4k GT86 Gets a Rocket Bunny Kit & LS3 V8 Swap!
Discussion
Oh i do also have a bit of a plea for information for anyone that might be in the know.. I need Clutch master cylinder advice!
Of course i'm not really looking to go full race-car and mount a pedal box in the car and i've worked out (read: guestimated with some rough measurements) that i'll have roughly 50mm between the firewall and the driver's side engine head, so not a whole lot of room to work with!
In the states they've luckily got quite a nice clean billet recess plate that mounts to the OEM clutch master studs and recesses a wilwood/tilton clutch master in to the firewall to link up to the Clutch pedal, unfortunately i've been advised and do feel on my own merit this won't work with the RHD Pedal setup.
https://www.sikky.com/product/sikky-brz-frs-gt86-l...
Of course I'm no engineer/fabrication master so I need something quite compact and/or easily mounted internally or recessed into the firewall that will fit the bill. Needs to be a 3/4" Master cylinder for the T56 I believe and this is the rough room I have to work with, not the best image I know but you can see the opening in the firewall and the hole in with the master cylinder push-rod connects to on the clutch pedal roughly in the centre.
Going to be messaging a couple of the guys that have done this in Australia for their info as well but I feel I might just need to whip out the clutch pedal assembly and see what's what!
Of course i'm not really looking to go full race-car and mount a pedal box in the car and i've worked out (read: guestimated with some rough measurements) that i'll have roughly 50mm between the firewall and the driver's side engine head, so not a whole lot of room to work with!
In the states they've luckily got quite a nice clean billet recess plate that mounts to the OEM clutch master studs and recesses a wilwood/tilton clutch master in to the firewall to link up to the Clutch pedal, unfortunately i've been advised and do feel on my own merit this won't work with the RHD Pedal setup.
https://www.sikky.com/product/sikky-brz-frs-gt86-l...
Of course I'm no engineer/fabrication master so I need something quite compact and/or easily mounted internally or recessed into the firewall that will fit the bill. Needs to be a 3/4" Master cylinder for the T56 I believe and this is the rough room I have to work with, not the best image I know but you can see the opening in the firewall and the hole in with the master cylinder push-rod connects to on the clutch pedal roughly in the centre.
Going to be messaging a couple of the guys that have done this in Australia for their info as well but I feel I might just need to whip out the clutch pedal assembly and see what's what!
Edited by Samjeev on Friday 1st July 18:49
Another small but exciting update.
Last few weeks have been pretty busy with life and so on.. For example I turned 30 last month
so that's pretty Exciting Daunting and as well as that the car was away for a little while having it's engine bay sprayed.
While it was away I got the gearbox out and dressed it up with its release bearing, bell housing and bleed line. Nothing ground breaking but it gives another excuse to show it off!
And finally this weekend just gone I got the car back from the local painter finished off in Audi's finest gloss primer.. Nardo Grey! Not the most exciting colour but as we said before it's just something to flat the whole engine out to a single colour, tie it all together and make way for the main atttraction which is the engine.
I can't wait to scuff, scratch and ruin the paint when I swing the engine/gearbox combo in
Last few weeks have been pretty busy with life and so on.. For example I turned 30 last month
so that's pretty While it was away I got the gearbox out and dressed it up with its release bearing, bell housing and bleed line. Nothing ground breaking but it gives another excuse to show it off!
And finally this weekend just gone I got the car back from the local painter finished off in Audi's finest gloss primer.. Nardo Grey! Not the most exciting colour but as we said before it's just something to flat the whole engine out to a single colour, tie it all together and make way for the main atttraction which is the engine.
I can't wait to scuff, scratch and ruin the paint when I swing the engine/gearbox combo in
Been a little while since the last update so I think i'll hit you with a double update.
The first one here is going to be general progress whereas the second is going to be more word-driven and quite exciting if you're the type that gets elated by wiring
So since getting the car back it's been a couple of weekends of work getting all of the brake system wiring and other general Engine-bay fluff back in. It might be a tad foolish I'm really trying to do as much as possible so that the engine and gearbox will only have to go in the once and not have to come back out after the fact. With that in mind i've been trying to tidy up the engine bay as much as I can. This includes tickling with the idea of cutting back and slimming down some of the OEM wiring harness but that scares me a little in the sense of it beng a "Point of no return" if I cut out anything and then the car doesn't work!
But I wanted to focus on a adding a bit of Sound & heat deadening in to the transmission tunnel, not for exhaust heat as such (those i'll have coated, or i'll wrap) but moreso for general heat and sound that will come off the gearbox in the hopes of keeping the car as Road-car-esque as possible.
Although it would've been easy to just stick a load of self-adhesive stuff down I was advised that this only really helps when there's a decent enough gap between the heat source and if anything is touching it does next to nothing to aid that, alongside the fact that the car originally had an OEM heat shield thing that desintegrated on removal I decided to try and re-create it out of something better.
I bought a big sheet of this stuff https://funkmotorsport.com/product/dual-layer-alum... and started going full art-attack on it.
Considering i'd never given this a wack and it's not the easiest stuff to work with being dual-layered and full of fibreglass I'm actually pretty pleased with how it turned out. Mounted in to a few original threaded holes and a few rivnuts and some big carbon fibre (just had it lieing around) washers to stop it rattling, the edges that were cut sealed up with some leftover gold tape I had to stop it's itch-inducing guts from spilling out i'm actually quite pleased with it. Atleast gives some bling to the bay
Following that I moved on with the help of my Dad to installing the clutch & flywheel on the engine, ready to accept the gearbox, and the gearbox mount ready to eventually accept the mated couple together.
Nothing fancy on the clutch and flywheel part, I believe its just an LS7 OEM jobby but considering the only thing i've done to the engine is give it a slightly spicy cam this should hold up plenty well enough.
After that we moved on to the gearbox mount. The engine mount kit comes with a gearbox mount that I specified for the T56 magnum gearbox i'm using and uses a couple of exciting under-tray bolts to align it in the car before you drill through to bolt it up to the existing chassis rails and sheet metal. I reinforced this a bit by installing a couple of rudimentary crush tubes in the chassis rails as I had seen a couple of horror story pics of the bolts never getting fully tight until they rip a hole in your floor and once done it was incredibly solid. Not the prettiest on the inside as you can see but its well and truly covered by carpet.
Not the greated pic in the world but you can somewhat see here how it's located rought 20cm further back than the original gearbox mount which was all that horrible looking metal I cut out in a previous update.
And with that the engine bay is ready to accept the Engine and gearbox! Bit of a cliffhanger I know but that's the way the cookie crumbled last weekend :P
To leave you with a final update to an issue I posed previously, I believe i've found a Clutch master solution in the form of this OEM Camaro/Pontiac G8 Clutch Master, it should be plenty beefy to actuate the clutch as of course these 2 cars came with the same engine and gearbox combo from the factory. It's incredibly Compact with a remote mount reservoir, so much so infact that the only parts that should protrude in to the engine bay should be the spouts for both the Remote res and the clutch line itself. You can see here offered up to the clutch pedal assembly that it all lives neatly inside the body of the assembly and barely goes past where the firewall would be (Where the thread starts on the mounting studs) So hopefully this is a good result as it also wasn't too dear, so no expensive bills for this "wing it" style of R&D on my part.
The first one here is going to be general progress whereas the second is going to be more word-driven and quite exciting if you're the type that gets elated by wiring
So since getting the car back it's been a couple of weekends of work getting all of the brake system wiring and other general Engine-bay fluff back in. It might be a tad foolish I'm really trying to do as much as possible so that the engine and gearbox will only have to go in the once and not have to come back out after the fact. With that in mind i've been trying to tidy up the engine bay as much as I can. This includes tickling with the idea of cutting back and slimming down some of the OEM wiring harness but that scares me a little in the sense of it beng a "Point of no return" if I cut out anything and then the car doesn't work!
But I wanted to focus on a adding a bit of Sound & heat deadening in to the transmission tunnel, not for exhaust heat as such (those i'll have coated, or i'll wrap) but moreso for general heat and sound that will come off the gearbox in the hopes of keeping the car as Road-car-esque as possible.
Although it would've been easy to just stick a load of self-adhesive stuff down I was advised that this only really helps when there's a decent enough gap between the heat source and if anything is touching it does next to nothing to aid that, alongside the fact that the car originally had an OEM heat shield thing that desintegrated on removal I decided to try and re-create it out of something better.
I bought a big sheet of this stuff https://funkmotorsport.com/product/dual-layer-alum... and started going full art-attack on it.
Considering i'd never given this a wack and it's not the easiest stuff to work with being dual-layered and full of fibreglass I'm actually pretty pleased with how it turned out. Mounted in to a few original threaded holes and a few rivnuts and some big carbon fibre (just had it lieing around) washers to stop it rattling, the edges that were cut sealed up with some leftover gold tape I had to stop it's itch-inducing guts from spilling out i'm actually quite pleased with it. Atleast gives some bling to the bay
Following that I moved on with the help of my Dad to installing the clutch & flywheel on the engine, ready to accept the gearbox, and the gearbox mount ready to eventually accept the mated couple together.
Nothing fancy on the clutch and flywheel part, I believe its just an LS7 OEM jobby but considering the only thing i've done to the engine is give it a slightly spicy cam this should hold up plenty well enough.
