Dec 30 - Go fast pedal works!

I'm pretty excited bout this part.  I like to mash it a lot when I'm driving.  One of my favorite things in the world is an accelerator.  :-D  Always brings a smile to my face.  And this one is now in the books to work the throttle.  It's not got the final fastener hardware on it yet, but it does work and that's more important than pretty!  :-D

I've also gotten down to the last of the positioning of the vaporizer box (water to air intercooler) whichever you like to call it.  :-)  I think I should make a slightly premature shout out to frozenboost.com from whom I bought my unit.  It's a type 4 on their web site.  I haven't plumbed it all up yet to verify that it doesn't leak, etc., but the welds on it look very nice, so I suspect it's a good unit.  It has 1/2 NPT tapped ends on it so I can plumb up the heat to it.  :-)  Can't wait.  That'll be fun!

You can see the flex hose that connects the vaporizer to the intake elbow was still not trimmed yet in this image.  I've still got an inch I can lose off of that hose and it'll get me closer to my radiator hose from the water pump, and it'll give me more room over to the right where the elbow or 180 will go for the air filter to attach to. 

(my red T-shirt was reflecting in the vaporizer in this image)

I also need the room to the right as this is where I will mount my solitary fuel injector into the air stream.  So by the time it mists out and hits that intercooler (vaporizer) and it's heated, we'll get all fumes from that fuel.

If anyone has any experience making their own fuel rail for a fuel injector and can lead me a but I would appreciate it.  I'll be making the single injector thing next.  Well, next major fabrication job.  I've got smaller ones (some I've which I've done before and will have to re-do them now), the steering for example.  So that should go faster this time as I've done most of it before.  Always quicker second time around on the same job ya know. 

But yeah, I'm looking for folks who have actually made their own fuel rail, injector setup, the whole deal.  Thanks.

No arm chair quaterbacks need apply.  :-)

Parting shot:

Was thinking about trying to get my last chance at getting the power steering pump in the back, on the motor.  But this shot just proves I've got to give that up and move it to the front.  I'm just gonna spin it with an electric motor.  It'll be fine.  1 Horse I think it enough.  Constant RPM.  Unless I find out there is something to the rack behaving differently at varying speeds, then I'll look at it.  But I doubt that's the case on these PS units.  One less set of hoses to route from the front to the back then too.

:-)

Take care.

Enjoy!

Ya only go around once...

As far as most of us know...

:-)

Dec 24 - Clutch is good me thinks! On to the intake (for now)

I got an email back from V8 Archie.  Sounds like I'm good to go on my clutch.  He was saying that it being an open diff it'll give power to the one that isn't there (least resistance) and until I can put it on the ground with the axles in it, I won't know for sure about my clutch.  But based on what I do know about it already, I'm feeling 100% better about it.

Pics of the clutch master and line install.

For some of the other things that have been done or are in current stages of production.

I've got some shots of how it's starting to look for the intake, which I haven't completely decided just yet.  The water to air intercooler is the part that will become the fumes vaporizer box.  I'll plumb hot exhaust gases through it and back into the intake manifold (plenum), EGR style so that I can make fumes on demand.  I have a video explaining all of that if you want to see that or hadn't seen it yet.

 

 

The first way around makes for a tighter fit of everything, and I do like where the fuel injector would go in that case, but I don't know that I could route all of the cooling lines where they need to go and avoid some things with that vaporizer being in that position.

The second way makes for plenty of room of routing everything, but the fuel injector gets put into a position that I'm not too happy with.


I have the new intake elbow that needs a little metal clean up around it before final fitting.  I have the test position of the water pump and alternator hanging there to test fit for bracketry to be made if it all goes well.

You can also see a fitting location (typically for NOS) on the intake elbow, that will later be used for hydrogen injection.  Once that gets added my gasoline mpg will go anywhere form the hundreds of mpg to infinity as I could run on straight hydrogen at times.

Dec 23 - Clutch line is in now - my bad

So I talked to Justin over at TFS (The Fiero Store).  He told me that there is only the type 2 line sold any more as you can make a couple of bend adjustments to it and it'll work on the type 1 lines.  So I did that and got it installed.  Yay!  Thanks Justin!

Now on to the rest of the Fiero clutch saga...

So I've bled the master.  The line.  And got back to the 6 speed and it was looking good.  I got good pedal feel.  So I shifted the tranny into a gear and then bumped the starter over (no fuel) to see the output shaft turn.  Nothing.  I pressed the clutch pedal and released it a couple of times.  Nothing still.  Went back and pulled the bleeder out of the line and depressed the + shaped button on the connector that goes to the TO (throw out) bearing to release any extra pressure it may have holding the clutch in place of me.  Nothing there either.  It's not hooking up.  Of course I bled it again after that little stunt.  But if anything bad would have happened from that I may set myself into the normal thing that people complain about, nit the one where it won't hook up.

