cleaned up the exhaust a bit

Quote :

You can get a full set of ALUMINUM fully CNC'd cylinder heads for other "more marketable" cars, for the price of pretty much reconditioning our crappy cast iron cylinder heads, which they pretty much just smooth out the casting.. Am I the only one that thinks that's screwed up, given our engine potential, and how many people modify the Grand Prix? Aluminum heads for us cost, what, 2-3 grand? If we had heads at that price, so many people would be buying them that they'd be making more money off them than they do now, most likely.

Part of the reason is, our heads aren't as "crappy" as you assume. They practically last forever, won't warp and are pretty hard to crack. The head gaskets almost never fail. Buick used iron heads for all the right reasons; iron is less expensive, too. They weren't planning on someone modifying their 15-yr-old Riviera on a beer budget. In contrast, you need to be careful with aluminum heads. If they get just a bit hot, you can have all sorts of problems. Two advantages are, they are lighter and easier to machine. Downside: head for head, iron is cheaper. Otherwise, iron and alum are the same. Considering how much our cars already weigh, it's not worth it to upgrade unless you are going for an all-out race car. And I use the term "upgrade" loosely, because our iron heads are more durable, and don't hurt performance.

Quote :

That's a reverse plenum and different than the stock one though, and they don't sell the lower intake to go with it, unless I'm missing something?

Okay, but I found that in 10 secs. You searched for 10 hours and couldn't find anything? What about the forums? Where did you find the pics you posted? Maybe the owners of that car know something. This can't be as difficult as you are making it out to be.

Karma wrote:

Quote :

I'm kind of curious as to why turbo is less likely to blow up my transmission though, wouldn't a turbo application be more volatile and unpredictable than a "vastly underpowered 4banger supercharger"? People everywhere on the internet say the M62 has way less power than the M90 (maybe silly)

Also, what would a cleaned up used Gen III M62 be worth used, if I were to sell it?

Turbo is way easier on the transmission because the boost ramps up slightly slower than with a positive displacement SC. Its that 1000 RPM boost that is *really* hard on our transmissions. Even with a properly sized turbo where you won't have that much spool up time, that is all the transmission needs. Your launches will be better because traction off the line is easier, and your transmission will be happy cause the car is already moving forward a bit before the boost kicks in.

And its not that the m62 has way less power, a supercharger doesn't have any power in of itself. Its just sized for an engine just a tiny bit smaller than the 3800. Since the displacement of the blower is less it has to spin faster to make the same boost. This results in more heat than an m90 blower pushing the same boost on the same engine. Heat and parasitic drag aside, and with the same boost on the same engine, the m62 would actually slightly outperform an m90 due to hitting peak boost sooner and not having to overcome as heavy SC rotors. But I digress...

If you could sell that sucker for 150$ you would be doing well.(I know they seem like they should sell for more, and there is always someone trying to sell it for more, but its an old blower and its application is pretty limited. So unless you find a sucker or are willing to have it up for sale for a long time...)


As far as your project, anything looks easy if you say it fast enough. I've got enough experience in custom fabricating things to know its never "that" easy even with all the professional tools available. Turbo will be your best bang for the buck, less headache, faster, faster to make, easier on the transmission, "no" parasitic drag on the engine, and more suited to what you have and the parts you already have. Its win win win.

Hmm, I'll see if my friend would pay that much for it. He really wants it, and wants to boost his Honda, lol. And I get what you're saying about fabrication. I Thought it would be easy at first to simply fab a spacer in between my current LIM after porting it by simply putting a plate on top of it to act as a metal gasket, with holes the same size as the intake runners, then welding a 2 inch strip of metal to A similar top plate, to have a perfect flat mating surface for the M62, then I realized I'd ave to either weld it to the bottom plate, or weld a metal flange to bolt onto the L36 LIM (harder to do, and I'd lose the ability to work on the LIM itself, and if the heatercore went bad, I'd have to cut and weld all over again, unless I made a bolt on plate away from the supercharger to have access to and remove the heatercore for intercooler use which would still be a PITA) Then I realized that that's a terrible idea unless the gasket/bottom plate was REALLY REALLY thick, and I smoothed it out to an even slope curve to the itake runners of the manifold where it mates, or else I'd be getting horrible turbulence which would drastically hurt engine performance.

