[TheSilverBuick]

Its been a while since I've updated this thread. I've poked at the car a bit over the last few months but had been side tracked with work on my Skylark. I organized and loomed up most the wiring under the hood. Still need to connect all the wire ends to pigtails.





Put in the separate "high" power connector (blue) that brings 12v into the cabin and power out to the coils and injectors. Also added bulkhead connectors for EFI manifold vacuum and the boost controller.* So not just running a line through the firewall.*



I've just been really unhappy with the hard transmission cooler lines I had made and have yanked them all out and punted by ordering some braided flex line. I had mounted the transmission cooler to the front side of the radiator, but decided to move it to the backside of the inter-cooler so if I have to pull the radiator for any reason I could leave the ATF lines connected. I have strips of rubber tubing insulating the two coolers from one another.

[66sprint]

Randall, looking back on how this project has evolved, is there anything major that you would skip or do without if you were to do it all over from the start?

[TheSilverBuick]

I wouldn't drill the side of the head for the external oil line. I will always run a straight pipe in place of the oil restrictor and external oil pressure regulator, but will feed it to the back of the head like I've done on the new build. I had to block one of the head oil drain back passages to accomplish this. Technically I don't believe that should be an issue, but may be related to another issue I mention below.


I'm 50/50 in the air on the electric water pump. It was a requirement before because the first EFI intake I made would not allow the thermostat housing to remain in place. That being said, there are a few advantages to running an electric one. Namely full water flow in stop and go traffic, with electric fan, guarantee a cool running engine, and if the water pump fails another motor can be gotten from Summit Racing (and I bought a spare motor for 50% off their discount rack), and when racing other people may have the same pump as a spare. That being said, mechanical pumps are simple and typically work reliably for a long long time. I went back to conventional "block to head" water flow with the new build because the modified core plugs always concerned me and the plumbing was more complicated.


New setup. The water pump plumbing would be simpler if I had a single outlet pump instead of dual, but its what I already had on hand because the last arraignment.


Then lastly the external oil pickup line and drain back lines. I have my reservations on it, but obviously going to try it. If it fails or gives me trouble I will remove it, remove my custom windage tray and install a conventional pickup tube. From day one, with a factory pickup and pan I've had a severe oil pressure drop on the 1-2 shift. Every time, even with an extra quart in the pan. So I'm hoping with good baffling in the pan, moving the pickup rearward a bit, and an extra 1/2" of pan depth allowing more oil to be ran if necessary, I'll have that issue fixed. I had filled in one of the head oil drain back passages, so there is a chance a lot of the oil was up in the head and not returning to the pan fast enough, but I'm not convinced of that. If I still have oil pressure issues on the 1-2 shift I'll have some thinking to do. On the drain backs, by the time I changed my mind on doing it I already drilled the block so its done. I did the external lines to keep the oil from dropping on the up-swinging crank, so to reduce oil windage.







On the EFI side, I wouldn't change a thing other than just being less of a hack. I was experimenting with a number of ideas and things and it shows. The one thing I would possibly consider different if I were building a N/A multiport EFI build with no one off intake manifolds is having intake spacers made with the EFI bungs casted in. They didn't exist when I did my conversion back in 2014, but ideally would space the intake manifold out enough to lay over the the injectors enough to clear the thermostat housing.


They are a little pricey. If I got them I'd probably have a center divider welded into them and because they are for a Chevy probably would need a bit of porting to work on the OHC.

[TheSilverBuick]

Non-OHC related, I would of put the 4L60e from the beginning. Though the lighting rod shifter is blink'in awesome it doesn't do much with the 4L60e as there is serious lag between pulling the lever and the shift, still cool to use it to hold 2nd gear or such to wind up the engine a bit with light throttle, but no use for racing now. Just put it in D and mash the pedal, the programming will handle the shift timing. The 200r4 shifted instantly, but tuning that transmission was a pain in the rear, especially when I was switching gear ratios from 4.56, to 3.42 to 3.89, etc. Or alternatively go straight to a manual transmission (I have 6-speed in the garage).


I would have put a 9" rear axle in it already if I were to start from scratch. Technically nothing wrong with the 8.5", but my Skylark has a 9" and to have the gears, axles, etc interchangeable between the two cars would be nice. That way I could keep a few different gearsets/pumpkins in the garage and swap in the gears I want depending on what I planned for the car. (I'm sure glad I have concrete now!)


