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singledownloop
singledownloop New Reader
9/23/14 4:08 p.m.

Sounds good I appreciate you getting me the measurements.My spirit won't be delivered until the 4th.....

VWguyBruce
VWguyBruce HalfDork
9/24/14 7:17 a.m.

Looking forward to seeing it in person.

PseudoSport
PseudoSport HalfDork
9/25/14 12:22 p.m.

In reply to singledownloop:

Top ID of the spring is about 3.5" and the OD is about 4.5".

singledownloop
singledownloop New Reader
9/25/14 1:22 p.m.

Thank you very much PseudoSport exactly what I had hoped........

PseudoSport
PseudoSport Dork
9/29/14 2:50 p.m.

Busy weekend. Oil pan and pickup mods were completed, engine block painted, snagged turbo manifold from the Jeep, Wrangler flywheel modified to bolt up to the AMC torque converter, trans bolted up to the engine, engine dropped into the car, and a bunch of other stuff I’ve already forgotten. I’m missing one valve spring retainer and keeper so I haven’t painted or installed the head yet. For now I’ve mocked up a few things and started to lay out the MegaSquirt harness. Exhaust is going to be tight and I can’t go straight down like I hoped.

PseudoSport
PseudoSport HalfDork
10/2/14 2:49 p.m.

Engine harness is laid out and I’ve started soldering in the MegaSquirt harness. Once I know everything works I’ll wire loom it.

PseudoSport
PseudoSport HalfDork
10/6/14 1:10 p.m.

Head and turbo are going on. Stock pistons are unamused

The AMC has a lot more space around the turbo.

Oil line is short and we had to dent the oil pan to slight change the angle of the fitting but so far I’m happy with it. Its far less questionable then the XJ-R.

Pic of the manifold and turbo before the intake goes on.

Stole the intake off the XJ-R too since it was cleaner than the other free one I have kicking around. It was still dirty from the rusty coolant that’s sprayed but I only had a little silver wheel paint left. I dusted the top on the intake to hide the stains but ran out of paint to do the bottom. Oh well, no one see the bottom anyway.

Wiring is almost complete. I put power to the car and the dash powered up and main relay clicked on with the key. Megasquirt did not power up or click on the fuel pump relay, blah. When bench testing it didn’t have high res code and I don’t know what tune was on it. Forget what I was doing with it last but re-downloaded the firmware and flashed the XJ-R tune to use as a base map. Hopefully that will fix the problem when I try to test it again tonight.

PseudoSport
PseudoSport HalfDork
10/9/14 3:27 p.m.

Sorted out MegaSquirt and it now powers up. Walbro 255 lph pump finally arrived so I installed that along with some hacked up fuel lines from a 92 Jeep Cherokee. I noticed the connector on the 91-93 distributor is different from the Wrangler harness I used so I’ll have to cut and splice in a different plug in. Also since I don’t have the correct power steering pump I’m going to have to modify one from a different year. Other then exhaust its getting close to being able to run.

tdrrally
tdrrally New Reader
10/10/14 9:39 a.m.

if i recall those cars use the same steering box as a 2nd gen f body camaro/firebird if that's the case there are lots of quick ratio steering boxes out there

singledownloop
singledownloop New Reader
10/11/14 11:16 a.m.

Jeep Cherokee quick ratio steering boxes

http://www.chevelles.com/techref/pdf/1992-98grandcherokeefastratiostrggear01ja2013.pdf

tdrrally
tdrrally New Reader
10/13/14 7:35 a.m.

it should handle and stop as well as it runs

keep up the good work and keep up the pix!

PseudoSport
PseudoSport HalfDork
10/13/14 11:17 a.m.

Cool, didn't know the Grand cherokee had a Quick ratio box. I've been looking for some out of F and G bodys but the junk yards around me want $50-75. Currently I'm running out of budget since we have not sold much off the car so the box might have to wait till next year. Front suspension is back in but other then the taller ball joints and cut springs everything else is stock. Next tuesday we are suppose to be leaving to drive the car down and there is still a ton left to do and I'm starting to panic.

PseudoSport
PseudoSport Dork
10/14/14 1:51 p.m.

Radiator is back in. It looks like hell but hopefully it doesn’t leak. Also the PS pump has been modified and mounted. Old PS pressure line from a Cherokee ended up working out fine.

Currently the car needs the exhaust finished, trans fluid, PS fluid, coolant, heater hoses and different belt to run. Since the parts store was closed for the night I stared working on mocking up charge pipes.

hobiercr
hobiercr Dork
10/14/14 1:56 p.m.

No time to paint the radiator to match the valve cover? It really does stand out in that beautiful engine bay.

PseudoSport
PseudoSport HalfDork
10/14/14 3:24 p.m.

I might have to pull the rad back out to trim off the corner of the mounting bracket to clear the intercooler pipes. If so I’ve going to give it a coat of paint because it stands out way more then I though. We’ve just been so busy trying to throw parts back on the car to hear it run.

Harkins
Harkins New Reader
10/15/14 7:42 a.m.

In reply to PseudoSport:

If you do pull the radiator those scratches were there before I messed with it...

SilverFleet
SilverFleet UltraDork
10/15/14 12:29 p.m.

Oh, that radiator is getting painted one way or another. It's pretty gross.

