Here's progress from this week
Drilled and tapped the GM oil block-off "plate" for the Toyota oil pressure sensor. I found an adapter for the BSP threads of the OE pressure sensor to a AN thread (which is essentially just a specific set of SAE threads). Got that adapter through
Pegasus Auto Racing.
Now, with this adapter, the whole thing is pretty tall. It will fit perfectly on the side of the block with no clearance issues UNLESS you're using the block heater I have set up... Then I discovered that I had to flip the whole assembly upside-down in order to get it to fit
I don't really know if that pressure sensor will work properly upside down like that but I'll find out!
It is still shorter than the oil pan and the frame rail so at least it's not going to be dragging on anything.
Bought a new clutch slave cylinder. Utilized the adjustable slave cylinder pin that was on the previous cylinder since the one that came with the new one was a fixed-length. I did take a die and thread the old pin an extra 3/4" down the shaft just to give myself some extra adaptability.
Had to trim the dust cover supplied by AA and the OE Toyota clutch cover to get them to fit the way I needed them to with this engine. This picture should give you an idea of how much I had to trim from the AA plate. The trimming to the Toyota cover is fairly drastic too but since it's cut-to-fit, you just have to take it off a little at a time until it's right.
Reinstalled the power steering box and the Toyota PS pressure line and cooler loop.
I vowed to myself when I started this that I would try to avoid as many "redneck" solutions as I could. Well, for the EGR, nothing really seemed to make as much sense as a 90 degree pipe fitting but I think it turned out well with a little welding and flame-proof header paint.
Fuel pump mounted and the feed and return lines run. Just used some basic high-pressure fuel line and some clamp fittings on it for now. I'm not totally happy with how that turned out so I will probably be going back with some Aeroquip socketless hose and fittings at some point but for now, this will work well enough to get her running prior to my rapidly approaching deadline!
- "Adjusted" the throttle pedal mount in the cab so it mounts in straight and got the throttle cable routed.
- Bought O2 sensors and welded in the O2 bungs for the two upstream O2 sensors to the collector tubes for each header.
- Reattached inner and outer fenders on both sides as well as the core support and mounted the radiator.
- Wired the relays for the fuel pump and electric fan and realized I probably need a second 30A relay for the 2nd fan.
Anyone know what the ampere draw from each fan on the Contour setup is?
- Put new oil in the engine (Mobil 1 Extended Performance), replaced the oil filter (K&N), replaced the spark plugs (about died when I realized OE is iridium!), and ordered MSD plug wires (should be in today).
- Started fabricating battery cables out of some size-2 double-insulated welding cable. The fuse block feed on the GM battery cables was this tiny 6 gauge cable so I'm bumping that up to some size-4 welding cable. Terminals are being soldered and I'm using adhesive-lined heat shrink on every connection so I hopefully don't need to make new cables for a long while! The ground side of the cables is done. I ended up running a short cable from the battery to the fender mount for the battery tray and then a second cable from that bolt to one of the bolts that mounts the EGR to the passenger side cylinder head. Tested it by hooking up the fusible link for the factory chassis harness and everything inside turned on like it was supposed to so it looks like that's a good ground
The positive terminal is a 2/0 fitting with a 2AWG lead for the starter and a 4AWG for the fuse block lead and I lined the heat shrink with some high-temp silicon in place of the adhesive-lined heat shrink I would have had to custom order for this size fitting.
I am sincerely hoping for a test-fire this weekend because my to-do list is still pretty long and I'm down to 15 days and counting on my deadline!
Nice progress so far.
