Originally posted by Fierobsessed: This turned into a bigger project then I anticipated. Maybe I should have just used the dual mass... It is afterall, designed for the 60 degree engines.
Not if you intend to put down more than 300 lb/ft. It's torque limited to about 10% above the engine it was rated for and I do believe I managed to make mine slip with the stock motor at about 7-8 psi.
The more I work on this flywheel, the more upset I become with its orignial manufacture. There isn't ANY concentricity amongst ANY of the critical dimensions.
The precision of some parts is quite scary... especially when they are cast or stamped.
I would suggest using all 12 standoffs vs. the 6 to reduce the chance of the starter pushing the ring gear inwards (in the unsupported areas).
Also, what is the overall depth of that flywheel (crank face to clutch face)? Just curious.
The precision of some parts is quite scary... especially when they are cast or stamped.
I would suggest using all 12 standoffs vs. the 6 to reduce the chance of the starter pushing the ring gear inwards (in the unsupported areas).
Also, what is the overall depth of that flywheel (crank face to clutch face)? Just curious.
I went ahead with just the 6. Done and welded. I'm actually quite pleased with it.
1.735" Crank to surface.
I still wonder if THIS dual mass can even slip. When I got it, the bolt holes affixing it to the crank and the through holes on the secondary mass were lined up, the 60 degree V6 has a bolt pattern with one odd bolt out of place, so I could easily tell that the two parts of the flywheel either didn't slip, couldn't slip, or it lined back up. They do rotate loosely a bit. Feels like it hits rubber bumpers on either end. One thing that I liked about the dual mass, I put it in the lathe, spun it to 1400 RPM and no visible wobble, no shaking, nada. It's actually machined and balanced correctly.
I went ahead with just the 6. Done and welded. I'm actually quite pleased with it.
1.735" Crank to surface.
I still wonder if THIS dual mass can even slip. When I got it, the bolt holes affixing it to the crank and the through holes on the secondary mass were lined up, the 60 degree V6 has a bolt pattern with one odd bolt out of place, so I could easily tell that the two parts of the flywheel either didn't slip, couldn't slip, or it lined back up. They do rotate loosely a bit. Feels like it hits rubber bumpers on either end. One thing that I liked about the dual mass, I put it in the lathe, spun it to 1400 RPM and no visible wobble, no shaking, nada. It's actually machined and balanced correctly.
The 10% above stock application estimate is directly from a SACHS rep via email a few years back when I inquired about it. That's also one of the reasons they are swapped out on some performance cars in addition to the fact that they also tend to wear out like clutches.
I wouldn't take any manufacturers statement about something's limits too seriously. They will always tell you its good for its intended application, and perhaps just a little more. They rate the 282 higher then the F23 for a reason, they have became more conservative. Either way, I am sticking to my home modified flywheel. It has no real known limits.
Current status of the flywheel:
Because it was so poorly made, I still have todrill and tap 6 new bolt holes for the pressure plate. Then, I have to resurface it, and balance it. Nothing too difficult.
This morning I made the intercooler support bracket, this went actually pretty quick, and It holds it better then I thought it would.
I also loaded the engine back in again for what probably is its LAST test fit, now that the exhaust is done.
Everything so far is looking great, It all fit just as I had hoped that it would. The tips were even where I wanted them to be, and they really look great! I'm going to tack weld those in place when I take the engine out.
And again, with the engine back in the car, it's time to tidy up the garage. I made myself promise, that every time the cradle was out of the way, that I would clean the garage. So far, I've managed to stick to that plan.
Originally posted by Fierobsessed: I made myself promise, that every time the cradle was out of the way, that I would clean the garage. So far, I've managed to stick to that plan.
Its good to have garage housekeeping rules!
Mine is if I can't find the tool/part I need in 10 minutes, stop everything and clean the place up and put everything back where it belongs.