This car is absolutely hilarious to work on. It really gives you insight at what was going on in the industry during that era. I like AMC's and all, but the build "quality" is... ummm... interesting. It reminds you at every turn of the wrench that it was built in 1982.

Wait... I was also built in 1982. DOH!!!

PseudoSport
PseudoSport HalfDork
10/15/14 1:15 p.m.

Ha, radiator is out and I sprayed it flat black. Definitely won’t pass for new but its less of an eye sore.

Thanks again to Tony, Harkins, and Pat for working on the car this past week. We would have been in real bad shape going into this weekend.

Last night Harkins got more of the exhaust welded up and Tony installed the calipers and brake hoses. I replaced the 2 rear brake lines that had compression fittings in them and reinstalled the 2 hard lines in the front. Brake system is now all back together and should be ready to bleed.

I also cleaned up and installed the water pump heater hose fitting and got one hose on. Didn’t get the other one done since the parts store gave me the wrong size hose. Also the belt for a Wrangler without AC is too small. Not sure why, might be related to the PS pump from a different year. I’ll see if I can find one that fits tonight.

The_Jed
The_Jed UltraDork
10/15/14 6:59 p.m.

Coming along nicely!

bgkast
bgkast SuperDork
10/16/14 12:47 a.m.

I love that block color!

SilverFleet
SilverFleet UltraDork
10/16/14 12:28 p.m.
bgkast wrote: I love that block color!

It really pops in person too. It's plain ol' AMC Blue, which has a hint of metallic in it.

turboswede
turboswede UltimaDork
10/16/14 12:55 p.m.
bgkast wrote: I love that block color!

Yeah, it really ties the engine bay together.....

PseudoSport
PseudoSport HalfDork
10/16/14 1:28 p.m.

I like the AMC blue and white together. Not sure it would look as good with a yellow engine bay.

More stuff going together. Radiator is painted flat black. It’s the only leftover paint I had left. Trans, and PS fluid are in and I filled the radiator with water. Lower radiator hose is weeping at the water pump so I tightened the clamp more. Hopefully it stops but that hose is in poor shape. I pick up another belt last night and this one is too long. 790k6 is too short and 810k6 is too long so 800k6 must be the magic number. Would have tried the 800 first but the parts store near me didn’t have it at the time. I also need to find 2 more hose clams for the heater hoses and the cooling system is done. Other than that I’m waiting on 3 silicone reducers for the intercooler and turbo that should arrive tomorrow if I’m lucky. While I’m waiting on that stuff I installed the headlights and passenger fender.

Also since we have very minimum suspension mods and plan on driving it down we decided to just run some wide street tires this year. Car is going to be terrible in the autocross and the drags will suck with a 2.31 open diff so we decided there is no point lugging down 6 extra slicks and wearing out tires for no real gain. We just want to show up and have fun. This also allows us to actually fit our own luggage and not just car parts.

PseudoSport
PseudoSport Dork
10/20/14 10:53 a.m.

Busy weekend, don’t really know where to start. We got the PS belt installed then had to move the PS pump forward so the belt tracked right. Car fired right up and idled high. We had to work an air pocket out of the cooling system since the radiator kept boiling over but the temp gauge showed it was still running cool. Cooling system was just water so when it boiled over it came out rusty and made a mess of the white engine bay. Cleaned up some of it but we’ll have to worry about the rest later. Fixed the high idle problem and started cleaning up the harness then called it a night.

Next day I started the car up and it ran rough but I drove it a few feet out of the garage. Worked on the intercooler pipes, wiring in the external voltage regulator and going through the suspension. We noticed the front wheels would hit both the front and back of the fender so we spend some time adjusting them. Then when I went to fire it up the car only ran on the front 3 cylinders. I spend the next 4 hours testing wires, checking for power to the injectors, removing and bench testing MegaSquirt, and trying to run all 6 injectors from the bank one driver. In the process the reman starter I bought from Ebay quit so at 10:30PM I borrowed the one from my Comanche. Swapped the crusty starter into the AMC and got it to crank. Now it doesn’t even want to fire. I poured fuel down the throttle body and it started for a second. Hmm, set MegaSquirt to fire 2 priming injector pulses with key on so I could have time to reach over and grab the injectors to see if they were all firing. Confirmed the rear 3 clicked. For fun I pushed the fuel test port open with a screw driver and only air came out. $#%$@!$^#%$%...... Checked the fuel gauge and it was on E but I know one of my team mates bought 5 gallons of fuel and the car had only run for a few minutes. Turns out they couldn’t get more then a gallon in the tank because the jug hit the body of the car and the fill is behind the rear license plate. Managed to get another 2 gallons in the car and it fired right up. So I wasted and afternoon because the car was out of fuel. Only reason I can think of that it was running off the front 3 cylinders is the feed and return are on the front of the fuel rail. There was barely enough fuel to get to the front three but not the rears.

So the car runs again but at this point I haven’t done any tuning and it still needs all the sheet metal installed. I also don’t have time to paint the fender and A pillar so I’m just going to leave them. Anyway here is a shot of the intercooler and pipes installed.

AngryCorvair
AngryCorvair UltimaDork
10/20/14 1:05 p.m.

in other words, you're ahead of schedule.

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