Trinten's SBC/F23 build - The work has begun! (Page 6/76)
fieroguru SEP 03, 01:57 PM
Here are some of the pics. Notice the boss and the crank position sensor have been clearanced slightly. If you are using one of the crate motor covers, there isn't a crank sensor, but the boss is still there. You could fill up the sensor hole with epoxy and then clearance it alot more:




Here is the 1/4" spacer:


To clear the frame rail, I tapered the machined step between the hub and outer ring and even then it was tight.. :
Trinten SEP 03, 03:04 PM
WOW! You aren't kidding about it being a tight fit!!

I sent that post along to him. Hopefully it'll do it. I'm not sure what else he could do besides see if he can put my old timing cover on the new engine - which to my knowledge had no place to put a sensor... which obviously would be an issue when I went to EFI. lol

Thanks Guru!!
fieroguru SEP 03, 03:31 PM
My concern with having a shop inexperienced with SBC/Fiero swaps do the work is they might have moved the entire engine/tranny too far to the driver side and created the opportunity to bottom out the driver side tripod.

When I setup my SBC fiero originally, to set the side to side engine/tranny position I ran the driver side suspension from full droop to full compression to find the placement that caused the axle to bind... then backed it off about 3/16" to account for some suspension bushing flexing. Ran that setup for many years and lots of miles issue free with the convetional timing cover. All the work above was needed to retrofit the plastic cover to this setup and engine placement while keeping the balancer within the frame rails... so if the passenger frame rail hasn't been notched, and your unmodified balancer sticks out further than mine... then your tranny is probably further to the driver side and closer to or at the point of axle binding. Have them pull the driver side spring and cycle the suspension while rotating the wheel by hand and see if you feel it binding.

If it binds, there are a couple options. 96 Corsica 4T60 Passenger axle is about 1 1/4" shorter than the fiero DS axle (your tranny is probably about 1" over) and is a plug n' play setup once the ABS ring is knocked off. Or you could take the fiero axle and reposition the snap rings (and cut the excess off). On the passenger side you could run a 1/4" spacer between the axle and the wheel bearing (some of the Held stuff does this)... or run an intermediate shaft combo.
Trinten SEP 03, 03:41 PM
Your username is well earned....

The swap was originally done by Archie, that was with the previous owner though, and I never looked to see if anything had been notched out. So I'm not sure how much can actually change when just swapping out one 350 for another (hell, could be worlds of things, I will admit I simply don't know). I did send Joe a link to your last post, see what he comes up with. I'm planning on going out there tonight, see if there's anything I can do to help.

At least now I know there are more options for creating more room if needed!! Thank you!
Trinten SEP 04, 01:18 AM
Alright, Joe decided to just swap the timing covers, it was easier to do for now since I'm not going to be getting to my EFI for at least six months.

He pointed out something interesting to me though, the car had a mechanical water temp sensor that ran off the top of the block, the gauge was in the trunk. The temp sensor in the car worked as well, but it was always significantly lower - 50 or so degrees difference. I always thought that the one in the car was reading the temp from the radiator - Joe corrected me and showed me where the other sensor was plugged into the side of my old SBC, and couldn't explain the temp reading difference.

He isn't sure if it was just a bad sensor, or if it's just not the right sensor. To get the proper water temp inside the car, which water jacket should the sensor be plugged into, and what does the sensor look like / make-model number?

Thanks guys!

Edit - the sensor that was in the side (the one feeding the gauge in the car) says "HS 125 CM 12v 1969" on it, if that's any help.

[This message has been edited by Trinten (edited 09-04-2010).]

Trinten SEP 04, 02:36 AM
Damnit, and now we discovered that my throttle cable is about three threads away from snapping.

How long is the 86' GT throttle cable? Adanve Auto has some GM throttle cables of various lengths.

http://shop.advanceautopart...hTerm=throttle+cable

Just need to know which one I should get. I want to try to get this tomorrow (Saturday, so today?) instead of waiting for it from the Fiero store. Thanks!
Jncomutt SEP 04, 03:14 AM
I'm pretty sure I have a used V6 throttle cable, if that's what is used on the V8 swaps. I have to double check its condition, but if its decent I can bring it by Joe's shop. Does $30 sound fair?
Trinten SEP 04, 07:04 AM
Sounds great to me!

And yes, as far as I can tell the original throttle cable was used. I found a really great .doc file in google on how to get the bastard out, and it was just like it said (well, on the interior side anyway, as it was already disconnected from the engine).

Unfortunately, the little damn black push-tab things were a ***** to get off and I cracked my until-then-mint console "skeleton".

I'm planning on being back up there today. What time did you want to drop it off? Or I can just paypal you the money, whatever works for you. The dead one is next to the car still if you want to make sure it's the same thing.

Thanks man!!
Jncomutt SEP 04, 03:52 PM
I dropped that throttle cable off at the shop this morning for ya...
fieroguru SEP 04, 06:03 PM

quote
Originally posted by Trinten:

Alright, Joe decided to just swap the timing covers, it was easier to do for now since I'm not going to be getting to my EFI for at least six months.

He pointed out something interesting to me though, the car had a mechanical water temp sensor that ran off the top of the block, the gauge was in the trunk. The temp sensor in the car worked as well, but it was always significantly lower - 50 or so degrees difference. I always thought that the one in the car was reading the temp from the radiator - Joe corrected me and showed me where the other sensor was plugged into the side of my old SBC, and couldn't explain the temp reading difference.

He isn't sure if it was just a bad sensor, or if it's just not the right sensor. To get the proper water temp inside the car, which water jacket should the sensor be plugged into, and what does the sensor look like / make-model number?

Thanks guys!

Edit - the sensor that was in the side (the one feeding the gauge in the car) says "HS 125 CM 12v 1969" on it, if that's any help.




You only need the plastic timing cover with the crankshaft sensor if you want to run OBDII efi (like the 411 ecm). You can run EFI in OBDI format w/o any need for that timing cover.

Fiero temp guages are far from accurate. Unless you have fixed it, the temp guage pegs during bulb test. All this pegging over the years can allow the needle to walk backwards (read lower) over time or even come off completely. If this is the cause of the low reading, then you could gently pull the needle, let the engine get up to a known accurate temp that is easy to see on the fiero guage (like 220 degrees) and then put the needle back on so it reads right at that temp. A simple rewire will fix the bulb test issue so it will not go off again.

It is possible you have a temp sensor with the wrong range, they are fairly cheap to pickup at any parts store for the year of the fiero and original engine.

The sensors can be in either head or up close to the thermostat housing... it isn't that critical, but I normally avoid puting a sensor on the rear facing bank (cylinders 2,4,6,8) because I do not want to see it or the wire that connects to it. Just part of my finicky nature I guess.