The Mule rides again (sort of) - pics.

[Emc209i]

One foot in front of the other.

[draven]

Very sorry for the loss of your friend.

Not to get political etc... but Anecdotal Covid experience for everyone here:

I just recently got through Covid last month and am back to 100%. If you or anyone you know contracts it, have them get to a doc-in-the-box, immediate-care, etc.. facility. Earlier the better. Once again, anecdotal but I thought being in really good shape and lot's of vitamins and OTC products would allow me to get through it.. I battled it for almost two weeks straight. I gave up and the moment I got a prescription for prednizone (mild steroid) and other typical anti-viral / bacterial items.... I was back on the mend. Hospitals basically told me, "if you can breath, stay home". Point is, help your system out early.

Supplements that dilate your brain capillaries help get over persisting brain fog.

ASAP, get out and do some cardio and cough any remaining crap out of your lungs to help get over any persisting cough and get O2 capacity back up..

Nearby sister went through exact same thing last week and she had vaccine as well.

just my .02 cents...

[eHoward]

Sorry to hear about your friend Will.

I hope selling some old projects is therapeutic and good time with your dad. I know since I've been home during the pandemic, I've tried to clear out what I can out of my garage and basement through ebay and the like.

That car is looking pretty close to road ready. What an effort.

[Honest Don]

My condolences for your friend…


I assume you’re tuning this beast somehow? If so, it shouldn’t really matter which regulator you go with. The referenced one might be a little easier?

[The Dark Side of Will]

One foot in front of the other.

Very sorry for the loss of your friend.

Sorry to hear about your friend Will.

My condolences for your friend…

Thanks for the kind words!
Joe was a stand up guy and I would not have hesitated to get into a foxhole with him or have him on my squad outside the wire. He was, I think 60's, but still in good shape and good health. He was a very experienced electrical engineer. He could be abrasive and opinionated, but that's because he did his homework and didn't have a lot of patience for people who didn't do theirs. In addition to his wife and daughter, he also mentored/tutored young men in his neighborhood having trouble with engineering school. I met some interesting people and family at his Celebration of Life.

I hope selling some old projects is therapeutic and good time with your dad. I know since I've been home during the pandemic, I've tried to clear out what I can out of my garage and basement through ebay and the like.

Those cars just need to go... My dad's borderline hoarder; growing up with that around, I've fought clutter all my life. I've gotten out in the real world to see how keeping a garage/workshop/equipment yard/factory/plant/fab/cleanroom neat and organized dramatically improves the efficiency of the work that needs to happen in those places. I guess he hasn't had that experience or hasn't had that experience recently enough to understand how having all that junk around is holding him back from finishing his Datsun and Eagle projects.

That car is looking pretty close to road ready. What an effort.

Oh damn, has it ever been WAY more of a road than I thought it would be. I guess I'm not smart enough to know when to quit.

I assume you’re tuning this beast somehow? If so, it shouldn’t really matter which regulator you go with. The referenced one might be a little easier?

It'll be running a 58x computer with OS designed for unreferenced regulator. As such, the tuning effort will be greater if I try to use a referenced regulator. OEMs originally used referenced regulators because the compute wasn't there in early ECMs to recalculate injector flow for every injection event. Engines haven't gotten much harder to run, but modern ECM's have orders of magnitude more compute, so now it's cheaper to run unreferenced fuel pressure and recalculate injector flow continuously. A side benefit of constant gauge pressure in the fuel rail is a greater pressure difference across the injector at idle, which helps a little bit with fuel atomization. I @$$ume OEMs take advantage of this by timing idle injection so the injector sprays while the valve is open... but I don't know.

Not to get political etc... but Anecdotal Covid experience for everyone here:

I just recently got through Covid last month and am back to 100%. If you or anyone you know contracts it, have them get to a doc-in-the-box, immediate-care, etc.. facility. Earlier the better. Once again, anecdotal but I thought being in really good shape and lot's of vitamins and OTC products would allow me to get through it.. I battled it for almost two weeks straight. I gave up and the moment I got a prescription for prednizone (mild steroid) and other typical anti-viral / bacterial items.... I was back on the mend. Hospitals basically told me, "if you can breath, stay home". Point is, help your system out early.

Supplements that dilate your brain capillaries help get over persisting brain fog.

