SkinnyG's V8 Pontiac Firefly

Has it been 8 years! That is scary.

SkinnyG wrote: In reply to Gunchsta: I purpose to appropriately utilize a modicum of the colloquial vernacular.

I had to google 'modicum'. I'm impressed with your vocabulary, and apparently unimpressed with my own.

Also 8 years?! That's impressive. I lose focus after a couple months. Perhaps if I spent more time working on my vocabulary I could acquire more patience for long term projects.

I had been working on it quietly at the school for a number of years before I started this thread. I wanted it all hush-hush until the big "reveal" - but inspired by many of the build threads on here, I started documenting it all in hopes that it would motivate me to finish it. With this thread going, I feel a responsibility to y'all to keep it updated.

Breakfast done. Coffee done. Kibitzing on the 'net done. Played a couple tunes on the cigar-box-guitar. Wife and kids are off to town. Time to head to the shop.....

I decided to put another coat of primer over the heater core opening into the engine bay. I'll paint it red tomorrow, and probably connect the heater hoses at that time. Assuming they don't kink like a drunken monkey trying to find their way there. It was a year or so ago when I built this rad from a Ford Ranger core with a busted tank. I never tested it, so since it had to come out to deal with adding a heater, I might as well test it. I machined a plug and threaded an air coupler, then just turned the compressor output to 10psi (yes, that's a water bottle in the other hose). NO LEAKS! YAY! I was so giddy, I just couldn't focus.

I got to thinking about how to run the fuel lines. I'd prefer to run the fuel lines down the back of the motor, but there isn't a lot of room back there, and awful close to exhaust pipes. Then I remembered running passageways through the frame rail crossmembers to the rockers just for that. Just have to get the fuel lines out front. I didn't like the idea of running a lot of rubber under the hood, and those fancy braided hoses are pricey (though I can appreciate their appeal).

I had a couple spools of fuel line, so I bent my own hard line for supply and return. I still have rubber connectors, only because I was connecting to the stub of the OEM TBI fittings. I may look at fabricating my own adapter to go from TBI to AN or something. I know they exist, but I already own the tools that can do make them.

After pulling the water pump off to run the fuel lines, I noticed the TDC mark on the harmonic balancer wasn't super clear. I like to paint the line white so it's easy to see.

Fuel lines all buttoned up, and you can see the heater core poking out of the primered area right by the engine dipstick.

The heater core is going to install almost above the passenger's unusually small feet. A couple hose covered pegs on the left will cradle the left heater core tank, whilst a rectangular loop will surround the right heater core tank. This loop has a pin at the top which is located in a nut welded to the fresh-air-closing-off-plate (because the engine is set back far enough that that air ain't going to be all that fresh no more). The bottom is bolted to a nut welded at the wheel well. The whole thing pops out really nice and simple. VERY service friendly.

All this work is going to be really funny when I learn that I need to cut the wheel wells to clear the larger-than-space-saver-size wheels and tires. Hahahaha. Yeah. The heater core, with CPU fan, with mounted 3D printed CPU-Fan-to-dual-sump-pump-flex-hose adapter, all cleverly located in a horrific space to work in.

And, because I'm on a roll, I bent up a hardline for the TH350 vacuum modulator. This was my second attempt. The first one I made sucked.

A while back I fabricated an electric fan mount, but I wasn't totally happy with the lack of shrouding. I thought I could do better. Scavenged road sign from highway maintenance scrap yard (rad and fan in background):

Cutting, bending, welding...

Notching to clear the fan mount.

More to come.

Been under the weather a bit, but I'm on the mend. Rad shroud finished.

And mounted. Heater core hoses done too, though I think I should fab some sort of bleeder.

Nothing new to show, however today I chased some stray wires in the back of the car, and found the e-brake wire, door pin wires, seat belt wires, removed all the wiring to the hatch wiper and squirter (neither of which the car has).

I also mounted the original windshield washer bottle, and found the cut wire that runs it and hooked it up. Mounted the original rad overflow bottle, but I can't find the cap for it. Finished hooking up the front lights and tail lights.

Wired the cooling fan. No idea what the fan is out of. Might be a Lumina van, might be a Taurus or Tempo or something that went to the crusher at school. It moves air, that's what matters.

I discovered that I don't have a wire from the fuel pump relay coming into the passenger compartment really. There is one for the ECU to (I guess) know the pump is on, but no wire to run to the pump. That will be tomorrow's task.

I set the dash in place to figure out where the best place for a battery bulkhead fitting should go. I have reasonable room for its location, just gotta make sure heater ducting can get there.

Discovered the sump pump ducting isn't exactly the ID it's supposed to be for the tubing I need it to connect to. I'm working on a solution for that.

Tomorrow if all goes well, I should be able to hook up a battery and see if any smoke comes out. I'm not ready for running it yet, but I want to get the electrical out of the way.

Any progress made is much appreciated.....thanks for the journey

--sigh-- Almost got there. I was up 'till 1am last night working on the Firefly, and by 11pm tonight my body was crashing, despite what my mind wanted to do. I resolved a stray wire that apparently turns the light on inside the (now absent) stereo. The battery bulkhead fitting is placed just behind the passenger side head. Lots of room on either side, and makes it easy to connect to the starter as well as run the EFI.

Suzuki deals with the "Charge" light differently than GM did. The light needs to see POS from the alt on one side and POS from the battery on the other side or the light comes on. To make this work, I needed to alter the gauge cluster circuit. I cut the common ground off of the "Charge" indicator lamp, corrected the rest of the ground, and tapped into it with a wire. The eyelet screwed down in the bottom right is just a strain relief and does nothing. To make it less drunk if someone has to remove the gauge cluster, I ran the wire through a pin I had cut out. Ideally this new wire then taps into keyed power, but I need to run this to the disconnect switch at the back. (Edit 17-10-09: This was completely unnecessary, it would have worked fine.)

