🔧 BUILD LAME Turbo V6 Camaro

[v6buicks]

That looks much better. Too bad it doesn't do the one thing it's supposed to do. It leaks where I ground a weld down too far. I'm going to start fixing it tomorrow, but I'm starting to beat myself up over it. I was already over it before filling the coolant because I dealt with paint adhesion issues all day.

I'm an idiot. Finish one thing before you start another. When you have all kinds of half done and broken stuff, these dumb projects can wait.

 

[Rdrnnr]

Thats where I'm at man and I'm bout to throw in the towel on the red one. Put way too much into this to keep fightin this nightmare all to get it over that hump. I'm at a loss for what to do at this point and need to catch back up on work and the house. Depressing as hell to go thru it all just to get kicked in the nuts to top out at 400hp.

 

[v6buicks]

I was feeling motivated to get under the car again so I jumped back. I need to embrace these moments every time they occur because they are rare!

The good news is that my welds are looking better. I'm finally getting a feel for my wire and travel speeds. The bad news is that I need to cut a lot more out. The channel where this extension terminates (right side of the pic below) was not connected to the inner rocker when I got the car. I fixed that with a brutally overkill angle and flat stock contraption, but never bothered to replace the existing metal. Upstream of my frame cap (left side) is also a mess and need to be cut further... I'm not thrilled about that part because I'm aware that the inside is rusty all the way to the front of the car. Let's hope this doesn't turn into a full restoration.

Here's the end section I was talking about after I removed the remnants of the extension.

Apparently I forgot to take any more pics after that. Oh well. I didn't really get any further than that anyway. I should be able to make a little patch/cap for this tonight and get the extension connected to it.

 

[v6buicks]

More progress! Garage time is so much better with nice weather and an open door.

All I really did was clean that area, make a cap, weld it in and shoot the insides with eastwood's internal frame coating. Progress goes a lot slower when I'm trying to give a shit....

But that's obviously not making much of a difference in quality, is it? ?

 

[v6buicks]

This damn pipe, man. I ended up needing to completely change my plan of attack because I couldn't figure out how to weld this up with my shitty Lincoln and grind the weld down smooth. I really wanted it to look like it was mandrel bent into this shape. However, I either blow a hole into the pipe with the heat or grind a hole into pipe because I didn't make enough penetration.

This is the new idea. I got the pipe free of leaks after only grinding the welds down part-way. From there, I'll just fill the low spots with fiberglass impregnated filler.

Let me tell ya. Spreading filler evenly on a 1.25" tube is dang near impossible.

Impatience

It looks pretty bad, but considering what I just tried I'm actually pretty impressed. I'll probably try grinding just a touch in one spot because it's too high, and then applying one more coat of filler. After that, it will just be whatever it is. By the way, bondo is rated up to 260 degrees of surface temp in case you wondered how it would hold up on hot stuff.

 

[GTPpower]

Don't overheat it!

 

[v6buicks]

Don't overheat it!

Lol I'd probably be more pissed about needing to redo the pipe than replacing the engine at this rate.

 

[Rdrnnr]

Looks way better than I'd have done. If it's worth doin it's worth doin awesome

 

[Turbocharged400sbc]

yeah i just took a lill off the top, its a weld, cars have them, i love fabbed shit just as much as billet

 

[Turbocharged400sbc]

2nd place

 

[v6buicks]

The second round of sanding is complete. I never thought I would have multiple posts dedicated to a stupid radiator hose, but here I am. It's far from perfect, but with all things considered, it's pretty good. I'm going to scuff this when I get home and spray it again. The other fun part of painting small pipes is that runs seem to be inevitable. Regardless of what happens next, I'll be done. It's either going to live in its installed spot or be replaced with new bent hoses and a straight pipe. lol I would have continued working on the frame, but I ran out of shielding gas. I'll be back to the real work later today.

