I have been watching Fieroguru's and Dobey's build for a while... looking for info and inspiration. I think it was Dobey's build that inspired me to go this route when my plans for a super charged Quad 4 fizzled. And Fieroguru has been kind enough to help me with some info along the way.

I really thought I would have seen Fieroguru's or Dobey's LS4 F40 rolling down the road before me, but life is strange that way.
I still have a long way to go with build, but it rolled out of the garage under it's own power for the first time today. I'm still grinning
I think the thrill of success is what caused me to actually post this, as I usually only share projects with a close group of car friends.

I guess I will explain the title. I hope to use the car on track days in the near future. So in my eyes that meant a few upgrades over just an engine swap. It is one of those projects that just seams to snowball big and bigger. I wanted everything that an 84 SE with and Iron duke and auto trans couldn't provide on its own, power brakes, and handling.

Here's the Laundry list of Mods:
17"x7" rims with some sticky BFG rubber 205/45-17 front, 225/45-17 rear ( going to go bigger soon, I already have some slicks for the track)
Custom Front suspension: Using QA1 Coilovers, custom adjustable arms, aluminum knuckle , and modern wheel bearing.
Late 80's/early90's Corvette steering rack.
Impala 12 inch front rotor, Camaro aluminum caliper.
LS4 5.3L V8
F40 six speed
Quatermaster 7.25" dual disc clutch with Rally disc and Gear Drive
Tilton Hydraulic Throw Out Bearing, and Clutch Master Cylinder.
Mega squirt MS3 fuel Injection CPU
Aluminum Engine Cradle (started as a cradle from a late model impala)
Impala knuckles and bearings and outer CV Joints.

As my friend says there's no proof with out a video, so here it is... a from my cell phone, little shaky, my daughter needs to work on her camera work, but proof none the less.

It moves under it's own power

I will try to post some of the build photo's but keeping a picture journal has never been my thing, so the pictures are just cell phone pictures, decent but not great...

Congrats on the swap! I'm doing the same swap too. It's been sitting for two years due to funding. It sounds so good. I'm excited to get mines finished now. Great job.

Congrats!

quote Originally posted by mwhite: Custom Front suspension: Using QA1 Coilovers, custom adjustable arms, aluminum knuckle , and modern wheel bearing. Late 80's/early90's Corvette steering rack. Aluminum Engine Cradle (started as a cradle from a late model impala) Impala knuckles and bearings and outer CV Joints.

Interested in hearing more about these and/or seeing pics.

quote Originally posted by mwhite: Quatermaster 7.25" dual disc clutch with Rally disc and Gear Drive

Good to see more of these being used.

quote Originally posted by mwhite: Mega squirt MS3 fuel Injection CPU

Curious about why you chose MS3, since the LS series computers are so thoroughly hacked.

Also, what did you do about the starter?

that's awesome. I don't suppose you took hundreds of pics during the install?

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SSFiero@Aol.com 87 Gt-5spd-62k miles.

Great stuff! More pictures! Good video, but I got a little motion sick watching it. I know that your daughter can do better. Did you modify the water pump and the starter mod like Fiero guru?

[This message has been edited by dratts (edited 07-16-2012).]

Lets start with a couple of pictures of the clutch.

Here is the clutch installed on the engine.


The geardrive clutch discs and flywheel spacer.





The HTOB installed on the transmission


The HTOB mount and transmission seal




Answers to the the most obvious questions.
Is it noisy, yes but not too bad.
Is the clutch like an on off switch, no but a lot quicker engagement than a regular clutch, but I think I can get used to it. But at this point I have stalled it a lot trying to get it to creep forward, but that could have a lot to do with the bad tune that I have it currently...

It looks like it will take me a bit of time to figure out how to post images from picasa to the forum... ...10 edits later, success.

[This message has been edited by mwhite (edited 07-16-2012).]

Nice! Mine's mostly been stuck due to life happening outside the realm of my garage.

What did you use for the flywheel exactly? It looks like you moved the HTOB so that it is closer to the flywheel, and looks like maybe you mounted a clutch surface to the stock LS4 flex plate?

