88 L36 to L67 swap

[jelly2m81]

Here's the revised rear engine mount.

[Shaun41178(2)]

looking good

[jelly2m81]

view of the rear mounts looking down on them, front side to engine cradle using same bushings. These should hold everything in place without worry.



Put in in for trial fit and was surprised it ended up as square as it is, as anytime your critiquing your own work it will look straight if you want or crooked if you want.... I shot a lazer level across the grooves of the rear valve cover to the mouning holes for the rear struts in the chassis and it is ever so slightly crooked, about 1/16". Still debating if I can live with that. I had a couple people who I trust to be honest with me look at it from different angles, and they all said it eyeballs straight, one said it's probably straighter than the factory engine.

I was happy with how using 2 drivers side axles centers the engine more though.



I shot for lowering the drivetrain where the front cross member of the cradle was lower than the basepan / transaxle pan and got that how I wanted, the bottom of the transaxle pan is about flush with the bottom of the rear crossmember.

The other thing I wanted to do was move the drivetrain ahead some to help with the weight distribution as this lump of iron is a fair bit heavier than the 2.8. I may have went too far forward, I need to get underneath and see how far the front manifold is from the firewall.

[Sinister Fiero]

See attached picture. If I were you, I would add a triangle gusset plate where I drew the red line. The transmission is going to try to push down on the mount in that back corner and you really need to have a gusset plate installed as I showed to keep that bushing sleeve from trying to bend the bracket you have bolted to the transmission ext housing.

[jelly2m81]

Yep, there's going to be more gusseting done in several places when it comes back out, I decided to not get too far along incase I had to change any mounts if it ended up really crooked. Along with the extra gusseting I'm, going to trim and tidy up the mounts.

What's your thoughts on how far forward I have the drivetrain mounted?, I'm not worried about the axle deflection as the CV joints should handle that just fine, my concern is heat from the manifold. I do value your thoughts and opinions Ryan, I take inspiration from your builds.

[Sinister Fiero]

Yep, there's going to be more gusseting done in several places when it comes back out, I decided to not get too far along incase I had to change any mounts if it ended up really crooked. Along with the extra gusseting I'm, going to trim and tidy up the mounts.

What's your thoughts on how far forward I have the drivetrain mounted?, I'm not worried about the axle deflection as the CV joints should handle that just fine, my concern is heat from the manifold. I do value your thoughts and opinions Ryan, I take inspiration from your builds.

Just make sure the front exhaust manifold has the factory heat shield installed over it and that you have some insulation on the firewall and you should be fine as long as it is no closer than an inch or so.

EDIT TO ADD: I would be more concerned of exhaust heat if this was a boosted engine. But being N/A, not so much.

[jelly2m81]

I've got about 3 inchs from the manifold to the firewall. Front heatshield is like new, factory insulation is still good on the firewall, should be ok



Rear heatshield however has seen better days, local dealer says it's discontinued, maybe a later style heatshield will be fairly easy to mount back there.

[Shaun41178(2)]

If you can't find a heatshield I say just use some header wrap. Those manifolds cast iron right? If so I see no issue with them falling apart because of the wrap.

My boosted 3.4 had its downpipe about 1 inch from the firewall right behind my head, never felt the heat inside. All stainless though and it was wrapped.

[jelly2m81]

Here's my belt routing, decided to add a lower idler to have 180 deg wrap around the AC clutch.

[jelly2m81]

Time to move to the exhaust system. I already plan on adding a cataylic convertor, I've sourced one thats 2.5" through and 4 inchs long. It is a bullet shape, I think I can shorten it if need be.

I'm going to modify or more likely build a muffler from scratch following the stock design but allowing for more flow. Overall dimensions will be within a stock mufflers.

Here is a stock 88 muffler opened up or de-shelled.

