quote Originally posted by Bloozberry: Hey! Your thread finally found a new home in the Construction Zone! Long overdue if you ask me

Glad I could help.
For now, the threads need to be 'nominated' and worthy of the section for Cliff to move them here, as described at the top of the forum. So if you see a good build thread that isn't here yet, send a simple PM and it'll probably be moved.

Now that Will's car is (finally!) running (again!) and mine is almost complete (until the next mod gets installed anyway) and soon to be back home from the Haus of Guru, it's time to think about vids of mountain runs.
I just need to throw together a solid camera mount for MIDTRBO.

------------------

'88 Fiero GT - Project MIDTRBO
'10 Camaro LT/RS
There's no replacement for turbo placement

Mountain runs need to wait until the weather warms up.

I put the oil filter back on and took the car for a spin Sunday night. I went down to a shopping center in the next town and turned around. As I was getting back on the highway, I was behind some WWD Ford thing. I moved over to the right lane and punched it in 2nd and it broke loose. Caveats: very cold pavement, salt on the road, yadda yadda... but it *DID* break loose from a roll in 2nd

The prescribed method of cleaning the filter is to spray brake cleaner from the inside out.

When I changed the break-in oil, I found the moly disulfide grease shown above in the oil filter. I tried lacquer thinner, brake cleaner and a trip through the dishwasher, but those methods were not effective. I finally scrubbed it with dish soap, hot water and a tooth brush to remove enough that I was comfortable reinstalling the filter. Brake cleaner may be good for later oil changes, but maybe not so much for the first when the oil is full of assembly lube.

I also replaced the front main seal, which was leaking between the seal OD and the front cover. I permatex'd the OD of the new seal. It hasn't yet accumulated enough run time to check that again.
Obviously for the front main to be replaced, the balancer must be removed. I reinstalled the balancer and tightened to the torque spec from the '97 manual that I have: 37 ftlbs + 120 degrees. For '95 or '96 the balancer bolt was reduced from 18 mm to 14 mm. The torque spec only changed from 43 ftlbs + 120 to 37 ftlbs. This seemed a little weird to me, but 'tev. The balancer clamps a sleeve that drives the oil pump. The sleeve has flats that provide a positive drive for the oil pump, but the crank only drives the sleeve via the clamp load from the balancer.

I was concerned that something was screwed up when I tried to restart the engine. I unplugged power to the coil pack and cranked. I cranked for a series of intervals which eventually led to the audible slowing of cranking speed, but did not result in an oil pressure indication. I put the battery on the charger for a few hours, came back and tried again. I crank continuously and after what seemed like an eternity, it did build oil pressure. I started it up and the oil pressure was fine. It was actually a bit higher than it had been before the oil change, indicating to me that the filter had been a bit clogged with break in debris and assembly lube. That's why I paid so much for the dern filter! Keep the crap out, yet still flow enough to allow me to run the engine hard without lifting the bypass valve.

Cliff Notes: in the bitter cold after sitting with an empty sump for 3 or more weeks, it can be hard to prime a Northstar.

[This message has been edited by Will (edited 12-21-2010).]