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Hacksters daily driver 242.....lq4 and t56

Understand. I think I may solve that problem right up front by opening up the tunnel throughout that area. And I understand about engine positioning. Does it bother you equally that you don't sit in the middle of the car when driving? ;) We all have our quirks....no one is immune from that disease. My version is those coil packs on top of the valve covers. Can't abide them. Gotta move 'em underneath on either side of the oil pan and run the wires 'up' to the plugs.

BTW - really nice job on the bracketry....

Michael
 
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MH.....your funny!! No i dont neet to sit in the middle of the car, but things need to be centered. I couldnt agree more about the dumb coil packs. I think I have a plan for them to go away though. My goal here is for it to look like the volvo factory installed the corvette motor into the 1981 242 at the factory.

Did not get a ton done last night as I had to go pick up a 28' enclosed trailer with a $150,000 austin healey in it.

But I was able to get through some of the wiring.

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I was able to pull out both of the computers and narrowed down all of the wiring for the ignition computer. There was one oddity though. There is a blue wire with a red strip that runs from the seat belt relay to the computer? Anyone knkow what to do with this wire without the computer in the loop?

The O2 computer was much easier to identify with. All of that was pretty easily identified and I know what is what now. A lot of it will just not be needed for the conversion.

I do have a question for those of you that are knowledgable on this though. The Grey wire that goes from the computer output to the fuel pump relay I understand. However there is a brown wire that runs from the o2 computer out to the ______. I found the plug in the engine bay but not 100% sure what to do with the wires from the computer.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Ordered a gaggle of stuff yesterday and hope to get the clutch master, radiator and fan ordered today.

Sean
 
It went to some valve on the engine. Brown wire to one side and green wire to the other for some reason my brain will just not remember what its called.

The green wire from the valve goes to the fuel pump relay. Fuel Compensator? Some crap like that.

Pat.....I think you should stop in tonight to advise :-P

You will love my mess now.

Sean
 
b21f kjet na was an absolute joke. Not to mention it did not run very well it wsa so slow that my wife would not even drive it.

This car looks like its in great shape before you even started cleaning it, is the b21 that much of a joke, haha I'll be building my b21 up eventually!

Keep up the awesome progress, I'm already subscribed!
 
The car was in really really good shape for an 81 242. The paint and bodywork to me was the selling point of the car.

I know that the b21f is a stout little motor....naturally aspirated k jet is a train wreck if you ask me.

Now that I have the car this torn apart, I know that I made the right decision. The wiring on the motor was really really bad, to the point that it could have easlily been a disaster.

Speaking of wiring.... The past two days have been spent pouring over wiring diagrams, haynes manuals and green books.

I was finally able to make heads and tail out of what was in the car so I went to town gutting what I did not need and building the harness for the car side of things.

I also found that the wiring to the fuel pump relay was toast, so much that the connectors had melted :omg:

This was just not going to cut it for me so I yarded a bunch of stuff out and built my own fuel delivery wiring with one relay dedicated for each pump, this will give me the ability to seriously upgrade the pumps if I need to down the road.

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Once that was all buttoned up I made my way to the engine compartment and eliminated all the excess wiring in the engine bay and installed a 4 pin weatherpack connector. This harness runs the starter, alternator excite wire oil pressure and temperature sending units. Basically all that the car will need to see to keep all of the guages operating and happy.

I was also able to get the entire engine harness through the tiny hole in the fire wall and get it laid out on the motor and where it needed to be. I have all of the plugs landed except for the O2 and a couple others.

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Got tired of wiring so I decided to do some cleaning and reassembly. Put the core support, headlights hood latch coolant tank and windshield washer assy back in after a thorough clean up and a quick sandblast and respray. Got the Battery tray back in as well.

I think these give an idea of the look I am going for now as stock as possible but with an ls motor.

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Bunch of parts should arrive tomorrow and friday....maybe enough stuff that I can turn the old girl over this weekend.

Sean
 
TalkingGoats - If you look at the pics on the 1st page -- you'll see 4.8/5.3 on the cast iron block. Sean's motor is either a Vortec 4800 or Vortec 5300 -- which were 4.8L and 5.3L cast iron block/aluminum head truck/SUV engines. I believe Sean references the 5.3L version elsewhere in the thread. Although it's been referred to as an "LQ4" elsewhere in the thread I believe that's a misnomer. The LQ4 was a 6.0L cast iron block/aluminum head truck motor. The only cast iron heads were on some 6.0L truck engines in '99/'00 - that was an all cast iron motor. Yes, the past dies hard at GM.

The gasoline-only version of the 5.3L motor was the LM7; the flex-fuel version was the L59. If it's the 4.8L version it's the LR4.

Did you ever verify exactly which motor you have Sean? My experience with the old K-jet motor tells me that if you drive the car gingerly - it should equal or perhaps exceed the fuel mileage of the lump that came out. And, of course, it's going to be a bit more 'spritely'.

