You guys might like my new truck engine

[Xnke]

Ok. So I chopped a hole in the bedside of the truck. (of the unreplacable bed...) Apparently, this truck is a "fleet" model, a standard cab and extra-long bed built on the extended cab chassis. The standard model has a 118.9" wheelbase, mine is 122.9"...so the bed bolts are "stretched". God help me if I screw it up too badly.



No turning back now...

Got a bit dark on me when I was taking some of these photos. Here, you can see that I will have to notch the inner bed wall and the bed floor to get the filler tube cup back into the body. I expected this, and it won't be a big issue. I'll chop out the bare minimum to get it fitted, then trim it up and close it in later.



The bedwall cut out, now the filler cup fits nicely. The filler tube, however, needs some attention to get it to fit in such a way that it will let the tank fill without burping and spitting fuel everywhere.



Oh god, what have I done. TIG lead wouldn't stretch far enough so I MIG welded it into the truck. Got carried away and went too fast, tried to work it too hot...The flashlight really highlights the warpage.



The bottom edge is right next to (admittedly an already dented) body line, so it was much more rigid and took maybe five minutes to straighten up. The top edge, as you can see below, was not so polite in it's decision to move around.



However the door is in the panel straight and square and is dead nuts level with the front fuel door. Once the panel is straightened up and painted, I think it'll look fine.



Now, Today I started straightening up the panel. Using a combination of PDR tools and normal body hammers, the weld has been peened out to stretch it some and let it move, and the PDR tools are just perfect for working inside the 25mm-ish panel gap between the bed well and the outer skin. I made it this far before I got tired of messing with it and decided to eat dinner.





Still a big low area to work out, but 95% of that will come out with more weld peening and a little more pushing. Once the fuel door edges are where they belong and the panel is close'nuff I'll just skim-coat it and call it good.

In other fronts, I'm down to 8 wires left to work out, mostly trying to match them up with the dash wiring of the truck. I don't have a *good* wiring diagram for the dash, everything I find seems pretty generic and doesn't really match up well. Final PCM harness testing commences here in about five minutes.

[Xnke]

Have to run some fuel lines in the truck, so I started looking for a Parker Tubing Bead Roller tool to put proper hose beads in the end of the tubing. The price was SKY-HIGH for a new one and I couldn't find a used one, so I made a few of them myself. They seem to work just fine.



Will be a big help in hose retainment on the high pressure fuel lines.

Also started the rustectomy, this is the doubler panel behind the seat that is right below the rear window-the speaker wiring runs through here.



Started cutting it out and this is what the back side looked like:



The actual outside layer of the cab however was completely unrusty-just a little blackening, no pits or anything. A patch will get welded in and painted, job done.

Also hit the big 2 today:



Time to get on it and finish this engine swap. Only lack a little wiring and some hoses, and a little sawz-all work on the hood...

[Xnke]

Heh, ten minutes after I posted the above, I managed to swap a spare Chevy sending unit onto the Blazer one. A little fiddling got the float arm on it, and whadda ya know, it works out to be 10 ohms to 100 ohms...supposed to be 0 to 90 ohms, but it seems close enough.

Cut the foam wrap on the fuel pump to check the part number, whadda ya know, it's already been changed out for a Delco EP381...same pump I put in the front tank. Double score! Needs a new fuel strainer, I'll risk a lot but I won't risk that. Six bucks is cheap insurance for the junkyard pump.

Now, a bit of wire, bit of steel, bit of swearing, and it'll all be together again.

[Xnke]

Grabbed a tank from a Gen2 Blazer, so the fuel sending unit isn't the correct one for the dash gauges. (Dash gauge wants 0-90 ohms, Gen2 blazer is 40-240 ohms) The solution, I think, is to cannibalize a Gen1 S-10 pump hanger and swap the sending units. Blazer pump arm is a different shape though, so either will need to be a gen1 blazer sender or will need some work. At least this sending unit has the correct pump hanger, no mods needed.

