1961ba427

iTrader: (26)

Working on having my 61 set up to go from solid roller, 13.5:1 all iron bbc to hyd roller, 10.75:1, L92 headed LS2 (carbed) in just a few hours. Fitting a T56 in it is a pain...plus $$$, but I've been reading that a Muncie 4 speed can be bolted up to the LS for cheap using a LS7 pilot bearing and some $60 flywheel from O'reillys. Gotta check into that more.

the_merv

iTrader: (88)

There is a flywheel out that bolts onto a LS Engine and is for an older clutch setup..seen it earlier and I was like cool..lol..

1961ba427

iTrader: (26)

Any updated pics of the 'bird? I've always wanted a 93-97 Trans Am or Formula...hopefully a black M6 Formula that I can stick a ram air hood and TA wing on Firehawk style. If I could come up with a set of that red interior that a few cars had to throw in I'd be set!!

Instead I keep ending up with camaros. Equally great, but just not satisfying the want for a Formula/TA. I think it was those darn commercials with the black WS6 at the stoplight at night.

Gojira94

iTrader: (4)

Never thought of robbing the !EGR pins. And am surprised to hear the case connector pins are the same as the ones on the PCM side. How about that... much appreciated!

Gojira94

iTrader: (4)

Drove it from Durham, NC to Selma, NC on Friday. About an hour trip, totally uneventful. Cruise control works fine.

Hopefully I can start digging back into it this weekend.

1961ba427

iTrader: (26)

Glad to hear it's running good out on the road. My car is down for heads/cam. One of the impala head gaskets I had bought for it is damaged and GM has discontinued them in the last few months it seems. One head is already bolted down. Looks like I will have to run a Victor Reinz .026" thick one on one side along with the GM .028"-.029" one on the other. I'm really not liking that, but don't see much of a choice right now. The part that really stinks is I have another pair of the GM impala gaskets somewhere and can't find them. I tore my place apart tonight looking. I can't wait to look more 'cause I have to have the car running in a few days.

1961ba427

iTrader: (26)

Any updates? It's been awhile.

Gojira94

iTrader: (4)

Moved from the large 4 acre farm with 40 x 22 shop to the suburbs with a 22 x 20 garage that has to hold the wife's Sienna at the same time... shame I never got to put that big shop to much use...

I still have the redbird and the wife knows it's coming over as soon as we finish clearing the moving day crap out of the garage (getting there after a week). The green car is parked next to the garage on an extra pad I had poured. It will live inside when I'm not working on something.

The red car is at the old house under the shelter (rented the farm out to a nice couple who wanted to be close to their son and his family- we kept one outbuilding as owner storage). I'll be dropping the trans out again and replacing the torque converter with another stocker I got from a member on here last summer, running the wire for the PWM TCC solenoid (thanks to The_Merv for the tip on where to find the connector ends to go in the case connector and the PCM side). Last, send the PCM back to have the trans programming updated to 95 specs to use the PWM. I'd have staked it but it looks like it's already got the Sonnax kit installed from what I can see. So... hopefully I won't have to contend with the common PWM complaints.

I also have some 4.10s for the green car and I'll be putting the 3.42s in the red one with a spacer (GU2 in the red one). I expect I'll be blowing up the 4.10s at the power level the green car is at but I've been eyeing an S60 with 3.90s for a couple years anyway.

We had a baby in January and have been house hunting for a while, so life is finally settling down a bit. Definitely got the itch to wrench again really bad...

Thanks for checking in on me. I'll be back at it again soon!

P.S. Painted those valve covers yet?

1961ba427

iTrader: (26)

It sounds like things are going well for you and your family. Congratulations on the new baby!! Start your own "build thread" on that precious and take loads of pics and video. You will be so glad you did in a few years. My 14yo daughter announced this morning that she is going to live with her mom as soon as school is out next week. I've been in a rotten mood all day since that.
I still haven't painted those covers, but I'm in the planning stage of fabbing an alternator relocation that moves it to the lower driver's side and runs it off a seperate belt and the stock balancer pulley. I have one of those piggy-back UD pulley sets on it already, and I want to keep my AC & PS on the RH side in their stock locations and stick a small idler up in the OEM alternator location. I know I could just grind the alt case for clearance, but I still don't wanna hide nice valve covers behind that big ugly thing. Plus it makes plug changes that much easier and most of all it would be different.

Gojira94

iTrader: (4)

Update...