ASAP, get out and do some cardio and cough any remaining crap out of your lungs to help get over any persisting cough and get O2 capacity back up..

Nearby sister went through exact same thing last week and she had vaccine as well.

just my .02 cents...

Ehh... COVID is not political. Only the government and media responses to it are political. Any good advice you can give will come in handy to someone here eventually.
I've heard the mainstream media is basically suppressing news about treatments other than vaccination. The media reaction to Trump's recommendation of hydroxychloroquine has had a serious chilling effect on research money available to investigate existing anti-viral drugs as treatments for COVID. This effect is really reprehensible, because it has likely resulted in preventable deaths.

EDIT: And great to hear you're over it!

[ericjon262]

it's always a bummer to hear about the loss of a friend, sorry for your loss.

[Emc209i]

I've gotten out in the real world to see how keeping a garage/workshop/equipment yard/factory/plant/fab/cleanroom neat and organized dramatically improves the efficiency of the work that needs to happen in those places.

It's an absolute burden off your shoulders when everything that's in the way is gone and you know exactly where everything is, what you have/need, and can walk around freely and enjoy the space. I'm glad you're headed in the right direction Will.

[pmbrunelle]

Sounds like Joe was a good guy.

********************************************************************************

I try to keep things clean/organized.

To that end, I end up giving away / throwing out /selling stuff I don't think I'll need.

Sometimes, I make the wrong call regarding a certain part; I got rid of something that would have been useful. So I have to buy it again...

However, I don't really regret it when that happens. That's simply the cost of not keeping too much stuff around, and I accept it.

Storing stuff has its own costs too; right now my house has a footprint of 966 square feet. Not too big. A bigger house to allow for more storage would cost more in everything; purchase price, heating, maintenance.

[The Dark Side of Will]

it's always a bummer to hear about the loss of a friend, sorry for your loss.

Sounds like Joe was a good guy.

Thanks. And he was.

I've gotten out in the real world to see how keeping a garage/workshop/equipment yard/factory/plant/fab/cleanroom neat and organized dramatically improves the efficiency of the work that needs to happen in those places.

It's an absolute burden off your shoulders when everything that's in the way is gone and you know exactly where everything is, what you have/need, and can walk around freely and enjoy the space. I'm glad you're headed in the right direction Will.

Intentional destruction is about the only activity I can think of that's more wasteful than looking for something you know you have.

I grew up in a cluttered house and got my car habit started in a cluttered garage. I saw how aircraft maintenance is done in Pensacola, but rationalized it as "that's all they do there". My first job off active duty took me into a whole host of different plants, some old and barely better organized than scrap yards, some new and shiny. Of course it was always easier to work in the new and shiny ones. One of the cleanest was actually a tobacco plant, working on a machine that made (cheap) cigarettes. I was also getting into local garages, automotive machine shops and some tuner shops. All of them were "organized" the way my dad's garage had been.

After some more exposure to the real world, lean manufacturing, clean room environments and high value manufacturing, I realized the way I grew up doing things is not a good way, and is even the wrong way when trying to get things done. Seeing how things are done in high end shops that work on Ferraris & Porsches reinforced this realization.

The big thing to internalize is that the level of organization that enables high performance operations to deliver excellent work does *NOT* "just happen". That environment requires thought, planning and effort to create, achieve, mature and maintain. Not only are the results worth it, delivering excellent work is extremely difficult to nearly impossible without that environment. An environment that intrudes into your work prevents you from focusing on your work, while an environment that has everything you need, but keeps it out of the way enables you to operate efficiently and effectively.

My dad hasn't dealt with this, which makes having to do work in his shop frustrating and slow.

I try to keep things clean/organized.

To that end, I end up giving away / throwing out /selling stuff I don't think I'll need.

Sometimes, I make the wrong call regarding a certain part; I got rid of something that would have been useful. So I have to buy it again...

However, I don't really regret it when that happens. That's simply the cost of not keeping too much stuff around, and I accept it.

Storing stuff has its own costs too; right now my house has a footprint of 966 square feet. Not too big. A bigger house to allow for more storage would cost more in everything; purchase price, heating, maintenance.