Then I saw a thread with custom intake manifolds for an L36 and was really confused that there were none sold from any vendors that Iv'e ever seen after searching for quite a while. I thought for a while that those were F-body manifolds hacked up to bits and re used, then I stumbled upon the fact that the Holden Commadore happens to have a slightly different varient of our L36, with a better designed manifold, and then spent literally 10 hours searching through thousands of google links looking for a vender that sells cheap Holden "Ecotec V6" lower and upper intake manifolds (Which I'd still LOVE to have for a turbo build btw, they look SICK polished, and seem to have a way better design than our manifolds, easily accessible top bolted plate, I love it!)

And I do realize even using that intake manifold, would require a little bit of relocating some things on my engine, but it doesn't seem too terrible. I really hope to find one of them some day soon for cheap



Also, I realize you're definitely one of the most experienced at fabrication work on this sight and apreciate any advice you have to offer, so I do heed your words; and you've pretty much mostly convinced me to sell that M62 and get a Holset HX45 turbo out of it, and work on porting some of the parts from the mock-up L36 in the shed, eventually get headers and some other odds and ends, make the turbo fit the mock up engine, then swap it over to mine, when I'm ready.


I am curious though, assuming I got the HX 52 (Has slightly more lag than the HX45), which is a turbo off a Cummins, how much power would I expect to have without hurting my transmission? I have NO IDEA how a turbo like that one would affect my engine torque curve with my 9.4:1 pistons assuming I got a water- air intercooler rated for more CFM than the turbo can even handle? And how much would things like camming it and head mold portworking help that out, with the headers, and ported lower intake manifold help that out as well, would it be safer with the same boost than the M90?

And how much would I expect to see the 28mpg highway I get now be affected from a turbo that spools pretty quick?

Thanks for any more tips/advice by the way

AA wrote:

Quote :

You can get a full set of ALUMINUM fully CNC'd cylinder heads for other "more marketable" cars, for the price of pretty much reconditioning our crappy cast iron cylinder heads, which they pretty much just smooth out the casting.. Am I the only one that thinks that's screwed up, given our engine potential, and how many people modify the Grand Prix? Aluminum heads for us cost, what, 2-3 grand? If we had heads at that price, so many people would be buying them that they'd be making more money off them than they do now, most likely.

Part of the reason is, our heads aren't as "crappy" as you assume. They practically last forever, won't warp and are pretty hard to crack. The head gaskets almost never fail. Buick used iron heads for all the right reasons; iron is less expensive, too. They weren't planning on someone modifying their 15-yr-old Riviera on a beer budget. In contrast, you need to be careful with aluminum heads. If they get just a bit hot, you can have all sorts of problems. Two advantages are, they are lighter and easier to machine. Downside: head for head, iron is cheaper. Otherwise, iron and alum are the same. Considering how much our cars already weigh, it's not worth it to upgrade unless you are going for an all-out race car. And I use the term "upgrade" loosely, because our iron heads are more durable, and don't hurt performance.

Quote :

That's a reverse plenum and different than the stock one though, and they don't sell the lower intake to go with it, unless I'm missing something?

Okay, but I found that in 10 secs. You searched for 10 hours and couldn't find anything? What about the forums? Where did you find the pics you posted? Maybe the owners of that car know something. This can't be as difficult as you are making it out to be.

I'd never get aluminum heads for my engine, unless I miraculously won a lottery lol But you do have to admit, my point where aluminum heads for our engine costs MORE than a set of aluminum LS7 cylinder heads, is beyond retarded:

http://performanceparts.com/part/Procomp-Electronics/BL10262

The LS7 is a $13,000 engine block, ours can be had for as little as $500 or less used, or under 3 grand brand new. It just doesn't make sense

But, I thought that aluminum heads flow slightly better than iron given the same exact dimension because Aluminum is more thermally conductive by far than iron, which makes flow slightly better?

The reason I said crappy is because of the rough castings. My motor will have 73% volumetric efficiency with a gutted air box, with all stock parts, which is pretty damn low, while DIY mild porting (not even heads) and a new throttlebody can bump it up to 83-84% from what I've seen on charts, not even sure on how much more it would be on mildly ported and smoothed heads, but other engines, like on the new v6 mustangs, the newer Cadillacs, the challenger, Camero and others far outperform my stock motor. I mean, even A Hyundai Genesis 3.8L motor, Nissan VQ motors with much less displacement far out perform my stock motor, and cost less to upgrade, which makes me a little sad. I'm not saying my motor is bad in the slightest, because while a VQ35DE has way better stock head flow than mine, theier connecting rods start snapping past 400 ft lbs of torque, where my motor with the high compression pistons, can take 500+ horsepower with the right supporting mods with stock bottom end and be okay. That's pretty rare for such a low cost, low output to begin with motor, and definitely deserves respect

