Any ideas on how this diff might work for drifting/powersliding?

 

it would work like any other,possibly better due to it being new and in perfect working order.if you are doing mainly drifting and power sliding get a crappy 10 bolt and throw in a spool,add some 3.73 gears and you are set.it all depends what you are trying to do PRIMARILY.

 

Well, there are generally two types of limited slip differential’s. First is the mechanical a.k.a. Helical a.k.a. torsen. This type limits slip (lock the wheels together) by way of a mechanical gears. The advantage is they are nearly bulletproof, require no maintenance, and do not require any slip modifier additive. The disadvantage is they do not lock under braking and cannot be adjusted. The torque lock TLVL is a mechanical limited slip differential.

The second type is the clutch type limited slip differential. The factory “posi traction“ in your nine bolt is a clutch type. And as you have probably discovered they will wear out. The benefits are that they can be adjusted (depending on the differential) and they can be made to lock under acceleration and braking. Other than the factory model, I do not know of any other clutch type differentials available for the nine bolt.

 

 

Hmmmmm.... So I'm thinking...... You got it out on the road today. How's it feel? I'm guessing it will be at least a year before I get mine on the road again. Happy for you, though, hope she's fun!
DR.K.

 

well Factory 9 bolts and most other 98 and earlier are known as Auburn or cone types not really a clutch type and while 9 bolts do have replacement cones available most do not and if a cone cracks or splits you have a over engineered paper weight or scrap metal, same if cones are worn down (BAD)
the (IMO) clutch type have several friction discs that seem like they just do last longer and are replaceable (GOOD)
the 99 and up Camaro/Firebirds all got Torsen type diff which is good for third genners if your 88 up are a bolt in earlier need to get upgraded axles from 26-28 splines(GOOD)
ResIpsa , did that guy just leave you sitting there had to
I know you came back around -Nice Job

 

This is NOT a Trans AM or Camaro. I became a member on 3RD Gen for Trans AM and Camaro NOT for Imports.
Thanks you

 

It is a pretty cool car, though. I have many cars in my life, and most are not thirdgens. Variety is the spice of life. I love my thirdgens, but life would be pretty boring if that was all I owned.
DR.K.

 

ooooooooooooooooooookay...

So let's see... You joined in August 2016 and you have zero posts. Should I be flattered that you took the time out of your otherwise busy (and I assume exciting) schedule to finally post in my thread?

P.S. the reason none of your sockets fit is because those bolts are actually metric.

 

I was at the track this weekend, albeit in my heretical rice burning import, and saw this.

 

Now that's an interesting looking bird....
DR.K.

 

"Camaro-Mustang Challenge"?

 

any more pics/specs? Those wheels look familiar. Anyone know what they are?

 

They look like a factory Chevy/GMC truck wheel...
DR.K.
Edit:. Maybe from a first-generation Oldsmobile bravada? Can't remember if they were 5 or 6-lug....

 

Quick update. Car is still running great apart from an annoying gear whine that developed after about a week that I suspect is from getting my backlash slightly off (I ended up at .011 while factory was .008). I also had a bitch of a time getting a good pattern without the axles bolted in and admittedly declared it good enough for government work.

Also, all that time I spent porting my intake had an unforeseen effect. I have developed a nasty lingering case of tennis elbow in my right arm that won't go away. So I am trying to give my arm a rest and avoid working on my car unless necessary. In place of working on my car I have been substituting a lot of time on Iracing.

But with that said, every time I drive her to work I get a big grin on my face!

 

I am still nursing my elbow and of course my reverse lockout switch is being intermittent sometimes requiring 45 pounds of force to get my T 56 into reverse.

I did install my third starter in a little over a year which I blame the long tube headers. Hopefully some reflect a gold will extend the life of this new one.

and quick tip, aerosol goof off is amazing for cleaning hard to reach door jams!

 

I don’t think I ever posted any pics of how I made my 87 air dam fit on my 91 nose. The body clips are the style used on modern Nissans.


The tape is just to clean up the airflow through the radiator.

 

its amazing how efficient the air dams are! - just remove one and go driving around - will cause O/H @ 40 and up - my son can attest to that when he had my 87.

 

I will second this. Year and years ago when I was young and stupid I think I cracked mine and was hanging down and thought hell I’ll just take it off and not run it and it will be fine. Wrong. I had an ‘81 Grand Prix around that I took the air damn off that and installed. Only the width of the radiator but it worked and still there to this day. Even though the G bodies had open grills with airflow to the radiator they thought it needed one as well, guessing there was a reason they work lol

 

I have a racer buddy who never has anything nice to say about my car but was seriously impressed by the design of the air dam.