I went to a new You-Pull yard today, was a boon as they don't slash the tank like most yards do, just a nice neat 25mm hole cut in.



A little file work to clean off the galvanization, slapped a patch on the tank, and pressure tested with water to 20PSI.



Now I gotta get this bit of junk out of tank, it's pretty clean inside other than that.



Tomorrow I'm gonna try to pull the bed off and see what I can get done as far as mounting the tank. I chopped out a fuel filler door from a Gen1 truck, just need to get the tank mounted and lock down the fuel door location along the length of the bed. I'm going to be cutting it in right at the same vertical level, so need to figure on how low the tank needs to be to make it fill correctly. Last thing I want is a tank that chokes at the pump, or that can't be filled at all!

[Xnke]

So here's the current state of things:



Still on the motor stand.

Oh well. I used some strawberry jam to bond the intake together, it should be fine. Had to strain it first, too many seeds made it not wanna sit right.



Got the water tank nearly done, just a bit of trimming to do to fine tune things, but again...fire extinguisher!



Needed a bit of a trim to fit though.





Never waste stuff like that, it's handy. Yeah, you gotta grind the powdercoat off but so what, it's free metal.

Finished up the fuel feed line, but I still need to bend the return line. Welding 0.020" wall stainless tubing is touchy!



Feedline is 8mm for about 18", but the rest of the truck is 10mm feedline. Return line is 8mm for the whole truck. I am gonna try to find a 10mm feedline tomorrow, when I got to the parts yard. Also need an auxiliary fuel tank and sending unit, I have almost everything needed to dual-tank the truck so I'm gonna do it. Will give me at least 35 gallon tank capacity, maybe 37 gallon, depends on what tank I get. I'll pick the tank with the smallest hole punched in it, the parts yards are savage about fuel tanks. Fixing them isn't a big deal, just takes patience to make sure they're scrubbed and ~90% full of water when being welded back up. Still scares the crap out of me every time I do it though.

[Xnke]

Looks like I will be getting some work done on this soon. I have the belt drive almost buttoned up, just need to make a shim for the blower drive and find an S10 water pump pulley, then I can measure for belt length and start that hunt.

Am gonna try to get the intake manifold sealed up tonight, and get my injectors mailed out for cleaning and flow testing Monday.

Sent from my KYOCERA-E6560 using Tapatalk

[Xnke]

We'll find out eventually, although not for a while.

I have found a manual trans that can hold the power and fit the truck, so the 4L70 will sit in the corner for now. I wanna put the blower engine into a Chevette later, but for now I'll just keep it in the manual S10.

[robertisaar]

I am not 100% sure that the transmission control code will enjoy the 2-bar map sensor code, because it hasn't been tested yet.

I'm not sure if I ever elaborated on it, but the t-side gets an emulated 1-BAR MAP signal sent to it from the e-side. in theory, below 100kPa, it should act exactly as it would from the factory.

above that, I don't know what to expect.... maybe have to add considerable line pressure into the PE line pressure adder to keep from smoking clutches.

[Xnke]

So I've spent a little time on this and gotten to this stage of the game:



A few more bits of tubing bent and a couple of welds will have the intake manifold completely finished. I'm still working on that. Once the intake is done, and the wiring harness is done, I'll buy the rest of the bends to finish up the exhaust headers.

The wiring harness isn't so bad. I've only had to lengthen a few wires, most of them have been too long actually. I am making plans to fit the 4L60e auto trans later when the manual blows up, the wiring harness already supports it and so does the ECU, so why not? If I didn't have to use the truck regularly for a while I'd convert it to automatic right from the start-but I do use it and thus being able to tune the engine and transmission independently (even when the stock factory auto tune is still in the computer) is a bonus. I am not 100% sure that the transmission control code will enjoy the 2-bar map sensor code, because it hasn't been tested yet.



