Trinten's SBC/F23 build - The work has begun! (Page 73/74)
Trinten MAR 31, 08:57 AM
Thanks Larry!

I see I found this thread a few years ago and commented. I had completely forgotten about it. Thank you for reminding me. I will reach out to these guys as well.

The AFCO radiator I am using is 2 rows of 1" tubes, cross flow setup.

Thanks again!
Larryinkc MAR 31, 04:29 PM
I have a 180 degree thermostat and the highest engine temp I saw last summer was 190 in stop and go traffic with the AC on. I have the factory radiator fan and shroud, so far so good.
Trinten MAR 31, 11:17 PM
I talked with them today, it was a good conversation. Calling the number you had put in your post originally the gentleman there gave me the number to US Radiators parent company down the street, CGJ.

I called there, spoke with a pleasant woman named Tina. I told her what I had and the target power, she said it would likely need to be a completely custom setup. She said they could try building their standard depth radiator (3.25") using 1.5" tubes, and they could fit 7 of those in that setup. She also said they have a 5" deep unit that has 11 tubes, but also has larger tanks.

She asked for some numbers off of the stock Fiero core, and the math ran into some issues with the size of the tanks they use in both cases.

Because of this, she asked for me to do a little sketch and some dimensions and notes - I told her it would be amateur hour, and she laughed, saying they've seen things literally drawn on napkins. As long as their engineers can read my writing, they can use it to make a proper tech drawing and send it to me for review.

She did say that the rough estimate for the 3.25" deep radiator with those 1.5" tubes would be around $1000. The larger one wouldn't have a ballpark quote until they have my sketch.

So I'm working on my terribly amateur drawing and going to organize key notes in the margins, scan it and email it off with some pictures and additional commentary. We'll see what they come up with. They also offer fans and shrouds, though the ones they list (Some are by Spal) aren't pushing as much air as the Delta PAG fans.
Trinten APR 05, 11:43 PM
More puttering around today. I measured the lower quarter panel as I had an idea to save Mike a little work, and that was to get some air scoops of some kind. I found some that are 11x7x3.5 (the width of the opening is 11). They have a nice lip for riveting into place. It'll be a quick addition. We discussed doing it on both sides, and getting the biggest fluid cooler we could to fit into that new space, using the pinch-weld on the bulkhead curve of the back of the cabin as the intended mounting point.

The one I found that looks good (and has the appropriate -6 AN connectors on it already) is 11x6 and will fit in there okay. It's only 0.75" thick. I asked Mike if he wanted me to find a bigger one, and we'd have to do a reducer for the AN fitting (as the larger ones are using larger AN sizes, or other fittings entirely). He said maybe and to get some options together.

He's okay if the cooler is partially obstructed by the frame/bulkhead curve, we're going to try to position it so it extends out and fills in as much of the scoop as possible. On the passenger side will be the unit for the fuel, and on the driver side we're going to put a transmission cooler there, and take the one up front out of the 'stack' of coolers.

He said I shouldn't need to worry about getting ones with fans, since we'll have good air flow except when sitting still.

I might order the scoops now (and maybe sacrificial quarter panels from the Fiero Store), but I'll hold off on the coolers until he's done with his buddies Grand National and is able to work on my car again. I have a suspicion plans might change a little again after we get the scoop setups done. We'll see!

On the radiator side, Delta PAG is backordered on their NPT temp sender. They have a 'probe' option that would stick into the fins by the outlet tube but Mike would rather not use that style.

I need to finish up my terrible drawing and notes to send over to CGJ (US Radiator's parent company) so they can quote me on some options. This might make it work out about the fan. If the unit they make me is an 18" tall core, the 18" fan will be right at the edge of the radiator, which is both good from a coverage aspect, and not good from a mounting and shroud standpoint. So I'll wait to see what CGJ comes up with before I order the fan. They have a 16" one that also moves more CFM than Spal units I've looked at.

I swapped in my instrument cluster today, connecting just the C3 connector. Temp gauge still did nothing. Mike said "We ohm'd out the wire going to the connector." to which I replied "We ohm'd out A wire going to the connector. You had me look it up. I could have looked at the wrong diagram, who knows."

I found an article on FieroFocus on how to fix the "temp gauge needle pegging issue", and that article circled the wire position on the C3 connector for the temp gauge, so next time I'm out there, I"ll see if that's what we hooked it up to. If it is, then we must have a bad sensor. Unless there's something else that would be keeping two different gauges from working.