After that we moved on to the gearbox mount. The engine mount kit comes with a gearbox mount that I specified for the T56 magnum gearbox i'm using and uses a couple of exciting under-tray bolts to align it in the car before you drill through to bolt it up to the existing chassis rails and sheet metal. I reinforced this a bit by installing a couple of rudimentary crush tubes in the chassis rails as I had seen a couple of horror story pics of the bolts never getting fully tight until they rip a hole in your floor and once done it was incredibly solid. Not the prettiest on the inside as you can see but its well and truly covered by carpet.
Not the greated pic in the world but you can somewhat see here how it's located rought 20cm further back than the original gearbox mount which was all that horrible looking metal I cut out in a previous update.
And with that the engine bay is ready to accept the Engine and gearbox! Bit of a cliffhanger I know but that's the way the cookie crumbled last weekend :P
To leave you with a final update to an issue I posed previously, I believe i've found a Clutch master solution in the form of this OEM Camaro/Pontiac G8 Clutch Master, it should be plenty beefy to actuate the clutch as of course these 2 cars came with the same engine and gearbox combo from the factory. It's incredibly Compact with a remote mount reservoir, so much so infact that the only parts that should protrude in to the engine bay should be the spouts for both the Remote res and the clutch line itself. You can see here offered up to the clutch pedal assembly that it all lives neatly inside the body of the assembly and barely goes past where the firewall would be (Where the thread starts on the mounting studs) So hopefully this is a good result as it also wasn't too dear, so no expensive bills for this "wing it" style of R&D on my part.
Edited by Samjeev on Friday 1st July 10:43
The Rotrex Kid said:
Love it. Bet you’re excited to actually get the engine and box in there!!
Oh absolutely, might get a chance to swing it in there this weekend If I can muster the troops and rally some help!Forgot to mention as well, as always i've released a new youtube vid covering the recent progress!
(I know it's not for everyone but I enjoy making them and although I don't chase views and such I really should push and share them more often!)
So as for part 2 of my update it's a bit more on the nerdy side..
Ive been doing alot of research and reading in to wiring solutions recently after having been in waiting-limbo with the company in the states that I was going to purchase a plug-and-play wiring harness solution from (the harness itself isn't an issue, it's the canbus integration to ensure that all of the OEM GT86 systems and functions work, push start, gauge cluster, ABS, traction control, Wheel speed sensors, etc etc etc)
Their primary solution is to use a Canbus translator and an original GM ECU however I wasn't a fan of the idea of having an extra GM ECU hanging around somewhere looking ugly so was hoping their development of a Harness that would integrate the OEM pieces with a Haltech Elite 2500 ECU would have been further along but after being told there was delays in materials for the last 6 months I decided to totally give up with them and the nail in the coffin was when someone alluded to the fact that there's only a handful of wires that need to be connected to get Haltech's Off the shelf LS Harness to play nicely with the GT86.
Diving head first in to the rabbit hole of research in to Haltech's harness and the GT86's wiring diagrams I confirmed this to be the case and that the main crux of the integration was simply hooking up the Haltech Harness in to the Can Hi and Can Lo wires somewhere in the GT86's wiring and then simply configuring the Haltech to dedicate one of it's Canbus Channels to run the GT86 canbus systems.
This might seem obvious to those in the know but to me, despite having been working in IT my entire working life and a massive computer-nerd was just a bitt witchcraft-y to get my head around at first, but once it clicked it made so much more sense.
After that the next hurdle was how to wire the Haltech harness throttle wires to the GT86 throttle cable.... A bit more digging and wiring diagram trawling later and I found exactly where on the original ECU connectors those wires end up and that lead me to begin making yet another spreadsheet for the project!
Just hoping to make not and map out exactly what im going to be joining or splicing in to what so I can refer back to it in the future.
And with that.. the trigger was pulled, comitting to installing and sorting out the wiring myself, on one hand i'm excited and hyped to dive in to it, this might be "Baby's first wiring harness install" in the grand scheme of things but it feels good to be learning something new and on the other hand i'm scared i'm going to ruin everything!
A couple of days later and...
The final major part of the puzzle is here, all that's left to purchase is boring bits like a waterpump and alternator setup, etc but i'm waiting and praying for some 4th July sales to save a few bob on that.
Ive been doing alot of research and reading in to wiring solutions recently after having been in waiting-limbo with the company in the states that I was going to purchase a plug-and-play wiring harness solution from (the harness itself isn't an issue, it's the canbus integration to ensure that all of the OEM GT86 systems and functions work, push start, gauge cluster, ABS, traction control, Wheel speed sensors, etc etc etc)
Their primary solution is to use a Canbus translator and an original GM ECU however I wasn't a fan of the idea of having an extra GM ECU hanging around somewhere looking ugly so was hoping their development of a Harness that would integrate the OEM pieces with a Haltech Elite 2500 ECU would have been further along but after being told there was delays in materials for the last 6 months I decided to totally give up with them and the nail in the coffin was when someone alluded to the fact that there's only a handful of wires that need to be connected to get Haltech's Off the shelf LS Harness to play nicely with the GT86.
Diving head first in to the rabbit hole of research in to Haltech's harness and the GT86's wiring diagrams I confirmed this to be the case and that the main crux of the integration was simply hooking up the Haltech Harness in to the Can Hi and Can Lo wires somewhere in the GT86's wiring and then simply configuring the Haltech to dedicate one of it's Canbus Channels to run the GT86 canbus systems.
This might seem obvious to those in the know but to me, despite having been working in IT my entire working life and a massive computer-nerd was just a bitt witchcraft-y to get my head around at first, but once it clicked it made so much more sense.
After that the next hurdle was how to wire the Haltech harness throttle wires to the GT86 throttle cable.... A bit more digging and wiring diagram trawling later and I found exactly where on the original ECU connectors those wires end up and that lead me to begin making yet another spreadsheet for the project!
Just hoping to make not and map out exactly what im going to be joining or splicing in to what so I can refer back to it in the future.
And with that.. the trigger was pulled, comitting to installing and sorting out the wiring myself, on one hand i'm excited and hyped to dive in to it, this might be "Baby's first wiring harness install" in the grand scheme of things but it feels good to be learning something new and on the other hand i'm scared i'm going to ruin everything!
A couple of days later and...
The final major part of the puzzle is here, all that's left to purchase is boring bits like a waterpump and alternator setup, etc but i'm waiting and praying for some 4th July sales to save a few bob on that.
No the engine still isn't in.. it's proving difficult
Obviously the Sikky engine swap kit tries to get the engine as far back towards the firewall as physically possible however that of course makes it rather tight to slip in, especially with the gearbox hanging off the back of it which is how i'm trying to fit it.
After pulling out the ARB (to be re-fitted later) the next tight point was the big chunky wiring harness and Toyota's lovely but sizeable plastic harness "Skeleton" or conduit that routes this.
So this week I went rather medieval on the wiring harness as this was something i've been wanting to do for a while.
WARNING - GRAPHIC AND DISTURBING SCENES AHEAD FOR ANY AUTO ELECTRICIANS
In an OEM setup Toyota made 1 big chunky wiring connector for the engine harness, makes removing the old engine a breeze as the harness just stays on the engine and the fat connector is just left dangling. Thing is.. I don't need it anymore, and it's in a rather annoying spot.
This is somewhat Uncharted territory as it's a bit of a point of no return.. and those that have removed it in the US/Aus haven't documented it particularly well but I wanted to hack it out to thin things out a bit... and besides.. weight saving right?
So I trawled through the maze of a wiring diagram for the 86/BRZ and confirmed the function routing and destination of each of the Pins for the AC1 and AC2 connectors, once I determined where they went (mostly the engine ECU connectors) I decided whether it was safe to cut them out, or in a few cases if I was better off grounding them and then went at it!
As i said.. I documented it all so atleast I roughly know what everything done is if anything did need to be reversed.
And then, away with thee! and off they went, I pulled back, cut back and eventually isolated the loose wires. I realise the best thing would've been to fully pull them out through in to the cabin and de-pin the other side of the connector but in all honesty I was happy to put in 80% of the effort and get 80% of the result, rather than strive for that extra 20%
Anyway once all done the loom was a fair chunk thinner, much more flexible and didn't have the ugly branch hanging out right in the middle of where the engine is to go.
[pichttps://i.imgur.com/2zBPIH9h.jpg[/pic]
And there we have it, much neater on the surface atleast now let's have another crack at getting that V8 in there...
Obviously the Sikky engine swap kit tries to get the engine as far back towards the firewall as physically possible however that of course makes it rather tight to slip in, especially with the gearbox hanging off the back of it which is how i'm trying to fit it.
After pulling out the ARB (to be re-fitted later) the next tight point was the big chunky wiring harness and Toyota's lovely but sizeable plastic harness "Skeleton" or conduit that routes this.
So this week I went rather medieval on the wiring harness as this was something i've been wanting to do for a while.
WARNING - GRAPHIC AND DISTURBING SCENES AHEAD FOR ANY AUTO ELECTRICIANS
In an OEM setup Toyota made 1 big chunky wiring connector for the engine harness, makes removing the old engine a breeze as the harness just stays on the engine and the fat connector is just left dangling. Thing is.. I don't need it anymore, and it's in a rather annoying spot.
This is somewhat Uncharted territory as it's a bit of a point of no return.. and those that have removed it in the US/Aus haven't documented it particularly well but I wanted to hack it out to thin things out a bit... and besides.. weight saving right?
