i had a problem with the car today .i had mounted the methanol jug at about the same height as the spray nozzle was at .i couldnt find a spot to get it lower .i thought it was ok but i realized as the pump wore in a bit ,it had started to siphon in to the engine continuously whenever it was running .this did not affect anything till today when out of the blue it started running rough ,like it was short a cylinder .i cleaned the map sensor and the o2 sensor and made no diff. so a disconnected the sprayer and plugged the hole and after about 10 minutes of normal driving the problem disappeared .it looks like the continual water /meth feed was fouling a sensor some where and confusing the ecm .i have had a solinoid valve on order for a while now ,so until it comes in i wont be able to use much boost .on the plus side ,my idle is starting to smooth out .
on the way home from work ,the rough running came back worse than ever .after changing plugs ,checking my injector connections and adjusting and checking everything i could think of , the problem was still there .but i noticed something about my aeromotive FPR that was strange: it would not hold pressure after the engine was turned off .so i put the stock FPR back on and the car runs smoothly again .it even idles smooth again .so that was a waste of 170 dollars.i dont have time to drive it tonight so i am not sure i am out of the woods yet ,but i idled it for ten minutes and it seems good.
When I was researching a stand alone adjustable FPR I ran across several websites saying the same thing as you. The aeromotive FPR gave up the ghost and caused all kinds of running issues.
the worst of it was that the brand new part is always the last thing you check ,so i wasted a lot of time checking other things that had nothing to do with the problem .but now the car runs better than it ever has ,smooth idle and no detonation at all with the meth injection hooked back up .i can hardly believe that it works so well with the stock fpr .i have done the bare minimum of tuning and the car runs like it came from the factory .(except if it came from the factory , you wouldnt have to fill a water meth jug up every day !) tuning so far : bosche blow off valve 32 lb accell injectors (14.4 ohm ford style ) and homemade harness snow stage 2 water meth injection system all the electronics are stock 2004 cavalier .i have a 6:1 vortech fmu and holly 100 psi inline fuel pump on order but unless i increase the boost this year i wont put it on . i relocated the meth system to the trunk the other pics show the stock FPR and the feeds for the injection system and the boost guage and the blow off valve
Hey wftb! I'm definitely going to consult this if I can't get ahold of any E85 and I need to go with alcohol injection.
I have another question regarding the heater core pipes (my last one, I promise).
Which pipe is in, and which is out? No one on the j-body or ecotec forums out there seem to know (very odd).
Also, I just want to double check on something, cause I'm an idiot. I know you said the coolant pipes were swapped when going to an Ecotec, but this pipe going over where the bellhousing is (see above) is the outlet, right?
Thanks bro!
------------------ Petty Officer Michael C Casaceli Aircraft Electronics Technician Second Class AIMD Brunswick (2007-present) Patrol Squadron Ten (2003-2007) United States Navy
The outlet closest to fly wheel connects to the heater inlet, the one farthest connects to the heater outlet. The smaller one on top of the thermostate housing goes to pressuruzed overflow tank.
------------------ yellow 88 GT, not stock white 88 notchie, 4 banger
The outlet closest to fly wheel connects to the heater inlet, the one farthest connects to the heater outlet. The smaller one on top of the thermostate housing goes to pressuruzed overflow tank.
Does it matter which way the coolant flows? heater and regular?
the outlet on the same side as the serpentine belt is the outlet (hot) side to the rad .i did not try to reuse the v6 crossover pipe so on my car the hot water is going up the passenger side and entering the radiator in the bottom instead of the top .i was concerned about this untill i realized that the ecotec cools so quick that hardly any fluid gets sent to the rad anyway .even on a warm day it takes 1/2 hour of driving till the rad return pipe even feels a little warm .the temp guage runs up to 91* c and goes up and down about 2* as the thermostat lets fluid out and in to the engine.i dont have thermostat control on my rad fan yet so i turn it on manualy with a switch in the trunk but it has not needed the fan yet .i dont know where the thermostat is on my engine to cycle the fan .as far as the heater core goes i just figured it didnt matter much either way because it is just a loop through and it will flow either way .i would take ccfiero's advice on that one . its great to see all these ecotec swaps starting to take shape all at once .thanks for posting
Thanks for the info guys! The reason why I care about which is in and out is so if I put a heat exchanger in line with the turbo coolant lines, I don't accidentally end up cooling off the heater core instead, which would suck come autumn.
