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Old 02-09-2020, 11:53 PM   #10
IROCZman15
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Roxbury, NJ
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I have been doing some research on the ignition wires, but not much yet because I was focused on getting the engine mounted in the car which would then allow me to start running fuel lines, wiring, radiator and hoses, etc. I will probably begin with the actual wiring later in the week.

On Saturday, I installed a 1gauge ground wire that connects both aluminum cylinder heads together. I will have another 1 gauge wire connecting the engine to the "framerail" and also another long 1 gauge cable going all the way back to the trunk at the battery's negative post.




My dad came by after lunch Saturday and we rolled the car out into the driveway because my garage's height clearance would be too tight to get the lift's boom up high enough. Took the engine off the nice engine stand that Nyes racing built for shipping. Bolted up the upper motor-mount brackets and lifted the engine up, over, and down into position. Since I had nothing in the way, everything went really easy. The brand new poly mount on the passenger side gave us a very small amount of a hassle, but we got it done without any real frustration. torqued the motor mount through-bolts down, and rolled the car back into the garage.

I took a go-pro video during the install, but GoPro turned it into two videos?? any idea how I could combine them if I already added them to youtube:
video 1 (17 mins) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk8L_JjOMqQ&t=732s
video 2 (3 mins): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YK0OFfX8UxU
---the video is fairly uneventfull, and I am not a youtube video personality, so it was really just me making a recording of the engine install as a memory with my dad etc. thats all.










Spent some time installing the new Champion American Eagle 2 row Polished Aluminum radiator. It has two 1" rows and is pretty much a direct fit, aside from some very minor trimming of the lower rubber mounting pads. I could not afford an $800 big name radiator, but have heard a good amount of things about this radiator, and the price was good too at $215 shipped. It has a nice billet cap-cover that I will put on later.







( I still need to find an overflow/expansion tank that I like and that will fit where I want it to go.. hmm also, the lower radiator hose shape will work, so I will buy a new rubber one of those(hopefully with that coil spring inside of it to keep it from collapsing. But my upper hose will not come close to working. I will have to order a new t-stat housing, and then find a way to get a rubber upper hose from the oem radiator location, to the new t-stat location. I am thinking that an oem shape.style hose for a third gen TBI car would work? thoughts? otherwise I will have to find a hose-building kit or something to work.









Next I was going to install the fans, but I noticed that one of the 4 lower fan mounting "ears" was cracked and would never survive on the road, so I have to order a new bracket and will install the fans later. I got the power steering lines installed (with teflon tape on the threads), and fiddled with a few other things.




Decided to use the racetronix fuel pump relay and will therefore be removing the holley one from the sniper wiring harness. Reason being, that the racetronix is mounted a short 18-20 inches away from the fuel tank/pump and it uses heavier 10 gauge wiring. Whereas, the pump relay setup in the holley kit mounts inside the engine bay area, and uses a smaller 12 gauge wire that runs under the car alllllll the way back to the fuel pump, where it would then also be a challenge to connect it to the appropriate pump power feed wire. PolarBear reminded me that the sniper ecm sends a negative ground signal to trigger the relay, as opposed to a positive trigger like the racetronix. He helped me learn how to change the polarity of the relay, and I reconfigured the wires to the racetronix relay and tucked it up and out of the way.








I will need to shorten my -8 and -6 fuel lines, since they used to go to the front of my TPI intake, and now they need to go to the rear of the holley sniper throttle body. So I am ordering a few fittings from racetronix. I think I will hold off on the mechanical fuel gauge for another time, and jut simply get the lines hooked up and secured.



One thing I came across in my ignition wiring research, is that in order to get the full benefit of self-learning and timing-control available with the holley sniper, I will need to lock-out my distributor. I am still new to this, but learned that it also requires me to make some changes in the sniper handheld, and to make sure my MSD CD box is configured properly. there are some Holley Youtube videos about this topic, so that is good. Holley recommends that if someone is installing an entirely new setup, to first not worry about the self-learning features, and just use the sniper as a TBI while letting the CD box, distributor, and coil handle the actual timing control. This is to ensure that everything else engine-wise is working properly. Then... Once I am ready to let the sniper take over full engine control, I make some wiring changes, handheld controller changes, MSD box changes, and remove the mechanical advance weights from the distributor. Then the MSD ignition box will simply supply big power to the coil and distributor, but the sniper ecm controls engine timing on its own and I can adjust things as I learn how to. Does this sound correct? This is not how I expected it, but after taking time to learn about it, this is how I think it works? Also, as Adam said, I will not need that little coil-driver device.. it is for "lower" horsepower/stock ignition setups. So, I looked around, and I THINK this is the diagram/schematic I will need to follow??


One question I have... is, can I use my MSD ignition coil that was on my car with the TPI setup? the box style one? or do I need to have a "canister" style ignition coil? I plan to call and ask holley tomorrow, it would be nice not to have to buy a new coil, because I have my TPI style one on my parts shelf. this one: https://www.summitracing.com/parts/m...xoC6WoQAvD_BwE . if needed, I'll buy one, but does anyone see a problem that I am not realizing?



thats it for now.








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1987 IROC-Z - modified


Last edited by IROCZman15; 02-12-2020 at 10:44 PM.
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