So I trawled through the maze of a wiring diagram for the 86/BRZ and confirmed the function routing and destination of each of the Pins for the AC1 and AC2 connectors, once I determined where they went (mostly the engine ECU connectors) I decided whether it was safe to cut them out, or in a few cases if I was better off grounding them and then went at it!
As i said.. I documented it all so atleast I roughly know what everything done is if anything did need to be reversed.
And then, away with thee! and off they went, I pulled back, cut back and eventually isolated the loose wires. I realise the best thing would've been to fully pull them out through in to the cabin and de-pin the other side of the connector but in all honesty I was happy to put in 80% of the effort and get 80% of the result, rather than strive for that extra 20%
Anyway once all done the loom was a fair chunk thinner, much more flexible and didn't have the ugly branch hanging out right in the middle of where the engine is to go.
[pichttps://i.imgur.com/2zBPIH9h.jpg[/pic]
And there we have it, much neater on the surface atleast now let's have another crack at getting that V8 in there...
ZX10R NIN said:
Great work that looks so much neater. You must feel satisfied with your progress.
Absolutely, glad tot be doing things "right" the first time rather than have to return to bits at a later stage hopefully. Still planning to get the car up and running and driving before the end of the year so I can get out to a few meets/shows/coffee mornins before we see salt on the roads.Here it is! after attempt #7 we had gotten the process of removing the engine & Gearbox down to an art. 10-15 minutes at most, Redbull F1 team if you're hiring...
but the engine is IN!
After all those attempts and quite a bit of grinding on superfluous bits of gearbox/bellhousing and hammering the living hell out of the passenger's side of the transmission tunnel we got it in!
I unfortunately had to sacrifice the heat shield I made (a bitter pill to swallow, it wasn't cheap!) but I might adapt and attempt to refit it at a later stage.
If anyone was wondering "How on earth do you make a 6.2L v8 look small?" may i present to you.. the Toyota GT86 Engine bay:
but the engine is IN!
After all those attempts and quite a bit of grinding on superfluous bits of gearbox/bellhousing and hammering the living hell out of the passenger's side of the transmission tunnel we got it in!
I unfortunately had to sacrifice the heat shield I made (a bitter pill to swallow, it wasn't cheap!) but I might adapt and attempt to refit it at a later stage.
If anyone was wondering "How on earth do you make a 6.2L v8 look small?" may i present to you.. the Toyota GT86 Engine bay:
Edited by Samjeev on Monday 18th July 17:08
Its Just Adz said:
I've just read this full topic, can't believe I hadn't seen it before!
Awesome project, I really love the fact you've not been afraid to do it all yourself.
Cheers! Glad to hear you've enjoyed the readAwesome project, I really love the fact you've not been afraid to do it all yourself.
And absolutely, Cars, much like computers
is one of those things that falls in to the category of really enjoying the process of doing it myself, learning and so on. Plus I wouldn't be able to afford half of what i've done to the GT86 if i was paying someone for labour costs!
Finally got a chance to spend more time on the car.
Last week was a bit of a write off after I took a small Weekend trip to Wales to go for a Phil Price Rally school experience - Ton of fun, highly recommended, tons of seat time and you can really chuck the cars about with no nanny-ing whatsoever!
It was a gift from my parents for my 30th back in April and did it alongside my Dad which added to the fun as he enjoyed it just as much
But back to the GT86!...
With the Engine now in it's time to start going through my boxes and boxes of new bits and turn them in to empty boxes.
Starting off with the Exhaust manifolds or "headers" if you swing that way :P
These came as part of the Sikky engine swap kit and they're a great bit of kit, decently long, nice spike collector inside, 1 7/8" Primaries in to a 3" vband, tons of room for spark plug wires and they come with some off-set concentric steering rack bushes to shift the rack over slightly to clear. There's probably some big reason you wouldn't want to move the rack slightly which can be made up for in the steering arm lengths to get the wheels back straight.
There's a couple of spots that need extra hammer treatment as they're touching but I was able to get them in and bolt them down fully without any dramas so I just want to give them a bit of breathing room.
My only gripe with them personally is being that theyr'e designed for both LHD and RHD with the rack bushes and designed to fit around fat Auto Gearboxes they're miles away from the gearbox where they could be so much tighter and of course be an easier run for a fabricator to make an exhaust for.
Ohwell! here's some pics!
Next up I dropped the intake manifold down after hacking off the brake booster vacuum take off. I Dare not show pictures of it just yet as it looked like a dog's dinner!
but will in due time once i've had a chance to finish it off and tidy it up
After that I finished off fitting the oil filter relocation. It all came with an absolutely gigantic filter but it's a really good spot for it here, nice and easy to access which was always a great thing about the old FA20 and I'm happy I could recreative that ease-of-use with the LS here.
And finally I got the new Drive / propshaft fitted. It's a single-piece Aluminium item compared to the original steel 2 piece part, it's considerably shorter than the original so there's no need for a centre bearing/brace.
This once again came with the engine swap kit as of course with their engine/gearbox mounts landing the Engine/gearbox in a specific location Sikky are able to work out the drive shaft length, etc.
It's splined on one end of the T56 and bolted on the other for the GT86 OEM Diff, nice and easy!
You can see in the pic here where the Centre bearing of the original shaft lived showing just how much shorter this one is thanks to having a longer gearbox
Also, tons of exhaust clearance (i'm hoping!)
Last week was a bit of a write off after I took a small Weekend trip to Wales to go for a Phil Price Rally school experience - Ton of fun, highly recommended, tons of seat time and you can really chuck the cars about with no nanny-ing whatsoever!
It was a gift from my parents for my 30th back in April and did it alongside my Dad which added to the fun as he enjoyed it just as much
But back to the GT86!...
With the Engine now in it's time to start going through my boxes and boxes of new bits and turn them in to empty boxes.
Starting off with the Exhaust manifolds or "headers" if you swing that way :P
These came as part of the Sikky engine swap kit and they're a great bit of kit, decently long, nice spike collector inside, 1 7/8" Primaries in to a 3" vband, tons of room for spark plug wires and they come with some off-set concentric steering rack bushes to shift the rack over slightly to clear. There's probably some big reason you wouldn't want to move the rack slightly which can be made up for in the steering arm lengths to get the wheels back straight.
There's a couple of spots that need extra hammer treatment as they're touching but I was able to get them in and bolt them down fully without any dramas so I just want to give them a bit of breathing room.
My only gripe with them personally is being that theyr'e designed for both LHD and RHD with the rack bushes and designed to fit around fat Auto Gearboxes they're miles away from the gearbox where they could be so much tighter and of course be an easier run for a fabricator to make an exhaust for.
Ohwell! here's some pics!
Next up I dropped the intake manifold down after hacking off the brake booster vacuum take off. I Dare not show pictures of it just yet as it looked like a dog's dinner!
but will in due time once i've had a chance to finish it off and tidy it upAfter that I finished off fitting the oil filter relocation. It all came with an absolutely gigantic filter but it's a really good spot for it here, nice and easy to access which was always a great thing about the old FA20 and I'm happy I could recreative that ease-of-use with the LS here.
And finally I got the new Drive / propshaft fitted. It's a single-piece Aluminium item compared to the original steel 2 piece part, it's considerably shorter than the original so there's no need for a centre bearing/brace.
This once again came with the engine swap kit as of course with their engine/gearbox mounts landing the Engine/gearbox in a specific location Sikky are able to work out the drive shaft length, etc.
It's splined on one end of the T56 and bolted on the other for the GT86 OEM Diff, nice and easy!
You can see in the pic here where the Centre bearing of the original shaft lived showing just how much shorter this one is thanks to having a longer gearbox
Also, tons of exhaust clearance (i'm hoping!)
SturdyHSV said:
Looking good! (paint the dog's dinner with Eastwood Textured Underhood Matte Black, it looks just like the factory finish on the manifold and it'll hide it well)
Nice to not have the centre bearing in there, I need to replace mine on the wagon and not looking forward to trying to get the old one off!
I stuck a bit of red loctite on the prop bolts where they bolt to the diff as twice now I've had most of them work loose over time on the Monaro
Impressive to squeeze 1 7/8" headers (yes I swing that way!) in there, are you going with a twin 3" exhaust? It's going to sound goooooood
yeah I used green on the Diff bolts, hopefully those buggers aren't coming out!Nice to not have the centre bearing in there, I need to replace mine on the wagon and not looking forward to trying to get the old one off!
I stuck a bit of red loctite on the prop bolts where they bolt to the diff as twice now I've had most of them work loose over time on the Monaro
Impressive to squeeze 1 7/8" headers (yes I swing that way!) in there, are you going with a twin 3" exhaust? It's going to sound goooooood
Hoping to stick wtih dual 3" as long as I can and then likely Merge under the rear subframe and back out to twin tips. you can see in that last picture how the tunnel has tons of clearance on the passenger's side for an exhaust so i'll speak to the fabricator I choose and just see how long they feel they can get away with dual 3's before the merge/X pipe and will probably get him to re-use the drive shaft bearing mount points as an extra exhaust hanger as that seems like a smart thing to do!
Not updated for a while.
progress has been moving along but it's hardly been the massive leaps and bounds i'd have liked, bit more of a rollercoaster if anything!