Forums from questions anyone already posted about it led me to dead links from years past, and links to a salvage yard which I am waiting on from my email for a reply, and I made a post on a Commodore forum that needs moderation aproval for the post asking where to buy it alone so I'm waiting on that. I looked at every manifold availble searchign anything related to Ecotec V6 and the Holden name, found ONE complete lower/upper intake manifold on the aussie ebay site, waiting on his reply to see if it can be shipped ($50 is a steal for that anyway) not sure how bad shipping will be though. Looked on the Holden website which had links to AC Delco and GM parts which it wasn't under. Looked at many Aussie vendors when didn't have anything closer than what you linked to what I needed (most anything close to what i was looking for was either a twin turbo setup for thoudands, or a highly modified and fabricated plenum upper intake manifold without the lower, for a LOT of money), found another ebay link with only the upper (useless without the LIM) Found a few Ecotec V6 full motors online for $500 or less, but the shipping would rape me. Found a few ebay links for the gasket kit which I'd be getting if I can get this thing cheap enough, Then I spent about 6-7 hours looking through dead end links aimlessly because I couldn't sleep and was pissed off,lol. I should have realized I was getting nowhere by 30 mins into it.

I just don't understand why it seems so damn hard to find it, unless I'm just doing it wrong. I might ask for the proper part numbers soon on the Holden Aussie forums, then try it that way, but my first post didn't even get approved yet. I mean..where do Australian people get a replacement manifold if they break other than the Holden dealer? and by now, those engines are probably discontinued for a new platform, so a dealer seems unlikely.

It won't let me post external links but go to come racing dot com and contact them. They can direct you where to go for all the Aussie stuff.

Quote :

I'd never get aluminum heads for my engine, unless I miraculously won a lottery lol lmao But you do have to admit, my point where aluminum heads for our engine costs MORE than a set of aluminum LS7 cylinder heads, is beyond retarded:

http://performanceparts.com/part/Procomp-Electronics/BL10262

The LS7 is a $13,000 engine block, ours can be had for as little as $500 or less used, or under 3 grand brand new. It just doesn't make sense frown

It's really not retarded, and makes perfect sense - if understand things from the perspective of the manufacturer and supply chain, not just the buyer (you). First thing: no one in the parts business is setting their prices based on how nice they are. I think some buyers think they are getting ripped off when they see a set of Stage 4 3800 iron heads for $2500, then a set of LS7 heads for $1000. How can that be?

Looking at those LS7 heads, they appear to be cast, just like stock 3800, except from aluminum. Because they are cast, it means they were made in sufficiently high volume to make them reasonably priced. That means that even though the LS7 is a highly specialized engine, the heads don't need to cost a fortune. A big part of why the LS7 costs as much as it does is the amount of manual assembly required, as well as some exotic internal parts (titanium rods and valves, for example). So, LS7 engine being expensive does not mean LS7 heads must be expensive.

LS7 heads do have a small amount of CNC porting from the factory, but it is by no means a full port & polish job. It's affordable because the machining is very minimal - the design of the heads allows them to flow well, even with some rough casting marks inside. Not surprising considering they are state-of-the-art Corvette heads. I read that stock LS7 heads flow equivalent to top-level race heads from 10 years earlier - that's progress. According to one authority at the Corvetteforums, they flow so well, a full port & polish job on LS7 heads costing $1000 and would yield a 5HP gain. Obviously not worth doing.

A pair of fully reconditioned 3800 iron heads can be had for $400 from ZZP, which is basically what you are getting for $1000 for the LS7 from the link you provided, with a small amount of CNC work. However, W-Body store offers NEW 3800 heads with CNC port & polish (30-40HP gain) for $999, w/ no core, and are fully assembled: "Add rockers and go." That's not so bad at all.

I saw aluminum heads for 3800 offered a few years ago from ZZP and of course they were incredibly expensive. I believe they took a mold from OEM iron heads and recast a small run in aluminum. This costs big bucks, which isn't good for profit because of the low volume. They are no longer offered, and I cannot find any other vendors selling this kind of product. A company like GM can justify casting thousands of parts for the Corvette market. A company like ZZP has only the smaller 3800 market. The lower volume means much higher retail price on the heads, to make up for the set-up cost.

Quote :

But, I thought that aluminum heads flow slightly better than iron given the same exact dimension because Aluminum is more thermally conductive by far than iron, which makes flow slightly better?

