2seater

Just for info. purposes, I am running an alcohol injection system that injects ahead of the MAF. It has about a 30 deg. cone spray and is directed against the screen but biased to the side away from the actual sensor passage. So far no issues. It is set to turn on @ 3.5 lbs. of boost. I am not sure what other benefit it would have if the system is otherwise stock. It would probably enable you to use more timing with 87 octane, or maybe more compression ratio, but you will use a lot of alcohol.

Technically, you have a 384.5 cu/in. The typical 383 is a 350 block bored .030" over. More is better.

Hey Padgett, go a little further in the manual to 5B3 and 5B7, front and rear brakes. It sure looks like they are on the trailing edge, although I suspect they will work on either side. If I understood your earlier conjecture, the leading edge will tend to pull in toward the rotor under braking making the indicator more effective if on the leading edge? Sorta like the self energizing which occurs with drum brakes. I gotta admit I have never detected any large difference in the pad thickness on a properly operating system. You are right though, the page you indicated does appear to show it on the leading edge, unless you were backing up

Do you need to know anything? Even though this is a Buick site, the stroked 350 Chebbie is a good combination that does work well. We have one in my sons off road race car. Pretty good torque motor when stroked. Almost as good as a Buick

From the sketches in my manual, it appears the indicator goes on the trailing edge of the outer pad, front and rear. I suspect it will be more effective this way as the force of contact will tend to stretch the spring steel and allow it to vibrate more easily. If it is on the leading edge, the contact will tend to compress the spring. Sorta like scratching your fingernails on an old blackboard. It seemed to work better if you pulled them across the surface. Just my logic.

The engine itself should be okay, but you may need to transfer some of your existing stuff to the new engine. I believe the EGR is operated differently and possibly the exhaust manifolds if the EGR has to be changed. I am not absolutely certain, but there will most likely be some small control differences, but those original items from your '89 engine should bolt on. The intake will probably be different too but it may work just fine, plus you will pickup a small amount of horsepower.

The ECM has no way to monitor fuel pressure, it is modulated by the vacuum operated fuel pressure regulator only. The fuel pump runs continuously, and the only connection to the ECM is through the start/prime relay. I drove around for a month with a fuel pressure gauge taped to my windshield while sorting out fuel pressure for my turbo install. It got a lot of strange looks. A kit shouldn't cost more than $30-$35, but you will have to extend the hose to get it in a position to read while driving. A cheaper alternative, is a #4 37 deg. swivel connection which will fit the pressure tap. You can buy one for a few bucks with a hose barb on the other end, and it will need to be a 90 deg. to fit with the hood closed. You just need a 100 psi pressure gauge which can be found for $6-$8, a few feet of fuel injection hose and a hose barb to connect the gauge to hose. The only "problem" with this cheaper alternative is you must remove the valve core from the fuel pressure tap to use it. The swivel fitting lacks the stud to depress the valve core.

Thanks for the link. It does seem like snake oil to me too, but hey, it isn't a lot of money to waste, if that's what it turns out to be. I am trying to figure out how they turned an engine like ours that tight? If mine was able to rev that high, it might actually produce similar horsepower. Our engines produce their peak torque around 2000 rpm, so I cannot figure out how the torque peak could change so radically? Ours runs out of wind around 4500 rpm due to the cam and air flow characteristics. I see the bidding is also closed.

What is it supposed to be? Do you have a link?

Do you mean the smoke from the tires melting? MSD sells a pile of their different ignitions, and I can see some possible benefit of the multi-srike at low speeds (the only place it works) for possibly igniting lean cruise mixtures. The DIS ignitions we have is already far superior to a single coil system, and I rarely see an aftermarket ignition on the GN style drag cars until they get down in seriously fast territory, like 10 sec. 1/4's. I cannot say they don't work, we run MSD components on my sons off road race car. My only question is when I hear some aftermarket item gives dramatic results, but it is accompanied by other things when installed, such as new plugs and wires when an ignition upgrade is done. How much is the "black(red)box" and how much is the other new items that may have needed changing anyway? I am considering adding a system with individual cylinder knock retard, and a similar system is used on high end european turbo cars and the full zoot Corvette's.

For what it's worth, I seem to remember Greg Ross had trouble with his MSD ignition system, although I believe his showed definite signs of trouble when it "barfed". I do not know if the MSD actually will contribute to degradation and more heat in the module and coil pack, since it just boosts the voltage to the coils, but it may do so.

How was the bad bearing diagnosed? Was the pan pulled and were the bearing caps removed? The engine is pretty robust, but not invulnerable. If they looked at the crank, what sort of shape is it in? I guess I would concur with most other thoughts in what you really want to do with it. Good used engines are plentiful and cheap but unless you can do the swap yourself, the labor will probably exceed the price of the engine. If you can do it yourself, it's only a weekend project to change it, and that's working alone. If you really intend to sell it anyway, my .02 says to discount the price and get rid of it. Personally, my first impulse would be to fix it, even if it cost a bit of money, since even on the high end, the cost to fix or replace the engine would only be equivalent to a few car payments.

Bigger is generally a good thing when it comes to battery cables, so I do believe it would be a useful improvement. I do not know if it is really required, as most of these cars now come with lower currecnt draw mini-starters, and this certainly isn't a high compression engine. Good, clean and large ground cables also may help if cranking is a problem.

You should probably change the fuel filter at the very least. Depending on how, or if, the fuel was treated before storage, it could be clogging the filter and/or the sock on the fuel pump. It would not be unusual for stuff stirred up after a long idle period to cause all sorts of problems.

