🔧 BUILD Turbo 3800 T56 Swapped G-body Grand Prix w/ Holley EFI

[Yaj Yak]

this is way awesome

 

[Bru]

Please work faster. Thanks!

This is awesome. Keep up the badass work.

 

[Euro]

Glad to see this is back in action!

 

[bs009]

Thanks everyone!

So today I was able to finish putting together the main items on the engine.

I spent some time cleaning the rockers, pedestals, and valve covers today. Here are those installed with the new pushrods:

I also drilled out holes in each valve cover and tapped for 3/8" NPT so I can run lines for the catch can off of these. I put the holes on the back so you can't easily see them when looking at the front of the engine:

intake and valve covers finally bolted on:

Seems like the way I've been hearing of pluggin the PCV is to fill it with RTV so I'll end up doing that later this week. Now I just need to find out which one of these ports to plug on the throttle body:

or is it worth going to the L67 throttle body? do the two use the same MAF sensor?

 

[IDAFC21]

Dang. Thanks for the update! keep these coming.

 

[bs009]

Latest snag:

So I spent some time pulling the pedal assembly out of the Camaro only to find out that this assembly won't really fit as well as I'd like it to. A lot of the stuff I was reading out there was that the 3rd gen f-body pedal assembly basically bolts in with some modification to the mounts and the pins and that the 4th gen stuff was pretty similar.
Seems like that's not the case though. the 4th gen pedal assembly is all one piece and is too wide to really fit in here. I ended up cutting the clutch pedal from the others here to try and make it fit. I thought I had pictures of that, but I guess not.

I pulled the dash out of the GP so I could work around the pedal assembly better. Notice how much space there is between the gas and brake pedals...

It turns out though that the original throttle pedal from the GP has near enough movement to go from 0 - 100% throttle without modification. Going to 100 though puts the pedal way too deep into the carpet though. It will go down without the carpet and sound deadening there, but the carpet needs to go back in.
I'm going to cut the pedal arm and space it out more towards the back of the car which should also put its depth closer to the brake pedal and make heel and toe easier.

Adding the camaro clutch pedal to the left puts it over the fuse block and C100 connector and would put the master cylinder into the wheel well...

I was really banging my head against the wall over this yesterday and got tired of looking at all of this so I called it quits.

I really don't want to mess around with making this fit so I bit the bullet and just ordered a 3rd gen camaro clutch/brake pedal assembly. This assembly isn't as wide and it puts the brake pedal closer to the gas pedal. There are also tons of write-ups out there showing how to make this one fit. I'll need to do a little modification, but this seems easier than dealing with that 4th gen pedal.

Once that gets here I'll be able to massage that one in there and throw the dash back in and put the front clip on.


I also started working on gathering all of the parts for the turbo manifolds. I've decided to create my own power logs to try and save space on the sides of the engine. I ordered a bunch of stainless steel bends and then hacked my old POS SSAC headers to use the flanges:

and here they are, liberated from the old headers with the new exhaust tubing:

So now it seems like things will go somewhat in this order:

- install clutch pedal and master cylinder
- reinstall dashboard,
- reinstall front clip
- tack up exhaust manifolds
- work on wiring harness while I have my brother TIG weld the manifolds.
- install a downpipe and the cold side of the turbo
- plumb everything (turbo oil lines, power steering, radiator, fuel lines, etc.)

and finally, I think after all of that, it should be good for the first start.

I'm hoping to have this running by the end of September depending on how long the wiring harness and the exhaust stuff takes.
I've also recently learned that I may need to modify the fuel sender since the 5/16" line is the evap line and the 1/4" line is the return line so that should also be fun to sort out. So who knows how long this will really take with stuff like this coming up.

 

[bs009]

So I may have been wrong about the 4th gen f-body pedal assembly not fitting properly. Looks like the clutch part at least would fit if I took out the original brake pedal. I'm also thinking that the brake pedal would be fine too, but oh well. Suppose I'll play with that later and figure out what I'll do sometime this week.

For now though, I sorted out the fuel pump issue. There's a bit of butchery here, it's not pretty but it'll work.

And because I'm never taking that fuel tank down to change the pump, I took the half-ass route and put a hole in the trunk. I'll attach a hinge or something later idk.

 

[bs009]

More work on the pedals here. I decided to stick with the original gas pedal from the Grand Prix and just modified it since it sticks too close to the floor of the car. If I didn't do this then I would really have to press it into the carpet in order to get full throttle. Now I can get there with a little less than an inch to spare.

I also found I was able to use the original throttle cable from the Camaro. I was really worried about finding a cable long enough; this one is really almost too long!

I also started hacking away at the 3rd gen f-body pedal assembly I ordered. I had to add more material to the piece that mounts to the firewall and cut off a lot of the switches and bracing to make sure the pedals sit in the right spot and have the proper travel.

The f-body brake pedal didn't really need any modification to the pin for the booster; it was pretty much plug and play.
The clutch pedal though needed to have the 4th gen pin welded onto it and the pin needed to be moved about an inch or so towards the driver. Didn't need to measure it because I just threw the pedals up and welded it where it needed to be.