 

its amazing how little respect these cars get and ironically how much a$$ they kick (with a little love) while being disrespected.
every fox body mustang owner thinks all third gens are slow because they raced an LG4 150 horsepower automatic and won.they never tried an
LB9 stick car and having ANY corners involved.i surprised several fox bodies with a warmed over L98 iroc with a 700r4 trans and a shift kit.

i personally think its the best bang for your buck performance platform if you like great looks,
available parts,reasonable handling and reasonable weight.everything older is brutally costly to buy,
most are heavier and generally handle much worse.the few older vettes ive been in road like trucks
and the fox bodies while fun are kind of ugly,squirrely and unpredictable

 

I am only sharing this as a public service announcement of how one should never drive on a public road.

 

So you guys don’t think lethal weapon fell off a cliff or something, I’m gonna give a little update. I am in the golden stage of third GEN ownership where the car can be driven and is reliable.

with that said, now that I have a better feel for the car I’m trying to tweak the ECU settings (she has a fast EZ-EFI 2.0).

The two issues I’m working on are a slight hesitation off idle and hesitation under part throttle while under load.

The hesitation under part throttle was essentially cured by backing off my vacuum timing (I have no previous experience with carbureted motors). Here are my Settings. Any suggestions, especially with base timing, would be much appreciated.

 

LOL looks like fun spirited run with hills and twisties
I kike the added squealing of tires good sound editing

 

Love your public service announcement. Thank you for your service. Reminds me of driving around all the Q-tips here on Florida's treasure coast. Except the only twisties we have are on the cloverleafs, and there are no passing lanes there. Ha!

 

Noticed that my master cylinder was leaking (I will address the slip in clutch in a later post). I was happy to find out I have the Hawks upgraded Tilton master cylinder that can be rebuilt.

 

It’s been a while since I had a what the hell was GM thinking post. Although technically it doesn’t apply to the third GEN Firebird. So...the slave cylinder on a LT1 T56 transmission does not have a bleeder. This boggles my mind!



In the end it didn’t turn out to be that big a deal. Just place the slave on your workbench (or on a step ladder if your workbench is so covered with crap there’s no space) and fill it prior to install. A little gold heat reflective tape is cheap insurance considering how close the slave is to the header collector.



Holy sh$t! A part I ordered from Amazon was made in the United States!

Do not cut the plastic ties holding the rod at this point. However, as you fill gently depress the rod and refill until you get no air bubbles.

Pretty!

 

ResIpsa,
I am right there with you on rationed counter space and manufacturing country of origin! USA, USA!

 

I knew that post on how reliable she has been was a bad idea...

Car goes up on jacks today for clutch and rear main seal. I plan on installing a Astro steering shaft and oil catch canister while I am at it.

 

 

OK… I think I see a little bit of wear on this...


What are you guys think? Maybe just go over it with a little bit of steel wool?


Respect the meatball flag!

 

Tough day for me yesterday, had to say goodbye to my little guy after a year long battle with cancer.

 

Tough day indeed.

 

Sorry to hear that. We've had to go through that several times over the years. It never gets easier.

 

I appreciate the thoughts guys. It sucks.

well, back at it. The car has a ram billet aluminum fly wheel with a replaceable friction surface. So now it was a matter of using a hammer and a punch to knock out the old rivets.

I do want to clarify how I removed the rivets holding the friction surface into the fly wheel. This did take a little bit of trial and error. The obvious choice would be to get a tool used for removing brake lining rivets.

I did think about drilling out the top of the rivet but the aluminum is so soft there’s a real risk of damaging the fly wheel and enlarging the holes.

I ended up using a 4 inch solid center punch and a hammer. A couple whacks with a hammer will quickly separate the back of the rivet. And then remove the remaining rivet using the pin punch you see in the pictures below. Don’t try to use the pin punch to separate the back of the rivet or it will just bend.



The replacement steel friction surface insert has an extra inch of material on the bottom. Hopefully this will help resist warping.


As you can see, the old friction surface was badly warped.

 

Just confirms you travel at warp speed!

 

Well, that isn't good.

 

I agree.And my immediate thoughts are how did this happen and how do I prevent it from happening again.

A post Mortem of the fly wheel surface suggests that it was warped from the factory or it happened very early on in its service life.

I don’t think I ever had 100% contact between the pressure plate and the flywheel.

Yes, I cleaned it up and brought it to my office. Because i am weird...

 

As usual, what started out as a clutch snowballed into a bunch of other things. I had a plenty of twists and turns along the way including cracking the bell housing on my transmission and pulling my distributor after I thought I damaged it (I missed the tip of removing the distributor cap before removing the transmission). In case you are unaware, when you unbolt the transmission mounts the motor will tilt backwards on the motor mounts possibly wedging the distributor against the firewall.

