Gran Damn

[ericjon262]

well fuck... had a brake line blow on the way to work... one of the hard lines into the ABS Module. Inline Tube offers a full set in stainless for 185, or mild for 155. I bought them before for another vehicle, and they were pretty good, so I'll pick up a set and install them.

https://www.inlinetube.com/products/spab9901


the easiest way to do this, will be with the powertrain out, so it looks like i'll be moving the transmission swap up, for now, I'm going to try and get the Fiero back together, once it's together, I'll drop the GA Subframe and put the trans swap in. I do need to pick up a clutch though. I have one here, but It's not for an F23, it would probably work, but I'm not sure I want to roll the dice on it.

[The Dark Side of Will]

*INTO* the ABS? That sucks. I guess you can't just swap out the bad line so that you have use of the car until you're ready to make other improvements.

[ericjon262]

*INTO* the ABS? That sucks. I guess you can't just swap out the bad line so that you have use of the car until you're ready to make other improvements.

I said into, could have been leaving, it was dark so I didn't look that closely, all I know is that it's in a spot that will be a pain in the dick with the powertrain in the car,

[ericjon262]

I finally ordered new brake lines, they came in earlier this week while I was working on the dmax. the brake lines run down the driver's side towards the ABS pump which is on the front left part of the subframe it's pretty crowded down there, the failed portion of brake lines was directly under the battery. since I have almost everything to put the F23 I went ahead and pulled the powertrain. this will make fixing the brake lines easier, and get me more gears. I'm considering throwing together a basic exhaust using LX9 manifolds, which are more like a header than the factory manifolds.

[ericjon262]

here's a shot of the destroyed brake lines, you can see the subframe isn't in great shape either, I have a fresh one to replace it.



the shift cables were kinda a pain to get installed, but they're in, as is the clutch pedal, and shifter. I'll trim the brake pedal back a bit to get a nicer fit in the footwell.





the stock manifolds on the engine were making me sad, they look so blah. I looked on the shelf and saw an LZ4 manifold, it's got nice sweeping bends, and a more header like design, it also, was the wrong bolt pattern...















I'm pretty happy with the results, it should be a nice upgrade over the stock LA1 parts, for the rear manifold, I'll use a stock 3500 manifold, which also has a more modern, header style design.

since I had it this far apart, I planned on doing the LIM gaskets, that appears to have been a great decision.



but wait theres more! while getting the stock exhaust manifolds off, I found that each head had at least one stud broken off, deep enough that it's a PITA to get out, shallow enough that I can' get any thread engagement...it's about 16 additional bolts to pull the heads, and I have a set of good LX9 heads on the shelf (actually 2 sets) and a LIM, and all the gaskets to install them, so I pulled the heads, and will put the LX9 heads on, it fixes the broken studs, and they're good for about 20 HP and about 10 ftlbs out of the box.

[Shaun41178(2)]

Nice welding on that manifold

[ericjon262]

Nice welding on that manifold

Thanks, it was a fun project, I was very curious what to expect when I struck the first arc on it, I'm hoping the ears don't crack off once it's on the car, it's possible, but I think it will hold. the manifold actually welded really nicely, I wanted to do this mainly as an experiment to see how well they weld, I think the Gran Damn is the perfect test bed to see how it holds up.

[ericjon262]

I took a ton of measurements off of the 4t45 case, mainly from the bellhousing, to each of the mounting points, I then drew the bellhousing and mount points in cad, next I'll bring in elements of the F23 to adapt the 4t45 mounts to the F23 case, that way all of the mounts can be replaced with off the shelf mounts and not require additional fabrication.



the 4t45 has one mount that I will not be able to replicate in this manner because the F23 case is longer than the chain section of the 4t45.



that particular mount attaches to the body of the car, and not the subframe like the other 2, I have a couple ideas that I may employ to tie the transmission mount to the body at that location, but the factory style bushing is not going to work. The factory 5 speed cars had a different type of mount, that appears to be discontinued and unavailable. the mount is visible in this picture from this 60v6 thread

http://www.60degreev6.com/vb5/forum/non ... ide-n-body

[ericjon262]

I've been trying to locate a suitable mount without much luck, then I looked up the mount for a cavalier...

https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=9353964

I went ahead and ordered one, should be here tuesday, hopefully by then I have the other 2 mounts done and can throw something together pretty quick to make this work.

[ericjon262]

progress is slow, but it's something. I need a few measurements off the transaxle before I can proceed any further. I am going to make a leg that comes off the bottom corner of of the face, and goes down to a boss on the transmission down low, I may also try and run another leg back to a boss on top of the trans too. once I have these drawn, I may test fit them on a 88 cradle I have to see how they would work in that application, they may make good swap mounts with a bracket to the cradle.

[ericjon262]

I've been working on getting this heap back together, and made some good progress. The engine is mostly reassembled, but I need to pull the oil pan to install a new pan gasket. the lifters seemed really gummy, I took them apart and cleaned them.



I got the plasma back up and running, I cut the parts of the transmission mounts out of some thin sheetmetal I had in the shop. The CNC didn't seem to like the thin stuff, the arc would blow through and the machine would cut off after piercing. I found setting the pierce delay lover helped some, but I think I needed to reset the plasma cutter to think it's cutting perforated material.



