White'89

iTrader: (8)

Got everything done with the exhaust and just have a couple little odds and ends to tie up tomorrow like tidying up the battery cables and then she's ready to roll. This thing definitely don't sound like its got a sbc in it .

Firebird010.jpg?t=1304125979



Sound clip coming at ya tomorrow.

White'89

iTrader: (8)

Man, when people say go LSx and you wont look back they aren't kidding. This thing is FUN.

Here is a link to the sound clip. I cant seem to get the video to embed correctly for some reason. I'll get a high RPM clip once I get a chance to borrow someones camera, because it tops out the sound on mine.

http://s1222.photobucket.com/albums/...bird001-13.mp4

I'll get a good video once I figure out why I have so much play in my steering. Although I'm pretty sure I failed when I tried adjusting the steering box.

five7kid

iTrader: (14)

Wow, that thing can squeal the tires even after the engine is shut off!!!

White'89

iTrader: (8)

There's our shop, a parts store, a custom shop, a speed shop with a dyno jet, and a busy intersection almost all on the same block. There is never a time when tires aren't screeching.

five7kid

iTrader: (14)

Congrats on getting it going. Many smiles await you.

White'89

iTrader: (8)

Finally got all the details finished and she is road worthy. The air intake isn't the ultimate in flow technology but I didn't feel like changing radiator hoses. The oil catch can I bought on ebay for $19 shipped and its actually much nicer than I was expecting, but I'm ready to ditch the blue hoses...

Firebird008-2.jpg?t=1305256172


Gonna hit the intake tubing with some paint real soon. There is also a support bracket by the elbow you cant see.
Firebird007-3.jpg?t=1305256210


Hopefully some dyno numbers some time next week.

Pocket

iTrader: (24)

Link to the catch can?

Willie B.

Nice, did you also notch your k-member for more pan clearance? Cant wait to see the numbers.

White'89

iTrader: (8)

Your wish is my command:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/JDM-R...Q5fAccessories

The seller I got mine from doesn't seem to be offering them anymore but it looks like the same one thats plastered all over ebay.

Sure didn't. Still using the stock rubber motor mounts as well and I've only driven and revved it for a total of about 20minutes so far and it hasn't hit so I'm not worried about it. I've seen worse.

1989GTATransAm

iTrader: (3)

Very nice. What size tubing did you use for the cold air intake?

HP52TA

iTrader: (4)

Congrats on getting her all together! Looking forward to that dyno vid

White'89

iTrader: (8)

The intake is 4 inch exhaust tubing. I had to do a bit of fab work to get the angle right to keep it parallel to the motor. I'll try to find the picture I took of it and post it.

1989GTATransAm

iTrader: (3)

I thought it might be 4", but is kind of hard to tell without a good reference point. One thing about it, it should not hinder any airflow into your intake manifold.

White'89

iTrader: (8)

Gonna be just a bit longer on those dyno results. I have a good feeling the whole front end of this car is effed up so its going up to a friend of mine to be put on the frame rack. There is a good chance I may be parting this one out, its a shame to, it had almost no rust. But we'll see what happens, and if it is bad enough that I junk the chassis its still gonna get some dyno pulls before I start dismantling.

Firebird003-8.jpg?t=1306974738


Firebird011-1.jpg?t=1306974770



Once the doghouse was off I could see how terrible of a job whoever fixed it did. There was a half inch of shims on the bottom tab of the front fenders on each side. Not to mention how mangled the crash bumper mounts were. But aside from all that she runs like a scalded dog.

scooter

iTrader: (11)

Doghouse? Thats only on vans and such, what are you referring to?

White'89

iTrader: (8)

Thats what I've always called front ends. Just a way to sum up fenders, front bumper and hood.

stoning_volcom

now was she in a wreck? or what happened?

White'89

iTrader: (8)

Yes, but by the previous owner. I bought it with a rebuilt title from another state. Turns out they did a very good job of covering up awful work. I'll attempt to get some pictures of the damage.

But its sitting up on the frame rack right now and its getting fixed. Once he said I'll give you the 'family price' it was a done deal. This guy has been doing collision repair for probably 30+ years and I could swear I've seen him pull a refrigerator out of a toaster.

Who nows by the time I'm done there might be a new coat of paint on it.
This thing went from a motor swap to a restoration quicker than I had hoped it would.

White'89

iTrader: (8)

Here is how I made the CAI to work the way I wanted it to.

Firebird004-10.jpg?t=1308437424
Firebird005-8.jpg?t=1308437403

Then I just did a bit of cleanup work after that.

