ecotec swap (Page 94/98)
wftb DEC 03, 09:51 PM


Turbo is ready for install now. Wastegate is on and setup and I welded up a pipe stub for one of the coolant feeds because the original tube was going in the wrong direction. Filled it up with hot water and did not see any leaks. No time tomorrow to work on it but on thursday I will bolt the turbo on and run the oil and coolant feeds and then put it up on the hoist and get the exhaust on.
cvxjet DEC 07, 12:03 AM
I was just reading your thread- Interesting read. I noticed the discussion you had about keeping weight down and especially off the tail for balanced handling. I came up with a way of mounting the stabilizer bars to get better turn-in with LESS DTO (Drop-throttle oversteer)

My car had the Fiero-Typical slow steering response and a small amount of DTO. If I tried to improve the turn-in response I would risk much worse DTO. By doing some creative mounting of my Stabilizer bars, I have extremely good turn-in response and almost no DTO......The car is basically "tossable" like a Front-engined car.....


Do a search for "My Stabilizer bar mounting Theories..." and see if it may help you....

[This message has been edited by cvxjet (edited 12-07-2019).]

wftb DEC 07, 02:41 PM
Yes I have read your thread about the stabilizer bars but I only run a sway bar in the front. I found that once I went to coilovers with 350lb springs ( my original strut/RCC rear suspension) there was not enough roll to worry about. As far as drop throttle oversteer, this car does not have that trait. In the rain or on a gravel road. That is because of the tire size differential between front and rear- 205/16 in the front and 245/16 in the back. All fastback gt's came with 205/215/15 front rear combos but all the old testing and videos I have watched showed that was not enough. I was going to go bigger front and rear when I bought my last set of tires but the sizes I wanted were not available in a 16" rim size.

Typically adding to the drop throtle oversteer problem is when these cars were fairly new most people did not stick to the recomended tire size, opting for the same size all the way around. So they can rotate the tires.

Thanks for the post have a good day.

[This message has been edited by wftb (edited 12-08-2019).]

wftb DEC 08, 05:57 PM
Ever since I swapped in the Ecotec back in 2007 I have wanted to remount the engine because it is not in the engine bay straight. I have not bothered because performance wise it affects nothing. But when I do a big project like changing the turbo and I strip everything away from the engine looking at it just bugs me. So today I decided to do something about it:

I cut up some wood to support the engine and then removed the bolts from the engine and transmision mounts and the dogbone. Then I pried the engine as straight as I could get it with a crow bar:



I raised it up using the dogbone mount underneath the drive pully:



So now it is as straight and level as I can make it. I will have to make a new upper engine mount, modify the transmission mounts and shift the dogbone mount but I am glad I finally made the effort to fix this.

[This message has been edited by wftb (edited 12-08-2019).]

wftb DEC 10, 05:05 PM
With all the shifting and straightening of the engine, I was a little worried that my axles would end up not plunging in and out properly. So I unbolted the spindle and pushed the axle in until it bottomed out and put a mark on the oilpan:



Now when I put the wheels back on I can check the axle with a glance. All the mounts are bolted back up now, had to drill new holes in the rear trans mount, slightly bend the front trans mount, drill new holes in the dogbane mount and cut off the upper engine mount and modify an old mount I had used before and weld that in.

][img]http://images.fieroforum.com/userimages/wftb/I MG_2540.JPG[/img]



I also had to put a small notch in the rear cradle cross member because it ended up in contact with the oil pan. Since I have already notched that crossmember once before, I am going to add a brace to stiffen it up a bit. Bit of project creep setting in here.

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

wftb DEC 13, 05:00 PM
Working on the exhaust now. Progress is a little slower than I would like because although I can reuse almost everything from the old setup, I had to cut off two of the flanges, clock them and weld them back on to get the cat away from the charge piping and the bottom of the trunk. I figured out a new to me way to keep tubes straight for welding:



I have always used a chunk of angle iron but with C clamps, very awkward. Using big gear clamps is super quick and easy.



The cat is in place now and everything up to it is welded up and one hanger bracket is installed. I like using the rubber donut style of hanger. No clumsy clamps and all you need is some solid rod to bend up and weld in place. The rest of the exhaust is almost done, I have to make another flange to bolt the tailpipe section to the cat and weld a bung in for the secondary O2 sensor in the tailpipe.

[This message has been edited by wftb (edited 12-13-2019).]

wftb DEC 15, 10:14 AM
[img]http://images.fieroforum.com/userimages/wftb/84CE1290-109 B-4C81-A8F3-EE0ECBD86829.jpeg[/img]

Exhaust is all welded up and hung. Have to take it off and put the gaskets in and a bit of clean up with a grinder and some paint. Have to do the turbo plumbing before I put it back on.
wftb DEC 15, 12:56 PM
Above post was first time using my phone. I don't know what happened to the third pic, but overall very easy. And my phone is kind of ancient so the fact it even worked is a bonus to me.
wftb DEC 23, 10:07 PM
Managed to get the charge pipe done, intake done and exhaust hung today. Started it up and got it warmed up and after changing out a short piece of heater hose I am happy there are no leaks. So tomorrow it goes in to the shed for the winter. All that is left is to tweek the tune a bit but do not have to do that now.




I reused the old coolant reservoir for the air to water IC system only now that the intercooler is down below where the cat used to be I could get rid of the extra piping and just use the white cap you see to top up the system. The tank also provides me a way to get the air out of the system and gives room for expansion. Looks much cleaner now.



------------------
86 GT built 2.2 ecotec turbo
rear SLA suspension
QA1 coilovers on tube arms

[This message has been edited by wftb (edited 12-23-2019).]

wftb DEC 23, 10:32 PM


Picture shows the new location of the heat exchanger and the pump. Got rid of a lot of tubing this way. The charge piping is longer now but I have had it this way before and did not notice any difference.