[TheSilverBuick]

I agree, I knew something wasn't right, but in the heat of the moment couldn't determine what. Being a new turbo from a V8 LS kit I wasn't sure what lag to expect or the exhaust sound change. Since it always consumed oil on every cylinder the plug didn't show a dramatic difference from the others.

[Cammer-6]

this brings to mind a tip we used when tuning the sons nitro RC cars.
Use a IR scan gun to read temp of plug while running.
You can spot a dead cylinder right away.
I remember Smokey Yunick drilling holes in headers to insert a temp probe
into the flame and tune each cylinder.When a journalist asked what the hole was for
he got silence. Another of his competitive cards he played.

[TheSilverBuick]

Had I pulled out the IR gun yeah it would have stood out. A wire got pulled loose from a connector in all the shuffling installing the turbo.

Previewing a later post, I've added EGT probes to each cylinder

[TheSilverBuick]

So since pulling the engine apart I've started on getting the last few things wrapped up on the new engine as well as pulling all the non-stock wiring out of the car and re-wiring it. Much like the engine, I never expected the wiring to be the long term set up. So what was once nicely rolled up wires got bird nested as I added a few inputs here and there over the years and needed specific wires.

One of the things I wanted to use was an SFI flexplate, which has turned into quite the ordeal! The crank flange hub ID is much smaller than the usual Pontiac and is just a smidge smaller than a Chevy's. The machine shop made me a precision sized ring spacer to use a Chevy flexplate, which I got an SFI one to use..... but I just recently found out that the ring gear isn't welded in the same spot as the Pontiac's! The Chevy ring gear is centered on the flexplate and the Pontiac's offset to one side, which made it so the starter gear couldn't reach the flexplate! So digging into my spare parts pile, I found that the Buick 455 hub diameter is the same as the Chevy and off set ring gear BUT has a bigger bolt spacing. Using the torque converter bolt holes as alignment holes, I re-drilled the Buick flexplate I had.

My flexplate hub spacer.


A stock flexplate.


A Chevy flexplate


The drilled SFI Buick flexplate. The plate is twice as thick as a stock flexplate.




The diameter is ever so slightly larger than the OHC plate, but has the same tooth count. It was easy to shim the starter as needed.


And a short video of the Buick flexplate doing its job!
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/oNmyUPaNjbg

[TheSilverBuick]

I started working on some of the external things I wanted to have on the new engine. As mentioned before, adding EGT sensors to all the exhaust ports so I can make individual cylinder adjustments or simply see if I have lost fuel or spark on a hole.


I put the CAN EGT box in a waterproof housing that will go on the driver's side fender.


As part of the new engine, I wanted better oil control and as previously posted, made a full length windage tray and set it up for an external oil pick up line to the oil pump, but still needed to actually finish the oil pan. So with an aftermarket universal oil pickup I modified the tube to exit the pan in the corner behind the starter but before the motor mount, in a place that I believe can fairly easily route the pickup line to the accessory drive housing. (my welding isn't the best..... but it should get the job done...)




Then for oil baffles, roughly copying the SRE pan in my Buick 455 with simple front and rear baffles with a slight angle to funnel oil to the center


I put a little lip on the edges like the stock baffle has.




The stock dipstick tube sits right over the new oil pickup tube, but seems to be okay with my 1/2" spacer in place. Since I was going to make a new dipstick to account for the 1/2" spacer, I'm going to extend the top of the tube up higher so I'm not reaching down around the turbo exhaust to check the oil. With that I'll add a handle with an o-ring seal and something to keep it positively seated.

[TheSilverBuick]

Concurrently I'm re-working the wiring because this isn't cool, lol


I removed the dash and pulled essentially all the non-stock or radio related wiring out of the car. Same with under the hood.




Drilling out some existing holes in the firewall I'm adding multi-pin duetsch connectors. I'm about ready to finalize my pinout on them, but being held up on trying to decide if I'm going to add an Input/Output (IO) board under the hood or not. If I do, then I'll likely reduce the number of wires going through the firewall by 6+ wires as the sensors will be brought into the megasquirt via the CAN bus with the EGT box.




