Northstar rebuild: Will style (Page 103/119)
Will AUG 10, 12:09 PM

quote
Originally posted by zkhennings:

Sweeet it's really coming together! How did the engine stand seem to handle the bolt and spacer extensions?



No problems. I already had thinner spacers on it because the lower left bolt location has a dowel as well, requiring the rest to be spaced to match the dowel.
zkhennings AUG 10, 01:31 PM
After getting accustomed to 4 cyl boxer motors on the engine stand that weigh barely over 200lbs and are as short as a 2 cylinder motor, the cantilever created by the LZ9 has me questioning the stand's capabilities, and that N* is a lot more motor. Good to know it can handle that, getting the flywheel and clutch assembled/disassembled on the stand would be very convenient.
Will AUG 10, 01:42 PM
You must be talking about VW engines, because "200 lbs" certainly does not describe a Subaru engine.

That's not a super high end engine stand, but it's a pretty nice stand. Note the gearbox and crank.
It's certainly possible to have an "imported" engine stand that would collapse with a Briggs & Stratton on it, but that's not this stand.

The LZ9 is a fairly light engine, and the Northstar is an EXTREMELY light engine... the engine and stand together were 375 lbs before I installed the clutch.

Also note that the engine can be on the stand with the clutch installed, but this particular clutch can not be installed on the stand due to the captive bolts coming through the flywheel from the engine side. A clutch mounted with bolts from the clutch side would be ok, though. Watch out for clearance to remove the clutch alignment tool.
zkhennings AUG 10, 02:57 PM
Wow including the stand? That's light. My original WRX EJ205 long block plus intake lived on my stand for a while and it was significantly easier to move around than with the LZ9 on it! I think Subaru motors are generally pretty light, the crank is the tiniest crank I have ever seen, and the block and heads are all aluminum. I would love to weigh the LZ9 while I have it out right now, gotta see if work has a hanging load cell I can borrow...
Will AUG 13, 11:47 AM

quote
Originally posted by zkhennings:

Wow including the stand? That's light. My original WRX EJ205 long block plus intake lived on my stand for a while and it was significantly easier to move around than with the LZ9 on it! I think Subaru motors are generally pretty light, the crank is the tiniest crank I have ever seen, and the block and heads are all aluminum. I would love to weigh the LZ9 while I have it out right now, gotta see if work has a hanging load cell I can borrow...



The horizontally opposed format does not package well for weight. A comparable 2.0, 2.2 or 2.5 inline 4 engine will typically be lighter than the H4 engine. Porsche loves to complicate things, but their H6's are typically as heavy as aluminum LS engines with twice the displacement... which makes the Porsche engines heavier than comparable aluminum v6 engines.

[This message has been edited by Will (edited 08-13-2021).]

Will AUG 16, 10:42 AM
I played in the less sexy side of hot-rodding last weekend... pulling old dirty components out of old high mileage cars in order to clean them up.

This is why we do those things, though; Factory epoxy coating had failed in a couple of spots, hidden by foam insulation:



These are the '85-'86 heater tubes that I installed in my '87 car because they work better with the Northstar than the '87-'88 heater tubes.



All four heater & A/C tubes:
I've been using a rattle can epoxy paint on the A/C tubes. While it's very resistant chemically, it chips easily. That's not really good for something that's going under a car, so I'm going to strip/blast the epoxy off and do clear POR-15 on all four.
I'd *LOVE* to anodize them, but I don't think it's practical.



Here are the '87-'88 fuel tank expansion volume vent tubes... I pulled them out to sand and paint as well. The bottom one is from the fuel tank to the expansion tank. The top one is from the expansion tank back across the engine bay to the charcoal canister. Ackshully... Once I remove the battery tray and switch to a compact battery, I can move the charcoal canister over to the right side of the engine bay and save the weight of these lines reaching from the right side of the car to the left just to deliver VOCs for combustion. Weight reduction is a game of ounces, not pounds.

How do I go about having bent tubes digitized? It would be fun to have these reproduced in stainless for a little deep engine bay bling.



And here's the expansion tank... Looking up in front of the right rear wheel house, with the plastic wheel well liner on the right



I also spent a couple of minutes with the last ICM baseplate in GM's inventory:

Coil mounting plate, right position (unlikely):



Coil mounting plate, left position (likely):



Now I need to get the correct LS coils and figure out how to mount them. If feasible, I want to reuse the Northstar coil harnesses... I *think* the car versions of the LS coils use the same connectors, but I need to spend time with photos to make sure.
There are six pairs of holes at the top/bottom edges of the plate visible. The middle pair in each trio is a simple pierced hole that's flat on the back. the other four pairs are pushed through--not sure what the correct terminology is for this process--to thicken the material around the hole, making it suitable to tapping or threading a screw into. These are the mounting holes for the original waste spark coils. I'll probably use them for LS coils once I figure out what kind of additional bracketry I'll need to package things elegantly.
La fiera AUG 19, 10:44 PM
Looking good Will!! When will it be running?
Will AUG 20, 10:06 PM

quote
Originally posted by La fiera:

Looking good Will!! When will it be running?
Trinten AUG 20, 10:42 PM
That picture made me laugh out loud and get creeped out. It's so perfect. I'm going to definitely use that at some point.
Will AUG 20, 11:03 PM

quote
Originally posted by Trinten:

That picture made me laugh out loud and get creeped out. It's so perfect. I'm going to definitely use that at some point.



Just google "soon meme"... there are LOTS to choose from!