[Marv]

Thanks for the kind words. I'll have a look into the SDSEFI product as it's always interesting to see what new products are out and about.

Today I decided that, since I'm already boots-and-all into this EFI upgrade I'll make a couple of other small changes to my engine combo. Firstly, the hydraulic power steering will go in the bin... well, the pump will at least! I have purchased an electric power steering pump from an Astra - a compact/small car made by Opel who is a German General Motors offshoot. Most of the small/city/compact cars sold by Holden (GM's brand in Australia) are from Opel, though some have also come from Daewoo in Korea (another GM offshoot).



This is the unit I have purchased, used between 1998 and 2006 models, and which is fast gaining popularity in Australia to remove problematic hydraulic pumps. This should neaten up my engine bay a fair bit, be more reliable than the old GM hydraulic pump, free up some work from the engine and also look a bit nicer.

I'll be making a custom mount so the top of the reservoir pops into the engine bay somewhere neat and hidden, but still easy to top up fluid. Custom hardline and AN fittings will be used to connect the steering box and pump, and I'll also have to fit a 70 amp relay into the wiring so as not to overload my nice new custom wiring loom! Otherwise, the general consensus is to wire the pump to your electric fuel pump circuit so it turns on when the pump is on, allowing you to use power assistance on the steering even when the car is off!

Also, it seems that Accuair are making it next to impossible to order the in-tank compressor upgrade for their ENDO tanks, despite launching it at SEMA. They've said the first pre-orders will ship Feb 1 but local distributors near me say all pre-orders are filled and Accuair aren't taking any more, plus they won't say when they will take the next round of pre-orders or when the upgrade will go on sale for retail customers. Frustrating!

[Marv]

So the barge came back to my parent's garage yesterday. Attached are a couple of pics showing the height i can achieve with the Accuair E-level pre-programmed air suspension - i get the slammed look when i parked and have plenty of "access height" for tough driveways!





It was a mad rush in the end to get much of the car buttoned up and we got close but had a few unforseen hurdles.

I need to find a new door mechanism for my driver's door as it binds up and won't unlock the latch, so i cannot lock the car at the moment. Ryan did a lot of work making custom door buttons and remounting the actuators to pop the doors so they work better.

He also put in a remote trunk release in the dash (with a manual override), and even external battery charge points under the rear of the car so, if i have a flat battery, i can put jumper leads on from the outside, or access the trunk from the outside.

The big issue we had was blood-bathing Ryan's shop floor with 5L of perfect new ATF. As it turns out the tailshaft that had been built for the car had the wrong yoke for the TH400 (it was too small for the transmission) so now the driveshaft shop is building a new one which i will fit at home.

I will then fill the transmission, stick on my Edelbrock heads, and get the engine ready to fire up on the carby. The engine builder broke the cam in back in August 2016 but the engine hasnt turned over since then, so i am going to change the oil and filter, then crank it over.

It will be running off a 10L Jerry can as my fuel tank is still being modified for the electric EFI pump. I can't run it for long anyway as i still need to bed the rings and bearings in with load on the engine.

I also have to fit the Lokar column shifter mechanism, bleed the brakes, grease & torque the steering links, check wheel bearings, re-centre the steering column (orientation), refit the dashboard parts (radio, heater controls), make a mount for the Accuair E-level controller, clean the car thoroughly, pull the windscreens & glass...

Then it is on to paint and panel...

[Marv]

Some of the other work done recently was this custom leather-trimmed dash pad. We got this done now as much of the dash can now go back together, as much of my Vintage Air and custom wiring loom is bolted to the dash fascia and underside of the pad.



I also upgraded my Haltech Elite 750 to their new Elite 950 which has been designed for converting carby V8s to EFI.

And I got my electric power steering pump which i will have to mount and make new hardlines to fit...
[Img][/img]

[gtospieg]

looking good...thanks for the updates...keep 'em coming

[hurryinhoosier62]

Looking good, Marv

[Marv]

Thanks guys. The last 2 days have been epic due to the amount of driving done and the heat. I've logged over 500miles driving between Sydney, Newcastle and my parent's house in 110-115degF trying to get a start on the EFI conversion, sorting out the new tailshaft and cleaning the garage up. It's a bad time to be doing this as the roads are choked with Christmas traffic here and the heat is really taking its toll on people and mechanical items. I left the tailshaft in the back of my ute (pick-up) for an hour in the sun. When I went to grab it I couldn't hold it even wrapped in towels and wearing gloves.!

You can see the difference in the yoke - as it turns out the driveshaft place re-used the old yoke off my original tailshaft that was used with the Super-Hydramatic transmission. This doesn't work with a TH400 as we discovered. I have fitted the new shaft but haven't filled the 'box to see if it still leaks. We also changed the pan gasket as the one fitted after the rebuild (in 2015!) had dried out.

