The Mule rides again (sort of) - pics.

[The Dark Side of Will]

This is the only angle at which this works. Note that I have the first modified water manifold here, with the intact coolant lobe. This is the '04-'06 LH2 RWD throttle. The lower left bolt hole on the throttle needs to rotate just enough to clear the counterbore for the bolt that holds the plate to the manifold.

Last weekend I prototyped the adapter that mounts this throttle in this orientation. It almost worked, but I also had a couple of things a little bit wrong. Based on measurements I took over the weekend, the next rev *should* work... or at least get me to the point at which I can take the bolt boss on the throttle down a little bit with a belt sander to get it to work.

[The Dark Side of Will]

FINALLY got the adapter plate to work with one of the throttles.



OMGWTF



Plug wires and a throttle!



Plug wire routing



Magnecor even shrink tubed their logo and CYLINDER NUMBERS on the coil end boots!



NEXT:

=>Accessory drive bracket:
I have the next rev of that with the laser peeps, but won't be able to mess with it until 2/19. The accessory drive is low priority, because I can move it from borrowed shop space to my dad's house on a battery if I have to.

=>Touch up the oil filter adapter pipe boss:
Since it's a little crooked and not quite deep enough, I probably get ONE revolution of the 3/8" pipe tap to fix it.

=>Positive terminal junction:
I'm going to modify the PS pump mount as I've discussed previously. That will let me integrate the alternator cable with the harness so that the engine only needs to be hooked up at the +12V junction block and ground.

=>Wiring:
==>Snag damaged Fiero engine bay harness & disassemble
==>Build wire list from documentation that Ryan sent
==>Place order with Ballenger or similar for terminals, connectors & wire
==>Build harness!

[pmbrunelle]

Magnecor had a good turn-around time on this.

I was wondering how the plug wires would fit, seeing as they weren't cut to fit on the engine itself.

Looks like they hit the wire length tolerances close enough, because the wires look like they're supposed to be that way.

[The Dark Side of Will]

I measured using a plug wire and gave them the lengths, so the lengths should be pretty good

I could probably think of something to do to secure the forward bank wires, but they're also fine as-is. For the rear bank, 1 & 7 are a different length than 3 & 5. If I organized the coils in the order 3,1,7,5 instead of 1,3,5,7, then all the rear bank cylinders could use the same length wire

I went with the KISS principle instead.

Anyway, I'm very impressed with the product and the cylinder numbers on the wires are really cool.

[ericjon262]

Prowire has bulk splice terminals that appear to be good quality, I bought a bunch for adding relays to my headlight harness.

https://www.prowireusa.com/c-11-termina ... ctors.html

[The Dark Side of Will]

I have plenty of uninsulated butt crimp splices and shrink tube...
Going to need to snag some DR-25 for dressing the finished harness, though.

To-Do list:

=>3.5 - 3.75" reducer couplers for mounting the MAF to the LH2 throttle and 3.5" intake tube. There aren't reducer "hump" couplers that I've found, so I guess I'll have to use straight couplers and update the position of the intake tube mounting feet.

=>Order damaged Fiero engine bay harness from The Fiero Factory

=>Test-fit and revise accessory mount bracket

=>Complete wire list (some progress made)

=>Assemble cradle

=>Update oil cooler to waterpump tube/hose assembly

=>Finish dressing engine bay and fuel lines

=>Etc...

Edit:

=>3.5 - 3.75" reducer couplers for mounting the MAF to the LH2 throttle and 3.5" intake tube. There aren't reducer "hump" couplers that I've found, so I guess I'll have to use straight couplers and update the position of the intake tube mounting feet.

Well... better google-fu came up with some results:
https://www.qspproducts.nl/en/7327-sili ... ter-102_89



Using this particular part would require me to pad the MAF housing connections from 3.75" up to 4", but that's doable, especially considering it doesn't see any particular vacuum or pressure.

There were also several Chinese results, but they're, well, Chinese.

[eHoward]

LOOKS GOOD!

[pmbrunelle]

Does a nearby hump coupler disturb the flow field in the MAF, or that doesn't really matter?

[The Dark Side of Will]

LOOKS GOOD!

Thanks! I'm stoked!

Does a nearby hump coupler disturb the flow field in the MAF, or that doesn't really matter?

