2seater

The rear bank gets very little air flow to cool the area. The radiant heat can build up to a greater extent than the front. Personally I installed Accel's Extreme 9000 wires with silver boots and even with the heat from turbocharging and a rear manifold closer to the plugs, I have no problem without shields. I used wires with 135* Ford style boots which stand the plug wires almost straight up mimimizing the area where radiant heat is the most intense.

Is Ethylene Glycol made from petroleum? Even if it is it sounds like someone is taking advantage. Maybe a big lawsuit out there somewhere?

How do you remember all that good stuff?

Actually, the manual recommends 5w-30 only if the temperature drops below zero F. Above zero, 10w-30 can be used and if always above 60 deg.F, straight 30 is acceptable. I haven't found straight 30 in pure synthetic yet. Our engine uses tight clearances on the bearings and "fatter" oil isn't needed unless oil pressure is a problem. That crank driven oil pump spins twice as fast as more conventional types, and usually oil pressure is not a problem. My turbo does steal some of my oil pressure so I have gone to 5w-40 Mobil 1. I have searched the manual and I do not find any recommendation of synthetic vs conventional oil as long as it meets the minimum specs, and everything commonly available today is light years beyond where they were 15 years ago. All oils are pretty good.

I think the turbo Trofeo guy is still around but I think it has been retired for the time being. Mine has been turbocharged for two years (I don't know what happened to my signature photo?), and am gradually getting it sorted out. GMTuners has modified my old Fastchips and I am gradually getting the knock retard under control. Down to 6 degrees retard at full boost without alcohol injection and 3 degrees with it turned on at 5 psi. More tweaking needed and even larger injectors than I have now. Apparently it produces more hp. than my original target of 250.

I do believe it is a fwd car but the transaxle is arranged differently. They used 403 Olds motors in those cars too, sorta like the original Toronados. Part of the turbo setup I used came from a '78 carb'd and turbo'd Riviera. Any turbocharging you are going to try will involve fabrication of many parts but it may yield parts you could use. Supposedly there are now kits out there, lots of dollars, that would be closer to what you want, but even they are not designed as a direct bolt in for our cars. There are a couple of kits available for the S/C cars, that remove the guts of the supercharger and blow a turbo into the housing. More performance potential than the supercharger.

A 1990 should not have the "E" transaxle. It should be the plain old 4T60. The electronic trans. was introduced in the Reatta in 1991, but sometimes there are exceptions if it was a late production. Does anyone know if the vacuum modulator disappeared when they went electronic? If so it would be easy to tell.

It should be a ten minute job if it sits right on top like all that I have seen. Disconnect battery ground wire. Use an 18mm (I think)socket or wrench on the nut in the center of the tensioner wheel to release tension and slip the belt off the alternator. Disconnect the plug on the top and the hot wire from the rear of the alternator. Remove the two bolts at the front and rear of the alternator and it should lift straight up. Assembly is the reverse, and the only thing to watch for is all of the grooves on the belt line up with all of the pulleys. Look carefully at all of them with a light, they won't self align on start up. The tensioner will adjust the belt tension automatically. While the belt is loose, feel the tensioner pulley to see that it doesn't wobble and rotates smoothly.

Same problem in Wisconsin. No kits are available to the public and they won't ship here if bought elsewhere.

Aside from the claims, which sound typically to good to be true, it struck me as odd it mentioned the Reatta's specifically, which is a much smaller crowd than the other 3800 powered cars out there. Not to say the stock systems cannot be improved, but a compromise in some other area generally is the result. While GM could have improved the product earlier, as the Series II shows they are capable, they did a pretty good job getting the system you have now balanced pretty well. As others have mentioned, money would be better spent on standard "improvements".

That does sound odd. The book for a '90 shows a (14) cavity connector with (13) being used. I checked it against my car and it looks just like the book? Something like (6) are used for the cam and crank sensors, a couple more for the timing signals from the ECM, others are power and ground, a signal to the injectors etc. Maybe some of the connections were displaced from the ICM to a separate connector, such as some of the common connections used for the cam and crank sensors? It would be interesting to see how they are different if the ECM operates the same as all other'90's.

Uh, yeah, 3000 rpm should be over the posted limit about anywhere (except maybe the Autobahn). 2500 is about 90mph on my '90. The '91's get generally poorer highway fuel economy, but I would probably sacrifice a couple of mpg to get the better acceleration, although the turbo pretty much took care of that.