New shaft on left, old yoke on the right.



I have sold the 1966 #92 iron heads off the car, so I made a start installing the aluminium Edelbrock units I brought back from the USA. This wasn’t a fun job in the heat, and I was astounded how heavy the original iron units were compared to the Eddys. Unfortunately I think I'll be selling the near-new 1.65 rockers and going back to 1.5s to suit the Edelbrock heads.



It all looks clean in there, as it should with only 30mins run-time on this engine! The pistons are stock-sized 400cui KB hypers.

[Marv]

These new heads are the #61599 units which suit my flat tappet cam and have a 72cc combustion chamber, giving me approximately 10.5:1 compression. Smearing the ARP grease was a tedious job but I got it done to all 20 ARP stock-style bolts, then torqued them down to 45, 75, then 85lb-ft.





Now, I had a couple of fails. Firstly, I forgot to set the engine to TDC on #1 cylinder before torqueing the heads down. That’s ok, it’ll just cost me more time later on. The exhaust also cost me a bunch of time and effort realigning it after dropping the headers off to swap heads, plus i realised I'd forgotten to order a new valley pan gasket. The old one is torn to hell as the engine builders must've used some kind of King Hell sealant to make sure it didn't leak. I'll get that sorted in the new year, along with the intake and dizzy plug and the million other jobs I need to do.

Some pics with the intake and rocker covers dummied up. I still have to get the injector bungs drilled/welded to the intake, plus I need to fit rocker gear and sandblast the rocker covers as I don’t like the blue.

[gtospieg]

Maybe if you sanded the ridges on the valve covers they would be OK. The contrast between the blue and aluminum might work...if you don't like it you can still get rid of the rest of the blue.

[Marv]

I'll sandblast them as there won't be much blue left on this car once I'm done

Thanks to KrisR I now have a valley pan gasket. I won't put it on yet as I think I'll whip the heads off and relieve them so I can reuse my 1.65 rockers and pushrods. I'll mock them up to check first, but pulling the heads should be ok as the engine hasn't had a heat cycle since I've fitted them so they should come off fine. It will let me set the #1 cylinder to TDC too.

[mr67gp]

Hell of an inspiration, Marv. Thank you.

[Marv]

Post #1 of 2

I got a bunch of work done just before New Years, but have been busy away from the car since then.

Firstly, I got the steering column mounted to make it easier to move the car, and I also pulled the hydraulic power steering pump and lines off the car to prepare for the Astra electric unit... then on Boxing Day night I got a message from a friend who was building a burnout truck for Farmtruck and AZN off Street Outlaws to use at the Summernats. They built a blown LS-powered C10 pick-up clone of Farmtruck's nitrous big block truck from the show in only 3 weeks but needed an Astra pump. I gave them mine but, after seeing their burnouts I'm not in a hurry to get it back. But at least it let them get the truck finished and to Australia's biggest car-based event!

While working on my car I also pulled the Edelbrock heads back off and am going to measure up to see if I need longer pushrods, and to also machine the pushrod apertures to clear the 1.65 roller rockers I have. KrisR off here has very generously offered his time to help me with this as it's all a bit new for me.

I also used one of my Christmas presents to weld up the remaining trim holes in the front of the car.





I also installed my BOP oil pump driver.



And I finally took a photo of the car at ride height...

[Marv]

Post #2 of 2...

So I also decided to try doing a spray-out of colours I liked. I got a couple of cans of Duplicolor Emerald Green, hit my roof quite roughly with some 240-grit wet/dry and had a quick go just to see if it works how I thought.

Personally, I reckon the colour suits the big old barge quite well, especially as I hadn't even clear-coated in this pic!





I also made a stupid decision to air-sand the other half of the roof with a 6in orbital and 80-grit discs. That only took about 50 discs and half a day! haha



I also made a start on installing the Lokar column shift adapter to suit TH400 and mate up to the standard column in my car. While pricey this is a great kit and is going on the car super-easy. Unfortunately i didn't get to finish installing it before I had to pack up. Hopefully I'll be back up to my folk's place soon to finish sanding the roof and installing the shifter!




You guys probably aren't very interested in this, but 2 mates of mine run a show on YouTube called Mighty Car Mods. As I'm a professional motoring journalist they asked me to help them out writing, proof-reading and publishing their first book. They get millions of hits every week and they've done over 60 cars in the 10 years they've been making the show so it's a huge project and one I was stoked to be involved in. The book has just come out and I'm almost as happy to see it as I was to get the Poncho home

[darbikrash]

That car looks great at ride height!

