262's 85 Fiero SE LX9 F23 swap thread lots of pics

[ericjon262]

The new fuel system has been working great! the car pulls really hard, and I've been working on the tune quite a bit more.

as noted earlier in this thread, my current engine has an unacceptable amount of metal in the oil, which means I should be working towards a viable replacement engine.


I had 2 main options for a new engine, option one, start building a 3.9, honestly, to me this is the end goal that I eventually want. The killer downside to the 3.9 is that I will need to build a new hotside, and new engine mounts to actually install it in the car, along with wiring and plumbing changes, not something that can eb done quickly in an afternoon.

option 2, build the LX9 I have in parts in the garage. originally, i thought I was going to run into head gasket problems with that engine because the bore diameter was larger than the off the shelf cometic gaskets, I recently learned cometic can make bigger bore gaskets no fuss. the other issue, was that the windage tray wasn't going to directly fit this engine, because it has aftermarket H beam rods, which means I need to make a proper windage try for it.


the first issue with the windage try is mounting it. Stock has a stud on top of the main cap bolts, I have ARP main studs, so I can't easily put a stud on a stud, and the nuts that came with the studs are 1/2" 12 point, without much room at all for the tray to sit on. I've found some nuts that will fit the studs, and have way bigger heads than the nuts that came with them (11/16" 6 point vs 1/2" 12 point) next, I'll need to start actually fabricating the tray.


I was cleaning up my block, and getting it ready for main bearing and the crank to go in, and I noticed a burr on the oil pan rail, while it's probably not worth anything from a power standpoint, I'm trying to do whatever I can to improve oil control for this engine, this single bur led me to deburring all sorts of stuff in the crankcase, and then re cleaning everything...




I ended up deburring the entire oil pan rail, all the main journals, and the main bearing caps, which should help prevent oil from sticking to those portions of the crankcase, and improve oil drainage back to the pain.

Right now, I'm working towards option 2. last week, I assembled the short block, and have been painstakingly going over camshafts trying to get the best cam I can for it.


I assembled the short block, minus the cam, which I obviously don't have. I really don't want to end up in the situation I did a few years ago, and have to cut valve reliefs in the pistons again, so picking the cam needs to be done very carefully, and a ton of measurements taken. tonight, I determined my method for checking piston to valve clearance without the cam, or even a head on the engine, this took a ton of figuring, so I'd like to run it by everyone and make sure my head is on right.

The comp master lobe catalog lists duration at 3 points, in crankshaft degrees.

.006" (advertised duration) .050" and .200" these figures are all based on lift of the tappet. I drew two circles in CAD, and then added lines for each duration event, the durations were divided by two to get camshaft degrees. then I extended the lines by their respective tappet lifts and came up with a drawing that looked like this:



after that, I added two additional lines, one for TDC, and one for 10 degrees BTDC for each lobe. I assumed the points between each duration step were linear, which may not be true, but looking at the drawings, the points are fairly close together and look quite a bit like I would expect a cam lobe to look like. I think this is an adequate assumption for what I'm doing here. thoughts?



at the intersections of the TDC and 10 BTDC lines, I placed points, and measured the distance between them, in the case of this lobe, the points were

.045" and .105" of tappet lift .072" and .168" of theoretical valve lift

and for the other lobe

.073" and .147" of tappet lift .117" and .236" of theoretical valve lift

the next step, which I'll probably do tomorrow, will be to install a degree wheel on the engine, and measure how far the pistons are in the hole at each point, and, how deep each valve is recessed into the head. if the combined depth is less than the above measurements, with a safety factor, then I'll go ahead and order a cam with these lobes ground and send it. alternatively, if the exhaust valves end up too close, I can also advance the cam some if need be to gain more clearance as my timing set has more than one keyway cut into it. I could also get a cam with less duration too, but what's the fun in that?

it's also worth mentioning that these are all static tappet lift measurements, and being a hydraulic cam, the lifter may absorb some of that duration and increase clearance. That being said, I have no intention on using that assumption at all in this situation, I would rather assume the valve is open more than it ever actually would be.

[ericjon262]

I didn't understand the crazy number of holes from the pump setup until I saw you welded in a ring with the threads to screw those all in. Stock is a twist seal setup right? You can tell I do a lot of fuel pumps:P Are there any decent sized fuel cells that would fit your tank location? Im just curious about this amount of work and keeping it internal vs either a custom made fuel cell and an external pump.

stock uses a locking ring to secure the sender in place, there really aren't many options for a fuel tank other than stock unless I put it somewhere I don't want it, and then have a bunch of dead space under the car too. I prefer in tank pumps for a few reasons, pumps really don't like sucking, and pumps like to be cool. With the pump submerged in fuel, the fuel keeps it cool, and it doesn't have to suck the fuel, because it's surrounded by it.

