The Mule rides again (sort of) - pics.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Are there features on the crank that index it via the notches on the inner edge?

[ericjon262]

to my knowledge, it's just a press fit part. IIRC, it does have a index dot on the face of the wheel on one side or the other.

[ericjon262]

more info here:

http://www.msextra.com/forums/viewtopic ... 9&start=20

[The Dark Side of Will]

It's in the middle like the Northstar's; Does GM make a fixture for installing it like they do for the LS wheel?

I'm mostly just curious at this point, as, unless there's something crazy with the '06+ cam sensor, I'll be using 58x stuffs. I ordered the forged crank on Monday.

[ericjon262]

It's in the middle like the Northstar's; Does GM make a fixture for installing it like they do for the LS wheel?

I'm mostly just curious at this point, as, unless there's something crazy with the '06+ cam sensor, I'll be using 58x stuffs. I ordered the forged crank on Monday.

Forged crank FTW!

I'm not sure if an indexing rig exists.

[Shaun41178(2)]

I dont see the point in a forged crank unless it has something to do with the timing teeth which has been mentioned lately.

I havent been keeping track of the details too much

[ericjon262]

I dont see the point in a forged crank unless it has something to do with the timing teeth which has been mentioned lately.

I havent been keeping track of the details too much

higher strength allows for more material to be removed, which means less mass, which allows for faster revs! it also allows for the use of a 58x sensor arrangement, and a level of "future proofing"

[The Dark Side of Will]

It also lets me say I have a fully forged bottom end!

Yes, I get that for what I'll be doing with the engine and the power level I'll be running, the forged crank isn't necessary. It's still cool and amazing bang for the $$$ for a GM part.

I'm not going to do extensive weight relief... Lathe turning the counterweights to balance it is as far as I'll go in that department. However, since I've pulled <130g/cylinder out of the engine compared to stock, that's still significant material removal.

[ericjon262]

how much was the new crank?

[The Dark Side of Will]

I'll let you know when I have the final invoice.

I bought a Wilwood rotor to play with for a fit check.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Total damage on the crank was $435

Forged crank and cast crank next to each other. I've turned the counterweights on the cast crank, so they're a little sharper than they would be stock.





There are some differences in counterweight shape







Got some good QC'ing done.



All the oil holes look the same. It should just be a drop-in swap.

*HOWEVER* the forged crank uses 11mm flywheel bolts instead of the 8mm bolts the normal Northstar uses. Maybe that's good because LS engines use 11mm bolts, so I can spec my flywheel such that I can make use of LS flywheel bolts. That doesn't help the flywheel for the normal engines, but that's the way things work out. Oh yeah, AND my flywheel that I just had prototyped needs to be reworked for this crank. AWESOME!

[The Dark Side of Will]

Bearings are on the way. King now has a standard rod set for $36ish, while Clevite's are $28 *PER ROD*. Clevite's main bearings are still the only option, but they're ~$70, which isn't horrible.

Also looking at Titanium wrist pins to drop 30g/cylinder out of the recip weight.

[Shaun41178(2)]

30g per piston might require a rebalance unless you planned to do that anyways

[The Dark Side of Will]

It needs extensive rebalancing already. The Eagle rods are 150g lighter than stock and the pistons are ~20g lighter.
I'll be turning a good bit of forged steel off the counterweights of the forged crank as I go through the balancing process.

There's more weight reduction left in the pistons, but I'd have to have a new set made... haven't asked CP if they have an X-forging for this bore size yet. I could also go hollow dome. X-forgings would also let me use shorter pins.

[The Dark Side of Will]

When I was ordering bearings, Summit showed delayed ship dates for both Clevite mains and King rod bearings. I called them and said the vendors were actually showing units in stock so the order wouldn't take that long. King delivered promptly, but Clevite fibbed. Next time I called, Summit told me Clevite has responded to the order by saying none were in stock and they didn't know when they'd be getting more stock.

I've seen DNJ and EngineTech bearings on eBay; I decided to check RockAuto for those. I shortly noticed Rock shows Clevite tri-metal bearings in stock. Sweeeet! I ordered a set. They arrived late last week, went to Calico on Monday and I just received the email that Calico is done with them.

Now I really need to find a block...

[The Dark Side of Will]

Been making progress... just haven't been posting every time. I'm into some of the tedious tasks in the build.

Torquing up rod bolts so I can measure the bearings and get rod/bearing combos assigned to journals:



Sorting the rod/bearing assemblies in order of increasing size and putting that list next to the list of crank journals sorted by increasing size gives me 5/8 rod bearings with 0.0019 clearance, 2 with 0.0020 and 1 with 0.0021... Pretty snazzy, especially since what I had was as high as 0.003 thanks to a crappy job by the crank grinder.





That was 3 weeks ago... two weeks ago I pulled the bearings back out and torqued up the rod bolts without bearings so I could measure the big end bores. I haven't done anything with that data yet, though.

Last weekend I stayed at my house because I felt a little under the weather and didn't want to risk exposing my dad *just* in case it was COVID-19.

Also paid for my titanium piston pins, so they should arrive Tuesday next week.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Got the heads off my '06 engine. That's not a lot of progress for a weekend because I spent a good bit of time looking at cam sensor parts and scratching my head.

First, here's a quick tour of a 2006+ Northstar.
Overall picture: Note the Y2K+ style intake manifold. The vehicle this engine was in had a fire, and the plastic power steering reservoir (already removed) and intake manifold were damaged, but it looks like the block is fine. It also sat out in the junk yard for... a while, I guess. It's supposed to have 14k on it, so it should clean up nice. At this point, I've already taken the harness off.