[Marv]

Thank you While it has 17in wheels and airbag suspension I hope to tread a middle ground between Mexican Loco Gringo Lowrider, Pro Tourer, and classic car.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Marv

You guys probably aren't very interested in this, but 2 mates of mine run a show on YouTube called Mighty Car Mods. As I'm a professional motoring journalist they asked me to help them out writing, proof-reading and publishing their first book. They get millions of hits every week and they've done over 60 cars in the 10 years they've been making the show so it's a huge project and one I was stoked to be involved in.

I've been watching the MCM videos for quite a while now, I really like them. (I also like the Skid Factory videos they've been doing recently, they have more technical content.) Just watched the video the other night where they took delivery of the first shipment of books, it's pretty cool that you were involved in their production.

[Marv]

Thanks Stuart - i have known Marty for years through Subaru Libertys so it was great to help them out with this book. It was not fun researching and writing up the blurbs on all those cars at the time, though.

I also helped build the Subaute they battled Roadkill with. That was probably the best fortnight "at work" ever building that car, then driving it around California, showing it at SEMA and then driving out in front of thousands of people. As the token "old school V8 guy" on the crew it was a huge thrill to meet Frieburger & Finnegan.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Marv

I also helped build the Subaute they battled Roadkill with..

Did you show up in the Roadkill video? That was a pretty good episode. I like Roadkill but get frustrated at times since they do so many half-assed repairs that you just know will cause a breakdown in the middle of nowhere - at least the Subaute appeared to be pretty well sorted and reliable.

[Marv]

I did in the MCM video. Im the guy drinking the beer walking in when their help "turned up". We did a 15hr flight, drove 2hrs to the shop, saw that and the car for the first time (jet lagged to all heck - we left Sydney at 11am on Monday, landed at 6am Monday!)

We left the shop after 1.5hrs, had to go buy all our own hand and power tools, supplies and gas for welder, plus spare parts to fix the car (video didnt touch on the 2 front control arms we put in it as they were toast, or the wheels we had to buy, or so much more). The Subie looked good on video but it was pretty half-assed as we were all so jet lagged, and up against it to finish on time.

It got a bit tense there towards the end with everyone climbing over each other but we got it done and it actually drove really nicely.

[Marv]

So, I finally got a chance to come back to this bad boy.

User KrisR on here checked my heads for clearance with the 1.65 rockers and, thankfully, he didn't need to clearance them. I did need 9.45in pushrods, however. The pic is the pushrods that came out of my motor (left), stock '64 pushrods (middle), and the new Crow Cams ones (right). I have 1000 thanks to him for his help and advice with this build - I'd have been sunk a long time before without his help.



I got the heads back on after giving them a lick of paint with the closest blue I could find to the proper Pontiac blue. Unfortunately few people bring the correct Duplicolor engine paint into Australia so I had to make do.

I took the opportunity to change the oil even though it was brand new when I picked up the motor... in August 2016! Way too old for me to trust it, unfortunately.



I found a silly issue was the ARP rocker cover bolts wouldn't work with the extra-tall new gaskets (same for my dipstick). A 1hr roundtrip to the bolt shop had me sorted. I'll have to get these bolts powder-coated black to match the other fasteners!

I had my rocker covers blasted and instead of my original plan of painting my engine green I have left them bare. I'll paint the intake manifold blue to match the rest of the motor, but I thought the rockers needed a little "something" so I hand-painted the Edelbrock script with some Duplicolor metallic gold (which also matches my steering wheel).



With the A/C compressor remounted and the lines re-run, I greased the balljoints, and tightened up the front-end steering components. I did find my new Moog tie rods, drag link and steering rods want to toe-in quite heavily - has anyone else had this issue?

I also discovered my Lokar shifter cable column kit won't work on my car as the exhaust runs too close to the transmission pan to allow the cable to fit. Custom it is, I guess.

I will also get started on mounting the LS1 coilpacks and electric power steering. I'll be making the PS lines out of hardline as i want it to neatly follow the chassis rail to behind the driver's headlight. I had considered mounting the PS pump in the trunk but I'd prefer to keep the fluid lines nice and short.

[Marv]

OK, here goes a big post but I had a day and a half on the car doing fiddly jobs. I am also documenting my build on a website I have started for the car - https://bargegarage.com - and I will be uploading more posts going through what has happened with the car, what will happen and how it is all happening.

One of the biggest individual projects I've undertaken is fitting fully programmable EFI to my '64 Pontiac's engine. I had a rebuilt carburetor on a new intake manifold all set-up ready to drive when I realised I wanted the easy starting, improved fuel use and cleaner running from EFI.
Firstly, my ECU – an Australian Haltech Elite 950. This is a new product they have launched to the V8 market specifically to help make it easier to convert old carburettor-fed V8s to EFI.


