Got the crank today... genius who shipped it packed it in styrofoam peanuts, a couple of random chunks of foam and some collapsed boxes. Grr... I hope UPS was gentle with it. Hopefully able to take everything to the machine shop next week, but we'll see. Still waiting for rods, rings, piston coatings and some miscellaneous parts.
------------------ '87 Fiero GT: Low, Sleek, Fast, and Loud '90 Pontiac 6000 SE AWD: None of the Above
Luck, Fate and Destiny are words used by those who lack the courage to define their own future
That crap annoys the heck out of me. I got my crank in a wooden crate fitted to the crank, inside a cardboard box. I had to send mine back as a core. The sent the wrong bearings (.010 under when the crank was standard) and I called them to correct that. I told them my core would be going out that day in their crate and they said "you're about the first person that hasn't complained about our box being too heavy".
Better to pay an extra few $$ and get there safely than have it come with nicked journals.
Sounds like you're going to be an engine building fool this weekend.
John Stricker
quote
Originally posted by Will:
Got the crank today... genius who shipped it packed it in styrofoam peanuts, a couple of random chunks of foam and some collapsed boxes. Grr... I hope UPS was gentle with it. Hopefully able to take everything to the machine shop next week, but we'll see. Still waiting for rods, rings, piston coatings and some miscellaneous parts.
Eagle rods came last week. Pistons arrived yesterday. Waiting for cylinder head dowels, piston pins, pin retainers and main bolts. Clevite now has undersized bearings available, so I'll confer with the machinist today or tomorrow about what, if anything the crank needs and what bearings I'll need to buy.
------------------ '87 Fiero GT: Low, Sleek, Fast, and Loud '90 Pontiac 6000 SE AWD: None of the Above
Luck, Fate and Destiny are words used by those who lack the courage to define their own future
Making progress. Send the set back when you get done, I'm about ready to do mine. It looks like a slow, but not complicated, process. Haven't heard from you for awhile and wondered how you were coming along with it.
John Stricker
quote
Originally posted by Will:
got 10 more time serts installed tonight. That makes 16 in my block and 12 in wcapman's. No wonder AJ charges $400 to install these things.
I got the block, crank, rods, pistons and rings to the machine shop Friday. A couple of the bores are a bit out of round. He's going to hone each one the minimum necessary to get it round and I'll just live with having piston clearances wider in some bores than in others...
Crank was on size. I need to get the machinist a standard rod bearing for the balancing. However, the rod bearings are on national back order from GM. Summit can get them (even undersized now) from Clevite, but normally would take a week. I was able to get them to have Clevite overnight the bearings directly to me--fortunately Clevite had some in stock. And they're still $20+ per cylinder...
------------------ '87 Fiero GT: Low, Sleek, Fast, and Loud '90 Pontiac 6000 SE AWD: None of the Above
Luck, Fate and Destiny are words used by those who lack the courage to define their own future
My crankshaft came from Standard Crankshaft. With shipping it was $249.50 and that included new rod and main bearings (Clevite). There was something like a $180 core charge, but mine was an acceptable core.
Glad to hear things are moving along. I'm surprised the bores were out of round, mine were nearly perfect.
John Stricker
quote
Originally posted by Will:
I got the block, crank, rods, pistons and rings to the machine shop Friday. A couple of the bores are a bit out of round. He's going to hone each one the minimum necessary to get it round and I'll just live with having piston clearances wider in some bores than in others...
Crank was on size. I need to get the machinist a standard rod bearing for the balancing. However, the rod bearings are on national back order from GM. Summit can get them (even undersized now) from Clevite, but normally would take a week. I was able to get them to have Clevite overnight the bearings directly to me--fortunately Clevite had some in stock. And they're still $20+ per cylinder...
Me too, especially since the longitudinal diameter was the long one. Lotta miles on this block, though. Half a dozen head bolt holes let go of their threads just from snugging the bolts down to secure the guide plate.
------------------ '87 Fiero GT: Low, Sleek, Fast, and Loud '90 Pontiac 6000 SE AWD: None of the Above
Luck, Fate and Destiny are words used by those who lack the courage to define their own future
Did you do all the block and head bolts with zerts? When we did my motor we did them all that way you dont pull the threads when you go to torque it all back together.