Thanks for posting the solution. The odd thing about the ECM failures, and they do crop up from time to time, is it seems more age related rather than mileage.

It seems like it is likely more hype than a help. The basic engine internals are the same (a little longer connecting rod possibly) and for all the improvements, larger intake and exhaust, raised rpm level, a slighlty different operating system for the EGR, I would be disappointed in only a 5hp increase and 5% more torque, especially higher in the rev range. Generally longer intake runners will help the low rpm torque near the rpm they are tuned for, maybe in response to raising the torque peak rpm? The short runners of the older manifold design would tend to favor high rpm power, but the cam is so dead above 4500 rpm it doesn't make much sense? The tuned port style manifolds were available earlier, I have found aluminum versions on '89 Oldsmobiles in the boneyards. I agree with Padgett 100% that the biggest reason they are a little faster is the lower gearing, and it is a fair bit lower.

Did you check the actual fuel pressure? Forty something psi would be normal at the fuel rail after the pump primes. If the car was stored for an extended period it may be possible the filter needs to be changed, maybe the fuel has broken down and you actually have two distict problems? The two second prime from the fuel pump is normal when the key is turned on. If the operation of the fuel pump is suspect, you could just use the fuel pump priming wire under the hood. It has a green connector hanging loose on the drivers side of the engine bay. Applying 12 volts should cause the pump to run.

Welcome I hope you like it here and it's always good to have another enthusiast.

If you never get into boost from the turbo it will probably run happily on regular 87 octane, but if you use the engine anywhere near it's potential, premium will be required. At the least you will get spark retard from engine knock or at worst blown head gaskets or broken pistons from detonation.

How would you know that Riv's must have come with lower speed rated tires, maybe S or T?

You need to have the engine running and up to temperature to get good readings from most of the sensors. The O2 could be at fault or, a vacuum leak may cause the mixture to go way to the rich side. If all of the visible hoses are okay, run you hand over them and if you get a black stain on your fingers or a rag, (not just dirt)the hose should be replaced as it is likely getting porous. There is a hose to the instrument panel between the engine and firewall and is easy to miss. One other place is the PCV valve grommets in the intake manifold. Due to the location it is not readily visible and it gets good and hot in that location also.

Maybe, but I doubt it. I suspect it may have been oil related though. The whole reason for the change was a leak in the evaporator that coated the surface with oil and stuck on junk so air flow was seriously reduced. The a/c tech convinced him to changeover since the whole system had to be purged and taken apart, and that does make sense. The compressor may have died even if he stayed with R12. I do suspect some of the cases where compressor failure followed a changeover was the system had been running for some time in a less than perfect state, and it was only a matter of time. Not too many people take a system that is operating properly and deliberately spend money to change to something it wasn't designed for.

The one thing to watch for in the conversions is if any parts are marginal, the higher pressure in the 134 system may cause a failure. Just happened to a friend of mine on a '93 Buick. It cooled very well but the compressor seized after ten days. If the system is just a little low, I agree that sticking with the R12 is a better deal.

Is the TPS reading 36,.36 or maybe 3.6? With the key on, no need to start the car, enter the diagnostics again and watch the TPS reading, ED01, as you slowly press the throttle to the floor. It should increase relatively smoothly to over 4.0 volts with the pedal to the floor and return to around .4 volts in the idle position. All the other readings look pretty normal. To get the O2 sensor warmed up a little better, bring then idle up to 1500 rpm or so and hold it for a little while. The O2 sensor should start showing cross counts after it gets hot enough. It's not unusual for it to get sluggish or stop during an extended idle.

The first thing to do is check the actual pressure with a mechanical gauge installed in place of the sensor. The oil pressure senders do have a history of going bad and will usually peg out to the high side at random, but they can give a false reading in other ways. Hopefully it is just a bad sender.

Very nice work and a great addition. I like the look a lot.

Evidently there may be some differences in the error codes for different years, but my '90 manual indicates the E026 is the quad driver circuit. The quad drivers are in the ECM, (essentially transistors I believe), and they do control several items, the EGR being one of them. I thought the '91 went to a somewhat different operating system for the EGR although that may be in error. the B335 appears to be for the heating/cooling/ventilation system. If it was current code, the system would likely not operate and diagnostics could not be entered either. Not a lot of help.