With the garage all cleaned up, I've decided that it is time to do the engine build. Which starts with TWO teardowns. The first, is a 97 Crate 3.4 DOHC that Iv'e had for about 10 years... just kicking around. The second is the engine that was in the car. This engine had a fierce oil leak from the front cam carrier, and the intake manifold gaskets were beginning to fail (letting air in, not coolant out)
Crate motor
One cam carrier removed
Bottom end exposed
Heads, off.
Just looking for the spot to put the oil return bung
On to the old engine! Here is where it is most obvious that the 3.4 DOHC really is just a 2.8 on steroids, with massive heads.
Cam carriers off.
Heads off
Everything looks in order here
This is what makes this engine special. But, its all VERY heavy stuff!
Gasket failure! Which as it turns out, I am totally at fault for. The bolts were never torqued, only snugged. Some were downright loose. This explains why the gasket only failed on the front head. The rear head was totally tight. No leaks. I am so disappointed with my self for this screw up. But, at least I know what went wrong. The oil leaking onto the intake manifold gasket was the reason those gaskets started to swell, and fail too.
Lastly, this is where all my hard work, and money is sitting right now...
Which, you have to admit, any engine sitting in this spot, is going to perform quite well... That's it for now.
My best friend, Garth, would loose his mind over this setup. Its what he has always dreamed to have in a Fiero. if you ever decide to go with a different powertrain, PM me. Dead serious.
Still working away at this, in the last couple of days I... 1. Tore both my original engine and my crate engine down to their short blocks 2. Removed all 48 valves from the 4 heads 3. Cleaned the 94-95 heads. 4. Found two slipped valve guides, pressed them back into place. I don't know how I'm going to prevent this in the future. 5. Found my head studs to be too short for my heads, because the head bolt threads start 0.7" below the deck. 6. Found that my head studs fit perfectly in place of the mains bolts. 7. Ordered connecting rod studs, Flywheel bolts, and a batch of new head $tuds all from ARP. They were pricey.
Next on my list is to have the heads decked for finish only. And whenever the clutch shows up, finish the flywheel, which needs to be re-drilled correctly for the pressure plate, then surfaced and balanced.
The heads are getting the 96-97 valves. Why not? They are brand new! I checked them for compatibility, and they are 100% interchangeable. I also plan on using the cams and cam housings from the 96-97 crate engine. No sense in using old parts when I can avoid it. The lifters are improved in the later engines, but the cam profile is just a little bit tamer. I could mix match them, but everyone always says you shouldn't mix things like that. Jury is still out for me on that one. I happen to strongly believe the 3.4 DOHC cams can be interchanged, even if used, as they appear to have a flat grind, and a cutout on the base circle to provide the lifter spin. Bucket lifters are too short to accomodate a tapered grind like traditional flat tappet cams anyway. Maybe I WILL use the 94-95 cams... Still debaiting on that one. Either way. I plan on degreeing all the cams. It's actually VERY easy, I don't even need the engine!
Once this is done, it is the extent of the modifications I plan on making to the engine itself. My next goal is to make it pretty. Lots of cleaning, lots of painting. Still debaiting on colors, I'm leaning towards either silver or blue, or a combination, as my engine bay already has some polished aluminum, and blue silicone couplers. Either way, I plan on working on the intake, filling it out and smoothing it till it looks like glass.
Originally posted by Fierobsessed: 4. Found two slipped valve guides, pressed them back into place. I don't know how I'm going to prevent this in the future.
Keep the motor cool especially since it's turbocharged now, ~180ish. I had to buy a 160 degree thermostat and trim it to fit to help keep my temps in that range. I have a 3900 head that has a valve seat partially dropped from getting too hot.
They are pressed in, no real way to loctite them. I was thinking about notching the guide stem under the spring, and using an E-Clip under the spring shim to hold the stems in place. But notching is difficult, and the E-clips are a little large at the diameter I need them.
They are pressed in, no real way to loctite them. I was thinking about notching the guide stem under the spring, and using an E-Clip under the spring shim to hold the stems in place. But notching is difficult, and the E-clips are a little large at the diameter I need them.
