Northstar rebuild: Will style (Page 107/116)
Will NOV 29, 04:37 PM
I put this together over the weekend:



After I took the photo, I turned it in one more revolution and got a bit more clearance, although it was getting pretty tight. The perfectionist in me wants to pull the adapter back off and run the tap in one more revolution. The asymmetry of the material that tap's cutting caused it to go in at a slight angle ("up" in this photo) which reduces the socket's clearance to the mount bracket. Because a pipe tap is tapered, you can straighten it out after it gets started crooked. Straightening the tap would both give a little more clearance and be slightly less ghetto. Turning it in one more rev is necessary to straighten it and would give yet more clearance. I'll figure that out later, as it's good enough right now.

End of the elbow still well clear of the oil passage



Add the water manifold gaskets in and these will line up.



Clearance around the throttle body



But not quite enough
At this "orthogonal" upside down attitude, the throttle bore doesn't quite match up to the manifold bore. I can turn it slightly so that the end of the motor housing AND the cap of the motor housing both make contact and it looks like its *almost* perfect. I'd have to take the manifold down another 0.050-0.100 and make the adapter at a slight angle. I'm not sure I *can* take the manifold down that far without opening both coolant passages and welding the whole thing back together.
...although it might not be that much more effort compared to what I'm doing now... might be worthwhile.



Wanted to have an accurate setup to spot face the bolt holes



And take this bolt boss down to the level of the lower ones. Originally there are three lengths of bolt used on the water manifold. 1x short, 4x medium, 3x long. I can take this long boss down to medium, then use a spacer on the short bolt location to bring it up to medium. Then I'd need 6x medium and 2x long bolts... KISS



Final setup for milling the slot to weld up



The slot at 0.580 x 6.285

zkhennings DEC 01, 03:05 PM
Looking good! What is left to complete before the motor is ready?
Will DEC 01, 03:28 PM

quote
Originally posted by zkhennings:

Looking good! What is left to complete before the motor is ready?




=>Throttle adapter & water manifold
=>Accessory drive bracket
=>Coil pack build & custom plug wire order
=>Assemble engine & transmission to cradle
=>Build wiring harness

...and everything I forgot in that list
zkhennings DEC 01, 04:29 PM
Nice, doesn't seem too far away

Also:


quote
Originally posted by Will:

You must be talking about VW engines, because "200 lbs" certainly does not describe a Subaru engine.






I am not sure how much they weigh, but this fully assembled EJ205 bottom end might be lighter than the LZ9 crankshaft alone lmao.
Will DEC 02, 10:39 AM

quote
Originally posted by zkhennings:

Nice, doesn't seem too far away



It's only as far away as the level of detail in the to-do list



quote
Originally posted by zkhennings:



I am not sure how much they weigh, but this fully assembled EJ205 bottom end might be lighter than the LZ9 crankshaft alone lmao.



That's not an "engine", that's a bottom end
copperhens DEC 02, 10:42 AM
I love your progress updates! It keeps me inspired for my build. You are taking so much time on each step to make everything perfect.

Would you ever sell a modified waterlog? I would be interested because I also have a egr delete and your modification makes it much cleaner.
zkhennings DEC 02, 02:44 PM

quote
Originally posted by Will:


That's not an "engine", that's a bottom end



Very true! But I would wager that fully assembled it is in the 250# range!
Will DEC 05, 08:10 PM
I figured out the coil pack over the weekend, but I'm going to complain about the process anyway.

ICT Billet's LS coil mounting kit... Of course *AFTER* I see this, I check the applications list and ICT does not claim it fits 12573190 coils... despite the fact that those units were used on tens of millions of engines built from 2005-2019.



I fixed the end brackets



And then found a better way to mount the coils that eliminates use of the end brackets completely. The screws shown are just for trail fit and are not the final ones for this assembly.



The plate is the production Northstar coil pack base plate. It bolts directly to the rear bank cam cover with no extra effort. GM punched several holes in it when they stamped it, as you can see. Eight of those are "extruded holes" (e.g. https://www.unipunch.com/sy...done/extruded-holes/ ) into which GM would have installed 5mm self-threading screws to secure the original coils and ICM. I drilled them out slightly and tapped them M6x1.0, cut four of the 12 spacers from the ICT kit in half, then dropped the coils in place as shown above. The four stacks of two coils each look like they'll be only a smidge bulkier than the original coils pack, all the high voltage terminals will be on one side and all the electrical terminals will be on the other side. Too easy.

I did some fitting and futzing with the throttle, but then decided I needed to have it no kidding in position before I finalize mods to the water manifold, so I got started on the throttle adapter. This has the right bolt patterns, but since I don't know how to cut a circle using the ProtoTrak, I am leaving that to the professionals.

Will DEC 05, 08:12 PM

quote
Originally posted by zkhennings:


Very true! But I would wager that fully assembled it is in the 250# range!



Still not 200#.
Will DEC 05, 08:16 PM

quote
Originally posted by copperhens:

I love your progress updates! It keeps me inspired for my build. You are taking so much time on each step to make everything perfect.

Would you ever sell a modified waterlog? I would be interested because I also have a egr delete and your modification makes it much cleaner.



Thanks!
If I hadn't tried to get so much into this engine build, I'd have been driving the car by now...

Lemme get this water manifold and throttle figured out, then I'll feel like I understand the problem. Yes, I was definitely trying to get rid of all evidence of my EGR delete
So far it's a labor intensive process of manually cutting away what doesn't belong on the end product.