Have to add a switched power circuit and a power ground, already have the two sensor grounds and two sensor signals for the O2 sensors. They'll be along the trans wiring harness, as the exhaust runs down that side of the car already. The VSS sensor is also in that section, but someone got to it with snips before I pulled the harness. I have another connector, but I have no idea how much of the wiring was cut out with it, so I'll probably have to add some back once it's in the truck.

Getting down to it, It is starting to feel like I would have a far easier time of things if I just added an "engine" fuse/relay block to source all the switched power from. The truck harness has three fused circuits for the ECU, but the camaro harness has five, plus the one I add for the heated O2 sensors, plus the automatic uses two fuses. Total fused circuits is now up to 9, and while some things (like injector power circuits, they're split) I am ok running from a single fuse, other things (like the torque converter clutch solenoid) I'd prefer to have their own fused circuit.

The interior connectors haven't been too terrible so far-Only one of them is a power circuit, the starter line is superfluous so no worries there, the automatic gear select wiring is nicely separated out from the dash harness in the Camaro.

[Xnke]

I already have one that would fit the Aisin AZ-6 6-speed manual from the 240SX to the Nissan L28, would have to modify it to fit the 660 main journal size, though, so I don't really want to do that...i still do a bellhousing conversion service with it.

I guess I could make another jig, but I probably won't for now. Still have to work out the intercooler plumbing, although I might have a way to do it. It's *tight* inside the plenum.

-or I'll see if Six_Shooter will loan/rent me his bellhousing jig.

Due the weight of it, it would likely be cheaper to have one made locally or make one yourself. The jig I had made was solid steel, so it has some weight to it. I'd estimate around 25 lbs, that would be expensive to ship.

I like where you're going with the headers.

I've already been thinking about making some new ones for my car, but with a different turbo set-up in mind.

[Xnke]

Overkilled the shit out of a valve cover notch tonight. Might have to grab another valve cover next time I'm in the yard and do it over, but it's purely cosmetic at this point. The rocker arms have plenty of clearance.

This is a Gen2 valve cover-it doesn't *really* fit on the head. The two bottom valve cover bolts do not line up without cocking things all stupid, and they use a different style of bolt to hold them down. They DO clear the alternator, though.



This is the un-modified Gen3 valve cover, before I started chopping. The black cut line would make it the same height as the Gen2 cover.



Well, now it clears the alternator....I didn't realize at the time I was marking it up that I was taking a BIG chunk. Oh well, it's painted black, and I can't see it from the driver's seat.



Another gratuitous header shot-this time they're on the engine. I still haven't done much with the other side, yet.



Maybe more tomorrow.

[Xnke]

Can't be bothered to find one right now, is all. I already have a 4L70e with the correct bellhousing, I already have a few FS5R30A Nissan boxes, but I do not have a 2WD Dodge box.

If I find one for less than 500$ I might buy one, but for now I don't have one.

[berettaguy]

Good deal, I love seeing your fabrication skills and all the cools you must have.

Why'd you change your mind about the NV3550 you had initially been talking about?

[Xnke]

Intake airflow is more than good enough as far as flow balance-that has a lot more to do with the headers than most people realize.

Once you slap boost at it, a lot of the intake flow balance evens out as far as distribution. The intake runners are all equal length as delivered from GM, and with my gutted plenum being fed from the top middle, most of the air is going to be diffused into the valley area, so any kind of laminar flow is right out. It'll all be turbulent flow, which can make for a very active port entry with little to no dead areas. Since the actual intake runners are long and pretty straight, airflow has enough time and distance to get somewhat straightened out by the time it gets down to the port. It's not perfect, but it's good enough...going by flow bench numbers this engine should pull enough air to make 300HP WITHOUT the blower, IF cam/headers/intake were further optimized for N/A operation. They're not.

I will be driving the truck daily, then every now and then will be bolting up some Mickeys and choppin' folks at the track. That's about it. The T5 will die a horrible death, and it'll get a 4L70E more than likely-or I'll see if Six_Shooter will loan/rent me his bellhousing jig.