SoCal GenIII Vortec Project (2 Viewers)

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megolfer said:
I would go yo a different ref. There are plenty of people who have been passed with the manifolds you are using.
Click to expand...

That's the plan. I talked to a tuner/conversion shop and they said that worked with one of their clients. But before I make a formal appointment, I'm going to go visit one that's known to be reasonable and helpful to discuss.

But, I gotta get the O2 monitor to fire first.
 
pandasfj said:
Sorry to hear that,wish I new more mechanical to help you out but if you need any help on something, lmk. I did finally get my front end done but still need to wire up my front locker. I ended up taking it for a small drive and my fuel pump started going out on me. I dropped the LR tank and replaced it. Then not more than 20 miles of driving the new Walbro pump died on me. Just got it replaced again with a good after market pump mid December and it works a lot better. Now I can concentrate on my interior but work really gets in way as far as getting to work on it.
Click to expand...

There's a lot of negative stuff written about Walbro pumps. I just kept the original FJ62 pump. So far so good, but I was just thinking that 250k miles is a lot for a fuel pump. I probably should get a new one sometime soon before I get stranded somewhere.

Yeah, work isn't all that it's cracked up to be. I'm one of the lucky ones that doesn't have a job!:rofl:
 
I'm down to only one monitor that's failed to start, the dreaded EVAP monitor...

But the good news is that it's throwing a P0446 code, which indicates the PCM is trying to monitor the EVAP system.

The P0446 is indicative of a clogged vent valve. There's a GM bulletin on the issue. The remedy is to replace it with a new improved design with a remote intake filter. I've got it on order. By the way, I wired in the fuel sender temporarily, with it placed under the hood taped up in the 1/2 full position. I now see that's inadequate, because the PCM looks at the fuel level to estimate the vacuum decay rate as well as whether or not to start the purge. The next step is to replace the vent valve with the improved version and install the sender in the fuel tank per Georg's recommendation. If that doesn't work, then I'm going to take it to a local emmissions control specialist for troubleshooting. If he can't fix it, I'll then go to beg and plead with the referee, but at least I'll have documentation that I tried to get it working.

This is the best reference I've found so far to help understand the EVAP system:

http://www.jagrepair.com/images/AutoRepairPhotos/Evap Article.pdf
 
Update:

IMG_3657.JPG


Isn't that beautiful???

It took months to get to this point. This is a long story, I'll try to make it quick. Basically I finished the conversion in April 2016, and since then I've been taking care of all the things that the California Air Resources Board Referee dinged me on. Most were unreasonable and petty, but they were pretty straightforward to fix, so since I could fix them, I did. The dreaded Evap monitor was a bear. Some folks have been able to get their rig certified without the Evap monitor in a ready state, but my ref wasn't going for it. Since I still have one issue I'm hoping I can negotiate, I wanted to fix everything that was fixable.

So what I did was install the Georg tandem fuel sender fix, where you attach the GM sender to the Toyota sender. That was pretty tricky because there's not much room to get the tandem configuration back in the fuel tank hole. Then the problem is that the PCM calibration was way off. The fuel level needs to be between 85 and 15 percent. The sender delivers a voltage to the PCM, then the PCM reads a table to convert the voltage to the number of gallons remaining so that it can then calculate the percentage to determine whether to run the monitor or not. Since the toyota tank is not the same as the GM tank, you could be lucky in that the calibration is close enough, but it's likely that it's not, depending also how you mounted the GM sender. I bought HPtuners so I could diagnose and reflash the PCM with a recalibrated table.

I got some help from a fella named Eric on the LSTech forum. He was right on the money in sterring me in the right direction.

My final problem is that the Ref did not like my Corvette manifolds. I'm going to make a visit to a different ref this week to get some advice on that. I'm hoping he'll do what other refs have done and OK it, since everything else is fixed now.

The other thing that I learned from monitoring with HPtuners is that the PCM seemed to do a evap system purge and open the vent valve only after a cold start, and only after the truck warmed up idling for 3-4 minutes before driving. Once I recalibrated the fuel level table, it took 4-5 cold starts to achieve a "Ready" status.