I know but if you coat outside of the guide there might be enough of a film to adhere to the head.
Slipped valve stem, the one that is sunken in is the slipped one
Since I had the new oil pan off, I decided to add the oil return bung. I first cut a hole, then I removed the surrounding paint
New bung in place
Weld it!
What was formerly intended to be head studs, has become main cap studs. They happened to work out! With the spacers (washers), and the windage tray in place, the length is perfect!
A tool I made about 11 years ago, when I was first playing with the 3.4 DOHC. It's what I use to remove the cam cog bolts. Works FAR better then the Kent Moore tool!
I got around to actually documenting the cam specifications for the 94-95 3.4 DOHC. The numbers were almost perfectly spot on with what I have seen their specs quoted as.
Let me explain the wheel, Picture it rotating clockwise. You can see that the cams are naturally retarded 3 degrees.
A little note on the specifications. I found that the cam lobes are asymmetrical. Meaning the opening profile does not match the closing profile. They actually open aggressively, and close a little slower. My calculated centerlines and lobe separations are based on the averaged positions from the .050" marks. The centerlines are off just a tad for this reason. (they are actually about 3 degrees earlier then the averages). What this all means, is that these cams are 3 degrees advanced when the timing is done correctly based on the true Centerlines, but because the valves open and close differently, the exhaust cam is slowly closing when the intake valve gets ripped open, making it behave as if the cams are set in 3 degrees retarded. It's a little funky, but the numbers don't lie!
It does have a 112 degree lobe separation, which is good for computer control, and the durations are short by any stretch of the imagination anyway, so the lobe separation can easily be tightened up for higher, peaky performance. Now, this gets my gears turning, I wonder what I should do to these cams for the turbo...
Let me mension that my van, has a fairly aggressive cam in it. LT4 Hot cam, At .006 lift, the intake and exhaust have a 54 degree overlap. 3.4 DOHC cam, At .006 lift, the intake and exhaust have a 20 degree overlap.
At .050" the LT4 Hot cam has -2 degrees of overlap 3.4 DOHC has -15
So there is plenty of room to tighten up overlap, if that's what you want to do.
[This message has been edited by Fierobsessed (edited 04-10-2013).]
Leave the cams alone. They are already optimized for a motor that breaths very well up top and a properly sized turbo which you appear to have can expand on that based on your turbine housing size plus any additional power goal you hope to achieve can be accomplished by turning up the boost.
In my scenario increased engine displacement and compression warrants a cam change to better match the mods above stock. That is likely why the near stock grind camshaft I installed in the previous motor and left advanced netted me ~33 mpg hwy and that's a low estimate despite one cylinder being very low on pressure due to a burnt valve and damaged rings. With current cam that has a little more duration I'm getting about 30-31 mpg hwy.
Stock cams perform very well under boost in my experience.
[This message has been edited by Joseph Upson (edited 04-10-2013).]
Originally posted by Fierobsessed: 3. Cleaned the 94-95 heads.
The heads are getting the 96-97 valves. Why not? They are brand new! I checked them for compatibility, and they are 100% interchangeable. I also plan on using the cams and cam housings from the 96-97 crate engine.
The '96-'97 heads flow significantly more air than the '94-'95 heads. If you have the '96-'97 LIM, you should use the '96-'97 heads.
96-97 heads don't flow much better. The intake castings are identical. The exhaust went with a slightly larger (in area) rectangular port, instead of the squareish port of the early motors. They probably flow a bit better, the exhaust valves are more tuliped, so I get that advantage from the 96-97's valves, but hardly worth the 9.7:1 compression those heads would leave me with. I deliberately chose to use the early intake, narrower runners are better for torque, and as a result, better spooling. Long story short, the 91-95 engine is better for boosting then the 96-97's are, for what MY goals are. If I really wanted to make 600 horsepower, I would have gone with custom pistons in a 96-97 engine, and a 1.06 A/R turbine housing. I'd be dealing with some turbo lag too. But I don't want 600 HP, I want 450ish as It's a daily driver. I also hope to retain 30+ highway MPG. And mid 20's in the city like I've been getting previously.