 

[v6buicks]

I made an upsetting but satisfying discovery today. My welder's wire feeder slips. It's probably been like this for a long time but it officially bit the dust. This explains why my welds are super inconsistent, but now I need to fix it. I think I can rig something up with a long bolt washer and a wing nut, but the original plastic clamp is stripped.

The reason I'm upset is that I didn't know any better this whole time. I could have been laying dimes, but instead I shit all over the place. Too late now because I'm done.

That's right. The pipe is smooth, sealed, and in place. The subframe connector is also in place! I don't feel great about it because it didn't go in all nice and straight like the other side. In fact, it's a bit loaded up and banana shaped. I think it will be fine for the cars intended purposes though.

I made a slightly longer hose and chopped the pipe down a bit for ease of installation and added flexibility for when the engine rocks.

This turned out much better than expected. There are some small craters, but I'm not that picky.

Finally!

Not bad

Once I clean everything up and paint, there's only one big project left to do before the car hits the road again.

 

[Turbocharged400sbc]

Word of advice cut your blob off and rewind yer spull and use a compressed air blow gun to blow the liner of your Mig gun out to get rid of all the fine metal shavings that accumulate in it I usually just kind of jump rope it while I blow compressed air into the liner.

Fine steel wool or a Scotch-Brite with a binder clip post spool before drive, in case your spool sits for long. Of time it may time cumulate rust on the Strand.

 

[v6buicks]

Word of advice cut your blob off and rewind yer spull and use a compressed air blow gun to blow the liner of your Mig gun out to get rid of all the fine metal shavings that accumulate in it I usually just kind of jump rope it while I blow compressed air into the liner.

Fine steel wool or a Scotch-Brite with a binder clip post spool before drive, in case your spool sits for long. Of time it may time cumulate rust on the Strand.

Thanks! I have never done any sort of maintenance other than cleaning tips so that's helpful.

 

[Turbocharged400sbc]

Also make sure that the drag brake tit for the spool is properly engaged into the small hole of the spool you don't want your school to be able to move much and uncoil or cause a jerking motion when the feed rollers are active.

Depending on how nice the tooth pattern is you may need to use a small pick or needle to clean out the tooth grooves on the rollers especially since it's been slipping

 

[Rdrnnr]

I'll let you be the guinea pig. Be sure to post your journey. lol

I couldn't tell you what OS you'll need since this is all new to me too. I don't see why it wouldn't work the same as-is, but it sounds like you'll have to play around and find out which OS has the biggest table availability via DHP. It will cost you a shit ton of credits in HP which sucks. You have unlimited usage in DHP which should only cost a couple hundo... if you can find one.

alright here we go deep breath lol, different model years may potentially have more than one operating system table availability isnt the only thing you gotta watch for, basically same thing as android, apple, windows versions just sets of tables to match what its meant to control, it doesnt cost a cent to read every file in the hp repository or any car in the world and save that particular file. but to write you have to have your mpvi2 unlocked via a serial number vin combination. havent tested if i can flash a vin over something that wasnt unlocked prior yet but im optimistic the way everything seems to work.

It's not the ECM it is a PCM powertrain control module. It does not control just the engine.
It may warn you about being incompatible but I've never had a problem flashing 7440 with non 7440 bin files.
Yes I am referring to the fact that there are several different operating system updates for every year make and model vehicle. Of those updates only one or two of them maybe really well mapped out. Even if it's not the newest OS ID update from GM.

For example, in DHP, if I open up a 2004 comp G file that is the newest osid I only have access to 520 tables.
If I open up the previous OS ID number for that make and model I have access to all 630 tables.

