1995 RMW Jade Project Wagon

Its wrapped in plastic until I take it out for a photo...then wrap it back up. but no, I'm not worried it will get dirty.  I actually already have the pan and intake on...but I'm just posting a week behind.  lol

Quote :

Its wrapped in plastic until I take it out for a photo

My grandmother had a couch like that.

Not a ton of progress this week due to gigs and helping out a buddy....but I am getting closer.

Oil pan back on, engine primed and intake manifold bolted in

Water pump housing gutted and ready for the electric pump (I won't put that on until I have the engine in the car since it sticks out a good bit)

Replaced the original engine mounts with the energy suspension ones.  My stock ones were really bad!  Yikes!

Video of stock motor mount...
https://www.facebook.com/brokecello/videos/10215223547135719/

The transmission came back from the shop too.  

Oh, and I freshened up the head shielding on the wiring as well.  

 Chris

Getting even closer....I mated the trans to the engine last night and installed the fuel rails / intake bits. I was hoping to stab the engine/trans in Sat with some help...but the impending storm has caused me to change plans. Since the garage door has to be up and wagon slightly out if the garage to make room for the hoist upfront, I am going to try tonight while it won't be windy and raining. lol

If I get it in tonight, I can stay dry and work on other things this weekend between gigs.

We will see! I did get it out by myself. Just have to go slow and not rush.

Ended up getting the engine in Thurs night. I actually had fun...it feels great to have it back in place

I hope to fire it up Sunday if everything happens as it should this week. Waiting for a PVC grommet and trans cooler adapter fitting before I connect everything else up top.

One of the things that always bother me was the lack of an aftermarket / lifetime / silicone hose set for these cars. I've had my blue Goodyear high milers for a bit and on other wagons...and you can also find the old green 9C1 hoses still if you look hard.

I finally bought a set of these black silicone hoses from BonoSpecialties on Instagram and I really like them. The coolant "T" is eliminated as well with his design. He has other colors, but black is perfect for me.

Still on track to start it up Sunday morning. Waiting on a trans cooler line fitting and I can add coolant / rad fan and hose install and BOOM. lol

The Torquehead setup does have fuel rail covers...but I won't install them until I'm sure the roller rockers are adjusted for the last time.

That is the best-looking setup for the ignition modules I've seen!  I really hate them sitting on this valve covers like most are.   With this, it looks like you have a big spider sitting on top of your motor!  Awesome!!

HA!! Yes! They do look like spider legs...lol...its also SO easy to change and route the wires. Man, its still a lot of money...but I'm glad I went the Tourquehead route for the long haul.

Sucker fired right up this morning...it was crazy! I will do a video Sunday after I get time to tighten down some exhaust noise from minor leaks. So glad its in and running now! Just some minor tweaks and 'll be ready to drive it Sun! Will need a tune before I go on a trip though.

Its sunday,....

Lol...Jay came over this morning and we knocked out the last little adjustments.  I still need to trace down an exhaust leak and get it tuned before driving much more.  BUT - she runs and I'm very happy!!  Had to stop at noon for other commitments - but can't wait to work on it more as time allows.

Gotta put the bumper back on too.  I was just too excited to try it out.  

Here is a link to the vid of the first test drive:
TEST DRIVE VIDEO 1
TEST DRIVE VIDEO 2

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Final pics of the engine project. Have the fuel rail covers on now and the Hotchkis brace does still fit! #Success

Now to install a wideband O2 and get it tuned!

Chris that a SO FREAKING GORGEOUS! Nice Work Sir!!!

Awesome!

Looking good ! I am interested in seeing how you feel about the Torque head setup. I have seen a few guys start out talking about it, then they never really finish telling us about their thoughts on it.

Thanks guys! I'm just happy everything works....that was a lot to change at once and I was shocked when it literally fired up on the first crank!

Gerome,

What are you wanting to know about in general? Right now my PCM is with a tuner in GA getting an updated bench tune. Torquehead will load a base tune for you but I ended up changing a significant bit of my engine setup...so I want it closer before I drive it to have it road tuned.

Would I have been fine keeping my opti? Yeah, but I wanted something that will give me more options in the future for tuning and with wear parts that are easily purchased of the shelf since they come from late model cars.