White'89

iTrader: (8)

The front end is pretty bad. The core support is pushed to the drivers side about 2 inches and its rolled a bit. Its really amazing what it looked like for how off it was.

Firebird001-15.jpg?t=1308437444

Cell phone picture in a hurry:
Firebird009-2.jpg?t=1308437372

Firebird007-6.jpg?t=1308437380
Firebird006-5.jpg?t=1308437391

By 'rolled' I mean that the driver side of the core support is a little over 1/2inch lower than the other.

tylercamaro

iTrader: (1)

so were you able to fix it, and its good now, or do you have to start over with another car?

White'89

iTrader: (8)

Its getting fixed.

tylercamaro

iTrader: (1)

it couldve been on there because it was geting fixed but its unfixable or worse than you thought so you had to decide, nonetheless glad the damage is being repaired and you didnt leave it as was

dprest68

iTrader: (1)

Well, FWIW, I'm glad you are fixing it. It would be a shame to scrap such a nice looking car.

White'89

iTrader: (8)

I guess the welding on the oil pan failed because it left a bit of a puddle on the floor under the frame rack, amazing how aggravatingly tiny a leak can be. But I said screw it called the dealer and ordered a brand new OEM pan, $226.62. I really hope that is what's wrong, and it also means there will be a cheap pan in the classifieds soon.

Anybody got an ls6 cam and springs they wanna sell? I need some motivation to pull this motor.

Pocket

iTrader: (24)

Buy the springs from the dealer too. They're so cheap, I wouldnt bother buying used

alan91z28

hope your gta gets straightened up quickly for you, you have a nice looking car

your intake tube looks nice, just make sure that on the inside with all the weld seams you really have everything smoothed down and confident that no little splat is going to work its way off as you know right where that will be going!

White'89

iTrader: (8)

She was crunched pretty good. As you can see in the picture the way everything is wrinkled and also where he had to weld that corner back it was no fun. I'm not going to put the time and effort into making every little thing cosmetically straight at this point because no matter how hard you try a wrecked car will always be a wrecked car. Especially when I could only afford the little work he did even with "family price".

Firebird004-11.jpg?t=1312077338

This explains why I had such a hard time backing it out of the garage. He said "straighten it out!" well, I did. The close ratio steering box made it worse then it looks.
Firebird005-9.jpg?t=1312077243

My brand new oil pan came with a gasket, bolts, drain plug, oil level sensor, and a windage tray. I guess that's not such a bad deal, if I didn't already have that stuff...
Firebird006-6.jpg?t=1312077229

As much as I hate having to pull this thing back out, its probably one of the easiest motor pulls you can do, seriously. Leaving the sawzall in the pic was intended.
Firebird007-7.jpg?t=1312077212


Oh and unfortunately I was not able to find a cheap ls6 cam.

White'89

iTrader: (8)

Well my assumption was correct. For some reason it never dawned on me to fill it up with water or something to make sure everything was good before I put it in the car.

Firebird004-12.jpg?t=1312164307

tylercamaro

iTrader: (1)

what is that exactly? ^

White'89

iTrader: (8)

Someone didn't look through the whole thread. See page 1.

tylercamaro

iTrader: (1)

ahh that was a long time ago though

dprest68

iTrader: (1)

lol. It's the weld on the oil pan. See post #11

tylercamaro

iTrader: (1)

yeah i looked, it was just that all was soo long ago, i thought he fixed it and just got a different oil pan for some reason. that really wasnt my brightest moment...sorry guys, continue with the build

White'89

iTrader: (8)

Decided to paint Paint the engine bay. No show car smooth finishing here, I just did a red scuff pad job. The green spots are where I used self-etching primer on the bare metal spots.

IMG_20110805_202251.jpg?t=1312686891

IMG_20110805_202227.jpg?t=1312686901

White'89

iTrader: (8)

I started to try the aluminum foil method but in the end I stuck with my tape instincts, not sure why I even bothered covering the k-member at all. And the shade of white I used definitely does not match the body color...

But hows this for a rattle can job? I'm pretty proud myself. Although the camera did add some glamor.

DSCN0189.jpg?t=1312688622

DSCN0190.jpg?t=1312688632

Of course I took a closeup of the best spot.
DSCN0188.jpg?t=1312688681

Theres my current ride in the background.
DSCN0191.jpg?t=1312688694


Its just insane how many holes there are in the front of these cars....from the right angle it looks like white swiss cheese.

dprest68

iTrader: (1)

Looks great! I need to do that to my engine bay too.

Pocket

iTrader: (24)

Check out a fox mustang with the fenders off. Good lord...

