Thanks D2, I didn't figure he'd stiff me but nothing's showed up in the mail yet. I'm very tempted to just run to advance and buy a matching set.
In other news, I'm done with 99% of the splicing. I have one wire that Darth Fiero didn't have a destination pin set in his wiring schematic. The wire is on the blue connector, pin 20. It's supposed to have a 10amp fused battery feed. Can I tie into the Fuel Pump relay orange wire, or will that start blowing fuses? Tomorrow I'll spend most of the day packing and I'll be moving my stuff. Now that the wiring is pretty much done though it takes a huge load off of my shoulders.
The wiring turned out being a LOT more frustrating than what I was expecting. I had a lot of hours spent bent over the engine soldering tons of different wires and if I had to do it again... well I wouldn't . I thought $550 or even $1000 was a lot to charge, but if you do it the way I did it, that doesn't seem like much if you don't have a lot of time and patience.
I'm waking up early tomorrow morning to get the heat gun back so that I can finish heatshrinking all of the splices. I also need to pick up the new passenger side coolant hose, a quick-disconnect remover, and pray that the final quick disconnect showed up but no one got it out of the mailbox today.
I'll post pictures after I'm done moving and I have access to my personal computer
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[This message has been edited by JamesCurtis (edited 08-02-2009).]
When I went to charge up the battery I made sure to check the water level - EMPTY!. I charged it all night last night, took it into advance auto this morning, and it had 6v and 0 cold crank amps. I have a new battery, bought two quick disconnect fuel rail connectors, the passenger/lower coolant hose, and anti-freeze. I have everything that's necessary to get this baby to start today
My previous question still remains
Blue connector Pin 20 (hot at all times pcm power) - can I connect this to orange pin b of the c203?
Talked to Chris about the shipment and he went through his shipping records. Could not find a tracking number. We remember talking about the best and chaepest way to get it to you quickly. Longstory short, he will send another one as soon as he can get one as he is out of stock on that item.
The project is now waiting on that elbow. I bought an advance auto steel quick disconnect line, but the advance auto even though it's for a 3/8" fuel line, has a larger diameter nozzle that I have to heat up the plastic line to a scary temperature to get it to fit over. It kinked a few times trying to get over it which forced me to give up since I only have 2-3 more tries worth of plastic line left before I run into even bigger problems.
The cradle is in the car and the wiring is good other than my c500 being 6" too short. FieroFlyer was SERIOUS when he said 50" from where the wires go through the firewall. I measured 44" and figured I had enough. He was precisely right . 6" would give me enough to tuck it up with the other large wire loom going to the c500 area.
I'm gonna go grab a 12 pack of beer and call it quits until I get back. I didn't plan on coming back til' saturday for a family reunion, but I feel that I'll be coming back tuesday to make sure everything is taken care of.
The connector hasn't shown up yet, I'll be headed to speedway's headquarters tomorrow and I hope I can find what I'm looking for. I tried to get the intake to fit in there before I left to no avail. Hopefully when I get back tomorrow or the next day things will go quicker.
I received an e-mail yesterday stating that the part would be overnighted yesterday for delivery today. I drove home from lincoln to meet it here but it hasn't shown up yet. Waiting to hear back from Chris atm for a tracking #. If it was shipped usps then my change of address will have gone into effect and the part will be on its way to Lincoln. Doh!
I'm ready to just trash this nylon/plastic system and use some rubber hosing designed for a fuel system.
Edit: Just got off the phone with Chris, he's overnighting me some straight plastic connectors. The 90* elbow ones didn't show up yesterday like they were supposed to. He also elaborated to me that it was a screwup on their end that I didn't get the 2nd connector they tried to ship me. Apparently he had one left which he thought would ship to me but it was shipped to someone else. I'll be SO happy tomorrow when this part shows up
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[This message has been edited by JamesCurtis (edited 08-06-2009).]
It turns over and there's no smoke coming from the engine bay, this is good! It turns out the harness length of everything but the c500 is PERFECT. This makes me a happy man . It's the small things that make it worthwile. Seeing the exhaust plug get blown out of the exhaust manifold after the first turnover made it a good moment .
The quick-disconnect fitting showed up today, I'm boiling the water as we speak . I really dislike putting the feed line on the quick-disconnect end. I've found that putting the end flush with an even surface helps a lot. This is opposed to having one end in one hand and the other in the other hand. When you do it by hand, it tends to kink before it goes on.
The fuel pump relay clicks but I don't hear the fuel pump. The fuse is good. I'm putting gas in the tank and checking to make sure I have 12v at the orange wire. I still have 3 & 1/2 spark plug wires to make . We're getting close!
So the fuel pump actually needs power to run, whodathunkit! I was supposed to remember to hook up the tan wire after talking to Mike and working through the schematic. I didn't. I hooked up the tan wire and boy does that fuel pump ever prime now I had to take a break to rehydrate and get ready to finish the spark plug wires, then she should be ready to fire.
