99 Denali

[95escahoe]

One thing at a time, right? Can't get overwhelmed. Happened to me too. I heard MSD's aren't that great, along with accel's , and all that other over rated, over priced stuff. Heard that Taylor's are top notch. Beat out all the other wires. Those are what I'm gonna get for the Hoe. You're slowly getting there my friend!

X2 on the Taylor wires


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[Snowbound]

One thing at a time, right? Can't get overwhelmed. Happened to me too. I heard MSD's aren't that great, along with accel's , and all that other over rated, over priced stuff. Heard that Taylor's are top notch. Beat out all the other wires. Those are what I'm gonna get for the Hoe. You're slowly getting there my friend!

I've heard good things about Taylor wires too. Speed shop doesn't have them for the Vortec in stock and personally, I've had zero issues running these 8.5mm MSD wires. Ohm testing aside, I'd bet nobody would know the difference. If someone swapped my MSD's while I was sleeping with stock AC Delco's I wouldn't be half way to work and say, "hey, someone changed my wires. I can feel it." Haha. But I would know if someone was in my garage. In all seriousness, I've only run these because it's what they stock for my truck and I try to buy local whenever possible. They usually match prices if I tell them I can get it cheaper elsewhere. They are always cheaper than Summit or Jegs and part is in my hand same day or next if they have to order it. I'm rambling, like I'm trying to defend my wires. I'm not. I don't usually buy into brand hype either.

 

[Tonyrodz]

I've heard good things about Taylor wires too. Speed shop doesn't have them for the Vortec in stock and personally, I've had zero issues running these 8.5mm MSD wires. Ohm testing aside, I'd bet nobody would know the difference. If someone swapped my MSD's while I was sleeping with stock AC Delco's I wouldn't be half way to work and say, "hey, someone changed my wires. I can feel it." Haha. But I would know if someone was in my garage. In all seriousness, I've only run these because it's what they stock for my truck and I try to buy local whenever possible. They usually match prices if I tell them I can get it cheaper elsewhere. They are always cheaper than Summit or Jegs and part is in my hand same day or next if they have to order it. I'm rambling, like I'm trying to defend my wires. I'm not. I don't usually buy into brand hype either.

I hear ya. I like the idea of the shop doing up your heads-- forgot to mention that before. Might as well, while it's apart too. Did the heads in my GN. Cleaned them up and did the valves. Might as well, right? Also-- bought the car and it had 10 mm msd's, mechanic put 7's or 8's on, can't remember, but no difference that I can notice.

 

[Snowbound]

I hear ya. I like the idea of the shop doing up your heads-- forgot to mention that before. Might as well, while it's apart too. Did the heads in my GN. Cleaned them up and did the valves. Might as well, right? Also-- bought the car and it had 10 mm msd's, mechanic put 7's or 8's on, can't remember, but no difference that I can notice.

Man, you HAD a GN? I had a chance to buy one back in '01 and I'm kicking myself I didn't. That's one vehicle that I've always wanted. But even back then being an 87 the interest rate was a little higher than I wanted to pay. Can't believe I let it go for 2.5 points higher in interest. At the time I thought I was making the right decision, now I can't find em unmolested for a reasonable price. 2 vehicles I want before I die, 87 GN and Hummer H1 Alpha. Probably won't see either but it's good to have dreams.

And heads aren't getting a lot of work. Just a good polishing on top of small porting. I could have changed springs myself but since he'll have them off anyway I figure might as well. That way he can set heights and pressures with proper springs. Just one less thing on my list other than another check to write.

 

[Tonyrodz]

Man, you HAD a GN? I had a chance to buy one back in '01 and I'm kicking myself I didn't. That's one vehicle that I've always wanted. But even back then being an 87 the interest rate was a little higher than I wanted to pay. Can't believe I let it go for 2.5 points higher in interest. At the time I thought I was making the right decision, now I can't find em unmolested for a reasonable price. 2 vehicles I want before I die, 87 GN and Hummer H1 Alpha. Probably won't see either but it's good to have dreams.

And heads aren't getting a lot of work. Just a good polishing on top of small porting. I could have changed springs myself but since he'll have them off anyway I figure might as well. That way he can set heights and pressures with proper springs. Just one less thing on my list other than another check to write.

