A Fabricobbler's Guide to the Turbo Buick Galaxy- Cutlass Rehash

[81cutlass]

Where's the turbo from Chy-nah?!

Staying on the shelf for a little while.

The TIG is at dads so I can't do the fab work I need to make it work. Plus I'm trying to just get the car running with what I've got on hand. I need to focus on the trans rebuild before I swap turbos anyways because the low boost 4.1 is going to crush the stock 2004r that's in the car now.

Trans, dynamic EFI conversion, then Chyna.

 

[81cutlass]

Slow day progress wise since I had to change oil on the dailys but managed to get the fender back on and pushed back into it's normal spot. I can work on the trans and exhaust next.

 

[motorheadmike]

Slow day progress wise since I had to change oil on the dailys but managed to get the fender back on and pushed back into it's normal spot. I can work on the trans and exhaust next.

View attachment 197635

Oooh... a danger dolly!

 

[81cutlass]

Oooh... a danger dolly!

They are double danger-

They have 2x4 square tubing between the frame and the casters to give the car some extra height. Dad built them to make pulling the engine easier on my 4th gen because he couldn't fit under the car and loosen bolts when. Those lift blocks under that and my dolly under the K member made pulling the engine super fast.

We did have a set of those danger dollies that folded in half under dad's '73 IH sbss pickup so I totally get their reputation.

 

[81cutlass]

Penny-wise, pound-foolish update #17.3

Continued saga of de-turbo buick culting the engine management of this car.

I needed an O2 sensor bung to weld into the downpipe to fit the wideband O2. Tuning with the narrowband can stay in 1992. I have a bung that came in the AEM wideband kit but it's reserved for the chyna turbo swap and 3" stainless downpipe but that's shelved for now. I'm cheap and didn't want to spend the $1 + $12 shipping to get one in the mail (mostly waiting 4 days) and don't have a tap large enough to make one so I dug in my scrap drawer and found a part from my buddies GTP chyna header kit that I helped him cut up for his Fiero that had a new O2 bung conveniently welded in it. Cut it out of the pipe with the death wheel and cleaned it up on my lathe. Free O2 bung with 5 minute shipping! Yipee! And my wife thinks I keep too much crap in the garage (lol).

Got the downpipe installed and marked for the O2 bung to get welded in.

Also determined where my flex sensor is going and determined I was out of stock of thin aluminum to build a bracket to move forward on that.

My throttle cable miraculously showed up from RA so that's the most recent part I was missing so darn near getting done with that.

An hour a day goes a decent amount!

 

[Texas82GP]

Penny-wise, pound-foolish update #17.3

Continued saga of de-turbo buick culting the engine management of this car.

I needed an O2 sensor bung to weld into the downpipe to fit the wideband O2. Tuning with the narrowband can stay in 1992. I have a bung that came in the AEM wideband kit but it's reserved for the chyna turbo swap and 3" stainless downpipe but that's shelved for now. I'm cheap and didn't want to spend the $1 + $12 shipping to get one in the mail (mostly waiting 4 days) and don't have a tap large enough to make one so I dug in my scrap drawer and found a part from my buddies GTP chyna header kit that I helped him cut up for his Fiero that had a new O2 bung conveniently welded in it. Cut it out of the pipe with the death wheel and cleaned it up on my lathe. Free O2 bung with 5 minute shipping! Yipee! And my wife thinks I keep too much crap in the garage (lol).

Got the downpipe installed and marked for the O2 bung to get welded in.

Also determined where my flex sensor is going and determined I was out of stock of thin aluminum to build a bracket to move forward on that.

My throttle cable miraculously showed up from RA so that's the most recent part I was missing so darn near getting done with that.

An hour a day goes a decent amount!

View attachment 197701

China bad.

 

[64nailhead]

Is there no muffler shops, i.e. Monro, Midas or Meineke, in the heartland??? If the answer is no, then I'm really disappointed in the 3 M's of lifetime exhaust warranties.