Green line is the inlet which is 2"
Red line is a cross tube measuring 2-1/4"
Yellow lines are the outlets that measure 2"

The perforations in the pipe are about 1/8"



What I propose to do is install a 2.5" inlet, but leave it at least 1/4" shorter internally so that there's more distance to the end cap. The cross tube I was thinking 2.5", maybe go 2-3/4'. I'd go 3" in there but wanting to keep stock overall dimensions it will start to get packed in there. I'm thinking 2" outlets will be sufficent if i open the internal gap between them, technicially it should be 4" of outlet opening.
For the perforations in the pipes I'm going to make those 3/16" vs the stock 1/8". Not sure if I will source perforated tubing or just drill all the holes, it's a fuckload of holes though. There are 4 holes in each of the 2 center plates ( you can just make them out in the pic ), I haven't measured those yet but I will continue that theme but make the holes bigger.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Fabbing your own muffler?
Goin' hard.

[jelly2m81]

Build my own muffler..... hell why not? Anyone can buy everything to bolt in but then your just bolting shit together.

I have access to a waterjet and a plasma table ( access meaning tell them what I want and get them to do the cutting) so what I will do is create some templates/plans/ whatever they require for the end caps and inner walls and get them cut out of stainless then do the tubing in stainless.

But before I blow a wad of money and make a muffler thats too small / loud / not enough flow /etc I'm going to mod the stock muffler and run it and see if the theory of 'just making it's guts bigger' is a viable solution to sticking an oversized camaro muffler or similiar in there.

I dropped the core off to my buddies welding shop he's going to cut out the inlet and cross tubes with his plasma cutter and make the holes bigger to accept the 2.5" pipe, I'll weld the new tubes in and re-wrap the shell.

The current inlet is ~1" from the rear cap, I will make that gap 2". The gap between both outlets is only 1", again I will double that to 2" In essence I'm just going to allow the stock muffler flow more with less restriction.

[Series8217]

I like the idea.

I made my own muffler from scratch before, and while it worked, it was heavy, clunky, and wore out quickly. I also don't know how well it flowed. Increasing the size of a known good design seems like a good idea to me.

[jelly2m81]

I like the idea.

I made my own muffler from scratch before, and while it worked, it was heavy, clunky, and wore out quickly. I also don't know how well it flowed. Increasing the size of a known good design seems like a good idea to me.

I hear ya on the weight thing, but concern for weight was immediately nixxed when the 3800/4T65E was selected.....

[jelly2m81]

Muffler has been re-gutted and re-wrapped. It aint pretty but it should work, it's only temporary anyway, if it sounds decent and shit i'll build one from stainless and have someone competant weld it up. When my buddy was cutting the old tubes out with the plasma cutter the plates and dividers started to melt away so I was gobbing weld around closing the gaps up.



Wrapping it up





2.5" in and 2" out ( x2 )



Threw it back on the cradle with the factory springs and played with the pipes, it can't be this easy....

[jelly2m81]

Lowering the motor as far as I did has 1 drawback, the exhaust manifold outlet exits right behind the muffler if I leave that in the stock location. I'll have to drop the muffler about an inch because I added a flex pipe and a convertor.

I might have one of the worlds shortest cataylitic converter now, I found one 3" diameter that was 7 inchs total length, I found by measuring that the core is only 3" long so I cut it up and shortened it, ended up being 4 inchs long total. Mated directly to the flex pipe the assembly is now 7 inchs total and will give enough room to have the pipe exit the cat 90 deg down.



there is a headshield i cut off the cat, I will probably weld that back on.

[jelly2m81]

it can't be this easy....

No it's not.

Looks like everyone puts the mufflers inlet on the top and outlets on the bottom. This is fine with a muffler that isn't ~12" tall when sitting how it would in a stock Fiero position. When I orientate the muffler in that fashion it hangs some 5 inch's below the bottom of the cradle, that wouldn't last long. So placing the muffler like stock with the inlet at the bottom in a position where the muffler is below the flex pipe / converter I can reduce that down to 3/4 inch below the cradle. This still isn't optimal but might work, but it brings in a new problem. The left outlet pipe will have to wrap out and around the inlet, it has to cross over it.