So buckle up and please keep all arms and legs inside the ride at all times!
Starting off our upwards journey I received an absolutely collosal shipment from the states, this *should* have been everything I needed to get plumbed up and running along with the haltech gear for wiring from a previously post... emphasis on the *should have*
However not wanting to derail his rollercoaster just yet lets dive in to what I got:
bunch of OEM ignition pars, Coils, Spark plug wires, etc
Deutchwerks Uprated 86/BRZ fuel pump
Sikky 4" Shifter relocation
Holley Ignition Coil harnesses
Holley Front Accessory drive kit
Holley AC kit
Holley Steam vent kit
Holley Valve cover kit
a few pics of that pile of loot here as they're rather lovely to look at!:
I started off with something I was worried about fitting which was the shifter relocation, with the Gearbox in place I was worried about how tight it was to try and sneak in this piece, I was thankfully able to do it however by lowering the box slightly, cutting the gearstick opening slightly wider (only 10mm either side, nothing massive and horrible) and slipping it in
Not fully bolted it down yet, managed to get 6 of the 5 bolts tight but one of them is going to require some particularly lithe hands to get to!
Although it doesn't really show it here one quirk of a brand new T56 Magnum gearbox from america is that they gear to be a "driver centric" gearbox.... so the stick leans over towards the Driver... for a LHD car.. obviously this means it leans away from a RHD driver.. frustrating however I was able to space it over ever so slightly and im sure I can do more in the future to return it to a more "Neutral" stance but i'm less worried about this for now, as long as I got a stick to waggle and gears change i'm happy!
The position of the stick however is now perfect i'll be able to re-fit the interior once that last bolt is done up and it'll look OEM!
you can't quite see the lean in this pic thanks to a smart bit of positioning on my part
After this I tackled the fuel system. The 86's fuel system is pretty tough from the factory as a single pump delivers fuel to both direct injection and port injection injectors so.. 8 injectors! as well as this it delivers it at a constant 58 psi which is regulated inside the fuel tank making it a returnless system... Well.. the LS3 from Standard uses a returnless system, 8 injectors and required 58 psi of fuel pressure.. you could say its a match made in heaven!
The OEM Direct/Port injection split is done by a T-piece back towards the fuel pump, some guys in the states simply T the lines back together and plumb them in to the OEM fuel rail, I decided for the sake of like.. £60 in parts i'd rather run a brand new AN fuel line as it was something i've never done before and it keeps things nice and simple, less points of failure and so on.
As well as this I updated the fuel pump to a 340/lph unit simply because again, these aren't particularly dear and means I won't run out of fuel pump any time soon when it comes to tuning.
No pictures of the Fuel pump assembly (although they are in my latest youtube vid!) but here's where the fuel line pops out, it runs via the original routing, takes a dive up around the gear box and pops out behind the engine, simple!
Finally... we've hit the peak of our rollercoaster ride and it's downhill from here before we come to a gentle rest..
So anyone that knows LS engines will know that there's a number of combinations of front drive accessories you can get, different spacings of the Crank pulley between Corvettes, Cars (camaro) and Trucks with Fuel pumps, pulleys, alternators to match.
Back during my research I was getting a bit confused trying to find a combo of OEM parts that would suit a non-power steering application (GT86 has an electric rack which is very good) and I simply gave up with my research opting to go for an "all in one" kit, very expensive, very fancy! and.... so... so wrong.
As stated above I went for a Holley Mid-mount kit, this would be the absolute pinnacle (for belt-driven setups) if you had a ton of space infront of your engine, such as having a truck etc, but in the GT86, although there is alot of room there's not THAT much room! As the holley kit spaces it's front pulley even further forward than the Truck pulley spacing it would not work in the chassis, nor with my existing Corvette style front pulley (Or the A/C kit from them in hindsight!)
As you can see the pulleys are miles apart, and granted the kit comes with its own pulley you can see that if i'd fit that, it would smash with the front core / bonnet latch support and i'd rather not go hacking bits up when the goal was to keep it all compact!
So off it all came again, back in to the box and i've listed it online praying that SOMEONE will purchase it from me so I can recooperate atleast some of my losses to fund the replacements which while being a fraction of the cost (thanks to SturdyHSV for being the voice of reason and pointing me in the right direction) i've ordered alongside this kit, so i'm doubly out of pocket!
With that damage to my ego done I decided to cheer myself up by fitting the new fancy valve covers and the A/C kit... it's good to have atleast one belt on the front of the car, glad it fits well and i've never actually had A/C in this car since i purchase it as... I was too cheap to bother filling up the original system after reparing the car.
I Also fitted the valve covers which although very tight to the brake booster (More RHD problems!) i've fettled the coil pack bracket slightly to fit (and given the brake booster a few wacks with a hammer, hopefully it still works!) finally i popped on some coil packs and i'm pleased to say it finally looks like a "Real engine"
Really hoping I can get the car running, driving, Exhaust made, Insurance sorted and MOT'd for my friends wedding in mid-november. It's a tall order, and i'm not going to cut corners but I think I might start leaving some "Refining" tasks for the winter, things like having the exhaust coated, tidying up lines, wiring, etc.
progress has been moving along but it's hardly been the massive leaps and bounds i'd have liked, bit more of a rollercoaster if anything!
So buckle up and please keep all arms and legs inside the ride at all times!
Starting off our upwards journey I received an absolutely collosal shipment from the states, this *should* have been everything I needed to get plumbed up and running along with the haltech gear for wiring from a previously post... emphasis on the *should have*
However not wanting to derail his rollercoaster just yet lets dive in to what I got:
bunch of OEM ignition pars, Coils, Spark plug wires, etc
Deutchwerks Uprated 86/BRZ fuel pump
Sikky 4" Shifter relocation
Holley Ignition Coil harnesses
Holley Front Accessory drive kit
Holley AC kit
Holley Steam vent kit
Holley Valve cover kit
a few pics of that pile of loot here as they're rather lovely to look at!:
I started off with something I was worried about fitting which was the shifter relocation, with the Gearbox in place I was worried about how tight it was to try and sneak in this piece, I was thankfully able to do it however by lowering the box slightly, cutting the gearstick opening slightly wider (only 10mm either side, nothing massive and horrible) and slipping it in
Not fully bolted it down yet, managed to get 6 of the 5 bolts tight but one of them is going to require some particularly lithe hands to get to!
Although it doesn't really show it here one quirk of a brand new T56 Magnum gearbox from america is that they gear to be a "driver centric" gearbox.... so the stick leans over towards the Driver... for a LHD car.. obviously this means it leans away from a RHD driver.. frustrating however I was able to space it over ever so slightly and im sure I can do more in the future to return it to a more "Neutral" stance but i'm less worried about this for now, as long as I got a stick to waggle and gears change i'm happy!
The position of the stick however is now perfect i'll be able to re-fit the interior once that last bolt is done up and it'll look OEM!
you can't quite see the lean in this pic thanks to a smart bit of positioning on my part
After this I tackled the fuel system. The 86's fuel system is pretty tough from the factory as a single pump delivers fuel to both direct injection and port injection injectors so.. 8 injectors! as well as this it delivers it at a constant 58 psi which is regulated inside the fuel tank making it a returnless system... Well.. the LS3 from Standard uses a returnless system, 8 injectors and required 58 psi of fuel pressure.. you could say its a match made in heaven!
The OEM Direct/Port injection split is done by a T-piece back towards the fuel pump, some guys in the states simply T the lines back together and plumb them in to the OEM fuel rail, I decided for the sake of like.. £60 in parts i'd rather run a brand new AN fuel line as it was something i've never done before and it keeps things nice and simple, less points of failure and so on.
As well as this I updated the fuel pump to a 340/lph unit simply because again, these aren't particularly dear and means I won't run out of fuel pump any time soon when it comes to tuning.
No pictures of the Fuel pump assembly (although they are in my latest youtube vid!) but here's where the fuel line pops out, it runs via the original routing, takes a dive up around the gear box and pops out behind the engine, simple!
Finally... we've hit the peak of our rollercoaster ride and it's downhill from here before we come to a gentle rest..
So anyone that knows LS engines will know that there's a number of combinations of front drive accessories you can get, different spacings of the Crank pulley between Corvettes, Cars (camaro) and Trucks with Fuel pumps, pulleys, alternators to match.
Back during my research I was getting a bit confused trying to find a combo of OEM parts that would suit a non-power steering application (GT86 has an electric rack which is very good) and I simply gave up with my research opting to go for an "all in one" kit, very expensive, very fancy! and.... so... so wrong.
As stated above I went for a Holley Mid-mount kit, this would be the absolute pinnacle (for belt-driven setups) if you had a ton of space infront of your engine, such as having a truck etc, but in the GT86, although there is alot of room there's not THAT much room! As the holley kit spaces it's front pulley even further forward than the Truck pulley spacing it would not work in the chassis, nor with my existing Corvette style front pulley (Or the A/C kit from them in hindsight!)
As you can see the pulleys are miles apart, and granted the kit comes with its own pulley you can see that if i'd fit that, it would smash with the front core / bonnet latch support and i'd rather not go hacking bits up when the goal was to keep it all compact!
So off it all came again, back in to the box and i've listed it online praying that SOMEONE will purchase it from me so I can recooperate atleast some of my losses to fund the replacements which while being a fraction of the cost (thanks to SturdyHSV for being the voice of reason and pointing me in the right direction) i've ordered alongside this kit, so i'm doubly out of pocket!
