Fastro MK-II (My 1992 Astro Holley Stealth Rammed 383 swap)

[Mr_Roboto]

Since I actually took it for a drive yesterday I guess I should start a thread up. Maybe even dig some pics up for it. The 89 Astro (original Fastro) went away and I ended up replacing it with a far from perfect but still a lot better 92. There's definitely some subtle differences between the two but not a ton so far.

Current mods:
-383 from cap42 EFI'd up. World S/R heads with 2.02/1.60 valves, gauging at 9.5:1 CR approximately, 276HR cam, roller 1.5 rockers and a Holley Stealth Ram. Hope is 400+ HP but you know what they say about hope. The head numbers I've seen for S/Rs vary WIDELY over the Internet so who knows what it's actually going to make. I see 350-425 being realistic with what's there. The heads would really be the first thing for serious engine upgrading at this point and I wouldn't be surprised if a set of say AFR 195s gave it 50-75 additional HP.
-short aluminum WP from a C4 'vette for additional front clearance
-700R4 that came with engine. Supposedly a TCI 2400 stall think a Streetfighter. Not a ton of tire in this thing right now but it will definitely roast the tires. I really think it's shifting low too so I want to take some data logs that I didn't last time. Not sure how the shift kit is set up but the 1-2 is stout but that's a standard feature on any modded 700 in my experience.
-Megasquirt II ECU running Extra code
-340LPH Aeromotive pump in tank
-Mufflers made from freon tanks. These are likely to get replaced, I need to make another set that's offset so they don't scrape. I'll probably leave em for now because they do work. Long tube 1.625 headers from the Nova with a custom trans crossmember because they wouldn't fit with the stocker. Built off a Chris Alstons cross member kit.
-Fast ratio steering box from an RS/GT Astro. 2.5 turns lock to lock. The old box was shit anyways so why not step up? Fuck I hate doing these by the way.
-Volvo V70 electric fan

Pending stuff:
-Ford 9"
-steel leaf springs
-15X10 wheels for the back
-Full exhaust to rear
-TUNING
-Try to find a van dipstick that is from a pre-80 small block that's on the driver's side.
-Trying to find a 350 Chevy van oil fill
-Energy Suspension front control arm bushings
-rear sway bar (have one off an F350 that I'm planning on using)
-connect fan&manage with MS2 or other controller
-oil dipstick reachable without having the engine cover off
-Leak from PS valve cover

Current issues/in progress work:

-I have a Summit coil I may or may not toss on at some point. It would be nice to eliminate the stock coil connectors that are fail prone. -On hold since pushrod replacement lets me go to 5600 RPM cleanly.
-I have installed the Volvo Fan Relay and power wiring. Need to run the control wiring to the MS2 to drive it. I moved my EGR pin in the harness to use the fidle port on them MS2 to run the relay. I need to space the shroud out some as well.
-I have fabricated a bracket to hold the stock ignition coil. This will obviously change if I use a new ignition coil and it may change to add the MAP sensor mount as well.
-9" stuff is in progress. Almost done with axle shaft repatterning need to swap in leaf springs and get new perches welded on.

Issues I fixed since the last update:
-lost a muffler, implementing full exhaust to fix this. It has thrown my O2s off since my wide band is in the header collector at the end.
-Relay for fuel system broke wiring loose. I replaced the relays with the correct ones.
-One of the leaf spring brackets is cracked. These don't use a standard U-bolt setup with a plate but rather use a goofy piece that goes over the spring. I may end up getting rid of that as a stop gap but the goal is to get the 9" in.

Long term:
-head porting/replacement?
4.30 gears in 9"/probable driveshaft upgrade (don't want to chance it with the high DS RPMs)
-TIRE
-caltracs

Click to read more...

 

[Mr_Roboto]

Looked at World's site tonight and found this:

3. Before installing center bolt valve covers, the perimeter bolt valve cover bosses must be machined down on the inside of the valve cover rail. DO NOT MACHINE THE VALVE COVER RAIL! The two valve cover mounting bosses on the intake side must be machined .220

Fuck. I guess that explains that. Gotta dig up some valve covers now.