It runs! But the oil pressure gauge pegged. It bumped around from 0-9 at first while I assume it was pumping up the filter and the rest of the engine, then it built up past 80 and pegged. Is it normal for a junkyard engine to have sludge built up so much that it will spike the oil pressure? I let the engine run about 10 seconds, just long enough to look at the oil pressure and stop lol. Should I let her run a little more? Answer - YES! The oil pressure has now settled down to 80psi.
Edit:
I'm getting tired of talking to myself
It's running a little rough. When I rev up the engine it really doesn't sound like it's doing all that well. How bad will it run without an exhaust?
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[This message has been edited by JamesCurtis (edited 08-07-2009).]
it will be fine.. I have seen a many a gauge be off and with 60 PSI it would cause the Fiero gauge to peg. I have seen bad / stopped up pressure senders cause pegging.. most likely not the wiring since it did not peg right off the start...
Run it a bit and see if it comes down a little.
If you get really worried about it, you will have to get a manual gauge and attach it for temporary look see at the real pressure.
It appears that the high oil pressure starts out every time the car starts.
The engine's still running rough. It's definitely misfiring somehow. I'm going to check the spark plug wires and reseat them, then start pulling plugs to see which cylinder it is when I get back from the family reunion.
I have the cooling system mostly burped, now all I have to do is work out the little kinks. All I have to say, is that I'm glad it's running. The second I turn the ignition over she fires right up. That's good
Edit: Also, it's nice Chris West went out of his way to overnight this part to me. Overall I have had a bad experience with WCF though. Here's a list of the parts I ordered from them and what worked.
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Fuel Line Kit - $75 - 3 weeks of waiting and talking and frustration lands me the connectors I was looking for. Originally didn't ship both, then told me they were shipped only to find out they hadn't been shipped.
Water Inlet Hose - $32 - Not nearly long enough, missing a few bends - useless
Throttle Bracket - $125 - Very thin steelwork, flexes when you press the gas pedal. Causes the throttle cable to rub up against the bracket due to the hookup being too low.
Cold Air Intake - $180 - Doesn't fit as advertised, will need a large notch put in the hole that goes through the driver's side of the body in order to get it to fit. I'm currently working with Chris to get this sorted out (if I hear back from him).
Thermostat housing - $75 + $25 core - Works! Had pinhole rust spots all over on the heater core inlet and the main coolant line. Conflicted with the boost bypass valve (I removed the BBV, he says it will work with the BBV in there, I disagree).
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[This message has been edited by JamesCurtis (edited 08-07-2009).]
Well we made some HUGE progress tonight in the smooth running engine department. I found out that leaving the 88 alternator's brown wire plugged into the c500 was the way to go in the alternator charge territory. Also I found that screwing in the pcm's main ground can help as well.
The engine is running very very good now. It's a little rough around the edges but I think that's due to no exhaust.
She had a hunting idle for a WHILE after I blipped the throttle maybe 10%. This scared me, but it eventually found its idle and after a few more throttle tests it started behaving.
Tomorrow I'm going to start wrapping up the harness, tying the plug wires up to the engine, and basically start tying up loose ends. A lot of bolts need a final torque-down, and my suspension needs to cooperate with me and go up to its normal position .
Good to see you got it running. If if makes you feel better I had battery problems too, but the acid level was fine, and it showed 12v with a meter. But when you tried to crank it went to 0.
I'm getting a flashing SES light every now and then. Is this something to be seriously worried about?
Also will it be safe for me to limp the car into town (12 miles) to get an exhaust put on it? I've read rumors of people burning up exhaust valves and other things due to the engine running lean with no exhaust.
Well all of my happiness has quickly turned to sadness. My friend came over and thought it ran really rough compared to other 3800's he's seen. We pulled the plug on all of the cylinders, and when we pulled the wire on cylinder 6 the engine didn't hesitate or change. We have verified spark to the spark plug (wow does it arc!). I have verified that the yellow/black from the injector connector goes to blue 43 and that the pink wire has 12v with the ignition on.
What else can I check? I'm going to rent a compression tester tomorrow, but the salvage yard told me all of the cylinders tested at ~160psi and it was pulled out of a rear end collision car. Could my injector be bad?
I'm getting a flashing SES light every now and then. Is this something to be seriously worried about?
Also will it be safe for me to limp the car into town (12 miles) to get an exhaust put on it? I've read rumors of people burning up exhaust valves and other things due to the engine running lean with no exhaust.
Well all of my happiness has quickly turned to sadness. My friend came over and thought it ran really rough compared to other 3800's he's seen. We pulled the plug on all of the cylinders, and when we pulled the wire on cylinder 6 the engine didn't hesitate or change. We have verified spark to the spark plug (wow does it arc!). I have verified that the yellow/black from the injector connector goes to blue 43 and that the pink wire has 12v with the ignition on.
