3500/LX9 Build Thread

[Atilla the Fun]

upon looking again, I see it was the damn rear valve cover. I hate Fiero specific parts. The 2.8 is supposed to have black-painted stamped steel valve covers, not damn red. My bad. I thought you had a red GT that we were seeing under your raised-off-the-cradle Fiero, but that's clearly not possible in a standard home garage. Sorry

[Shaun41178(2)]

what happened with this?

[nfswift]

Between moving the car from the engine pull location due to a change of residence, changing jobs, full time work, and getting distracted swapping a new SBC and getting my pickup truck road-ready I havn't made a lot of progress, just amassed parts so far.

I'll be buying a centerforce clutch and a flywheel and bolting the trans to the motor as soon as some money makes its way down the pipe. The truck bogarted my entire Fiero budget for a month or two but I'm hoping to get the 3500 bolted up soon at a least so I can shim it to height and start measuring for the motor mounts. Just need to figure out the re-routed fuel system and that should be nearly everything squared away, hopefuly I'll be able to devote some serious attention to it by the beginning of this summer.

[EMX5636]

Looks like a pretty cool swap... I wonder if the front of the block is the same as the 3400. Then you could use all the Fiero front cover/waterpump and accessories with slight modding. Forget the truck and get back to the car dammit! I regret that my Formula sat for over a year because my Eclipse and streetbike got in the way...

[The Dark Side of Will]

Then you could use all the Fiero front cover/waterpump and accessories with slight modding.

Why on earth would you want to do that? The Fiero accessory drive is primitive and bulky.

[Shaun41178(2)]

the 3400 and 3500 belt drive setup puts the alternator through the decklid. Using thge fiero setup keepsit all under the decklid

[tehmaxfactr]

I hate to bring this thread back from like 4 years ago ,but it is kinda along the same thing that i am doing +a turbo. I have a LX9 3.5 turbocharged fiero, currently with a blow head gasket. What i am looking for is if anyone else has done these?? i see a rear mounted grand am turboed 3.5 and this thread and thats about it.. The other thing I would like find is a good site for the LX9 to build a good engine out of. I am currently looking on wot-tech.com for some parts. I want to build this motor from bottom to top. Also I was reading the LX9 is Iron block? with aluminum heads? this would be pretty good for boost any reading material you would like to link would be a great help.

[The Dark Side of Will]

the 3400 and 3500 belt drive setup puts the alternator through the decklid. Using thge fiero setup keepsit all under the decklid

Shouldn't be hard to make a low mount alternator bracket for use with the serpentine drive, similar to what's done with the 3800 swaps.

[ericjon262]

I hate to bring this thread back from like 4 years ago ,but it is kinda along the same thing that i am doing +a turbo. I have a LX9 3.5 turbocharged fiero, currently with a blow head gasket. What i am looking for is if anyone else has done these?? i see a rear mounted grand am turboed 3.5 and this thread and thats about it.. The other thing I would like find is a good site for the LX9 to build a good engine out of. I am currently looking on wot-tech.com for some parts. I want to build this motor from bottom to top. Also I was reading the LX9 is Iron block? with aluminum heads? this would be pretty good for boost any reading material you would like to link would be a great help.

here's my build thread if it helps...

http://60degreev6.com/forum/showthread. ... ts-of-pics

there's a couple of well built cars on there, mine still doesn't run, not sure when I'll be able to get back to it yet.

[tehmaxfactr]

Thanks! I will check it out. Right now I'm at the point where I think I am going to go to the junkyard to get another lx9. our local one has one for 175 and see if I can get it in the car and run it on low boost. I drove this car 90% the way home before the head gasket gave out.

[Shaun41178(2)]

I did a 3500 turbo swap too. However I just used the 3500 bottom end and used a gen 2 aluminum top end since I was doing custom stuff. My build thread is here
http://realfierotech.com/phpBB/viewtopi ... =3&t=17639

3500 block is iron and does have aluminum heads. Some of them even have forged steel cranks, and 2 of the cylinders have piston oil squirters. Stock 3500 heads flow pretty well, enough to get you 350+ whp on only 10 psi pending on turbo size and tune.

WP_000153 (Medium).jpg (79.42 KiB) Viewed 3602 times

[ericjon262]

Thanks! I will check it out. Right now I'm at the point where I think I am going to go to the junkyard to get another lx9. our local one has one for 175 and see if I can get it in the car and run it on low boost. I drove this car 90% the way home before the head gasket gave out.

the bottom ends are pretty damn tough, Mars on 60v6 ran 11.13's on a stock 3500 bottom end.

[caffeine]

Ironically enough nfswift's 3500 is the exact engine I put in my Fiero. Found it on usedvic.com about 1.75 years ago and had it swapped into my Fiero in about a month. It's now cammed with an F23 5-speed transmission as well.

I also have a 3500 turbo in my 89 Firebird but one of the head gaskets popped a few months ago. I had been driving it for about 6 months before that though and at 9 psi had zero issues. The last two months I ran 14 psi and I think that's what killed the gasket. I was still using stock head bolts so the next engine is getting the ARP head studs that have been sitting in my toolbox for about a year .

