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^ Painted 2 coats of engine primer. Second coat was light
^ Got to spend some quality time with my mom and painted the engine with her. Semi Gloss Black. I have the part numbers and descriptions in the cost sheet.
^ These were polypropylene take out soup can lids that I cut and used gasket makers to seal off the knock sensors I'm not using. Supposedly PP melting point is 350 deg F. So if my lifter valley is that hot I think I have other problems to worry about.
^ I honestly thought the intake looked odd on the engine as it was cleaner than the heads (even after hot tanking them)
^ Peep the "NoLove Nova" in the background in all her unreliable rusty glory. I installed the new harmonic balancer dry with the aid of a torch and some light persuasion with a hammer and piece of wood. Then used the old bolt on an impact to drive it flush against the crank. I checked with an old bike spoke once the old bolt was removed to make sure there was no lip between them. The new bolt is not torque to spec yet. The coil packs were bolted on and torqued to spec as well as the intake manifold. The 71187 Edelbrock LS Carb Manifold had clearance issues between the carb and the 6ls 6014 ignition box. I'm going to need a nitrous plate or spacer to use a holley style carb. Those are the ICT motor mount adapter plates.
^ Quick before and after. I tried taking the picture in the same position in the same spot. That carb is a vacuum secondary 750 cfm slayer series carb I believe. It's just there for the picture.
^ I know nobody likes to keep track of how much they spend on their projects, but I like the data. Definitely not 80$ motor pulled like DENMAH, but this was also the process of learning a trade. That's how I'm justifying the cost. I have a pass through sender on there as I thought I would be using fuel injection for a bit. Also bought an old appears to be unused A1000 fuel pump from a member on here. I'm sure there's a few nickle and dimes on the list that didn't go completely to the engine. I still need spark plugs, wires, oil, oil level sensor delete, fitting to run my steam vent to water pump, exhaust bolts, ,carb spacer, and maybe a tool to keep the motor from turning over while I torque the balancer to spec.
and maybe a tool to keep the motor from turning over while I torque the balancer to spec.
Use a quality 24mm 6 point socket torquing the crank bolt and yes the holding tool. Torquing mine while getting the TTY angle using a long 1/2 pull arm with a cheater pipe for leverage... I felt a POP and was like OMG I just broke off the bolt inside the crankshaft! I was relived to see it was just the impact socket I was using had cracked. After replacing the camshaft I opted for the ARP 12 point bolt because of my scare lol
^ This is what I cam up with. I had an extra air hose fitting laying around, a bottle, and the coolant hose from the radiator from the truck I pulled. Cleaned up well and drilled holes. I added JB weld and let it sit over night (not shown in pictures)
^ Holy pickup tube came in. Looks to be correct depth but won't know for sure until I drop the pan. I have no idea what O ring to run on it and i'm not too crazy about only having 1 fastener to bolt it down. Supposedly I have to modify the truck windage tray so we'll see how that goes.
^ I want to run two gt35 up and forwards. I'm not sure if I want to run t4 gt35 or t3 gt35. Also not sure the difference between a gt35 and gt3582. Everything from here on out is going to be ebay special stuff. I've got 900$ left for this build. The circles you see are 2.125" and 2.5" for my exhaust piping. I'm going to have to cut the piping at angles if I want flat spots to mount the flanges. I'm also going to have to make some custom flanges. I just got cleared from my quarantine so I'll probably harass my old machine shop employment and see if I can get some stuff waterjetted for me. While I'm at it I may design some coil pack relocation brackets. Or maybe not. Depends how much the water jetting will cost me.
^ Wanted to see if the stock manifolds worked up and forward. I have pipes with the 02 sensors I kept. Would like to try and use those and may wind up welding them to the manifolds instead of dealing with those rusty studs and funky gaskets. If It doesn't fit in the car I'll gladly toss them and try and get something that fits. The hood and fenders can be cut into without hurting my feelings. The car is a total rust bucket haha
I think I may have tapped the hole too deep. The nipple bottoms out. I put teflon tape on it. If it doesn't seal correctly I'll take it off and go up in size.
^ Cut these on the horizontal band saw and sanded them to be ready for the T3 flanges that are getting welded to them.