May I ask why you ordered another crank? Did something happen to yours?
Ok, I read thru the whole thing and no pics? C'mon you guys you know we need pics!
------------------ A coward dies a thousand deaths..................A soldier dies but once. Red 86 SE Yellow 87 GT Gold 86 SE (wrecked) Red 84 2.5 Coupe In the process of buying another 87 GT
I'll post some pictures when I assemble the thing...
I'm building a replacement short block, not overhauling the engine in my car now. I got a block from wcapman, crank from ebay, Eagle rods, coated some pistons that I already had around, ordered Clevite bearings, etc.
------------------ '87 Fiero GT: Low, Sleek, Fast, and Loud '90 Pontiac 6000 SE AWD: None of the Above
Luck, Fate and Destiny are words used by those who lack the courage to define their own future
Originally posted by jstricker: My crankshaft came from Standard Crankshaft. With shipping it was $249.50 and that included new rod and main bearings (Clevite). There was something like a $180 core charge, but mine was an acceptable core.
That sounds like a hell of a deal. I don't know how they can get you those bearings so cheap. Summit's prices were over $170 for rods and $53 for mains. Hope that $30 crank shaft holds up.
I guess if N* cranks hardly ever wear out they can basically give them away because they're almost guaranteed a good core.
------------------ '87 Fiero GT: Low, Sleek, Fast, and Loud '90 Pontiac 6000 SE AWD: None of the Above
Luck, Fate and Destiny are words used by those who lack the courage to define their own future
GM Partsdirect shows list price at $13.28 each, they sell them for $7.57. But GMPD has outrageous shipping on small parts so it will actually cost you more to order them from GMPD and have them shipped than to go to a dealer and buy them.
Don't forget that you also need the 8 seals per engine that go under the spark plug tubes.
John Stricker
quote
Originally posted by GSXRBOBBY:
Hey Will how much was the rebuild kit and or gasket kit for the Northstar? Are they really $$$$, the valve cover gasket was $40.00 by me.
They were included, I didn't get it, I was able to save mine. I was just wondering the cost so I had an idea if I were to rebuild the motor I got down the road.
------------------ Bobby from NW Indiana 86 Fiero GT, Looking to ad a 93 Northstar soon thespeedshop@sbcglobal.net
Expect to spend more than $300 on gaskets for this engine. I got head gaskets, valve cover gaskets, spark plug o-rings, front cover gasket, oil pump gasket, pan gasket, intake mani gaskets, exhaust mani gaskets, waterpump gaskets, valve cover bolt grommets, and a few miscellaneous gaskets like the throttle body o-rings for $250. And after that I still needed the "oil manifold" that bolts to the bottom of the lower crank case ($80).
------------------ '87 Fiero GT: Low, Sleek, Fast, and Loud '90 Pontiac 6000 SE AWD: None of the Above
Luck, Fate and Destiny are words used by those who lack the courage to define their own future
Finished time-serting wcapman's block last night. I'm going to send the toolkit back when I get a new bottle of loctite to go with it. The included bottle is feeling pretty light.
------------------ '87 Fiero GT: Low, Sleek, Fast, and Loud '90 Pontiac 6000 SE AWD: None of the Above
Luck, Fate and Destiny are words used by those who lack the courage to define their own future
Just got the assembly back from being balanced at the machine shop. It was so far out that he had to call and confirm that the engine was internally balanced. The stock rods are 681 grams, while the Eagle rods are 530 grams. 150 grams lighter per rod times 8 rods is 1200 grams (2.64 lbs) removed from the rotating and reciprocating assemblies. Lots of holes drilled in the counterweights....
Initially at 5,000 RPM the assembly had 580# of out of balance force at the front main and 600# at the rear main. After balancing it was about 1# at each end at 5,000 RPM.
------------------ '87 Fiero GT: Low, Sleek, Fast, and Loud '90 Pontiac 6000 SE AWD: None of the Above
Luck, Fate and Destiny are words used by those who lack the courage to define their own future
Sounds good. I have an extra bottle of the oil here, but I don't have an extra bottle of the loctite, I don't even remember which loctite it takes off the top of my head.
