Since you are not useing the engine vent cover tabs, why not just use some large (thick) washers with the bolts, it would clean up the area, im not sure if the cover is all that important, maybe it has some kind of strength added to it, but it would look real clean.

Rob

Well the SBC 350 lives!!!!

I was delayed with some lifter, balancer, dist and just plain working too many 12's at work, but it is finally done and ready for the alignment shop.

Lets see, Darth Vader came over and we started the car up initially, there was quite a bit of lifter noise and it did not go away after a few minutes. So I knew I had to check into that. I pulled the cover and 1 of the screw in studs had worked its way out... The heads were at two machine shops. The first one supplied the springs and installed the screw in studs. They were also going to do a complete valve job, but 3 seats were cracked and they did not have the tooling to remove/replace the seats. So off to machine shop #2 they swapped the seats and completed the valve job and installed the spings. Stupid me did not check to make sure the studs were tight. I had to rock the cradle back to remove the front valve cover - but now all are super tight and locktighted in.

My timing was doing flakey things - like reading over 30 degrees advanced when the engine was idling - yet it would start right up w/o hesitation. So with 10:1 compression, there is no way it could have been that far advanced. I suspected the outer ring of the balancer had spun when the AC compressor locked up and had spun when I started the engine - nice squealing sound was heard. So I got another balancer before I removed the old one. While I had the cradle rocked back I was also able to pull the old balancer and I soon discovered that it had no slipped - the paint on the backside was still intack and not cracked at the rubber. So back on the old one went... now I have a spare. I think the reason it was reasing at 30+ degrees advanced was due to my routing of the plug wires. The timing light pickup was wedged between the #1 and the plug wire in front of it and I suspect it was picking up on the wrong wire.

The other funny thing the engine was doing was that when the revs increased the timing actually retarded. I purchased a BRAND NEW summit high output dist for this install and kept the one in the 283 for another project. This distributor has been a total piece of CRAP. When I checked to make sure the rotor was advancing in the proper direction, it spun free... the spot weld on top of the shaft had broke. So out it cam and I rewelded it. I was still boggled by the advancing in the wrong direction, so I went ahead and installed the dist from the 283 (did I say I am tired of swapping the bronze dist gear!) and it woked just fine. Upon closer inspection the wires from the pickup on my NEW dist were backwards... I don't know if that would cause it, but I know it is not going back into any of my cars....

Well good dist, tight rocker studs and confirmed solid balancer and the car was started again. This time no lifter noise and it was timed like it should have been and advanced in the proper direction. This think is MEAN sounding. Nice rumble at idle and down right obnoxous at WOT. I took it oud for a few donuts in the back yard and the neighbor's teen age son and friend came over to check it out.

The alighnment shop was closed today, so I spend the day installing my aluminum pedals and all the interior. I hope I can make an apointment Friday... cause I can't wait to get this thing on the road.

Here is the final installation pick:

This thing has stock exhaust tips, so aside from the rumble this is the only thing that will warn people not to mess this this Fiero!

I hope to have Darth Vader stop by soon and take some video shots of the car and to get an exhaust sound clip.

Just ran across this in the archives....

wanted to give it a bump for others.

John

That reminds me I’ve got to get over their and get some video, everybody’s got to hear this thing run it sound so sweet and tight.

Nice clean install!

[This message has been edited by Elenor84 (edited 04-19-2004).]

Well it has been a while since I added anything to this... been busy driving. The 88 runs great!!! It has been my daily driver all summer long. It did get taken out of service for a week to install a spec stage 3 clutch (with lightening option) and now the clutch is super grippy!

I have somewhere around 4000 miles on the engine now and it has been a fun 4000 miles. The was parked about 2 weeks ago to under go some more upgrades.

The spec clutch and the SCF trans mounts have been really giving the the stock trans mount brackets a beating. It was trying to pull the washer through the front one and starting the smash the rear one and allowing the engine to rock... which got on my nerves. So i ditched the upper U with the stud from the WCD mounts and made some new tranny mounts that directly attach to the holes in the bushings.

Three of the 4 new parts are 1/8" steel. The other part (rear mount PS) is 3/16" just cause it is a funny shape with relatively sharp bends. I also upsized to 7/16" bolts from 3/8 - cause they fit more snug in the bushing. Now the trany mounts are good.

I am also working with a friend on a new waterpump setup, I won't go into details right now, but it will not be electric and it will fit without any sheet metal cutting. The SBC people should like this!!! I hope to have some pics in the next couple of days and we plan to drive the car to FieroRama...

