Northstar rebuild: Will style (Page 109/119)
Will JAN 19, 12:29 PM
Lol... So timing! Such wow!

I've been dorking around with trying to get a DBW throttle to fit the '95-'99 manifold. I've been looking at both a 78mm 6-wire LS4 throttle and a 80mm 6-wire '04-'06 LH2 RWD NorthStar throttle. The bolt patterns are different, so the Northstar throttle does not just bolt up to the Northstar manifold. Naturally I favor the 80mm throttle over the 78mm throttle. The manifold opening is ~79mm... I need to do a little arithmetic to see how the area blocked by the throttle shaft relates to the difference in area between the 80mm opening and 79mm opening.

I've tried several different orientations & configurations... it's just been slow going because I have to either modify the current prototype throttle adapter or make a new prototype in order to check a different orientation. The clearances are tight enough in enough places that I need to be able to bolt it on an check. Holding it up and looing at it doesn't get precise enough.

This is the only angle at which the LH2 throttle works, due to the relationship of the two bolt patterns. Note that I have the first modified water manifold here, with the intact coolant lobe. This is the '04-'06 LH2 RWD throttle. The lower left bolt hole on the throttle needs to rotate just enough to clear the counterbore for the bolt that holds the plate to the manifold.



I inspected my second modified water manifold more closely and the wall separating the coolant to the block and the coolant from the cylinder head kicks over where it's below the "lobe". This means that the passage flow area stays sort of constant through the area with the lobe, which forces some of the coolant flow up into the lobe. This is good from a heat exchange perspective, but not good if you cut the lobe off and intend to weld a lid on in its place, as that reduces the flow area of coolant to the right/rear bank. Suck. That means I probably should not be cutting that lobe off. I'd rather find that out now than when I get it to a track day and don't have enough cooling.
Will JAN 20, 01:33 PM
Ordered custom plug wires from Magnecor today. They're working up a quote and will get back to me.
The lower row of coils goes to the front bank with 45 degree boots at the coil. The upper row of coils loops around and goes to the rear bank with 90 degree boots. Hope that doesn't blow too many minds over there.
Trinten JAN 20, 07:39 PM
Nice. I've read really good things about their wires. I wound up ordering a set of Taylor 409 wires for two reasons, first being the guy doing all the important work on my car and races uses them and said 'get these', and two, Magnecor (at the time) was note offering 10+mm wires. I trust your commentary / data based approach to this stuff, so when you get your wires, if you don't mind doing an Ohms test on them and when it's all running, let us know if you have any issues, it would be appreciated!

The Taylors have an average amount of resistance, but I've read this also prevents/reduces the chance of EM noise causing issues with other electrical items. One thread I read ran into an issue with EM noise from their wires messing with their FAST system. The FAST guy told them to get an old school radio and tune it to a dead station before starting the care to help look for EM noise, and that's how they found the problem. Crazy.
pmbrunelle JAN 21, 06:50 PM
Since spark plug wires are considered "wear parts", do you order more than one set?

********************************************************************************


quote
Originally posted by Trinten:
The Taylors have an average amount of resistance, but I've read this also prevents/reduces the chance of EM noise causing issues with other electrical items. One thread I read ran into an issue with EM noise from their wires messing with their FAST system. The FAST guy told them to get an old school radio and tune it to a dead station before starting the care to help look for EM noise, and that's how they found the problem. Crazy.



A spark gap is a bit of a weird thing... it has high resistance, but once the voltage is high enough to establish an arc, the plasma is more conductive, so resistance is reduced. The negative resistance of the spark gap can cause oscillations of voltage and current (i.e. radio waves).

Back in the day, the first radio transmitters were based on spark gaps.

By adding positive resistance in the wire and/or spark plug, the coil/wire/plug system is damped enough so these unwanted oscillations are suppressed.

[This message has been edited by pmbrunelle (edited 01-21-2022).]

Will JAN 21, 09:13 PM

quote
Originally posted by pmbrunelle:

Since spark plug wires are considered "wear parts", do you order more than one set?




If the engine lasts that long, it'll be time to upgrade either to something with coil on plug ignition or to a Tesla Model S Plaid.
La fiera JAN 23, 07:21 PM

quote
Originally posted by Trinten:

Nice. I've read really good things about their wires. I wound up ordering a set of Taylor 409 wires for two reasons, first being the guy doing all the important work on my car and races uses them and said 'get these', and two, Magnecor (at the time) was note offering 10+mm wires. I trust your commentary / data based approach to this stuff, so when you get your wires, if you don't mind doing an Ohms test on them and when it's all running, let us know if you have any issues, it would be appreciated!