Exactly... The efficiency, sanity and frustration improvements from getting S#!+ out of the way far exceed the cost of every-so-often having to re-buy something you thought you didn't need anymore.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Here is how the injectors fit without the clips



Here's that stupid pipe plug



And why I can't use an external hex plug in that location



Of course I flaked on getting a photo of the assembled waterpump drive.

Also, I snagged a 3.91 F40 from a '03-'04 Saab late last year... it's been kicking around the back of my van in a tote for months and months. I finally verified the ratios and dropped it into "storage" next to my '09 Saab F40 with High Feature V6 bellhousing. My aim is to snag an '07 G6 F40 and merge it with the 3.91 F40 to build The Mule's eventual transmission. The '09 Saab trans will get married up to a LLT of LFX to be ready for... something. It has MU9 gearing, so I'd love to get an MT2 0.62 sixth for it.

I was surprised to find that it looks like this box has a Torsen or similar diff.



And now the main event.

With the waterpump drive finished, I've done the last of the "easy stuff". The remaining knick-knacks will take a little more time to solve, so I went ahead and moved the engine to the car.







Of course *AFTER* I had moved the engine out of the QC lab, I realized I didn't have the Cometic box in the ensemble. These photos may give the impression that I used Fel-Pro head gaskets, which I may have to take pains to correct.

Also, the discussion of Northstar weight is over









Knick-knacks not present in the weighed configuration:

• Throttle body
• Throttle body adapter [MAKE]
• Ignition coils, brackets [MAKE] & wiring
• Tensioner, idler pulleys & new idler bracket [MAKE]
• Injector wiring (?)

I generally don't include the main harness as a part of the engine, so I wouldn't put main harness weight in with engine weight. There's probably a case for injector wiring to be part of engine weight, since the injector harness, like the valley harness, has a production break separating it from the main harness.

The final weight should come in ~375-380#, but I'll most likely have to arrive at that figure via analysis, by weighing all those parts and adding up the numbers.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Picture isn't perfect, but provides some view of the connectors.

It looks like the D581 or D580 are the ones that could work well for packaging.
Searching for 12563293 on Rock turns up D585's, which is kinda weird. Searches for all other PNs and model numbers return the expected results.

I checked out Summit as well as Rock and found something interdasting:



Horry Shiet, I don't have to MAKE coil stacking hardware.
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/icb-551532
This is similar to FieroGuru's method of building his coil packs.

The kit appears to be pictured with D514A's. I @$$ume that D580's will work. Summit has Delphi D580 coils for $38/each. Rock has them for $35 each. I'm already putting together a decent sized Rock order for rear brakes for the Benz, so I might as well throw the coils in with that order. Since the Benz is due for rear brakes, I'm swapping it from the solid rear rotors that were standard on the V6 and diesel cars to the vented rear rotors that Benz used on the V8 and AWD cars.

I'll spec out the ICT pack vs. the NorthStar coil pack baseplate and see if I can fit two of those packs on the baseplate in order to run 8 LS coils or if I want to re-use the '06 NorthStar coil pack on the rear bank.

The rear cam cover has all sorts of little bolt holes and bosses to which I can screw down a coil mounting plate. The front cam cover has nothing. The result is that I have to use coils and wires for the front bank, while I can use coil-on-plug hardware on the rear bank.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Picture isn't perfect, but provides some view of the connectors.

Coil mounting plate, left position (likely):

I realized that I can probably set up TWO of the ICT Billet mount kits side-by-side on the original baseplate. From there I can use 4x D580's and 4x D514A's. That means that all the control connectors line up, while the high voltage terminals point opposite directions. Half the high voltage terminals would point to each bank, making plug wire routing easier.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Sinister confirms that the dwell tables for the D580 and D514A are significantly different. I can't mix/match, so I'll go with the D514A since it's a newer better design than the D580. The D514A was used on C6 and C7 Corvettes from 2005 to 2019. That's a pretty impressive run, so it must be a good unit.

Of course now that I have 4x D580's on order from Rock for test fitting, I'll have to return those and order 8x D514A's. NGK makes a version that I'll probably snag just because I have NGK plugs.

I just realized I need to have him snag the cylinder-by-cylinder fuel trims from a '95-'99 Caddy and compare them to the '06+ Caddy cylinder-by-cylinder trims.
Edit: The Shelby tune should have the right cylinder-by-cylinder fuel trims, and that one definitely works with HPT, while the '95-'99 Caddy stuff does not.

