'95 Buick Roadmaster Estate 'Wagon on a Whim' - $2015 Aristocrat Edition

Not a lot of progress lately, since I was out of town last weekend. I did manage to sneak away from SWMBO's art fair during her shift to pick up some rear springs at the nearby junkyard. Wagons have a higher rear stiffness than sedans (160 vs 130 lb/in) which is favorable. 2000ish Crown Vics have a 160 lb/in rear spring but with 1" shorter free length and the same pigtail coil shape, so these should lower the rear an inch and keep the same stiffness. Perfect.

As it turns out, the supposedly "drop-in no modification required" dual valvesprings didn't install quite right. The flat wire damper doesn't fit around the valve guide boss and rubs on the stem seals. So I took the springs back out, removed the damper, and put them back on. Forums tell me this is common. Without the damper, the springs could be subject to harmonic behavior, but that shouldn't be a threat with my conservative redline target of 6,000.

Also, this is why you don't buy torque wrenches from Harbor Freight. Even if they are only 10 bucks. Especially if they are only 10 bucks.

I built a Nissan GA16i with a Harbor Freight torque wrench in 2009. It's running great. having said that, at ten bucks the differences between individual units might be large.

The engine is really taking shape. Got the heads on and timing set. Spent a lot of time cleaning up a lot of the other misc parts.

Surprise guest appearance by the Wrexus Chump Car, which needed a bit of harness and cage welding.

I found another mistake...the threaded rocker studs are TOO LONG! The rockers cannot physically touch both pushrod and valve. The hex part is too much of a standoff. Luckily I have a set of non-hex studs I will swap out. The downside of those is there is no way to torque them properly, so you have to rely on locktite. Oh well.

They make a stud installer, could you not torque it with that.

Like dis

In reply to Opti:

More research has revealed to me the shoulder on the hex-less studs will split the bosses if torqued to the standard 50 ft-lbs, so it is recommended to torque to 10 ft-lb and use red loctite. The simple two-nut method should work here. Never seen those before though! Happy to learn something new today.

I would consider those more of a stud remover-and-then-throw-them-in-the-trasher. They're pretty good at buggering threads. If you're removing studs to replace them it doesnt matter.

LT1s clean up pretty nice.

Hit the fins on the intake with a abrasive disc or sanding block to knock the paint off.

The transmission is one with the engine again. This lump is almost ready to drop back in, I just need to figure out the headers. Unfortunately there is not a huge used market for LT1 headers. This set came off a Camaro or something. The driver side pipes interfere with the steering, so I am modifying them to fit.

Oh yeah, I'm also making a new bumper support out of scrap aluminum that saves 60 lbs no joke.

With the engine out, I was able to complete the ABS delete by putting a T in the front lines and a union in the rear. This really cleans up the engine bay and saves about 15 lbs. Also I replaced a power steering line that my dumb ass broke a couple months ago while removing the engine. I even put it in the budget, if only to serve as a reminder to myself.

Also, I have new non-worn-out-so-bad-they-shake-at-45mph engine mounts but I can't reach the hex on the back side without removing the lower control arm. So I guess I'll slam the front while I'm in there. Which means delaying the engine install until after my vacation this weekend. Ah well. See ya'll next week.

Great progress though, even with the inevitable setbacks.

Sure hope these don't leak!

I ground the welds and painted them silver again. They bolt up to the heads with quite an interesting assortment of hardware. Almost looks like I paid real money for the exhaust! I am banking on these shorty's being shorty enough to leave them on while installing the engine.

Suspension update: I tried to remove the lower control arms from the chassis in order to A) remove the front springs for chop drop and B) access the engine mount bolts to replace those. Unfortunately there is not enough weight without the engine to compress the springs with a floor jack, to take the load off the bushings. And I hate spring compressors, as evidenced by previous post involving valve springs.

So I need to install the engine in order to replace the engine mounts. Huh.

Can you just put in some ballast wieght to get them to compress?

I shoved the lump back in last night with the help of a friend. The driver side headers definitely interfered with the steering shaft. A few whacks of the ol hammer fixed that. The collectors are in the perfect place and don't interfere with anything. Overall I'm very pleased with how the header hack job turned out.

I got a lead on a local exhaust shop that will sell me cheap lengths, bends, and flanges. Hoping I can get the right deal to finish the exhaust. I plan to re-position the stock hanger rods and rubbers to dump both mufflers out the same side in front of a rear tire. Oh yeah, I need a pair of mufflers too.

Let me know when you have some time this weekend, we can swing by the storage unit . I have some side-exit pipes from circle track cars that might work, and I wouldn't mind getting rid of. Can definitely beat exhaust shop pricing.

Saturday was very successful! I got everything hooked up - wires, plumbing, fuel, accessories, except for spark plug wires. I cranked the engine over a few times and nothing bad happened! No leaks, no weird noises. I plugged in the #1 spark plug, turned it a couple times, and confirmed combustion!

I won't actually run it until, you know, I bolt the engine and trans to the car and hook up the driveshaft. Maybe build an actual exhaust. Details!

