🔧 BUILD Queen: 4T80e Turbo 2001 Park Avenue

[turtleman]

There's plenty to do yet but im getting the minor exhaust changes out of the way now.
I kinda wanted it to be a little quieter at idle & cruise, especially now that ive fixed the map sensor problem and consequently the engine idles smooth as stock and doesn't have a cool little cam lope it did with the map unplugged
I traded out the worm clitellum for an actual muffler - zzp's big ole 3800 muffler/resonator

new setup clamped and prepped for welding. needed to move the wideband bung too
also you can't see it in this picture but that rusty pipe is actually like 6 short segments masterfully tig-welded together I love it

the old muffler... how much can that honestly be doing?

Here's the other little party trick. I'm adding a boost-driven cutout valve that'll turn one of the tailpipes into a dead-head helmholtz drone control tube at idle to light load and then open up with power.
The length isn't long enough to be tuned for the desired wavelength but ya know I at least thought about it.
I just tested it out by shoving a t-shirt in one of the tailpipes and it definitely gets quieter so that's good enough for me.

I haven't bought one in a while but these exhaust cutout valves have really come a ways in the last few years. They are cheap and well-designed.
I paid like $400-500 for a soundperformance one for the riv ages ago and then remade most of it because i'm a picky pickle and it works but this is much more affordable.

 

[Turbocharged400sbc]

I always knew you were a pretty fart smeller

 

[Turbocharged400sbc]

*smart fella

 

[turtleman]

getting some of the methanol setup done while i wait for exhaust.
had to go ahead and order up a buick park avenue meth pump bracket at jegs...
always continuing with my tradition of never drilling new holes into the car

 

[Turbocharged400sbc]

Oh I'd say you've been doing the meth fer shure

 

[sktchy]

This is the park avenue mine wishes it could be.

 

[turtleman]

not huge updates but a few things as im trying to prepare this thing to do some first-ever dragstrip ripping

exhaust valve seems to be working out pretty well. between that and the new zzp muffler, there's pretty much no drone.
pay no attention to the broken coil spring in the picture

The methanol stuff is all done and works. I did find I needed to add a solenoid to eliminate leakage but that's a $11 part and some billet brackets to hold it to the strut area using existing studs of course.

I fixed the broken driver door arm by removing it. I couldn't take that awful noise anymore. That alone makes me a lot happier



The tuning is kinda the final matter, particularly the maf. It's not going like i'd hoped.
The car as-is runs with the stock 3800 f-body maf sensor in the TB and it maxes out on hz rather quickly with this setup.
It already has a card-style maf sensor in a 4" tube plumbed in the system that I was expecting to be able to connect and tune and go.
The problem I seem to having with that is it's reading so low at idle (around 1000hz), the pcm isn't liking that. The calibration table starts at 1500hz so that's just too low even if I can keep it from failing out the maf sensor.
So I may try another one of that style soon because I'd prefer that for fitment but for now, I think I'm gonna steal one of the 85mm sensors from my riv parts bin and run that with an afc.

All of the intake stuff in this area is set up for 4" including the modded throttle body so I don't want to totally give up on a 4" maf housing yet.
I'm going to test out one of THESE and see if that works out any better but I'll just change it up for the 85mm deal if I have to and move on with life.

gotta love the dinosaur tuning life.
A lot of these tables I'm having to key in by hand looking at the HPT on one screen and putting it into tables that have reversed axes and different names and sometimes different units on DHP/tiny. I can get some of the tables export/imported with excel and some not - usually the bigger 3d tables are the not's

 

[sktchy]

Could you use an afc backwards to bring your idle hz up or scale your injectors to help?

 

[turtleman]

Could you use an afc backwards to bring your idle hz up or scale your injectors to help?

the afc could be used to increase the frequency to a good point on the table but I feel like its not gonna make it work that well with it (the actual airflow through the sensor) being so low and unsteady at idle.
I'm just goin with the 85mm sensor for now even though the fitment is a little awkward. I've already done a quick test and it actually reads a tad higher in hz at idle than the old maf sensor but I know I can work with that.

 

[sktchy]

Ay be the way to go. I've got a nib ls1 maf I was always going to experiment with but with the fbody intake having a bottle as bad as the throttle body the afc route or using ifrs and injector gain has always seemed simpler to me.

Very good chance your going to see a lot more power than I ever will so I'm taking notes as usual

 

[turtleman]

90min later

 

[v6buicks]

 

[Turbocharged400sbc]

28 psi....Mr happy kept wicking it up....

 

[turtleman]

28 psi....Mr happy kept wicking it up....

needed to get those higher maf calibration points

 

[turtleman]

oh, bottom of number 4 too!
...good because that way I don't have the option of cheaping out and leaving the back head alone ?‍

 

[turtleman]

A few weeks ago I thought I was about to have the engine sorted for my trip to CO but I started it up and it was seeping out a decent amount of water from somewhere.

Timing cover was very cracked. It could have been like that and the rtv kept it from leaking or I just made it bad enough to leak when I reinstalled the tensioner with the solid cast-in heater elbow.
Thankfully I at least had a spare cover to swap in - It's rare but keeping old parts pays off sometimes!