Okayyyyyyyy project update. I painted all the accessories, and installed the flexplate. I spent about 800$ dollars on a carb hat, spacer, spark plugs, 2 T3 turbos (literally the cheapest on ebay), 2 wastegates, 6lb wastegate springs, T3 turbo inlet flanges, some fittings for oil feeds and returns, and an ebay radiator. They are all coming from different sellers on summit & ebay. And I have 100$ left in my account. Unfortunately I believe I spun the crank pulley on the C5 and I'm going to have to fix that. I don't get a stimulus check unfortunately, but I should be receiving a check from a certain tire company (not allowed to say) that damaged my rims on the C5. So I guess instead of replacing my rims I'll be putting that money toward fixing the C5 and then whatever is left over can go to this project.
Fortunately for me there isn't too much for me to buy for this project except for detail stuff. I need brakes for the NoLove Nova, I need to rebuild the rear end, I need -10 fuel lines, I need a good fpr, I need plug wires, I need AN fittings, I need coolant hoses and fittings, I need a 10 micron fuel filter that can actually flow well, I need to do carb conversion to make it blow through (will do after motor is in car), and I need fluids and filters. So I can still rebuild, inspect, paint the ebay parts as well as tac weld the turbo flanges and do some small stuff until my bank account can recharge.
That's because that engine was a 409 big block. Those early model big blocks had the chamber incorporated into the block as appose to the heads like most V8's we are used to.
The heads on those are flat with no chamber.
I got to see all sorts of neat stuff going through that shop.
^ For mock up and entertainment purposes. I need many fasteners, and long 4an feed line before I can run it on the stand. It's always something
^ Got coped 44mm wastegate tubes from MonkeyFab
^ Fun fact expanding a tube to a larger diameter actually increases resistance, but having a tapered expansion instead of a sharp angle lessons the resistance from the fitting/step
^ Turns out the cheapest T3 turbos on ebay don't take T3/T4 fittings. These seem to be T25 fittings. I had to modify my drain and it came out horrible because I didn't have access to a mill (not pictured for obvious reasons)
^ Ordered 1 from amazon and they sent four. Called and they said I could keep em. Need these to elongate the -4an turbo feeds from the oil cooler port feed I have from ICT billet. I'll probably have to "borrow" old -4an nitrous lines from my brother.
^ Two pick up tubes sitting together. They are almost exactly the same height. The Modified one is at a different angle. The Holley tech support told me I'd have to cut my truck windage tray. The only interference I had from the windage tray was where the bolt from the holley tube sits on (there is only 1 as appose to the factory 2). I narrowed the little flat with the bolt hole and it fit the windage tray from that. No biggie. The tubes had a diameter difference of about .040". I tried 3 o rings and wound up using the smallest one. It took some effort to get it to sit in the oil pump square. I also found out why I think they only use 1 bolt to the oil pump in OEM applications and I think this is because the other bolt is very hard to get to when the front cover is on. Anyways, I did install 2 bolts the other bolt clamps the pickup tube to the edge of the bolt flange and it sketched me out so I put threadlock on the 1 bolt. Because of the different angle of the pickup tube it didn't fit with my homemade baffle. So I cut the baffle to clearance and after didn't feel it was rigid enough to be in there so I wound up not using the baffle.
^ Stuff rust when you let them sit...
^ After spinning the crank pulley on the C5 I decided to pin this one too. It took 4 hours drilling on the C5 at a weird angle with a crappy bit. This one took 40 minutes (used a good bit). I torqued the bolt 140 degrees and had to use a cheater bar with my already 3' breaker bar. I got a family member to stand on the engine stand as I was afraid at that amount of torque I would tip the stand and engine over.
^ This level doesn't mean crap because the engine is on the stand. I tried my best to get it straight and tac welded the flanges and a few exhaust pieces on. I don't want to put on the WG tubes until the motor is in the car. So I will test fit and finish welding the exhaust when the motor is in the car.
^ I was afraid the driver side turbo (or piping) would hit the alternator, and I was afraid the the passenger side would hit the radiator, but they are so high up and so far out it only looks like they will hit the hood and possibly the fender? Neither of witch I care about at all.
