BUILD THREAD Do I get a membership card now?

[81cutlass]

More odd ramblings.

Ordered a o2 senser so I'll change that this week. Car for sure has a miss at idle but the plugs look good. It seems like it gets worse when it's warm so it leads me to think it's a coil or module.

Put a boost gauge on and it makes boost pretty easy, at least easier than my draw through Cutlass. Makes 5lbs pretty easy and 10 isn't hard either even at half throttle. I bet that extra 20 cubic inch over the 3.8 really makes that turbo act small.

Put my Stewart Warner electronic fuel pressure gauge and it read 19psi, what!?! I bought a mechanical gauge after work and measured that too and it said 36 so that's where it should be. The pressure doesn't rise when I removed the vacuum line so it might be stuck on the vacuum side. Now I'm wondering if the electric gauge I've used for the last 6 years is bad or out of calibration or what. I'm concerned now my fuel pressure on the 2+2 is way high now. Anyways, boost does make the fuel pressure rise so that's good news.

I'll put that new narrowband o2 on this week when it shows up and if it doesn't work I'll swap the coil and module and see if that helps.

 

[81cutlass]

Well the car has driven me to work and home 3 days now. I can slightly more confidently say my coil or module are bad, maybe both. It runs good at startup and once it gets some heat into it it starts breaking up and popping under light boost and missing at idle and low throttle. Found a few people on the ole' turbo buick forum that had similar symptoms so i'll swap that stuff.

Luckily I found a coil and module affordable on fb marketplace a few hours away, i'm taking a trip through there this weekend so hopefully I can pick it up this weekend and swap it early next week.

The one big takeaway with this swap, is the car sounds (minus the turbo spool) and looks the same, but is finally not slow. It has more power at 0psi than the old 2 bbl 3.8 had wide open. It hits 5psi and actually moves surprisingly fast. I am honestly scared (in a good way) I will take it to the track next month and it will click off like a 12.50 or something. I spent years trying to get my l67 firebird to go 12.60's and it runs e85, bigger cam, custom fab everything, and this feels like its just as fast and I built the engine in 1 month 2 years ago after a few days of work and the swap has taken about 4 months after work and weekends.

I'm happy so far! It has a slight front oil leak i havn't found the speedometer sqweaks but its a turbo wagon which is what I wanted 🙂



And more of a note to myself-

Previous owner said the engine had a mild erson cam in it. I wrote the numbers down when the engine was apart, and threw it away when I cleaned up after the rebuild.

I have a .448/.472 lift 204/[email protected] 280/290 duration edelbrock cam in my cutlass and it has a mild chop to it, this cam does not, which means it is actually mild, for sure more mild than my cutlass.

http://www.osorracing.com/cams/Buick/Buick.html

I have one of the following, based on they are the only 2 erson cams more mild than my edelbrock, I assume the E670131 is what I have.
Name Lift Duration
E670131 0.423/0.423 274.0/274.0
E670101 0.423/0.423 280.0/280.0
Stock 0.384/.0408 258/262
Edel 5487 0.448/0.472 280/290

 

[Turbo Zach]

Now you can see what the fuss is all about with these Turbo six's. Just think if you would have built one of these instead of the draw though engine in your Cutlass?

 

[81cutlass]

If I would have been able to find a sfi engine for my Cutlass when I was 15 I would totally gone for it. Yeah the turbo sfi hype is pretty cool!

My hunch was right.

I found a coil and module on marketplace for $50, picked it up Friday and swapped it tonight. It fixed the misfiring! Car runs good now, I'm pretty happy!


Speedometer cable is making scratching noises and the needle is jumping around allot over 45, any suggestions for a lubricant?

 

[Texas82GP]

If I would have been able to find a sfi engine for my Cutlass when I was 15 I would totally gone for it. Yeah the turbo sfi hype is pretty cool!

My hunch was right.

I found a coil and module on marketplace for $50, picked it up Friday and swapped it tonight. It fixed the misfiring! Car runs good now, I'm pretty happy!


Speedometer cable is making scratching noises and the needle is jumping around allot over 45, any suggestions for a lubricant?

 

[fleming442]

Spit on it.

 

[motorheadmike]

Just got caught up. Very well done!

Well I am living the turbo buick life. Bad MAF's and cracked manifolds.

I bought all these parts loose from a part out on a T-type 10+ years ago. The guy gave me 2 MAF's, one was off a 26k mile GN and had sharpie on it saying "Bad, probably" and there was another one in a box that looked clean and said "Tested good on car". I have been using the "bad" one for mockup and swapped to the "good" one for running the car. It turns out the bad one was good and the good one was bad, so I swapped the maf's and the car runs better.

I also have been dealing with a smoke volcano out of the drivers manifold. Looked and yup it was cracked. Took the manifold off and MIG welded it up with some stainless 308 wire. We will see if it holds..... While taking the manifold off I realized I never tightened the crossover on that side fully so that was my real problem, but the manifold was still cracked so I'm glad its fixed.

Car actually starts and runs. Hopefully I will get the e-fans wired tonight and run the car a bit, I will see if it gets up to temp and do a mini break in. The cam is reused from when i got the engine so it's already broken in but its a flat tappet so that doesnt mean much. I did get some engine break in oil so that might help.

Car has also been burning a TON of oil and making white smoke for the 60 seconds it had run so far, I hope its just raw oil in the cylinders from the rebuild and not something more serious. Good news is it makes 60psi of cold oil pressure and seems to start good so there are some wins.

View attachment 107247
View attachment 107248

And this is why Instagram welders can eat a d*ck. Mass produced factory MIG welds held for years.

 

[81cutlass]

Pulled the turbo and put the coolant temp sender in for the dash and the 02 sensor.

The dash temp sensor doesn't work. I gotta do some wiring checks.

Good news, the 02 sensor helped. It runs a bit better and doesnt stumble and surge like it used to a bit here and there.

Little bit here and little bit there, keeps getting better!

 

[81cutlass]

Had the day off for travel from Easter weekend and ended up with extra time and 2 hrs away from my favorite salvage yard back near home SO I decided to run out today and get some odds and ends.

Blah lost my topic, fat fingers... Take 2

 

[81cutlass]

So my haul-

Grabbed my 78 sport coupe turbo hood I had sitting at Dads back home, needs some body work but eh.

A ralley gauge buick cluster out of all things an 82 regal wagon. I didnt know raley gauges existed in buicks outside of turbo cars, car was SUPER heavy optioned, remote passenger mirror, cruise lights in the dash, rear defog, split bench. Best part is the mint bezel which is WAY better than the one i got out of that 78 sport coupe

Script olds valve covers

And 2 G body wagon rear window wings. I got 1 75% off when I stripped a screw, gave up and found another one, hauled it to the front office, decided i wasnt going to leave it out there when i was almost done and grabbed an end snips and went back out there. They are both missing the screw covers but the 30 wagons they have there only 3 had the wings and 1 was not able to get removed so i feel happy.

I also got some odds and ends window crank handle, one of my missing door pull covers and a window switch for the clip thats broke on the GP.