Girlfriend's dream car - Pontiac Astre

In reply to vwcorvette :

Oh my bad, Yeah the T.V. Cable we got a bracket for that. We have spent a bit of time reviewing some walk through how to properly set it up. Hopefully we dont cook it! are you aware if we can use the cable from the van? or do we have to pickup an aftermarket cable?

Actually a good friend of mine is in the process of doing that exact swap. GN buick v6 into a 72' vega

UPDATE:

Soooo I forgot about third winter when I started saying spring is here, time to get the cars out, race season is coming. I re-looked at my calender. Yup third winter

So Im out there welding up a patch on the Astre for the girlfriend not reading the news and the snowfall warning saying we will get a surprise 20cm of snowfall overnight.....damn. well I did manage to very haggardly weld the patch in mostly before the inch of snow on what I was welding and on me started to frustrate me.

Do you have the mounts, pan and water pump for the conversion?  Or are you buying new?  

Ha, Mud Season. People who live in the city don't know about Mud Season. It can be 6 weeks long in Ohio.

Once again, I'm in awe of your dedication.  I'm also embarrassed that I was reluctant to go out to the garage last night because it was only 50 degrees F out there.

In reply to wheels777 :

We've got Headers and Motor mounts on order, the mounts would've costed basically the amount they couldve costed if i made them so it was a no brainer. and the headers we initially planned to get an old set of longtubes and chop them up and modify. but because she really wants to get her car driving by july and the restraints of work, my car and racing. We thought it just to be better to buy ones that fit and slam them in save the time.

Oil pan we are just planning to chop up the factory one and clearance it for the steering. Its a common modification, might attempt a sort of baffled 7 quart pan as well

for the water pump we are going to use a short chevy pump off a 60's corvette. and potentially my old radiator out of my 89 mustang if we can make it fit in front of the rad support. factory vega radiators are dwarfed by ones from little kubota tractors, and V8 monza ones are very hard to come by.

In reply to GCrites80s :

Haha this is my first time seeing mud season and its not fun to work in whatsoever. would take 30 below over it

In reply to APEowner :

Thanks man, when we wanna get something done we "git er' done!". Im really impressed with how much effort the GF is putting into her build seeing as she works 2 jobs, and juggles taking care of her horse. Its going to be sweet once its complete!

Rushcanuck said:

In reply to vwcorvette :

Oh my bad, Yeah the T.V. Cable we got a bracket for that. We have spent a bit of time reviewing some walk through how to properly set it up. Hopefully we dont cook it! are you aware if we can use the cable from the van? or do we have to pickup an aftermarket cable?

Actually a good friend of mine is in the process of doing that exact swap. GN buick v6 into a 72' vega

There  are a few different cables. The key is to get the distance from the mount to the bell crank right. Numerous youtube videos you should watch can help. Some better than others. I watch a bunch to get a good idea of how to set up. My safari 700r4  bolted right up to the sbc I was using  from my Vette so I used the cable that came with. And use the correct adapter on the bell crank.

vwcorvette said:

Rushcanuck said:

In reply to vwcorvette :

Oh my bad, Yeah the T.V. Cable we got a bracket for that. We have spent a bit of time reviewing some walk through how to properly set it up. Hopefully we dont cook it! are you aware if we can use the cable from the van? or do we have to pickup an aftermarket cable?

Actually a good friend of mine is in the process of doing that exact swap. GN buick v6 into a 72' vega

There  are a few different cables. The key is to get the distance from the mount to the bell crank right. Numerous youtube videos you should watch can help. Some better than others. I watch a bunch to get a good idea of how to set up. My safari 700r4  bolted right up to the sbc I was using  from my Vette so I used the cable that came with. And use the correct adapter on the bell crank.

So with an adjustable throttle cable/kickdown/t.v cable bracket I should be able to use whatever cable the van came with in theory? I did get a holley 700r4 t.v cable bell crank bracket to mount it to the carb. beyond this its just a basic setup in making sure from what iver heard making sure the cable is tight at full throttle (like a guitar string) but still loose at idle.

Thanks for the help btw, playing with automatics is all new to me

In reply to Rushcanuck :

I used the cable already on my Safari. Took some fabrication to come up with bracketry that allowed the right distances.  Used one of those transdapt universal kits I got at Auto zone. 