Buy them from Amazon, I picked up 5 for less than $15. Never know when new exhaust is in the works haha. And I'm glad to see that someone else is burnin' the late night oil on a Monday nite!

 

[81cutlass]

China bad.

I'm on board with distancing myself with off-shore stuff as much as possible.

But GTP header kit that I stole the bung out was dug out of my friend's scrap pile. All the GTP headers are offshore, you just pay additional for a shop to fix the fitment issues and rebox them at double the price if you decide to buy from the 'american' vendor

And the turbo is a VS racing piece. Honestly VSR turbos have a better reliability that PTE stuff. The really only bolt on grand national turbo options are
1. New precision units (and precisions have a LONG history of whizz-wheeling the compressor or turbine out of the housing or smoking like a cho-cho
or
2. Get on some ex-body builder dude's waitlist in Mass and send him your OEM turbo and wait for it to come back with bigger wheels

I'd LOVE to put a Borg Warner S358/S366 on this car but I think I'd have to cut the hood to fit the soccer ball sized housing and it would probably window the block with the amount of boost it's capable of.

The VSR turbo I got is a 61/62 so plenty big to do what I want but small package and fits well on the OEM header and spacial constraints.

Is there no muffler shops, i.e. Monro, Midas or Meineke, in the heartland??? If the answer is no, then I'm really disappointed in the 3 M's of lifetime exhaust warranties.

Buy them from Amazon, I picked up 5 for less than $15. Never know when new exhaust is in the works haha. And I'm glad to see that someone else is burnin' the late night oil on a Monday nite!

Yeah, there are muffler shops, but they aren't open at 8:45 at night or hiding in my junk pile under my drill press 😛

I need to order a batch next time.

As the Native American's once roamed the great Prairies and hunted bison, using every piece of flesh and bone, I too roam the garbage cans of my friends and salvage every bit of potentially useful crap.

 

[81cutlass]

Kinda struggle bussed tonight

Wanted to button up under the car and finish the exhaust, trans hardware, fuel system and maybe look at getting the last bit of wiring done.

Swapped the welder to stainless wire to burn the O2 sensor bung in the downpipe and stitch the ball coupler off the wagon test pipe to the test pipe on the cutlass. Ended up with birdcrap welds likely due to old oil and exhaust impregnated metal but it's done.

Tried getting the trans bellhousing bolts done but couldn't get the top right bolt in because the dipstick alignment was crap. Turns out the main engine harness runs behind the dipstick not Infront. So pulled that out after fighting with it for too long and then the trans puked what felt like a gallon of ATF on the floor soaking all the tools that were used to torque the bellhousing hardware.

Decided the dipstick tube needed to be black anyway and not farm implement red like i thought it should be when I was 15 so that's drying.

Did finish the fuel system plumbing and just need to flush the system and tighten all the fittings so some success.


Exxon-valdez location: my garage

Bird quap welds

Flex fuel incoming

 

[Texas82GP]

Kinda struggle bussed tonight

Wanted to button up under the car and finish the exhaust, trans hardware, fuel system and maybe look at getting the last bit of wiring done.

Swapped the welder to stainless wire to burn the O2 sensor bung in the downpipe and stitch the ball coupler off the wagon test pipe to the test pipe on the cutlass. Ended up with birdcrap welds likely due to old oil and exhaust impregnated metal but it's done.

Tried getting the trans bellhousing bolts done but couldn't get the top right bolt in because the dipstick alignment was crap. Turns out the main engine harness runs behind the dipstick not Infront. So pulled that out after fighting with it for too long and then the trans puked what felt like a gallon of ATF on the floor soaking all the tools that were used to torque the bellhousing hardware.

Decided the dipstick tube needed to be black anyway and not farm implement red like i thought it should be when I was 15 so that's drying.

Did finish the fuel system plumbing and just need to flush the system and tighten all the fittings so some success.


Exxon-valdez location: my garage



View attachment 197894
Bird quap welds
View attachment 197895

Flex fuel incoming
View attachment 197896

You're out there making progress on a school night. We'll done.