Finally did what should be the last of the work. I had PCM4less retune it like a 95 to include the PWM solenoid, ran a wire from PCM pin D6 to the case connector. Yesterday I swapped the torque converter to a new stock converter (1650-1800 for the curious) since it's still essentially stock with a few bolt-ons. Ran out of daylight before I had the chance to fill the trans and run it. I'm expecting the converter flutter to be gone and it will lock up and get into 4th gear. It'll stop raining here tomorrow night I think so I'll give it a whirl then.

Hate to say it, but I'm going to sell it and reinvest the money in my other LT1 car. Just don't have room for 2 these days, being in a neighborhood in Clayton, NC. The last place was awesome with a huge shop, but we had to move closer to our kids' school district, etc. Can't wait to do another project some day.

1961ba427

iTrader: (26)

Great to hear from you again. How is the baby doing? Wonderful I hope. My daughter is now about 15 1/2 and still at home with me and her younger brother and sister.....along with my new wife and her 3 girls!! She still threatens to go live with her mom, but I don't think she is going to leave.

I rarely do anything with my LT1's lately or get on here....as I finally found a 409 for my 61.....it only took me 25 years to get one I could afford. LOL Been selling off a lot of my life long collection of bbc parts to fund that build. Hope to have it fired up by the end of the year. 409 (original bore & stroke is 4.312"x3.5") will be 474" (4.342" x 4") and have 11.75:1 CR, 265/270 solid roller, Ported Edelbrock 409 heads, and HOPEFULLY dual quads. Shooting for at least 650 HP (flywheel) so it can run the same as my current 433" big block. I have not been this excited about anything in YEARS!!! I have a bad case of pneumonia and about a month of strict bedrest to thank for finding a great deal on it.

Gojira94

iTrader: (4)

Things are going great, thanks for asking. The baby will be 2 in January, can't believe how fast the time goes. She's talking in full sentences, blows me away her memory ability and association ability. You mention one family member she hasn't seen in 4 months and she names the others in the same branch.

Glad your daughter's hanging in there. Really glad for your other 2 that she's still with them as well. Sorry to hear you've been down with pneumonia. Being sick sucks!

I've never done a BBC build but always get excited just looking at BBC heads. I've done enough LT1 stuff that I may do something else in the next project, have no idea if that will be LSx, BBC or what. I'd either like to find an early 80s car with plenty of room for anything under the hood or a truck from 68 & up. The next right car will come when it's ready. I'll never get rid of my green M6 car, just keep upgrading. I have Koni 4/4 yellows and Hotchkis 1" springs and urethane kit. Also have 4:10s to put in it, along with LS driveshaft, will enjoy those until I break them and go S60 with 3.90s or 4:10s. At least I'll get to try the 4.10s in the 10 bolt before commmitting to a gear selection in the S60.

Be sure to post up in the SBC/BBC section when you get started on the 409. Love to see some pics of the build. Take care, PM me if you're ever passing through NC.

-Rob

1961ba427

iTrader: (26)

They grow up so fast!!! The pneumonia is gone! Was down with it from July 8th until middle of September. Still don't have my strength back 100% but I am almost there. We go to the Cherokee / Gatlinburg area every summer. Not sure how far away that is from you? I plan on posting a build thread in there as soon as I get some more parts headed in.

Gojira94

iTrader: (4)

6 years on, another update, lol. I still have the car, have moved again to a place where I can wrench every damned day at my house if I want to. 16.3 acres, shop in the works in the next 7-8 months at the outside. The late owner/ builder of this house wrote the roll program for the Apollo (moon) project. Interesting world full of surprises.

So... I was able to pull the tune from the car and the calibration is for a 94 that has had PWM stuff added, instead of a 95 calibration. That doesn't work. The 94 calibration never intends to read that/ those areas of the chip, so it doesn't matter what you write there.

I enlisted the help of the folks at gearhead-efi to verify what I suspected and they confirmed. So I took a known good 95 calibration and did the things needed for O2 in regard to relocating sensors on headers, disabled EGR stuff, AIR stuff and left everything else alone in spark tables and left line pressure for the trans at 90 psi. Trying to load the tune, I've had no success with Winflash or $EEHack. Stubborn car. So I'm preparing to just build a bench for doing bin loading out of the car, hopefully finish that before the end of the week. More detail of this part at

http://www.gearhead-efi.com/Fuel-Inj...-LT1-F-Body-EE

Back with more soon...