That's the short version. There were also hours and hours spent researching, understanding how the evap system works, testing the system, sending he PCM back to Pacific Fabrication for reflashes (before I bought HP tuners), hours chasing my tail, scratching my head and running around in circles, buying and installing unneeded parts, and so on and so forth. It took me 4 months to do the conversion and a year to get to a "ready" status. Pretty crazy - and I don't have the sticker yet - but I see light at the end of the long tunnel!
 
Gotta love CA and all the hoops...

BS to call you on the manifolds, when both GM vehicles are sold in CA!

Glad you are close and good work. Enjoy
 
Great work John....!!!

Let us know how the Chaffey REF goes....!!!

:beer::beer::beer:
 
good news...chasing down some of the electrical/PCM driven/emissions stuff can be mind-numbing. The mechanical stuff is not so crazy but the electrical related can be a "hair-puller".... especially with a emissions inspection/test to consider.
 
Good luck John. Your perseverance is admirable.
 
I can finally close out this thread!

FB0D69A9-D4DD-4F85-B5CB-AF9467A69865.jpeg


It took me three months to do the conversion and 18 months to get the sticker.

A couple of key learnings:

1. Do your homework before choosing a vendor for your PCM flash and your harness. Just because they say that they can do California compliance, that may not be the case.

2. You need to have some intel on the referee before you choose a location. You need to KNOW that the ref has approved at least one RECENT Land Cruiser Conversion. DO NOT go blindly to an unknown ref. The rules are sufficiently vague such that if you get a guy that predisposed to interpreting the rules “to the book”, as opposed to a ref that sees you as a taxpaying customer, you could be in for a long hard slog.

I’ll elaborate: Pacific Fabrication sold me what they call a CA Emmissions compliant harness, but it was missing two components that were necessary to get the ref’s approval. They’re harness did not accommodate a GM fuel tank level sender nor a PRNDL connector. In all fairness to Pacific Fabrication, the interpretation of the rules may be different for NoCal vs. SoCal. To this day, I don’t understand why the PRNDL is necessary, but I believe the fuel level sender is absolutely necessary. You cannot get the Evap Monitor to fire without input from the fuel level sender. Even with the PRNDL switch wired in, there’s something in the Flash that’s not right. Today, the ref could not see the PRNDL status with his scan tool. I had to show him that the PCM sees the change of status using my laptop with HPTuners software.

Pacific Fabrication was very helpful, they always tried to help me and they even built a custom PRNDL harness for me, but basically I was on my own after that. Regarding the HPTuners software, a non-friendly ref could have rejected me today because HIS scan tool could not detect the change of status.

I had to do the “Georg” method of mounting the GM sender in tandem with the Toyota sender. I needed the HPTuners software to recalibrate the values that the PCM reads from the sender. You can’t get the evap monitor to fire unless certain conditions are met, one of which is that the fuel level needs to be between 15% and 85%.

Regarding the Ref, the biggest issue was rejecting the Corvette manifolds. The strict interpretation is that the exhaust manifold MUST be native to the donor VEHICLE. So technically you cannot mix and match manifolds. The corvette manifolds are obviously wrong because of the O2 sensor in the middle. If I went to the right ref right from the beginning, it’s possible that I could have achieved certification without swapping the manifolds or installing the PRNDL switch or installing the fuel level sender. Technically, on a 2004 engine, you are allowed to have one monitor in the not-ready state, so long as it’s the Evap monitor. But, interpretations are changing in the direction of being more strict.

Anyway, it feels really good to get this over with! BTW, I should mention that the swap has been fantastic. I’ve put over 20,000 miles on the rig over the last 18 months, including a trip this summer from SoCal to Alaska. I think I made the right rational choice with the 4.8. It’s more than adequate. I can go as fast as I want to go up any grade fully loaded, but if I was to do it all over again, the hell with gas mileage and gimme that low-end grunt of a 6.0!!
 
Awesome, congrats! Sorry you had to deal with so much red tape and extra work.

So what manifolds did you use to pass? I didn’t think any of the truck manifolds would fit between the frame rails.
 
FJ60Cam said:
Awesome, congrats! Sorry you had to deal with so much red tape and extra work.

So what manifolds did you use to pass? I didn’t think any of the truck manifolds would fit between the frame rails.
Click to expand...

I used OEM manifolds. But just an observation, when I put Camaro manifolds side by side with truck manifolds, they look very very similar.
 
Awesome! Which ref/BAR station did you end up going to?

Dyno
 
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