[SappySE107]

I didn't understand the crazy number of holes from the pump setup until I saw you welded in a ring with the threads to screw those all in. Stock is a twist seal setup right? You can tell I do a lot of fuel pumps:P Are there any decent sized fuel cells that would fit your tank location? Im just curious about this amount of work and keeping it internal vs either a custom made fuel cell and an external pump.

[dbral]

Love this kind of stuff. Nice skill set/engineering and the nickle plating rabbit hole is awesome. Probably a stupid question. i can't see your whole pump set up. Do you have some way of preventing the pumps from possibly over time loosening and twisting in their clamp-downs to prevent the plastic outlet(s) from shearing or cracking? Startup torque is surprising to me on those pumps

[ericjon262]

Didn't know you had video

I sure did, hopefully my next trip will be a bit more thrilling, there's no way I'll go lean once this is installed:

originally, I planned on making the bolt ring stay inside the tank and not weld on the tank, I found that making a weld on ring was easier, and probably a better bet. I made the weld on ring, as well as some nickel acetate, after the ring was finished, I dunked it in the acetate, applied a small current, and nickel plated the bare steel to hopefully keep it from rusting.



I opened the hole up in the top of the tank, and welded it in. The hole was about 135mm



The new top hat fully machined



I soldered in the pump discharge tube, and a ground stud that goes all the way through.





I cut the rest of the parts on the plasma cutter.



After that, I installed the return, and the all thread that would actually hold the pumps in place, and test fit everything.





The into the nickel with the top hat, I wasnt' worried about the tubes or all thread, because the tubes are stainless, and the all thread was zinc plated, so both of those should fair ok from a corrosion standpoint without the nickel plating.



Then I bent the tubes to fit the car.



I soldered the tubes in, wired everything up, and installed it on the tank. what's left? I have compression fittings for the tubes to adapt them to the rest of the fuel system, I also need to made some blocks to go between the tank and the tubes to adequately support them and not stress the solder joints. I'm planning on moving the flexfuel sensor to be closer to the tank/fuel filter, and not on the fuel rail, as well as installing a set of stainless LX9 fuel rails.



Parts used:

https://www.racetronix.biz/p/double-pump-coupler-6-orb-red/dpc-g6

https://www.racetronix.biz/p/universal-bulkhead-wiring-system-4-way/bcws-001

https://www.highflowfuel.com/quantum-performance-340lph-e85-intank-fuel-pump-kit-for-buick-roadmaster-efi-1994-1996-replaces-11569/

https://www.racetronix.biz/p/connector-set-in-tank-pumps-16-14ga/rcs-001

and the appropriate fittings.

Some notes about the nickel plating, I learned about this through a few youtube videos, Turbo_V6 zinc plated a trigger wheel, while looking for a few other videos on zinc, I found nickel was also doable.

Turbo_V6's zinc plating video:

https://youtu.be/O486S9CGhgM

and a helpful nickle plating video:

https://youtu.be/1Uy7QkLI8yU

My results were hit and miss, some parts turned out great, others not so much, I think my acetate may be contaminated with zinc, as some of my parts came out with a very dark finish, and the zinc plated all thread that was exposed to the acetate also turned black. if there's a next time for this, I'll do a few things slightly different:

1. insulate parts that don't need plating, this should help focus the plating on that parts that need it
2. attempt to arrange the anode(s) in such a manner that they present themselves to the entire part, or the largest surface area of the part.
3. increase the number of anodes, so that they surround the part and and more of the part is equidistant to a anode,
4. install a pump to circulate the acetate, and maybe a small filter to prevent solids that come off the anodes from getting to the part to be plated.
5. get a parts tumbler to polish small parts prior to plating, I suspect some of my parts may have had surface contaminants which caused discoloration.
6. acid dip parts prior to plating, which should further help with stripping contaminants.

I'm confident my parts are now corrosion resistant, as can be seen in one of the pictures of the top hat after soldering in the ground stud and the pump discharge pipe, the flux used to solder the parts in cause the steel to rust very quickly, while soldering in the tubes on the outside of the sender, the top hat did not rust.

[SappySE107]

Didn't know you had video

[ericjon262]

Finally made it to the track

First run was about 8 PSI and a lean on the big end, 2nd run was 10 PSI, and closer to a safe AFR. there's still a ton left in it, even at this boost level.

https://youtu.be/N9kgq1Ecdcg

https://youtu.be/NnyFvMRTnKo

[ericjon262]

my latest tune revision has 14:1 at idle, it sounds pretty gnarly if I lean it out a bit though.