I still have it. Longest vehicle I've ever had! Had it since 95. Traded my 92 Typhoon for it. I have a love hate relationship with the car-- I love to hate it!! What's a Hummer Alpha?
My GN , it's an 87

 

[Snowbound]

Love it Tonyrodz!! Looks like you kept original wheels, even better. I'm jealous.

Hummer H1 Alpha is an H1 but the newest civilian version uploaded ones made. LTZ models if you will. Instead of the 6.5 turtle diesel it has a Duramax/Allison. I've looked at a few but I couldn't pull the trigger on a vehicle that costs more than my house.

 

[95escahoe]

I still have it. Longest vehicle I've ever had! Had it since 95. Traded my 92 Typhoon for it. I have a love hate relationship with the car-- I love to hate it!! What's a Hummer Alpha?
My GN , it's an 87View attachment 71978

Badass GN looks really clean, sucks you had to get rid of the Typhoon those are pretty sick too


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[Snowbound]

Well I thought for sure someone would have noticed, but never said anything. This marine intake I have is not from a Mercruiser, it's from a Pento/Volvo marine engine. Still a GM 5.7 but has a different throttle body. Way different.

Mercruiser marine intake

Pento/Volvo marine intake

Reason I ended up with this one is because I couldn't find a mercruiser unit. Figured at the very most I would have to replace the upper intake. Merc units go for $500-900 used, I was lucky and got this one for $460. Throttle body bolt pattern doesn't line up to any throttle body that I can find. I was originally going to make a plate from stainless that would bolt to this intake and then weld a stainless 90* elbow to it. Off the front of the 90 I would have put another plate with a 4bolt LS throttle body bolted to it. Instead I devised another plan.

 

[Snowbound]

So this is how I fixed my issue.

I made a template of the opening.

I found a 4 bolt to 3 bolt throttle body adapter so I can use my current TB. Marked the holes and drilled them out to 15/64". Then used a 27/64" to counter sink allen bolts.

Worked out perfectly. If it hadn't I would have had to spend $398 on a new upper because I couldn't find one used. Full flow bore so there's no restriction from this conversion.

What you see on the inside bore is the worthless throttle body spacer. I can open it up but doubt it really restricts anything. It more like swirls the incoming air. Pointless really but I doubt I'll spend the time smoothing it out. I wanna use it because if you look at the pic of adapter plate on intake you can see the machined in passage way for the idle air circuit. I'm gonna take some material off the bottom of the TB spacer to open that passage way up some. In stock form that passage goes right into intake unrestricted. I need it to flow better and I can accomplish that by opening spacer and not have to do any other modification.

So I'm happy I got past this obstacle fairly easy. On to repairing header right now and welding in wide band O2 sensor bung. I'll post up when I'm past that. For the meantime, I'm not bolting on a turbo. I'm doing the cam, front cover and getting this thing running again to get base tune ironed out before adding forced air. Besides, I don't want to break the bank right now. I ordered intercooler, charge pipes and turbo headers. I'll get turbo after 4L80E/14 bolt swap. I need to modify headers to make work and that much power will only make this trans give up the ghost. Right now I can sell this trans to offset some cost on trans swap. Heads are at machine shop and I have a bunch more to do before I can make this thing run anyway.

 

[Tonyrodz]

Wow! Awesome work. I can't wait to see it get done! On the Buick GN forums, there's an area that guys have turbo'd Ls motors. Maybe you can check it out. Get some ideas or answers to some questions.

 

[Tonyrodz]

BTW, those are trans am gta rims. I never had the original rims.

 

[Snowbound]

Wow! Awesome work. I can't wait to see it get done! On the Buick GN forums, there's an area that guys have turbo'd Ls motors. Maybe you can check it out. Get some ideas or answers to some questions.

I've been searching interweb nightly while at work. Have read numerous forum and builds of guys running aluminum head 383 with turbos. Never thought about GN forum. Figures that would be the first you thought of. Haha. Would have been my first search too if I had a GN like you. Damn it! I should!!

I did find one guy that built one and he said he had 205 heads, Chinese knock offs but they were actually pretty decent, anyway, the guys on there were telling him that he may have too much head for his build. They were all saying same thing my machine shop guy told me, smaller runners were better for throttle response. Told him they wouldn't go over 185. That made me feel better. And he was running a bigger turbo than what I'm doing. The same forums is what made me decide not to mount my turbo yet. I seen it repeated over and over, even a built 60e will not hold up to the torque and the 80e is 3x better for forced induction.

