tortuga

turtle, meet your new motor, betty. Hopefully old bessy in there right now doesn't get jealous and give me problems while shes still in there



So the plan is basically do the build on this lower mile high comp block instead of my original 200k+ mile block. The primary reason I went this route is it'll be 10x easier to have the block,heads,valvetrain, timing set all measured and done so I don't have to figure out all the tedious stuff in the middle of a swap.

As of now, it's about ready to go to James' (turbocharged400sbc) house to get the custom machined rollmaster double timing set lined up properly with the IS3 cam and my new block/crank. Then get the heads on and size up the valvetrain, order pushrods most likely, install, and take it back home.

I've seen lots of James' other posts and projects on other sites. It makes me wish that I lived near him.

ahhh i see where your going with this nice find. Will the pcm and tranny out of the riv. bolt right up or do you need to modify that?

Technically, nothing is changing except the rotating assembly as far as fitting the L26 motor. Block itsself is identical. I'm using the L26 block/rotating assembly as pictured. Actually the only things I'll be taking off my current motor are the harmonic balancer, flywheel, possibly oil pan, rollor rockers, possibly a couple sensors, brackets, tensioner assembly, possibly ignition coil bracket, front knock sensor (broke the one on the L26), I think that's about it.
The new setup is getting new heads, all new valvetrain (except the rockers), new valve covers (mine have minor damage to the gasket groove), new LIM, new blower & IC, new cam. So I really don't need to take that much off my old motor.

Update

I went back over to Alex's (97rivman) house to get more shit off his car and to pull his motor/trans out. Turns out his engine never got running right because the builder neglected to transfer the CPS magnet into the new timing set. ANYWHO, we attempted to pull the IS3 cam out for me to take home and bring it over to James' (turbocharged400sbc) place with the new L26 to set up the machined double roller timing set for starters. It turns out one of the middle-ish journal bearings is spun and stuck to the cam -- WTF?? We couldn't even get it out due to the bearing being stuck to it which means it obviously isn't getting through the other bearing journals to get out. Alex just got done basically tearing the motor all the way down to get his Diamond forged pistons out and whatnot. He managed to get the cam out somehow and it's on the way over to me now.

I have a feeling this cam didn't come out without damage. The lopes and the other bearings looked good from what we could see through the top of the block but I don't know what the one bearing surface looks like yet. As soon as I get it in the mail I'm gonna bring it straight to James to look at but I have a feeling I'm going to be looking for another cam...

Some new junk!


got the V2.8 aeroforce gauges finally - wish they had a neater solution for connection. Basically they have a double gauge harness with two long data cables and another single one so you have 3 long-ass cables to go like 1.5ft (in my case) and then a bulky OBD plug splitter. The newer gauges can not only display analog inputs but also have an optional output function that's programmable so you can use them to turn on/off anything based off any of the scan data - pretty sweet!

Also, I finally found a proper wireless switch setup and got the steering wheel controls almost up and running.. see picture and video.


The circuit board mounted at the top is the wireless receiver. That one has 4 channels meaning it can switch on/off 4 seperate circuits remotely and the key thing is that it lets you set each channel up for either momentary or latching duty. That's important because it lets me use momentary for nitrous and latching for performance shift. The first two remote sets I got didn't let you set them up like that even though they claimed 2 independent channel or 4 independent channel. Gotta be careful buying those things I've found.


Quick runthrough of functionality

As I do and learn this, I keep finding more neat stuff so expect more on this!

Haha! clever bastard! Neat idea to take apart one of those modules and embed it into the steering wheel!

Karma wrote:

Haha! clever bastard! Neat idea to take apart one of those modules and embed it into the steering wheel!

With this steering wheel, integrating this remote was very easy. The Grant horn button even has extra spades to take power from and I just soldered the one spade into the remote board's battery holder spot to support it. The orginal buttons on the remote are unsoldered and removed to get wires soldered in place to go to the steering wheel buttons. With that, It worked and I thought I was done. But! the remote is kinda sensative to over-voltage. It works with a 12v battery but when the alternator kicks on and it gets 14+ volts to it, it'll short-circuits once you try to use it. (which effectively gives me two extra horn buttons lol) I'm going to throw in a 1ohm resistor to hopefully take care of that.

