My L67 swap from LesabreT.com

Z-type wrote:

Holy cow, looks awesome! I'm very familiar with Hometown Hero's build from a few years ago and this looks similar, but I do see the differences you pointed out.

I cannot wait! i can feel the torque already...

And yeah I guess I should probably start saving money for a trans .

Thanks, Andrew, I owe you huge.

Hometowns was a few years ago? was it that long ??

I'm very happy with this latest version of my efforts. Maybe I'll just send you my 1st gen version and keep this one.
It will be neat to see how the improved gen V one works, and what ends up happening with the m112. Got to make it scream like the m62.


Aaron:
Too bad you are selling your riv eh Aaron?

Yeah it was awhile ago. Looks like Karma is still doing work that is worthy of his own segment on SPEED television. He is like the "Chip Foose" of superchargers. 1 day I hope to have my Series I huffing off a Karma kustoms Ford M90. For now I'm content with the custom M62.

Quote :

Aaron:
Too bad you are selling your riv eh Aaron? :wink:

Uhh, yeah, I'm selling it... Just wanted you to modify my blower so I can look at it every day, maybe rub it for good luck.

No thanks Andrew, I'll take my blower back . That way I don't have to paint another...

Nice! This thing's finna be sick!

Hometown Hero wrote:

Yeah it was awhile ago. Looks like Karma is still doing work that is worthy of his own segment on SPEED television. He is like the "Chip Foose" of superchargers. 1 day I hope to have my Series I huffing off a Karma kustoms Ford M90. For now I'm content with the custom M62.

Ha ha!
Karma Kustoms! ... "Sometimes when you win, its just Karma."

Nice...one of the best taglines I've ever heard . I think I'll put that in my engine bay somewhere...

Karma wrote:

Ha ha!
Karma Kustoms! ... "Sometimes when you win, its just Karma."

GOLDEN!

I Like that!

Another decent update on the project! I found a non-walled LIM and purchased it, and was expecting delivery in about 2 weeks. Around 1:00 this afternoon, FedEx pulls into the driveway and has my LIM!! Holy crap...exactly 27 hours from payment to receiving this thing. That's crazy. But it gave me something else to do on my day off!

Horribly dirty and oily. I wonder what this poor car went through. Oh, and I found out this was from a '92 Park Avenue Ultra.


New one on the left, old one on the right. No outside differences other than the thermostat housing.


For those of you who may not know, here's the difference and why I looked high and low to get one of these damn things. This is the '95 LIM - it has vertical walls to dampen sound, but creates turbulence and heat. Bad.


'92 LIM - No walls to be found, and the casting is a little smoother, visually.


Soaked it in GUNK Engine Brite, and powerwashed the everliving hell out of it.


Turned out pretty nice! But, on to more important things. The side cover on my old LIM has the temperature sender for the gauge in it, so it needs swapped.




Looks the same to me, let's move on.


Scraped and cleaned the gasket surfaces...


And resealed the surfaces with black RTV.


Project garage! Lots of stuff going on in here.






Next step - install a new thermostat seal and housing gasket. Then, get threadlocker for the old temperature sensor (not the gauge sender on the cover) since the one with the new LIM was broken off. Also, there's a plug behind the LIM that would normally hold another sensor, but that sensor is missing so I need to fill it. Probably going to use the broken sensor to fill it.

In addition to all that, next week I'll be porting the LIM and installing it back onto the engine. Once that's all done and settled, I'll install the Yella Terras!

Looks pretty sweet! So are you going to using the thermostat housing from the 95 LIM?

Thanks! And yes I'm going to use the '95 housing for two reasons - one, it will look the same as it used to and is 'engine correct', and since I broke the head of a bolt from the other one, Trying to remove it from the LIM I ruined the old housing. I was a little disappointed, but it's not the end of the world.

Talk to Karma about the fitment of that non-walled intake. It will work, but from what I remember in some discussions I had with him when my PP was on the mill he had mentioned some issues with fit and finish when mounting.

Thanks Klix, luckily, he warned me about it already. I'm going to do my best to get it to fit correctly! I'm not messing around .

Did a little work today, in preparation for tomorrow. I'm probably highlighting too many minor details, but I haven't heard anyone complain about pictures yet .

First thing I wanted to do today before I forgot (and this is an extremely important step) is soak the new rocker arms and pedestals/alignment plates in oil overnight (in this case, 24 hours). I remembered I had more than a few sets of valve covers laying around, and borrowed two rear covers for this.


Insert rocker arms:


Fill with oil, preheat oven to 350 degrees, bake for 20 minutes...wait. Nevermind.


Moving on, I started prep work with the LIM as well. I had to re-install the PCM's coolant temperature sensor and plug a hole where another sensor would have gone from the LIM donor car.


Namely, this hole:


To plug the rear hole (keep your jokes to yourselves) I decided to use this broken sensor that came with the '92 LIM - and only because I couldn't get the real plug out of the '95 LIM. No biggie. You can't see it once the blower is installed.


Apply sealant:


And install:


I also had to install the 180 degree thermostat and the '95 housing, and used new thermostat seals and a new housing gasket:




Ready to port - but not until tomorrow.