I did the full kit with all the added dress up items, but most go with the base sensor / PCM pkg and buy their own coils (mount them on the valve covers) and wires. The instructions were super easy and everything was literally bolt on. The hardest part (I would guess) for most would be removing the crank hub. You need the right puller or "adapt" a Harbor Freight puller to make it work. Otherwise, it is a piece of cake to install.

I'm interested in the easy of tuning for one thing. It is just about impossible to find someone to tune a lt1 nowadays. A guy I follow on YouTube(rubber city) was having trouble getting his tune right with the torque head setup. Cause my lt1 is very tired and I have to do something either replace the lt1 or some kind of swap. Also I want to follow how it does overtime. I am looking at doing a 355(blue print) also but I want it tuned . Pretty much the same reasons you listed are the reasons I am interested in this thread. So I will be looking on with keen interest.

Yeah, the guy in GA got my PCM and was excited...he made a new harness adapter (working with Paul at TorqueHead) so you can bench tune these. It was also recommended that I install a wideband O2 before road tuning.

I'll keep you posted for sure. Id be interested to know why rubber city is having trouble (I'll go look on his channel).

https://youtu.be/M8iXhBn-FS0
Here is one of the videos where he tells about some of his problems.

He is interesting for sure...nice SS! Some of his issues might be things not related to the TorqueHead honestly...but I will watch more to see how it turns out.

I am running stock injectors / fuel pump and keeping stock pressure. I don’t need to go nuts since mine is just a 355 with mild cam. I also already upgraded my MAF and TB too. And I’m putting in the wide and O2. He definitely needs to do that to get a good tune no matter what (from what I’m being told).

I will have the PCM back from bench tuning Sat so I’m eager to see how it runs then! It was not bad out of the box...it would idle and run with no issues. I was just being safe...since I don’t want to risk ruining anything honestly.

Looks who is a Hot Rod now?? Its beautiful Chris!!! Nice work.

Sounds good ! Your setup is pretty much what I am looking to do to my wagon. I have found a local tuner and I have to do a little bit more research on him before I make my decision to use him . Looking forward to your review of your setup after a road trip.

Some updates after tuning...and I LOVE the tuner I used (Alex Walker) in GA. He can also bench tune these as well as he worked with Torquehead to build a harness.

#1. be sure the tuner uses LT1 firing order and not LSX firing order
#2. be sure tuner uses LT1 injector tables and not LSX
#3. be sure tuner talks to Paul @Torquehead...if your tuner won't take the time to do that...move on.

Apparently I am THE first RMW or Fleetwood to do this conversion...so that was interesting and explains why I'm having some minor issues with my digital climate control. Temp always says 49d and I've lost the ability to read engine data through the climate control too. Sent the PCM back to Paul and he is adding some additional features to resolve this as it is similar to the Corvette.

I was having some issues with TC Lockup too, and that ended up being an internal issue related to the RMW and Fleetwood (and Corvette) as well. So he is updating a chip to resolve that.

Otherwise, the tuner was amazed at the conversion and all the data he can see now. It runs smooth and I have already put over 400 miles on it!

VIDEO OF IDLE

I did not have time to have the wideband O2 installed, but Alex put a sniffer on and that was better than nothing. I will go back again for a touch up once the PCM comes back from Torquehead with the repairs needed on that end. Paul at Torquehead is great to work with too.

Chris

I also had my 40th Bday this past weekend...and one thing I've always wanted were some redline tires from Diamondback since I first saw a set at WFNY. So I went a little wild and bought some new wheels and tires. Not sure if I will put them on now or when I redo the woodgrain (I have some "regular" 3M Teak woodgrain waiting to go on...)

Wheels are 20in and not staggered like the current 18in set I have. I will use the 18s as my fun / racing set with some more aggressive tires and have the 20s be the cruising / show set.

Holy crap. You use the same exact (looks) sheet that I use to cover the floor for transporting things in my wagon, lol.

Nice to hear all the positives with this upgrade. Looking to rebuild my engine soon and am wanting to go this route.