I dunno? I'll have it dyno tuned, so that becomes the tuner's problem?
It'll work just fine with straight expander/reducer couplers. The MAF also has a straightener screen (just MAF screen? Collimator?) on the inlet side.
I'd suspect that a hump coupler might end up with an annular vortex in the hump at some flow speeds... The vortex might even help maintain laminar flow by filling in the gap...

I started off with a straight coupler on the prior incarnation, but forgot to disconnect it when I pivoted the cradle down for something. The straight coupler and intake pipe mounting were so stiff that they BROKE the plastic MAF housing that bolted to the '96+ cable throttle body. I switched over to a hump coupler along with the replacement MAF housing.

[ericjon262]

do you have a first fire deadline in mind?

A card style MAF could easily be installed in your intake tube, I think I have one in the shop that I can send you for shipping if you want it, and if you're welding on it, you could change the end so you don't need a special hump hose.

[The Dark Side of Will]

do you have a first fire deadline in mind?

I was torn between "I don't understand"

and

A card style MAF could easily be installed in your intake tube, I think I have one in the shop that I can send you for shipping if you want it, and if you're welding on it, you could change the end so you don't need a special hump hose.

The advantage of using this MAF: https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.ph ... 5128&jsn=1
is that Ryan (Sinister) can pull a MAF table from an OE application using that MAF, drop it into my tune and it will (should) *just work*.

[The Dark Side of Will]

=>Touch up the oil filter adapter pipe boss:
Since it's a little crooked and not quite deep enough, I probably get ONE revolution of the 3/8" pipe tap to fix it.

The good idea fairy visited me... again.
As I was going through the diagrams to build the wire list, I saw that the '06 Corvette ECM has an oil pressure transducer which the ECM reads, and passes oil pressure to the IPC over the bus. Not surprising... however, that means that the ECM has oil pressure in OBDII data. Along with the oil level switch with temp sensor, the ECM will have oil temperature AND oil pressure at the same time, so I could log oil pressure and oil temp on track, via OBDLink and Torque with no extra hardware. Sweeeeet!

Now I just have to mount the oil pressure transducer. The LS engine unit has straight threads and a metal gasket. I asked Ryan, who noted that he'd seen one with pipe threads on an '03 Buick LeSabre with 3800. I looked up that app, and sho nuff, there it is. I have one on the way from Rock... but that also means that I'll need to add a T into my oil pressure fitting, which then makes it a fitting tree... which is something I'm not fond of, but I think I'm getting a good capability from having it. I need to retain the Aurora oil pressure sender/switch in order to drive the stock Fiero gauge and complete the stock Fiero fuel pump wiring.

Here's the particular unit: https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.ph ... 3795&jsn=1

That makes touching up the oil filter adapter boss that much more important.

[ericjon262]

do you have a first fire deadline in mind?

I was torn between "I don't understand"

and

A card style MAF could easily be installed in your intake tube, I think I have one in the shop that I can send you for shipping if you want it, and if you're welding on it, you could change the end so you don't need a special hump hose.

The advantage of using this MAF: https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.ph ... 5128&jsn=1
is that Ryan (Sinister) can pull a MAF table from an OE application using that MAF, drop it into my tune and it will (should) *just work*.

I guess deadline was a poor choice of words, but I get that for sure. I'd bet there's a MAF table for the card MAF installed in a tube the size you have, but I also understand just using what works.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Knocking things off the to-do list...

Here's the ongoing, but fairly straightforward development of the accessory drive bracket:







I'm relocating the idler pulley slightly



And will be popping the tensioner in up here, but not at this angle



I schwacked the power steering pump bracket from this:



Down to this:



And here's how it fits:



And the engine with these small things on the front:



I also pulled off the oil filter adapter... again... and re-re-re-re-tapped the oil pressure sender/switch port to make sure it is straight and the correct depth to keep the fitting tight to the adapter. As noted above, I need to figure out a fitting tree to get the oil pressure transducer installed, but that shouldn't be too bad.



I'd never used a tap guide before, but it worked and with results that surprised me. I guess it's a tool on the market because it works. My dad's tools don't always work, though.