With that damage to my ego done I decided to cheer myself up by fitting the new fancy valve covers and the A/C kit... it's good to have atleast one belt on the front of the car, glad it fits well and i've never actually had A/C in this car since i purchase it as... I was too cheap to bother filling up the original system after reparing the car.
I Also fitted the valve covers which although very tight to the brake booster (More RHD problems!) i've fettled the coil pack bracket slightly to fit (and given the brake booster a few wacks with a hammer, hopefully it still works!) finally i popped on some coil packs and i'm pleased to say it finally looks like a "Real engine"
Really hoping I can get the car running, driving, Exhaust made, Insurance sorted and MOT'd for my friends wedding in mid-november. It's a tall order, and i'm not going to cut corners but I think I might start leaving some "Refining" tasks for the winter, things like having the exhaust coated, tidying up lines, wiring, etc.
Edited by Samjeev on Friday 9th September 23:59
Been crazy busy working away on the car over the past couple of weeks. Been trying to my hardest to make it for that early November deadline but I think i'm going to have to aim for late Nov instead realistically On paper things look like they're a key-turn away from running but there's a heap of tiny jobs to do that seem to take up most of the time!
Starting off with a another case of taking 2 steps forward and 1 step back... we return to the clutch master.
I finally got the old Vauxhall VXR8/Pontiac G8 OEM master mounted in the pedal assembly and although it looks pretty good it was clear to me that it wasn't going to work out as it was still sticking too far past the firewall.
The extent of it isn't quite apparent given the perspective of the image but it would be sticking out a good 40mm past the firewall which although isn't much is simply too much in this case!
I thought about spacing back the assembly and bending the pedal back in to it's original location but when I spoke to a couple of guys from Australia they advised that the pedal swing isn't quite enough with that master to ever fully engage or disengage the clutch.. bummer!
So in the end I once again had to bite the bullet and shell out for a Tilton 75 master cylinder, not exactly breaking the bank but about 3 times the cost of the OEM kit above but it should prove to be perfect for the application.
I made up a rudimentary bracket to hold it and was quite chuffed that hammering a chunk of metal in the vice actually turned out to fit pretty much perfectly first time, result!
I also opted to mount the MC upside down to retain the helper spring on the clutch pedal incase it's needed. In theory it should still work absolutely fine but might just prove difficult to bleed, i'll cross that bridge when I get to it!
With all that said and done you'll notice that it barely peeks out past the firewall and fits in the car beautifully!
I'm probably going to pull it out once more to chuck a couple of washers in to give myself and extra 1-2mm clearance to get a banjo fitting on the end of it as well as repalce the hose leading to the reservoir with something longer and more pliable, but overall im really pleased with that! Definitely the biggest challenge i've faced so far honestly.
Heading back in to the engine bay i fitted up my new front accessories and they also fit much much better than the old oversized holley stuff, result again!
Following that I cracked out the hole saw set and wacked a chuffing great big hole in the firewall to run the new Haltech Harness through and then had a friend help me pull it through. If only it was as simple as getting this far and calling it "done" but alas there's plenty of cable tidying and plugging in to do.
However wanting a change of scenery I decided to take up a new hobby of being a contortionist and get to crawling around in the footwell and behind the dash of the interior to get the cables routed, connections for the ingnition power & throttle signal wires connected and to hide away the ECU, fuse box and Wideband O2 Controller.
I'm actually quite pleased with how it turned out all really accessible but hidden away from looking like a mess.. atleast externally. Sure I lose a bit of my glove box but honestly I never used it anyway in this car.
To finish off the interior a friend 3d printed me this little air vent insert to mount a gauge. There's no decent gauge mounting solutions for the 86 that are actually in the driver's field of vision that aren't big A pillow F&F mounts this is small, subtle and still allows air to blow around the gauge the only draw back is I can no longer aim or close the vent but it's a fair trade for a smart little gauge location i feel!
Next steps are going to be to start configuring the ECU, sorting out collant pipes, clutch line, intake pipe, etc... etc.. the list is seemingly endless!
On paper things look like they're a key-turn away from running but there's a heap of tiny jobs to do that seem to take up most of the time!Starting off with a another case of taking 2 steps forward and 1 step back... we return to the clutch master.
I finally got the old Vauxhall VXR8/Pontiac G8 OEM master mounted in the pedal assembly and although it looks pretty good it was clear to me that it wasn't going to work out as it was still sticking too far past the firewall.
The extent of it isn't quite apparent given the perspective of the image but it would be sticking out a good 40mm past the firewall which although isn't much is simply too much in this case!
I thought about spacing back the assembly and bending the pedal back in to it's original location but when I spoke to a couple of guys from Australia they advised that the pedal swing isn't quite enough with that master to ever fully engage or disengage the clutch.. bummer!
So in the end I once again had to bite the bullet and shell out for a Tilton 75 master cylinder, not exactly breaking the bank but about 3 times the cost of the OEM kit above but it should prove to be perfect for the application.
I made up a rudimentary bracket to hold it and was quite chuffed that hammering a chunk of metal in the vice actually turned out to fit pretty much perfectly first time, result!
I also opted to mount the MC upside down to retain the helper spring on the clutch pedal incase it's needed. In theory it should still work absolutely fine but might just prove difficult to bleed, i'll cross that bridge when I get to it!
With all that said and done you'll notice that it barely peeks out past the firewall and fits in the car beautifully!
I'm probably going to pull it out once more to chuck a couple of washers in to give myself and extra 1-2mm clearance to get a banjo fitting on the end of it as well as repalce the hose leading to the reservoir with something longer and more pliable, but overall im really pleased with that! Definitely the biggest challenge i've faced so far honestly.
Heading back in to the engine bay i fitted up my new front accessories and they also fit much much better than the old oversized holley stuff, result again!
Following that I cracked out the hole saw set and wacked a chuffing great big hole in the firewall to run the new Haltech Harness through and then had a friend help me pull it through. If only it was as simple as getting this far and calling it "done" but alas there's plenty of cable tidying and plugging in to do.
However wanting a change of scenery I decided to take up a new hobby of being a contortionist and get to crawling around in the footwell and behind the dash of the interior to get the cables routed, connections for the ingnition power & throttle signal wires connected and to hide away the ECU, fuse box and Wideband O2 Controller.
I'm actually quite pleased with how it turned out all really accessible but hidden away from looking like a mess.. atleast externally. Sure I lose a bit of my glove box but honestly I never used it anyway in this car.
To finish off the interior a friend 3d printed me this little air vent insert to mount a gauge. There's no decent gauge mounting solutions for the 86 that are actually in the driver's field of vision that aren't big A pillow F&F mounts this is small, subtle and still allows air to blow around the gauge the only draw back is I can no longer aim or close the vent but it's a fair trade for a smart little gauge location i feel!
Next steps are going to be to start configuring the ECU, sorting out collant pipes, clutch line, intake pipe, etc... etc.. the list is seemingly endless!
Edited by Samjeev on Saturday 24th September 21:59
I don't mean to tease you lot but... i'll start off by saying I'm planning to get the car running this weekend, so stay tuned for a second update this weekend..
But in the calm before the storm it's been a bit of 1 step forward 2 steps back.
First of all I finally got the Clutch master "buttoned down" had to space the pedal back a tiny but and with that I was able to finally install the clutch line, valve covers and inlet manifold as well as the remainder of the wiring.
Truthfully I think the reservoir line might be a bit pinched against the firewall, might just yank it out and smash a dedicated hole in the firewall for it, maybe one day update it to a bulkhead fitting.. thats an idea!
And then there was just a ton of small odd jobs to do..
I also had to redo the clutch pedal wiring as I had got the 5v feed and Signal inputs mixed up which was giving me all kinds of errors.
Have to re-pin/wire the Map sensor connector as well as the one on the Haltech harness is just... wrong, for some reason. Quite bizarre but managed to source a LS3 MAP sensor connector so going to snip the Haltech one off and solder the new one in it's place.
I then started to tidy and re-assemble the interior, filled the gearbox with ATF (just what the T56's call for) and pop on a few exterior panels (it's going to be heading off to have an exhaust made soon and if it's pouring down while its on a trailer I want it to be water proof somewhat.
As well as that I had to extend the alternator charge cable around to the Alternator and fit a new battery as mine was very knackered.
Finally I popped the radiator on and made some radiator hoses, miscalculated my joining piece on the lower one and I very much need to order a new piece (plus some jubilee clips) but I bodged it for the first start so atleast it might hold a bit of fluid! (I was planning to drop the coolant fairly swiftly anyway to flush out the system.
And this is where it sits for now.. Tomorrow i'm getting a hand to bleed the brakes and clutch and a couple more 2-man jobs and then hopefully later on Sunday i'll be pressing the start button and letting it explode in to life (hopefully not literally!)
All fingers crossed, wish me luck!
But in the calm before the storm it's been a bit of 1 step forward 2 steps back.
First of all I finally got the Clutch master "buttoned down" had to space the pedal back a tiny but and with that I was able to finally install the clutch line, valve covers and inlet manifold as well as the remainder of the wiring.
Truthfully I think the reservoir line might be a bit pinched against the firewall, might just yank it out and smash a dedicated hole in the firewall for it, maybe one day update it to a bulkhead fitting.. thats an idea!
