Northstar rebuild: Will style (Page 106/119)
La fiera OCT 21, 11:56 PM
Sorry about your roomate Will!
Will OCT 25, 12:04 PM

quote
Originally posted by La fiera:

Sorry about your roomate Will!



Thanks! He was office mate... only knew him from work, though.
Will OCT 25, 12:05 PM
Here is how the injectors fit without the clips



Here's that stupid pipe plug



And why I can't use an external hex plug in that location



Of course I flaked on getting a photo of the assembled waterpump drive.

Also, I snagged a 3.91 F40 from a '03-'04 Saab late last year... it's been kicking around the back of my van in a tote for months and months. I finally verified the ratios and dropped it into "storage" next to my '09 Saab F40 with High Feature V6 bellhousing. My aim is to snag an '07 G6 F40 and merge it with the 3.91 F40 to build The Mule's eventual transmission. The '09 Saab trans will get married up to a LLT of LFX to be ready for... something. It has MU9 gearing, so I'd love to get an MT2 0.62 sixth for it.

I was surprised to find that it looks like this box has a Torsen or similar diff.



And now the main event.

With the waterpump drive finished, I've done the last of the "easy stuff". The remaining knick-knacks will take a little more time to solve, so I went ahead and moved the engine to the car.







Of course *AFTER* I had moved the engine out of the QC lab, I realized I didn't have the Cometic box in the ensemble. These photos may give the impression that I used Fel-Pro head gaskets, which I may have to take pains to correct.

Also, the discussion of Northstar weight is over









Knick-knacks not present in the weighed configuration:

  • Throttle body
  • Throttle body adapter [MAKE]
  • Ignition coils, brackets [MAKE] & wiring
  • Tensioner, idler pulleys & new idler bracket [MAKE]
  • Injector wiring (?)


I generally don't include the main harness as a part of the engine, so I wouldn't put main harness weight in with engine weight. There's probably a case for injector wiring to be part of engine weight, since the injector harness, like the valley harness, has a production break separating it from the main harness.

The final weight should come in ~375-380#, but I'll most likely have to arrive at that figure via analysis, by weighing all those parts and adding up the numbers.
Will OCT 27, 09:21 AM

quote
Originally posted by ericjon262:
Picture isn't perfect, but provides some view of the connectors.





It looks like the D581 or D580 are the ones that could work well for packaging.
Searching for 12563293 on Rock turns up D585's, which is kinda weird. Searches for all other PNs and model numbers return the expected results.

I checked out Summit as well as Rock and found something interdasting:



Horry Shiet, I don't have to MAKE coil stacking hardware.
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/icb-551532
This is similar to FieroGuru's method of building his coil packs.

The kit appears to be pictured with D514A's. I @$$ume that D580's will work. Summit has Delphi D580 coils for $38/each. Rock has them for $35 each. I'm already putting together a decent sized Rock order for rear brakes for the Benz, so I might as well throw the coils in with that order. Since the Benz is due for rear brakes, I'm swapping it from the solid rear rotors that were standard on the V6 and diesel cars to the vented rear rotors that Benz used on the V8 and AWD cars.

I'll spec out the ICT pack vs. the NorthStar coil pack baseplate and see if I can fit two of those packs on the baseplate in order to run 8 LS coils or if I want to re-use the '06 NorthStar coil pack on the rear bank.

The rear cam cover has all sorts of little bolt holes and bosses to which I can screw down a coil mounting plate. The front cam cover has nothing. The result is that I have to use coils and wires for the front bank, while I can use coil-on-plug hardware on the rear bank.

[This message has been edited by Will (edited 10-27-2021).]

Will OCT 29, 11:23 AM
Sinister confirms that the dwell tables for the D580 and D514A are significantly different. I can't mix/match, so I'll go with the D514A since it's a newer better design than the D580. The D514A was used on C6 and C7 Corvettes from 2005 to 2019. That's a pretty impressive run, so it must be a good unit.

Of course now that I have 4x D580's on order from Rock for test fitting, I'll have to return those and order 8x D514A's. NGK makes a version that I'll probably snag just because I have NGK plugs.

I just realized I need to have him snag the cylinder-by-cylinder fuel trims from a '95-'99 Caddy and compare them to the '06+ Caddy cylinder-by-cylinder trims.
zkhennings NOV 02, 09:27 AM
That self fusing tape is really cool, do you have a link to what you are using? That N* is pretty light!
Will NOV 02, 10:25 AM
The crane was tagged out last weekend, so I didn't get anything done involving lifting the engine.