Testing out the little white IO board with the Megasquirt. If it works as I expect, I'll install it in the same box as the CAN EGT under the hood and run in the same CAN loop. As a reminder, my 4L60e controller also runs on the CAN bus.


Another little project I'm dabbling in is modernizing the hood tach. The stock innards are junk. I found this $15 "boat" tach on e-bay and preliminary tests show it may work well. I would like a faster refresh rate, but all in all would get the job done. I would also like to put a few indicator lights in the hood tach as well. Such as a shift light, a "check engine" or "Safety" light that would come on if the engine was leaning out, over heating, losing oil pressure, etc. Maybe a green light to indicate if I hit my boost target or such as well. I think the hood tach is original and the housing has seen better days. I've covered a big part of it with epoxy and re-enforced the screw stands. I'll post up some pictures after I've sanded down the epoxy I just dumped all over it.




A short video bench testing the tach. I think I'm going to cut some tin or thin plastic sheet to block most the screen outside the rpm gauge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJDj-_oQey4

I'm also starting on installing the screen behind the dash. FINALLY going to clean that up!

[TheSilverBuick]

Poking away at smaller details. Since I'm more certain on using an external input/output (IO) box I've be re-viewing my wiring plan. Still making headway on sorting out the wiring cleanup.

Updating the firmware on the Megasquirt EFI, and testing out connecting external modules. The 4L60e has been connected via CAN bus for years, now adding the EGT box and a small IO board. Got them all connected up on the software side.




I've pulled the dash out, and finally getting around to putting a touchscreen behind the dash trim.





https://youtu.be/O_L7bF96BrA?si=Om3EuRy6QmnAvOaJ

[TheSilverBuick]

I'm working on putting together a new intake manifold. The runner length of the Marshall intake is a little short and the fuel rail interferes with the thermostat housing, so I've been contemplating converting a Weber intake manifold over to EFI and have started making progress on that.

The original concept mock up. I had the Weber intake on hand when making the header so I knew it would clear.


This would be essentially like the Marshall intake, except with longer runners.


But I'd like to add a little volume to the intake manifold and bring the air in at a 45º angle so #1 doesn't get by-passed as badly on airflow.


But now some actual progress. I found someone local to me to give it a go at putting some EFI bungs into the intake.


He's still got to drill the matching fuel rail then fabricate some hold downs, but overall, I like the direction its going.



On the car side, I've been plugging away at planning out the new wiring and cooling plumbing. The goal is to get the mess of a jungle under the hood into a neat and tidy setup. I'm removing the two cooling lines going into the head and going back to a conventional flow cooling system. A new intake will make this easier to do. Planning out the wiring hopefully will clean up all the "temporary" test setup wiring.

[TheSilverBuick]

Been making slow headway on re-wiring. Just about done with the ECU to firewall wiring. Next up is finishing up the dash wiring and cleaning up the engine bay in prep for installing the new engine.







The loom is just stuff I had on hand, but plan on changing it out before it goes back into the car.


Another side project besides the digital hood tach is possibly installing 3 LED gauges next to the headlight switch. I still have to sort out the mounting since the dash slopes back so aggressively.

Here its just showing dummy numbers of RPM, AFR and an uncalibrated sensor, but thinking of having oil pressure, MAP/Boost and AFR.


A video of them running. At this point they were all set to just show RPM.
https://youtu.be/KgXRU_f11-0?si=m3ForFnd0RhZVeNo

A crappy rendering of what I'm thinking. And still have the touch screen in place of the clock delete panel.

[TheSilverBuick]

Got my webber intake manifold back with the injector bungs installed for intake manifold #4!


Someone on Facebook commented about it would be interesting to use a cam housing as plenum and it looks like a funny DOHC engine, haha.






