progress on the banshee...

[ericjon262]

I picked up a stoopid cheap(175 shipped) differential for the car, it's an OBX knockoff of the Quaife. I've heard that the older versions needed work to make them functional, I'm not sure of the differences yet, but I plan on taking this one apart either way, as it needs to be cleaned before I will put it in a car.

note the burrs around the openings for the gearsets



and the gritty/hairy looking junk around the bolts...




I'm also told that this ford part number fits the now discontinued bearing cap that goes in the bellhousing of F23's.

Ford # 1311152

I haven't been able to find that in the states, but I was also told this number is the same thing

EAI seal EC52x7

https://www.amazon.com/EAI-Seal-EC52X7- ... B07FWQGJMZ

I'll probably order a couple of them and see how they look.

I'll update the thread as I start tearing into the diff.

[ericjon262]

Unfortunately, I haven't touched the differential yet, work was a disaster last week, and I don't really have time to think about that kinda stuff at home.

I did have some thoughts fairly recently, while slamming the 350 together. I still need to finish the windage tray for the car, when I had this short block put together 15 years ago, the shop that messed with it said the windage tray wouldn't work, I simply trusted them, and haven't tried installing a stock tray, if I can find time Monday, I might try and snag a windage tray from the junkyard if I can find an engine already on the ground, which is pretty common, if I can, I'll try it out and see if it works, or I can make it work, if I can, I might send it off for an oil shedding coating or something so that I can get this show on the road.

I'm also working on a cam position sensor that would match an LS1 sensor, but not require modifications to the cam, this would allow me to run the LS1 wheel decoder in the MS3, and not the workaround that i have been using. I know I have a xfe cobalt trans in the garage, but I can't remember if the transmission that was in the grand am was the only metric bell f23 I had, I would like to assemble another transmission before putting it in the car, so hopefully I have a second bell housing.

[ericjon262]

I build the cam position sensor, but unfortunately for me, a measurement error means I need to remake the shaft... erg. I have more stock for the shaft, and will try and get it made up later this week.

Differential teardown:

viewtopic.php?t=22144

[ericjon262]

I went to the junkyard today and found a couple of windage tray, one of the great things about working on an engine nobody cars about, is that you can sometimes find them sitting on the ground and it's easy to get parts off, today, there were three sitting on the ground, two LZx engines, and one LX9. The LX9 was completely taken apart, down to a bare block, I looked all over, and didn't see the windage tray, on a whim, I opened the trunk of the car next to it, and there it was!

Then I pulled an LZx windage tray, the engine was pulled an upside down already, 5 minutes later, I have the tray!

I took them both home, and found why the shop who assembled the engine years ago "couldn't make it work", the stock windage tray attached via studs in the stock main cap bolts, these studs are smaller than the bolts. the studs, are the same diameter and don't fit through the holes in the tray... the LZx tray however, has the same setup, but the nuts for the tray are captured on the tray, and if you punch the washers that capture the off the tray, the tray slides right over the main studs, however, the LZx tray isn't a full length tray like the LX9 tray. in the picture below, you can see the tray doesn't cover the rear two cylinders, the oil pump also occupies this space to some degree.




I'm considering getting another tray cutting the front portion off, and welding it on where cylinders 5 and 6 go, but I'm not 100% set on that plan.

I like the LZx tray design better than the LX9 design, even if it's not a full length pan, the tray is louvered in several location for each pair of cylinders, unlike the earlier designs, which only have 1 louver per pair. I'm also giving some serious thought to further baffling the pan, the stock pan has almost no baffles, and there have been several people who have documented problems, or reduced oil pressure in high G cornering, will my car need all of that? good question, I hope to make it handle quite well under all conditions eventually, but for now, it would probably be overkill.

[ericjon262]

note for me, lifter bore centers .96"

[ericjon262]

yesterday, while I had a brief moment, I checked and found I do have 3 F23's in the garage, 1 XFE trans, 1 metric bell cavalier trans in ok shape, and 1 metric bell cav trans that was in the Gran Damn, but is damaged. so I guess it's good news that i have a pair of transmissions I can put together.

I called Crower, on their website, they list custom link bars as being available, which also implies they sell the lifter attachment hardware.

https://crower.com/link-blade-custom-made.html

Peter at Crower got back to me and told me to send them a print and we'll go from there, I wonder if he understands the kind of idiot he's dealing with? The link bars will be for the Johnson lifters I bought and modified ages ago (probably 6 months to a year) hopefully all the parts will work together, we'll see.