The Taylors have an average amount of resistance, but I've read this also prevents/reduces the chance of EM noise causing issues with other electrical items. One thread I read ran into an issue with EM noise from their wires messing with their FAST system. The FAST guy told them to get an old school radio and tune it to a dead station before starting the care to help look for EM noise, and that's how they found the problem. Crazy.



I use MSD 8.5mm Super conductor universal 50ohms per foot and haven't had an EM problem.
Taylor 409 8.0mm has 350ohms per foot
Will FEB 02, 08:24 AM

quote
Originally posted by Will:

This is the only angle at which the LH2 throttle works, due to the relationship of the two bolt patterns. Note that I have the first modified water manifold here, with the intact coolant lobe. This is the '04-'06 LH2 RWD throttle. The lower left bolt hole on the throttle needs to rotate just enough to clear the counterbore for the bolt that holds the plate to the manifold.






I tried my prototype throttle adapter with this orientation/position last weekend. It was really close, but I also screwed up the position of the bore on the intake manifold pattern a little bit. Fixing that problem *should* allow everything to work right... The updated part has been lasered. I need to drill, counterbore and tap all the holes required, then test fit it.

I'm also doing some structural work to my house this weekend, so it's going to be busy.
Will FEB 06, 07:15 PM
FINALLY got the adapter plate to work with one of the throttles. :-D :Yahoo!: :good:



OMGWTF



Plug wires and a throttle!



Plug wire routing



Magnecor even shrink tubed their logo and CYLINDER NUMBES on the coil end boots!



NEXT:

=>Accessory drive bracket:
I have the next rev of that with the laser peeps, but won't be able to mess with it until 2/19. The accessory drive is low priority, because I can move it from borrowed shop space to my dad's house on a battery if I have to.

=>Touch up the oil filter adapter pipe boss:
Since it's a little crooked and not quite deep enough, I probably get ONE revolution of the 3/8" pipe tap to fix it.

=>Positive terminal junction:
I'm going to modify the PS pump mount as I've discussed previously. That will let me integrate the alternator cable with the harness so that the engine only needs to be hooked up at the +12V junction block and ground.

=>Wiring:
==>Snag damaged Fiero engine bay harness & disassemble
==>Build wire list from documentation that Ryan sent
==>Place order with Ballenger or similar for terminals, connectors & wire
==>Build harness!
zkhennings FEB 09, 05:34 PM
Very nice progress. Ballenger sells a GM style (maybe GM) fast response IAT sensor that I ordered at the same time as all my plugs and pins. Check out wirebarn.com for very well priced wire in usable amounts if you need any. Also Eaton Bussman fuse/relay blocks can consolidate all your needs into one small weatherproof solution. You may have solutions for all of these things/know this all already but in case my research can be useful, these are the products I have selected.
Will FEB 28, 11:34 AM
Knocking things off the to-do list...

Here's the ongoing, but fairly straightforward development of the accessory drive bracket:







I'm relocating the idler pulley slightly



And will be popping the tensioner in up here, but not at this angle



I schwacked the power steering pump bracket from this:



Down to this:



And here's how it fits:



And the engine with these small things on the front:



I also pulled off the oil filter adapter... again... and re-re-re-re-tapped the oil pressure sender/switch port to make sure it is straight and the correct depth to keep the fitting tight to the adapter. As noted above, I need to figure out a fitting tree to get the oil pressure transducer installed, but that shouldn't be too bad.



I'd never used a tap guide before, but it worked and with results that surprised me. I guess it's a tool on the market because it works. My dad's tools don't always work, though.





I turned the tap liiiiiiiterally 1 revolution at a time in between test fits of the reducer elbow fitting w/ Aurora oil pressure sender. I worked it down to the depth I thought was good and thought I'd done a good job. I had been noticing that it seemed to take a lot of angular movement beyond hand tight in order to get the reducer elbow to tighten up. I was putting the tap away in the box I got it from and noticed it was labeled 3/8-18 NPSF. S? S?!? Oh GDMF F@#$% sunnova... :bad:

I snagged the correct NPTF tap, ran it in ONE more revolution and re-installed the fitting. There's exactly ONE thread of the fitting still out of the boss. I had to remove the oil pressure sender in order to run the reducer elbow all the way in, since it was so close that the sender hit a feature on the filter adapter. It tightened up enough that it should seal just fine, and it snug, square and straight, so I'm done with it... especially since doing anything else would require buying a new filter adapter from GM. If I can't get this joint to seal, then I'll think about that. It's good enough to get the engine running and wheels turning.

[This message has been edited by Will (edited 03-01-2022).]