Other stuff I've done



2 1/8" thick aluminum bars to space down the driver side trans mount 1/4" to agree with my lowered cradle better. Otherwise you have 2 mounts (front and rear) pulling the motor/trans down and 2 mounts (driver and passenger) trying to keep it up. I'm going to leave the passenger side alone for now because I think the cleanrance issues are more on the driver side with the IC and northstar setup. I'll change it if it becomes necessary.

And random stupid picture time!

hahah

Next up

Got a 100psi range pressure transducer HERE and some 1/8NPT fittings to install it to my fuel pressure regulator. That Ebay vendor has all the other pressure tranducers you can need too at a very good price. I'm going to pick up another 1500psi one for the nitrous.


Got it fitted and ready to get wired. As expected, it needs a 5v power source, a ground (not self-grounded), and the signal wire out to whatever you read it with. I'm connecting it to one of my Aeroforce gauges' analog inputs. I don't happen to know of any easy-to-access 5v power sources from the car though. Anyone know? It happens the remote control receiver that I put in for the steering wheel switches has 5v power leads meant to be used for the "cancel" switch function. I'm assuming the transducer doesn't need any maritable amount of current to work so I think it's pretty safe to use that. Per Aeroforce's instructions on the analog inputs, the worst I may have to do is adjust for the voltage source differential between the gauge's 5v source and the sending unit's 5v source in order to get a zero'd reading.

woowoo nitrous is very awesome!

Sorry for the horrible flip-phone tease video


This is pretty much my first spraying of my now complete and pretty well tuned nitrous setup. Learning a lot. nitrous starts spraying when you hear the rpm jump up in the video and then I let off pretty quick as you see the boost gauge falling back down to ~10psi. When I spray, the boost gauge gets pegged which I honestly didn't know happens.

Better accel video coming maybe tomorrow

wow!

Looks like my O2 sensor is getting the shit kicked out of it due to the nitrous so I need to replace it with a Delco before I can do much more. Once I've done some sprayed runs, it starts throwing things really rich at idle ranges and I've observed this in my fuel trims and the spark plugs. It'll stay like that and eventually start to clear its-self up but it can be pretty bad at stop lights. I have a parts store Bosch sensor in there now and I've been told by everyone they suck anyway. My tune has been kinda finicky with fuel trims moving around from day to day before nitrous got involved so I'm starting there. I need to get a wideband too! I'll put it on the xmas list

You should check out ,moates.net.maybe they have someting to fix this

Some more diagnosis fun!

I pulled all the spark plugs and there seemed to be a trend that the front cylinders were showing signs of richness and going back, they looked leaner. That's pretty odd and doesn't really support the O2 sensor theory. Turns out the fuel pressure regulator diaphram was damaged during one of the spray runs I was doing since the ZEX dry nitrous kit boosts the fuel pressure regulator to add the pressure, in this case probably to around 80psi. That's actually a lot of pressure - enough to blow the vacuum hoses off the regulator until I added some hose clamps and tightened the shit out of 'em. So it's letting tons of gas in through the lower intake manifold vac/boost fitting that the regulator and everything connects to. That explains the richness towards the front (passenger) side of the motor and getting lean going back and the very hard starts.

Need to get a rebuild for the fuel pressure regulator ($20 or so) and eliminate the fuel pressure boosting function on the ZEX nitrous kit. Good thing I don't need it!
Lesson learned, I'd say using a dry nitrous kit that boosts fuel pressure is a bad idea on a turbo/supercharged car that is already boosting fuel pressure to 60+psi unless you have a special fuel pressure regulator (and fuel pump) that can take it.

The latest turtle news!


Today, my timing chain decided to let go while I was doing deliveries at work and I towed the car home. So add another notch to the long list of JP single timing set failures. I haven't gotten the front end ripped apart yet but I'm pretty certain that's what it is. The engine cranks freely but the rockers don't move. I just hope there's no serious damage to the unlucky valves and piston that was at TDC of it's intake/exhaust stroke during the break so I can reaplce the timing set, tensioner and keep this thing going 'till at least until spring.