I turned the tap liiiiiiiterally 1 revolution at a time in between test fits of the reducer elbow fitting w/ Aurora oil pressure sender. I worked it down to the depth I thought was good and thought I'd done a good job. I had been noticing that it seemed to take a lot of angular movement beyond hand tight in order to get the reducer elbow to tighten up. I was putting the tap away in the box I got it from and noticed it was labeled 3/8-18 NPSF. S? S?!? Oh GDMF F@#$% sunnova...

I snagged the correct NPTF tap, ran it in ONE more revolution and re-installed the fitting. There's exactly ONE thread of the fitting still out of the boss. I had to remove the oil pressure sender in order to run the reducer elbow all the way in, since it was so close that the sender hit a feature on the filter adapter. It tightened up enough that it should seal just fine, and it snug, square and straight, so I'm done with it... especially since doing anything else would require buying a new filter adapter from GM. If I can't get this joint to seal, then I'll think about that. It's good enough to get the engine running and wheels turning.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Because I was working on the Jeep, I didn't get anything done on The Mule last weekend, other than pull my '87 Fiero shop manual off the shelf in order to incorporate the Fiero body power distribution into my wire list for 2006 DTS wiring for 2006 Corvette ECM

Photos of the filter adapter:

[ericjon262]

I've used a live center to guide a tap in before, it definitely made starting the tap easier. the adapter looks good!

[The Dark Side of Will]

I drilled & tapped 5x0.8mm holes in the junction block platform. The junction block plastic has counterbores that are obviously intended for socket cap mounting screws, so I need to snag some 5x0.8mm x 10mm socket cap screws.

I tapped the next rev of the accessory bracket and fit checked it. It looks like this rev is good. My dad and I measured for the belt and he's going to try snagging and fitting this week.

I think I have a couple of pics of the junction block on the platform... but didn't get any of the whole assembly on the front of the engine.

[The Dark Side of Will]

My dad was able to check out a 55" belt that fit. 54.5" is too short to fit and 55.5" is just barely tight with the tensioner fully relaxed. He said the tensioner is about halfway through its travel, but the 55" will work. I won't be able to look at it until 4/02, but I might move the tensioner slightly to put it a little further in its travel in order to give myself a little more room for the belt to stretch over its service life.

[The Dark Side of Will]

I've created about 60 of the probably 200 lines I'll need in my wire list to build the harness

I need to put together:
=>Power distribution, fusing and A/C Comp & Fuel pump relays from 1987 Fiero (Have paper manual)
=>Manifold harness production break from 1995 Cadillac (Have paper manual)
=>Most engine wiring from 2006 DTS (Electronic diagrams from Sinister)
=>ECM connector, oil level switch/temp sender, oil & A/C pressure transducers & MAF wiring from 2006 Corvette (Electronic diagrams from Sinister)
=>4 wire oil pressure sender/switch wiring from Olds Aurora (1999?)
=>DBW throttle wiring from 2006 STS (Electronic diagrams from Sinister)

The wiring won't be tucked... The harness will mount to the engine via P-clamps. It will be somewhat out of sight via careful routing, but will be well worked and well thought out at every point.
Once I get the wire list done, I need to put together the wire and connector order, then build the harness. Once the harness is built, I'll look at the numbers of wires in all the branches and forks and order enough of the right sizes of DR-25 to dress the harness. Once all that's done, I can add the bulkhead pass-through and ECM connectors.

I'm thinking pretty hard about a Deutsch bulkhead disconnect for the firewall, instead of trying to rework an OE pass-through.
I've heard of people having problems with the C203 connector. I can see that some might, but I haven't. 14 cavity male/female pairs are not very common, so I'm not sure what to replace it with. I might do a pair of 8 cavity Delphi GT connectors. The clutch switch wire has already taken up an empty cavity in the C203.
I know I'll need 6 wires for the DBW pedal and 4 for cruise control, so I could add a 10 cavity Delphi GT connector just for those functions.

Of course there's a long correspondence course I have to get done for the Navy this week, then an in-person course next week, then a murder board (which is kinda like water board, but not quite) for my warfare pin sometime in April.

[The Dark Side of Will]

On further thought... if I use one 8 cavity GT connector and one 10 cavity GT connector to replace the C203, that will give me 18 cavities to replace 14 cavities. I can use female terminals in those two connectors on the ECM harness. I can then add another 10 cavity GT connector for DBW & Cruise, but install the male terminal side on the ECM harness to differentiate it from the 10 cavity replacing the C203 connector.