This is the connector for the "valley harness" which is a new sub-harness element added for 2006 as the number of gizmos in the valley increased dramatically. It's a 10 pin connector with 3 for the crank sensor, 3 for the cam sensor and 2 for each knock sensor. GM eliminated the manifold sub-harness that earlier year engines had. That sub-harness carried wires for the injectors and MAP sensor and made R&Ring the manifold a snap. I still have it in the harness I removed from The Mule and will incorporate both valley and manifold sub-harnesses into my new harness, although I will re-route the valley harness to connect at the pulley end of the engine.
There's also a bullet proof heat shield around the EGR valve.



Right bank overview with nifty coil on plug ignition. I don't think these will fit the older heads, but I'll check it out. Each bank has a coil sub-harness. The flange on the exhaust manifold is for an AIR pump. The big wire and connector hanging over the cam cover is the crank wire coming out from under the intake manifold.




The grommets and o-ring seals mechanically isolate the valve covers from the cylinder head for noise reduction. They were built that way from day 1 in 1993. This also means that the valve covers are electrically isolated from the head as well. The <'99 engines have a 8ga or so ground wire from the coilpack baseplate to the cylinder head. Without that wire, the engine WILL NOT run right. When GM shifted to the coil on plug ignition, they had to incorporate healthy grounding for each coil pack baseplate. They chose to use short braids from the valve cover to the cylinder head instead of heavy gauge ground wires from the baseplates to the heads.




This is the cam sensor connector. These wires run from the valley sub-harness connector all the way under the manifold and come out here, even though this sensor would have been just as easy to reach with a branch off the main harness. Interesting that the organized it that way. This is also the first thing that made stop and think for a minute. This cam sensor is on the INTAKE cam, while the <'05 sensor is on the EXHAUST cam.




Here's the left bank overview. At some point the dipstick moved outside the waterpump. It used to come up to the left of the waterpump belt. Not sure why they changed that. I can't re-use my old dipstick tube as the new one is smaller, and thus the hole in the lower crank case is also smaller. The exhaust manifold hides it, but this engine has a 3 bolt oil filter adapter flange instead of the older 2 bolt flange. I need to snag a 3 bolt oil cooler filter adapter off eBay...




Here's the left cam cover ground braid bolted to the bolt hole that the old dipstick bolted to.




There were a bunch of these connections on the PCV system. The clip on to an upset tube with a nifty little spring clip. They slip right on, then release with the flick of a finger. Super easy to use.




Here's the DBW throttle acutator, MAP sensor and center feed returnless fuel rail with large diameter tubing to obviate the need to a pulsator. You can also see one of the hose clamps (!) that connects the intake manifold to the water manifold.



This is one of those weird Northstar things. The water manifold bridging the backs of the block and cylinder heads is the reason this engine fits in a Fiero. If the waterpump were at the front, it wouldn't fit. The water manifold casting has an element that sticks up. The throttle bolts to this element and the intake air passes through it. The MAP sensor and brake booster vacuum connection in the prior pic are actually in the water manifold casting, not the throttle casting. The water manifold also serves as an EGR cooler, and the EGR gas is introduced via the casting element the throttle bolts to. The intake manifold just has a large diameter nipple and a very short hose coupler connecting it to the back of the water manifold casting.




This view shows the EECS solenoid now integrated to the water manifold casting, as well as the hose clamps between the intake manifold and water manifold.




Different heater fitting on water manifold than previous years had



Front of the engine, with the same idler & tensioner layout they've always had. At some point the front cover was changed to expose the bolt hole just to the left of the crank pulley, so I need to keep the newer cover with this newer block. Of course the big wire is the starter cable.

[The Dark Side of Will]

In pulling the manifold, I got an impression of how long it had been sitting in the junk yard.





I still have some ground to cover before the block is shiny and pretty, but at least the starter is. My old starter is black. You can also see the valley sub-harness.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Here are the troublesome cam sensor sprockets:




It looks like both old and new sensors are at the "6 o'clock" positions relative to their respective cam sprockets. The new sensor is smaller in diameter and the hole is closer to the centerline of the cam. I think an eccentric bushing could mount the new sensor in the old head just fine. It would also allow me to tune the reference angle a little bit if the CASE learn fails when I get an ECM on this frankenmotor.






Here are the two trigger sprockets next to each other. Note that the older sprocket has timing marks for both right intake and right exhaust. The new sprocket has the fancy 4x cam trigger pattern used by the 58x systems.




Overlay the two with the exhaust cam drive pin slot on the old sprocket lined up with the intake cam drive pin slot on the new sprocket and they're only off 1/5-1/4 of a tooth. With 40 teeth per sprocket, that's 1.8-2.25 cam degrees. Even if that were the best I could do, I'd bolt that shit together and send it.




Line up the TEETH of the sprockets and the leading edges of the drive pin slots line up. The new cams use 0.184 drive pins (well... really alignment pins) while the older cams use 0.234 alignment pins. I left the new sprocket with the prototype machinist so he could stretch the slot in the new sprocket on its trailing edge out to 0.234. Then it should exactly match the timing of the original sprocket, while only rotating the 4x trigger wheel by ~2 cam degrees, which is 1 crank degree, which *should* stay under the CASE learn limit of +/-2 crank degrees.




Lingenfelter confirmed that their TRG-002 58x=>24x converter does not care about crank to cam reference angle, so the ONLY foreseeable problem is the potential for CASE learn issues. As noted previously, I intend to mount the new sensor in an eccentric bushing, which will give me some fine-tuning capability to eliminate any potential CASE learn problems.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Here's where I ended up for the weekend. Crank sensor, knock sensors and valley harness visible. These pistons have slight domes rather than the true flat tops used in '00-'05. I may be able to sell them to some 4.9 builder. This engine has 2mm smaller wrist pins than the 4.9 and older Northstars, so the builder would have to have the 4.9 rods bushed down a bit.