Some information on my timing set:
*installed new JP single row timing set with new tensioner on 9/30/2007 ~166k mi
*installed xp cam and 105lb valvesprings and replaced the tensioner again (looked pretty worn by the chain) on 7/9/2008 ~180k
*replaced cylinder1 exhaust valvespring with a 130lb spring because the 105lb one broke on 4/24/2011 200,153mi (they are known to fail)
*timing chain failed on 12/10/2011 204,826mi

James told me it's pretty much guaranteed I have at least 4 bent valves with this so it looks like the IS3 heads are gonna need to go on a bit sooner than I planned as well as everything else that was going along with. This is a pretty shitty time of the year for this... No money and a million other things to do!

I could keep my orignial block but since I'm already being forced to do most of the difficult parts anyway, I might as well swap in the new L26 now. I hate snowballs

PS. Highly recommend the felpro? blue metal gasket for the timing cover instead of the OEM gasket. It comes off in one nice piece and you don't have to do any cleanup of the gasket material. After just going through that with the original gasket on my other motor, that's a very nice relief!

Some stuff getting done...



I worked out a custom bracket to use for the one fuel rail bracket that didn't clear the intercooler

James garage..
12-14-11
*got the Rollmaster double timing set crank gear machined for proper fitment - cut down the chamfer to the crankshaft and cleaned up the machining some
*inspected oil pump parts from L26 - excellent condition, minimal wear
*improved oiling arteries in the front cover and extension housing
*deleted oil filter bypass valve
*prepped and primered front cover & oil extension housing

*Filled in the oiling passage in the rear cover to balance shaft with JBweld

12-15-11
*installed IS3 cam into the new L26 block


*checked crank and cam endplay .006" for the cam, .008" on the crank - beautiful
*set up and got measurements for cam gear machining - taking .030" off the back to get it perfectly lined up with the crank gear
*dissassembled, cleaned, and reinstalled L26 lifters into block

on the to-do for tomorrow
*clean and assemble IS3 heads
*get the cam gear machined and get the timing set installed
*install head studs and prepare the lightly used MLS headgaskets for install

*degree the cam so that James can record and graph out the lope profile
*maybe get the heads installed and start test-fitting the valvetrain
*also I can clean up, primer, and paint the longblock at this point

Meanwhile in my garage..
I have a longblock that needs to come out of my car, a solid rear mount to install, an Addco swaybar to install, and a GMR torsen to install, all before the new motor can be dropped in.

Meanwhile back in my garage...


engine out - pretty damn easy without heads


block all scratched up from the chain


crank gear looks like hell, cam gear is unflawed from what I can tell


I spy: a piece of rolon timing chain link sitting somewhere it shouldn't be lol


front pistons, some good nicks from the exhaust valves


rear pistons, one cylinder got kisses from the intake and exhaust valve!


I wonder if that valve's bent...

I forgot to take pics of the valve faces. Some are sticking out pretty far. It looks like I also bent two pushrods. More to come...

Ugh.It sux to be you right now.But I been there too.hope it all comes together straight away.
R

So it looks like the L67 is in fact an interference engine. I posted that question in another thread and I thought we came to the conclusion it wasn't the case?

https://rivperformance.editboard.com/t1995p15-timing-chain

AA wrote:

So it looks like the L67 is in fact an interference engine. I posted that question in another thread and I thought we came to the conclusion it wasn't the case?

https://rivperformance.editboard.com/t1995p15-timing-chain

I remember that thread. This doesn't have an original cam though. Even still, I'm pretty sure it's an interference engine anyway. Speaking of interference, James was telling me he clearnance-checked Eric's motor with the IS4 cam in it and the valves come within like .030" of hitting the pistons when it's set up right! holy moly!

It doesn't matter how many times I do this stuff, I still do retarded things like this. I will tell you, if you want to really feel alive and get your heart pumping, just lower the front of your car down onto a jack stand with your finger between the cradle and the wooden block with the crappy hydraulic jack that takes ~15 full pumps to get it raised the last inch of its peak travel so you can get your finger out. Wow Cody..

And in other news


Can I get a double stack? lol

Oh wow!

Holly Shit! wish I could get something like that for my Riv.

soooo uhhh no updates....slack'n man....slack'n

he's been eyeball fucking his new motor the whole time its being assembled rofl

Stock. Junk. ftw