I got my clutch today! Very happy about that. I will post pics and observations later.
Hey, let me know when you are ready to get started on the exhaust. I am plugging away at my car and should have it running in the next day or so. My crap exhaust can get me by for a little bit.... LOL
BTW, you are doing some top notch work. Excellent attention to detail. Long live the LQ1! Maybe I'll get around to getting mine running again. She has 60K worth of hard track miles on her and was built back in 1994. Apparently its the first known (and documented!) swap of its kind. You should see some of the work-arounds Garth and (IIRC) Greg Duncan did to get it running properly on the stock tune.
[This message has been edited by BV MotorSports (edited 04-11-2013).]
BV, I'll PM you the details after this post. I've got some good news for you...
About the clutch. That too, I have some good news, but, there is some bad news. First, the good news. The clutch looks great!
Disc, pressure plate side
Disc, Flywheel side
The disc is well made. The diameter wasn't what I ordered, It is a 9-1/8" OD disc. I ordered a Firebird pressure plate. Since they had offered to match the pressure plate to the disc, I didn't realize that they were going to use a Fiero size pressure plate, and reduce the F40 clutch disc to match it. But that's OK by me. The 9-3/4" system has a bunch of inertia, and this disc has less. So that's OK. Believe it or not, this is still the good news.
Now, the bad news. The pressure plate is probably defective. I cleaned the surfaces of the flywheel and pressure plate, sandwiched the disc in there and evenly tightened the bolts down.
Once I had them all torqued down I could quite easily see 3 of the clutch fingers were sticking up much higher then the others. This could have prevented the clutch from disengaging altogether by sucking up precious throw-out bearing travel. So I put it in the press to attempt to disengage it. Perhaps, I thought, that disengaging the clutch would settle the internals, and even out the fingers. It didn't. I also measured the stroke it took to disengage. it was exactly .300" Which, while the HTOB could handle that. However, I wasn't about to accept the high fingers. I also tried spinning the disc to see if the high fingers followed it when it was released, with no effect.
I marked the high fingers, and pulled the pressure plate off, and turned it over. I found a problem, but I am unsure if it is the reason the fingers are wonky. This is how it was intended to be manufactured:
This is what I found near the high fingers
You can see the ring, and a plate are next to each other in one crimp, and stacked one on top of another on the next. I'm going to call them tomorrow and see what they think. I don't believe this pressure plate is useable. The fingers are all even when the pressure plate is not bolted up, but once it is they are clearly not right. That kind of wobble would probably destroy the HTOB over time.
Intake Exhaust Open .006 10 BTDC Open .006 122 ATDC Open .050 -4 BTDC Open .050 138 ATDC Close .006 124 BTDC Close .006 12 ATDC Close .050 144 BTDC Close .050 -8 ATDC Lift 0.37 Lift 0.37
Intake Exhaust Open .006 4 BTDC Open .006 126 ATDC Open .050 -10 BTDC Open .050 142 ATDC Close .006 120 BTDC Close .006 16 ATDC Close .050 146 BTDC Close .050 -5 ATDC Lift 0.37 Lift 0.37
To sum it up, the 96-97 Intake cams have a little more duration then the older cams. The exhaust's are nearly identical. The major difference is that the intake cam has cast in, about 5 degrees advance, and the exhaust is 4 degrees advance. So the bulk of the difference is the cam timing was changed. That's it.
[This message has been edited by Fierobsessed (edited 04-15-2013).]
They are pressed in, no real way to loctite them. I was thinking about notching the guide stem under the spring, and using an E-Clip under the spring shim to hold the stems in place. But notching is difficult, and the E-clips are a little large at the diameter I need them.
Use wicking grade Loctite 220 or 290. It's designed to be applied to pre-assembled parts.