UPDATE:

Well its still snowing on and off but mud season has begun

We've spent the last couple days after work to weld all the engine bay seams and bondo them, smoothing out the engine bay reasonably well. Still one more skim of bondo left to do then a final sanding then we are planning to use POR15 and and brush the engine bay all down. Took her a ton of effort but finally she's got the engine bay and crossmember clean of the 40 so on years of mud and grease.

We also scored a set of 2wd S10 spindles and a complete rear axle assembly for cheap! The spindles and brakes will provide much more stopping power then the stock not vented Vega brakes. and the rear end is a chevy 8.5" with a open 4.11 gears which should give her a mighty hole-shot

If that's an S10 axle, that'll be a 7.5" rear.  Looks too small to be an 8.5.

Also learned that Dave of Dave's Vega Village passed on some time ago, so he will likely be less helpful now.

In reply to SkinnyG :

Your right, it is a 7.5". it does look quite a bit larger then the stock diff in the Astre tho, and with 4.11's should be an improvement. Do you have any pics of your traction arm setup you did>

And that explains why when I called Dave their was no answer and I never got a call back to my message.

UPDATE:

She POR15'd the engine bay after I welded all the seams for the strut towers as well as the fender skirts to the frame rail. Anywhere the car originally had either rivets or spot welds. This Ive heard is a very common chassis stiffening option many people have done to keep these H-bodys doors closing, and driving straight lol

We also lifted the transmission out, believe it or not the trans was much heavier then the engine block. 

We swapped the heater core backwards and re-drilled the housing to make more room for the V8's valve cover

Waiting on the snow to melt a bit more so we can get to the donor van out as well as for parts on backorder to show up

I think I put 1/4" steel plates in the floors under the front seats, with brackets poking out through an existing hole in the floor (might have had to remove a rubber plug or something) to attach the ladder bars to. Bars have to neck down some as they go under the car. The longer they are, the better. You'll want to lose the factory 4-link if you go ladder bar, otherwise there will be binding.  Ladder bars are not the best for the street, but they work well for drag.

Mind you, this was back in 1995.  My memory gets a bit foggy.

UPDATE:

so have made some good progress here. We pulled the motor from the van, that was fun. I dont think ive ever used a sawsall so much in pulling a motor lol. "Oh electrical - cut it" "Oh emissions - cut it" "Oh whats that? - cut it". took about 4 hours to pull but now we've got our 350-700r4 for the swap

in the background here is my daily driven autocross mustang. fresh off her first race day

She's also recieved her headers and motor mounts finally and I showed her how to wrap headers. She did an awesome job and they look great!

luckily a local guy is doing a motor rebuild on his 78 sunbird (aka an Astre/Vega after GM realized that the name was too tainted to continue) I asked to get a ton of photos of the engine bay of a factory V8 car as well as what will be needed when it comes to the oil pan modifications

Motor is getting torn down to a longblock today hopefully more pics and updates soon

 Check your intake manifold carefully if you are using the heads from that TBI 350.   1987 and newer "centerbolt" heads are different than the previous ones. Vortec heads are a third thing.

Watching with interest. H bodies are cool..

Bowtie overdrives has a good section on how to set up your TV cable.

In reply to Gearheadotaku :

Heads are the angled TBI heads and the intake is the old school sbc style. Just going to widen the holes a bit and make angle adapters from some round stock with an angle grinder.

Thanks man I'll take a look there. Seems to be fairly simple setup I'm shocked so many have trouble with it.

I love the car, it's like a mini camaro. Hoping she' going to be happy with it when it' done

UPDATE:

Havent updated in awhile. BIG UPDATE

Engine and Car meet

GF swapped the cam over to a melling 22200, wasn't the first time she has done a cam swap so it went quite quickly and hitch free.

She painted the engine Pontiac Blue Metallic. And this is the motor with the transdapt front mount engine mounts

I then modified the oil pan for her

Then the motor and trans went in and out about 15 times clearance the trans tunnel which we first tried to do by hammering and were left with needing to cut and overlap the top of the trans tunnel to get the engine and trans sitting where we wanted

We've also built a transmission crossmember, and modified the K-member and rad support to allow us to use a 1995 K1500 radiator we had given to us

I did something similar with the new engine in my Firefly - old school heads, with a newer TBI intake.  I slotted and ground the intake until the not-angled bolts would actually work.

Interesting motor mounts.  Is this your own design?