Based on the laws of thermodynamics, it's actually the opposite. For years, drag racers were hesitant to use aluminum heads, because they knew that iron, being less thermally conductive, kept the exhaust gasses hotter inside the engine, lowering the density and increasing air flow. The same principles apply to exhaust systems. JET coatings and thermal wrap are meant to do the opposite that aluminum would do (transfer heat).

But the flow vs. heat thing turned out to be insignificant. Car Craft did a comparison between identical heads made of aluminum and iron, finding no difference in flow. And because of the aluminum's heat transfer advantage, it was assumed there would be better knock resistance in blown applications. According to Car Craft, they saw no difference. So it really comes down to weight, and for race cars, that matters, especially on cars that don't weigh much to begin with. That's why I think we see so much aluminum in production cars - because the marketing drives people to think there's an advantage, just because it's used in F1, NASCAR, and in the higher end sports cars.

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The reason I said crappy is because of the rough castings. My motor will have 73% volumetric efficiency with a gutted air box, with all stock parts, which is pretty damn low, while DIY mild porting (not even heads) and a new throttlebody can bump it up to 83-84% from what I've seen on charts, not even sure on how much more it would be on mildly ported and smoothed heads, but other engines, like on the new v6 mustangs, the newer Cadillacs, the challenger, Camero and others far outperform my stock motor.

All production heads are cast, and that means all have some roughness inside. The LS7 is a rare bird. A key word you used above is "new". Progress is a neat thing, and with it comes other technologies that help performance. Modern direct fuel injection, for example, is like what electronic fuel injection was in the '80s. It's enabling incredible levels of efficiency, performance, and low emissions with justifiable cost. There are reasons newer cars are more efficient, aside from just the heads.

So, that's why ceramic coating the headers is good, aside from rust protection then?

And, that should also mean that a Ported exhaust manifold is a pretty good performance increase until the wait for headers, and that iron is better than I thought?

But what I still don't get, is that there is actually a BIG market for our engine. it just hasn't been captured properly. Almost as many people mass with our engine as any one specific Honda engine, and if prices were lower, ZZP and Intense racing could much easier market their products on a mass scale to a lot more 3800 owners.

From what I understand, the CNC machine basically has you put the heads on a stand, and you push a button, and the computer program you just made for the CNC machine basically does everything for you, meaning that ZZP and other vendors pretty much put all of their CNC work into buying the machine, and programming it to do what they want?

So it make sense to me, that if they better marketed their CNC porting your set of heads sending them in, they could still make profit gains, and charge more for things in a bundle like the valvetrain that you'd need if your heads were decently ported. I'm thinking if that were the case, A LOT more people would be sending in 3800 heads, grand prix owners, bonneville owners, lots of Buick owners, Monte carlo owners, Impala owners, and more other models I didn't even list, and the vendors would make more in the long run, for a market much bigger than they currently have

Unless I'm missing something?

And, A pair of fully reconditioned heads from ZZP flows as well as LS7 heads?

Quote :

So, that's why ceramic coating the headers is good, aside from rust protection then?

Absolutely. Actually, mine are stainless anyway, so they won't rust. The reasons they coat them is to keep the heat in for better flow, lower under hood temps, and to insulate the thin walls from heat stress, which can cause cracking.

The "Three P’s of Coating" from Jet-Hot High Performance Coatings:

1) Performance

Reduces under-hood temperatures
Improves thermal efficiency of the engine system
Maintains uniform temperature throughout the exhaust system
Improves the performance of the heart of the vehicle
Provides more useful horsepower by reducing the mass of the reciprocating components

2) Protection

Keeps the engine compartment cooler
Extends the life of neighboring components
Improves thermal oxidation protection at higher temperatures
Reduces parasitic drag losses
Reduces the friction properties where lubricants are intended to stay
Improves cooling efficiency and aids oil drain-back, where lubricants are intended to shed oil
Reduces surface profiles using friction reduction fluoropolymers
Provides protection up to 2,500F (Jet-Hot Extreme 2500 series)

3) Polish

Provides a clean appearance
Available in a variety of colors and finishes
Unlike chrome, Jet-Hot’s silvery finish won’t blue
Stays bright and true for years
Easy to clean

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And, that should also mean that a Ported exhaust manifold is a pretty good performance increase until the wait for headers, and that iron is better than I thought?

I don't know for sure. I jumped from stock manis to coated headers overnight. It made a difference, but it wasn't felt as much as something like a SC pulley or rockers. It think this is because we don't tend to feel mid/high RPM power increases as much as low-end torque bumps. The car just gets faster. Still, once the headers were on, for the first time the engine felt more like a V-8 rather than a V-6. Headers were the tipping point.