Tomorrow I'll end up cutting and extending the brake and clutch pedal about 3 inches so they line up better with the gas pedal. Then I'll be remounting the switches for both of them.

Once the pedals are all finished I'll be able to reinstall some of the bigger pieces on the car.

 

[Unitsn4]

A gas pedal is usually 2.5" to the right of the brake pedal and 2" 'back' (closer to the firewall) from where the brake and clutch pedal are. Meaning you don't want them level across. Hard to tell from your pic, but you might be ok where you are.

 

[bs009]

This weekend's update:

Got the pedals finished well enough. Everything seems to be lined up pretty well in person and I was able to install all of the switches on the clutch and brake pedals. The dashboard is also in place again, but I have no pictures for that tonight.
excuse my crappy welds, was not having a good day with the mig.

clutch up:

and down:

painted:

and installed:

I also finally went and installed the sway bars. The front is a 34mm hollow bar from a 3rd gen F-body. Installed with poly bushings:

And here is the rear sway bar. This is a Hellwig "Pro-Touring" sway bar. it is adjustable with three positions to move the end links to. Supposedly this is an improvement from the stock sway bars that were mounted on the lower control arms causing snap oversteer.
My car did not have a rear sway bar from the factory at all so this will certainly be an improvement here.

And I was also able to place the front clip on the car finally.

there is so much room in here!

that's it for now. Next up is exhaust and wiring, but updates now will likely come slower for this week. This is the week of the Woodward Dream Cruise up here in Detroit. I might not make any progress this weekend or this week because of that.

 

[bs009]

A gas pedal is usually 2.5" to the right of the brake pedal and 2" 'back' (closer to the firewall) from where the brake and clutch pedal are. Meaning you don't want them level across. Hard to tell from your pic, but you might be ok where you are.

Yeah that makes sense. I'm really not too worried about placing them in the typical positions though. I kind of wanted to have all three of them at the same level away from the driver's seat to help ease heal and toe shifting.
Towards the end of the day though I got tired of messing with them and just wanted them to work properly.

Maybe some day I'll play with them more and straighten up the clutch and gas pedals more, but this will work for now.

 

[bs009]

So I've done a few things since my last update:

All of the original wiring in the dashboard is all wired up now. I also got a pretty good start on the floor boards now.
The original floor boards were in prety rough shape..

I ordered a set of replacement floor boards for the front and started to weld them in. I also put the shifter in place:

and all painted and sealed:

The Transmission tunnel is now about 1.5" taller near the rear of the transmission to make room for removing it if necessary down the road. I'd like to put a T-56 in here when I do break this transmission so hopefully there is enough room there.
The parking brake lever is mounted, but not connected yet. I'm going to focus on getting the car running and driving before I start playing with the cables for that.

Blue means fast right??

Those are 80lb injectors and coils from an L67 car.


Wiring harness mocked up:

PCM harness will not need any modification, except for lengthening the cables for the MAF. I'm planning on using an LT1 MAF if I can find one cheap.

And the latest for tonight, what will be the beginnings of my exhaust manifolds for the turbo! This will be rather annoying to join these together. I'm basically building my own Power Logs that will fit my car and the holset:

Hoping to have these finished within the next week or so. Then I'll be able to focus on the wiring and plumbing for everything.

I'm far enough in that I could make a list on a single piece of cardboard for everything that needs to be done:

 

[Gav'sPurpleZ]

manual trans FTMFW

 

[Euro]

Hell yeah dude! You're making some huge progress.

 

[bs009]

Thanks for the encouragement!

This weekend's update:

More Progress on the exhaust manifolds. Not quite where I'd like to be at this point, but progress nonetheless.

Holes finally drilled.

tacked up and mounted to the engine: (Turbo will be re-clocked later)

This should be interesting getting everything lined up to these properly

I should still be on track to have this car finished by the end of September. Once all of the hot side and cold side is done, it should be just wiring and plumbing.
Wiring shouldn't be too hard, but I will be making my own power distribution for the car and the PCM.

Really the wiring should only take about a week or so, but like most things with car projects I'll usually take the time/money estimate and double it for all the little things.

 

[bs009]

Finished tacking these up. Going to have my brother assist with TIG welding these now, and in the meantime I can work on the wiring and other miscellaneous things I missed.

Using a T4 flange on the manifolds for now. Figured it would give me more room for a bigger turbo down the line. Using an adapter to connect to the Holset for now.

I've got a small flex pipe I'll be throwing on one side, and then I'll also be adding a v-band flange on each manifold for easier installation.

 

[bs009]

So it seems like it's been a while since my last update. I've been working on knocking out a ton of the little annoyances that aren't really photo-worthy.

I've made a lot of progress here, though it doesn't look like much. The only real things left to do now are to finish up the exhaust, put together the cold side of the turbo, and plumb up the oil lines for the turbo. Also, I'll need to sort out the power steering hoses. Other than those things, I'm thinking she's pretty much ready to roll.

There's probably a few things I've missed here and there, and I'm betting something goes wrong with the wiring somehow. I'll know for sure once I throw a battery in there.