The warden just came out to garage with a box in her arms. More parts showed up. It's just my intake gasket set, park/neutral switch and connectors. My reverse lights don't work and neither do my LED _RND3_1 lights on dash. Only P and 2 light up. So I'm changing switch. I've been living with it since I've acquired the truck but I was gonna have to wire in PCM to that switch so I ordered parts. Connectors are because they always fuse themselves into the switch housing and I knew they would break coming off. And I'm pretty damn sure I can use this switch on the 80e anyway. But I didn't have to wire PCM to switch. LEXTECH programmed that function out of the program. It was only for crank relearn but it needs to be done and I wanted to be prepared. Enough BS, gotta picture. Always gotta have a picture. My motto is, "picture or it didn't happen".

 

[Snowbound]

BTW, those are trans am gta rims. I never had the original rims.

I couldn't get a clear enough view on my phone. All I could see is they weren't some chrome 5 stars or similar. GTA wheels look good but the originals is what I like best on them. Go find some. For me at the very least. Lol

 

[Snowbound]

I said I didn't like how PCM sat in place, well, I went ahead and made a new bracket to hold it.

Removed this plastic one

Made a template from cardboard to get a rough idea what I'm working toward.

I actually had a metal shelf that I've cut pieces from for other little projects, I cut a piece to fit and bent up three sides and bend down the front and it sits in there nice and neat.

I'm going to utilize a hole in the fender and weld a piece of rod on the bottom so it's supported on fender side. I could use a couple small self tap screws but this way it's only 2 bolts to loosen and it comes right out.

Sits down lower and I'll have a top strap to keep it from bouncing.

I'm also gonna drill 2- 2" holes in the bottom of tray and dimple die it for structure and so PCM can breathe to dissipate any heat. I'll post pic of finished product after paint. Overall in happy with my 40 minute PCM support.

 

[Tonyrodz]

Looks pretty damn good! Car had some aftermarket aluminum rims when I got it, and I swapped these on. Factory GN rims are really heavy. I think somewhere around 30 lbs each, with no tire. I'm not a chrome guy anyway. Car wasn't stick when I got and it ain't stock now. Took it for a ride today, still freaking fast!!! Lol, just rubbing it in a oil bit.

 

[Tonyrodz]

I took a screenshot.

 

[Snowbound]

Looks pretty damn good! Car had some aftermarket aluminum rims when I got it, and I swapped these on. Factory GN rims are really heavy. I think somewhere around 30 lbs each, with no tire. I'm not a chrome guy anyway. Car wasn't stick when I got and it ain't stock now. Took it for a ride today, still freaking fast!!! Lol, just rubbing it in a oil bit.

Yeah, thanks for that. Haha.

I took a screenshot. View attachment 72045

I'll check it out. I like reading shit like this. Especially when you can learn from others mistakes and accomplishments.

 

[Tonyrodz]

I wasn't able to copy the link, but if you go to turbobuick.com and go to the front page and scroll you'll be able to find those threads. I'm sure there's a lot of good info there.

 

[Snowbound]

Been reading thru a couple on there. Good info from knowledgable people seems like. LS series makes things a little different but all in all still good info and great reads.

Did a little porting to spacer yesterday along with installing park/neutral switch. Phone died so I didn't get pics of switch but I will get them today.

Now you can see where this porting was relevant. Spacer sitting on top of plate would only allow just that little bit of air to be pulled under spacer via that 6-7mm gap in adapter plate. No way this engine would run or at least run smooth at idle like that. That's why I opened up spacer.

Parts got blasted and also new PCM mounting plate got its 2" dimples. Decided to do 3 to keep PCM cool.

Some flat aluminum ceramic engine paint makes brackets look pretty.

And then some black for bolts, ac bracket and shelf.

 

[Snowbound]

Pictures as promised.

Anyone ever change one of these? They frickin glued the connectors in the switch. Literally, they were glued in. I got them out but only by destroying the connector on switch. Then you gotta pry the damn thing off he side of trans. I wire brushed shifter rod and everything. Then the new one did not want to slide on. I didn't want to beat it on. Then I feel the rod and can feel that it's mushroomed on the end. Had to file it down in order to get new switch on. Figured 20-25 minutes to swap out switch. Yeah right! I fought that thing for over an hour and the shifter cable isn't even on yet. Whatever, I have to revisit it later anyway to adjust the damn thing. On to the next thing that needs to be done. More pics coming later.