There is science behind header design that allows it to flow better. It's not really the material that matters. Plus, you lose some weight compared with manis, at the expense of some noise and increased temps under the hood.

I do know this: porting/polishing the manis would offer some gain over the stock castings. Hard to say how much because it depends on other mods. On a stock engine, it could be under 5 HP gained. For a 300 HP engine, it might be 10 HP. About 10 years ago, guy who went by Camlifter put nitrous on his Riv and ran high 12s in the 1/4 mile - with ported & polished stock manis. If you have the time, I'd say do it. Until you really get some air flowing, headers are not a cost effective mod. 15-20 HP for $600-900 isn't the best option when you can get similar gains from a pulley swap or rockers + supporting mods.

I also would bet money that aluminum exhaust manis would not improve flow compared to iron. They might even deform from the heat. I've read about aluminum exhaust parts used after the cat, where it's cooler, in an attempt to shed weight. But for daily driver reliability, it's generally seen as a bad idea. Pontiac did some experimenting with this many years ago, but it didn't work.

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But what I still don't get, is that there is actually a BIG market for our engine. it just hasn't been captured properly. Almost as many people mass with our engine as any one specific Honda engine, and if prices were lower, ZZP and Intense racing could much easier market their products on a mass scale to a lot more 3800 owners.

I would argue that a BIG market is different than a big performance market. True, there are a LOT of 3800s on the road, but less and less each day since the platform retired. But of all the Buicks and Pontiacs out there with 3800, relatively few have performance modifications, because the owners don't view them as performance cars. That's part of the fun in owning a car like the Riviera. Most people don't expect it to be something that blows doors off some sportier imports, even some older Mustangs and Camaros. Fact is, there's a big difference between a car that's "fun to drive" and a car that puts down good numbers and wins races.

I don't have any hard numbers, but I'd guess there's a bigger number of tuners messing with 4 cyl Hondas and Subarus, even Toyotas these days. Their forums are bigger. I see more of them on the road and at the track. The VW tuning scene is crazy big. Most of the older guys only mess with V8s, and this group is alive and well. There's the smaller Buick turbo V-6 crowd, and then there's us. ZZP, INTENSE, W-Body Store, and 3800 Performance are actually small businesses compared to places like APR, COBB, Rensport, Calloway, and Hennessey, to name a few. And these big guys are not cheaper than the 3800 vendors by any means. Take APR for example:

VW sway bar kit: $474
Riv sway bars: $250

VW turbo kit: $4500-6800
Riv turbo kit: $2300-3500

VW fuel pump: $950 (on sale)
Riv fuel pump: $100

VW downpipe: $755
Riv downpipe: $120

VW ECU tune: $500 (on sale)
Riv ECU tune: $155

Also worth nothing, the 3800 vendors offer a FAR larger variety of parts than APR, at significantly lower prices.

If you want to compare modding the Riv to the guy down the road modding his Honda for peanuts, ask him where he's getting his parts. If he's anything like my friends and our '93 Acura Integ, we get our stuff from low budget rip-off vendors importing from China, because we can't afford Mugen exhaust parts. There are some vendors out there offering cheap parts for the 3800 V-6, too. SS Autocrome lets you have SLP designed headers for $250 or so. But like all of these cheaper parts, they're not the real thing, and they don't last as long or perform as well.

I have no problems with ZZP, INTENSE, and other 3800 vendor's pricing structures. They seem to stay in business with their current model. There needs to be something to separate the guys who value quality and customer service from the ebay/amazon drop ship from Shanghai guys who don't value anything accept moving product. I won't even go into warranties - all I know is this - when my INTENSE rocker arms were recalled, they popped the valve covers and swapped all the pedestals at no charge, even thought they were fine. When my braided SS brake lines burst, ZZP shipped me a new set out the same day, without any questions. You aren't going to get that kind of response from an online vendor who sells the bare minimum quality at the lowest possible price.

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From what I understand, the CNC machine basically has you put the heads on a stand, and you push a button, and the computer program you just made for the CNC machine basically does everything for you, meaning that ZZP and other vendors pretty much put all of their CNC work into buying the machine, and programming it to do what they want?

The CNC machine is an investment to begin with. For the kind of work they're doing and the volume of jobs, they're using $50,000-$100,000 mills. They probably have more than one of these machines (most machine shops I visit have 5 or more mills). Lets say ZZP has invested $100k on a couple CNC mills.