Here's some fiddling with whats left of the original exhaust system, just tacked together, I might try some other options but they will be limited Because I refuse to cut the trunk and adamant in packaging this all in the factory space







I'm pretty certain this will clear the trunk, I'll test fit tomorrow and might just weld it up and try it. I have to pull it all apart and fit the pipes together better, I found those mandrel bends aren't entirely round when you cut them at the bend.
Now I'm kinda glad I didn't start out with Stainless everything and decide it sucks after the fact.

[fierogt28]

Hey jelly, nice to see your swap comming along. I haven't checked in this jungle in a while.

I like the little cat convertor you using. Never seen one small like that.

Fabbing up and exhaust isn't easy to do on a fiero with so many curves and bends. I see your getting creative.

[jelly2m81]

Hey jelly, nice to see your swap comming along.

It'll be nice to be able to use the back half of my shop after 2 years! When this car goes out I'm getting a dumpster in and filling it with a shit ton of Fiero junk, I'm only keeping 88 and fastback specific stuff as parts for my cars the rest can disappear. Fucking Fiero owners are so cheap I can't waste my space storing shit anymore ( Not fierogt28, I did a build for him, he likes to spend money )


...... No pics because I was in work mode this week but I took the week off and put it into the Fiero, Tomorrow the engine goes in hopefully till this winter. I reassembled the exhaust as shown above, it looks about the same but with the downstream O2 sensor in the 90 deg bend down pointing forward towards the transaxle. Made the engine and BCM harness - I'm installing the BCM to make use of it's features such as keyless entry and light control etc. Many thanks to Ryan for getting me the BCM schematics ECM is going in the engine compartment because I think it's too big to mount in the stock location.
Fabbed up the shifter cable bracket and lever like jncomutt did years ago, had that pic saved for awhile now! For the LIM heater outlet / waterpump plug I tapped them to 3/4" NPT, stuck a brass plug in the W/P and a 3/4' to 1/2" bushing with a 5/8" barb in the LIM for the heater supply.

Gotta send the wife for a fuel pump and battery in the morning and I hope that's all I need for the time being, those fools that say you can install a 3800 for 500 bux must be magicians, either that or they have just that, a 500 dollar swap....

Only thing left is to hook up the throttle cable, coolant and heater hose, fab the fuel lines and mount the coil, not sure where thats going yet, if theres room in the car to mount it back on the end of the head I will, if not It will go on the strut tower. For the AC line I'll just take the car to the AC shop and hand them both hoses and say make a hose to fit in here. put it in and charge this bitch.

[jelly2m81]

I guess it doesn't sound bad at all, it does kind of have that Fiero sound when idling. Wife took a quick video when I brought it home tonight, I'll take one starting and a few revs tomorrow.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRkN7LsB1dU

The cardboard is under the car because of the leaking axle seal- I figured that was going to leak, the axle I used was laying around for like 12 years now and it was pitted where the seal rides. I'll get a new seal and swap out that CV joint tomorrow.
Didn't get on it yet, I could smell the fluid burning on the exhaust almost immediately so I went easy. The short ~1.5 kilometer drive it spit out over a liter of transmission fluid.

Here's where the catalytic convertor and flex pipe resides, it's up under the shelf half way up the trunk, you can see I also added the downstream O2 sensor. I did stick the cat's original heat shield back on.



And here's how tight it is in there.



I have 3 engine codes, all of which I expected to see, Hi speed coolant fan , Evap fuel tank pressure switch, and Evap purge solenoid. To be fair the purge solenoid code was there when I picked up the Regal so I most likely have a faulty solenoid, Rockauto has them for ~ 25 bux. The other 2 codes Sinister can turn off when he gets the PCM this winter.

Still a few things to do, but it's not pressing now, the car is driveable. Brakes need to be gone over from sitting for 2 years, Redo the brake booster vacuum line ( just a temporary one atm untill I get the stuff I need to make it little more pleasing, and it needs a set of plug wires, right now it's 3 off the 2.8 and 3 from the motor on it. The digitial cruise, AC line and integrating more of the BCM features into the car. Oh ya, I totally forgot about an air filter LOL, gotta hit the yards and find the 4.3 duct that Sinister recommends.