There's some more fun though... I decided since I'm going in that far, I'll pull the oil pan and look around.
Straight away, I found a broken pan bolt.

Thankfully, getting it out was no trouble with some tactfulness. Transfer punch the broken bolt with the pan on, center-drill it to make the guide hole bigger, then left-hand drill bit spun it out easily.
It's always satisfying to get something out without a fight that ends in butchery.

Then I spent a good hour picking out all the excess rtv in all of the oil pan bolt threads

I also found a couple objects in the crankcase. In the oil pan, I found this..
small chunk of cast aluminum - My first thought was maybe a piece of the cast pan where the oil drain was drilled out.

In the bottom of the oil pickup screen, I found this...
That is definitely a piece of the timing chain tensioner pad. not cool!
I didn't even notice that with the cover off because it was the bottom.

It's a VS cam and most likely 90 or maybe 105lb springs so I'm figuring that's possibly leaning pretty hard the stock timing set. I could stick another tensioner in there and go but I just don't ever want to revisit this problem.

Racecar. Double roller.
So here's where I get on James' soapbox about correcting the rollmaster timing sets (since I'm now machining them myself and understand well enough to explain it)
The left is how the crank gear comes. The right is what it needs to be like. Primarily, it just needs the inside chamfer to be enlarged to ensure it doesn't bottom on the wider corner radius of the crankshaft.

The very subtle other thing on the crank gear that's too hard to really see is there's a tiny corner radius on the inside pocket because the tool that cuts them inevitably has a small nose radius. The pocket is machined on the double rollers because the back row of teeth is set back behind (towards the block) from where the single row of teeth normally is so the pocket is what clears the seating shoulder of the crankshaft. We've just discovered that rollermaster may have addressed this issue with the later units (because I measured a larger size for that pocket on mine than james' older ones) but if you do have the smaller diameter, you basically just need to cut that radius out and made it a sharp corner or whatever other way to get it out of the way just to make sure that cannot impede seating of the gear on the crankshaft.

For clarity, here's the crank and gear interaction point

Then there's a cam gear.
much simpler matter - just machine the back of the gear face down about .030" so it lines up with the properly positioned crank gear. After grinding, I also restored the chamfers that were mostly ground away.

So now that it will have a double row timing set, I might as well put the handed down 130lb springs from the old riv and ensure I never have valve float with all the boosts we be puttin in it.
I already put in the low mile OE850 lifters and lightweight 1-piece pushrods from the o.g. days of el tortuga. I love being able to reuse stuff like this


Baaack to that little piece of cast aluminum...
I'm pretty sure this is where it came from. At some point this oil pan to cover bolt pushed through and turned itself into a thru hole. I feel like excess rtv has been a real enemy to this motor...
Time for 3800 forensics!
Incidentally this particular bolt is located just below where the timing chain tensioner is and on the pinch side of the revolving chain...
So my wild theory is this chipped off while the engine was running (no idea when) and popped up into the tensioner area and broke it.

 

[sktchy]

Soooo, if your machining those now what would you charge to do it? If your tearing up stock stuff with the mildest aftermarket cam grind there is then that answers about every stupid question I had about tryin to squeak by with mine.

I don't think I ever did anything with my double roller other than run a thick and a thin gasket but would I still have to do that? And this takes care of everything being so godawful tight in the shafts I'm assuming?

 

[turtleman]

Soooo, if your machining those now what would you charge to do it? If your tearing up stock stuff with the mildest aftermarket cam grind there is then that answers about every stupid question I had about tryin to squeak by with mine.

I don't think I ever did anything with my double roller other than run a thick and a thin gasket but would I still have to do that? And this takes care of everything being so godawful tight in the shafts I'm assuming?

I added a little more to the post about the possible reason for that damage. The single might well be fine for that setup. It's ever speculative.
I plan to check the actual spring pressure of the current springs after I swap in the 130's and at least have solid answer on what those are.
James and I still always run double gaskets for the cover with modded timing sets. It's easy assurance. The main thing is not having to thin out the oil pump cover which saves money there and doesn't weaken a broad flat part that has to contend with full oil pressure all the time.

I can machine your timing set. I'll charge you $60

 

[sktchy]

Speculative is a thing in that scenario, but in my case even if I kept the stock cam and ran my comp 136s much less adding the is2 I shouldn't even really be considering it. I kind of worry about my double roller set after I had to get kind of aggressive with it taking it off the last time and hoping I didn't bend the cam gear. Also wasn't real fond of how the double roller had as much slack in it as it did as I feel like it's going to cause a rattle that drives me nuts. So I should probably decide on digging through my pile of junk to find it or if I should just get a new set. Either way I'll be getting with you and sending somethin your way soonish. As always thanks for the info!