I was curious how the balance was going to come out with the light rods. Now think about throwing some non-stock pistons like Arias in the balance mix and things get pretty interesting.
John Stricker
quote
Originally posted by Will:
Finished time-serting wcapman's block last night. I'm going to send the toolkit back when I get a new bottle of loctite to go with it. The included bottle is feeling pretty light.
Any update? That sounds like a pretty nice weight reduction, would go along well with an aluminum flywheel. I wonder what the stock balance specs are on the northstar.
Sorry... I've been swamped with end of semester stuff here... two programming classes and a class and lab on embedded microprocessors and working a semi-real job...
Nothing more's going to happen until after the end of May, however.
------------------ '87 Fiero GT: Low, Sleek, Fast, and Loud '90 Pontiac 6000 SE AWD: None of the Above
Luck, Fate and Destiny are words used by those who lack the courage to define their own future
[This message has been edited by Will (edited 04-21-2004).]
So there I was, in the middle of June, and it had been weeks since my last visit to PFF....I wondered to myself, "I wonder how Will's engine is going?"
What I had thought were early pistons were in fact late pistons. So my rings didn't fit. However, now that I've torn the engine that was in the car down, I have a set of '95 pistons to be coated and used in the reassembly.
When I pulled the engine apart, it had no ridge at the tops of the bores. That's with 100K on the engine an the last 20K pretty brutal. It DID however have a crack all the way down the outer wall of cylinder #1. Went through the aluminum and the iron. I had lots of coolant in the oil, but the engine hadn't been run long enough to do any damage, so everything should be ok. I cleaned everything out and WD40'd it all and it's ready to go back together... except for the pistons. So once I get those '95 pistons coated I'll put it back together along with the 3.94 transmission and run a 12.5 timeslip just for you guys.
No that I have a block with a cracked cylinder... I wonder what Golden Eagle would charge for a custom set of eight sleeves....
------------------ '87 Fiero GT: Low, Sleek, Fast, and Loud '90 Pontiac 6000 SE AWD: None of the Above
Luck, Fate and Destiny are words used by those who lack the courage to define their own future
I've been corresponding with Allen Cline, who's an engineer with GM HPVO and has done a lot of work on the Northstar.
He's of the opinion that for flat tappet cams are the best for an overhead cam engine. He said that GM OHC engines use roller followers ONLY for gas mileage purposes, and even then they're only worth a fraction of one mpg. ALL GM OHC engines now use the same roller follower setup as the Y2K Northstars: Ecotec, Vortec 4200, High Feature V6... He said that grinding a roller cam can sometimes lead to having to hollow grind the lobe (curvature of the lobe becomes locally concave rather than convex) which is difficult and expensive.
He also mentioned that there's a Kawasaki solid lifter that should fit the Northstar and reduce valvetrain mass.
Cast iron bar stock IS available... so I may start looking into cutting cam blanks for the early engines.
The material for the original Northstar cams is Proferal-55. 55 stands for the Rockwell hardness of the finished product. It is a proprietary material that's fairly finicky to cast and comes from just one or two foundrys. I'm talking with people at one of these foundrys to see if they can get me some bar stock. They don't think that a company that specializes in bar stock can handle pro-55 without a lot of oversight.
I got my pistons back from Swain last week. I just spent a while with liquid wrench and a nylond brush getting the last carbon deposits out of my piston ring grooves. The pistons are soaking in WD-40 right now and I shouldn't have any trouble with the last bits of carbon tomorrow. After I clean out the last bits of carbon, I'm going to wash and dry the pistons, then match weight them and wash them again to get all the chips off. After that I'll assemble the rings and rods and should be able to put the shortblock together either tomorrow afternoon or Thursday afternoon.
I'll probably bolt the heads on the same day, although the timing drive and the rest of the front of the engine might take another day or two. After that I have a bunch of wiring to work on, but maybe I can get the car into the garage and get started on re-installing the engine late this weekend.
I'm going to be continuing to use the 3.61 transmission until I can get the 3.94 box an ultrasonic treatment. In the mean time, I have several things I'd like to try, including bigger exhaust, a new chip, WRX brake rotors and the Street Dreams knuckles.
