Dropping a V6 into an 87 4cyl 5spd car.

Is the air intake going to be the same?
Is cruise control present? and if it is is it the same?
Is the rad same on V6's and 4cyl?
Are V6 and 4cyl cradles the same? (mounts excluded)

 

       Well Todays Pics

The Victim, err Project car

Kinda looks like it is smiling.

Ya its eager to go fast.  Even has tire sizes to match an 85GT (215/60/14's)

Thats the last you should see of this thing, well until its been removed at least.

I looked under and went oh, crap.

Then after a bit More removal this is what I found. 

 

This is the battery tray area.    

 

Strut Tower is just as bad.

At this point, I stopped work for the night and called Damien.  (spelling)   After talking to him, he says, as bad as it looks, he's worked with a ton worse.  Said nothing a welder and some metal and some time can't fix.  So he says go ahead with the project and he'll take care of the rust issues.  

     So the project is a full on go.   I'm going to start back at it, tomorrow.  Hopefully I can have the cradle on the ground by tomorrow afternoon.   

That pole structure you see over the car in the 3rd pic has now had the cover put on it so if it does rain, I will have a nice dry area to work.  I had thought about  moving the project into the garage where its dry heated and such, but I actually prefer to work outside on projects that are not "long term"   I have more room to move things around and such.

     My ultimate goal is to have this thing de-bugged and on the road for at the latest the club meeting next weekend.   I am sure Micheal will be happy going from a 4cyl to a warmed over V6 with a performance Cam installed.  Plus with the Isuzu installed should still get well above average gas mileage. 

         And, Uh Hum, you know who you are, you never got me back that spare flywheel I sent with you to get machined down.  Maybe someday I could get it back?

 

 

                          LOL, the No Rust was an assumption I made.  So no foul to the owner.  It looked clean until I tore the skin off of it. 

 

           Sorry guys no pics as I didn't stop till well after dark.  I am just calling it a night now.  However the cradle is now on the ground.  Still under the car as I lost my lights.  (power went out again tonight)   Power was off most of the day, then came back on around 2pm, then off again around 7pm, now says it won't be back on till 8am Friday.

        As for the throttle cable, I left that job to Damien, and he looked at the job and said, uhm, why do we need to change the entire cable when all it needs is a new end with correct stopper.  So he is going to just cut off the 4cyl end with 4cyl mount, then graft the V6 one on in its place.   

                    The reason for taking so long today was the damn Muther Frucking, Sen of er Batch front cradle bolts were seized in the metal inserts in the bushings,  the bolts would turn, however you could feel the metal sleeve spinning inside the rubber.  Took me several hours pounding, beating, prying, pulling and finally they came out.     Did I ever mention how much I hate rust.   However with any luck, I'll have the cradle out from under the car and start stripping out the good parts and getting it ready for the V6.   

       Its not too bad working outside, even with the wind today, it was pretty decent, just went it gets dark and the rain and cold start to soak in that you say, uhm, am I nuts.  LOL. 

                Well we are still without power, so I should get off here and save battery power for later.   I'll try to snap some pics in the morning and get them posted up.

LOL at this rate I might have to.  

IN the end I had the 2 G31's hooked in parallel then added a 3rd Optima style batter in parrell with the 2 G31s then had to putt a jumper box on the stack in parrell,  then at that point I finally had enough power that everything was staying just over 12v.  At 12v the inverter goes into freak out mode and shuts off so your car battery won't die.   I removed the interveter and booster box and got the stack charging on the same style smart charger as you have.   The pair of jumper boxes I have are also charging on there own right now. 

John I am really going to need to get that patch cable from you soon.  Looks like I am going to need this setup sooner than later.  Also might need to grab your 18" wall drill bit.  

 

Ok but back to cars.   Man its going to be a difference for her, one engine that has almost no power, to a V6 that is semi built.  I think she is going to have lots of fun.

      Oh P.S. John, this might be a good duke for you to start your gen system on.     I am not going to want a 4cyl engine hanging around our place for long.

 

       Well before I forget, its not a 2.8 with a cam, its a 3.1 or 3.2 with a cam, turns out Clynt used a later stroker engine.  So this should have lots of snap compared to the old Duke that was in it.

Alright on with the pics.  The reason for no update, is that as soon as we gathered the parts we have been non stop until we were ready to pass out.  Last night it wasn't till almost 11pm that we stopped working.

Thanks to Parts Blair gave us, parts I had in the locker and parts, Damien bought from Clynt at a very steal of a deal price.  Then a trip to Lordco, we are pretty much set.

 

So get ready for lots of pics, there is 35 of them.

The first drop pics.

Rust Repair, and trust me it gets better further on.

 

The "Empty Engine" pic that every build must have.

The Sad old Duke

The Isuzu

Hmm Army Green?   Na Special Primer.  Notice the Patchwork.  Looking Good.

The Man at Work, Welding and Painting, Welding and Painting. WOW he never quits.

The 3.2 V6 getting ready to go in.

Some more of the sad old duke engine.

New Clutch installed.  Sure looks heavy duty for an OEM replacement.

Hmm, can you spot the thing you shouldn't see.

Hmm, nope this end is fine.

How bout there, Hmm, whoops that is suppose to be up inside.

Well a few good taps, and a small prayer.   We pushed it back up inside the trans and put a few drops of lock tight on the outside of the bushing, hopefully it stays put.

Remember that nasty battery tray.  Well we did not replace it, Damien managed to make it look like new.

  Only drawback to all this work with the portable sand blaster, my driveway is now orange, I think someone will be doing some muddy sweeping.

And the final shots of tonight, before I climbed into the house to pass out.

Yes, V6 clutch with Isuzu bearing.  In fact I have the left over Gatrag bearing available if anyone wants to buy it.  I was in a rush so had to buy the standard V6 clutch kit with the bearing I don't need.

need any parts let me know, i have almost a whole 86 gt for parts. cables and what ever you need make a reasonable price and its yours, mind u ill make u pull things apart yourself :) let me know going to get rid of the car soon to the reckers

Capt Fiero wrote: We managed to locate a proper V6 5spd for him too.

Dave, could you elaborate on that a bit?

 

  Ok so it was late last night, that on some last min soldering near the front of the cradle, I came across the fact that both front cradle bolts had been cut off rather than removed.  This fused the busted bits into the rubber bushings.   There was no way to get those busted bits out.  I just happen to have a set of poly cradle mounts here that I had been saving for a long time.  I told him well, we are kinda screwed, so we agreed I would give him mine and he would grab me a set later to replace them.   We went ahead and did the entire cradle in poly rather than just the 2 front mounts.  Damien took care of the burning and drilling and they came out fairly easy with lots of burning from my propane torch.  

Well lets get onto the pics.

Nice open hole.  He even put some primer on as the paint got uhm, kinda burnt.

Nice new bushing installed.  Yes its black poly, not all poly is red.

Well seeing as his car was a 4, the exhaust was pretty useless so we grabbed one of my spare sets from storage and he did some quick welding, all of a sudden, we had a complete V6 exhaust, its not a stock exhaust, however should sound really mean behind the 3.1 V6

Hmm,  that looks odd, its not on the ground.

Hmm is that a V6 coolant pipe fighting with an old 4cyl pipe.  (note the 4cyl drivers pipe is way too long,

and will have to be cut down.

Yaa, lookie here.   Its installed.  Still got to put the struts, CV shafts, brakes, and work out the details on the coolant hoses, but the V6 is completely installed.  Man that motor looks good in there.