SkinnyG said:

Interesting motor mounts.  Is this your own design?

Looks a lot like the old Hurst style engine mounts from the early 1960s.

In reply to SkinnyG :

I did the same! Just backwards. I slotted the intake to work with the tbi heads. Should still work with the old style heads once we get a set

And it's a transdapt front mount kit. Works pretty slick altho I'd choose to do stock mounts now that I have them and see that they'd be significantly easier to mount accessories then this front mount

UPDATE:

So because I decided to run a mid-late 70s corvette water pump which I thought was the same height as a short chevy water pump but costed like $60 less. well it wasnt, its 1/8th inch longer. meaning I couldnt run all the short pump pulleys and I had to pay big bucks for corvette pulleys only available from GM. Nope Ill just space the crank pulley out with a piece of plastic thats good for moderate heat, and make my own alternator bracket

it will use the turnbuckle for the adjustment

ALso because of the free radiator we had given to us was much taller then a stock monza rad we had to make rad mounts, might build some sort of crash bar too to protect it

the engine oil pan and transmission pan both hang lower then the radiator

then came the exhaust, I tack welded the whole thing up under the car so I can easily drop it and weld it up solid easily

And the engine bay is having hoses tracked down, and all the plumbing temporarily run. starting to look complete

We are getting there. Of course the most difficult problems so far have come up. Transmission dipstick..... there already wasnt much space when it came to running the cooler lines, I was forced to run them up and over the valve cover. Now there isnt any space or much space for a transmission dipstick.... Ive tried to use one of the steel braided dipsticks but they are few and far between for a 700r4 and they all seem to be too short.

Secondly the lower rad hose, I might have sorted that out now by finding a hose that ALMOST fits perfectly. The lower rad hose must turn instantly 90 degrees towards the motor, then up, then over away from the motor, then over and into the waterpump. The hose I found makes all the necessary bends up until the bend in to the water pump, it choses to turn into the engine and kinks the whole mess to hell if I attempt to bend it into the pump. so Im left with the dilemma. keep searching... probably wont get much better. Or cut this hose, rotate the last bend towards the pump and use a small sleeve, some rubber cement and hose clamps. Im still pondering this option.... just hoping this is the right one

When I dropped a V8 in to a Vega I fabricated what I remember as a double 90 deg out if exhaust pipe to get a lower rad hose to work.

UPDATE:

She fired the car up the other day, and it ran very well! first crank too. love when you take the time to line things up how things just go perfectly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LhG7CCPUt8

went through a cam break in, also dialed in the carb a bit. added a idle screw which was missing. Had her idling very smoothly within 10 or so minutes

The lower rad hose was made using a 99-02 dakota lower rad hose and rotating the last turn 90 degrees. fits like a glove!

now comes subframe connectors, car gets set on jack stands and then the rear axle, and front spindles get removed, swapping in s10 equipment....stay tuned

UPDATE:

SNOW IS HERE IN  THE NORTH, Time for Winter builds!

So progress did slow on the girlies Astre but it should speed up again here now that Im not racing my own car. see its build here https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/build-projects-and-project-cars/sally-frankenstein-little-bit-of-every-fox-mustang/135188/page5/#post2615157.

She got a car tent to keep the wind of -30 below off us this winter

So the engine is in and it runs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LhG7CCPUt8

she sounds a bit like a tractor but a full break-in and a bit of carb tuning and she'll be great

spray on sound deadener on the floor

built a set of subframe connectors before starting the suspension modifications. 

So we are swapping on a S10 rear end and S10 front spindles, ball joints. We are also going to try and utilize the rear springs off my mustang and Monza V8-A/C front springs.

so in school (Millwright) I made her a set of ball joint sleeves so we can utilize the larger, cheaper, stronger S10 balljoints in the vega arms. it all started with a 2.5" chunk of steel

Now once the old spindles are removed and control arms all we've got to do is hog out the control arm with a die grinder and weld these sleeves in and press in the new ball joints. the upper arms are simpler, weld up the old mounting holes and drill the new ones.

The rear diff was also dropped to make room for the new S10 diff with 4.10 gears.

We also have an abundance of stock car take off tires given to us....guess what Im thinking ;)

I also managed to pickup a set of free vortec heads from a guy at work that will go on the car maybe next year once she gets a hang of the car on the track.

Thats all for now hopefully progress will start to really accelerate now that it is winter