Intake Exhaust Open .006 10 BTDC Open .006 122 ATDC Open .050 -4 BTDC Open .050 138 ATDC Close .006 124 BTDC Close .006 12 ATDC Close .050 144 BTDC Close .050 -8 ATDC Lift 0.37 Lift 0.37
Intake Exhaust Open .006 4 BTDC Open .006 126 ATDC Open .050 -10 BTDC Open .050 142 ATDC Close .006 120 BTDC Close .006 16 ATDC Close .050 146 BTDC Close .050 -5 ATDC Lift 0.37 Lift 0.37
To sum it up, the 96-97 Intake cams have a little more duration then the older cams. The exhaust's are nearly identical. The major difference is that the intake cam has cast in, about 5 degrees advance, and the exhaust is 4 degrees advance. So the bulk of the difference is the cam timing was changed. That's it.
Sweeeet. Nice work. Degreeing cams is a bit of a PITA, but well worth it if you want your engine to run at its max potential.
So if you run the intake cam with the older exhaust cam, you can have 5 degrees more overlap with the factory timing setup.
One last little blurb about cams: I think what I will do with the cams is install the exhaust cam as is with its 4 degrees of advance, and I will retard the intake cam 5 degrees back to what the older cam's timing was. This way it will spool very quickly, and it will reduce overlap. Both should be beneficial in terms of my goals. I'm still debating on either this, or just install them as is. Both should be fine. I like that with boost I can allow the intake valve to stay open a little longer as the boost will prevent reversion, when the piston starts coming back up for compression. So I'm favoring the retarded intake cam for a couple reasons.
Here's a 91-95 lifter, vs the smaller 96-97 lifter. The 96-97 lifters are an improved design from what I can gather. They are less prone to ticking. Some hardware that I ordered came in.
I originally ordered head studs that were not the right length. They would have fit if the threads on the block would have gone all the way to the top of the deck. It turns out that they start about 0.7" from the deck. So I had to get longer studs. The shorter studs however worked out perfectly on the mains, as pictured above.
For the head studs, I wound up getting: 16, ARP "ATP5.950-2LUB" Studs 16, ARP "200-8605" Nuts 2, ARP "200-8530" Washers, pack of 10
Now, even these studs aren't quite perfect either. They are a little long. the 3.4 DOHC does not allow you to use a stud that is too long. When the cam carriers are installed they will hit the studs if they are longer then about 5/8" above the heads top surface. The 3.4 DOHC's head bolt holes are blind, they do NOT intersect the water jackets. So I can't get the studs in far enough. The threads stop short of the bottom of the hole, and this is preventing the stud from going in far enough to clear the cam carrier. This leaves me with two options. Shorten the stud, or tap the holes a little deeper into the block. I plan on using a bottoming M11x1.5 tap to get the threads and the studs to the bottom of the hole.
For the mains I got these: 8, ARP "ATP5.060-1LB" Studs 8, ARP "200-8605" Nuts 1, ARP "200-8530" Washers, pack of 10
For the rods, I got: 1, ARP "133-6002" Rod bolt kit (2.8 Chevy)
And I also got some flywheel bolts 1, ARP "206-2803" Flywheel Bolt set for Vauxhall/opel -Rover K Series (supposedly, a set of 8, but it was actually 6, which is fine)
For my deep flywheel, head height is not an issue, so I didn't mind them being a little tall.
My pressure plate went back to Clutchnet. Hopefully they can get that all sorted out. Once that comes back I can jump on finishing up the flywheel. For the time being, my focus is to change out the hardware inside the engine, and get the head stud situation straightened out, which appears to be pretty simple.
[This message has been edited by Fierobsessed (edited 04-21-2013).]
I cleaned the timing cover from my old engine. Surprisingly it didn't even need any paint. It survived 6 years of service and only needed a good cleaning. I installed the cover taking care to put sealant on the 4 M10 bolts that intersect the water passages. I then put the oil pan on. I needed to put a couple of small outward dents on the pan where the front mains studs were hitting, it was a very minor interference.