ZZP's price on CNC ported heads (no hand work) is $1100. Minus $400 for the heads themselves, their rate for CNC porting is $700. If all they had to do was make back their money spent on equipment, and they had 3 jobs per week, it would take one full year to break even. Just imagine you'd just invested in a mill, and now you have a solid stream of business - you don't get paid for a year, but you're working everyday.

But there are actually a lot more expenses involved than the equipment. You have to program the CNC paths. You need to hire a CAD engineer for that. It could take him a week at $100/hr, so that's another $4000 for programming. Someone has to load the machine, push the button, unload, and clean up. You'll pay that person $20/hour or more. He's not going to be on call, so consider hiring a full-time employee for $40k/yr. Once the heads are finished, you must clean them up, paint, and install valves, springs, seals, guides, retainers. You'll need to send that out to a mechanic ($200), or hire another full time employee. Then there's the cost of cutter tools - good ones aint cheap, and they get replaced often. If the equipment needs serviced, that's probably $500-1000 per visit.

So as you can see, nothing's for free. After a few years, and hopefully some successful sales, you can finally start profiting. ZZP has other areas of the business to support their investments, so it's easier for them now, but it wasn't easy in the beginning. All of these vendors started out small. In fact, I can still remember when INTENSE racing was actually 3-4 guys in Scott Cook's home garage. I took the Riv up there and they installed my SC pulley for FREE in his driveway, in the rain!

Quote :

And, A pair of fully reconditioned heads from ZZP flows as well as LS7 heads?

Not at all, but the ZZP heads are only 40% the price of the LS7s.

You could invest in some stainless steel headers from ebay. Karma pointed them out to me, and i researched the quality, and they have a better reputation than the pacesetters.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/RACING-MANIFOLD-HEADER-EXHAUST-GRAND-PRIX-GTP-BUICK-REGAL-IMPALA-MONTE-CARLO-3-8-/190707797831?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&fits=Model%3AGrand+Prix&hash=item2c67120f47&vxp=mtr


but remember these are not coated. I do not know how much it would cost to get them coated either. The biggest downfalls i heard about these are that the flex pipes can go bad, and the clamps that it comes with are not recommended.

Add $180-700 for ceramic coating from Jet-Hot. I'm guessing the $180 option would be for a single I-4 header, so probably $300-400 for ours, just a guess.

I started working on the wire harness today by the way, and it's not exactly simple to replace, lol. Hopefully I can finish it within the next couple days.

I don't know if the radio is fried yet, but oh well. I'm also going to swap in a dark blue interior and replace the AC blend doors while I can, so the interior will look better as well, and the dash will be gloss black for a two tone look.

But, also another question is how can I mold acrylic into a shape?





I have no idea how it's done, but I want 4 solid acrylic lenses shaped like this thing here, and if I could mold it myself, then it would save me a lot of money. I was just curious if you could apply a release agent to it and mold a solid, somewhat decent glass lens to focus light for say, a flashlight.

Hey Corey, how come you're rippin' your dash all out? Something about a harness?

turtleman wrote:

Hey Corey, how come you're rippin' your dash all out? Something about a harness?

Yeah I'm working on replacing it because the dash wire harness melted from a bad ground a while ago. I'm also going to swap a dark blue interior from a parts Riviera that was like $500

if only the supercharger on that riv was an M90 :c

A little late to the party but speaking of clearcoat failure, the front of this riv isn't rust, or from a fire, or some of sprayed on crap. It's where for whatever reason, I'd assume chemical, the clear literally just exploded into a browned powder.

As per bending/moulding acrylic, in all my years making composite material based propellers and other aircraft parts w/ my brother in laws company, you're either going to need to find the exact shape you want and form a thin acrylic sheet mold by pouring n casting over the shape to later create your own in acrylic or else take the already existing acrylic object/ring you have and introduce it to a strip heater or similar. At the points of the heat you can manipulate the bend however you please if you're careful and use clamps to secure the rigidity of the shape. Helpful? Probably not but there's a reason I'm not a teacher

llamalor2112 wrote:

A little late to the party but speaking of clearcoat failure, the front of this riv isn't rust, or from a fire, or some of sprayed on crap. It's where for whatever reason, I'd assume chemical, the clear literally just exploded into a browned powder.