Originally I purchased the quartermaster 298063ry rally 2 disc 1x23x30 degree rally clutch and a 509-127 ls button flywheel.
Once I figured out that wouldn't work because there was not enough spline engagement on the input shaft, I got a replacement clutch gear drive disc set I think the part number is 266063.
I had wanted to push the clutch towards the input shaft of the transmission, but of all the things to hold me back I couldn't find 11MM bolts long enough.
Unless someone is going to use it on the track and needs a super light setup, you should go with a traditional flywheel and clutch. Fieroguru's setup would be a good option.

As for the starter I cut into the bellhousing and TIG'd on a aluminum plate. You can see the hole in the bellhousing / HTOB picture. I'll add some pictures with the accessory mounts shortly.

[This message has been edited by mwhite (edited 07-16-2012).]

Interesting way to deal with the flywheel. I'm still waiting to get one of fieroguru's for my swap.

Fortunately, that's a shelf part for an LS engine...

quote Originally posted by Will: Fortunately, that's a shelf part for an LS engine...

What is? The flywheel?

Will, Here is a little more of the hard way...
To keep the car light I wanted to use aluminum where ever possible. After seeing a post about late model Impala's having aluminum engine cradles and thought that would be a good starting point, (wrong). But I went forward with it...
I immediately started cutting it up, I needed new methods to mount it to the Fiero, had to narrow it about 4 inches, make room for the engine and trans along with mounts. In the end it didn't save much weight, as it weighs 44 pounds.
Its not without its pluses, the engine is mounted really low in the cradle, I did get to use the Impala, control arms, knuckles, and bearings.
To try to minimize bump steer, I tried to mount the steering arm as close to the same plane as the lower control arm.

[This message has been edited by mwhite (edited 07-17-2012).]

I am doing a similar swap just with the NSX 5 speed. I ran MS3+MS3x on my 3800 swap, I am porting it over to the LS4 now. Full sequential injection and ignition should be some fun to fine tune, I am sure doable and the tuning is half the fun.

If I can be of any help in tuning feel free to shoot me a PM. I am guessing your familiar with the guys over at DIY there are a great resource as well.

Best of Luck

-Kemp

[This message has been edited by Kemp3 (edited 07-18-2012).]

quote Originally posted by mwhite: Will, Here is a little more of the hard way...

That's definitely the hard way. Is that the name of your project now?

Very interesting build !

I use the Quartermaster Pro Series 7.25 double disk with their metal compound clutch disk's (just as street able as their organic disk's, with longer life). Switched from organic to metal for two main reasons, first being the organic disk's were more prone to glazing (you have to be careful who you let drive the car, and avoid heavy stop/go traffic), second reason is that my new engine was just too much power for the organic disk's. My setup uses a very thin steel flywheel which doesn't weigh too much regarding V8 swaps. The clutch setup has been in my car since 1993.

Regarding the tricky regular take-off (clutch similar to on/off switch), I found that adjusting my idle rpm to 950 - 1,000 rpm, eliminates the risk of a stall. Due to the computer controlled injection my car engine will idle nicely down to 500 rpm (where it does sound very unique), but is very sensitive to a normal launch (stalling). I've actually switched back and forth on idle rpm depending on how I wanted to drive the car on a given day (typically the low rpm setting always results in a tire chirp on launch, as you overshoot the rpm a bit starting off to prevent stall).

Quartermaster makes "High Quality" clutches, while initially expensive, replacement wear parts (mainly the clutch disk's and floater) aren't too expensive. I've never worn out a pressure plate, you should also be aware that Quartermaster does offer the standard force, and high force pressure pressure plates (identified by a color on one of the fingers), I use the high force pressure plate.

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Car History: https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum1/HTML/025670.html

quote Originally posted by mwhite: The whole assemble, without the flex plate weighs about 11 pounds and is good for more power than I can make...

Just for comparison, here are the flywheel/clutch weights for some other applications:
Stock 2.8/getrag: 30 lbs
2000 Camaro LS1/6 speed: 56 lbs
My LS4 flwyheel/ford 10" clutch: 30

I forget the weight of the LS4 flex plate but it couldn't be more than 4 lbs, so even with that included, Mike's flywheel/clutch setup is very, very light, probably doesn't cost much more than my route (about $1,050 to $1,100 for the custom flywheel and Spec stage 4 clutch), but probably has 50%+ more holding capacity. I might have to look into this method more if I start bumping the HP on my combo.