I tapped the head bolt holes a little deeper, I managed to get an extra 3 whole turns on the tap. This got the head stud length out of the block to 4.144". Now I don't have to worry about the studs hitting the cam carriers anymore.
Rumor has it that the 91-95 3.4 DOHC's are non interference engines, while the 96-97's are interference. So I decided to run a little test, I put a piston at TDC, put an intake and an exhaust valve in the head and put the head on. Then I could see how far the valve could move before hitting the piston.
I pulled the valve up to the seat, measured the stem height then zeroed out the caliper, Then I let the valves rest on the piston and measured the stem height. Exhaust:
Intake:
The valve lift is .370" and the head gasket adds .055" of clearance. So at a minimum this engine was designed with .039" of clearance in a worst case scenario. So this engine is a clearance motor. And the valve reliefs are necessary to maintain that.
Next, I'll have to get the heads and clutch all finished up, and get this engine ready to go back on the cradle. Then it starts to get exciting.
After a little bit of a break, in which I was waiting for my heads and flywheel to come back from the machine shop, I'm back in full swing. I was on a side project during that time too.
As soon as the heads came back I started loading in the valve train from the 96-97 crate engine into those 91-95 heads.
Gaskets in place.
All bolted up
Cam carriers on and TORQUED this time. Getting ready to do timing.
Belt loaded, timing wheel, marker and disk set on TDC
I made a tool, its 3/4" by 0.895" by 3" aluminum block. I decided to use this in place of the standard timing setting tool that sets both cams in straight up at TDC. All I need to do is place it on top of the flats, and when it is even with the top of the cam carrier itself, the cam is straight up. This way I do one cam at a time, and set the timing on them to whatever I want.
I took the covers off the end of the cam carriers to allow me to manually turn the cams.
So all I had to do was set the crank where ever I want the timing to be, then place the tool on the cam, turn it till its square with the carrier, then lock it down.
I set the exhaust cams to be even at ZERO, so they are straight up. I retarded the intake cams 5 degrees. This should lower the engines peak torque RPM, and help with turbo spool. At least in theory.
After I had all four cams locked down I did a test, where I put the tool on the cams and rotated the crank till the tool was flat with the cam carriers, WITHOUT looking at the crank degree wheel. This is how I confirmed the timing was as I wanted it. and everything was bang on within a degree. I then checked that the degree wheel was correctly indexed on TDC again. This way I absolutely know everything is as intended.
Timing is done!
I also sand blasted the intakes, and the valve covers, I decided that I am going to have them powder coated. I had too many problems painting them to justify powder coating, with the money made on the side project.
I'm getting excited about this project coming along.
keeping it simple for today. I blasted and painted my exhaust manifolds and heat shields, and installed them, as well I painted the lower intake, installed it and the Siemens Deka 60 lb-hr injectors. They fit beautifully.
For the huge injectors that they are, they are quite small. I've always found that to be a bit ironic.
It's more waiting for me, my clutch isn't back from Clutchnet yet and I'm sure it will likely be a day or two more till the intake and valve covers are back from powder coating. So once again I am stuck waiting. I'm looking for little details to iron out while waiting. I know I have some plumbing to do, I need to balance my flywheel, and paint a couple things. But really, there isn't a whole heck of a lot of work left to be done. And at the moment I don't want to even think about dropping the tank. It is my absolute least favorite activity to do on a Fiero. I'd rather replace a throttle cable then drop the tank
I cant thank you enough for duplicating your exhaust for me. Its one of my favorite parts of my build. I seriously think that with your fabrication skills, you could offer some TOP SHELF parts for Fieros. Again, thank you so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm glad you are happy with it, If you have any questions about installation don't hesitate to ask.
I'm not happy with it at all. I am ecstatic!!!!!! Maybe on of these days I'll get around to installing the exhaust. I am too busy showing it to all my friends when they visit. Everyone that see's it say its too pretty to hide under the car. Man, We need to get you to start making headers, y-pipes, turbo manifolds, exhaust's etc. I'll take your first set of LQ1 headers & y-pipe in the stock Fiero routing. Make sure it clears the Izuzu shifter cables. Garth says he wants this same exhaust but for his '87 LQ1 GT.
