ecotec swap (Page 93/98)
wftb OCT 31, 10:22 AM



Everything fits in under the grills and decklid.
wftb OCT 31, 10:27 AM
Took the car for a few drives and kept checking things over every once in a while and discovered that the lower shock mount on the passenger side had developed a bend to it. Every time I came back to the garage I had to adjust the spring on that side to keep it the same as the drivers side. Then I noticed the downward bend on the plate. Took the lower control arm off and hammered it back to shape and added a piece of angle steel underneath to keep it stiff and that solved the problem.

The car rides a bit smoother, no more thumping so the basic design is sound but it needs some fine tuning. The preload on the passenger side is a little over an inch while the drivers side is only 1/2". But the drivers side is heavier than the passenger side so that seems strange to me. And the bending on the passenger side has not occurred on the drivers side. I am going to brace it the same way just in case but there is also something else out of wack. I am going to drive it up on my ramps so I can crawl under and check the arm angles to make sure they are the same. My best guess is that the lower shock mounts are not quite the same side to side, causing the travel distance of the shocks to be differrent. One of the upper control arms will need to have it's mounting tabs cut off and moved i think. I am keeping a close eye on the upper bolt on mounts to make sure they dont bend and so far they look ok. So a bit more work to get it right, but not a big deal.

[This message has been edited by wftb (edited 03-30-2020).]

wftb NOV 03, 09:57 AM
Everything is the same side to side except for the position of the upper arm shock mounts as I suspected. The passenger side is a little more inboard than the drivers side, and a bit closer to the mounting plate. Nothing major and because I want to continue to drive the car until the snow flies, I am going to fix it when I put the car away for the winter.
wftb NOV 04, 01:35 PM
I was looking through this thread trying to find the weight of the car the last time I had it on the scales at the local landfill. I guess I didn't post it here but weighed at the 30th it was 2790 lbs. then I weighed it in 2017 at the landfill and it was down to 2746 lbs. Today I weighed it at the landfill and with the recent changes to the intercooler setup it now weighs 2682 lbs. So the weight is down by 108 lbs since I first got it weighed. All weights are with a full tank of gas and me not in the car. The intercooler changes lost 64lbs alone. The steering has noticebly less effort required now, but maybe my new steering wheel has a bigger diameter?
longjonsilver NOV 07, 08:31 AM

quote
Originally posted by wftb: Today I weighed it at the landfill and with the recent changes to the intercooler setup it now weighs 2682 lbs. So the weight is down by 108 lbs since I first got it weighed. All weights are with a full tank of gas and me not in the car. The intercooler changes lost 64lbs alone. The steering has noticebly less effort required now, but maybe my new steering wheel has a bigger diameter?



Your weights are really getting down there. i wonder how your car compares to mine? My steering effort is greater now that i have put in the three core radiator and the battery under the headlight, but the light front feeling at 140 km/h is now GONE. Well worth it.

jon

------------------
Astronomy says we will find a coded signal from outer space. Then we'll KNOW that life exists there, for coded signals aren't by chance.

Biology says there are coded genetic signals in every cell, but we KNOW that no intelligence created life.

I'm the original owner of a white ' 84 2M4 purchased Dec 10, 1983 from Pontiac. Always garaged, no rust, 4-wheel drifts are fun!

wftb NOV 07, 08:37 AM
If you live in a small town like we do usually the landfill operators don't mind weighing a car. I would be interested to see how my car compares to a stock 4cyl too. So called factory weights mean nothing because they are calculated without any fluids in the car.
wftb NOV 08, 10:59 PM
I moved the lower spring mounts on the passenger side and it reduced the preload about 1/4" of thread on the shock. Side to side, everything looks very close so I am calling that job done. It snowed 5" here last night, but I am going to keep driving the car if the snow melts. This time of year snow does not stick around here till december normally.