And then there was just a ton of small odd jobs to do..
I also had to redo the clutch pedal wiring as I had got the 5v feed and Signal inputs mixed up which was giving me all kinds of errors.
Have to re-pin/wire the Map sensor connector as well as the one on the Haltech harness is just... wrong, for some reason. Quite bizarre but managed to source a LS3 MAP sensor connector so going to snip the Haltech one off and solder the new one in it's place.
I then started to tidy and re-assemble the interior, filled the gearbox with ATF (just what the T56's call for) and pop on a few exterior panels (it's going to be heading off to have an exhaust made soon and if it's pouring down while its on a trailer I want it to be water proof somewhat.
As well as that I had to extend the alternator charge cable around to the Alternator and fit a new battery as mine was very knackered.
Finally I popped the radiator on and made some radiator hoses, miscalculated my joining piece on the lower one and I very much need to order a new piece (plus some jubilee clips) but I bodged it for the first start so atleast it might hold a bit of fluid! (I was planning to drop the coolant fairly swiftly anyway to flush out the system.
And this is where it sits for now.. Tomorrow i'm getting a hand to bleed the brakes and clutch and a couple more 2-man jobs and then hopefully later on Sunday i'll be pressing the start button and letting it explode in to life (hopefully not literally!)
All fingers crossed, wish me luck!
Edited by Samjeev on Saturday 8th October 00:38
So about that second update... yeah...
So since the last update i've been battling two major issues - The first being that the darn clutch wouldn't bleed! and another being I couldn't trigger the starter motor!
Both have been causing me no end of constant head scratching over the last couple of weeks and honestly it feels like i've not updated this thread in atleast a month when in reality it was only a little over a week ago!
In Regards to the clutch as soon as I had issues I first jumped to paniced conclusions that because I had't measured the spacing of my Clutch Release bearing that I'd have to take the gearbox off, shim the bearing out and refit, hardly an easy excercise given the total lack of space around the gearbox.
Thankfully the bellhousing has a few holes in it and that allowed me to take a decent picture of the release bearing, here it was. Able to bleed fluid through from Reservoir to Bleeder valve and yet not building pressure or budging in the slightest.
but when you really take time to look at the image you'll realise it's not "Fully extended and still not pressing the clutch fingers" like I initially panic-thought but infact fully compressed, and simply not building any pressure to actually apply force to the clutch fingers.
That along with an OEM clutch and OEM release bearing there really was no need for any shims.
Running off to the LS Swap facebook group I got a load of info and various bits of advice to back-feed the system with a big syringe, jack the car up, etc which as I've not had to fit and bleed many clutches in my time didn't come to me initially, as well as this as I hadn't bench-bled the totally dry master cylinder and mounted it upside down I really just made it difficult for myself!
After hours and hours, jacking front of the car up, the back up, back feeding it, bleeding it back into itself, going through what must've been an entire litre of brake fluid on such a small system my dad finally came around to give me a hand as as if by magic.. it began to finally bleed, Huzzah!
With that finally bled and able to confirm it engages and dis-engages the clutch properly (by turning the prop under the car etc.) I moved on to the electronics, specifically the starter motor.
I Was a bit naive with my wiring of the starter motor originally and totally neglected the wire in the cabin that litterally went to nothing, doh!
I instead elected to use the Car's OEM Starter motor signal wire and relay, etc However that in itself is far easier said than done for you see, if you own a poverty spec GT86 or say.. a Scion FRS, etc then your Starter Motor wiring diagram is a whole.. 2 pages long!
Whereas if you own a UK spec GT86, BRZ, etc with Push-Start, Keyless entry and so on... the wiring diagram for this system is an entire 25 pages long with everything talking to each other via canbus, a right nightmare!
Now in my total lack of electrical knowledge I first tried winging it and managed to get the starter to kick in when pressing the clutch, by grounding the other end of the starter relay. However strangely in doing so I wasn't then able to turn off the car at all! So clearly not ideal all around as the clutch pedal itself really shouldn't trigger the starter
As well as that I got the feeling the Clutch-switch Input and Push-start button input which were meant to work via Haltech's Canbus programming didn't quite work out as a couple of other features such as the fuel pump unit have been proven not to.
After a number of restless nights thinking about it, wishing that there was just a tiny bit more info available online for the Starter wiring for a Push-start GT86 swap I finally was able to discuss with Tom from Fensport who is an absolute wealth of knowledge on these cars!
I finally got the solution by hard-wiring the Clutch and Press-start input in to the haltech, enabling it so that when the Clutch is pressed and Starter button pressed it Grounds the Starter Motor relay, triggering the starter motor. I also wired up the Starter-cut relay to be grounded when over 750rpm meaning there won't be any accidental starter motor while driving and meaning I can successfully park the car in-gear which is something I like to do.
Anyway that's a whole lot of waffle to say, it works! and is quite the trial-by-fire of learning how a load of electrical bits work.
Now with a few congratulatory pictures we'll get on to the reason there's no video of the car running..
So with all that said and done all that's left is to re-enable the injectors and press the start button, right?
Well I did that.. and it would cough and splutter a bit but no real inkling that it was going to start. At first I thought it was just a lack of voltage as the battery although new has never been in a running car and therefore is already quite flat!
So after charging it a load i tried again and again and again with no luck.
I know the car's getting air, the rail is getting fuel for sure, so need to check whether the injectors are perhaps stuck or whether my coil packs are getting power.
As well as this doing a whole load more thinking I was once again a bit naive to think that the base-map of the car would run as is, I hold my hands up and admit that i've yet to verify the timing and confirm TDC of the engine so have no idea whether it's firing on the correct timing or a whole 360 degrees out, etc.
My plan this coming weekend is to whip the spark plugs out, confirm TDC and the timing and hope that gets it running! at the very least I need to do this if anyone is to have any hope of tuning the car anyway!
With all that said I don't think i'll reach my mini deadline to have the car ready for a friend's wedding but hopefully mid-late November I can get it out, test it, run it in and let it stretch it legs a bit with a few meets before it goes back away for hibernation over the winter.
Fingers crossed there's another update this weekend with a video to prove the good news!
So since the last update i've been battling two major issues - The first being that the darn clutch wouldn't bleed! and another being I couldn't trigger the starter motor!
Both have been causing me no end of constant head scratching over the last couple of weeks and honestly it feels like i've not updated this thread in atleast a month when in reality it was only a little over a week ago!
In Regards to the clutch as soon as I had issues I first jumped to paniced conclusions that because I had't measured the spacing of my Clutch Release bearing that I'd have to take the gearbox off, shim the bearing out and refit, hardly an easy excercise given the total lack of space around the gearbox.
Thankfully the bellhousing has a few holes in it and that allowed me to take a decent picture of the release bearing, here it was. Able to bleed fluid through from Reservoir to Bleeder valve and yet not building pressure or budging in the slightest.
but when you really take time to look at the image you'll realise it's not "Fully extended and still not pressing the clutch fingers" like I initially panic-thought but infact fully compressed, and simply not building any pressure to actually apply force to the clutch fingers.
That along with an OEM clutch and OEM release bearing there really was no need for any shims.
Running off to the LS Swap facebook group I got a load of info and various bits of advice to back-feed the system with a big syringe, jack the car up, etc which as I've not had to fit and bleed many clutches in my time didn't come to me initially, as well as this as I hadn't bench-bled the totally dry master cylinder and mounted it upside down I really just made it difficult for myself!
After hours and hours, jacking front of the car up, the back up, back feeding it, bleeding it back into itself, going through what must've been an entire litre of brake fluid on such a small system my dad finally came around to give me a hand as as if by magic.. it began to finally bleed, Huzzah!
With that finally bled and able to confirm it engages and dis-engages the clutch properly (by turning the prop under the car etc.) I moved on to the electronics, specifically the starter motor.
I Was a bit naive with my wiring of the starter motor originally and totally neglected the wire in the cabin that litterally went to nothing, doh!
I instead elected to use the Car's OEM Starter motor signal wire and relay, etc However that in itself is far easier said than done for you see, if you own a poverty spec GT86 or say.. a Scion FRS, etc then your Starter Motor wiring diagram is a whole.. 2 pages long!
Whereas if you own a UK spec GT86, BRZ, etc with Push-Start, Keyless entry and so on... the wiring diagram for this system is an entire 25 pages long with everything talking to each other via canbus, a right nightmare!
Now in my total lack of electrical knowledge I first tried winging it and managed to get the starter to kick in when pressing the clutch, by grounding the other end of the starter relay. However strangely in doing so I wasn't then able to turn off the car at all! So clearly not ideal all around as the clutch pedal itself really shouldn't trigger the starter
As well as that I got the feeling the Clutch-switch Input and Push-start button input which were meant to work via Haltech's Canbus programming didn't quite work out as a couple of other features such as the fuel pump unit have been proven not to.
After a number of restless nights thinking about it, wishing that there was just a tiny bit more info available online for the Starter wiring for a Push-start GT86 swap I finally was able to discuss with Tom from Fensport who is an absolute wealth of knowledge on these cars!
I finally got the solution by hard-wiring the Clutch and Press-start input in to the haltech, enabling it so that when the Clutch is pressed and Starter button pressed it Grounds the Starter Motor relay, triggering the starter motor. I also wired up the Starter-cut relay to be grounded when over 750rpm meaning there won't be any accidental starter motor while driving and meaning I can successfully park the car in-gear which is something I like to do.