Been doing other engine related work as well. I wanted to go back to a conventional flow cooling system, still electric, though so I removed the pump shaft and impeller. I want to put a metal core plug in the pump eventually, but for now an expansion plug does the job. One issue with the current EFI manifolds I have is the fuel rail interferes with the stock water outlet, so I cut some plate steel and hose barb to make one that will work with my current manifold. This will remove the two 1" water lines going to the head around the turbo and not require special core plugs.


Put a couple of 1/8th ports in the exhaust before and after the turbo to measure exhaust back pressure. Talking with folks that measure it they recommended expansion blocks to dampen the exhaust pulses before the pressure sensor. So with some scrap metal I put these boxes together with some steel wool in them. Pretty crude, but some black paint and they'll disappear into the engine bay. I'll run some steel brake line from the exhaust to the boxes.


I also made the external oil pump pick up line. It should tuck nice around the motor and frame mounts, but if I find when I get it in the car that its in the way, I'll run some 90º fittings over the top of the motor mount. This was done for a couple of reasons, one is with the windage tray I added a spacer so the pickup would of had to been extended downwards, two the baffles I put in the oil pan to keep the oil in the sump would of been further complicated working around the pickup, three the main studs didn't have provisions for the pickup tube bracket. It also allowed for a larger pick up to the pump.




I also drilled a hole in the belt cover to accommodate the fitting to the block's oil main galley. I wanted to be sure it would comfortably clear the balancer, which it does.


And lastly I was tired of buring my hand or arm reaching down around the turbo exhaust to check the oil. Since I needed to extend the oil dipstick anyways, I decided to raise the dip stick tube as well as add an o-ringed dipstick to control oil. The first picture is the before, with the stock dipstick tube.


Raised up for easy reach.


I added a pull down spring just to be sure it doesn't go anywhere. It blocks the old water inlet port so its good I'm moving away from that configuration.

[TheSilverBuick]

I've been hung up on how to mount the external oil pressure regulator for the lash adjusters, and have determined I'll probably just zip tie it to the turbo support bracket and move on. I'll get it mounted properly at a later date. The issue is I lost the bracket that came with it since I had it mounted directly to a tube coming out of the head.

Bottom and top end assembly is done, complete with gaskets and sealants so not coming back apart. I've installed light weight 1bbl springs for break in. Once the engine is up and running, I'll swap in my re-ground cam with more lift to break in on the light weight springs. After a thousand miles or so on the light weight springs I'll install new heavy springs for rpm and boost.

Bottom end.






On the top end, for right or wrong, I put a little film of straight moly grease on all the rubbing surfaces. Top of the valves, lash adjusters, top of the followers and on the cam lobes themselves. Since there is no rolling or spinning of the valvetrain parts, figure the grease is good start up protection.





Apparently I didn't have a water pump gasket, so some gasket material and hammer to template it.


Then put the balancer on....


And realized I forgot the belt cover back panel, which won't go on with the balancer in place, lol


Little paint and re-work, and done.


I've re-done my cam sensor as well. Before I had a Ford pickup sensor in a plastic cap on the distributor, now I bent the tab 90º and threaded a hall sensor into the distributor body. I'll put a new cap on it, perhaps out of aluminum.


About have the engine bay cleaned up and painted. Going to put the engine in soon so I can do the engine wiring harness.

[Cammer-6]

good progress
thanks for the update
Are you using the front oil galley port for lash adjuster pressure regulator?
why front and not the rear? Using the rear you can dump the "excess" into the oil fill.
What do you have the regulator set at and have you confirmed with a gauge?
Perhaps another sensor for Megasquirt to see any spikes?

[TheSilverBuick]

The front fitting you see there is the main oil pressure galley. I'm going to run a remote oil filter and feed oil from the filter straight into the mains. The lash adjuster galley in the head I'm feeding from the rear of the head. Like I've been running the last ten or so years, the by-pass regulator will send overflow to the oil fill tube, and I used an oil pressure gauge to check the lash adjuster pressure. I will be using the Megasquirt with a pressure sensor to monitor it this time, including warning indicators.

