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

Mr_Roboto

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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...

I haven't figured out what I'm going to do about those yet. The weather's been shit and I've been far more motivated to tune and drive than to do anything with them. I'll get back to it, probably about the time that I get a warning for my exhaust noise. :rofl:
 

Mr_Roboto

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Im not sure I’d make 8k rpm a habit :rofl:

Yeah, cast everything 383 isn't exactly a great foundation for such things. I don't even know that it did that though, it may be ignition noise. Just what I'm seeing in the data logs. I'll put a rev limiter on it next time I start tweaking on the tune.
 

Mr_Roboto

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Just threw the ignition box on. I stuck it in the floorboards as o have no clue where it's going permanently. Maybe under the passenger side seat.

What's interesting is everything seems lean now. Really lean. Not sure if that's normal but will have to try and tune it out.

I also put a 1.5 inch spacer under the transmission mount. Big difference on the exhaust drag!
 
I built an "Asshole Van" back in the early 90's. When I still had to pass emissions sniffer and dyno.
Lingenfelter built me a carb'd 383 that passed emissions in IL AND made north of 400hp N/A on their dyno using GM iron 441 casting heads.
125 wet kit for insurance (Had the dist marked and could actually slide doghouse back and adjust timing easily)...
Kept the stock in tank electric fuel pump w/ return lines...
Headers, single 3" to the back bumper with an actual Dynomax school bus muffler lol...
700r4, convertor, shift kit, Moser axles w/ studs and a 3.73 posi in the stock rear.
I even tried a windshield washer tank and VHT spraying on the 205's from inside the van.... Worked like shit.
Totally quiet and motor had very little lope.
Actual Stock glass leafs....... No window shorty.
Got a spare tire mount from the junkyard and added it in like the other one.... Had slicks and little floor jack with me.
Would set up a race on the 205's and asked for 5 mins to prep the van if it was a money race. Nascar tire change ensued...
Went very high 12's-13.0 on horsepower and left hard. Aerodynamic as a toaster though and needed the kit up high...So much fun on the street with the 205's.... This was 1992 when horsepower 13.0 was notso slow.... My plates read: HAHAWE1. Most fun vehicle I've ever built and would run 13.5 with my ZX11 INSIDE!
 

Mr_Roboto

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Went to replace the governor in the 700R4 with a modified one and the current one is.....stuck? I tried to get it out to no avail. Usually they just kind of twist out in the direction of the helical gears. I was going to see what springs/weights were in it and see about throwing some lighter springs in before I went to weights. Extremely odd. Any trans guys out there want to tell me how fucked I am on this? Guessing pain in the dick factor's going to be pretty high to get it out? Looks like the gear is plastic and the shaft is steel, so the gear definitely seems like what would be sacrificed if push came to shove. I have a few spares so I can break the current gear to make stuff happen.
 

Mr_Roboto

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Definitely not right on the part shifts. Still better than before esp at WOT. I didn't data log and need to do such. Probably play with a spring or two and see what I can get going. I haven't hooked my new coil in either and that needs to happen too.

Stalled it out at the end. The idle still isn't right either. There is a slight tick so I am thinking I am gonna pop the valve covers and check for bent pushrods.

The squealing is the accessory belt alignment. I am not sure its on all the way but it sure as hell didn't go on farther. That's going to be aggravating. I'll end up casting and turning a new pulley for it before I let that go or toss the balancer in the lathe.

I am almost betting I could find a hole just based on an IR thermometer.
 

Mr_Roboto

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Pulled plugs. Here is what I got

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Looking at these if I have a problem #3 is my immediate suspect although perhaps #8 too. It seems like I'm still fat based on the base of the plug.
 

Aron

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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.
View attachment 52534

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.
View attachment 52535

@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.

View attachment 52536

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.
I have a stock LT1 airbox from a Camaro/Firebird if you want it, with a K&N drop in filter. I may have 2 actually.
 

Mr_Roboto

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I have a stock LT1 airbox from a Camaro/Firebird if you want it, with a K&N drop in filter. I may have 2 actually.