Also, I should probably monitor oil pressure somehow while starting it. Can I safely rely on the idiot light on the dash or is there a better way?

Hook up an aftermarket mechanical pressure gauge. Even if its just temporary because the gm lights dont come on until some really low pressures and its a good idea too know exact numbers on a fresh motor. During cam break in you really want to know its getting good oil pressure.

dropstep wrote: During cam break in you really want to know its getting good oil pressure.

Even for a hydraulic roller cam? I know it's super critical for flat tappets.

Where can I put the mechanical? Tee it off the oil pressure sensor behind the manifold?

Major update - it's alive!!!

It started right up and idled without any issue. I won't run it again til it's back on the ground so I can put it under some load, to break in the rings. Which means I need to build an exhaust. But dang, open header cammed V8s are LOUD!

Hungry for unsuspecting CAM cars

A local GRM'er lent me his broken metal saw for doing the exhaust. In exchange for fixing it, he gave me a pile of random circle track/dirt track exhaust parts.

Included in this pile is a huge 3.5" oval muffler. My headers collect into 2.5" circular tube. Some quick geometry will tell you that the cross-sectional area of this muffler is equivalent to 2 x 2.5" tubing. In other words, I can collect both streams into this single cheap muffler without sacrificing flow. Then I will dump it out the passenger side in front of the rear tire in true circle track style. All for the cost of a clamp, 14" metal blade, and a few feet of wiring from Menards.

No pictures of exhaust progress yet, but so far I've built the 2x2.5" to 1x3.5" collector and most of the undercarriage bends while waiting on flanges to arrive. I am using the "guess cut and tack" method of exhaust building. So far so good.

Also I built a tubular trans x-member to save weight but I can't get the huge exhaust pipe to clear it. OOPS. The stocker weighs 26 lbs. Mine weighs 5 1/2 lbs For now I put the stocker back on and kinda gave up. Maybe later I'll put a clearance bump in it. I'm just too excited to drive it soon.

Exhaust progress. 2x2.5" round into 1x3.5" oval. This setup follows the path of the original exhaust, so there are no ground clearance issues. Mixture of parts store bends, chopped straight tube, and old rusty circle track junk. Planning to use on of the 6 stock exhaust hangers.

Pro-tip: you can order universal header collector flanges and gaskets of various sizes from Rockauto. I have plenty to do until they arrive.

More exhaust progress. The flanges arrived so now I have the entire exhaust assembly tacked together. For now I have a turn down after the muffler just before the rear axle. If it's too loud or fumes up the cabin, I'll pipe in a side-dump.

The exhaust is done! It's...still really berkeleying loud. That race muffler does almost nothing. But hey, it runs and drives! ...like E36 M3. Vacuum leaks, fuel is all over the place thanks to stock/broken O2 sensors, rough cam idle, etc. It barely keeps up with traffic. BUT it doesn't leak oil anymore. I need to pick up a wideband and start tuning. Also I have to learn how to tune.

So many pie cuts...

Late to the game, I know - but you're supposed to machine the tops of the stud bosses down to fit the studs. It's about the thickness of the hex end of the stud.

These are mine on my mill:

I fixed the vacuum leaks and re-adjusted the rocker lash to only 1/2 turn, and that sure woke it up! Idles nicely in gear but probably still running too rich. Also I hadn't put enough ATF in, so the converter was lagging. Feels great now! And even after the engine rebuild, it still has a charged A/C that works better than my house.

Roadmonster idling in the driveway

After driving it work, it was running great, until it wasn't. Right bank injector pulse width suddenly dropped to half of what the left bank was, and bogged down and stalled a couple times. At the same time, the right O2 was reading a high voltage, which the internet tells me is rich. I think the sensor is bad. When it works, it's great, pulls hard, and there is no bank split. When the O2 craps out like that, I'm probably leaning out that bank of the engine. Oops.

(to be fair, I couldn't actually unscrew that sensor from the original exhaust thanks to rust, so I cut it out around the bung and welded it into the new exhaust. So maybe I damaged it with heat from the welder...I'm not a very patient welder )

So I ordered new O2 sensors ($70 budget hit) and a wideband that works with my tuning cable, which I previously got from 1320electronics. Their technical support has been outstanding, giving me fast email advice on which wideband to use and how to wire/solder the wires into their cable's serial port, along with customized datastream files for interfacing with TunerPro RT (free-ish tuning software). The cable then connects to my laptop or phone via bluetooth. It's pretty cool. I've been using the phone app ALDL Scan to record data while driving around.

The cable was $80 and the Innovative MTX-L wideband with gauge and controller was $155. Plus a few bucks on a female DB9 connector. I don't think these count in the Challenge budget since they are only for tuning and won't be onboard otherwise. Just like you wouldn't count your laptop or tools in the budget. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Scrapped the old stock exhaust. $5.75 for 100 lbs of steel. I'm rich!

Budget update: this puts the Roadmonster at $1,396.45 including the new O2 sensors and bungs I haven't installed yet. Once I install the rear sway bar, 3.42 gears/posi, and new front shocks, the budget will be $1,647.82. Nothing really planned after that, except tires.