As per bending/moulding acrylic, in all my years making composite material based propellers and other aircraft parts w/ my brother in laws company, you're either going to need to find the exact shape you want and form a thin acrylic sheet mold by pouring n casting over the shape to later create your own in acrylic or else take the already existing acrylic object/ring you have and introduce it to a strip heater or similar. At the points of the heat you can manipulate the bend however you please if you're careful and use clamps to secure the rigidity of the shape. Helpful? Probably not but there's a reason I'm not a teacher

Well, I know how to take plexiglass and soften it over an existing objet to create a mold but that's not going to help me because I need to magnify it.

You said pour and casting, so does that mean I can use that clear cap thingy as a mold, apply a wax type release agent and then pour a plastic liquid in it to create the same exact shape, but creating the negative of it?

Well typically speaking yes, provided your prototype isn't made of a material that will melt under heat. That's why this could be tricky. Perhaps creating your mold from vacuum pressure would also work without the risk of melting? Here's a diy inexpensive way... http://m.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-Your-Own-Prototypes-%3A-How-to-make-your/

hah, might a well buy a few magnifying paper weights at this point >_>

llamalor2112 wrote:

A little late to the party but speaking of clearcoat failure, the front of this riv isn't rust, or from a fire, or some of sprayed on crap. It's where for whatever reason, I'd assume chemical, the clear literally just exploded into a browned powder.

As per bending/moulding acrylic, in all my years making composite material based propellers and other aircraft parts w/ my brother in laws company, you're either going to need to find the exact shape you want and form a thin acrylic sheet mold by pouring n casting over the shape to later create your own in acrylic or else take the already existing acrylic object/ring you have and introduce it to a strip heater or similar. At the points of the heat you can manipulate the bend however you please if you're careful and use clamps to secure the rigidity of the shape. Helpful? Probably not but there's a reason I'm not a teacher

...while you're on the subject, you might also want those headlights if they are cheap enough.

I wired pretty much the whole harness back together without the instrument panel or anything in, just to re learn the layout, and see if everything works, and I'm super happy that my radio din't fry lol.

But I do have a small problem. While taking apart the dash, a piece of it slashed through one of my Polk audio drivers :/

So I need new speakers in the front now, lol.


Also, I'm half tempted to try to find some kind of USB DAC for my phone and bypass the radio entirely and just have a USB port mounted where the radio would go, with a little ledge to have my phone and also a small pre amp hidden inside for analogue audio that turns into 4.1 stereo for the amps in the back.

I also would love to try and repair my nice amps at some point, since I have a MB Quart RA 4200, and a Soundstream Class A 10.2 which can push some serious power if I want. my MB quart has leaking capacitors which I need to replace but guess what, radioshack doesn't even have any capacitor I ever need... I freaking hate radioshack, like why do they even exist when they don't have speaker drivers, tweeters, the right capacitors or resistors for anything, or any good OPAMPS, or non garbage LED for like 300+ lumen output, or OTG host cables, or MHL adapters, or anything else I look for that no one has.

So the parts riv is in the back yard now, and I'm going to start working on swapping interiors soon, while I have my dashboard ripped out I might as well.







I'm definitely swapping that hood onto mine, lol.











As you can see, this interior is far better than mine, and I really like the blue. It might not be a brand new interior, but seeing as my gauge cluster is broken, I have chipped and broken switches all over the place, my seats are ripped up, and numerous other things, I'm glad to have a full interior to work with. I'm going to keep my dashboard because it's slightly different and I already made it gloss black. I even wanna swap those awesome metal pedals :o




I really wish that was an M90 instead of an M62 and unless my step dad's contacts in Australia find a good Holden intake manifold, I'd probably turbo this thing before messing with the M62, otherwise I's have to fabricate a new intake manifold and I'm not interested in that so much :/

Going to wake up early tomorrow and try to figure some of this out. Any tips would be apreciated if anyone knows of any weird things about interior removal. I really didn't like the weird way I had to angle dash pieces out, lol.

Other than having to re-wrap or possibly paint the vinyl on the steering wheel, which I kind of want to do in black to match the dash, I'm really happy with the condition of this interior. This Buick was bought for less than it even costs to re upholster my car lol :o

I was up pretty much all night last night taking the interior out of my Riv, preparing to swap interiors.








I have no idea how to take the steering wheel out yet, and this would help me a lot putting the dash back in, as well as I'm going to swap to the steering wheel with climate and radio control. I'm assuming the wiring is doable and not that hard to do so?


What I plan on doing is actually cleaning and dying my carpet and headliner , and putting them back in first, that way I can swap one piece at a time, and I won't forget a single thing. I will sell any parts in decent condition out of my current crap buick if anyone wants anything, PM me and I'll see what I can do for you. I'd be selling them for next to nothing so just PM an offer.