Some other stuff added over the summer were the steering wheel and A pillar O2 reader (only 1 installed so far - there will be 2 eventually.

Here is a pic of the exterior... nothing to write home about now... but maybe some day it will get some paint!

Back to wrenching... the engine is back in and it should be running monday morning!

The 88 is back on the road as of today. The new trans mount brackets have made a HUGE impromement!

As promised here is the new waterpump! Belt driven, no cutting and a stock replacement parts... I never new how LOUD the electric water pump was until I started this thing up.

I hope to see everyone at FieroRama and will bring my car if anyone wants to look over the waterpump (or something else).

What a great water pump setup!!!! I take it your engine hasn't been shifted to the left at all? If you can fit an OEM style pump in the stock location without a wheel-well cutout, that is impressive!! I'd love to see a detailed write up of exactly how you did it. The adapter to run the pump facing backwards is ingenious!

Very cool water pump setup. Tell us more about the pump... what is it from, part #s, cost, etc.?

ROy

The engine was shifted to the left about 3/4" as the manual SBC's require with an Archie kit. The Archie balancer is about 1/8" from the passenger side frame rail and the clearanced tranny case bolt is within about 1/16" of the 88 cradle on the DS.

The pump housing is a highly modified SBC short waterpump with all the internals removed. The actual water pump is a reverse rotation 3.4 TDC water pump ($29 at autozone). The pulley is from a farm store $10 - had to be bored and drilled to fit the 3.4 flange. Then there are the two offset housings that shim the pump 1 3/4" from the block and move it forward about 3" - both of these were fabriated (16 hrs.... and had to do them twice cause the 1st set did not work - snout hit the wheel well bulge (it could have easily been dented to clear the pump - but that's not my style).

Here is the thread on the pump.

https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum2/HTML/055138.html

I haven't unpdated this in quite some time.... Mostly just been driving the car.

THE PROBLEM - well I have had issues in the past bending transmission brackets, so I made some beefy brackets to tie into the WCFpoly mount bases. This worked very well and the brackets no longer bend. However, the next weakest link had to.

The cradle has now cracked and seperated below the rear transmission mount... I will be welding this up in the next few days and investigating options to make it stronger.

Long term I will be making a new wider adapter plate that will act like a motor plate and tie the engine directly to the front and rear crossmembers on the rear cradle.

I noticed this crack while pulling the engine for the conversion to Fuel Injection. It will be a modified Throttle Body Injection system using mostly GM items. I am going the TBI route because I want the engine to pull strong to 6000rpm and I am not ready $$$-wise to spend the $1500 for the RAMJET efi swap . I am not going to take too much time doing this because I want to get the car back on the road and verify everything EFI related works like it should. Then I will pull the car off the road for the winter for a long series of mods to get ready for the 2005 Hot Rod Power Tour (and subsequently my honeymoon).

Planned winter mods:
Lower seats - plan on doing chop top and want to see if I will like the driving position.
Stage 2 side scoops
Powder coat everything metal that is currently blue
Build & install new lateral links with heim joints
Redo hood vent
Do away with 500 connector and run all engine wires through 1 harness and hide (run in frame) all other wires for lights and cruise.
Remove all brackets from engine firewall
PAINT!!!

Back to the Fuel injection info:
The carb intake will be reused for now with an adapter to allow bolting the TBI on to it.
The throttle body has been bored to 50mm and injectors spaced up to provide 750 CFM.
The injectors are Holley
ECM - 747 truck TBI
Chip - custom from Darth Fiero

Here is a shot of the shop with the Fiero on the lift and the engine off to the side:

That's it for today!

Fieroguru - First off, you've done an awesome job with the engine! That thing looks great! Now for the question - I wasn't sure whether to PM you or post about it, but I figured someone else may want the info in the future.. I didn't see anywhere in the thread if you mentioned what the exhaust system is coated with -- is it POR-20? It looks like it's holding up pretty well if it's been driven at all.. Hard to see in the latest pics, but the earlier ones look great. If you did the coating, did you do anything special to it? (Like baking it, or heating it with lamps / etc..) Or just paint, let dry, and run the engine? I'm going to re-do my 3800SC exhaust, and have been pricing / buying some stainless parts, but it's adding up pretty quick. If a do-it-yourself paint holds up as well as it looks there, I'll just use normal steel and paint it! (My Moroso Spiral Flow muffler's been on for probably 3 months now, and it's rusted so bad large flakes are coming off! The Flowmaster is also starting to rust... argh!) Thanks for any input you can give!