Also, being that I do have a turbo motor, I'd like to make the coolant system as capable as possible. My bottom end is built to take 500HP at 8500RPM before something starts to give out... 2 years down the road, I intend on pushing the motor to that level to see what the car can acheive with that kind of power.
On top of all of that, if I miraculously pull off getting into Sport Compact Car Magazine's USCC event, I don't want the engineers going "WTF were you thinking?".
quote
Originally posted by wftb:
i dont know where the thermostat is on my engine to cycle the fan .
A majority of engines these days have a computer controlled fan. 87-up 2.5L Fieros are like this BTW. The stock Ecotec ECM senses when the temp gets to about 180-185 degrees, and flicks a relay on to power the fan.
A simple solution could be getting a T-fitting for the coolant temp sensor, and getting a temperature sensitive fan switch on the other side of the T-fitting. A good example of this is on my friend's 4.3L Chevy V-6, which has provisions for two temp sensors. He has one sensor going to the temp gauge, and the other is a fan switch that cuts off the 12V to the fan when it goes below 180 degrees. Other temps are available. Jegs and Summit should have them.
I would normally be able to offer a solution to get the stock Ecotec ECM to run it, but my source for Ecotec documentations is having technical difficulties. Sorry bud.
Thanks for the help with the coolant line questions. I really appreciate it!
------------------ Petty Officer Michael C Casaceli Aircraft Electronics Technician Second Class AIMD Brunswick (2007-present) Patrol Squadron Ten (2003-2007) United States Navy
i found a bunch of switches from summit.some are pretty trick ,completely adjustable ,and the sensor probe just goes onto the face of the radiator ,no need to do any plumbing at all .some as cheap as 25.00 .too bad i just got an order from them.i just got my vortech FMU and 100 psi in line fuel pump .i might not put these on this year because ever since i put the stock FPR back on the car has run like a top .absolutely no detonation ,smooth idle and lots of power .i dont even need premium any more and i have dialed way back on the water meth injection. the extra pump and FMU are for when i get a boost controller .so all you need to turbo a 2.2 and have it run well with the stock ecu is : 32 lb 14.4 ohm accell injectors and bosche recirculating valve water methanol injection of course this is with a big 16 g type turbocharger that requires an oil evacuation pump .no ecu tuning has been done .the stock ecu is handling it all very well .your results may vary.
Hey wftb! I found some backups of the ECM pinouts for the Ecotec. On the blue ECM connector, pin 43 is the cooling fan relay control. It's a dark green wire. Put that to the + side of the relay, and ground out the - side, and the ECM should take care of the cooling fan as long as the coolant temp sensor is getting it's signal to the ECM properly.
Also, I'm curious to know, just on a general basis, about how much alcohol gets used per gallon when using alcohol injection? ------------------ Petty Officer Michael C Casaceli Aircraft Electronics Technician Second Class AIMD Brunswick (2007-present) Patrol Squadron Ten (2003-2007) United States Navy
[This message has been edited by fieroturbo (edited 06-02-2007).]
on average i am using about 3 quarts per fill up ,depending on how heavy my foot gets . i dont know how that works out per gallon,the kit comes with three nozzles and i am using the second largest nozzle .the small nozzle did not seem to send enough in ,but i now realize there were other problems at the time.i have the controller set to not send in the max spray right now .i could probably use the small nozzle again , but why mess with a good thing .thanks for the tip on the fan control.i hooked up a rad switch the other day and it still has not gotten hot enough to turn on the fan yet.
I have follwed your threads with much interest. I was wondering for a while what was reason for the alcohol injection rather then changing to a 2 bar map and adjust the timing tables to retard for boost?