Anyway that's a whole lot of waffle to say, it works! and is quite the trial-by-fire of learning how a load of electrical bits work.
Now with a few congratulatory pictures we'll get on to the reason there's no video of the car running..
So with all that said and done all that's left is to re-enable the injectors and press the start button, right?
Well I did that.. and it would cough and splutter a bit but no real inkling that it was going to start. At first I thought it was just a lack of voltage as the battery although new has never been in a running car and therefore is already quite flat!
So after charging it a load i tried again and again and again with no luck.
I know the car's getting air, the rail is getting fuel for sure, so need to check whether the injectors are perhaps stuck or whether my coil packs are getting power.
As well as this doing a whole load more thinking I was once again a bit naive to think that the base-map of the car would run as is, I hold my hands up and admit that i've yet to verify the timing and confirm TDC of the engine so have no idea whether it's firing on the correct timing or a whole 360 degrees out, etc.
My plan this coming weekend is to whip the spark plugs out, confirm TDC and the timing and hope that gets it running! at the very least I need to do this if anyone is to have any hope of tuning the car anyway!
With all that said I don't think i'll reach my mini deadline to have the car ready for a friend's wedding but hopefully mid-late November I can get it out, test it, run it in and let it stretch it legs a bit with a few meets before it goes back away for hibernation over the winter.
Fingers crossed there's another update this weekend with a video to prove the good news!
Well here we go, it's pretty wild to think that it's been basically an entire month since I installed the Haltech loom and that's not to say i've been sitting on my hands doing nothing with it this whole time!
I will start off by saying the car is finally running!
but that's not to say there weren't some additional hurdles on the way.
So if I go back to round off my last update I was able to sort all of the Starter wiring and make it as-per OEM functionality by having all the factory starter relays, etc actuated by the ECU, all good there!
After that I was finally able to get the clutch bled as well! It was litterally just a load of trapped air that seemingly the fluid was going around when bleeding it for hours and hours on end, eventually it just gave up and finally bled through and I now have a working clutch!
I then checked the timing and.. it's bang on! near enough firing on or around TDC, good enough to get it started and running smoothly at the least!
Finally I was able to get the car "Started" after realising I had the coil pack harnesses the wrong way round, doh! but it wouldn't stay running for very long, it would simply roar to life and then die soon after.
After lots more toiling, finding out I had my MAP sensor wired incorrectly (Fixed that!) I felt as though it was perhaps a fuelling issue. Foolishly i've assumed this whole time that the Fuel pressure is fine as I had read online (Where we all know totally 100% accurate information is found!) that the 86's pump delivers 58psi to the rail constantly which is what the LS needs. I've ordered a pressure sensor that down the line I can connect in to the haltech so the ECU can tell me for sure what the pressure is as well as adjust the map to suit for any changes in pressure, etc.
What lead me to think it might be fuelling however was not a lack of fuel but perhaps too much fuel. I'm no tuning expert by ANY measure but when starting the car it would die almost instantly with no input and subsequent starting attempts would be even less successful unless a flood-clear procedure was first done, as well as this you could "catch" the car on the throttle and keep it alive with some throttle input (A.k.a more air!) but it would die soon after.
This then lead me down the rabbit hole that I have no data on anything! On my injectors, my coilpacks, my sensors, etc! and i've just been going off the LS3 base map in the ECU which i'm being told "The Base map should definitely definitely work to start and run any LS!" by various people online.
After a load of testing, playing with injector settings and so on I eventually decided to just export my logs, take a quick video and send it over to Haltech support in australia (Who are brilliant!)
They took one look at it and made a small change to the idle control, simply changing it from 10% (Default) to 20% (Out of a maximum of 30%) which I assume just tells the ECU "You can use X amount of throttle to reach your target idle RPM of Y"
After that.. it fired up and idled away! Happy days!
For the proper bit you all want to see/hear, here's the journey in my latest youtube video (You can skip to 16 minutes in for the start!)
Now to keep my recent theme of everything with this project lately being an emotional rollercoaster.. it's not all fun and games.
As I allude to in the video, the engine doesn't have good oil pressure. Bearing in mind it's a semi-rebuilt engine (new piston rings and rod bearings) and it's a cold start there with SAE30 Run in oil it only seems to have 15 psi of pressure which slowly creeps down to 10psi after a couple of minutes of running which is rather worrying! The saving grace is that it's not totally 0 so there is oil flow but.. I absolutely would not run the car for any period of time or drive it on this amount of oil pressure.
To say learning this was emotional whiplash after the elation of getting it running finally is an understatement! I was heartbroken.
There's any number of things it could be, from a dodgy sensor or simply incorrect calibration to a pinched or dead O ring somewhere internally.. or something worse.. this is when i'm cruely reminded that at the end of the day I know nothing of the history of this engine/block and despite taking it apart there could still be hidden problems i'm unaware of.
Obviously Oil isn't leaking out of anywhere that I can see so really I just need to go through and begin troubleshooting.
However i'm exhausted from all of this recently and the Car had a date with a fabricator. So I welcomed getting it out of my hair for a short while, being able to just sit back, take time to research my Oil pressure issue and not feel obligated to be progressing on it for a short bit.
I'm hoping as much as all of you at this point that I can soon get this rollercoaster to come to a controlled stop as honestly at this point i'm a bit bored of it and just want to catch a break!
Oh and i've not even posted any pictures, how boring! here's a couple of quick ones just with the engine bay "complete" and after pushing the car outside a bit to get loaded up, I forgot how it looked outside under natural light which is still pretty good even with such a thick layer of dust and half its panels missing!
I will start off by saying the car is finally running!
but that's not to say there weren't some additional hurdles on the way.
So if I go back to round off my last update I was able to sort all of the Starter wiring and make it as-per OEM functionality by having all the factory starter relays, etc actuated by the ECU, all good there!
After that I was finally able to get the clutch bled as well! It was litterally just a load of trapped air that seemingly the fluid was going around when bleeding it for hours and hours on end, eventually it just gave up and finally bled through and I now have a working clutch!
I then checked the timing and.. it's bang on! near enough firing on or around TDC, good enough to get it started and running smoothly at the least!
Finally I was able to get the car "Started" after realising I had the coil pack harnesses the wrong way round, doh! but it wouldn't stay running for very long, it would simply roar to life and then die soon after.
After lots more toiling, finding out I had my MAP sensor wired incorrectly (Fixed that!) I felt as though it was perhaps a fuelling issue. Foolishly i've assumed this whole time that the Fuel pressure is fine as I had read online (Where we all know totally 100% accurate information is found!
) that the 86's pump delivers 58psi to the rail constantly which is what the LS needs. I've ordered a pressure sensor that down the line I can connect in to the haltech so the ECU can tell me for sure what the pressure is as well as adjust the map to suit for any changes in pressure, etc.What lead me to think it might be fuelling however was not a lack of fuel but perhaps too much fuel. I'm no tuning expert by ANY measure but when starting the car it would die almost instantly with no input and subsequent starting attempts would be even less successful unless a flood-clear procedure was first done, as well as this you could "catch" the car on the throttle and keep it alive with some throttle input (A.k.a more air!) but it would die soon after.
This then lead me down the rabbit hole that I have no data on anything! On my injectors, my coilpacks, my sensors, etc! and i've just been going off the LS3 base map in the ECU which i'm being told "The Base map should definitely definitely work to start and run any LS!" by various people online.
After a load of testing, playing with injector settings and so on I eventually decided to just export my logs, take a quick video and send it over to Haltech support in australia (Who are brilliant!)
They took one look at it and made a small change to the idle control, simply changing it from 10% (Default) to 20% (Out of a maximum of 30%) which I assume just tells the ECU "You can use X amount of throttle to reach your target idle RPM of Y"
After that.. it fired up and idled away! Happy days!
For the proper bit you all want to see/hear, here's the journey in my latest youtube video (You can skip to 16 minutes in for the start!)
Now to keep my recent theme of everything with this project lately being an emotional rollercoaster.. it's not all fun and games.
As I allude to in the video, the engine doesn't have good oil pressure. Bearing in mind it's a semi-rebuilt engine (new piston rings and rod bearings) and it's a cold start there with SAE30 Run in oil it only seems to have 15 psi of pressure which slowly creeps down to 10psi after a couple of minutes of running which is rather worrying! The saving grace is that it's not totally 0 so there is oil flow but.. I absolutely would not run the car for any period of time or drive it on this amount of oil pressure.
To say learning this was emotional whiplash after the elation of getting it running finally is an understatement! I was heartbroken.
There's any number of things it could be, from a dodgy sensor or simply incorrect calibration to a pinched or dead O ring somewhere internally.. or something worse.. this is when i'm cruely reminded that at the end of the day I know nothing of the history of this engine/block and despite taking it apart there could still be hidden problems i'm unaware of.
Obviously Oil isn't leaking out of anywhere that I can see so really I just need to go through and begin troubleshooting.
However i'm exhausted from all of this recently and the Car had a date with a fabricator. So I welcomed getting it out of my hair for a short while, being able to just sit back, take time to research my Oil pressure issue and not feel obligated to be progressing on it for a short bit.
I'm hoping as much as all of you at this point that I can soon get this rollercoaster to come to a controlled stop as honestly at this point i'm a bit bored of it and just want to catch a break!