 

[Mr_Roboto]

Pulled the VC off. The fucking gasket doesn't even have an impression on one side from the rail. Sure as shit it's not sealing. I could probably grind the bosses down some to fix it, but I went and bought gaskets for the Edelbrock Valve Covers that were originally on this engine. Not my thing but they're gonna be hidden under the doghouse anyways. Glad I didn't pull my cast VCs off my other engine as I had to clearance a bit on one side for the A/C compressor. Still need bolts hopefully tonight. Will also be nice that I can put my wire organizers on and hopefully clean up a bit of the spaghetti mess known as plug wires. More importantly I'll be able to keep em off the headers a bit better and prolong their life some.

Piece of life advice:Buy a half decent set of plug wires. Spend $40-50 on em as they don't burn up like OEM ones do.

 

[OffshoreDrilling]

PICS my man, PICS!

 

[OffshoreDrilling]

i like seeing cars that aren’t late model or a c-10

 

[Mr_Roboto]

Pardon the mess this heap hasn't been to a car wash in a year or two. Not a hell of a lot to see from the front. Probably to my benefit. Figuring out a rad hose with the stock accessories was a pain in the ass. Yeah that's an AC compressor I will probably replace but I tested the hoses and yeah it all fits.

From the back you can see more. Still needs a fuckton of wire cleanup. I also need to make a bracket for the coil and the MAP. I'm running off Megasquirt II in a GM ECU case with an adapter board. I don't really need the 2.5 bar MAP so I just stuck to a stocker 1 bar. The only real electrical mods I've done are upgrade the alternator wiring (ditched the shitty fusible link and added a fuse) hot wiring the fuel pump and I'm going to add E-fans. There's a Volvo fan installed (it's basically the Taurus setup with a nicer mounting setup) waiting for me to get it done. Not too concerned with that at the moment however. A dirty little secret of cooling fans is if you're not sitting still idling (esp on a hot day) you don't even really need one.

stock-t-bird here's my exhaust as it is now. Definitely need to redo these with an offset. I may try to also take the trans cross member and add a spacer of an inch or so and see if the angle goes up a bit. The headers seem to really be leaning downwards right now which is unexpected. I thought I'd measured okay but maybe I didn't. Perhaps I'll find another Astro Van and measure again. I thought I had a decent one of the crossmember but can't immediately find it. WIll take one tomorrow or toss it up if I find it.



Rando bits I'm looking for right now include a G-van oil filler neck from a 350 and a drivers side (pre-80) oil dipstick and a g-van trans dipstick. Hoping I can fit them all in there, it would be nice to have the OE stuff. I also want to look at LT-1 air boxes and see if there's one I can kind of stuff in there. Another option may be to dig up a stock Astro or G-van air box and hook it in to make it more stock appearing.

 

[Mr_Roboto]

A shot of the transmission crossmember and long tubes. Believe it or not this is surprisingly clean for a first gen Astro at least in this area. I had to go quite a bit out off the beaten path to get this one. There aren't a hell of a lot of the first gen ones left in the midwest that aren't about to rust in half and they stopped making the short ones in 1994. Weight difference is about 200lbs for that. I need to tweak this "muffler" and get it up a bit more. I really need to get another set and make them offset as mentioned previously. These headers are low in an Astro Van, I can't imagine how low they must have been in a Nova. Either that or how high an engine is mounted in a Nova.

The outside looks like hell but then again unless it was started up no one would expect the power train refresh this has had. In the long term the goal is to make the exhaust quieter as well.

 

[Bob Kazamakis]

Wtf are those mufflers and why are they there?

 

[Yaj Yak]

Wtf are those mufflers and why are they there?

they look like refrigerant tanks with the tops lopped off


this thing is sweet.

you need a different title cuz i had no fucking idea what was going on at first

 

[Yaj Yak]

Wtf are those mufflers and why are they there?

they look like refrigerant tanks with the tops lopped off


this thing is sweet.

you need a different title cuz i had no fucking idea what was going on at first

oh.

