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Well I Picked up another 3800 drivetrain for my sister's fiero. From what I was told, the parts came from a 2000 buick lesabre. I found it interesting that the engine had an air pump on it, I hadn't seen that before. The engine will remain mostly stock and just be a basic daily driver. Not going for any real performance here, just a mild upgrade, fun car to drive, and hopefully around 35mpg.
Pics of the donor engine/trans....
Since these are known for warping, I pulled the plenum off to replace with the new one I bought off ebay. I couldn't find much review on them so I decided to be cheap and buy it anyways. I saved about $100 vs buying local, and everything looks good.
When I pulled the intake off, I noticed there was oil in the lower intake. The intake will get cleaned up before being put back on.
New Intake
Oil in LIM...
I managed to get the LIM into the parts washer to soak overnight and degreased it.
Stupid autozone LIM gaskets were supplied with unpinned endseals even though I told him I needed the pinned ones. Luckily we have a crap load of spare parts and I happened to have the proper rubber/plastic end seals laying around. So, while it isn't much, the LIM is clean as hell now, and properly torqued in place. I fitted the tensioner assembly with new coolant elbows and as soon as I swap the valve covers I can get that bolted back on.
Well slowly but surely... The engine is about all back together at this point of the build, minus the TB and a few brackets which I painted.
I found a belt routing that works. Using a gator back 5060835 belt.
Also worked on the heater lines. Drilled and tapped for a 1/2" NPT. Two elbows and a pair of barb fittings. Simple enough.
Here are those coolant elbows installed.
STOCK Fiero auto driver side axle on the driverside.
STOCK Fiero manual driver side axle on passenger side.
This was the engine this before I started any wiring...
Here it is when I stopped for the day...
I got the injectors, alt, o2, knock sensors, map, coolant temp, iac, tps, map, vss, EGR and a few other things pretty much fully wired. I still have to integrate the C500 and the C203 but its getting there. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have the car about 95% wired.
When I run the wires I usually put zip ties on there backwards so that I can loosen them, then tighten them to get more accurate lengths. I would really like to get the proper pins and crimp on new ends since almost all the wires have to be shortened, but the price of the pins alone is kind of prohibitive.
Here is my 'nightmare' of a project I started this afternoon. I got about 7-8 of the wires done before I had to leave to go to this 21st birthday party thing.
Damn trans connector has pins A-V with a few not there, such as O or I for example. Didn't get as much done today with the wiring as I hoped, but I worked on a few other things for my car, so it was still a busy day. It would have been nice to get the wiring done this weekend, but with work tomorrow, that doesn't seem like its going to happen as soon.
Doesn't look like much but this was actually a lot of progress...
This was the morning..
And now I got pretty much all the engine control stuff done.
I got the trunk side wiring finished up. There is still a lot to do, but its certainly getting there!
If you look close, the transmission wiring is also all done.
I was able to finish up the driverside of the wiring harness. I still need to mount the coil packs so I can finish the harness entirely.
I got the coils mounted and wired up. I had to make a small bracket with some spacers but I painted it and it damn near disappears. I also loomed and finished the C500 wiring.
Coils Mounted...
C500 wiring all done!
I finished the wire loom.
The car fires right up with the turn of the key and idles rock solid. Now it just needs an exhaust, and two small brackets.
So far I have used a factory automatic driver axle, a factory manual driver axle, and now this is a factory 3 speed shift cable bracket....
I simply bent the 'ears' where it used to 90* downward so it was flat. Ironically enough, the bolt holes line right up with the 65. Also, the finished tranny wiring and the factory P/N safety switch, which allows easy connection for the reverse lights.
Factory throttle cable too!
BlackSaleen95 brought over his Snap-On Modis and we did a CASE learn on this thing. I also got around to cutting the decklid to clear the factory location of the alternator. I also got the dogbone bracket painted and installed.
All thats left is the exhaust!
and the decklid 'notch'
OK, so after a half tank of gas the damn P1133 code comes on. Did a little searching an apparently its an HO2 sensor code. The diagnostic procedure started with checking the air intake tube and evap, vac leaks, etc. I fixed a T-fitting with the evap, reset the code, and drove it to see if it came back. Sure enough it did.
Next step was to pull the O2 sensor. When I pulled it out, sure enough the goods were rattling around inside. I swapped in one of the few that I had in the parts bin and the car is running a LOT better in the high rpms. Cruising around town still feels great but its definitely smoother above 4k.
The car felt awesome before I fixed the PCV vac leak, then it felt better with the replaced O2. I didn't think it could get better, lol.
My sister is driving it tonight/tomorrow so that will be the true test, whether or not she likes her cars new 'heart'.
Here are some pics of the new intake duct and a generic pic of the exhaust.
Here are some pics of the exhaust build.
The last pic looks like the exhaust is really tweaked but its actually the car. It had been rear ended at one point and while the frame is straight, the rear trunk compartment still has some kinks in it.
My sister and I drove her car home for fall break.
I don't like to do MPG numbers based on a per-tank basis because they can easily be skewed by simply stopping the pump short, or overfilling compared to the last pump.
I gathered the receipts and just totaled them up.
Over the course of 1426 miles, we used 40.36 gallons. On the way back to NC I fell asleep and she didn't get a receipt, so I'm missing the last tank from the whole trip.
All in all, that works out to be 35.33 mpg, mostly all of highway. It does include the time she drove around for two days in CT, but that was maybe 15% of the mileage. This was all mostly done with the two of us in the car and the trunk fully loaded including a toolbox.
The initial goal of the swap was to seek greater MPG and have a reliable, fun car to drive. I think this confirms the efficiency and reliability of the engine. The fun part was there all along. We now have well over 10,000 miles on the swap without a single issue.
(Moderators note: There was a question on how he mounted things, which is what this next segment addressed)
When I did the S1 engine that this replaced, I simply moved the coils over and had enough room. I was going to do that this time again, but I liked the look of the coils mounted sideways better.
