice-a-year-the-sleepy-little-town-of-beeville-texas-1650666932

With 1100 miles to get there, very little sleep from Thursday thru Sunday and another 1100 miles home, I think I'm almost recovered from my trip. Figured I better post up some pic and vids because :postpics:


Bottom line: it was an exciting weekend. Raced a bunch. Had some fun. Learned a lot. Still wanting more...

I won't hold you in suspense about the final results. 165.6MPH was the speed of my first run... and my best. The winds came up Friday afternoon - a direct headwind, and the weather was unusually HOT. Over 90% of those of us able to run first thing Friday morning, none could top our individual speeds for that run.





Conditions were great Friday morning and they sucked the rest of the weekend. Needless to say after seeing above videos - ELWOOD is LOUD now. Not much drone on the highway, twice as loud as stock at idle, but rattle your teeth LOUD at WOT! I love it. My XLR buddies say Elwood has anger management issues :lildevil:


I made 10 passes down the runway. Five at over 160MPH. The first run on Saturday, I heard something pop so I got out of it and still managed to cross the line at over 150. The next run I forgot to engage "Performance Mode" so the 3/4 and 4/5 shifts were slow and the engine bogged down. My crew chief was so pissed, he told me for the next run "roll into the throttle smooth and fast to keep the tires from spinning, when you hear the shift from 2nd to 3rd, nail your foot to the floor, close your eyes and ears and just hold on!" - I ran 161.2MPH. If that had been the same conditions as Friday morning, it would have been well over 168. ​



Sunday racers were going home so some of us got to hot-lap. I made 5 passes on Sunday and could have done 2 more, but the track conditions weren't getting any better and I did have to drive 1100 miles to get home so we called it a day by 4PM.



This is what the grid looked like on Sunday morning *and this is with most of the racers packing up to go home).



I still had a good time. The people at the Mile: drivers, mechanics, admin, and spectators made this a memorable trip. For the V owners and guests, Bachelor Cadillac and the Texas V Club setup a dining tent serving breakfast and lunch every day just like the Cadillac Corral at Mid-Ohio. I ran into lots of old friends from Texas and other LSR venues and made quite a few new friends. As usual, we raced all day and partied most of the night. I am now an official Texas V Club member. And got another invite to Bonneville. Lots of folks wanted to know about Elwood, even more were cheering me on to try and break 170. My cousin from Houston even came out on Saturday to be my cheerleader.




Of course, every race is a learning experience. Where do I begin?

1. Never run the car through the gears at WOT without engaging Performance mode. Performance mode keeps the tranny pressure maxed out and the revs up through the shifts so the car just keeps pulling like a freight train.

2. The intake and exhaust need to be better matched. First my exhaust was the restriction, now the throttle body is the restriction. The motor breathes well, but to get more horsepower I need to increase the intake charge. I did test runs on Saturday with the exhaust fully open vs slightly closed and the boost level increased 2.2lbs with the exhaust partially closed. I guess I could leave it open and change the pulley, but that's going to require a retune.

3. Street tires cost me at least 3MPH. Since I drove the car down, I didn't bring my racing wheels and tires. My street tires basically had no grip after each morning run. Burnouts didn't help. And the heat of the day just made it worse. Next time, I'll have my tires sent down in advance and change them Thursday night.

4. The plastic push pins holding the front inner fenders can't handle this speed. The CTS-Vs had problems with their plastic undertray and inner fender wells at anything over 160 *four of them were damaged this weekend). Zip ties were the fix they used. I think I'll replace them with nuts and bolts. I also had to remove the plastic flap behind the upper grill and will have to design and install a replacement because it wasn't designed for my D3 intakes or the speeds.

5. My methanol nozzles are too small. Using the meth only at WOT with the boost I'm generating is evaporating the meth before it gets into the cylinders costing me power.The jets I have are great for hooning around on the street, but for long WOT runs all it adds is a little cooling and no HP.

6. I need to do some more aero tuning. At 160, fighting wind resistance is like trying to push through a brick wall. My lip splitter will help keep the nose down, but I've got to reduce the drag.

So I didn't hit 170MPH... YET. A couple more horsepower, some aero tuning, and a decent set of racing tires and I think I got this. Probably won't get back to Texas for a while so I've set my sights on the Chicago Half Mile next year. Now to remove my headers and get them ceramic coated before the winter sets in. Looks like I have a few mods to do for the winter.

What about the other cars present, you ask? Well, lets see if I can give you a brief recap. The record holding car at the mile is a wildly modified twin turbo GT-40.


Guess what the record is *Hint: its plastered all over the car)? The car number maybe?

I gotta do a shout out for the Texas V Club.

All current and past Cadillac V Series cars were represented at the mile this time: CTS V1 &V2, XLR-V, as well as STS-V. I believe there were 18 of us racing and another 20-25 came to spectate. A great bunch of guys and gals.


As a side note the Cadillac record was 200.9MPH, but ADM Performance brought a CTS-V Coupe that smashed that record with a 211.9MPH run on Sunday.


Among the other racers, several more exotics showed up on Saturday as well as some unusual American iron. I was surprised to see three different McLarens in the grid, a couple Audi V10s, and the Porsches came out in force. OBTW, a spectator showed up in a BMW i8 Saturday afternoon and was amazing.

 
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#148 ·
I run ZR1/Z06 springs and sways at the lowest settings I can stand and the exhaust scrapes the ground at the slightest incline. Can't go down any further.

I think there's a little more motor in there and I need to finish up my aero mods this winter so we'll see.
 
#151 ·
There are similarities, but also some significant differences. TimmyC, 1MADSTSV, and BoomyS10 are the "experts" in modding the STS-V.
 
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