White'89

iTrader: (8)

Got stuck building Demolition derby cars so had to put her off for a little while but I hope to get it running again this weekend. Still trying to figure out why my transmission was stuck in limp mode and not throwing any codes, but I'm having the ECM re-flashed so we'll see what happens.

Hit the K-member with some black because I got so much crap about the overspray...
Firebird003-9.jpg?t=1313542063

White'89

iTrader: (8)

Got in some more fun stuff. Spohn SFC's and Founders performance RLCA relocation brackets. I love getting stuff from Spohn, their parts are top notch. Now if only they would redesign their lsx crossmember then they would be golden.

White'89

iTrader: (8)

Almost forgot.

IMG_20110819_195602.jpg?t=1313811922
IMG_20110819_191429.jpg?t=1313811907

whitedevilTA

iTrader: (8)

Haha, beat me to it. I cringe whenever I look in the bay of a few of my freinds fox mustangs. Third gens look like they have a factory smoothed engine bay compared to a fox!

And white, car is coming along great so far. Sucks to find out it was hit that badly, but hey if you can get it close to straight and it's fun to drive, who cares. Looking forward to seeing some dyno numbers!

White'89

iTrader: (8)

Almost there just gotta tidy all the odds and ends back up and rehang the front end.

But question for you Pocket, I got my auxiliary power to the tach signal but the reading is very low. Idle shows like 450 rpm and revving doesn't show much over 1k. My only guess is that maybe I used a wire for my tach signal that was to big and there is to much resistance.

I went to spin on the new oil filter I ordered for a 2000 camaro z28 and I'll be damned that it didn't fit. Turns out the filter adapter GM put on it was bigger then the one on my original pan, good thing I kept the old pan. It just caused me to have to go buy a 1/2in allen head socket to get the darn thing out, and it was IN there.
IMG_20110821_162654.jpg?t=1314419297IMG_20110821_162627.jpg?t=1314419282

Pocket

iTrader: (24)

Most of the LSx bird including mine have uber sensitive tachs that dont jive with the LSx output. Use a booster wire

You need a short length of wire, 680ohm resistor. Put the resistor in the middle of the wire and use it to jump pins B19 (PCM IGN fuse) and R10 (tach). Dont simply cut the wires, but tee into them. This effectively gives a little more voltage to your tach signal

Hard to see in your pic but if thats blu, gry, brn, gld then you're golden

Ive never needed a gas powered soldering iron/gun. All my jobs have been covered with the common pencil iron (95% of my work) and the big gun (large cables and terminals). Tips on the pencil iron last about 3 harnesses worth before needing to be replaced. No problem as they're only $3 each

For your pan, Im really not sure why GM swapped to the LS3 metric filter fitting vs the classic fitting thats been used since filters began being used on GM engines. My first pan I scavenged the fitting from the truck pan I was scrapping. Yes, it really was in there with locktite, but a breaker bar got it. I looked up why that was and just ordered the LS3 filter for my next pan

White'89

iTrader: (8)

Well thats what I did except its a little bit longer piece of wire and I teed into ignition power that I think went to the hatch relay. I'll take it out and stick it where you said to and see if it makes a difference.

I've just never had much luck with the plug in pencil irons, this one gives me a great solder everytime and has attachments for just about everything including heat shrinking and a spreader that I use to fix cracks in plastic.

Edit: Switched it and got the same result. I think I used 16gauge to run tach signal from the pcm to the C100 and I'm wondering if maybe thats the problem?

Pocket

iTrader: (24)

Makes no difference where the 12v IGN comes from, just be sure its fused. I do them at the PCM because they're easy to access

If the gas gun works, use it

You've got no tach or a wrong tach?
No tach means either its not connected or not getting boosted. Wrong tach value means the conversion factor isnt set properly in the PCM. Stock 4th gen is 4 cyl output, Your TA will expect an 8 cyl input. V6 guys can also recalibrate the signal to 6 cyl or just swap tachs in case this pops up in someone's search

Flick the IGN on and make sure you're getting 12v on the booster wire before the resistor or like 6-9v after. Then make sure its connected from the PCM to the C100, or pull the cluster and see if you're connected from the PCM to cluster connector

White'89

iTrader: (8)

I get tach signal but it reads very low, so 4cyl output does sound like it might be a culprit but I don't know for 100% that the tach works correctly anyways because I bought the car as a roller.

Pocket

iTrader: (24)

I missed that little blurb, but fixing the conversion factor should do it

White'89

iTrader: (8)

Craigslist win.

IMG_20110827_164522.jpg?t=1314494118

tylercamaro

iTrader: (1)

major win