So I caught up on some admin and other lower priority necessities

The mods I made to the water log netted almost a pound. If I cut down the EGR cooler lobe, it would have been a pound.



Weight is weight; weight reduction is weight reduction



The prototype TOB holder ended up a little small across the throw out finger notches. This allows it to rotate between the throw out fingers more than it should be able to, which messes up snug clearances to Getrag case features. Spec is 2.670.





The original bearing developed some roughness over the course of development, so I had to test the "removal access" holes to use in driving the bearing off so I could replace it with the spare I ordered. R&R were surprisingly easy.



Stock vs dual disk unit



Easiest Install-for-Flight ever!



Also fitted the "These are definitely coolant" 120 degree lime green elbows from SamCo, along with the HPS black 90 degree elbow on the brake booster vacuum connection. These will get aluminum hose couplers from Pegasus Auto Racing and Gates shrink tube hose clamps. I'll start off with regular heater hose to connect to the engine and get the lengths right, then possibly switch over to green or clear silicone hose at some point in the future, after I've been driving the car for a while.
Will NOV 02, 10:30 AM

quote
Originally posted by zkhennings:

That self fusing tape is really cool, do you have a link to what you are using? That N* is pretty light!



This is the specific product I bought: https://store.mocap.com/xtape_en/

Yes, the Northstar is wonderfully light! The die-cast block has very thin sections in non-structural locations. Nylon manifold, magnesium valve covers, stamped laminated steel front cover instead of a casting... there's a LOT of flagship level engineering in it to keep it light weight and quiet with a low parts count.

[This message has been edited by Will (edited 11-02-2021).]

Will NOV 09, 09:19 AM
I had a social life last weekend, so I hardly got anything done on the car.

I did get to pick up the next rev of the accessory bracket and test fit



It's touching the lobe of the front cover in the middle, but all the mounting bolts still go in. I'll figure out exactly where it needs to be clearanced, do some grinding and update the design next weekend.

The extra bolt hole in the upper right is for the alternator and the extra bolt hole at the bottom is to relocate the stock idler. The extra hole at the top is for the anti-rotation pin for the tensioner, but that's not it's final location.
I need to test fit the alternator and idler, as well as measure how proud the surface of the bracket is from the surface of the front cover so I can verify my idea for a second idler mount will work.
I also need to figure out where the final location for the tensioner's anti-rotation pin is going to end up.

Because I have not completed the accessory drive, I have not pressed the balancer on and installed the balancer bolt--just in case the front cover needed to come back off. However, I'm going to have to do that before I install the transmission, as there's not a good way to hold the crank to torque the bolt once the transmission is installed. I guess that means I need to install the balancer "at risk" next weekend. Pulling the balancer isn't *that* big a deal, but I'd been treating installing a balancer as one of the "not going back" milestones in the WBS.
Will NOV 22, 09:53 AM
Weekend before last, I did a smidge of checking on the accessory bracket. I need to take more measurements to complete the design.

My alternator mount hole is a little bit off.



A 0.005 feeler gauge stops here and doesn't go in from the other side, so that tells me about which direction I need to move the arc in the part.



I modified the oil filter adapter again, of course realizing the need for this mod AFTER I had it anodized.
I hooked up shop air to blow out the hole continuously during the milling & tapping operations to keep the inside of the part clean.



I had to set up some Rube Godlberg fixturing, including blocking off the block port in order to make sure all the compressed air went out the port I was machining instead of rushing by it, creating a venturi pump that pulled chips INTO the part.



Result:





The elbow is a 3/8 NPT male to 1/4 NPT female street el, which is the most compact arrangement possible. This particular part I had previously modified by running the pipe die a little further down it. This actually made it a little small for the size the oil filter adapter port ended up. I ordered another elbow, so theoretically the fresh elbow will work fine, as I appear to have plenty of clearance for the socket to install the Aurora oil pressure sender/switch.



Last weekend I did some leak-finding on my roof, and didn't get a lot done on the car.

I decided that I'm better off completing the first water manifold that I thought I ruined vs. making a multi-piece throttle adapter... So I did the first ops on that.



I still need to drill the hole in the upper radiator connection neck for the Mishimoto weld-on fill port... and order another fill port. The new thing I need to do is mill a pocket around the slot, then fit a lid for that slot, then have the lid welded into place. I also left one of the EGR valve mounting bolt holes, as it doubles as a support for the fuel rail where the fuel lines connect to the rail... probably useful to keep.