Sounds amazing! The cam lop is nice . Your cautions are duly noted. Collecting some of my parts now for my wagon. I the tuner I have found I'll see what he has to say about using torqehead. So the 400 miles you put on it . We're they fun miles or just break-in miles ? Is that jades original color ? Almost forgot those tires are NICE ! I see why you fell in love with them .

LOL 94Woody! Its an old sheet from my Mother N Law...that is funny you use the same one! I used to have a rug like that in my garage too from her (prob can see it in my old pics). She likes that kind of stuff.

Gerome, was about 117miles of interstate...and the rest were backroads / mountain roads with spirited driving. But I'm still not going crazy until I change the break in oil out this weekend if I have time. I've also been driving it to work each day so really, I'm almost up to 500 miles so far. Sits in traffic with the AC on great. Just a little bit deeper and louder than before. LOL!

Jadestone Metallic / DGGM is the original color on my wagon. The interior was tan, but I swapped it out to Ruby Red since I had a NDakota parts wagon at the time. The current wrap is the 4th generation on this wagon as well. I tend to change it out since its an easy way to mix it up and keeps my interest going. This is seriously the longest I've owned a car ever. I used to get em, mod up and sell every year or so. Going on 8yrs with this wagon!

break in oil??
whats that??

Rockin'theredlines!

Well, 2018 was not the best year (at least...the end of it) for my wagon. Still can't quite get the TorqueHead tuned right and it wagon seems to get progressively worse each time its tuned...to the point that I can't even drive it now. Fuel pressure is ok, rockers / valves / compression...all great.  

Jay (in Atlanta..the guy who built the engine and did one hell of a job at that) came with a trailer and picked it up and is going over everything since I literally got tired of fooling with it and seeing it in the garage just made me more depressed since I just can't figure out WTF is wrong. TorqueHead thinks its a mechanical issue, Tuner thinks its a PCM issue and I think I wasted a bunch of money when the Opti was fine.

I'm believing it really has to be something with the RMW...everyone else has an SS and they work great. TorqueHead does not communicate with the HVAC Head unit at all...I don't see how it could be causing an issue, but that appears to be messing something up. If Paul (TH) was closer, I would love for him to personally look over the thing - but having already spend a good bit shipping PCMs back and forth to Canada and paying to upgrade to a Vette PCM (which did not help, it was actually way worse), then paying a tuner more than once to try to fix it has left me not wanting to invest anymore into this setup.  

Most likely, the next step will be taking the THead off and putting the old PCM (get it tuned) and Opti back on. If it runs great then we have our problem.  If not...I'll keep digging with Jay's help. He is keeping me sane at this point.    

To be clear, I'm not knocking the THead setup or Service - but being the "first RMW" and all the "It should run fine, I'm not seeing why its not" has left me kinda hollow inside.  I just want to drive the damn thing again.    

Sucks to hear, Broseph. Could it be its not happy with the faux wood veneer? I dont know...Im just thinking out loud.

Andebe wrote:

Sucks to hear, Broseph. Could it be its not happy with the faux wood veneer? I dont know...Im just thinking out loud.

LOL!!  Don't even get me started on that...pixelated orange thing. I know I'm venting at this point, but that is prob when things started to go downhill.  smh  

I do have some nice replacement woodgrain waiting to go on - and my redline tires and new wheels (which have still yet to be mounted on the wagon).   I just want it to run. I've never hit a roadblock like this before with a Bbody. I've always been able to overcome the issue and figure it out.

I'm definitely lost here.

Well I'm sorry to read this...it looked like a fantastic setup and I had really high hopes for you. Fingers are crossed that's it's just something silly that you are able to locate.

Oh and if you give up, before setting it on fire....I want the hood.

Nothing but love!

-Mike

That sucks. I really hate mystery problems. Hope you get it figured out.

UPDATE!

Well, sometimes you have to take a step back or have another set of eyes look at it to see the obvious (at least part of the problem)  

LOL!

Jay found a vac leak that I missed (and some other little things)...that has fixed (obviously) the idling issue.  So it does run now (like it did at first in Oct).  BUT - still lacking power on the bottom end and same climate control issue (which I can live with....as long as it has the power and feel it should). I only really need AC here in SC. HA

He is going to take it back to the tuner for a roadtune session...but he drove it last night a good bit and took it to work today and it seems like we are definitely back to early Oct (first PCM) status + TC Lockup.  