What else can I check? I'm going to rent a compression tester tomorrow, but the salvage yard told me all of the cylinders tested at ~160psi and it was pulled out of a rear end collision car. Could my injector be bad?
Put a probe light on the injector plug and see if it it's firing
I'll give that a shot. I've switched the injectors on cylinders 4 and 6. When I pulled the plug from cylinder 4 the engine would stumble really bad, now I'll know if the misfire follows the injector. I have 12 spare wires laying around, one of them should be about the right length for what I'm doing .
Update: switched injectors, cylinder #6 is still misfiring. Upon inspection of the plug, it is wet with fuel. ------------------
[This message has been edited by JamesCurtis (edited 08-11-2009).]
If the plug is wet with fuel then the injector is fine, switch coils with a good one to see if the problem follows the coil, also try switching plugs and plug wires to see if the problem follows. If none of this works you have a problem with the cylinder or the ignition module itself, you can try using another ignition module with your coils the module from the 3800 N/A engines are the same as the SC it is the coils that are different. Dan
I've swapped spark plug wires with no change, I've also tried 3 different plugs in the hole. I'm going to try to clean the cylinder out by running it without the injector plugged in and if that doesn't work I'll swap coils.
Well I have unplugged the rest of the injectors and have come to the conclusion that it's only #6 that is bad. I swapped the coil packs around and #6 is still down. The misfire didn't follow the #6 coil pack, as #2 is running just fine. I'm headed in to get the compression checker now.
I would say also check your injectors. I had a misfire issue same as yours in cylinder #3. Changed coil packs, moved coil packs around, check wiring continuity and resistance, PCM programming, used noid light set on the injector to make sure it was pulsing correctly, plugs, wires, new injectors, case learns.......pretty much everything and still only that damn cylinder would misfire. So I did a little hunting on an L67 forum and the answer slapped me in the face. Literally because it was a stupid mistake on my part. See when I built my fuel system I used a cutting blade on a grinder to cut my lines as my lines were all stainless wrapped and that cutting blade would just slide right through those lines like butter leaving me a smooth flush cut. The heat created also caused the rubber to expand just slightly and made all my fittings outrageously easy to install. However that cutting blade left a crap load of powdery rubber particles all in my lines, and me being the genius I am didn't think to flush my lines out before installing them on the engine. So of course when I fired my engine up all that crap went straight to the injectors, most of it going to cylinder #3! So I pulled all my injectors cleaned them out and put them back in. When I started my car it was like a different animal purrs like a kitten and idles super smooth. you should have seen all the crap that came out of those injectors, and see I never expected that because I bought brand new injectors for my swap. Anyways I dont know if thats your problem or not but I would check to see if your injectors are clogged it took me all of 10 minutes to pull mine off clean the tops out and put em back on.
Sprayed them out with intake and throttle body cleaner, now whether that was the best thing to use I don't know, but its what I had laying around. It took a little paint off the outside of the injectors but other than that no problems. lol
I'm going to forget about the engine problems until I get the exhaust on the car. It'll make noises easier to determine and make me a whole lot happier. For now I'm going to focus on getting everything tied up, out of the way, and get it to drive onto a trailer. She'll be trailer queened to the exhaust shop .
Well tonight is the night I decided to extend the c500. Lately I noticed that the voltage while the car was running had dropped a little. While extending the c500 I traced this back to a failed barrel splice that napa sold me. I don't think that it was the barrel that failed, it just wasn't the right size for the wire and the solder didn't attach it the way I had hoped. I pulled it apart just moving the c500 section of wiring around. I'm going to do it the old fashioned way - twisting the wires around eachother and putting solder down into it.
Well all of my happiness has quickly turned to sadness. My friend came over and thought it ran really rough compared to other 3800's he's seen. We pulled the plug on all of the cylinders, and when we pulled the wire on cylinder 6 the engine didn't hesitate or change. We have verified spark to the spark plug (wow does it arc!). I have verified that the yellow/black from the injector connector goes to blue 43 and that the pink wire has 12v with the ignition on.
What else can I check? I'm going to rent a compression tester tomorrow, but the salvage yard told me all of the cylinders tested at ~160psi and it was pulled out of a rear end collision car. Could my injector be bad?
either a bad injector or bad wiring to the injector.. do you have an injector noid tester? possible the injector is just stuck? who knows.. go to napa and have them test it
Well I just learned a lesson, I might have another delay! The flowtech afterburner muffler I ordered turned out to be a truck style muffler, not a camaro style . I'm looking for a 2.5" in to 2x2.5" out muffler.
Edit: I'm looking at a spintech 333 SC muffler now. Looks like it's exactly what I need. Anyone have any clips of this muffler in action on a 3800?
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[This message has been edited by JamesCurtis (edited 08-13-2009).]
. I thought $550 or even $1000 was a lot to charge, but if you do it the way I did it, that doesn't seem like much if you don't have a lot of time and patience. 
. 
. I'm looking for a 2.5" in to 2x2.5" out muffler.
