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Turbocharger Arrived

Turbocharger Arrived this week and I quickly mounted it in a mock up fashion.  Finding the size nuts and bolts for it is proving it be a royal pain in the ass.

It is a used unit from a junk yard off a stock motor which should be good enough for mock ups and to get things rolling.  The air exit pipe actually fits in a good spot. Hopefully it will stay within the body lines.

 

Missing the factory heat shield but  can make one fairly easily.  If anyone knows the nut size or part number for the turbo please let me know. 

The turbo came with 1 oil pipe but  the other is missing and will need to be bought.

The turbo mounts further out then I would like but hopefully it will work.

Water lines need to be made/purchased. Unfortunately without using the stock radiator and coolant tank it may be another custom effort

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Engine Preparation

This weekend I started cleaning the engine (Brake clean is the $hit!) with the intention of mounting the flywheel and trans in the near future.  There are some cheap engine stands on amazon for $40 but I don’t feel they would bolt up easily. I will probably start to build and frame up something that will offset the engine and make transmission attachment plausible.


For the transmission I added a bar at the back with 2 casters. That makes it easy to pick up the one side of the engine and slide it around.

Car is in the background. I do feel the intake manifold will need to be replaced with something custom to prevent the large side bulge.

I could use some help. If someone knows the connector that I could replace the clutch line with I would appreciate it.  The factory line was cut and this was the connector that is left (It goes into the clutch slave cylinder). Ideally I want this piece to a -4an fitting to connect to my Wilwood master cylinder.

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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

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LTG Motor Mounts

To get the motor off of the pallet I wanted to build a “skate” to hold the engine and trans. My goal is to add wheels to the engine and the trans and have an assembly  that can move around and probably running.

This is the passenger side of the engine that a mount needs to connect towards

 This is the drivers side of the engine. This is what I suspect the mounting plates will look like. 

I tried to mount the paper version on a piece of steel and trace it out. My goal was then to cut it out with the plasma cutter. Unfortunately 25 amps was not enough and the breaker would trip at that point.  A 4.5″ angle grinder did a good job and soon after I bought a bunch of flap disks with the intent of getting them to being really smooth and pretty. Next up I need to measure and cut spacers as the plates will not bolt flush to the engine block.

More to come..

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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!

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Ecotec Update!

After a large amount of research I was frustrated by the poor development of the LTG motor by General Motors. The initial launch was so strong but the follow through of the crate engine was very poor.

My hope is that I can add some content for anyone with an Ecotec build that isn’t willing to pay $8k for a crate motor, $4k for a manual trans, $2k for an ECU and a good few other packages to get things going.

I managed to talk to Andy at Swap Specialties and he gave me a good amount of faith in the process and their development.The order at the end of the day was for an almost fully loaded harness. –  http://swapspecialties.com/product/gm-echo-tec-standalone-harness/

One aspect that Andy mentioned was their ECU and harness doesn’t require the fancy PWM fuel pump controller and a dead head pump. This is ideal because I have a fuel cell and would not want to modify the filler mechanism.

Lead time is 4 weeks but there is plenty to do and buy before I need the harness!

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Out with the Miata..

After thinking and looking around I decided it was time to pull the Miata engine out and go with something new.

Enters the Gm LTG ecotec engine! Modern power for the classic car!

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Turbo Time!

For the first 5-10 miles the car was “fast enough” but quickly it I adapted and wanted more power.

Note the 3 core radiator, ducting and new coolant overflow tank,

I bought several turbo chargers with the intention of matching one to the car. The consideration was not only size for power but also footprint for fitting under the hood.  One problem I have had was an incredible amount of heat that builds up in the transmission tunnel and in the foot box.

Additionally I bought a 2004 Miata engine with VVTI and intended to have it bored and built for power.

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Out for a drive..

First time i took the car out to a show was Caffeine and Octane. These are some of the pictures I found on facebook where others had taken pictures of the car.

The exhaust is from an Aprilia Bike. It has a factory cat convertor and flows very well. The sound is pleasant as well  The original battery didn’t last long- thankfully in this day and age LIPO batteries are amazing and half the weight. The coolant overflow tank did not last very long as the vibration tore it apart. 

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Buttoned up and Ready to Roll

These are some of the pictures when I got a tag and took the car for a drive. The blue tape is on the car while fine tuning some of the body fitment pieces.

I don’t love the black wheels. They looked great online and I was able to get some help from a friend to get a killer deal. The requirement was a 17″ wheel to clear the front upper ball joint.

The brakes look tiny but they are more than enough to do the job. For size comparison the top of the roll cage is about 12″ taller than the top of the fender on the Suburban.