------------------ yellow 88 GT, not stock white 88 notchie, 4 banger
with the alcohol (water/meth) injection ,you dont have to retard the timing to control detonation.the larger fuel injectors and the added octane / cooling effect of the water /meth injection actually allow you to advance the timing if you want .i also had no room for an air to air intercooler ,so the injection system was a must .i hope to add hp tuners in the future but it really isnt needed at this time .if you go to hahn racecrafts website ,you will find what i think of as the ultimate ecotec turbo system - the port fueler .this system leaves the ecm in its stock configuration and uses a stand alone computer to send in extra fuel via 4 additional fuel injectors.thanks for the posts .
My throttle cable... the clip on the insulation that is supposed to clip onto the bracket... mine is totally different, and leaves the end of the cable short of where it needs to be.
I'm thinking that you didn't have this issue because you have a V6 model, and the throttle cable is different. Do you have any good closeups of your setup?
Thanks again man!
------------------ Petty Officer Michael C Casaceli Aircraft Electronics Technician Second Class AIMD Brunswick (2007-present) Patrol Squadron Ten (2003-2007) United States Navy
Ok, but here's another question... which year is yours?
It seems there were two types of V6 throttle cables: 85-86, and 87-88. Either way, it's a well spent $50.
Thanks again man! It would take me much longer to figure this stuff out with the project if not for you.
------------------ Petty Officer Michael C Casaceli Aircraft Electronics Technician Second Class AIMD Brunswick (2007-present) Patrol Squadron Ten (2003-2007) United States Navy
my car started life as an 86 gt .(4 speed manual ) .sorry i didnt reply earlier , i have been on holiday .didnt go anywhere , just a lot of golfing . a little item i added recently is this check valve from rb racing .it takes 1 psi to open and goes on the oil feed to the turbo .if the car sat for a few days ,it smoked like crazy for about three miles because of the oil slowly draining down into the turbo .running the scavenger pump prior to startup did not help , because the oil would already be past the seals before the pump was on .this check valve solved the problem completely .
Wftb, just curious, do you have any updated performance numbers for your setup? Horsepower, acceleration etc.
Also, I understand from the cobalt forums that you can swap a non vvt ecotec head onto a 2.4L ecotec as long as you use the 2.4L head gasket. Do you know anything about that?
i havent looked into a v v t head swap but everything is interchangeable as far as i know. you would have to get the v v t ECM and adapt the drive by wire stuff .if i were to do that ,i think i would just get the whole engine . i never managed to get to the dragstrip ,so my best 1/4 is still 14.1@98.6 mph on the g-tech .with all the furor over some very irresponsible street racers that have cost people their lives up here ,i no longer keep the g-tech in the car .it would cause too many questions if i got pulled over . best hp on g-tech has been 189 at the wheels . i still hope to get to grand bend dragway to get a slip on it ,but g-tech numbers are very close to actual dragstrip timing .i read nothing but good things about it in the car & driver magazine test .
i have been following along in a thread about how fast a fiero will go so i thought i would take my fiero out to a recently paved mostly uninhabited road and see what it would do .i brought my garmin foretex gps to record the actual speed .well ,i got up to 180 kmh(about 112 mph) and the engine bogged .tried it with less throttle ,thinking the blow off valve was letting go ,same thing happens .apparently the ecm from the 2004 cavalier that i am using has a speed governor on it .so unless i buy the hp tuners software ,i wont know what it will do .it pulls really strong right up till the cutoff happens .
I know on the S10 completely different beast i know but the wire that controls the odometer purple wire on my truck. People extend the wires and put a switch in the middle so when racing can turn off the govenor but it also shuts down your odometer. May try jbody.org see if something similar for the ecotec
WTFB, try getting rid of the connection to the VSS sensor to the ecm, we used to do this on some of the cavailers we had doing over 108 in the quarter mile. I dont think they ever did it but we were running nitrious and didnt wanna have the limiter hit under nitrious, it wouldnt of been pretty
thanks for the tips guys .i am going to just leave it alone for now .i figure if i can get it to do 180kmh in the 1/4 i should be in the low 13's anyay and i would be happy with that .i guess gm figured a 4 door cavalier wouldnt be very stable beyond that speed .