Probably wouldn't do a rear disc conversion again either. I've done rear disc conversion on both the Skylark and Firebird and think its over rated for what I do with the car. I may change my mind if I shift focus to auto-crossing or such. Both cars stop great, but the pedal feel is so-so and the parking brake setup is annoying.

[gtospieg]

X2 on the e-brake with rear discs...never again unless it's "drum in hat".

[66sprint]

Thanks for the info Randall.
I have looked at the manifold spacers and figured they might work. Just did not like them being open or undivided.
Seeing all that has to be done to Chevy just to get siamesed ports (port lumps, spacers and dividers) makes me appreciate the original Pontiac engineers.
Have you ever looked at a 2 piece Supra manifold and possible making adapters to fit the OHC?

[TheSilverBuick]

I would definitely see about welding dividers in, then die grind the ports to match everything up. The other thing about those spacers is I'd buy them WITHOUT the injector holes drilled. I would hazard a guess that the injector angle they are drilled at for the chevy would cause interference with the thermostat housing. You can either have the injector pads cut to a flatter angle, or simply drill the injector holes non-perpendicular to the pad face. The trick would be to find the angle that is allows the injector to clear the thermostat housing without hitting the throttle body. There are now good injectors that are shorter than the ones I was trying out in 2014.


I don't know anything about the Supra intake port spacing or sizes. I've got this Weber Carb intake manifold I put injector bungs in, and if you wanted to run this manifold naturally aspirated then just bolt on some Weber carbs with no fuel lines and it'll run NA just fine. I've got a handful of pieces to build a box, one in steel I can easily weld, and pieces of aluminum plates I can either give it a shot or take to a pro to weld up. I want to get the car up and running again before I change out the intake manifold.

[Ashley P]

I just found this topic. Wow, good job. I've got lots to learn here.

[TheSilverBuick]

Got a few hours in working on the wiring. Finished up the ignition coil and injector harnesses. I'm going to use black wire wrap tape on the pigtails into the main loom. I left the injector wires long knowing I'll be trying another intake later and want to be sure the plugs reach.






I'm using uninsulated butt connectors with shrink wrap. I've pre-crimped a handful of sensor pigtails and stuck the shrink tubing on it so I wouldn't forget later!


The other idea I had yesterday was heating up some number stamps and brand the injector plugs so I don't get them mixed up.

[TheSilverBuick]

I got the transmission cooler saga behind me. I wouldn't call it the greatest solution but ran two hoses from the transmission to the cooler instead of hard line. I did put a about 18" of line from the transmission to the frame so if I have to remove the transmission I can easily separate the lines down by the frame than up on the transmission.

Meh, but it'll be fine and out of site behind the radiator.


I still need to add the hose supports to keep them tied to the body and frame. I just got the brackets I want to use so have to put them on. The hoses have good clearance around all the exhaust.

[TheSilverBuick]

Weather has been pretty poor lately, but got a few things done today. Namely wired up the air intake and coolant temperature sensors, crank and cam sensors and main line and lash adjuster oil pressure sensors. I had previously used weather pack connectors on the crank sensor and throttle position sensor, and the connectors have always been problematic for me, so I'm replacing them with pre-made pigtails.

My car will have three or four of these hall sensors on it, so I'm making them all with the same male plug so I can swap them in a pinch, though the crank one has been on the car since 2014 and perfectly reliable. I have one on the crank, the cam sensor, and will put one on a front wheel like my Skylark for traction control. There is another I plan on running to see if I can detect crank flex from the 3 torque converter bolts. Its a long shot but doesn't really cost me anything to try.




I also bought a box of plastic clamps for holding wires and hoses.


I clipped one onto the fan shroud here and should hold the crank sensor wires away from the alternator quite well.

[TheSilverBuick]

With my next intake change, I may go to a drive by wire setup. I got the pedal for $10 for my Thunderbird EV conversion, and the throttle body I just picked up at Summit for $60. The controller was $180 after shipping and taxes a year ago. It can run as a standalone "dumb" throttle that follows the pedal movement, but also connects to the Megasquirt via CAN then the Megasquirt can adjust the progressiveness of the throttle opening, control warm up opening, close it for rev limiting, and do nifty things around launch control.

On launch control, it could consistently hit a throttle position during launch control, so I can put the pedal on the floor while holding the launch button and the throttle could be programmed to be opened say 40% to keep intake air speed up to not bog and not over run the foot brake or at least be 100% reliant on the 2-step to hit target rpm. Similarly on WOT versus boost/rpm, because the size of the throttle blade compared to engine size its prone to bogging at low rpm, so I can program in a max opening percentage with the pedal on the floor.*


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