 

[turtleman]

The update now is queen's tearing up the streets once again! and getting its tune on
There was a thing or two more to fix of course.
The odd valvetrain clattery noise we noticed from day one with raised rpm is gone!
I guess that chipped timing chain tensioner (that was found only because I had to replace the cracked front cover) was that issue.

a couple shots from the bottom of the timing set installed - engine hasn't been turned around yet during the pictures

Another little issue with this ole girl has been oil leakage.
This is one area at the bottom rail of the valve cover that I'd always find oil after driving that car around it was driving me nuts until I figured it out.

After thinking about why the back is always dry and this one part of the front always get wet in the same spots, I realized it's the dipstick - and not the gasket, the handle...
Oil and vapor are coming up and out the roll pin that fastens the handle to the metal strip.

So I just put electrical tape on and put a ziptie tight on that but then I found another thing contributing to that problem.
In a nutshell the turbo has been putting boost pressure directly into the crankcase the whole time both through the pcv inlet at the throttle body and the pcv valve. James tipped me off to that and we capped off the pcv valve weeks ago when I was replacing the head gaskets but I neglected to address the throttle body hole so I took care of that now.

didn't drill - just a 1/8npt tap right in the hole

then just a plug with a generous amount of teflon tape - when i do this on the new nicer throttle body later, i'll put an aluminum plug in there for mr. lotus instead of heavy brass

Side thing while i was doing the front cover replacement and cleaning things up in that area is i redid the improvised heater hose retaining solution to make it kinda nicer
Modification is necessary to use the f-body intake setup + alternator on a later h-body because of the power steering pump needing to be moved back towards the firewall about 2 inches on this car because of the motor mount bracket being in that space. That puts the accessory belt right through the retaining bolt space for the heater inlet hose so you have to totally remove that and find some other way to hold in that hose fitting.

before:

after: new tensioner assembly with the floating heater return pipe because I refuse to go through this shit with cracking the front cover again

cheers from the 'cada that buzzed right in while I was driving and scared the freakin shit outta me and then just sat and parked its ass in the car for the rest of the night while i worked on it!

 

[Turbocharged400sbc]

Maybe next time you'll listen to me.

I ain't just another pretty face

 

[sktchy]

Maybe next time you'll listen to me.

I ain't just another pretty face

Learned this the hard way more times than I should admit.


That throttle body plug will be just fine just pack the front side with jb weld and smooth it out. Mines been fine like that for a long time after I blew the dipstick clean out of the tube and gave my engine bay a nice coat of rust proofing.

 

[turtleman]

Maybe next time you'll listen to me.

I ain't just another pretty face

I'm the kinda guy that likes to first admire the problem

 

[turtleman]

Turbocharged400sbc thanks for cutting the new brackets out! You rock dude
I'll finally get around to real-life testing out the D585 heatsink coils that the LS pretty boys used to get wet about on a 3800.

This is a nice distraction from the hard time this car has given me. She just doesn't let up with new problems to torment me with.
After blowing the throttle body off at the track day I quickly fixed that but then the engine would intermittently misfire under load. And then it seemed to always misfire under load to the point where it'd just shut off on me while driving. I was puzzling over this for a long time.
I just got it back to running well again yesterday and i'm not even sure exactly what finally did it.
Apart from that it now makes some extra noise from the flexplate area sometimes but right now I have a dgaf attitude about that issue. It's driving well at the moment and I'm trying to enjoy that before it isn't again.
I don't think I mentioned I lost 4th gear a while back while getting spicy on the highway. I am guessing that the major wheel spin under full throttle and then an upshift to 4th is what did it. I don't really remember this event - there was no drama or noise that I noticed - just kept going and realized it's not going into 4th anymore. I've verified it's not something tune/electronic. So there - 4T80e's don't like too much torque going into 4th either.
But now it has a bunch of improved valvetrain bits and I have a lot more reference information under my belt that I could about write an essay about. It now has the double timing set I put in earlier this year, low mile lifters, stronger pushrods (instead of the light ones), zzp light 1.65 rockers, new retainers that no longer contact the rockers (I found evidence that a couple were getting fresh with eachother), verified ~125lb (worn-in 130lb cc springs from my old intense heads) valvesprings instead of the ones that were in there ranging from 99lbs to 122lbs @1.8 (I have no idea what they were actually supposed to be but that's an uncool amount of variation)
Anyway the valvetrain is very sorted now and I should be easily good to change the shifts from 6000 to 6500 where the VS cam is supposed be happy to.

I know I'm all over the place with this thing but I just go where the shit storms take me. I was expecting, at this point, to be throwing in the old bazooka subwoofer in the trunk and just riding it this winter and not have to lean on the saabaru so much during the cold season. That thing's got 170k on it now.

 

[turtleman]

They seem to work great. tested to 6500rpm. no ignition issues
Before you tell me I should make the wiring presentable if I'm gonna try to design pretty lotus-inspired brackets... no. It'll probably stay like this knowing me.
This might be one of my favorite brackets yet from a geek shade-tree engineering standpoint. It's flimsy as hell in your hands but when you bolt it up to the valve cover posts and tighten the coils on, it's rock solid as shit.
On that note, queeflicia is running really good now. She seems very happy with some more revs and fingers-crossed she'll stay that way.
Keen to get back to the dragstrip before something else comes out of the woodwork