Some good news for this morning, Got a call from the powder coaters letting me know that they just pulled my pieces out of the oven, and to pick them up in a couple hours.
So I picked them up and snapped just this one photo of the front valve cover
I had to wait the whole agonizing day to get home from work and place the valve covers on and the Intake manifold, but when I finally got home I got right on it.
I am much more pleased about how the valve covers came out then I am about the intake. The valve covers are a very smooth casting while the intake is fairly rough so the powder coating has a bit of a texture to it on the intake. Makes me wish I had smoothed it out beforehand. But it's done and it still looks pretty good.
I've been keeping busy cleaning and painting everything. I rebuilt a 3800's gear reduction starter, cleaned and painted what needed it. I also attacked the alternator, Water pump pulley, the EGR valve and it's mount, as well as the transmission, it's brackets, the mounts, and the cradle. Just rebuilding, cleaning and painting. So that's been a bit of busy work.
Heres the starter, the oil cooler plumbing, and the turbo drain. You can see here why choosing the drain location was a bit tight.
Transmission
Turbo/shift cable bracket, and front transmission mount
I'm getting kind of frustrated with Clutchnet at the moment. I've E-mailed them, and called them with no response. They've had the pressure plate in their hands for well over a month, and not one thing, no pressure plate, no call, no E-mail. I've heard they can be a pain in the butt when it comes to customer service, but as of now, it has become a problem. It took a week or so to get it to me in the first place, so why a month + to repair it?
I'm going to go ahead and mate the engine and transmission, work on some of the smaller but critical stuff, like fuel lines, vapor catch system, heat shields, intercooler plumbing, heater line plumbing and so forth, and tear it apart to install the pressure plate when it arrives. But I am a bit frustrated about it.
Other then that, I think it's coming along beautifully. I've also been working on a huge swath of improvements on the $8F code, specifically to make it work with my setup, and to make tuning easier. I've added Digital EGR functionality I've removed the Adder table, and expanded the main VE table to tune easier in the N/A range (17X13), Boost is still a multiplier, I'm more then okay with that. I've added in A/C pressure transducer instead of the A/C pressure switch, and added code that set a pair of threshold values that are used to mimic the old switch.
I also added two additional MAT sensors, one for intake air temperature, and one for after the turbo. The stock one is located post intercooler, I might have to put it inside the intake manifold, but I'd sooner like to put it near the throttle body inlet. These new sensors are programmed to only report to the ALDL for logging.
I've added wideband logging, much like the IAT sensors, so that it reports to the ALDL.
I've added someone else's tweaks to help with manual transmission adaption.
I promise that when I am done with this code and all tuned in, I will make it available. Who knows what kind of bugs I'll need to iron out of it first. I've been using TunerPro V5, and heavily reworking the definitions, and adding patches for all the new functionalities.
You may want to take a peak at Robertissar('s) nast1 8F code on the 60 degree forum for some more ideas. I haven't given it a try yet but it has higher resolution VE tables up to about 8200 rpm. I'm getting ready to switch back to code59 since I'm still having problems with spark blowout using code 8F that I don't believe I ever experienced with code59 when the compression was a little higher than it is currently. It could be something in the code but I have not been able to find it.
and I'm sure it will likely be a day or two more till the intake and valve covers are back from powder coating. So once again I am stuck waiting. I'm looking for little details to iron out while waiting. I know I have some plumbing to do, I need to balance my flywheel, and paint a couple things. But really, there isn't a whole heck of a lot of work left to be done. And at the moment I don't want to even think about dropping the tank. It is my absolute least favorite activity to do on a Fiero. I'd rather replace a throttle cable then drop the tank 
I'll take your first set of LQ1 headers & y-pipe in the stock Fiero routing. Make sure it clears the Izuzu shifter cables. 