^ Here is a random 2 door 3rd gen nova I found with a up and forward stock exhaust setup on Ebay. This should give a decent idea of where stuff should wind up. I don't have power brakes and plan on deleting the AC. I'd like to keep my power steering.
I could not for the life of me get the engine to crank over for more than an 8th to a 3rd of a turn at a time. I had jumper cables to the starter, and made alligators for the MSD 6014 box. The MSD box seemed to be working fine. The problem was the starter. I would turn on the Nova, and use then hook up the jumper cables to the starter. Nova voltage when running was upper 12 volts to mid 13 depending on how/where you measured. Ok so it is low but it should work. I got my starter tested. It failed. I bought the cheapest replacement I could get (tight budget), and brought it back. Did the same thing. Now the MSD 6014 box was giving a crank position sensor fault code. Ok that's cool. Family member got home. Asked to use the Honda pilot to start the engine. The Honda pilot had 14.6 volts on the low end and 14.8 volts when revving a bit. All voltages are measured not while cranking as I couldn't really pay attention to the voltage while using the starter. Honda pilot had a fresh battery 750 CCA, and recently had the alternator replaced. Still couldn't get the the engine to turn over well. I tried different grounding points. On the starter it would turn over 1/8th of a turn to 1/3 of a turn like normal. When putting the ground on the dowel of the block it would do the same thing. I wound up taking the spark plugs out just to see if it would be able to turn it over well and it did.
So basically either my new ultra budget POS remanned "Valuecraft" starter is also **** (which is fine it has a warranty), or I'm not getting a good connection from either shitty jumpers or from the surfaces I'm connecting to.
I looked backwards here about a month to see if the engine ever got rotated by hand with the spark plugs removed to check for interference. You might try that.
Did you get it started bro? If not I would recommend unplugging the msd or crank sensor and see if it turns if it does you got an ignition timing issue
I looked backwards here about a month to see if the engine ever got rotated by hand with the spark plugs removed to check for interference. You might try that.
Rick
In the video I have the plugs out. I have cranked it over a bunch by hand with and without the plugs in it. It feels pretty smooth in my opinion. Nothing binding, no hard spots other than compression.
Did you get it started bro? If not I would recommend unplugging the msd or crank sensor and see if it turns if it does you got an ignition timing issue
I did not get it started. My plan for today is to rob the wires out of the Nova for the ground and the positive because I know they work, and I had replaced them a few years ago so they are fresh. I will probably use a old relay I had from my brother's nitrous kit to control the small lead on the starter. So I can trigger it without doing anything ghetto of the nature.
I'm thinking being able to have the cables have a good connection bolted down may help.
The MSD box was plugged in, and not plugged in for multiple test. So I don't think it's that.
I got no quit in me but it will probably be a day for me getting batteries charged and things wired up for me to try again.
Alright yall mid day update. I'm typing this as I'm in front of the engine.
I took out the battery from the nova and charged it. It was at 12.8 volts. Then I took out the battery cables from the Nova like I said I would, and wired up a relay to control the starter solenoid.
This fixed my cranking issues. It cranks over very well now.
So I have 1 battery with a relay and large positive and ground cables going to the starter.
Then for the MSD box I have alligators going to the running Honda Pilot that puts out 14.8 volts when running.
No Codes on box, however, nothing was firing so I pulled a plug on the driver side to check for spark and there was nothing. Then I pulled a plug on passenger side to check for spark and also nothing. I have the black coil wires from the harness grounded to the intake manifold bolts.
I think I may be having the same problem as the starter. Maybe the alligators aren't able to have as much amperage the box needs to fire.
I'm going to hook up the battery charger to the starter battery (from the Nova), and wire up the MSD box without the jumpers to the battery and see if that changes anything.
If that doesn't work I'll see if I can get MSD tech support on a Sunday afternoon
Edit: Decided to instead hard wire it to the Honda as it has higher running volts than the starter batter from the Nova. Still no spark. Seems MSD tech support is not open on Sunday. Will probably call it quits for today as I'm out of ideas.
^ The voltage is different because I had the Honda running this time
Last edited by Woodylyf767; 02-21-2021 at 01:29 PM.
Reason: Don't want to blow up feeds
12-25-2020, 11:36 PM