While a "bolt-on" system from Holley, FiTech, FAST and others seemed appealing I work in the aftermarket industry and have seen too many people replace the ECUs that come with those set-ups for something that can be fine-tuned better to consider them. I also wanted to run two four-barrel throttle bodies for the vintage "dual quad" muscle car look. At the time I embarked on this journey the only way for me to do this was by using the Haltech and if I had my time over I'd definitely stay with the Haltech product.




This is a complex swap, but is easy to knock over if you are methodical and read up a lot as you go (thank you, King Google!). Wiring is definitely NOT my forte so I was dreading the job of diving into the wiring loom which came with my Haltech Elite 950 ECU.



Most of the pieces of the puzzle... *gulp*

This diagram (below) is the God sheet... well, this is the God sheet for the Haltech Elite 750 not my 950, but it is close enough. Basically, you match the wires on your loom to what the below says. Haltech have really saved the bacon of all of us who are pretty good at the old Shadetree Mechanic schtick, but are still a fair way short of professional status.


After working out what wires go where, I noted what each wire was for and loosely grouped them together into their basic formats. So i had the 8 fuel injector wires together, the four wires going to the coils together, the wires going to the throttle bodies (idle air control, throttle position sensor, intake air temp, etc).


Yes, beer was involved.


The next step from this is to take the loom into the cabin, mount the ECU and push the various wires needed to run the different functions through as they're required. I'll do this once I get my intake manifold back so I can work out how much wire length I need for the various sensors on my FAST universal throttle bodies.

Along with the various sensor plugs I needed, I sourced my Hall-effect digital crank angle sensor from EFIhardware.com a company based in Melbourne, Australia. They also sell this tidy little billet mount to house the sensor. I'll mount this to the fuel pump block-off plate I made (see below) once I get my balancer back from having the toothed signal wheel fitted to it. I can then set the sensor up to read where the toothed wheel sits.





Instead of a distributor I am using 8 coilpacks from a 5.7-litre LS1 Chevy V8. This should be a better, tidier solution to firing my 400cui Pontiac V8. The coilpacks are mounted on a pair of cool brackets from Australian company Tuff Mounts, which I will custom-mount in the engine bay once I have my intake manifold back from being machined to fit the injector bungs as this gives me the best idea of how much space I have around the motor.



Removing the distributor meant I needed this billet-machined oil pump drive from BOP Engineering in the USA. Wade made this piece up and it could also be used as a cam sync if I wanted to go full sequential ignition later on down the track.




As I'm going to run an electric in-tank pump I no longer need the engine-mounted low-pressure unit hanging off the timing cover. A block-off plate was nice and quick to make.




To make this part, which ticks yet another job off the list of many required to finish my Pontiac, took 20 minutes. I used:

• a box cutter
• some scrap cardboard
• a Sharpie
• some thin aluminium (aluminum) sheet
• a drill with one cutting bit and a step bit

I also got around to mounting my electric power steering pump. This would tidy up my engine bay and reduce parasitic loss on my engine.

Pump as delivered.


Painted, cut-down bracket.


The new rivnut on the left. It threads onto the riveter, which you then close. The riviter then pinches the rivet into the hole and it looks like the one on the right (smaller). You can then bolt directly into the rivnut!



Rivnuts fitted


Bracket mounted


The bracket was mounted in 10 minutes, clocked so the power steering lines had the clearest route straight to the steering box, and it would be easy to service should I need to. I also left plenty of space to fill the reservoir with the required LDAS fluid (not Dex III as many hydraulic power steering pumps require).

One thing to note is I have since added a support strap to the radiator support panel, to brace the pump fore-aft. This was bent up out of 3mm aluminium (aluminum) flat bar, with holes drilled in to pass through the Astra pump’s bracket, and a threaded hole in the radiator support panel.

I had initially thought about hiding the pump under the bottom of the guard out of sight. However, I didn’t want to have to jack my car up and pull a wheel off to check or fill the power steering fluid. I really want this car easy to maintain.




With the pump mounted I then got on with the job of working out how to get the power steering fluid from the steering box to the pump. Rubber hose didn’t really appeal to me, so I went out and bought a couple of tube benders, seeing how I was going to need to bend some more hardline when it comes time to redo my fuel lines for the new fuel injection set-up I’m installing.

I had some spare stainless steel 3/8″ line in the garage so I set about teaching myself how to bend and flare piping, and I reused the old fittings as they were all in good shape. Thankfully the Astra pump uses the same size fittings and lines despite being made in a metric country (and 50 years after the car was built).

Once I get the new hardline I’ve ordered I will put up a more detailed post later on for how to bend lines, showing how I did