Some stuff isn't interchangable with the VVT head. To my knowledge it's a direct injection head, so the manifolds are different, and if the throttle bodies are different, then it would be harder to adapt the drive by wire. Yet another reason I used the ho-hum 2.2L. It's sooo much easier to mod.
If one could get around the throttle by wire issue, the rest of the 2.4L VVT motor would work with Megasquirt. You can program one of the extra outputs to trigger the VVT at any RPM/TPS level. Pretty sure it works with Honda VTEC motors.
One more thing WFTB. I posted a question to the forum about the throttle cable, asking if the pedal side of your cable year would work on an 88, cause one side is shorter on the earlier years, but I don't know if it's the engine side or the pedal side. It's so confusing.
Hope all keeps going well with your project man!
------------------ Petty Officer Michael C Casaceli Aircraft Electronics Technician Second Class AIMD Brunswick (2007-present) Patrol Squadron Ten (2003-2007) United States Navy
the f35 is a heavier duty 5 speed that also comes with the supercharged 2.0 motor .it has an intermediate shaft and to make it work in a fiero you have to use the complete cobalt axle assembly .this is what would make the supercharged motor an easier swap if you had a wrecked cobalt .so far the turbo motor is only in the sky and solstice and since they are rear drive you have a lot of parts hunting to do even if you are lucky enough to find one . i really dont care for any eco other than the 2.2 .it is the biggest bang for the buck ,it has its drawbacks(weak rods) but it will still put out up to 350 hp without breaking .and if i do break it ,i can get another one for 350.00 .
the f35 is a heavier duty 5 speed that also comes with the supercharged 2.0 motor .it has an intermediate shaft and to make it work in a fiero you have to use the complete cobalt axle assembly .this is what would make the supercharged motor an easier swap if you had a wrecked cobalt .so far the turbo motor is only in the sky and solstice and since they are rear drive you have a lot of parts hunting to do even if you are lucky enough to find one . i really dont care for any eco other than the 2.2 .it is the biggest bang for the buck ,it has its drawbacks(weak rods) but it will still put out up to 350 hp without breaking .and if i do break it ,i can get another one for 350.00 .
Good point. I'm waiting for the Saab with the turbocharged engine to come out. That one will be fwd (I think) and the same engine. Now the chances of finding one of those at a junkyard are practically nill, but one can dream, right? :dreaming:
I was thinking about finding a supercharged cobalt engine. (doesn't that one have an optional LSD in some trims?) It would be a dream fit for the fiero, but there is just something about the sound of a turbo spooling up and a BOV whistle that makes me spine tingle..
do a search on ccfiero350 .he is doing a build with the 2.0 supercharged ,f35 with LSD .he figured out how to make the cobalt axles work .i gotta admit though ,now that i have a turbo ,i wouldnt go with NA again .the spool up and the blow off , the fact that unless i want the boost the turbo just idles along is amazing to me . what i like the best is the third gear power .drop it down and hang on ! . i have yet to own a supercharged car so i dont know whether they would be as much fun ,but how could 205 RWHP not be a blast?
i picked up a set of street dreams 1.25" drop spindles .i was going to wait till winter to put them on but i am on holidays and its too windy out to go boating so i decided to put them on .pretty simple install , but it does change you toe setting .i was hoping all the holes would correspond to the stock spindle but after i got it installed i had a total toe in of almost 2" .i was going to drive about 20 miles to check it out but quit afer 1/2 mile because it was real darty .thats the trouble with a gt body ,they are so curved i did not notice the excess toe in .after measuring ,i cranked out the tie rod ends 1/4" and now it works great .with the lowering spindles , i was able to raise the coilovers and get more travel .no more bottoming out on bumps and the shocks perform better since they are closer to mid travel .
just a bump to stay out of the archives .i was going to put the rest of my high performance goodies on before winter but i havent had time .i am going to put the parts (boost controller etc ) on over the winter now .i never made it down to the drag strip and that is disapointing to me but work (and the problems at the grand bend track with the new pavement ) got in the way of that .i leave the insurance on the car all winter so that i can do testing on days when there is no snow so at least i will be ready in the spring .things i hope to do : boost controller install gear drive turbo oil scavenger pump front tie rod replacement and whatever i need to fix on the steering rack fix one axle boot air to water intercooler install hp tuners swap out my drvers side seat fabric with the good ones i have had for two years now figure out how to make the cavalier instrument lights work and whatever else i can think of
thanks to everybody who has posted here . i will be back here as soon as the weather turns bad .
wftb- this is my favorite ecotec swap thread. I'm glad your setup continues to work for you. Keep up the good work man!