Some time over the winter I am going to swap my 20g turbo for the 16g I used to have on the car. I just think it is a better fit for the engine. It spools up faster and even at high speed in 5th gear it pulled hard. I bought the 20g as a package with the turbo manifold from Hahn racecraft and I should have bought the 16g version. And Hahn no longer makes the 16g version. So I need to make an adapter plate to make the old turbo work on the Hahn manifold. I do not even know if it will fit with an adapter plate on it but if it doesn't I will continue with the 20g.The old turbo with it's triangular turbine inlet:



It was easy to mount this to a stock ecotec exhaust manifold, just drill and tap some holes and bolt it on. The drawback to doing that is I had to use an oil evac pump to get the oil from the turbo in to the sump. And I got rid of all the stock manifolds I used to have. As far as I am concerned the 20g hangs down too far to get good return oil flow but with the big return line it does not seem to back up and leak. The old turbo seems fine, no slop and hopefully it has not developed any leaks from sitting for about 5 years or so. The downpipe mount I made a long time ago should work fine. In the spirit of not spending money this project should just cost me my time.
wftb NOV 28, 10:03 PM
Started working on mounting the 16G turbo this week and ran in to a few snags- Even though the turbo is physically smaller than the 20G, because of the shape of the turbine inlet and where the air feed and pressure outlet faces, it is impossible to hang it off the Hahn manifold the way the 20G is. So I laid out 120.00 cdn for some gaskets and flanges. Was hoping to not have to spend any money but best laid plans etc. Would have been a little cheaper but they only had stainless flanges in stock.



Tried to make a flange but it needed to have an oval shape and my jig saw just will not make a corner cutting 1/4" thick steel. Would have saved 65.00.



I probably could have carved it with my dremel and about 10 cutting wheels but I decided to use the stainless flange:





Yes the welds look terrible but i had to fill some large holes to get the oval pipe sealed in.I have to run a few more beads and then clean it up a bit with the grinder. On the inside I hope I can smooth things out without running any beads in there but we will find out tomorrow.

The plan is to run the turbo feed pipe in to the area where the intercooler sits now. The intercooler will be mounted down below, where most Fiero's have their cat convertors.
I have had it there before and it works well. I am feeding the turbo with 2" pipe, just slightly larger than the turbine inlet. At one time I had a remote turbo mounted under the remains of my trunk and I fed it with 2" pipe and it worked really well. But the hangers broke a lot and I did not like having to have an oil evac pump. I am hoping to be able to mount the piping for this setup completely on the engine, eliminating the need for flex joints and external hangers. Might not be possible but we will find out.
wftb DEC 01, 11:39 AM
My original plan to mount the turbo on the dirvers side of the engine bay was a total failure. First off I did not get the initial feeder tube right:



Call it the tube to no where, too low to connect to. While i was mulling over what to do about that, I held the turbo in the desired position and discovered that no matter which way I turned it, the hot side and the cold side outlets were pointing the wrong way. A new plan was needed and I figured some sort of short mount would work. Came up with this:



That almost worked, just needed the pipe cut on an angle to clear the axle and water pump plumbing. Finished turbo mount:



This mount does lower the oil outlet about 2 inches but with everything out of the way I can see there is a good drop to the oil pan.And lots of room to run all the plumbing and it will no longer take me 4 hours to take the turbo off if I need to.:



Now I need to order the Subaru gasket for the inlet to the turbo and I can start bolting things back on to the car.

wftb DEC 01, 09:22 PM


I bolted the adapter on to the manifold with the gasket I bought with the flange. I tightened the manifold nuts and cranked the adapter to manifold bolts up too. I do not plan to take those off anytime soon, the turbo is now removed by taking the three flange bolts off. The turbo is not tightened down as I still need the gasket. But I wanted to hang it and see what kind of room there is to fit things in. It is better than expected and as an added bonus the downpipe from the 20G turbo bolts right up to the 16G. Next step is to get the wastegate installed.