And I did grab the current transmission and engine tunes, just so I can look at them and try to educate myself some more and ask other people more dumb questions. lol.
Trinten APR 06, 01:54 PM
I took the other gauge cluster and decided to bench test the temperature gauge.

I had a wire with a resistor in it already. Some alligator clips, paper and plastic and other things to keep things isolated, and started trying to test the gauge. Resistor is in the Negative/ground wire. I am using this diagram



It says I should be using 11 and 13. The temp gauge would not move on that. So I started touching the positive to all the other pins. Temp gauge started reacting when I touched pin 15!! That's supposed to be for illumination. And no, the lights on the cluster did not light up. So, this diagram is incorrect?


I told Mike about it, so I'll bring this cluster out with the test wire I used and show him, then when he has time we'll check that out on the cluster I swapped back into the car.
Trinten MAY 03, 12:40 AM
Sorry for the lack of any major posts. Though I'm sure many of you appreciate not seeing so many walls of text from me.

As Mike is still busy on the Grand National, I've been putzing around with learning FAST's tuning software and playing around with the start-up tune.

Quick note on that, I emailed FAST asking about resources to learn how to tune with their software that offered "at my own pace" learning, versus a real-time class or reading what other people have done to fix specific issues and randomly trying those without knowing exactly how/why it might work. Matt over at FAST was really cool, gave me some resources, asked about what I was dealing with, offered some suggestions and even said I was welcome to shoot him another email if I was still having trouble. How awesome is that?

So besides that, I got in my scoops for the rear quarter panels. They are a quality piece, though they are obviously designed to mount on more-flat-than-the-Fiero-quarter-panel surfaces. I didn't see a good way to pie-cut/relief-cut the scoops to make them fit closer to the outside of the panel, so I decided to fit them from the back. That way any remaining gap really won't mean much.

I started by cutting out a piece of cardboard that fit in the open space of the scoop. I intentionally went with a smaller footprint, because you can always make the hole bigger, but tough to make it smaller. I was also using a 4" cutting/grinding disk to do this, so there's a few spots where the cut didn't stay 100% straight. But that's okay. This is also quasi-temporary.



As you can see, the hole is encroaching on where the baseboard trim is, so that sucks a little. It was tough to find a scoop with the exact dimensions I wanted.



Ta-da! Here it after gradually opening up the hole (and trimming the mounting lip of the scoop, you'll see that in a moment.



The joys of power tools that are effective for the task, but not ideal, in the hands of an amateur.



Here's the underside. This is where you can see I was trimming that lip to try to move the scoop as high up as possible, and keep it tucked under the ledge there.

Of course this still leads to the fastening problem. There is still a gap, though now that gap doesn't impact the function of the scoop. I need to figure out what I want to use to affix the scoop to the quarter panel at the points where they meet, so I don't need to flex the quarter panel to mate them together. I thought about industrial strength two sided tape, like what they used to put quarter panel windows on the Fiero? Thoughts?

And for the section(s) that have the gap, do they make a thicker (like neoprene or rubber) material with that same super-sticky stuff? I thought about using the 3M material that holds the lenses on the GT lamp housing, but Mike had some concerns given the potential heat in that area.

Last resort will be to use spacers to keep the gaps as natural as possible, and just bolt it all together with machine screws and metal insert locking nuts (since nylon lockers may melt).

Any other suggestions are always welcome. Once I get this one done, I'll eventually go about doing the same to the other side.

I did also revisit the cooler discussion with Mike, and said I was concerned about the increased air temps from passing through the transmission cooler then going to the intake. He thought about it and conceded it, and was just trying to come up with something that would look uniform on both sides. I said I'd rather it be optimally functional than just uniform looking. So when his attention is back on my car, we'll start workshopping that. Probably start with getting the air intake and filter setup done first, then see what we can build around it.

If we can't package the Vette one I have in there, I did see a late model Mustang stock intake setup on Craigslist that looks pretty compact. And of course there's always going the route of building a box-out for the cone filter and running it down there, similar to how FieroGuru set it up on my last Fiero.

Trinten MAY 03, 11:21 PM
I was able to help Mike out today working on his buddy's Grand National, and we got that running! (and I am a little envious that this stage 2 engine, with a ridiculous turbo on it, 11:1 compression, and aftermarket ECU turned over, fired up, and idled with no tuning/tweaking shenanigans).

When I wasn't needed, I was taking the info I got from Matt at FAST and messing around with the startup tune. While strictly working with what he suggested, I got the cold (okay, semi-cold?) startup tune WAY closer. A few times it started on it's own with a little extended cranking, the other times it would start with me just tapping the gas pedal. No holding it, no easing off, just tap!