How much did you spend on your car to add the turbo to your eco? How much do you plan on spending for the H20 to air intercooler?
------------------ 1984 Fiero SE, White, first love, sold... 1986 Fiero SE 2M6, gold 1988 Fiero 2M4, the Fox 1987 Fiero GT, Blue, 3.4/4T40 Still looking for that perfect CJB 88 GT...
i think i added up to around 1400 as it sits on the car now .the air to water IC runs about 150.00 on ebay and i already have a pump so i will just need a small rad and a tank .i am hoping about 300.00 total .like most pay as you go fix ups ,i have lost control of my spending !
Cool man, So are you going to keep your meth water injection as well as your new intercooler? So you can up the boost? *goes back though the thread to find out what kind of turbo and maniflold you used*
Where are you going to run your new coolant lines for the I/C?
Only $150? CDN or USD? Seems pretty inexpensive!
------------------ 1984 Fiero SE, White, first love, sold... 1986 Fiero SE 2M6, gold 1988 Fiero 2M4, the Fox 1987 Fiero GT, Blue, 3.4/4T40 Still looking for that perfect CJB 88 GT...
i was surprised how cheap they are .thats us money but the loonie is now worth more than a us dollar anyway ,i am going to use a tranny cooler for a rad.not sure where i am going to mount it but my ac does not work so i may put it where the condenser is .or i might just use the condenser and its lines , if i finally give up the idea of working ac .i also want a tank big enogh to put ice in at the drag strip . i am going to use both the IC and meth injection to try to crank the boost up to 14 psi or so .
So in theory, if you had just the A/W I/C, is it a question of how big your heat exchangers are at the intake and at the front of the car that determines how much boost you can crank into there? Will premium petrol help with the detonation? What about Ethanol? Ethanol technically is alcohol and alky is really high octane, isn't it? Wouldn't that make it more resistant to detonation? I guess availability is an issue there... plus longevity of the fuel system. Aren't some GM engines designed to run on E85 though? Can't wait to see your progress.
------------------ 1984 Fiero SE, White, first love, sold... 1986 Fiero SE 2M6, gold 1988 Fiero 2M4, the Fox 1987 Fiero GT, Blue, 3.4/4T40 Still looking for that perfect CJB 88 GT...
the boost is mostly limited by the actual strength of the engine components.on a stock 2.2 you have the rod issue ,head gasket ,and i found out recently that the stock piston ring land is another weak point .so i think 14 psi is max . raising boost levels means more air is getting into the engine .this leans out the fuel mix and causes detonation .water meth and an intercooler help by lowering the air temp and by adding fuel .but at 8 psi with just the water meth i needed bigger injectors to completely eliminate detonation.to get up to14 psi boost the IC is going to help but more air =more fuel needed and thats where the 100 psi in line fuel pump and 6:1 vortech FMU come in .i already have everything i need except the IC . i have not mentioned timing because the big plus with water meth is you dont have to retard the timing to prevent detonation .retarding the timing to control detonation also reduces HP and results in less complete combustion . i would like the HP Tuners package to change a few things .lowering the injector duty cycle on start up to get rid of the occasional hot start flooding problem ,raise the the rev limit to 6800 so it wont be so easy to hit the rev limiter in 1st gear,and get more consistency in the AFR through out the rev range .
forgot to add : i only run premium .if the water meth runs out , then detonation is minimized .we dont have much choice in fuels around here .i like the 10 % ethanol blends because they dont have the manganese additive(nasty stuff ) ,but the only station that has it is ockward to get in and out of .