Mike has done some really good work with the swap! I was fortunate enough to be able to watch his progress with the pictures he shared with me over the past year. His exhaust setup is also different than any other LS4 swap to date as well.

quote Originally posted by fieroguru: Just for comparison, here are the flywheel/clutch weights for some other applications: Stock 2.8/getrag: 30 lbs 2000 Camaro LS1/6 speed: 56 lbs My LS4 flwyheel/ford 10" clutch: 30 I forget the weight of the LS4 flex plate but it couldn't be more than 4 lbs, so even with that included, Mike's flywheel/clutch setup is very, very light, probably doesn't cost much more than my route (about $1,050 to $1,100 for the custom flywheel and Spec stage 4 clutch), but probably has 50%+ more holding capacity. I might have to look into this method more if I start bumping the HP on my combo. Mike has done some really good work with the swap! I was fortunate enough to be able to watch his progress with the pictures he shared with me over the past year. His exhaust setup is also different than any other LS4 swap to date as well.

If you include the HTOB, I am sure I have more than $1100 into my clutch setup, but maybe south of the boarder it could be done for less...
When purchasing Quartermaster clutches, I found that going through race car suppliers worked better, better pricing, which is hard to get in Canada. I used Bicknell Racing Products, it worked out well, I think I got them for List -10%, where some vendors were wanting List +10-20%. I also worked with the Quartermaster support guys directly, a guy named Dave Kamholtz helped alot when I figured out my original clutch discs didn't engage on the input shaft enough. One nasty surprise you will find if you go this route is the HTOB, It was over $300, might have been closer to 4, but the stock HTOB doesn't work well with the 7.25" clutch, the contact surface is the wrong shape.

Thanks for the info on Idle speed I think I will bump it up from 700 to 900 and see how it goes. The biggest issue I had was getting it into my garage and onto the car lift. Because the car is so low, I have to drive the car up on some planks, to clear the lift.

I'll throw the exhaust pictures up tonight.

quote Originally posted by California Kid: disk's

http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/apostro.asp

I'm jealous of your guys fancy clutches.

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Turbo 3800 E85 F23 5spd spec5
11.54@132.7

How about them exhaust pics, Charlie?

quote Originally posted by dobey: How about them exhaust pics, Charlie?

Don't quite get the Charlie reference... But I was just looking through some pictures and realized that the pictures don't show the system as a whole very well... part of a pipe here part of a pipe there, some mid build pictures etc... But I will throw a couple up, along with the typical listen to the engine rev video...

The system is based on LS2 exhaust manifolds, as I thought the LS4 were very restrictive. LS1TECH.COM is good for finding stuff like that. The system is dual 2.5" going to a Single 3" just before the magnaflow muffler. there are dual 2.5" high flow cats wedged in there too. The Piping is all stainless with mandrel bends. I ended up making my own Y pipe. Now the majority of the system is all wrapped with DEI fiberglass wrap.








The clutch rattling away is really noticeable in the video, doesn't seam that bad in real life.
Exhaust Noise
I think I am loving the engine noise more than the neighbours.

[This message has been edited by mwhite (edited 07-19-2012).]

The clutch rattle is kind of a Quartermaster trademark ! Camera microphone's tend to empathize it a bit more than it actually is in real life. My setup is slightly different than yours (teeth on floater-engaged into ring housing), similar rattle at idle with clutch unloaded. Always get's someone's attention at a car show, when they ask to hear the engine run, followed by the question "What's rattling?"

quote Originally posted by mwhite: Don't quite get the Charlie reference...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RU2zlSfkdE8

any more updates?

That's some nice clutch work, but having broken an F40 with a turbo V6 that at best might have pushed about 400 lb/ft through it, are any of you concerned that you might want to invest in a second tranny or maybe some strengthening instead of all the focus on the clutch, particularly considering the feed back I received from an F40 expert (after viewing my pics) that indicated solid discs and one piece flywheels behind an HO motor = potentially bad news for an F40?

