89 Cutlass Ciera Race Car Build

[lemons bob]

Heard back on the residual.

Oh man--I really don't think that car has any residual value at all. Let's say $0.00. I only regret that I can't give you a negative number, which would more accurately represent the horror, anger, and shame currently felt your neighbors.


Not really an insult just a way to make sure we can get it running and a bit more competitive.

Of course now power wise, how much would it cost to stick in a 3800?

[Duke George V]

Even if you did all the work yourself, the engine and transmission would likely cost more than $500. Which is why I'm offering the stuff I have for the 2.8.

[lemons bob]

oh I know, there would be no way to do that and the suspension. So first fix the 2.8, then price out the suspension, then we'll see what we have left.

The back sturts we found new ones in the junkyard. Not sure the brand but they are red and probably work as well as oem did so not in a rush for them right now.

For the front probably the 2 we'd be considering are the monroe sensa-trac and the kyb gr2. The monroe I think are a bit cheaper, but are the kyb better? their description says they are oem quality.

I guess we could blow the whole budget on some bilsteins though.

The other question is what would be better u-van or fe3 springs. I know the u-van are stiffer but they would raise the car so would that make the toatal performance worse than if we just put on the fe3?

[CamoDeafie]

keep the trans, go out west to Washington (Prospeeder's yard) and find $140 3800.........or even a 4.9 PFI

[lemons bob]

The other theoretical way is to find a totaled 3800 car, buy it cheap get take the engine and trans and any other parts you need and then sell or scrap any other parts you have left to recoup cost.

[CamoDeafie]

that said; i think you could find a wrecked U-van with the 3800 in it..and chances are, the sway bar, springs, etc would swap over!

[lemons bob]

of course that is all in theory. don't really have the space, equipment, or expertise to pull of such an project.

[Pontiac6ksteawd]

Wow, lots of catch up to do in this thread..

The U-Van springs in the front AND the back will help out with the tire chop. Also, installing a rear stabilizer bar will help LOADS. The springs you should be able to get cheap from any junkyard.

Now another idea is to put a second set of springs into your current, or mini-van, spring set. DavidsFarm does this for his A-bodys/J-Bodys he gets on his farm. Its so they will take the field racing better without nose diving into the soil. He uses a small spring, from say a Honda Accord.

As far as your tranny goes, I would keep it. I think your 60*, with the smaller tires, will be just fine with it. But install a large tranny cooler. Dont bother putting in all that money. Remember your race engine scenario above? That is unless he can find a stock 3800 from a Cutlass Ciera. Install it with its wiring harness, and the 3.33 tranny, and no one would be the wiser because that is a STOCK engine for that car.

[SilentWing]

The second set of springs would probably be a better idea than the U-van ones even. Never thought of that one lol

[lemons bob]

I'd have to think about that. So for it to work I would need to find some springs that are pretty much the same height but small enough diameter that they would fit on the inside of the struts or the perchs on the back, and still fit properly on the perch so they don't move around. I have a feeling this worked easier on older cars without struts. The rear it seems like it wouldn't be to hard to fab up a second perch for a second set of springs, but the front might be difficult. No sure how much extra space is actually left in the strut for a second spring. Still would need to work it out a bit more in my head to see if it would work. I tend to think of all the issues first on projects, just how my mind works.

[Pontiac6ksteawd]

No perch needed. DavesFarm took the struts out of the car, used a spring compressor, unbolted the upper bearing plate, dropped in the Honda Accord strut springs, put the bearing plate back on, took the spring compressor back off, and put it back in the car.

Now if you want to do this without messing up your alignment, you can take your wheel off, brake caliper and rotor, unbolt the cv axle, take the lower ball joint out, unbolt the top 3 bolts for the strut, and slide it out as an assembly. You can also scribe it instead.

The rear spring thing doesnt work, their really isnt enough spring room. My suggestion for the rear would be to get some air shocks, or find a FE1 equipped car, and swap the springs, and then also do the air shocks.

[lemons bob]

The struts are pretty much shot so we will have to replace them anyway. Might even pay to get it aligned proper, or if we are lucky slightly off from what the manufacture thinks is proper (tweaked a bit for racing instead of road).

Already have fe1's which is the problem. So maybe U-van's for the rear since they are the firmest that fit our cars our cars out of the box. Front might still start with the uvan to keep the suspension matching and if we still need to firm it up we can then look to add the second springs to the front struts.

[lemons bob]

Finally got back to working on the car on Sunday.

Before I start talking about that I figure I'll show you how its running now.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/f_jwR6FlWmU

so if you watch that you can hear it missing fairly consistently, and then when I try to give it throttle it just dies. ( which is actually worse than it was before when it would miss but still run if you give it throttle)

Anyway since it seemed from various people that it might be the icm or coils we started with that.



I'm guessing since the cylinder number is marked on the coils that these are the original from the factory.

When taking them a part we did find that sometime in the past spiders decided to make the coils and icm home.







So we took the ICM and got it tested. They ran it through 3 times while hitting it with a piece of rubber to simulate shock or the guy was bored or something. Either way it passed each time with flying colors.

We next Ohmed out the coils and they each passed. In fact not only did they pass but there wasn't much of a variance between the 3.

So that doesn't seem to be the problem, we are guessing the crank sensor is next, although we couldn't find a way to test it. Any other thoughts on what it might be?

[SilentWing]

It still could be the ICM, a lot of times they'll pass the testing and still be bad. This may be an obvious question but did you check the plug wires yet? Luke's Supreme started stumbling when hot, and gradually got worse to the point where it was constantly missing because the plug wires were old and brittle. As far as the coils, they can ohm out fine but still could have an internal short when exposed to 40k volts of firing power. Worst case senario, we've got known good Coils in our garage, we could pop out maybe this weekend and check it out. Just let me know.

[jlattyak]

We didn't ohm out the plug wires, but they look visually ok and the rubber doesn't appear to be brittle. We will check them to make sure.

So if it is not ICM or Coil, as Bob said the crank sensor was next on our list, but could this be a fuel system problem? would a bad injector cause this issue?