Installed new fuel injector O-rings:


One thing I almost forgot while I was working - the throttle body is dirty and needs some attention.


Ugh...miserable sight.


That's a bit better. I also cleaned the MAF sensor and IAC sensors, even though they probably didn't need it.


Just because I could, I test fit the '95 gasket on the '92 LIM. Everything looks cool! I've been told probably a hundred times this is essentially a bolt-on LIM for this later engine, but I had to check. More on that tomorrow...


The LIM I got was from eBay, if you recall. It had originally been an auction for the LIM AND supercharger, but I was able to buy the LIM by itself. The guy I got it from said he was sick of seeing the blower laying around so it got shipped to my house for the cost of said shipping. Don't know what I'll ever do with it, but I have a Gen 2 M62 now . And a spare 2.55" pulley.




Lots more coming tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Harder to give it a bath after porting with the sensors and t-stat installed eh?
(It'll probably be ok, tape up the coolant ports though when you are porting, alumn dust gets everywhere...and the less you need to clean out again after...)
oh.. and make sure that coolant bung on the left is the metal one. You will kick yourself later if you use the composite one.

Doh ...I haven't made too many stupid mistakes on this project, but this is certainly one of them.

Thanks Andrew!

From LesabreT.com:


Ok - you stayed tuned, now here's the 'lots more' .

Back to the LIM to port it. I was pretty familiar with the process as I had 'practiced' successfully with my SSEi's manifold. This was about the same...not really any easier or harder.


This is almost an embarrassing set of ports lol. This is one of the worst.


This is the same port, but I took all the rough casting off of it and smoothed it out quite a bit.


You can see a distinct difference after one port is nearly finished:


All three shaped - not smoothed and finished yet.


Fitted the LIM, made sure of the alignment, then pulled the old gaskets off and cleaned the heads.


Nice new gaskets. The old ones were only 400 miles old, but I'm not one to take risks like that.


Nice finished and clean LIM - sorry, no finished pictures of the ports. I got excited .


Front valve cover was, as usual, fairly easy to remove.


Popped off two of the rockers - again, quite easy.


All gone!


I didn't end up getting any in-between pictures because my hands were essentially covered in oil, but here's some new Yella Terras! The hardest part was lining up the roller with the valve tip and keeping it there.


Rear cover removed. Quite a pain in the behind, but could have been much worse. There's LOTS of room in this car compared to my Riviera. Even with the engine fully installed, the rear spark plugs are quite easy to reach.


All the leftover rockers. Like most things I've read, the rear ones are filthier than the front ones. This is because of heat, correct? Also, How do I store these rockers? Wrap them in plastic and put them in a box?


Rear rockers basically installed.


Disconnected the fuel pump relay, plugged in the PCM (still with the old tune), and cranked the engine over for 15 seconds at a time, then retorqued the rockers. Only one was loose on the first shot, then all of them stayed tight the other two times. Then I started re-construction.


Valve covers and spark plug wire cover on the front, various brackets reconnected.


Ran the rear plug wires under where the blower snout will be, along with the wire I loomed up a few weeks ago.


Done for now! Only one part left - the supercharger. After that's together, I'm going to plug in the new Sinister tune to the PCM, check all my data readings, install a bigger tensioner pulley for the supercharger belt, put the belts on, and take it for a drive! Once I'm satisfied with everything, I'll install the rear air shocks.


Only a matter of time now!

Lotsa cool stuff happening in yer neck of the woods buddy!

Gotta give you a point for all the fine work

Wow! that's going to be sweet!

7 questions:

Did you match the LIM passages to the heads? or go with the more conserative 1.85" by .85"?
How did you find the left to right allignment was on the runners to the head ports? Bang on? or as mine was and needing movement to the side a bit? Isn't it so much easier porting the shorter 92 lim runners ?

Its debated, but did you use locktite on the rocker bolts?

Thanks guys! Believe it or not, a lot of this work is first-time work for me and I'm continuing to surprise myself with how well it's all going. I didn't really start 'getting into' engines until about a year and a half ago, when the coupler on my Riviera gave up. This is fun stuff!

Andrew, if it's ok, I'm going to answer in a list form .

1 & 2 - Yes kind of - measured the head ports (individually) with a caliper thing and just slightly under-cut the LIM ports. They're slightly smaller than the heads, but by like .05 mm - not much.
3 - Surprisingly, after I rough-shaped the ports, it was...
4 - ...bang on.
5 - No adjustment needed - the one bolt hole you had trouble with was clear for me - no issues.
6 - oh my yes!
7 - No locktite - didn't see any on the old bolts so I decided not to use it. Luckily, I'm in the position that if something were to come loose, the car can have as much downtime as it needs to be fixed. I don't think that even at 25 ft-lbs it should be much of an issue. I don't run my cars hard at all, anyway.

Thanks for all the advice! You're the best, man!

And thanks everyone else for the compliments and enjoying the show! Much more to come in the next 2 or 3 weeks .

.. I wonder if I should post more pics of this thing?

wow!that looks pretty