I see plenty of people talking about the opposite.  Where you press the pedal all the way in but can't get it to completely free up.  I definitely don't have this problem. So I've put an email out there to Archie of V8 Archie as he has done a ton of these.  I want to see if he's seen this before.  I'm at a loss for what to do next on this one.   I was wondering if there was a dust boot on the face of the TO bearing that I may have left in there?  I didn't remember seeing one.  Of course I took the one off of the splined input shaft to install the tranny.  I don't know.  I'll see what others have to say next and see what I may need to do.  If there is a dust boot over the face of the TO bearing I'll be feeling pretty crunchy.  AND have to drop the cradle separate the motor from tranny to find out.  That will suck!

Anyway.  Keep up the positive responses, it helps in nudging me along in times like these.

Thanks,
Coop

Dec 19 - disappointing clutch line

I was so happy to see my Classic Tube clutch line come in for my car!  I finally got around to trying to put it in today.  I've been waiting on it, as I wanted to allow the clutch to engage the transmission completely.  I wanted to shift the transmission into a gear and see the output shaft turning.  Being able to spin the oil in that brand new transmission.  But alas, no dice.

The line was a special order as it was for an 84~87 Fiero but with 11" added to the length in the back.  I got the old stuff out.  Line was rusted into 2 in one place.  The old clutch master was nasty.  So I got it out of there.  Cleaned up the nuts and studs for the old mounting point on the clutch master.  Got some anti-seize on the studs. 

Then the banjo on the new master didn't want to slide onto the bushing for the clutch pedal pin.  So I took a Dremel and a narrow diameter sanding drum to it.  Got that just big enough that it fits very nicely.  Added a little bit of 75w-90 to the bushing and slid the banjo onto it.

Then I went in pursuit of the new clutch line going on.  I was excited as I knew I was only moments away from being able to purge the clutch line and see this thing with the motor running and the clutch being operated to spin the tranny and then not.  But as I worked out the locations on everything, I was discovering an unsavory thought.  This pre-bent hard line matches up perfectly if I have the type 2 clutch master.  It isn't worth a shit because I have a type 1 clutch master.  I was very clear about which one I have.  I knew that the two are not interchangeable and would mean that I would wait even longer for this day to come.  I was really looking forward to what all I was going to be able to do over the holidays with this piece out of the way.

So now come Monday I'll be calling the Fiero Store back and letting them know about the screw up.  I'm glad the piece that I need to get exchanged is relatively short and shouldn't be too much of a deal.  We'll see what the response is like and hopefully it won't be a long wait for the replacement part.

I do have a strange thing going on in the back of the car where the end of the line and the connection to my transmission goes.  I will be looking for a coupler for my hard line connection to replace my short flex line piece.  That piece of flex line makes for too long of a reach between the hard line and the plug into the tranny.  I'll come up with something.  I always do.  I want the flex bit more than straight from hard line, but it would work out if it were directly connected too though.  We'll see.  I'll post pics once I get to where I'm ready to connect that bit.  You'll all see what I'm talking about.

Another chapter in the on-going saga of the Diablo build.  Take care y'all, it's a jungle out there.

-Coop

Nov 30 - Major advances

Hi all, it's been a while since my last update.  Seems linger than it has been.  Anyhow, there have been multiple advances all done within a week or so.

They are:

Oil pan tightened
Oil Filter relocation kit installed
Transmission bolted/torqued to engine adapter plate
Starter shimmed and transmission clearanced for it
oil added to transmission
oil added to engine
PS header installed for fitment check and removed
exhaust manifold reinstalled
PS main frame rail replaced (tons of fab and welding)
new bubbler picked up and tested on motor
shot video of motor running on fumes now that it is installed in car
1st run with starter being moved to other side of engine

Transmission is brand new
it's never been in a car before
it's first drink of oil. Mobil1 for my baby
G6 6-speed F40 as they're typically called on the forums

It's all 5w-30 anyway

motor oil goes in here. :-)

Gotta get the throttle-body back on it

Look at them coils.  mmmm

grrr a bit

Sometimes ya gotta grrrr a lot

Look at that frame rail.
awww yeah
aint pretty but it works
frankenghini

A video of it running finally.  It's been a while since this was running on the stand.  Needed the oil circulated again of course :-D

Nov 10 - Places where axles will go

Here are some pics of where my new axles will live. First the drivers side, then the passenger side.

 

 

Nov 5 - I still need complete axles!

Another 6 weeks later and I still need axles!  Killing me.  I'm going with RCV Performance (more than likely).  Heard good things about them. 

I've got a conference coming up this month that I will be attending, and probably speaking in.  It's about all kinds of groovy stuff, HHO, fumes and more.  I'll speak on fumes this go around.  Would like to have had my kit car able to be driven into the trailer so I could take it up there and show it off (running).  But it isn't going to happen this go around.  Am excited about the trip and look forward to seeing all the groovy stuff there.