The base idle is now up from 950 rpm to 1100 (most of what the info I got was around adjusting the throttle screw, playing with the TPS learn, and watching a value I don't understand outside of "your target here should be between 10 and 20" lol.

I wonder now if the other stuff Mike and I messed with could actually be the issue now. Like there is table about the IAC, and I'm sure that is way off now. But hey, I'm learning!

Trinten JUN 04, 09:56 PM
This past Saturday was cut short, Mike was called into work.

He started to work on wiring up the Fiero oil pressure sender on his 3800 to the Fiero GT cluster to get the oil pressure gauge working, then he'd know how to do it on mine. He had labeled the wires before he did his swap, so the tan wire was already marked as 'oil pressure'. He put the '87 oil pressure sender installed, and when he would go Key-on-engine-off, the oil pressure warning light would come on, and gauge stayed at zero. He'd start the car, and the needle would bury itself, and the idiot light would turn off.

He used his voltmeter to make sure he had it wired right, looking for a change of resistance, and he is fairly sure he wired it up right. I found a few other threads on here with similar issues. One guy installed the '88 oil pressure sender, and it fixed his issue. His car was not an '88. So not sure why that worked, but hey. It's something we can try.

I finished putting the side scoop on the passenger quarter panel. To close the gap I cut strips off of the roll of HDPE (high density polyethylene) I had. Then I used 1/4-20 stainless fasteners with nylon lock nuts. It looks a little odd, but I think it's more because the scoop is all clean and hyper-white, and the quarter-panel.... isn't. lol




I also took more measurements to figure out about how much room we'll have to mount a fuel cooler in there. We'll need to relocate the oil catch can.

I'm looking at the Setrab FP119M22l . It's compact ( roughly 8" x 6" x 4.5" with the bracket), and has a fan that pushes around 350 cfm. I found a vendor that had done their own testing with it. They found that when putting coolant or water through it, temp drops were 15-30 degrees with water, and 100 degrees with oil. They do not say if they mean C or F, assuming F because something that small.

So then I poked around on Summit Racing with my estimated max dimensions (I will make cardboard standins for testing before I buy anything). I found the Derale 65840 . This one is larger, has two fans, and roughly double the CFM. No information on how effective it is. Someone even asked on Summit in the Q&A, no response, which was disappointing as Derale had replied to other questions. I emailed them directly. Their response was:

"Unfortunately, we do not have any data showing how much this cooler would cool fuel or oil."

This seems strange to me. Why would a company make a cooler and not do some testing to advertise it's abilities!? Especially when some of these compact coolers (with fans) can get way north of 500 bucks. The Derale is $890.32! Spending almost a thousand dollars with no idea how effective it's going to be, with no reasonable way to return it if it performs like garbage seems insane.

I reached out to Earl's performance on one of their units with the same question, no reply at all yet.

So I'll mock up some boxes to do test fitments, and see just how crazy I want to get with this. Mike wants to make sure it's shrouded so air can't easily go around it, fan or no.

I'm still waiting on my Radiator fan. They said it would be 4-6 weeks. We are in week 8. I emailed them on Friday. No reply to that, but received an update on my order page that a UPS label was created as of Saturday. Today is Wednesday.... UPS still has not received the package. If that doesn't change by this Friday, I'll call them to see what's going on.
I Lean JUN 04, 11:16 PM
It sounds like your oil pressure sender is bad. If you simply ground that single wire (with the key on), the oil pressure gauge should read 0 and the warning light will be on. With the wire not connected to anything, the pressure gauge should be pegged to the right--which is what it sounds like is happening when you actually have pressure present with your current sender.

That will test to make sure your gauge is functional. Then replace the sender.

[This message has been edited by I Lean (edited 06-04-2025).]

Trinten JUN 05, 09:48 PM

quote
Originally posted by I Lean:

It sounds like your oil pressure sender is bad. If you simply ground that single wire (with the key on), the oil pressure gauge should read 0 and the warning light will be on. With the wire not connected to anything, the pressure gauge should be pegged to the right--which is what it sounds like is happening when you actually have pressure present with your current sender.

That will test to make sure your gauge is functional. Then replace the sender.




I think I either typed something incorrect in my post, or maybe in a bad way to convey the right information. That is what happens. Key on, engine off, the warning light is on, needle at 0. Engine starts, the needle buries itself (and the light shuts off, of course).

I appreciate you reading and commenting, just the same. If I'm still not getting what you're saying, please let me know. Thanks!