[Cammer-6]

Also there are 2 schools of thought on lash adjuster.
One is to block off the feed completely by brazing up the hole in the metering tube
and feed the galley with regulated oil.
This is not without drawbacks as in time you will get sludge as not much movement
is in the oil.
The other is to "dump" the excess pressure with the metering tube intact.
This eliminates the stale oil problem but robs the bearings and cam of some oil that is dumped.

[TheSilverBuick]

I had my metering tube completely sealed, sending full main pressure to the cam housing, and no sludge was seen pulling the lash adjusters or lash adjuster oil feed tube out after ~10 years of running.

[TheSilverBuick]

I'm re-wiring, and bought this cheap $40 chinese oscilloscope to add to my inventory of testing equipment. A friend of mine thought one of the injector drivers on his EFI computer was going out, so took this opportunity to try it out on my Megasquirt before testing his.

https://youtu.be/1tQFeeTfZQk?si=bMgiAcK98g23r6nM

(His tested find, so either wiring or other electrical noise forcing an issue on his car)

[TheSilverBuick]

Engine is in the car!



Had to lay it over on its side for transport from the garage to the backyard, but no harm in doing that. Looks a little like German engineering on it side, lol


Thread the needle trailer.




No issues setting it into place. I was happy to see the oil pickup line fits as expected.






The nice thing about a crank trigger and EFI is once the wheel and sensor are bolted on, I know the timing is dead on accurate like it was when I removed it. Making the engine fire right up. Of course I'll double check it, but I do expect it to be spot on. For the cam trigger set up, I rotate the engine so the sensor is about 3 teeth (~30º) before the missing tooth, then line up the cam trigger. So the cam trigger hits first, indicating #1 is on the compression stroke, then the missing tooth. I use these Cherry/ZF hall effect sensors everywhere. As crank and wheel speed sensors on my Skylark, crank sensor on the Firebird, and now cam sensor and soon wheel speed sensor. Crank is the only critical need, so if it dies I can swap in one of the other ones.





Started putting some of the other stuff back in. I need to wait for better/warmer weather to re-paint the turbo hotside then re-wrap it. In the mean time I'll be getting the coolant plumbing re-worked and finish up the electrical.

[TheSilverBuick]

When I was lining up the cam sensor last week, I didn't like the resistance I got rotating the oil pump to drop in the distributor so this weekend I pulled the accessory housing.

I don't know if its the cold or what, but the pump was not happy. I swapped out gears and end plate with no change. Soon as the bolts were tightened, the gears would bind up.



I ended up removing some material from the bottom of the original gears until they spun freely when lubed up. I'll loosely call this blue-printed, lol I cleaned out the whole assembly, re-lubed and put it back together. My assumption is that someone surfaced the pump housing and took too much material off. I'm happy to report it was easy to remove and re-install the oil pickup line.



I also made an aluminum cap for the cam sensor. I'll probably fill all the holes in the housing with JB weld and paint the body black, then put a red Pontiac arrowhead and the engine firing order on the cap.





My old cam sensor setup had a rough time. I used a plexiglass plate to hold the sensor on top, but eventually the engine heat got to the plastic and it cracked, multiple times. In the end, after 10+ years of service it was being held together by duct tape and zipties

How it started...


How it ended....

[TheSilverBuick]

I've been side tracked by my Buick, but have finished up adding nine 0-5v analogue (ADCs) inputs to the TinyIOx and tested them out this morning. I'll use six of these inputs to monitor/datalog main line oil pressure, lash adjuster oil pressure, coolant and fuel pressure, fuel pump amp draw and alternator amp output.

I now will add the relay and PWM outputs. These will control the electric water pump speed, maybe the radiator fan speed and possibly front wheel speed input.




https://www.youtube.com/shorts/byR6bkLCXho

[Cammer-6]

what is your target lash adjuster oil pressure?