Fuse box got tidied up and mounted. Connected a few grounds.

I hoped to be able to light up the electrical today, but I think it's best to be overly cautious and make sure it all looks very good before inviting the Prince of Darkness. Where I'm working:

Whenever I fire up a new wiring job, I put a 8amp fuse in line with the + battery cable while I check out all the circuits one at a time. Cant turn the starter, but it will prevent frying anything.

Good call on the fuse. I made a fused alligator-clip-wire-connector-thingie to tie into the electrical. Only had a 10A fuse, but figured it would do.

There's good news.

No smoke came out.

Wipers work on both high and low. Squirter works.

Signals work. 4-way works.

Brake lights work.

Park lights work.

Horn works.

Fuel pump relay clicks to prime (no pump attached yet, did not check for voltage).

There is 12V at the ignition coil when the key is "on."

Check engine light, battery light, and oil pressure light are on when the key is on (engine off).

No headlights though. Juice going to them, but probably lost the ground in the dash harness somewhere.

No cluster lights when the lights are on - but the switches are backlit as they should.

No juice to starter solenoid (not connected, just checking for voltage).

No "bulb test relay" action. No relay at all. Probably related to the not-likely-going-to-crank issue. I need to find out where it went. I have NO extra relay in my dwindling boxes of electrical stuff.

Fixed the crank issue. Apparently the clutch-pedal-switch plug and the key-buzzer plug are ~not~ interchangeable, despite looking identical. Bulb test now works on cranking. Funny that.

Went through the lights - I can turn the headlights lights on and off by grounding the correct pin at the dash connector, but I suspect there is a problem with the light switch itself. When the switch is connected, at have 12.8V at the headlight source, and 11.8V at the groundable legs. I will take the switch apart and see what I can do.

I NOW HAVE LIGHTS!

YAY!

I took the light switch apart, gave it a thorough cleaning and some dielectric grease to help reduce corrosion, and that got me high beams.

High and Low are determined by the signal stalk, so I took THAT apart as well, and gave it a thorough cleaning too. That gave me low beams!

I'm VERY happy!

Next: Finish the fuel tank.

I cannot begin to tell you how good this feels:

When I bought the Firebird, the previous owner had installed a 14" chrome open-element air filter. Instead of properly connecting the PCV fresh air to it, he just zap strapped the factory filter to what was left of the tube. Not what I wanted.

The air filter I am using is an Edelbrock Pro-Flow 1000 because it fits. It came with pieces to attach the PCV system properly, using 1/2" hose. I went to LordCo and bought a couple feet of 1/2" fuel hose (turned out they gave me 7/16", but it worked).

I then started machining a bung out of 3/8" SCH40 pipe, but discovered that the PCV tube was aluminum, not steel, so I made another one out of 5/8" solid aluminum round. These I TIG'd together (but didn't even think to use my sand blaster to clean it up first - I'm not used to having everything accessible - haha! Consequently not my prettiest welding).

I also re-organized the fuel-relay/fan-relay/MAP-sensor/knock-sensor-module area and cleaned up the wiring on the motor. I reconnected the wiper arms (that ~just~ clear the TBI and the distributor), and started figuring out the windshield squirters.

Tomorrow I need to put some work into the fuel tank. Turned out I made one heck of a mistake on it. Grrrr.....

I'm at a rough $1600US right now, but I bet I've forgotten some things.

Previously on the Fiendish Firefly.... "How I screwed up the fuel tank!" I had designed the pump well such that fuel from the left side can only get to the right side (and vice-versa) strictly by going through the pump well (those with TIG experience can see that I went through a lot of Tungsten).

I also placed the well such that no fuel can escape under acceleration. Once it was all together, I decided to drop the tank a bit lower in the chassis, which necessitated notching to clear the tail pipe.

As you can see - I notched the wrong freaking side. Yay. The pump well is at the front. So..... I decided cutting the notch out and swapping sides was the easiest. Out comes the circular saw. With a wood blade. Aluminum is organic, isn't it?

And then welded back together outside and in, and just now welded the top on.

Next - finalize where the filler needs to go.

Final welding around the top.

Oh. And guess what?! Turns out the fuel pickup hole is in the wrong place. Sweet.

Whoever designed the parts for this car should be shot.

Again I fired up the circular saw and sliced out the hole in such a way that by rotating it 180°, the holes moves over 2" to the left, and 1/2 inch down. I used the last of my 3/32" rod to weld it all back together. The angrier I get, the uglier my welding gets.

Sure hope this swiss cheese tank doesn't leak.

Looks great.

SkinnyG wrote: The angrier I get, the uglier my welding gets.

As a complete novice aluminum weldor, those welds look great! As does the whole project. This ship in a bottle you are building is incredible.

Added a mounting flange around the perimeter of the tank, and then started completing the mounting flange around where the spare tire well used to be, so the tank can be sealed and fastened down. I made this brake at work, 3 hours from in my head, to in my truck. It worked grand for doing the rocker panels, and is useful for more sheet metal work.

Tank in its happy new home. No filler tube yet. It's a'comin.

Fuel tank now completely separated from the passenger compartment. Yay "street legal" and "safe." Zinc primer for now.

Your novice welds are nicer looking than many that folks pay for. The tank setup looks really tidy.

That cover is awesome!

I really don't want to do this....