Project Drivabeater

yeah it certainly fit for its function.  i would have to cut up my fan shroud to even try and use it on my 94.  so the filter i have on it now works just fine.   

finally finished the RX7. that car was a PITA. from now on, im charging a jap tax on customer cars.






also spent 70 on the motor swap. bought a 93 lumina harness and PCM for 50, and a 2wd oil pan, high volume oil pump, and pickup for 20.

started building my harness tonight for the swap. its gonna be sweet when its over with.

michael

that rx7 looks really clean, bet it's a fun car to drive!

spent the day working on the 3.4. had to pull the upper intake to get to the water temp sensor. who at GM thought that was a good idea??



anyway, its going pretty well. im modifying a harness from a 1993 lumina with a 3.1, which used a 7727 ecm. got the harness and ecm for 50 bucks at pull-a-part. even talked to the PO of the lumina while i was pulling it apart, which is why i bought the ECM. i took his word for it.



anyway, this is very tedious work. start with 3 wiring diagrams, 1 motor, 1 harness. tweak as necessary.



ive got it pretty well sorted till the back of the block. after that, ive still got some work to do. should only take a fe more hours to finish.













after the RX7 and VW bug, im getting sick of electrical.



reason im trying to get this done is that ive got a leaking freeze plug on the back of the 2.8. to repair, i have to yank the trans. if im going to do that, ill swap the motor.



i have also lined up a sale on this motor, and the job of swapping it and the EFI into a 4wd early s10. that should be fun. and pay good.



anyway, im depating on painting the motor cast iron grey, or aluminum. along with the accessories. what do you think?



any other colors that would look good, and be availible from dupli-color?



michael

You gonna do a 3400 or 3500 head swap on it?

not at this point in time.

fisst step will be getting it in and reliable, gettong all the kinks worked out.

then, porting the iron heads and intake, etc. stock cam.

if thats still not enough, boost.

and if i need more yet, hybrid.

hell, if someone gives me my asking pricem ill still sell it. only because at this point in time it would look a hell of a lot better in my bank account.

but no one will give me what ill be asking when i  get all my parts in and sorted out, so its not really an issue.

michael

i would do the top end swap before you get to boost.  with the weight savings and higher compression you'd be best to set it up for boost before hand.  the heads are much better flow anyway then the iron heads.

I never really realize how busy i stay until i look back over my threads on days im sick.
 
anyway, little progress update.
 
got the harness as finished as i can before install. im not really that happy with the way it looks on the stand, so ill see ho it looks in thr truck.
 
i also have spent a while checking over the 3.4. it still had the crosshatching in the bores, and the bearings looked good. so i put the 2wd oil pan on it, replaced all the gaskets (except head gaskets), cleaned, and painted it. it looks really nice, now. i did not paint the alternator yet, as i dont know if its any good. i did clean and paint the sanded compressor, as the firebird still had freon in the lines when i pulled the motor, so im assuming its good. evrything else looked great.
 
the gaskets, plugs, paint, wires, thermostat, etc really ate up a lot of my budget. i dont know if its worth it yet. ill find that out when i stcik it in.
 
heres pics:



 
i was going to bolt my craigslist headers on, but cant. reaon being is that the guy that sold them to me was wron in their application, and i didnt know enough about them to know any better. they fit a 4.3 4wd truck. so when i stick this in, ill be running the stock manis for now. anyone wanna buy the headers?
 
lastly, i dunno if i really want to do this swap. right now, my truck is dead nuts reliable, if a little aggrevating. my time is short lately, and play money is tight. but on the other hand, its my toy and my hobby, as well as a business generator. how long would you figure to yank the 2.8 and install the 3.4? im figuring an additional 10-15 hours to finalize the wiring after the 3-4 to get it spliced in and running.
 
anyway, no budget update, as im on the couch and dont have my reciepts with me.
 
michael

She looks really good.

One suggestion I'll throw out for you is to ditch the EFI if budget/time/reliability are of concern. If you have TBI(can't remember and don't feel like looking it up, sorry) the longblock will bolt in and run, carbed will require some tuning, but that's peasy, and no where near the effort of splicing wiring harnesses.

Plus, I'm sure you could make some money back selling the intake and harness, not much, but it's better than nothing.

Budget upgrades later could come in the form or rockers, ported heads, cams(pretty lowely selection aside) headers and a bigger TBI unit. If memory serves, the 2.8 is the smallest, the 4.3/305/350 is next larger by 1/8" per port and the 454 unit is the largest by another 1/8" per port at 1 7/8".

well, the EFI is already paid for, the pump is already put in for the MPFI, etc.

so i would retain the camaro setup.

the TBI on the current truck is part of my problems, along with a leaking exhaust manifold and a bad freeze plug.

the reliability im concerned about is the motor itself. ive never heard it run. visual insplection passed based on internal conditions, though.

i would expect more time to install that a/c comp in the truck.  since it will most likly need a notch.  i have a bypass pulley on mine and that itself is rather close to the frame.  if you were to simply reuse your stock backets and tbi setup.  i think you could get it done in a day or at most take your time with a weekend.

I say take your time and keep the EFI, if anything, it just looks cool. lol

ive seen one first gen 2wd with these accessories used. the swap was never completed, but he retained the sanden without a notch.

they certainly do look interesting, and they take a pretty stout shot of laughing gas(hint-hint, wink-wink) without causing any problems. If memory serves they use the same style FPR as an LT1, though custom rails are a pain. Haven't worked on one in a long time.

ive seen one first gen 2wd with these accessories used. the swap was never completed, but he retained the sanden without a notch.

after i looked today, i'd say that you probably can get the compressor in there.  my motor sits pretty low in there with my solid mounts.  i always forget that when i'm looking and comparing stuff like that.

so i spent the weekend doing some work.
what started it was looking for a place to put th ECM for the 3.4 swap. glove box looked perfect, except the stereo was in there. and i never liked that in the first place, so i decided to finally fix it.
 
the total budget update for the weekend is 27 dollars, brining the total investment as it sits to 2298.12
 
20 for the stereo box, 7 for the headliner material and adhesive.
 
 
to move the stereo, i picked up a universal mounting tray from pep boys. cut it down on the bandsaw a bit, and started fitting. i then realized that i did not have enough depth. so out came my trusty dremel and rotozip bit, and away went interfering plastic. i even had to cut my center vent ducting to clear. repaired that with a little of the aluminum HVAC tape my buddy had given me when i was redoing my dryer vent.
i angled the CD player some towards the driver, and mounted it so that if i want to, i can cut the ash tray down enough to act as a trim plate for the corners.
 

 
then, i looked around the cab and went, "i really need to finish this. I have all the parts, and i have the night to work" so i pulled out the headliner, overhead console, plastics that were still blue and grey, etc. i taught myself to recover a headliner with 3M adhesive and some wal mart fabric. came out really nice. had to make a patch around my console, and i used part of an edelbrock carb box to do it. dyed all the plastics, reinforced the folded over edge of the headliner with ducttape, and put it back together. i also got the overead working agon. round had come loose.
 
anyway, here it is. tell me what you think, and if you see anything that looks like crap.
 




 
michael

looking good mike.  only thing i got to ask is why a blue headliner when it seems you have all grays and blacks in the truck?  i think you need to get that shifter trim out and paint it up.  rust just doesnt go well with your interior. 

i never paid much attention to the shifter trim. thanks.

and i assure you,the headliner is black. the picture just looks kind of funny.

looking good man, glad to see it coming together.

what did you use to paint all of the interior pieces.  i'm sure you prob mentioned it somewhere in this thread and i did go through every page.  but i just dont recall.