Oh and i've not even posted any pictures, how boring! here's a couple of quick ones just with the engine bay "complete" and after pushing the car outside a bit to get loaded up, I forgot how it looked outside under natural light which is still pretty good even with such a thick layer of dust and half its panels missing!
ChocolateFrog said:
Could be something relatively straightforward, a worn or faulty oil pump, pick up blocked etc.
Very true although I did replace the Oil pump and pickup so hopefully the brand new pieces aren't already gone a common issue on LS's is the O-ring for the oil pickup getting pinched and then the pump simply sucks in air.
In that scenario it would be a case of supporting the engine in place, dropping the subframe and getting to the sump/oil pickup that way, not very fun!
The possibility i'm going to explore before resorting to that is whether the Valley cover, which I didn't replace and undoutedly has some very worn, flat, o-rings in it might simply need to be replaced first. This is a far far easier piece to get to and the only area I know i "overlooked" compared to simply making a mistake on. Fingers crossed it's that honestly!
Whoa an update!
Don't get your hopes up, this one is just to unfortunately say that quite litterally nothing has happened!
No stranger to a bit of a drama when it comes to my car this year it seems I took it to a local fabricator at the end of October to have an exhaust fabricated. I discussed this with the Fabricator and they presented me a really good price of £1250 for the whole system from the Headers back.
I sent over a bit of money to cover the material costs as this is a one man band but unfortunately the next week he had been diagnosed with a condition that means he won't be working again in any major capacity until atleast february.
Credit to him not wanting to hang me out to dry he did attempt to have a friend in the industry take on the job but that unfortunately didn't work out.
I'm getting the car back again tomorrow, out of pocket for the transport fees and also out of pocket "in a sense" as I had to pay for the materials, I did attempt to ask him for a refund on them but with no income that's difficult for him and given his health issues it's not something I want to morally give him too much of a hard time on.
Thankfully having spoken to Craig at Dynotorque he's happy to use the materials to fabricate me a system! It's quite a distance to go for a bit of fabrication work but atleast I know it'll be in more than capable hands.
It also has the added bonus of if i'm not able to solve the oil pressure issue next weekend I could potentially ask craig to have a look at it while it's in his care. I'm at the stage now where although i'm happy and capable to investigate it myself part of me might just pay someone to fix it so I can finally have a working car!
I'll have another update this coming week when i've managed to crack in to the oil pressure myself, i've got a small list of things to tackle it:
-Verify pressure with Physical gauge
-Move Pressure sender unit from top of block to Oil filter relocation line
-Replace Valley cover (I reused my old one which has dead O-rings pressed in to it)
-Fit Fuel Pressure sensor while doing the above
Hoping the Valley cover will fix it as it's absolutely the one thing I overlooked while putting together the engine and it's relatively easy to replace and cheap too!
The car likely won't be on the road before 2023 but hopefully early in the new year it'll be out for its maiden voyage and to some coffee mornings/PHSS/etc.
Don't get your hopes up, this one is just to unfortunately say that quite litterally nothing has happened!
No stranger to a bit of a drama when it comes to my car this year it seems I took it to a local fabricator at the end of October to have an exhaust fabricated. I discussed this with the Fabricator and they presented me a really good price of £1250 for the whole system from the Headers back.
I sent over a bit of money to cover the material costs as this is a one man band but unfortunately the next week he had been diagnosed with a condition that means he won't be working again in any major capacity until atleast february.
Credit to him not wanting to hang me out to dry he did attempt to have a friend in the industry take on the job but that unfortunately didn't work out.
I'm getting the car back again tomorrow, out of pocket for the transport fees and also out of pocket "in a sense" as I had to pay for the materials, I did attempt to ask him for a refund on them but with no income that's difficult for him and given his health issues it's not something I want to morally give him too much of a hard time on.
Thankfully having spoken to Craig at Dynotorque he's happy to use the materials to fabricate me a system! It's quite a distance to go for a bit of fabrication work but atleast I know it'll be in more than capable hands.
It also has the added bonus of if i'm not able to solve the oil pressure issue next weekend I could potentially ask craig to have a look at it while it's in his care. I'm at the stage now where although i'm happy and capable to investigate it myself part of me might just pay someone to fix it so I can finally have a working car!
I'll have another update this coming week when i've managed to crack in to the oil pressure myself, i've got a small list of things to tackle it:
-Verify pressure with Physical gauge
-Move Pressure sender unit from top of block to Oil filter relocation line
-Replace Valley cover (I reused my old one which has dead O-rings pressed in to it)
-Fit Fuel Pressure sensor while doing the above
Hoping the Valley cover will fix it as it's absolutely the one thing I overlooked while putting together the engine and it's relatively easy to replace and cheap too!
The car likely won't be on the road before 2023 but hopefully early in the new year it'll be out for its maiden voyage and to some coffee mornings/PHSS/etc.
So as stated last time I recently got the car back after not a whole lot happened for a month.
Decided I wanted to spend a couple of days tinkering to see if I could fix the Oil pressure issue before I took it up to Craig at Dynotorque to have it's exhaust made (and having a backup plan of him looking in to/fixing the issue if that failed!)
But.. Im pleased to say
IT
HAS
OIL PRESSURE
I started off by double checking the pressure with a mechanical gauge to confirm that me sensor wasn't faulty or had incorrect scaling in the ECU, no luck there! but I did decide that I would also move the sensor down to one of the Oil filter relocation lines as it's a much nicer spot than right up at the back of the engine block.
I then moved to my next potential culprit.. The Valley Cover
to explain the thinking on why this is causing the issue. My Engine block has these DOD (Displacement on Demand) Oil galleries in the valley, eventhough the engine never used DOD GM Simply "Disable" it on various vehicles by blocking up these ports with O-rings on the underside of the Valley cover:
While I was rebuilding the engine I did purchase an aftermarket valley cover but for some reason it wasn't equipped with these o-rings or even an opening for the oil pressure sensor despite being for an LS3 surposedly. So in the moment I just decided to re-use my old cover which unfortunately had very old, very flat O-rings.
Replacing this cover with a new replacement ($35, $80 by the time it hit the UK) sorted the issue!
So pleased that it was something as relatively simple as this, took at most a couple of hours to fit as I had to mess about with draining the fuel rail, pulling the intake manifold etc.
While I was there I also fitted a rudicmentary intake.. which i'm likely to replace soon! aaand a fuel pressure sensor which.. is leaking.. but i'll get to that another time!
For now it has oil pressure, it's safe to run and of course that meant I had to give it a little test moving about didn't I? (Warning to headphone users, it's LOUD!)
Finally with that said today (Wednesday 7th) I hired a flatbed and hauled the car up to Craig at Dynotorque to have an exhaust made.
Decided I wanted to spend a couple of days tinkering to see if I could fix the Oil pressure issue before I took it up to Craig at Dynotorque to have it's exhaust made (and having a backup plan of him looking in to/fixing the issue if that failed!)
But.. Im pleased to say
IT
HAS
OIL PRESSURE
I started off by double checking the pressure with a mechanical gauge to confirm that me sensor wasn't faulty or had incorrect scaling in the ECU, no luck there! but I did decide that I would also move the sensor down to one of the Oil filter relocation lines as it's a much nicer spot than right up at the back of the engine block.
I then moved to my next potential culprit.. The Valley Cover
to explain the thinking on why this is causing the issue. My Engine block has these DOD (Displacement on Demand) Oil galleries in the valley, eventhough the engine never used DOD GM Simply "Disable" it on various vehicles by blocking up these ports with O-rings on the underside of the Valley cover:
While I was rebuilding the engine I did purchase an aftermarket valley cover but for some reason it wasn't equipped with these o-rings or even an opening for the oil pressure sensor despite being for an LS3 surposedly. So in the moment I just decided to re-use my old cover which unfortunately had very old, very flat O-rings.
Replacing this cover with a new replacement ($35, $80 by the time it hit the UK) sorted the issue!
So pleased that it was something as relatively simple as this, took at most a couple of hours to fit as I had to mess about with draining the fuel rail, pulling the intake manifold etc.
While I was there I also fitted a rudicmentary intake.. which i'm likely to replace soon!
aaand a fuel pressure sensor which.. is leaking.. but i'll get to that another time! For now it has oil pressure, it's safe to run and of course that meant I had to give it a little test moving about didn't I? (Warning to headphone users, it's LOUD!)
Finally with that said today (Wednesday 7th) I hired a flatbed and hauled the car up to Craig at Dynotorque to have an exhaust made.
Edited by Samjeev on Thursday 8th December 00:04
SturdyHSV said:
Such great news about the oil pressure and it being a simple fix 
Sounds great with open headers too, unsurprisingly!!
How long do you think it'll be with Craig and then what's left to get it on the road?
Hoping to have it back by the end of next week! Sounds great with open headers too, unsurprisingly!!How long do you think it'll be with Craig and then what's left to get it on the road?
I Could technically get it insured/MOT'd and drive it then but with icy/salty season coming up I might actually wait until spring, do a few extra jobs on the car like wrap the exhaust, change the intake, etc and so on as the GT86 chassis doesn't come with any factory underbody sealer so don't take too kindly to salty roads!
Plus i'm not sure I want my first LS experience to be entirely tight bum moments fighting for grip on 285 wide 959 RSRs
Will see how it pans out
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