I bolted the trans to the engine, and saw that the exhaust manifold definitely wasn't going to work with that mount. since I have more invested in the manifold than I do the mount, I'll rework the mount.



The middle and rear lower studs are way back behind the manifold, and really hard to get to. I hope I never need to take this apart in the car...



I also found that either the steel moved, or I measured the rear mount wrong. I'll need to investigate this further.



I might see if I can find a new heat shield for the manifold, this one is a little dinged up, but it's a nice touch that will keep the heat more well contained. I need to find one for the rear manifold still.



I pulled the front subframe out of the car, I found that the steering rack was in kinda poor shape, and the hoses have seen better days. it's all accessible now, so I'm going to put it back together with new parts. since I'll need an alignment either way, I'll throw new outer tierods in too.

[The Dark Side of Will]

1. Fit
2. Futz
Repeat as necessary

[ericjon262]

1. Fit
2. Futz
Repeat as necessary

yeah, sometimes that's the way it is, in this case, I believe the error is due to a measurement issue, the other day I noticed the mount in the garage had two different sized bolt holes, and I don't think i accounted for the difference in the sizes when I measured them.

[ericjon262]

we had a tire assembly machine go down at work, due to the size of the tires we manufacture, we don't have many of them, so when they break, it's a pretty big deal, and it ate up a ton of my off time. for perspective of what I mean about the tires being big, here is a google earth screenshot, the top right is where we store the completed tires, and the bottom left is the parking lot...



zoomed in a bit and cropped.



I had planned on doing house/yard work on saturday, and Gran Damn work sunday, but because the TAM was down, I spent all of sunday at work trying to take it apart and put it back together. then had to work monday-thursday on my normal shift...

today, I was at the junkyard picking up the manual transfer case for the Duramax project, and had a few minutes to kill, so I strolled the yard, where I scored a heat shield and collector flange for the rear exhaust manifold, best of all, I didn't even have to pull them, they were sitting on the passenger seat waiting for me to grab them!

[ericjon262]

I decided the swap mounts were getting a bit complicated the way I was trying to make them, so I started over, this will make them lighter, but they will use non-OEM bushings, which I'm not wild about.



I remeasured everything and my boltholes match now





I also got a new, not beat up heat shield for the front manifold, and crossover. The valve covers were temp removed for paint.



seeing the intake and valve covers painted and pretty makes me almost want to take the LIM off and paint it... I might just fog the ends that are partially visible. I'll paint the transmission when I pull it off to install the clutch and flywheel.

My engine mount was in pretty sad shape, part of it was broken in half, so I decided to draw up a replacement. there will be DOM sleeves welded into the holes, and then a saddle over the top that bolt to the engine. I'm not going to draw it out any further until I have the poly inserts for the sleeves though, I'd hate to put more work in and find out the sleeves don't match my measurements.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Standardize

https://teamenergysuspension.com/produc ... ion-mount/

[ericjon262]

standardized. they're leaf spring bushings, Prothane and most of the other poly mount manufacturers make something similar. I'm also using the same bushings on the Fiero powertrain mounts. I also don't think the RWD trans mount will work well in the space it needs to go.

[ericjon262]

spent quite a bit of time running the plasma cutter today, I also picked up a 4x8 sheet of steel for making stuff.


I made the initial prototypes out of some very thin steel, and in doing so was able to find a simple design flaw



note the red circled area, you can see the select cable resting on the top of the mount, I didn't like this, because I don't want the cable to wear on the mount, or cause excessive resistance in the select motion. I made a simple change to the drawing, which also reduces the weight of the mount.



then I cut it out and welded in the bushing sleeve.



the front mount was quite a bit less headache, cut, weld, bolt on.



I still haven't come up with a good solution for the third transmission mount. I'll wait to work on that until the powertrain is on the cradle, that way I can see where the mount needs to exist, and not try and guess.

[ericjon262]

notes for me

blue pin 68 moved to pin 27(yellow wire, pin B of white 4 pin connector) Bank 1 HO2S low signal (done)

clear pin 16 moved to pin 12 (white wire, pin A of white 4 pin connector) Bank 1 HO2S high signal(done)

Clear pin 18 remove from trans range sw and attach to block ground. (done)

bank 1 HO2S connector.(done)

bank 1 HO2S bung(done)

Pin 4 and 5 of trans range switch to reverse lights (done)

HO2S= A low ref b high ref c heater ground d heater power



PCM stuff

enable PID 13(done)
disable heater low control(done)
set trans type(done)

[ericjon262]

not mush to update, I've been working my tail off filling in the pool, and fixing a blown headgasket on a 2.2 S10 for my brother. I did mock up the powertrain on the cradle, I need to make one more mount to go under the tail end of the transmission, but the other two mounts appear to be spot on. I did have to make custom sleeves for the poly bushings, as they were designed for a 9/16" bolt, and the transmission mounts use 12 mm bolts. if I get to the point of production, I'll need to find a better solution.



Hopefully the S10 head will be back from the machine shop tomorrow or Tuesday, once I have the head back, I should be able to button up the S10 with a quickness. and then I can spend more time on this garbage.