Impending Vortec Swap

[alia176]

Dude, your wallet is have a heavy flow week......

 

[lazy]

I'm bleeding money and soon it will be blood once my wife finds out what I'm spending.

Started my tangle tonight. I saw rockjock throws the ecm into the battery box, Anyone ever put one in the cab on the passenger side?

And put some Jimmy hats on the spark plug wires.

 

[scottryana]

Those look like nice flowing cast headers

 

[lazy]

Those look like nice flowing cast headers

Thanks. I like that they resemble stock better than the center dumps. I think I'll need to cut the ear off the transmission on the left side where the header comes down. the bell housing is tapped for a bolt, but the lower bell housing doesn't have a hole. such is life....

 

[bloc]

advantage/disadvantage to cast vs tubular?

Are you going to get them coated?

 

[jkdowty]

advantage/disadvantage to cast vs tubular?

Are you going to get them coated?

I believe he did it for emissions compliance in Colorado... I could be wrong though...

 

[lazy]

Didn't think about getting them coated? $250, and they cost $75 more? Any advantage other than corrosion?

You don't have to run these headers for emissions in CO

 

[bloc]

Seems like I've always heard that the ceramic coatings keep a good deal of the heat within the header and reduce underhood temps, which is a major goal of mine. The extent to which that is true? No idea.. haven't tried it yet. But a LOT of people running aftermarket headers seem to think it's worth the $$

It was on the long list of stuff I want to do with my vortec swap but I'm nowhere near starting.. figure I had more time to research details like that.

 

[scottryana]

It really depends on the coating. If you do a true thick ceramic coating like Swaintech it does help quite a bit. But many of the thin high temp coatings are really just corrosion prevention. They put ceramic in the name but it's more like a powder coat than the Swaintech White lightening.

 

[bloc]

Per swaintech's info page on White Lightning:

"White Lightning™ insulating headers typically reduces radiant heat by about 35-55%."

They also confirmed what @scottryana said about coating thickness.. theirs comes in at .015 whereas most "ceramic" coatings (basically high-temp paint) are .002

But.. for cast manifolds the price is $150-$235 per manifold.

How's that wallet looking @lazy

 

[dogfishlake]

There are only a couple of manufacturers of the wet coat high temp ceramic coatings that basically all the high temp coating outfits use. Powder coating will not withstand the heat unless it is high temp silicone based material and even then it is borderline (working great on mine).
Ceramic coating will reduce underhood temps if the coating is reflective (silver) and coated on the inside of the header, hence reflecting radiant heat back into to exhaust path.
What you need to find is a quality applicator like Swain, but there are others as well. Like in the relatively young custom powder coating world, references from others are king.

 

[alia176]

screw all this coating talk, just get the damn thing running first

 

[lazy]

Can I ax diagnostic port and connect 2 abs wires?

 

[lazy]

so, going the long way about this...essentially all you need from the original harness is the EC1 connection to the t case, ground and hot for the starter relay and if keeping stock gauges - the P1 transmission connector which has all the park/neutral/1st etc. I think You do need to tap the p/n wires for the starter to crank.... but no toyota ecm like I thought I would need....

Is this correct?

 

[jkdowty]

so, going the long way about this...essentially all you need from the original harness is the EC1 connection to the t case, ground and hot for the starter relay and if keeping stock gauges - the P1 transmission connector which has all the park/neutral/1st etc. I think You do need to tap the p/n wires for the starter to crank.... but no toyota ecm like I thought I would need....

Is this correct?

I was wondering the same if I needed to keep the yota ECM myself... All the motor swaps I've done previously, involved a carb, or we put the fast EFI on it... This is my first motor swap involving a computer....

 

[slow95z]

I would think you need the ecm if you want stock gauges to work but I could be way off. Still stock piling parts myself and waiting on cooler weather.

 

[bloc]

stock gauges don't take any signal from toyota ECU. Actually that's not 100% correct.. 93-94 doesnt, 95+ gets the tach signal from the ECU instead of the coil (like 93-94)

And I guess technically the check engine and check transmission lights come from respective computers, but I assumed you'd be wiring those with the chevy modules

temp gauge uses it's own sender on front of head
oil pressure sender under stock ex mani
volt from alternator
tach as noted above
speedo comes direct from sensor on xfer and actually then goes OUT to ECU/locker computer/cruise/etc

 

[lazy]

Thinking more about it, I shouldn't even need the starter wires on the toyota going with Dakota Digital gauges (which are supposed to be delivered today). Also, the P1 w/ P/N/2/1 for transmission can get axed too, I think. So all this toyota harness business boils down to keeping the IH1 and IH2 on the under dash side and the EC1 (to transfer case sensors) and the diagnostic port if keeping air bags? You'll need to tap some thing on the E7 connector which is an output from the toyota ECM (I need to research this some more).

Anyone know where the GM EWD's are available?

 

[bloc]

No idea on GM EWD, but yes, E7 is the primary connector from ECU to the toyota dash/chassis.

part of my build required a spreadsheet indexing all of those wires.. I'll dig it up and post here.

 

[bloc]

This is the pinout for a 97 LX450 ECU connector "E7"