It turned out that the distributor was fine but then I realized I had no idea how to do the timing on a car with a distributor. Well now I know how to do it.

I ended up replacing:

Flywheel friction surface

Clutch disk

Clutch pressure plate

Throw out bearing

Master cylinder rebuild

Slave cylinder

Oil pan gasket

Rear main seal

Oil catch can

Steering shaft

Distributor rotor and cap

Distributor gasket

PCV valve

Cylinder eight spark plug terminal (crushed against firewall)

Cylinder one spark plug

Weld crack (self-inflicted wound) and reinforce transmission bell housing. PRO TIP! Make sure you remove ALL bolts before using prybar to remove transmission.

Oops…



Is this not right?



Mig welding 30 year old cast aluminum is a bitch... Regardless of how clean the aluminum looked to the eye, there was no amount of solvent and/or wire brushing that led to a truly clean weld. And there was no way in hell I was going to trust the weld alone to handle the stress.

Thus the need for mechanical reinforcement in addition to the welding. I did fully weld the crack on the inside which was much easier with the addition of the aluminum plate on the outside. That at least gave me something to aim my wire at and put some heat into that was not infused with contaminants.



Sure its hideously ugly. But its pretty stout. And I can confirm no clearance issues!


YYes,

Yes, you can use an English muffin to remove a pilot bearing.



I can’t put my finger on it, but my replacement pilot bearing looks somehow different. Oh I see it now! The color. All joking aside I discovered that my combination of crank shaft (Lunati Sledge Hammer) and T56 swap required the use of a tall/long pilot bearing.

 

English Muffin is a new one, I guess it is a bread I've always used grease, a sawzall, or die grinder but you cant use grease on a LS motor FYI I am also not a fan of the roller pilot bearings when they wear they turn to dust and not enough material for puller. I happen to have a few T56s lying around one that's planned for my 90 another out of 95 Z28 and I could of supplied a bellhousing had I known

 

That is good to know about the bellhousing as they are difficult to come by. And may still be necessary if my "repair" is not as stout as I thought

 

OK let me know it will make me convert it to a LS trans but there isn't much demand for the LTs anymore

 

I think using the dead blow hammer and pry bar to seat the new steering shaft finally did in the tilt steering bolts.

 

Ouch!

 

naw thats common issue one of my favorite jobs on GM - NOT! especially since newer columns have the dimmer and all the extra crap on left lever

 

I usually don’t comment, but I really like following builds like these!

how do you like the fast efi?

 

I feel like I’m in a better place to answer that question since pulling the distributor. If you have been following the thread you know that I purchased the car with the system already installed. So I was actually a little clueless about set up. And I had zero previous experience with any aftermarket EFI systems.

One thing I learned is that with the system if you want it to control timing you need have either a Fast dual sync distributor or an MSD efi distributor with an adjustable rotor. Or you can use a traditional distributor but the unit will not control timing (and seemingly defeat some of the purpose of having the Fast efi).

You can imagine my confusion when I pulled the distributor and realized it was a traditional distributor. But my system controls timing. Wait… What? How?

After about two weeks of internet research to even figure out the question that I needed to ask I finally reached out to the prior owner (I really consider myself lucky, Not only with getting the car, but having a prior owner who was an former editor for Pontiac high-performance magazine, car craft, hot rod, GMHTP and who is happy to take my questions). He told me that the Pertronics distributor had been “locked out” and the igniter II module had been replaced with a Fast dual sync module effectively turning it into a fast EFI distributor.

that’s when I discovered the concept of “rotor phasing”. Although, the fast EFI distributor (and module) are factory phased at 20°. But I won’t go down that rabbit hole here.

But I do like it and it’s nice to have the ability to adjust timing, idle, and air fuel ratio at the touch of a button.

 

Thank you GM for designing a steering column that requires three different special tools to remove.



I had to modify the harbor freight steering wheel puller to get it to fit. The slots needed to be elongated with a file to get the bolts to properly seat


Found the idea for fabricating this tool from a piece of aluminum bar stock on another thread.


God dammit! I’m sure I could come up with something to remove these pins. But Amazon has a tool for 10 bucks.

 

yes there is a lock plate remover, a pivot pin puller and the the wheel puller all cheap and must haves if you have older GM cars, how'd you like to be the engineer that designed that Cluster F*$@ about 2 years ago I did my 2015 steering column that was a theft recovery much easier to deal with - more modular

 

Yeah, working on this thing is like going into a combination House of horrors/maze. As you get in deeper you’re scared at what you’re going to discover and unsure if you’ll be able to find your way back.