Got any pics? Certainly interested.

Just finished pulling pushrods. I'm not sure how or when it happened but several seemed to be lashed on the loose side in my opinion unless there's drain back happening and the lifters bled down. They're Comp retro roller lifters so I would think they wouldn't be doing that.

I am 99% certain I have pushrods of varying lengths. 2-3 seem short by 10-20 thousandths but still rolled decently. I'm debating the $50 at Horrible Freight for a 12" caliper to measure but will probably just say fuck it and grab a set of pushrods for this. What sucks is I was hoping there would be more options for these (going to say a 11/32 pushrod) but due to the Comp retro roller lifters I'm going to stick back in what I pulled out.

I was never able to get this engine to idle the way I wanted. I'm almost certain I made it worse but the lash/pushrods probably were a big contributor. I'll find out when I get everything re-installed and re-lashed.
 

Mr_Roboto

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Made a pushrod length checker. Hf was closed by the time I decided I needed tools and this is what I improvised.

IMG_20200412_201000422.jpg


There's a live center I have the pushrod's oiling hole in right now. I could be measuring the tolerance at which they make the holes although they visibly seem better than the pushrod. I'll probably go to horrible freight and get a 12" caliper tomorrow to actually check. Certainly to check any replacements. Odds are they're toast but I also have a question in the back of my mind about tolerances.

The results according to Maury:

-The second longest one is about .011 shorter.
-The shortest one is .031 shorter.

:fu:
 

Mr_Roboto

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Pushrods got swapped, valves lashed and I still have a miss. I'm going to swap the coil and see what's up but I think I have a hole on the passenger side missing. Odd since I thought it was a hole on the driver's side originally. I think I probably need to check the valve lash again.

I also am thinking I may have something up with an injector. Thinking I'll probably pull em out and at least check for spray pattern. I'm thinking I'm going to probably take an IR thermometer and see if I can find a variance between holes.

Need to wire in my efans. Starting to get paranoid that they will be needed soon.
 

Mr_Roboto

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Adjusted the injector dead time, here's where I am now:
-WBO2 needs work. Think I have a wire in the cable that didn't splice well. Should just give up and order a new one from AEM.
-Adjusted the injector dead time. Worth a crap ton of power and it seems to run much better now
-Idle vac is going into the mid-low 40s. I'm pulling just under 16inhg with this. That is in excess of expectations quite honestly. I could easily run vacuum brakes on this thing if I didn't have the hydro booster on it.
-Belts are still squeaky and annoying. Belt alignment still off at the crank pulley. About to check the OAL of this against the one that was on there. If I have to I'll lathe off 1/8th inch or space stuff out to get this to work right.
 

Mr_Roboto

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Wanna see how to break a 212 thousand mile 7.5 diff? This is how. Pic tomorrow when it's light out that shows what's there vs what these are. The tires are basically worn out but I bought them with the intention of testing fitment and seeing what cleared where.

Seriously though just test fitting. I am shocked by how close they are to the spring. I was going to narrow my 9" and get it to "tuck" but I don't think that's going to be a thing looking at this. If anything I think that it being a bit further out will be a good thing. I need to find my measurements again and see how everything measures up. Are there bigger concial lug nuts? These don't seem to be big enough for the holes. Or do IMCA people tend to go with 5/8 studs? Either way I need to do something to feel comfortable with this setup. If I do keep these I definitely need to make some caps that are a replica of the stockers except with 5X5.5 lug pattern. :rofl:

At this point I may just take the "easy" way out and get some steel wheels made up when I swap the 9" in that are 5X5.5 and not run the matching lug patterns again.

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Mr_Roboto

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Started wiring the Volvo fan in. I am using the self contained relay controller. Makes it easy. The fast idle solenoid port on my megasquirt ii can run up to 1 amp. The relay pulls less than half of that. The fan is from an early 00s v70 if I remember correctly. An 850 or 940 supposedly use a similar fan. They are supposedly a derivative of the Taurus fan.

The shroud is from a server case and is free m my first Astro Van.

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