The new injectors are in, and seem to have made a difference. my fuel pressure is somehow off by about 6 PSI now though... I'll need to adjust it back down before getting too far along with the tune. I checked a log from a couple days ago, it was correct last time I logged the car, I must have done something installing the new injectors.

[SappySE107]

I think the end result for me is to tune it manually with datalogs so I can find the steady state values rather than a graph of averages or transition numbers using probably bad data for AE and DE. That or have someone tune and someone drive. Auto tune is rough at best from my experience. It should idle great at 14:1 as well.

[ericjon262]

The current issue has nothing to do with the delay tables, the method to determine the delays was just a consequence of trying to dial in dead times. I've found multiple sets of data that state what my dead times should be, and for some reason, I'm not having fueling match target AFR in an expected manner. I've attempted to dial in dead times from multiple points on multiple occasions using multiple methods and analysis'. at this point, I know the injectors are 10+ years old, and have absolutely minimal run time, and frequently have had static ethanol fuel in them for months at a time, it's very possible that the injectors dirty, clogged, opening and shutting at different rates, ect. a new set of injectors, with datasheets direct from the manufacturer will hopefully solve all of my current issues, and allow me to make big steps in dialing in closed loop fueling, and a proper VE table that accurately represents the engine's VE.

the delay table isn't a issue, it's just a feature of the MS3 that I intend to employ. The sole purpose of the 2nd fuel table in my case, is to create data points to use to fill the delay table by creating stepped changes in AFR that can be correlated to a stepped change in PW. once I have enough data to generate a table, it will improve closed loop fueling response, as the MS3 will have a better idea of where to make corrections, and once the table is filled, will revert to one fuel table, unless I later have a need for two. The car is running open loop now, with no correction, longer drives through varying conditions will benefit from closed loop fueling.

[SappySE107]

are you running meth or something that requires a 2nd fuel table? Also, you are running a variable pressure fuel pump? I haven't had to deal with any of the issues you are having. Dead time I think is .6 - .8 ms for the 28# injectors. I think its mostly for idle quality to fine tune it but being way out is going to make it so you have very little of the valve opening time to be throwing fuel in there. The lower the delay, the better until you tell its faster than it is, and then you lose some fuel capability there as well.

Im running no correction, no offset table for AFR control. Have you tried that? Im not sure if a turbo fucks with that but NA it has worked great.

[ericjon262]

I spent a miserable amount of time tuning the lower portions of the VE table yesterday after work. I got them dialed in to match the commanded 13 AFR, then commanded 12 and 14 AFR to see if the fuel compensation was correct, I got this:



notice how the AFR almost instantly pegs high, or low?

This kind of step lead me to believe the flow value for the injectors was off, first, I found that for some reason I changed base fuel pressure in the tune to 39.1 instead of 43.5... I fixed that, retuned the VE table to match the commanded 13 AFR, and tried again, no change. so I adjusted injectors flow up and down to see if any improvements were being made, and I really wasn't getting much change. so I began playing with injector dead times, bumping them up and down to try and see a trend, maybe they were off? I wasn't able to find much by adjusting dead times, eventually, I adjusted them WAY out to see if there was any change, and making them about 3.5x longer than what I started and got them generated a change in AFR closer to the commanded change, to adjust to that kind of value throws everything else off, at that point, my VE table had a peak of something like 40%.

after all of that, I have verified the data for my injectors off of 2 different sources, so I think it's reasonably accurate. I set my fuel pressure via a pressure gauge, and my pressure transducer that I log agrees with that pressure at fuel pump prime, as did a separate test gauge, my fuel pressure, is set to 300KPA in the tune, which matches the pressure from the other instruments. I have come to the conclusion that my injectors, although being new, with low miles/hours, might have something wrong with them? Dirty? ethanol shenanigans? something?

Fuel settings:



Current VE table:


insight would be appreciated if you have some. that being said, drunk me bought new fuel injectors last night, from FIC, that have all of the parameters defined for an MS3, so when they get here, I'll pull the plenum and put them on, and hopefully won't have further issues.

