Project: TurboBrougham!!

[bs009]

exhaust is pretty well mocked up here. I finished cutting and tacking on the wastegate flanges today, hoping to have that all knocked out sometime tomorrow.



bolt welded here to keep the internal wastegate shut:


cold side is pretty much all set here too, just need to connect it to the turbo.



Before any of this can be finished though I'll need to finish working on getting my t4 to t3 flange adapter drilled for counter sunk bolts. This will have to be done later in the week after everything comes in the mail.
This is pretty much my biggest holdup right now; pretty much everything else I can think of is good to go aside from the rest of the exhaust.

[bs009]

So this thing fires up. I was able to do a first start at the mini meet over the weekend. However it only runs for about 3 or 4 seconds right now.

I have a few things to sort out with the exhaust and also my FPR leaks into it's vacuum port. Once I sort that stuff out and figure out how to solve the VATS issue it has right now it should be good to go!

[bs009]

So this car runs now, found out that GM boolean values are opposite of what's normal.
Needs a few things sorted out still; need to plug in the O2 sensors properly and get my wideband in there to help with the tuning. The exhaust is hooked up with a glasspack and a muffler. The wastegates aren't plumbed into the downpipe yet, but that shouldn't keep me from testing things out here.

I also found out that I'll need to replace my fuel pressure regulator. This one leaks fuel into the vacuum port when you first turn on the fuel pump.

Fun times:

[98SSE]

Looks great!

[bs009]

https://youtu.be/LWacxJbrp5I

[95naSTA]

Grats man!

[haro1225]

I saw it move under its own power yesterday.

[MattStrike]

I'm getting excited that I may have my garage back soon!

[bs009]

Still chasing down this misfire. Ruled out a mechanical issue; compression test shows 180 psi on all cylinders with one showing about 175. Timing light shows nothing wrong with the timing so there doesn't seem to be any issue there.
Going to grab an O2 sensor and get the wideband working properly. Appears to be an issue with improper fueling.

[bs009]

So I finally sorted out the issue with the misfire.

I started by replacing the cam and crank sensors. When I put the balancer on I put it on wrong though and had to replace the key on the crank and the crank sprocket. I ended up replacing the whole timing set after that and put it all back together.


After putting it back together it was still running pretty bad so I started to trace out the wiring again to make sure that everything was okay with the harness from the Camaro. I stopped after the fuel injectors and switched PCM's with one from a 98 L36 Grand Prix. I flashed a quick tune on it to disable EGR and adjust for my injectors and the tranny and fired it up. It runs perfect now!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgXnIh8NxpU

Now I just need to finish up a few things, tie a few loose ends and she'll be road worthy!

[95naSTA]

Grats!

[bs009]

Thanks! Feels good to finally have it sorted out!

[MattStrike]

Finally, some good news!

[bs009]

finished up the exhaust from the downpipe back finally. The only thing left to do for exhaust now is to finish the exits for the wastegates and wrap everything under the hood.

Here is what I made for my "downpipe-back"

muffler and glasspack:


raw materials:





Everything tacked together:

in front of axle:


axle-back:


cutting the tip:


Over axle hump with suspension all the way down:


with the car's weight on it:


tip installed:

[BonnieBoy08]

Looking good! I should be there in June to see it in person/ take a test ride!

[bs009]

Absolutely! I cannot wait to show this thing off in June!

[bs009]

Finishing up more of the exhaust here.

I went and wrapped the exhaust manifolds with heat wrap. Man this stuff gets everywhere, I finished these up and found little strands of fiberglass everywhere.



Here they are installed again. These two would be connected had I not broken my v-band clamp tonight.



If it weren't for me breaking that clamp I would be buying plates for the car this weekend and taking it for a test drive. Looks like that will have to wait until I get a new clamp.


I was also able to finish up all of the plumbing for the wastegates this week:


I'm also working on putting together a gauge pod to go underneath the center console.



couple things left before the car will be good enough to come out of its cave:
- front brakes: going to be swapping over to S10 knuckles and hopefully blazer calipers
- parking brake cables (those are on their way)
- modification to fuel rail to fix leak
- new rear tires
- possibly a brace to help support the turbo

After all of that, I'll feel very confident in driving this car pretty much anywhere

[bs009]

So it looks like this car will either get very good gas mileage in 5th gear, or I will have to leave it in 4th gear on the highway.

With the 2.41 gear ratio in the stock rear end it looks like it will be spinning at 1700 RPM in 5th gear at 70 mph. Might need to build that 8.5" up sooner rather than later haha

[MattStrike]

For what it's worth, even with a cam my 3800 is happy around 1500rpm. You shouldn't have any problems cruising at 1700, but you might have to downshift for hills.

[bs009]

Yeah I suppose we'll have to see. If the turbo can put out some boost down that low then I'm sure it will run pretty good. These engines make gobs of torque under boost.