All I have is a modified stock Fiero pressure plate boosted to ~2300 lbs clamping force and a Pontiac G6 clutch disc hub with the stock lining replaced with Kevlar that hasn't slipped yet under some pretty good loading. If the new tranny fails, I think I'll quit.

quote Originally posted by Joseph Upson: That's some nice clutch work, but having broken an F40 with a turbo V6 that at best might have pushed about 400 lb/ft through it, are any of you concerned that you might want to invest in a second tranny or maybe some strengthening instead of all the focus on the clutch

For these swaps though, the clutch/flywheel is the interesting problem. Strengthening the case and hard parts in the F40 is basically a solved problem. Ship out your trans with a check for $1200 and it's done.

For your V6, the clutch/flywheel is basically a solved problem, as there are parts available that fit. You can boost the clamping force, or upgrade the lining to kevlar or something, as you have done, but you don't really need to much beyond throwing money at it. Also, the F40 you broke, you did state was in a basically unknown condition beyond working, when you installed it. I didn't see if you ever discovered if there was preexisting damage or not, which could have been exacerbated by the features of your build.

Because there are no standard dual mass flywheels available that have the bolt pattern of the LS crank, fit inside the metric bell housing, and have the right thickness for use with the F40, there are several interesting problems in the flywheel/clutch combination that need to be solved/tested, for it to work.

I do have some concerns about the transmission, but is good to know that solutions just require money
Part of the "LS4 F40 swap the hard way" included trying to address the added harmonics of having a super light flywheel and clutch with a new harmonic balancer.
But in true hard way fashion I ran into issues. I talked to both ATI and Fuildampr and neither had a product available. I actually got the CAD drawings of the LS4 and LS2 from my friend at GM, to help the process along, but reception was poor.

ATI was more into doing a one off harmonic damper, but you would need to pay around $750 and be willing to wait 60-90 days.

Where Fluidampr would want to be able to do a production run, but only if the market is really looking for it.
Here is one of the emails from Fuildampr if anyone want to run with it

Mike,

You are welcome.

I have no issues with you posting my email on the forum(s).

The issue with 10-20 is the initial engineering and manufacturing costs. At this piece count the cost of the damper would most likely not be feasible for the consumer. When we develop dampers we do runs of a couple hundred (or more) pieces to bring cost down by avoiding additional manufacturing charges, such as repeat set-up costs, increased material costs for lower volumes, etc.

Now with this being said LS engine builds are becoming increasingly popular and we may develop a damper for this engine. Due to your email I will begin a market study internally to determine if we can produce this damper without an initial buy-in from you or your group. However, if we go this route it may be some time before the damper is developed. As we are currently working on 6 new dampers and reviewing many more, we could be a year away from having production pieces ready for sale.

I will be in contact to let you know the outcome of our market study within a couple of weeks. Again, this will determine if we are going to manufacture and offer the LS4 with our standard product line.

Please let me know if you have any questions.


Best Regards,

Ivan Snyder III
Sales
Vibratech TVD/Fluidampr
Ph: 716-592-1000 X: 6232
Fax: 716-592-1001
Email: ivan.snyder@vibratechtvd.com
Email: ivan.snyder@fluidampr.com

quote Originally posted by Joseph Upson: All I have is a modified stock Fiero pressure plate boosted to ~2300 lbs clamping force and a Pontiac G6 clutch disc hub with the stock lining replaced with Kevlar that hasn't slipped yet under some pretty good loading. If the new tranny fails, I think I'll quit.

For the record, this "pretty good loading" is 4psi of turbo into a poorly tuned 60 degree v6, which is significantly less than what a stock LS4 puts out.

quote Originally posted by darkhorizon: For the record, this "pretty good loading" is 4psi of turbo into a poorly tuned 60 degree v6, which is significantly less than what a stock LS4 puts out.

For the record, the engine that blew up the tranny ran 8 psi and had .5 more compression points (11.5:1). The motor that followed was stock and ran as high as 15 psi all using the same clutch. The current motor @ 4.2L and 4 psi, being significantly less hp/tq wise than a stock LS4, doubt it. But who cares. Lets not screw up this thread with this kind of rhetoric. I expressed a concern, he addressed it constructively, tactfully, professionally, take your pick, but don't create a problem where there is none. You can PM me with your critiques so that no one here has to endure them.