------------------ '87 Fiero GT: Low, Sleek, Fast, and Loud '90 Pontiac 6000 SE AWD: None of the Above
Luck, Fate and Destiny are words used by those who lack the courage to define their own future
On the carbon cleaning on the pistons........Next time soak them overnight in carb cleaner. Take them out, wash them with soap and water, they'll look like they just came from the factory. Honest.
John Stricker
quote
Originally posted by Will:
Daggonit Nash, stop replying while I'm typing.
The material for the original Northstar cams is Proferal-55. 55 stands for the Rockwell hardness of the finished product. It is a proprietary material that's fairly finicky to cast and comes from just one or two foundrys. I'm talking with people at one of these foundrys to see if they can get me some bar stock. They don't think that a company that specializes in bar stock can handle pro-55 without a lot of oversight.
I got my pistons back from Swain last week. I just spent a while with liquid wrench and a nylond brush getting the last carbon deposits out of my piston ring grooves. The pistons are soaking in WD-40 right now and I shouldn't have any trouble with the last bits of carbon tomorrow. After I clean out the last bits of carbon, I'm going to wash and dry the pistons, then match weight them and wash them again to get all the chips off. After that I'll assemble the rings and rods and should be able to put the shortblock together either tomorrow afternoon or Thursday afternoon.
I'll probably bolt the heads on the same day, although the timing drive and the rest of the front of the engine might take another day or two. After that I have a bunch of wiring to work on, but maybe I can get the car into the garage and get started on re-installing the engine late this weekend.
I'm going to be continuing to use the 3.61 transmission until I can get the 3.94 box an ultrasonic treatment. In the mean time, I have several things I'd like to try, including bigger exhaust, a new chip, WRX brake rotors and the Street Dreams knuckles.
Carb cleaner worked great. Thanks for the tip. <mental note...>
I also cleaned the '96 pistons in it, since they'll have to be clean if I'm going to sell them...
I washed and match weighted the '95 pistons. They weigh within about half a gram of the average weight of the '96 pistons, so the balance should not be affected. The final weight was 406.3 grams each.
Here's a picture:
The early style piston is on the left, while the later style piston is on the right. As you can see, the early piston has a wider top ring land and a wider top ring groove than the later piston. Otherwise they are more or less identical.
------------------ '87 Fiero GT: Low, Sleek, Fast, and Loud '90 Pontiac 6000 SE AWD: None of the Above
Luck, Fate and Destiny are words used by those who lack the courage to define their own future
[This message has been edited by Will (edited 08-13-2004).]
If you are using bolt stretch to tighten your rod bolts, do so BEFORE you seal the lower crank case and torque the main bolts. Once the lower crank case is in place you can get a wrench and a rod bolt stretch gauge on only half the rod bolts.
GM sells 6 ml tubes of anaerobic sealant to use on the case halves. I've been told that if you don't use 5 tubes, you haven't used enough. The sealer is actually Loctite 518 and is available in 50 ml tubes and 300 ml cartridges from www.mcmaster.com p/n's 75125A66 and 75125A67 respectively. A 50 ml tube is more than enough to do one Northstar and one Getrag (Getrag case halves require the same sealant). I ran a bead in the groove for the case-half seal, a bead on top of the seal, and one more bead on the aluminum sealing surface itself (I think it was inside the seal groove, but I don't really remember if it was inside or outside). My case half doesn't leak yet. (oil filter adapter did, but that's another story).
There are two different versions of the oil manifold (plate that bolts onto the bottom of the lower crank case to close up oil passages), the windage tray and the oil pump pickup. They don't mix. Must use same version of all three. P/N's are in the manual.
Rear main seal is easy to install even once the engine's together. Goes in with a mallet if you use it carefully. No special tools required. Don't forget to dab RTV on the case-half seam before installing the seal. I forgot to RTV the case halves, but I did have some of the anaerobic goo protruding out. I'm going to be on the watch for main seal leaks, though.
Front main seal is difficult to install without a tool. I abused mine slightly and I halfway expect it to start leaking before long.