FWIW - I'm completely re-doing the fueling system on mine in prep for an LS3 at some point. And I've decided to completely do away with the old Volvo fuel pump(s) relay. Separate stand-alone relay firing a single in-tank pump. Looks like you're taking the approach of firing a new relay off the stock one based on the picture above?

Looks nice under the hood...
 
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this is redonkulous... i thought i was envious enough of just your other 242 :grrr:

pat, what kind of extractor is that you use? i want one! :omg:
i detail cars on the side and thats exactly what i need to take it to the next level.
 
Pat, That stash is dwindling but yeah it has made this much more convenient and spruces upthe engine compartment a little bit. Your so funny how you notice all the little details that nobody would ever even pick up on. :)

Oil Pan clearance is great. The bottom of the oil pan is about 1/8" above the botom of the crossmember.

Like Matt said, this is a 5.3 cast iron block with aluminum heads. This is an lm7 motor...not an lq4 like I originally thought I had my designation wrong, it has always beena 5.3.

Yes we verified it with the wrecking yard. We buy lots of these motors for conversions in all kinds of stuff (mostly jeeps and old landcruisers)

This is going to be my daily driver. Part of the reason of going with the 6 speed is to try and get some mileage out of this thing. We have a c5 here at work that can consistently get 29 mpg on the highway. Granted, this is a little bit less aerodynamic, but I dont see any reason why this things wont get mid 20's on the highway.

That stupid volvo relay.....there is a couple of wires that come into and out of that stupid relay that none of my diagrams had on it. So I left it there just for the purpose of not knowing. I know its a lame excuse.

I pulled the two large yellow wires with red stripes off of the stock relay and built an entirely new setup. One relay for each pump, powered from the stock fuse location. This relay is triggered off of the GM computer so I did exactly what you are planning on.

MaxMan- I will be at IPD this year. I would love to be able to have both cars there :oogle: I dont know how much the volvo purist will appreciate the v8 car though. I can always have the wife or a friend drive it over if people have an interest in it.

Hopefully by that time it will have some less gay rollers on it.

Thanks for the props everyone...it motivates me to try and make better stuff.

Sean
 
it would be cool to see both out there. Once show and one go :)Think the V8 would look amazing laying down 2 black strips for a few blocks:cool:
 
My best tank with a slightly hotted up 5.0L (25 year old 'technology') is 27.5 - routinely get 25-26 on the highway. No reason the more contemporary (and torquey) 5.3L shouldn't knock down between 25-30 mpg on the highway relatively easily. ESPECIALLY with the long 6th gear.....you will love it.
 
So.......I had a good day of picking up stuff yesterday and getting boxes in from the Fed Ex guy.

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Also got a sweet radiator (Thanks Cameron) and all of what I thought I needed for the fuel system.

So last night I dug into the fuel system and after at least an hour of debating on what to do, I ended up putting the corvette fuel pressure regualtor in place of the stock volvo fuel filter. I liked the idea more than the actual execution. I need to get some 90 degree fittings to make it look proper in my opinion, but this is going to have to do for now.

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So with that done, I got to work on trying to finishing up some loose ends. Installed the Lokar throttle cable for the LS. Very nice piece by the way.

Pulled the tape off the heads and finally got the bolts in on the intake manifold.

I trimmed the stock mounts off the radiator with a hacksaw drilled one hole in the lower core support for the drain valve and mounted the radiator.

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That was about where I stopped last night.

This morning I went out and made a shopping list, bent up some coat hangers and headed out to my local Baxters and dug through all of their radiator hoses......ended up finding a couple that will work.

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This lower one was a bit tricky, but turned out to be the easy one to do. The upper one was really long and took some trimming but turned out close. Might keep an eye out for something that will have a little more bend at the top.

I picked up a cold air kit on the cheep got it home and promplty cut it up into pieces to fit my needs. I did a bit of research on this one to make sure it would work and it turned out to fit well.

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There is a little rise in it to clear the tensioner and everything clears nicely now.

There is no way I could live with the nasty polished toob so I hit it with some 220 and some wrinkle black to try and keep the oem look going.

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As far as pics thats all.

I also got a ton of loose ends tied up that I did not take photos of. Got the starter installed. Installed the driveline (also realized that the tranny was mounted way to high in the tunnel)

Finalized all the connections on the engine, built an adapter for the volvo sending unit to mount into the ls head. It isnt too pretty but it is functional.

Ran the 0 guage wire from the battery over to the starter and ran an 8 guage wire from the alternator to the starter from there.

I am so close.... Need a plug for the alternator to hook up the excite wire. Need to hook up a few mist hoses and vacuum lines and then I can hook up power and see what happens.

Also picked up an electric pusher fan. since there is no way a fan is fitting in there.

Tomorrow should be descent if I can find the plug I need. :)

Sean
 
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