[caffeine]

the 3400 and 3500 belt drive setup puts the alternator through the decklid. Using thge fiero setup keepsit all under the decklid

My decklid notch is quite small... certainly not "though the decklid"


Also I don't know if it works on a 3500 but with a 3400 you can use a lightly modded A/C bracket off some W-body cars to bolt up an alternator in the A/C location.

[Series8217]

With some simple glass work you wouldn't even be able to tell that was modified.

[Shaun41178(2)]

Perhaps its a manner in how some people are mounting their 3400's or what particular mounts they use, or perhaps what year 3x00 alternator mounts, might determine how high the alternator sits. I seem to recall and I think I even have pics of someone with the alternator sticking out through the decklid, and that a little scoop was used facing backwards to hide it poking through. I am not sure if I can dig up that pic but I will try. For that reason is why I used factory fiero alternator mount and I also wanted to try using the factory dogbone setup. Also perhaps there is a difference in the notchback vs fastback decklids and how they sit on the body.

Since I have an 88, my cradle didn't come with the "lower shock absorber engine mount" brackets. I think making a hard mount down low in that location and eliminating that shock would pretty much serve the same purpose as the upper dogbone mount on non 88 models. Someone feel free to jump in if the geometry on that might not work well.

Nice job with your swap caffeine. I think a 3500 swap could be a decent swap once more people get it worked out and more common like the 3800 swaps over the years.

[caffeine]

With rubber engine mounts you might need a bigger notch to accommodate alternator movement, however in my experience with this engine rubber mounts simply won't do. I've broken 4 mounts since I started driving the car.

The first mount I broke was the custom solid dog-bone (bolts to two head bolts and one trans bellhousing bolt). It was welded to the trunk but tore the metal off the trunk (this happened twice). I then revised the mount by drilling through the trunk and using a large bolt and nut to secure it. It hasn't broken since.



After the issues with the dog-bone not holding very well I upgraded the trans mounts to polyurethane from Rodney Dickman. A few months later while diagnosing an issue with the crank sensor I discovered that the rear trans mount bracket (stock 4-speed) had broken into three separate pieces of metal. The mount bracket got welded back together with 1/4" steel to reinforce it.

A few months ago after a weekend of drag racing I discovered yet another broken mount. This was after upgrading to an F23 5-speed with 1/4" trans-mount brackets from Fieroflyer. The issue this time was that the mount Rodney uses for his trans mount had been totally shredded. Fortunately a replacement mount only cost $20 from the local auto parts store.



So after discovering that last broken mount I decided it was finally time to get the engine as solid as possible without having to weld on additional brackets to the cradle. I took parts of the original front 'shock' type mount from the 2.8 and created a solid mount from that to two bolts on the engine block and one bolt on the oil pan (with 1/4" steel).



Still not satisfied (I could still move the engine with a prybar), I made one last bracket going from the top mount alt bracket to the original dog-bone location. Space is super tight between the two so installing the bracket is a major pain, but I'm finally satisfied with the mount situation. Shouldn't be breaking any more mounts at least and now that the engine is more solid mounted it should also as a bonus take some stress off the transaxle case.

[caffeine]

Perhaps its a manner in how some people are mounting their 3400's or what particular mounts they use, or perhaps what year 3x00 alternator mounts, might determine how high the alternator sits. I seem to recall and I think I even have pics of someone with the alternator sticking out through the decklid, and that a little scoop was used facing backwards to hide it poking through. I am not sure if I can dig up that pic but I will try. For that reason is why I used factory fiero alternator mount and I also wanted to try using the factory dogbone setup. Also perhaps there is a difference in the notchback vs fastback decklids and how they sit on the body.

Since I have an 88, my cradle didn't come with the "lower shock absorber engine mount" brackets. I think making a hard mount down low in that location and eliminating that shock would pretty much serve the same purpose as the upper dogbone mount on non 88 models. Someone feel free to jump in if the geometry on that might not work well.

Nice job with your swap caffeine. I think a 3500 swap could be a decent swap once more people get it worked out and more common like the 3800 swaps over the years.

My alt/alt bracket came from an ~01 Malibu. I basically just picked up the cheapest alt/alt bracket I could find at local wreckers.

My original swap was with a notchback decklid and the notch was a bit bigger but the mount situation was sloppier then than now so I didn't need as big a notch when I converted to a fastback. Looking back at all the mounts I've broken in about 1.25 years of driving I'd say it's not worth bothering with rubber or even poly engine mounts. I didn't have access to a welder when I did the swap originally so stock mounts had to be good enough.

I would not say that a lower shock absorber engine mount would be enough to delete the dog-bone. The reason for that is there is potentially so much more leverage on that mount because of how low it is. An upper dog-bone helps so much because the engine movement is much more pronounced up top.

Regarding 3800 vs. 3500 I understand why the 3800sc swaps are popular and you can't argue with that but I don't see why anyone would bother with an N/A 3800 swap vs. 3500. You end up with about the same power and fuel economy (possibly better fuel economy) but the 3500 swap is far cheaper and easier to do. Honestly if I didn't see that 3500 for sale locally I probably would have ended up with a 3800 N/A swap because in all the "what should I swap" threads on Old Europe it's either 3.4 RWD, 3.4 DOHC or 3800. Funny how there are so few mentions of the 3x00 engines on there when it's such a practical swap if you're looking for an easy replacement of the 2.8.