Will post again once I have an update and hopefully some axles installed!

Sep 17 - S10 Blazer stuff fits!

So I slid one of the blazer axles on to check the spline alignment and it looks good. When I grip the inside bit (on the axle) and twist it, with it in the hub, there is a very slight bit of play in it. I'm hoping that's normal, I'll read up on it. Or if I put some anti seize on it it'll take out that little bit of movement it has.  I'll ask others on another forum I'm on to see what they have to say about it.

I tried to test the length of the drivers side but I can't get it in there with the blazer axle. Not enough room to get past the transmission. I'll pull those big pieces off before I try again on that one.

Oh yeah, and the axle end pokes out too far for the wheels' center cap. I suspect I can cut it down and bevel the edge again.   The other picture still has the shipping plastic bag over the axle so it doesn't get all nasty while I'm poking around.  I'm sure it won't be long and those will be out of the bag and separated so I can join them back together with the G6 axle parts.

 

 

 

I'm having issues getting my axles apart.  Any suggestions?  This is the wheel end of the deal.  The tripot was easy.

Sep 15 - Some axles came in

I got some axles in today.  The G6 ones.  I also got the axle nuts.  A plug for the transmission so I can add fluid now. 

Won't get to work on it any until Friday (if I'm that lucky).  So I'll have the other axles (the S10 Blazer ones) by then so I can start working on axle lengths and such. 

I'll also have my new 3D printer in here too.  So I can start to get good with that thing and begin some smaller parts.  Maybe work my way up to making my own intake for the vaporizer.  :-D

Sep 3 - Motor is finally in!!!

I'm so proud to say that I have the motor in the car now.  Of course there is a ton more to do, but at least I finally got it to fit in.  I'll have to go back and weld in more metal where I had to remove a good bit, but I'm on my way now.  So crucial getting past this step as it was holding up so much other progress that could have been made but was unable due to not knowing where things would go relative to where the motor/transmission were going to be.  Here's a few pics of it in there.

Aug 23 - Finally! An update!

Man it has been a long time now.  Life happens.  Things need done more than spending time on the build.  Anyhow.  Here is what has transpired over the last couple of weeks.

I've got the motor/tranny on the cradle up onto the front mount locations and started working on rotating the bottom up into place so I could see how much metal had to make way for my motor to get in there.  It was a lot.  A lot of metal needed removed to just have a good look at it.

Once I did that, I found out that this isn't going to work where it sits on the the cradle.  Now way around it.  Unless I want to seriously cut away my shock tower within an inch of its life.  So now that I've done all that you'll see in the pics below, I now have to go back to square one and pull the engine/tranny from the cradle and start over on it's location on the cradle.  Before I actually measure everything, by a quick look, it looks like a full inch forward of where it is (maybe an inch and a half).  And as far left as I can afford without hacking up the other side of the car any more than I have already.  Meaning that I don't want the left side to look like the right side does now.  You'll see what I mean.  :-)

The throttle body and water pump isn't going in there as is.

The tranny output looks good where it is, but it must go forward due to the other side.

May 3 - Starter complete

With the option of shimming the starter for deeper engagement, the starter is now installed 100%.  I had to cut a big chunk of the adapter plate out of the way to clear the starter for engagement.  I didn't realize in the previous update that I was actually putting the starter in a bind when I had bolted it up.  So now the piece is cut, the starter sits in there with its tight tolerances but clears everything and now engages nicely too.

Here are a couple of pics (they are hard to get good ones in there, lighting is always not good), and I tried out the flash.

Apr 25 - Starter installed

I will have to pull the transmission to get a 100% verify before engagement, but it looks like the starter is installed properly now.  I don't think it would be an Archie approved install, but it looks plenty solid.  I was worried about flexing and starter engagement getting hosed, but once I worked out a good spacer, those fears subsided.

I took Archie's block that is meant to move the starter to his adapter plate.  And I did do that.  But the depth wasn't working out for me.  So I cut that down and used that cut part to be a spacer for my starter to mount properly.  This will make more sense when I take more pictures with the transmission off of it.  but you'll see in the pictures that I do have that there is a spacer between Archie's mounting block and my starter's mounting plate.  I also have pics of the stock starter and the one I used.

I used this Jeg's Pro Start'r as I already had it on this motor.  I did have to get another stock oil pan as my after-market one was too big and wouldn't allow the starter to sit on the "wrong" side of the motor.

Had to cut a notch into the transmission so I could work a wrench on the nut for the top bolt where the block mounts to the adapter plate.

Also, trying to get a stock starter to mount up on the "wrong" side meant that it had to be mounted at about a 45 deg angle.  That wasn't working out.  So I used the starter I had (the stock one will go back to the guy I got it from).  And I'll pay for the oil pan I got from him and be selling my over sized  triple barn door oil pan with scraper that was on my LT1.  I knot they're a lil over $300 new.  I'll put mine up on eBay.