------------------
Bob Williams
Multi-colored '86 Mutt, a work in progress! (3800SC is installed and I was driving it... The Blizzard of '05 decided to drop 4,000 lbs of snow and steel on the roof, and bent it!!! Now it's parked... )

[This message has been edited by Riceburner98 (edited 01-27-2005).]

Thanks for the compliments!

The exhaust was made from aluminum coated pipes and I retainted it with an aluminum paint. It is not holding up very well on the welds and I have dented the DS pipe that hangs down a little lower than the rest (oops). If I have time this winter, I plan to redo it in stainless steel.

General update:
The car is torn apart
I am putting all the pieces together to run a TBI unit and my focus it to minimize the look of the necessary wires. The engine is pretty much ready to go back in.

I am also in the process of "hiding" everything in the engine compartment. The Evap canister is now under the battery tray in the PS wheel well. The 500 connecter will be eliminated so I can run all the wires the to the rear of the car (tail lights and cruise) within the frame rails and be 100% hidden in the engine compartment. It will also allow just a single harness for the engine/tbi and a single location where the harness will come through the bulkhead (I will probably lower this as well to keep it more out of sight). All the relays and the power distribution block will be mounted inside with the ECM. I am even thinking of moving the connector to the AC lines to the center of the car to keep it from being the only thing on the DS that is left.

I am hoping to have all these moves complete this weekend and maybe even have the engine back in the car for the final looming up of the engine harness.

The day started with the Fiero getting stripped of all its clothes on the rear...

I am adding cruise to the car and needed to swap the rear harness - so after a bit it was stripped to the bone. The rear wiring and the line to the expansion tank will be ran through the center support beam, so access to the inside of the beam was needed on the PS.

A hole saw was used to make an initial oval shaped cut to make room to cut the two inside panels. Now there is plenty of room for the rear wire harness and the line to the expansion tube.

I got sidetracked on removing EVERY sheet metal bracket in the engine compartment. I don't run the heat sheilds, so all those could go. The Evap canister and cruise will be in the wheel well, so their brackets could go to. I am changing the location of the wiring, so all the brackets to hole to the firewall could go as well. Before I knew it they were all gone - even the dogbone bracket.

I want to powerspray the backhalf of the car and then paint the engine bay a satin black before I start putting stuff back in. Maybe I will get that done Sunday...

But first I will have to clean off my portable bench - it is getting a little out of control:

[This message has been edited by fieroguru (edited 01-29-2005).]

like you , i removed all the brackets from the engine bay, a tip for you (what I did)
instead of paint.. i got a couple of cans of spray in truck bead liner..... it is a real nice textured finish and it helps hide any IM perfections in the engine bay from removing the brackets, it looks AWSOME in person.. i have gotten MANY complements!! and the color it came out is JUST RIGHT!! not dull.. Not glossy, i dare to say its perfect

just a thought heres a shot of mine.. not that you can see any detail in my blurry pic..

Well the 88 lost even more stuff today and moved to a different location in the shop.


It is well under way to being stripped completely to the space frame. I don't plan on removing the HVAC box or the front harness (but it will be pulled back and bagged up). The radiator is out, the AC condenser is next, then all the coolant and AC lines and then the front cross member. I am planning on leaving the brake/clutch lines and calipers on the car for now, but will mask then and move them slightly out of the way for painting.

Soon it will be light enough for a few people to pick up!

It still needs to go out for a bath, then it will be time to scrub and clean it good. I am leaning towards undercoating or the spray in bed liner stuff for the wheel wells, radiator/head light areas and bottom of the chassis. This will provide a water tight seal on all the various panel seams. I am still contemplating on the engine bay and the front spare tire area.

There are a couple other changes I can easily make now that the car is stripped.
1. Mount seats to the floor - eliminate slide adjusters and lower the seat 1 to 1 1/2" in the car (bolts come from bottom).
2. Open up tunnel cavity behind seats for speakers (gas tank and fill pipes are removed right now). I plan to cut a large rectangular hole and then make 14 ga steel box inserts to enclose the cavity and spot weld them in place.
3. Lower my battery in front so it sits on the cross member (currently about 1" above). Then take the plastic spare tire insert and cut it flat on the bottom of the side rails. This will seal up all the nooks and crannies around the edges and allow me to make a 14 ga plate that will mount flush on the sides of the plastic piece and hide the battery completely.

bump it up

how's the progress?

Note much has happened with the car yet, been busy working on the trailer. This weekend will be the last weekend the trailer has top priority, then it will be back to putting the 88 back together.

I will probably start another reassembly thread.

I have started a new thread to track continued progress on the 88 as I get it ready for the Hot Rod Power Tour. Here it is
https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum1/HTML/049786.html