Use anaerobic goo on the flywheel bolts. The flywheel bolt holes go all the way through the crank flange and are exposed to whatever the back of the rear main seal is exposed to. use the anaerobic sealant on them to make sure you don't get oil leaking around the bolt heads into your clutch.
I used 25mm long class 10.9 standard head bolts for the flywheel. With washers under the heads, these bolts have about 0.060 clearance to the clutch disk and do not touch the rear main bearing bulkhead. However, if used without washers, these bolts WILL contact the main bearing bulkhead and prevent the engine from turning. They will also feel as though they are torquing properly when this happens. Turn your engine by hand before you install the flywheel and again after you install the flywheel to make sure that it still turns and that the rotational effort has no increased.
USE TIME SERTS. My head bolts torqued flawlessly.Torquing those head bolts is a PITA... they go to 22 ftlbs in sequence, then 60 degrees in sequence, then another 60 degrees in sequence, then a THIRD 60 degrees in sequence.
There are two different crank shafts. One uses a 14mm balancer bolt, the other uses a 16mm balancer bolt. My '95 engine originally used a 16 mm bolt, but the crank I got used a 14mm bolt. I had to gank a bolt from one of the parts engines in the shed out back.
The water manifold uses three different lengths of bolt to attach it. Three long ones, one short one and four medium ones. The three long and one short go through the water manifold into blind tapped holes in the cylinder heads. The four medium length ones go into the block and have some type of sealant on them. Only the two that go into the LEFT BANK need the sealant, as the two that go into the right bank thread into blind tapped holes. I wire brushed the sealant off of the two for the right bank and used anti-seize instead.
I only got three of the required four w/p gaskets, so I had to borrow one from a parts engine. I used RTV on both sides of it since it looked rather rough.
I put three dog turds in the coolant, just like GM recommends. I used orange coolant, even though the block had originally been used with green coolant. I did this just so all of our cars would use the same coolant and we don't have to worry about it.
I think that about wraps up the engine assembly notes that I had. If I think of any more I will post them
------------------ '87 Fiero GT: Low, Sleek, Fast, and Loud '90 Pontiac 6000 SE AWD: None of the Above
Luck, Fate and Destiny are words used by those who lack the courage to define their own future
[This message has been edited by Will (edited 08-23-2004).]
The rear (black) cam covers have two complete sets of mounts for the coil pack. The engines were installed with the coil pack all the way to the right (toward the pulley end of the engine). However, as you may notice in this picture:
My coil pack is now on the other set of mounts. In addition to making the engine compartment look better (in my humble opinion), this also frees up room for the chassis side of the Fiero dogbone mount, pictured here.
The dogbone mount has been one of the two areas of chassis cutting required to fit a Northstar, but with coil pack relocation, cutting the dog bone mount is not necessary. Cutting it off at least is not necessary. It may still require some slight trimming. While a torque strut may not be entirely necessary with 4 point engine mounting, I think that a soft (poly or rubber) mounted engine should have a damper to control oscillation at low engine speeds in 1st gear. To this end, future Northstar swappers should retain the dogbone mount. It should still be possible to get oil in through the PCV grommet (capped in the above picture), even with the mount in place.
------------------ '87 Fiero GT: Low, Sleek, Fast, and Loud '90 Pontiac 6000 SE AWD: None of the Above
Luck, Fate and Destiny are words used by those who lack the courage to define their own future
[This message has been edited by Will (edited 08-23-2004).]
Once we got the engine to crank, it fired first crank. My heart stopped for about 3 seconds as the valvetrain clattered, then the noise went away and I looked up to see the oil pressure gauge pegged. I had primed the engine, but I had neglected to fill the passage from the oil filter adapter back to the oil pump.
The engine seems to have good power and response (I haven't wound it out yet), but it smokes like a chimney. It blows oil smoke under all operating conditions except moderate or greater throttle. If the car's sitting still and I bring the RPM up, I can generate a smoke screen behind me. I'm going to call Totally Unsealed tomorrow and see what they have to say about it.
------------------ '87 Fiero GT: Low, Sleek, Fast, and Loud '90 Pontiac 6000 SE AWD: None of the Above
Luck, Fate and Destiny are words used by those who lack the courage to define their own future