Can anyone tell me how I'm supposed to take the sunroof sliding door out to dye it black?

cool! i want high res pictures of all this dash stuff/wiring!
BTW, take that dash top piece off. It helps a lot to have it out of the way. with the pillar trim off and the front panel screws out it's already loose - just pull it kinda out towards the rear of the car and disconnect like 1 connector

Wow, bet that M62-powered Series I would beat a stock M90-powered Riv right now!

Can you weigh everything taken off the car? I'm guessing 200+ lb.

turtleman wrote:

cool! i want high res pictures of all this dash stuff/wiring!
BTW, take that dash top piece off. It helps a lot to have it out of the way. with the pillar trim off and the front panel screws out it's already loose - just pull it kinda out towards the rear of the car and disconnect like 1 connector

Alright I'll try to take a super high res pic of it for you. Will 24 megapixels be sufficient?

AA wrote:

Wow, bet that M62-powered Series I would beat a stock M90-powered Riv right now!

Can you weigh everything taken off the car? I'm guessing 200+ lb.

Haha, that would actually be the interior stripped outta my riv, I did that because I was bound to snap some plastic delicate parts, and I'd rather learn from breaking my crappy interior than the nice one. Later today I'm going to dye my headliner black, and paint the dash corner piece black as well. I still need to figure out how to remove the sliding door so I can dye that black too. I was thinking about putting in a cool logo died blue, taping over that and then spray dying the rest black for the sliding door that covers the sunroof.

Anyway, I don't have a way to weigh it sadly, but after taking it all out, I can definitely agree that it should be at least 200 lbs. The carpet is heavier than one would think because of thick foam padding as noise reduction.

EDIT:

https://2img.net/r/ihimg/a/img827/147/dsc00495go.jpg

Sorry it looks super grainy, I had to manipulate contrast and lighting to make the wires pop because the lights there screwed with camera exposures to really see the harness. That's the new dash harness by the way that I put in and it works fine. The old one melted because of a bad ground and that's what started this huge thing where I couldn't drive my Riv for about 3 months now :/

If you'd like a better pic, it will have to wait til daylight tomorrow

Just got the Parts Riv parked next to mine, and it was a BITCH to get started and I don't even know if an engine should run in the condition this one is in. Seems like half the accessory belt needs work here and there, pullies are weird, broken off sensors, the MAF sensor looks like it was smashed with a hammer, there's a terrible exhaust leak as you can see plus I'm pretty sure it's burning a lot of oil lol.



My headliner before dying it, can't even use the one in Parts Buick because it has no sunroof. I also painted the switch housing black.





Not actually very happy with my workmanship here. The vinyl/fabric spray was very drippy and not propelled right at all, making spots resulting in an uneven coat. It's always done this to me with it though.



Sunroof sliding door has been died now, I might try putting a logo on it in a few mins.




if anyone can refresh my memory on a couple things before I spend longer than I want to trying to find out, if you see that white connector near the sunroof near the passenger side sunvisor with the plug facing towards the windor, what plugs in that? And how come there's a 2 pin power connector on the driver side near the sun visor when the driver side sun visor has no lights or a mated connector like the passenger side has?





I had to put the half- dried headliner back in the car because I couldn't figure out how to get the sunroof sliding door without the sunroof fully open, and when I took apart the switch housing to get painted, I didn't realize the sunroof switch had locking tabs until taking it apart later, but I don't remember a piece being in between the switch rocker plastic piece in my hand, and the PCB circuit to open the sunroof itself, but plastic isn't conductive, and I don't think there's a pressure mechanism for the switch itself, but I don't remember anything falling out when I unscrewed the PCB from the switch rocker either. The way I opened the sunroof was basically using two screwdrivers to touch solder points on the relatively simple PCB and it worked. At first I thought I wired the headliner in wrong, but then I realized it was the switch being the problem. Can anyone tell me if my switch is simply broken, or is my problem is the fact I have a missing part I probably won't find? I appreciate any help on that, and it's kind of a huge project for a 21 year old with ADHD still, to take apart the entire interior of this car, and start putting a whole new set in, not sure if I'm making this way harder that it's actually out to be though :c

If I did lose the part, I could find another 3 way switch, and solder the wires to it, and then dremel the switch housing to accomodate the new part if need be, then epoxy it into place, or screw in like stock if I can, I can't believe a contacts probably fell out and I didn't even notice By the way, the Parts Buick has no sunroof so I can't just swap it in lol.

nice.but whats up with the sizing of the pics?