You can check the operation of the O2 sensor right from the comfort of the drivers seat. Simply access the diagnostics built into the car and you can watch what the O2 sensor is doing while driving. Once you get used to entering and exiting diagnostics you can do it with one hand while driving. Not that they don't go bad, they do, or they get sluggish, but they usually do not cause dramatic driveabilty problems, just poor fuel economy, although it is possible if it is radically off or dead.

The cam sensor should not prevent the car from running. It can even be disconnected (I just tried it)and not radically effect the way it runs. It may not be as efficient at low speed or as smooth, but it should still run. The crank sensor would be more likely if it refuses to run, or even the fuel pump which you referred to earlier.

I bought my '90 when it was three years old and 50K something miles on it. Purchase price was less than half of new, like $10,800 if I remember right. I've probaly put half of what I paid for it, into it, but mostly for my "improvements". I took out a perfectly good engine @ 92K, and have done other things mostly to make it better, not because it was really broken. It has never let me down in over 50k miles, and it someimes get used hard (turbocharged), but nothing has given up, and it's always a pleasure to drive. The alternator is a small problem. I had to change mine @ 100k miles and it took maybe ten minutes in the parking lot at work, and only three wrenches. The parts of the car that make it run are relatively plentiful and not terribly expensive, with the exception of the brake system possibly. The elctronics can sometimes be a problem, but the overall pleasure of driving arelatively rare car makes it worthwhile. If you perservere, you will win.

That does not sound unusual. Mine has done the same thing since I have had it, (eleven years). When you take your foot off of the throttle the TPS signal drops to the idle position and this will signal the ECM you are preparing to slow down so I believe this may be the torque converter unlocking, and it also seems to reduce timing and injector pulse width for short periods. I do not know why it pulses like this, but it seems coast down has little, if any, engine braking as it tends to freewheel in overdrive. If it is a problem with something in the transaxle or ECM, it has not affected my car at all. If this is a '90 and earlier, your rpm should be less than 2000 if in high gear and the converter is locked up, more like 1500, and it will rise a few hundred rpm when the converter unlocks. It may be possible your IAC is a little slow to respond also. The IAC opening does tend to follow the accelerator somewhat, so it is prepared to let the idle down more slowly than letting the throttle snap back to closed, partly an emissions thing and partly for smoother operation.

Now that's a new one, but a good deal nonetheless.

I agree, a new coil pack is probably in the near future, and a cruise through the boneyard will probably happen. The wider gap probably only helps the good cylinders in the pack, but then I also have a semi-solid upper dogbone engine mount so I feel more of the engine than normal. The only dislike I have for platinum plugs is the spark always looks "cold" to me. If you compare the spark from a standard and platinum, I have found the platinum tends to look thinner for some reason, although it does erode more slowly and keeps the plug gap within tolerance for a longer period. Have you ever seen a plug with platinum only on opposite electrodes, depending on where installed? My wifes Ranger has a similar ignition to ours and the plugs on opposite sides of the engine were platinum on the opposite electrodes. My assumption is the polarity on the plugs is reversed on opposite sides since two fire at once, like ours, and the erosion occurs primarily on one side, so the factory saved money with the single platinum where needed. It's virtually impossible to find replacements and double platinum is the recommended replacemement. Weird deal. And yes, Reattas excel at cruising.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago about the surging/roughness at low engine rpm and the torque converter locked up, like 50 mph, and light acceleration. Per some comments about spark plug gap, I removed the 12k mile Autolites and returned the gap to the stock .060". The plugs looked perfect and it reduced the roughness by probably 60% or so. It's much smoother and I do not seem to have traded this for a hi-speed miss under boost. I may still need a new coil pack, but the engine does seem to like the wider gap for firing lean cruise mixtures. Maybe new high dollar plugs are in the future too, although not a great believer in them, but opinions do change

It's not that hard. It took me about three hours working alone. An inline fuel pump probably will not work as it won't be able to pull fuel through the existing pump. Removing most of the fuel will make balancing the tank much easier and a transmission jack with a nice wide base would work the best. The rear stabilizer needs to be dropped as well as the heat shield on the exhaust pipe forward of the fuel tank. Mine is a summer only car so everything came apart easily, including the long bolts that hold the straps. Mine is also a '90 so the fuel lines are plastic and snapped apart without problem. The fuel filler hose was a bit of a bear as it was stuck pretty firmly. If you need to pry with something between the hose and nipple, be sure to use something non-sparking, like brass or aluminum. even wood. The stock GM pump is a good idea, however I have installed a hi-performance Walbro 307 190 liter/hr pump and have over one year and 9000 miles on it with no problem. Another alternative if you need a higher performance pump for other engine upgrades, the GM pump for the later model supercharged cars will also work. The stock fuel pressure regulator has enough capacity to use a little higher performance pump and still keep the pressure where it belongs, although more performance is not needed unless the engine is force fed or possibly for a nitrous system.

The one toward the driver's side is bolted to the intake manifold. It is a "U" shaped tube and once it is unbolted from the manifold, it can be pulled from the passage in the throttle body. The tube is O-ringed into the throttle body. The tube toward the inside is also O-ringed into the manifold and throttle body. After the outer one is removed, you can unbolt the throttle body and wiggle it off of the inner tube. It will probably be full of crud making it somewhat difficult to remove, and it must be cleaned and lubed well when re-installing. If this is a warm climate car, or possibly summer only, you can either fabricate a hose bypass for this or if the intake manifold is coming off, you can tap the holes for pipe plugs as I did.

The little cooler up front is for the power steering, the transaxle cooler is in the radiator. It would take a significant crunch to get to either one of them. I would suspect the caliper piston was pushed out which would gradually drain the brake fluid to the ground. It doesn't take much to make a big mess.

I seem to remember seeing a reference in the manual about the security lite coming on while driving (maybe in the owners manual?). If I remember correctly, it said "do not turn the car off, drive to a service facility". It sounds like a security system problem.