-Mufflers made from freon tanks. These are likely to get replaced, I need to make another set that's offset so they don't scrape. I'll probably leave em for now because they do work. Long tube 1.625 headers from the Nova with a custom trans crossmember because they wouldn't fit with the stocker. Built off a Chris Alstons cross member kit.

#tcgdoesntread

 

[Bob Kazamakis]

I saw a ridiculous picture and insta posted. No time for reading after seeing those

 

[OffshoreDrilling]

Fucking R404A jugs

my favorite build ever

 

[Mr_Roboto]

Believe it or not there's actually science behind the reason I did that it's not just purely done for the purpose of jank. If you read David Vizard's books he talks about the concept of a "zero loss exhaust" and it's done by having what amount to expansion chambers in the exhaust.

I just wish I could make my welds consistently. The other side isn't master welder material but it's not a wad of bird shit like this side is.

 

[Mr_Roboto]

Did some driveway tuning. As it turns out I had the dead time for my injectors way too high (they are SVO 36es that were decapped 10+ years ago, it's funny how that came back isn't it) and I also found out I had acceleration enrichment set way the fuck high and it was just dumping in gas like fucking mad which was causing stalling off idle. That seems to have netted a fuck ton of power. I was wondering where it went before but it appears I was just dumping a shit ton of gas into the engine and that was causing problems.

WOT curve is only about 33 degrees all in which means I have a ways to go. I see 36-38 in all quite probable because these are wedge chambered heads. Base timing was within roughly a degree which was excellent.

Oil problem is also largely gone thankfully. I sprayed the shit out of everything with carb cleaner so I can try and see if I have any more leaks. Kind of suspecting the oil filter but we'll have to find out.

Gonna have to find a remoteish spot of the world to test a bit. She's got a lot of power left in her I'm fairly certain. Don't see any patches at Millsdale Rd any more so I'm wondering what happened there and if it's still a decent spot to go. Maybe a bit of highway testing instead.

 

[Mr_Roboto]

This death trap sure as hell not much to look at but if I quieted down the exhaust I don't know that anyone would see it coming. Needs more tire though 205s aren't gonna do it.

 

[cap42]

runs about as good as it did in my nova lol Glad it's working out for ya

 

[Mr_Roboto]

runs about as good as it did in my nova lol Glad it's working out for ya

Based on the plugs I pulled out I think I have a lot of headroom and gains to make in the tune. Now then if I get there is another conversation.

 

[Mr_Roboto]

 

[PANDA]

PIMP AS FUCK

radioguy6

 

[Yaj Yak]

Omg i love it

 

[greasy]

Wow this sounds like the ultimate popcorn machine, and that one wheel tire frier!

 

[Mr_Roboto]

Wow this sounds like the ultimate popcorn machine, and that one wheel tire frier!

It needs more wheels to the peel.

I can't believe how fast it's come together after I got past the inflection point.

I found another oil leak. Apparently you need all the mechanical fuel pump block off plate bolts. The bungs I welded into the pan seem fine though, maybe a bit of minor leaking. Thinking I may get ORB fittings for those anyways just to be safe.

So some shit I found in the Megasquirt that's REALLY important to getting down the road is:
-They have closed loop idle air control for some reason? Seems to just make it a pain in the dick to control idle.
-Injector dead time is important. I had to feel this out but it did make a big difference in idle quality and driveability.
-Acceleration enrichment was way too high. This was just drowning the engine in fuel as I was trying to tune.

Todo list right now is:
-Wash underside and above
-add a coil/MAP sensor bracket
-wire cleanup
-get heat going
-oil dipstick and fill so I can put the doghouse on.
-start investigating what it's gonna take to do the A/C work when I get there. This was r12 but n Ed to retrofit obviously.
-more exhaust pipe

 

[Mr_Roboto]

Attaching pics. Coming back to edit

This is an "048" ignition module. I've been reading you want a "369" one. I happened to have one so I swapped it in. Not seeing a ton of difference. Getting some breakup still. I am wondering if I'm at the limit of the small cap's coil/module. The stuff I've found on HEI limits are all for big cap stuff though.

