Posted on

The Fidanza Fiasco continues…

What started as a promising morning didn’t end very well. I pulled the motor mounts off of the engine and welded on the needed offset pieces. Things were going very well! (note the metal braces going forward is to prevent the engine from rocking)

Using the”custom bolts” needed for the flywheel I managed to get all 8 in place and hand tight. I’ll admit I don’t love that there is no locating pin on the flywheel because it allows all of the rotational torque to be transmitted through the bolts to the transmission.

This is what the bolt looks like. It’s an m11 -which isn’t something you can easily find and definitely not something Chevrolet dealers usually stock.

 

After hand tightening the bolts I grabbed the torque wrench and set to 20ft lbs I wanted to get everything started and check alignment.

The first bolt achieved 20lb fts but the next 2 appeared to strip out. At this point I stopped and removed all 8 bolts and inspected the damage.

Even though the bolts appear hardened they lost their threads quite easily. The crank was inspected and it is fine.

While not ideal I’ll give a few vendors a call on Monday and try sort it out. Unfortunately m11 is a very uncommon size so this won’t be easy

Posted on

Flywheel pilot bearing hell!

My personal opinion is that Fidanza shouldn’t be allowed to sell parts with sick half assed support . To get a party they recommended I would have to go to Europe or China but online the part is harder to find than a uniform.

I bought a piece of bronze on what and stayed to machine my own. The dimensions were simple. 16mmID 28mmOD and 26mm in length. It took about an hour to make.

Overall it will get the job done and be fine. That said I am no where near the phase of recommending a fidanza product. Especially after the need for custom bolts!

http://www.exportedafrican.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/img_8470.mov

Posted on

Ordering some parts for the LTG

I recently bought clutch cover bolts online and ironically 6 packages came from a GM online dealer.  To my disappointment each only had 1 m6 bolt within it.

This is the GM throttle pedal. It isn’t ideal because of the angle that it mounts but some fabrication can make it work. Because the ecu is drive by wire a new pedal was needed.  Here are a few pictures showing the pedal

Posted on

Ecotec flywheel…

The hardest to find parts is anything related to the manual transmission. It’s really like looking for a needle in a haystack.

I bought a fidanza flywheel after refusing to pay $800+ for a factory flywheel. My entire life I have wanted a lightened flywheel so it was an attractive option.

The problems..

Firstly the flywheel bolts are custom. Thankfully Tim at Zzperformance hooked me up. I will admit that looking for M11 bolts was a pain in the ass!

Secondly the pilot bearing is a big question mark. It doesn’t look like the factory would fit and there isn’t much information about what to do. More to come on that front after I talk to Fidanza.

Lastly I have called a few dealers trying to find a factory clutch and pressure plate. Many of them don’t see it in the parts catalog which is frustrating. I will most likely just buy it from Zzperformance.

If you decide to go LTG I would recommend just buying the clutch masters at from zz and be done. Spending hours trying to find information for simple things is not worth the savings!