[ericjon262]

I have the 514a's on my car, and on my blue truck, I can't really comment on them from a performance standpoint, but they seem reliable enough. Honestly, I don't think performance really matters that much when you get to coil per cylinder, it's really hard to build a crappy ignition when each cylinder has it's own coil.

Seeing a more or less complete N* weighing in that light makes me want one for one of the many dumb projects I have floating in my head.

[The Dark Side of Will]

I have the 514a's on my car, and on my blue truck, I can't really comment on them from a performance standpoint, but they seem reliable enough. Honestly, I don't think performance really matters that much when you get to coil per cylinder, it's really hard to build a crappy ignition when each cylinder has it's own coil.

Seeing a more or less complete N* weighing in that light makes me want one for one of the many dumb projects I have floating in my head.

Right... the "big bang" LS article that had the stock ignition firing 26 psi of boost pretty much demonstrates that zero performance ignition mods are required for any naturally aspirated application.

Yeah, the Northstar is amazingly light. The die casting process for the block allows almost frighteningly thin sections in non-structural locations.
Too bad GM paired it up with a 300# transmission.

[The Dark Side of Will]

The crane was tagged out last weekend, so I didn't get anything done involving lifting the engine.

So I caught up on some admin and other lower priority necessities

The mods I made to the water log netted almost a pound. If I cut down the EGR cooler lobe, it would have been a pound.



Weight is weight; weight reduction is weight reduction



The prototype TOB holder ended up a little small across the throw out finger notches. This allows it to rotate between the throw out fingers more than it should be able to, which messes up snug clearances to Getrag case features. Spec is 2.670.





The original bearing developed some roughness over the course of development, so I had to test the "removal access" holes to use in driving the bearing off so I could replace it with the spare I ordered. R&R were surprisingly easy.



Stock vs dual disk unit



Easiest Install-for-Flight ever!



Also fitted the "These are definitely coolant" 120 degree lime green elbows from SamCo, along with the HPS black 90 degree elbow on the brake booster vacuum connection. These will get aluminum hose couplers from Pegasus Auto Racing and Gates shrink tube hose clamps. I'll start off with regular heater hose to connect to the engine and get the lengths right, then possibly switch over to green or clear silicone hose at some point in the future, after I've been driving the car for a while.

[The Dark Side of Will]

I had a social life last weekend, so I hardly got anything done on the car.

I did get to pick up the next rev of the accessory bracket and test fit



It's touching the lobe of the front cover in the middle, but all the mounting bolts still go in. I'll figure out exactly where it needs to be clearanced, do some grinding and update the design next weekend.

The extra bolt hole in the upper right is for the alternator and the extra bolt hole at the bottom is to relocate the stock idler. The extra hole at the top is for the anti-rotation pin for the tensioner, but that's not it's final location.
I need to test fit the alternator and idler, as well as measure how proud the surface of the bracket is from the surface of the front cover so I can verify my idea for a second idler mount will work.
I also need to figure out where the final location for the tensioner's anti-rotation pin is going to end up.

Because I have not completed the accessory drive, I have not pressed the balancer on and installed the balancer bolt--just in case the front cover needed to come back off. However, I'm going to have to do that before I install the transmission, as there's not a good way to hold the crank to torque the bolt once the transmission is installed. I guess that means I need to install the balancer "at risk" next weekend. Pulling the balancer isn't *that* big a deal, but I'd been treating installing a balancer as one of the "not going back" milestones in the WBS.

[pmbrunelle]

I can think of two options that would allow you to delay the harmonic balancer installation:

1.
Snug up the bolt with an impact wrench, relying on the crankshaft's inertia.
When the powertrain is installed in the car, put the transmission into overdrive, set the parking brake, and perform the final torquing.

2.
Weld some long torque reaction rods to junk inner CV joints.
Put the transmission into overdrive, insert the CV joints (with welded-on rods), and torque away.

[The Dark Side of Will]

I know there are ways. I can do it with a torque wrench now and there's a very good chance I won't have to re-do it any time soon.

What's a "parking brake"?

[pmbrunelle]

Well I remember seeing an aluminium expander block...

Do you want to get the car running on the new engine with a minimum of other new features, unless they happen to be ready by firing-up time?