Beyond that, in this tuning series, I was able to gleam a important data point from this tuning session, Lambda delay time. because I was commanding a distinct difference in AFR, and the PCM was making a stepped change in PW, and generating a step change in AFR, it was very easy for me to see that it takes a whopping ~1.3 seconds average for the O2 sensor to register the change, in the MS3. (I checked several spots, average was ~1.3, this point was ~1.4)



this is only part of the equation though, delay time has two major contributors, one fixed delay, from the O2 sensor interface, the time it takes the interface to read the signals from the sensor, calculate a 0-5 volt output, and send the output, which will be the same all the time, and a variable delay, which would come from the time the exhaust has to travel to get to the sensor. These two factors are separate in the MS3 EGO control schemes, the fixed delay is under "AFR/EGO control" to adjust this value, you will need to enable EGO control if not already done, then enable the delay table. I got the value in this menu from the O2 sensor manufacturer, for a 14point7 Spartan 2, this value is 100-150ms. so I set it to 126(it only accepts even numbers)



for the variable delay, we have to inspect the datalogs, at idle, this is pretty easy, change the commanded AFR, PW should be relatively static before and after, so you can measure the time it takes for the change in PW to generate a change in AFR. next, take that time, and subtract the fixed delay from that time, and you have your first data point. alternatively, you could set the fixed delay to zero, and put the total delay in the table.



I said idle was easy, what about the rest of the RPM ranges? they probably won't be that much harder. but I haven't yet tested them, the trick to getting reliable data is to have a stepped change in AFR, due to a stepped change in PW. at power, it would probably be advisable to make this change a step richer, as opposed to leaner, but your tune will determine the safest way to do this. if you can make the change in AFR happen at the slowest RPM change possible, that will also give you the easiest data to read. My plan to get the delay data is to use the table switching functions of the MS3.

first, enable AFR table switching use one of the "Loop" triggers, this will allow you to edit both AFR tables. Next, transcribe your primary AFR table to the secondary, I use the table export feature. then highlight all the cells you want to include in your testing, in my case, the only purpose of this table is to test, so I highlighted the whole table. then change the commanded AFR by an amount that will generate a stepped change when the table switches.



Next, you'll need to configure the loop, the loop is basically a software based I/O, they're in the manual under "7.8.24.1 Loop conditions" set the active condition to whatever RPM value you want to test, make a few pulls, then repeat for the next RPM value.

as a general rule, the lambda delay should be long at low RPM, and short at high RPM, and low at low load, high at high load, with RPM being the dominate factor. most other variables for lambda delay are relatively fixed on a running engine, your exhaust size rarely changes, the O2 sensor distance from the port doesn't change, so this method should allow you to generate a viable table with minimal effort.

I did a bunch of searching and was unable to find any method to better do generate the delay table, if you have a better way, I'd love to hear it.

there are at least two other lambda delay tables, but I don't think either are associated with the tune, or even stored in the MS3. one is in Tunerstudio, the other in Megalog View. both are used for the autotune features in each program, and to maximize effectiveness of the programs, it would be a good idea to adjust the delay values too, I would use the same method I outlined above.

I don't intend to tune the delay table until the rest of my issues are more well sorted out though, it was just a tangent that I spent a little time on last night because I want to eventually dial that table in.

[ericjon262]

Is it a metal or plastic MAT/IAT right now? Knowing what it is doing across the turbo through intercooler will be good to know, but the heat soak on the sensor itself might not make any noticable difference if spark timing isn't cut because of it. Im guessing you more so just want to know exactly what the temps are for efficiency comparisons.

it's mainly important for post start hot, and after steady state cruising. Right now, it's a metallic body sensor, the TMAP sensors are plastic. I'd like to work on some thermal barriers as well, it would be nice to start limiting radiant heat from the exhaust from hitting everything. I have a few products I'm looking at to fix that.

________________________________________________

got to the dragstrip, car running ok, feeling pumped, ready to make a pass, good, bad, or ugly...



Test and tune, "Canceled due to unfavorable weather"

erg. oh well.

[SappySE107]

Is it a metal or plastic MAT/IAT right now? Knowing what it is doing across the turbo through intercooler will be good to know, but the heat soak on the sensor itself might not make any noticable difference if spark timing isn't cut because of it. Im guessing you more so just want to know exactly what the temps are for efficiency comparisons.

[ericjon262]

The intercooler performance appears to be adequate, but I would still like to instrument temperature in 4 places, Air into the intercooler, air out,
and the water side in/out. the TMAP sensors measure both temperature and pressure, which would allow me to see the pressure drop across the intercooler, and give me an idea of if it's becoming an excessive restriction.

here's a link to the TMAP sensors.

https://www.bmotorsports.com/shop/product_info.php/products_id/1721

I checked my IAT's before and after a quick run around the block, temperatures rose from 95F to 131F and back to 95F in about 43 seconds. from the 131F peak back to 95F was about 30 seconds.



The temperature dip at tip in leads me to believe there's some heat soak going on, and the initial flow of air across the sensor is lowering the sensor body temperature. the TMAP sensors should be further from heat sources than the current MAT sensor, which should help with heat soak issues hopefully. I intend to relocate the current IAT sensor to a pre-turbo location to provide indication of temperature rise across the turbo as well.