Gojira94

iTrader: (4)

Back from the dead thread

Finally have some pictures of the valve body/ solenoid arrangement. I do see on one of them the valve body has 95 cast into it, and a number sequence that looks like 3678593 or 3678595 but my eyes aren't great and neither is the picture, so 3s look like 8s look like 5s and 6s to me, lol.

I guess next I need to dig into the internal harness. Pull it and compare to a known good one for 95 maybe, if I can't at least account for the presence of the right number of wires coming from the case connector.

Gojira94

iTrader: (4)

I fished the case connector and VSS pigtail up to the engine bay where I can work with it easily. I have a 1 1/4" socket to pop the case connector out of the case. I'm trying to get the pressure control solenoid out of the way for that but it's hitting the accumulator housing.

Before I pull the accumulator housing I wanted to ask before I run into any surprises trying to reassemble. I know there's a pair of pistons and a pin that moves on the housing side, the other pin is part of the housing. Spring in the middle. Bolts are torqued to 110 in. lb. on reassembly, careful with the acc. housing gasket of course. I think I'm going to go ahead and just be careful getting it down so I don't have the spring scattering stuff around as it comes off. Then keep going with the internal harness and removal of the solenoids.

Goal here is to be able to bench test the whole arrangement outside of the trans using 12V available at the battery.

Gojira94

iTrader: (4)

well, damned if I can get the case connector out of the case. I'd read that a 1 1/4" 12 pt socket is the way to go but I can't force it down onto the tabs to compress them. Trans is in the car, limited room but I can get a prybar on the back side of the socket and apply pretty heavy force to it but it's not going over the tabs. Maybe should have picked up a 1 5/16" lol.

Interesting what I saw when I removed the accumulator housing. From the acc housing going upward toward the case, I have 3 large washers on the fixed pin in the housing, a spring perch on top of the washers, a spring, just one piston, and another spring on top of that. It appears the separator plate blocks the recess that would be in the case. Maybe I'm thinking 700R4 and this is normal and the 1-2 and 3-4 are on opposite sides, with one of them in the valve body.


Getting the case connector out- I guess my next step is to try to get at it better from the top. For what I've got that means unbolting the cross brace and letting it hang a little lower and maybe get on top of it better and figure something out. Kind of pissed I'm this close and stuck.

Gojira94

iTrader: (4)

Lowering the trans a bit helped me get the socket wiggle I needed to drop the case connector through the case.I pulled all the solenoids and checked them again for resistance. Values in ohms are:

1-2 shift 21.2
2-3 shift 21.9
Press. Control 4.6
3-2 control 11.4
TCC 23.8
TCC control 11.2

Here's the bench- notice the PCM removed so I can apply voltage down the wire to pin E and ground through the PCM connector pins for each solenoid (except the pressure control solenoid). PCS can be tested with a 9V battery briefly. Testing from PCM down to solenoids gives me more confidence things are working. Honestly, I'm hoping to find something wrong with the harness and just replace it and be done. I'm done for tonight, testing tomorrow and hopefully the final answer.

Gojira94

iTrader: (4)

I tested all the solenoids except the PCS, will have to dig up a 9V battery for that one, but I did check the resistance between the PCM pins that go to it (no direct 12V from pin E, only gets signal from PCM).

The 3-2 is the newest solenoid since I replaced it back in 2011 when I first encountered the issues. The PWM solenoid click doesn't sound nearly as stout as the 3-2. They are 2 different manufacturers, the PWM has been in there since before I got the car.

Here's the kicker- the TCC solenoid (built into the harness) does NOT click for me. I can't find a definitive answer as to whether it SHOULD make an audible click, but I'd at least think so. I tested 1-2, 2-3, 3-2, TCC, PWM with IGN239 circuit hot with PCM disconnected and used a small wire to ground the PCM connector pins at each solenoid's PCM location. To eliminate the engine harness I went through the case connector on pins E and T straight off the battery. Again, the TCC solenoid does NOT click. Its resistance is still at 24 ohms after this testing through PCM connectors and direct to battery.

Gojira94

iTrader: (4)

I picked up a new harness with TCC solenoid. BWD S9844. Has Delphi printed on it in a couple places. Same manufacturer overseas makes a bunch of Delphi stuff these days, all the same. I tested the new harness the same way as the old one and this time I got a nice loud click from the TCC solenoid. Got the car all back together, just have to fill up the fluid and let it rip and scan for codes. It's too loud to fire up after 9PM in my neighborhood. Answers tomorrow. If it's fixed I'll learn to dance a jig, lol.