[This message has been edited by Joseph Upson (edited 08-02-2012).]

quote Originally posted by mwhite: ATI was more into doing a one off harmonic damper, but you would need to pay around $750 and be willing to wait 60-90 days.

Sounds reasonable.

Finally got the Fiero out the track for some lapping...

Toronto Motorsports Park Lapping day

Before the comments on the noises... I forgot some tools on the passenger floor.

It was fun to get out on track again, reliving my youth... even if the car and driver are no where near sorted out.
I didn't record too many laps, due to technically issues, but laps around 1:32 seems okay.
At the end of the front straight I was around 4900 rpm in 4th so about 105mph if my calculation was correct...


I now have a Laundry list of things to work on:
Redo the shifter, it started out pretty sloppy. The cable mount on the trans actually bent after hitting the gate between 1 and 3 hard and by the end of day I couldn't find first or third anymore. I am going to redo the cable mount entirely and try adding some hiem joints to the ends of cables, to get a better feel. Maybe a better reverse gate lockout.
Stiffer springs... too much body roll.
Better alignment... more camber the alignment shop set it up way to conservative.
Working Fuel Gauge...
Working Speedo...
Better tune... The AFR's were off and the Rev limiter pulled timing too early.
Oh yeah, and the big one stickier tires. If was fun sliding it around the track, like an idiot but not as fun as fast laps.

That looked like fun.

It looks like there is one more day at the track before the snow flies.
This Sunday Toronto Motorsports Park is to be open for a lapping day 10am to 4pm and the weather is supposed to be 14*C and sunny. Bring your Fiero's out and play.

I have got to get my car in a little better shape, this time around.
I have fixed the shifter, it was bad at the track but it actually broke a few weeks ago. That was an adventure to drive the Fiero home (90km) with only 3rd gear and a race clutch that doesn't like to be slipped. I was using two select cables from Rodney Dickman, but using the select cable as a shift cable proved to be too much for it.

I hope to:
Get some heavier springs (500lbs front, 350lbs rear) in the car to stop the tires from rubbing.
Add some camber to the front tires for better turn-in.
I might even try to fix the fuel gauge sender if there is time.
If all goes well there will be some more video.
It would be cool if they had the drag strip open. I have never tried that before, at least not at the drag strip

What was the donor car for your LS4?

Now that I've read some more (should've done that first) I'm guessing an Impala. How did you handle wiring/pcm/ all that stuff? Did you assemble a harness yourself, or outsourced it?

I'm still trying to plan out a build (in Kuwait at the moment); while I'm leaning towards a 3800sc auto build, I'm not opposed to a modern V8 (auto). It just seems there isn't as much documentation or builds out there.

[This message has been edited by brotherhood_of_nod (edited 11-08-2012).]

As for the ECU as stated above it is a Megasquirt 3. I built the harness myself. I started with harness cables from DIYAUTOTUNE and alot of connectors purchased online. When I purchased the engine it didn have much of the harness left. Its still a work in progess, since I have tuned it as speed density and there a bunch of features I would to use. Have fun with your build.

quote Originally posted by mwhite: Finally got the Fiero out the track for some lapping... Toronto Motorsports Park Lapping day Before the comments on the noises... I forgot some tools on the passenger floor. It was fun to get out on track again, reliving my youth... even if the car and driver are no where near sorted out. I didn't record too many laps, due to technically issues, but laps around 1:32 seems okay. At the end of the front straight I was around 4900 rpm in 4th so about 105mph if my calculation was correct... I now have a Laundry list of things to work on: Redo the shifter, it started out pretty sloppy. The cable mount on the trans actually bent after hitting the gate between 1 and 3 hard and by the end of day I couldn't find first or third anymore. I am going to redo the cable mount entirely and try adding some hiem joints to the ends of cables, to get a better feel. Maybe a better reverse gate lockout. Stiffer springs... too much body roll. Better alignment... more camber the alignment shop set it up way to conservative. Working Fuel Gauge... Working Speedo... Better tune... The AFR's were off and the Rev limiter pulled timing too early. Oh yeah, and the big one stickier tires. If was fun sliding it around the track, like an idiot but not as fun as fast laps.

Super Cool, Awesome cradel work!