I guess I had to give up in my head before things could move forward. Lol....

what "other little things",..?

Spark plug boot not all the way clipped on #8 and a small exhaust leak from the pass side collector.  The Vac leak was the obvious and stupid miss...I was convinced there was not one and didn’t want to undo all the coil plugs and dress up bits bolted to the top of the engine (since I’ve taken if off and on a dozen times).  Looks like I kocked a vac hose loose going from the TB to the evap sensor getting the fuel rail covers back on.  

So, now I am eager to see if the tuner can do his thing again.

brokecello wrote:

UPDATE!

Well, sometimes you have to take a step back or have another set of eyes look at it to see the obvious (at least part of the problem)  

LOL!

Jay found a vac leak that I missed (and some other little things)...that has fixed (obviously) the idling issue.  So it does run now (like it did at first in Oct).  BUT - still lacking power on the bottom end and same climate control issue (which I can live with....as long as it has the power and feel it should).  I only really need AC here in SC.  HA

He is going to take it back to the tuner for a roadtune session...but he drove it last night a good bit and took it to work today and it seems like we are definitely back to early Oct (first PCM) status + TC Lockup.  

I guess I had to give up in my head before things could move forward. Lol....

Does the climate control not work at all, or is it just that you can't do the diagnostics with it anymore?

Here is what the climate control does:

Always stays frozen at startup (remember the usual countdown you would see whenever you reset the battery?) for half a min or so...like it wants to do the countdown. But its just frozen.

Outside Temp always displays 49 degrees. Period.

Heat does not work. I can set temp...but heat will never come in. Its not the heater core as I've checked that and the heat was working before the engine swap. And yes, I did bleed the system. (but hey, I missed a damn vac leak...so...I could be off on that too)

Ac works though and I can work all the buttons to change mode from defrost/vent/floor...etc

None of the diagnostics work...just give no value or weird numbers.

Glad to hear some progress,Brother.

Glad you're making progress. While we're talking about exhaust leaks...

For what it's worth, ALWAYS have your exhaust manifolds or header flanges planed flat at a machine shop before you install them. It'll be the best money you spend. Even a top brand header manufacturer's headers needed a little work.

Just got these pics from Jay tonight - back with the tuner BUT he is taking it a step further and working with a friend at his Dyno shop. Wish I could be there...but he promised to take videos. Let hope this does the trick (won't help the climate control part) and it runs like it should.

I 'm hoping to go to WFDaytona and PowerTour...stay "tuned" haha..*cough*

Getting closer...

https://www.facebook.com/1395712140482384/posts/1981513215235604/

Chris

Well - we are cooking with fire!  Turns out I needed more fuel.  Installed the Walboro pump and also some new injectors....runs awesome now.  Drove it home from ATL last night after a long day of working on it and a re-tune.  

Video of me leaving last night:  https://www.facebook.com/brokecello/videos/10216189877813382/


Lesson to learn here (for me).  Be patient and don't leave the original fuel pump (200+K miles on it) and injectors in a new engine build.  Even if I was just putting another stock engine in, just put new in anyhow.  

The outside temp still does not read right with the TorqueHead setup, but I am happy with everything else right now.  Eager to put more miles on it and bring it to WagonFest FL and then PowerTour.  

My buddy Heath came up and so did Jay (engine builder).  Alex (tuner) was generous to lend me his lift and tools....I love it when a plan comes together!!

awesome congrats getting the bugs out. sounds great

mtrhead79 wrote:

awesome congrats getting the bugs out. sounds great

Thanks John!!

what size injectors did u go with

I went with the Bosch 36lb @43.5psi

Way Cool Brother!!! Happy for you!

Decided it was time for some high flow cats...especially with Hot Rod Power Tour on the horizon.  I have grown tired of the smell over the years.  It actually got better after this round of tuning / Torqhead setup. But since my wife is coming with me to Daytona in a few weeks - I knew I needed to add this.  

The sound is a little quieter (bummah) but the smell is 200Xs better now.

Prob going to put some turndowns on too...need to get it  up on the highway to see if I can still smell exhaust at speed.  The current setup and rollpan seem to draw it right through the tailgate.