Repairs

Started fixing some of the things that are wrong with this turd.  Got a few of them done.  Most of the engine/wiring issues are from the person who did the transplant it looks like.

Mass Air Flow sensor repair:  I had to plastic weld the original MAF to get it to seal.  The screens are also removed, both of them.  Without the screens there are Idle and part throttle issues that crop up.  So I'll be putting at least one back in, or getting a replacement.  The MAF signal wire to the ECM also had like 150 ohms on the wire, it had a break in it, so that was repaired.  If the wiring was done right, this would have never happened. 

Update 20Oct2008:  I bought another MAF from a member on the Turbo Buick message board.  This one has one screen in it still.  This way here it's right, and I can use the other one as a spare.

ALDL Port Dead:  In an effort to see what codes the car had after we got it, I found out there was no data coming from the ECM to the ALDL port.  After further inspection I found the wiring was messed up, it had wire taps in it and they broke the wire.  So that was soldered and heatshrinked.  If the wiring was done right, this would have never happened.

ECM /PROM:  After the wiring and MAF repairs, I was getting funky readings on my scanner, so I hooked up my laptop and it looked as if the quad drivers were bad.  Sure enough, I open up the ECM and it had a fried quad driver chip.  I mean like black and popped.  So I found a guy on the turbo Buick boards who had one for 75 bucks.  Got it shipped out to me.  Bought the G2 adapter from Craig Moates, soldered it in a burned a stock chip for it. 

Update 02NOV2008:  I bought  a Turbo Tweak chip for it, 93 octane/18 lbs boost.  Runs good, I am still not 100% happy with the idle though.  So I started making a custom chip for it with some info from the TurboTweak site.  I have yet to try it out. 

Intake Manifold Leaking:  I believe the lower intake gaskets were leaking causing a vacuum leak, and giving me high BLM readings.  So after a few calls, I located some fel-pro gaskets and yanked off the intake.  It seemed they were loaded with oil, but it was hard to tell if they were leaking by just looking at them, since the valley pan was all metal.  Here are a few progress pics.

Upper Plenum and Spacer:  While the intake was off, I yanked the upper plenum off and found that the 1/2" phenolic spacer was way too big, ie, blocking some the the inner intake.  So I took my router table and used a strait cut bit to hog it out to the size of the upper/lower plenum. 

I powder coated the upper plenum and valve covers red.  I also ported and matched the throttle body to the upper plenum.  Here is a shot with the intake and alll back together.

Turbocharger:  The turbo that came on the car, a stocker, was junk.  The compressor whell had 1/4" axial play, causing it to rub the compressor housing.  It also had a bad bearing, which pumped the intercooler, and the intake full of oil.  I had a low mileage stock 87 Grand National tuebo I bought for my Malibu Wagon twin turbo project, so I just threw that turbo on this.  I took the inlet bell, and bellmouthed it, and port matched it to the compressor.  I also hogged out the exhaust elbow and the wastegate puck hole to help with boost creep.

Downpipe and Exhaust:  The exhaust was a work of retardedness.  The ENTIRE exhaust system was hanging from the turbo.  The DS header was cracked bad between cylinders 3 & 5.  The PS header had a hole from where the battery cable welded itself to it.  The header gaskets were blown out too.  The downpipe was in 3 different pieces, and they were slipfitted together, and not welded.  The bends were crimped down from 3 inches to like 2 inches.  I had some madrel bend aluminzed tubing I made a new 3 inch downpipe.  The single shot exhaust is gone.  I picked up 3 inch mandrel bend dual exhaust and 2 3 inch Stainless Steel Magnaflow mufflers for it.   I made a test pipe to go where the cat is.  The 3 inch downpipe will stay, but I'll be building a new one out of Stainless Steel with an intergral wastegate puck in the future.

The engine is back together and running good so far.  I just bought a turbo bracket, I am getting a heat shield.  I will also be making a 3 inch up-pipe out of Stainless Steel.  More updates and pics to come.

 Here is the new up-pipe and Casper's Heated Oxygen Sensor kit. 

New Pics with the up pipe installed.  You can also see the turbocharger bracket that I bought a while back, I am working on getting a turbo shield too.  I think I'll powder coat the turbo shield red, should look pretty good.

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