Sound deadening in the interior:

carpet re-installed:

shifter linkage removed:

I picked up a cruise control module from a W-body car, but it looks like this one doesn't quite fit the Camaro throttle body properly. The cruise cable doesn't come out far enough for the throttle body linkage. I'll have to look at the one on my Regal, but I think the way to fix this would be to use the linkage from a W-body too.

New front shocks installed:

Intercooler is mounted:

turbo re-clocked:

Under the hood looks like more of a mess than it really is:

The wiring harness is completely finished. I pieced together a power distribution assembly from a first gen W-body (parts were free). So all of the wires are cut to fit this car now.

those cars had two of these fuse/relay boxes so I had a lot of parts to play with:

I'm pretty confident in what I put together, but a part of me is a bit nervous since I did put this together from a bunch of wires and fuse boxes. I suppose I'll see how it goes once I get some power in there.
All of the power that goes through the cabin is also fused underneath the hood now so if something does go wrong it'll just blow a fuse.

I also need to make sure that the fans fit with the turbo in there. It looks like it'll be close but I won't know for sure until the exhaust is finished. I'll be ordering parts to finish all of that sometime this week so hopefully everything goes as planned. I have a couple other fans I can try and fit there, but worst case scenario I can put the fans on the front and reverse the polarity I think.

I'm expecting a first fire up within the next couple of weeks!

 

[SleeperLS]

I am very much enjoying this thread.

 

[Euro]

excited to see this getting closer and closer to being finished!

 

[bs009]

Thanks guys, it's been a long road and I'm glad it's so close to being finished.

Small update for tonight,

I threw my jumpbox in the car to pop the trunk (no battery yet) and the car didn't burn down! The interior lights all work and the trunk popped, but that's about the extent of my testing since I left the keys at my apartment.

I worked out what I'm going to do for the power steering pressure hose. I had been trying to make a bend close enough to the fitting to clear the exhaust manifold and wasn't very succesful over the weekend. I did some searching online to find something with a really close 90* bend to the fitting but didn't find anything.

Eventually I found a picture of the factory power steering pressure hose for this car from the factory and it looks like that thing actually clears the exhaust! It's almost like it was meant to be lol.

With the help of my brother I was also able to figure out how I was going to route the serpentine belt without the A/C compressor. I had intended to do this differently but the belt I ordered for that was about 1/4" too short. My brother played with the routing some and came up with this for that same belt. All I need to do is get a ribbed pulley for the tensioner:

The exhaust manifolds are nearly done being welded so we decided to re-test fit them. It looks like between adding the v-band flanges, the flex pipe, and just the warping from the welding these things have become very mis-aligned. This will be my next thing to fix tomorrow now.

I'll also need to do something different for the fans because it's too close to the passenger side fan.


and finally I put together a mounting bracket for the Power steering reservoir and was also able to knock out a mount for the fuse box with the same mount. It didn't quite become what I envisioned in my mind, but I'm happy enough with it.

P/S reservoir had no mounting areas on it so I just ziptied it on for now. It is resting on an angle section of the bracket though so it won't be going anywhere.

 

[bs009]

Double-checking the belt routing after I posted this, I noticed that the water pump setup to spin counter-clockwise. I just assumed that it was supposed to spin clockwise since everything else does.

Good thing we changed that there though because looking at some pictures of the factory belt routing for this engine it looks like the belt is actually supposed to spin counter-clockwise.

 

[bs009]

Double-checking the belt routing after I posted this, I noticed that the water pump setup to spin counter-clockwise. I just assumed that it was supposed to spin clockwise since everything else does.

Good thing we changed that there though because looking at some pictures of the factory belt routing for this engine it looks like the belt is actually supposed to spin counter-clockwise.

okay maybe I couldn't have routed it clockwise. it's late and I have the dumb tonight.

 

[bs009]

Sorted out a lot of plumbing and miscellaneous things to get the car ready. replaced the starter and also replaced the rear wheel cylinders in the drum brakes. I'll be going to discs later on, but just want to get this on the road right now.

Basically everything is plumbed and ready to go aside from the oil lines for the turbo. I'll also need to finish up the exhaust and install the cold side for the turbo as well. Then it'll just be verifying the wiring before it's ready to fire up.

Radiator upper mount with fan installed:

Serpentine belt finally finished:

Created a pass-through for the core support for the intercooler so I don't have to relocate the battery:

Beginnings of the plumbing for the oil lines for the turbo. AN lines are way too expensive

How it sits now:

 

[bs009]

So this thing fires up and runs..

for about 4 seconds before it promptly shuts off. Seems like the VATS isn't quite disabled.
Is there something else that needs to be done aside from making this change in DHP?

 

[bs009]

So this thing fires up and runs..

for about 4 seconds before it promptly shuts off. Seems like the VATS isn't quite disabled.
Is there something else that needs to be done aside from making this change in DHP?

Made a separate thread for this issue:
http://www.thechicagogarage.com/for...sabling-vats-camaro-l36-pcm-os-writeover.html