Indiscriminate interior shot. I ditched the stereo and put in a Bluetooth audio/amp module. Weight savings and space for gauges. Got a billet panel for it.

Megasquirt box chillin on the floor. You can see the actual MS2 unit in the ECU case. This is designed to plug straight into the stock harness. Not sure if that's a blessing or a curse but lean more towards blessing than not. I need to add a wire to the harness or repin so I can connect my fan to the appropriate pin.

You can see the coil's new home. I want to make a shorter coil wire for this as well. The MAP sensor will probably get mounted as well since I have the space for it. I'll try to get a pic of the bracket when I get a chance to.

Pic of my fabricated trans crossmember. I took this as I'm trying to establish if I can raise it up an inch or two and get some more exhaust clearance.

Just a measurement for my notes and so I can post it to the Astro Forum and see about getting a measurement. Don't really want to go creepering on someones van in the middle of the night to get this measurement.

 

[Kensington]

Are you using the Freon tanks like Helmholtz resonators to reduce drone? You can also just weld extra lengths of capped pipe off the side of the exhaust, which also act as expansion tanks, cut down on resonance, and don’t hang millimeters from the ground...

 

[Mr_Roboto]

In terms of written stuff, I did about 50 miles today. The drive was pretty good, I did notice a few things though:
-I need to enable rev limiter. Supposedly I hit 8K a couple times today. I think that's ignition noise but leaving it may be plausible I over revved some. Don't want to make it a habit.
-I'm totally out of tire. 205s are a joke with this.
-The left side of the fuel map is really important when you come up to a light. I had a few times I thought it was going to stall then it came back. Turns out it was super lean and RPMs were dropping to below 275! I'm surprised it didn't stall out! I tossed some fuel in and it seemed a lot better.
-I'm not sure on the auto tune stuff. It definitely seems to make a difference but at the same time I'm not seeing as much correction as I think I need looking through the data logs. I'm going to try some manual recalibration and see where it gets me after another run or two.
-I'm getting some break up. I am not sure why but I'm also not running the ignition this engine came with. I can't due to the Stealth Ram requiring a small cap HEI. Need to figure out my upgrades to it. I'm thinking one of these coils maybe an ignition module. At the very least this coil ditches that stupid connector. Another way I might go is to get one of the Vortec 350 ignition modules from the JY. Supposedly they're badass actually.
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/maa-30480
-Even with that, it doesn't seem like the trans is going high enough to be in the power. I think that's where this combo is really left on the table. It's shifting at 4600 RPM and I am wanting another 1K out of it even with the 276HR cam. Based off the VE at WOT with that setup I'm thinking that it's basically at peak torque (which is a really wide band in this case) and not even at peak HP. If that's the case I want to shift somewhat past peak HP. I've got a bunch of governor bits I'm going to use to put a modified governor in with. I think that will make stuff a lot more rowdy.
-I have heat! I like that, makes it where I can drive it with the doghouse on. It's not the greatest but for some reason the blower seems weak. Maybe I'll check the resistor although that's bypassed when on high anyways. Odd, not asking too many questions right now.
-My horn doesn't work. I think I need to reinstall the relay for it. Really should check on that. Wanting to say I pulled it b/c the kid was driving me crazy one day.
-The oil leaks are pretty well gone. Not totally but close.
-I need to repair my O2 sensor wiring now. Damnit if it didnt' get down on the exhaust despite my best efforts.
-That fucking pink wire to the HEI module from the coil's about to break again. I'm thinking about just cutting it off and splicing it into the power line since that's where it goes anyway. Save $10-15 on a connector and future aggrevation. If I get the coil linked I wouldn't need the connectors any more. A huge perk IMO.