I can open both of them in HPtuners and I only have 120 tables

ok so now that i have some experience playing around here you are absolutely correct, can confirm 7440 will take cable or drive by wire os and vin swap no problem, pretty interesting differences between those files and even moreso between the 99 bird file i have unlocked from my ebay ecm and and my 00 bird stock file, comparison logs are like crack to me at this point and time and seeing the ways they did tables different is kinda interesting makes ya wonder if they just decided to take shots in the dark every year or maybe they did actually try to dial these in at the factory rather than canning them and sendin em, how bout the lean mean and rich mean ho2s codes tho gm got jokes or what? theres also different options in scanner like resetting your throttle body and of course logging accel pedal vs actual rather than a solid tps which i already miss lol. table differences seem relative to what they need to control for either throttle body

On the plus side the older bin files have nowhere near as many on board drive cycle tests that run in the background as the 99 and newer ones do....

i mean its just alot of clickin boxes the o2 sensor oscillation on my drive by cable was ridiculous until i cleaned the pids up

typical tps enable is near 30% throttle, i wonder it appears he may have went with the FTC limiting method that goes open loop at high load. seems like thats probbaly the stategy he went with

can you elaborate on this at any rate it seems like something that could be useful one way or another

1.2.4 and 1.2.3E are both fully unlocked for all gm v6 FWD n RWD 60* bellhousing engones and powertrains

id have to look but i wouldnt be surprised to find a 4.3 i know theres a couple ls bins in there i believe gen3s tho

 

[v6buicks]

I forgot to mention that I started the car to charge the battery and and burp the cooling system after I got that pipe finished. It ran and idled like normal, but I revved it and heard that damn squeaking again. Idk what to do at this point. I think I'm going to continue working on the transmission conversion for now, but if I find spare time where I'm waiting for parts to show up or something the stock rockers may be going back in. What sucks even more is that my rocker organizers are no longer organized. I guess it's not the end of the world but I would have liked to put them and the pushrods all back where they came. Progress is definitely happening, but it's always two steps forward and one step back.

Oh yeah. Here's how the engine bay looks as a whole with the new pipe. I like it a lot better now. I also have an intake snorkel tube on the way. Hopefully I can make a decent looking CAI again.

 

[GTPpower]

That pipe looks really good.

 

[v6buicks]

That pipe looks really good.

Thanks! I'm still shocked at the end result given my method. ? I hope it holds up well.

 

[Rdrnnr]

I'm guessin you got a pretty good welder? You two both seem to be pretty awesome at it and I'm just curious if you guys got anything got any tips to doin it like that for a guy that's used to layin booger welds on angle with a stick and isn't a hell of alot better with a Flux core mig lol

 

[v6buicks]

I'm guessin you got a pretty good welder? You two both seem to be pretty awesome at it and I'm just curious if you guys got anything got any tips to doin it like that for a guy that's used to layin booger welds on angle with a stick and isn't a hell of alot better with a Flux core mig lol

My welder sucks ass. lol It's a shitty Lincoln Handy MIG with a wire feed adjustment and voltage on a rocker switch. I take anything I want TIGed to work. We have nice Miller stuff here, but I would love to have a nice multi-process unit for home. I've been eyeballing the ESAB unit at Napa for years, but can't quite justify it. I know enough to get by, but I have a problem with blaming my technique even when my machine is broken or set-up incorrectly. lol

 

[Rdrnnr]

I just got the green harbor freight interestingly enough I do better with it than anything. I feel like I could do tig because I can do gas and brazing just fine but man they're expensive. But I feel like a guy could pay for it real fast too

 

[v6buicks]

What a fiiiine evening to start pulling a transmission. If you zoom in a bit, you'll see that the Volvos are doing very well. If you zoom in even more, you'll see that the neighbor's booty is coming along pretty nicely too. Yep. Life is good.

 

[Rdrnnr]

View attachment 82973
What a fiiiine evening to start pulling a transmission. If you zoom in a bit, you'll see that the Volvos are doing very well. If you zoom in even more, you'll see that the neighbor's booty is coming along pretty nicely too. Yep. Life is good.

Holy Jack stands that had to take some pumpin to get that up there, that looks like the kinda neighborhood I'd get kicked of for doin a case relearn at 4 am tho

 

[GTPpower]

I have a eastwood 135 mig welder that works decent. I would get rid of flux core and go to gas. The welds are way prettier. Wire welding is kind of like coloring.

I typically tig about everything I can though. The welds are a lot stronger and if you do it right, look prettier.