Fuel Injection upgrade

[Rusty_S85]

Thanks, it's been a while since I did anything now.  The last few weeks I have spent going through all the stuff I brought home from work since the shop owner decided to let me go after almost eleven years there.  So, I got about a week or two more of stuff to go through decide if I will keep it, sell it, or toss it then I should be getting onto my truck.  Easy way would be to list what I want to sell on Ebay, but I don't want to lose out on the money by Ebay taking their cut.

I sent an email to Holley tech about my Flowmaster Y pipe not fitting my OE flange Hedman shorty headers, asking them if it's a defect or if the Y pipe is supposed to be tweaked to fit.  I didn't want to buy some steel pipe and try to tweak it to make it fit my headers till I see what Holley says.  Holley did get back with me about O2 sensor placement on the Y pipe and they don't seem to care about the balance tube or how close the Y merger is to my planned O2 sensor location is, so I won't worry about it either.  I do have to how ever get the engine in the truck, mount the Y pipe to the headers and then see exactly where I need to drill for the O2 sensor bung to be placed then head over to an exhaust shop to weld the bung to the stainless-steel Y pipe.  I'm not going to attempt to weld it myself, last time I welded a aluminized steel turn down on my steel powder coated thrush glass pack for my truck and even with the powder coating freshly removed the weld wasn't that great.  It was good enough to hold the turn down on without a clamp but I wouldn't trust it to not leak which would throw an O2 sensor reading off.

Tomorrow however I hope to clear enough of my stuff out to get into the garage so I can pull my engine out and ill bolt the Y pipe loosely to the passenger side header and then snap some photos to show how far off the flanges are and then get measurements.  Worse case I can think is taking and getting a metal blade for my chop saw and chopping the Y pipe in two under the oil pan and then bolt up and get some stainless-steel exhaust tubing and weld in a splice.  I don't want to do this as it will be visible under the truck but then again, my oil pans I didn't get sprayed very well and the Eastwood 2K paint says if you need to spray a second coat after fully curing you need to scuff it up.  I can scuff it up but I can't scuff it up around the bolt heads so I don't know how I would do that and not have the paint flake off.  So, I think I am going to have to leave the thin spot on the bottom where you can see some grey engine primer bleeding through.  I had thought about simply masking off my oil pan and only respraying the oil pan, but I don't know how well it would stick in the rail areas around the bolts if I don't scuff it up.  The rest of the pan I can go over it with some 3M scuff pads I have and go over the whole oil pan, but the question is will I have to deal with the paint flaking off over time and looking tackier than primer bleeding through.  At least with the primer bleeding through a bit it just looks like the paint is worn down.  But I have time still to decide I got a whole can of 2K Dark Corporate blue I can activate and spray the oil pan down again, I just wish I didn't have to worry about the areas I can't scuff up properly with the pad.  I kick myself for not having a bright light to view the underside when I was spraying but I was in the sun when I sprayed the long block, I guess my eyes were adjusted to the brightness and I just didn't see it.

With any luck however I am going to focus on getting my truck back on the road this year, taking time off for a vacation that I haven't been able to take for eleven years and we are currently looking at selling the house again and moving out of town to the rural land we got so there is no real urgency to look for another job in the foreseeable future.  I got what I need for the truck minus minor odds and ends like 2 1/2" stainless steel exhaust tubing that I have to measure to see what length I need to avoid splices but stuff like that is under $100 an item.  I have enough in the bank to be fine for now and my stocks aren't doing too bad either, I'm getting close to unloading my canadian stock this year to reinvest in a stock that pays better dividends.  I hope to have my engine in by fall this year and to have it all plumbed up on fuel, exhaust, and have all the wiring done so I can get it running for some videos.  I'm anxious to see the exhaust note on my cam and how mellow my Magnaflow muffler is seeing it's a 6" round muffler in the OE dimensions so it should be no louder than our trucks were from the factory, but the Magnaflow muffler should give a nice late model sound and the cam should give a bit more rumble than a stock emission cam.  The tail pipe I am still on the fence, I contacted a local exhaust shop that is the only one that can do mandrel bent pipes they quoted me some $1,000 for a mandrel bent tail pipe said most of the cost is the stainless-steel pipe they use that is expensive to avoid collapsing during the mandrel bending process.  They quoted me $400 for a press bent stainless steel tail pipe though so I don't know what I will do but for now it will just be ending at the muffler.  I got a replacement tail pipe in 2 1/4" that is stock, but I changed my mind and planned on having a 2 1/2" tail pipe.

[Gary Lewis]

Yes, it has been a while.  But that's a bummer about the job.  However I'm pleased to see that you aren't in a serious bind financially.  

On the O2 sensor you do know they want those near the top of the pipe?  They want to ensure there's no water from condensation when the pipe is cold that could hit the sensor.

As for the oil pan, can you mask it so you don't paint near the bolt heads, the part you can't scuff?  If you mask it up near the rail the line probably can't be seen from the ground when the engine is in.

And I'm anxious like you to hear the exhaust note.  But I'll bet you are really anxious to get the engine to fire.  That is such a thrill.

[Rusty_S85]

It is, but I have been wanting to leave the job cause the owner doesn't even follow the contract that we signed, he's supposed to be giving out the work but he never has since year three for me it turned into a free for all where you grab what you want and what ends up happening is the easy work that pays good gets done first and the bigger jobs ends up being ignored.  What ultimately happens is you end up with vehicles that's been there three and four weeks and hasn't even been touched but a vehicle that came in yesterday gets in and out.  It got so bad that the online reviews were reflecting what I and the other guy was seeing which was that the customer base was shrinking to the point only our commercial accounts were keeping us afloat and our three commercial accounts weren't even enough cause two of them replaced their fleet of aging vehicles with brand new vehicles so two of them I haven't seen come in for the last three years.  He really did me a huge favor letting me go because he allowed me to jump from that sinking ship before it actually sank.

I'm just glad that I got back into the stock market some five years ago because that allowed me to get enough over there where if I am in a bind I could sell the stock and use that money to get me by but that would be an extreme case, realistically I should be sound till the end of the year easily.

On the O2 sensor, B is where I will be placing the sensor, I have to get the engine in the truck first and bolt up the Y pipe to see if I can put it on the exactly top of the pipe if not, I can angle it with in 45* from vertical.  They just don't want the O2 sensor horizontal or below horizontal as it won't allow moisture to drain out of the sensor.



Thats what I was thinking maybe mask the pan rail to the corner as best as I can then if there is a little over spray it won't matter as you really wouldn't see the pan rail easily once in the truck, plus I have the pan rail stiffeners for use with the one piece rubber pan gasket so if the over spray gets up to the back side of that stiffener it would provide a natural break as well.  I might end up doing that, I do need to think and make sure I don't have anything else that needs to be painted engine blue, this is my last can of 2K and half a can is all I need to respray the oil pan with three coats the rest will be wasted if I don't have something else to paint.

I'm also still on the fence about the Cold Case radiator, I have two cans of Eastwood Radiator black to spray it black to make it look OE stock, but I have to scuff the aluminum up as it is a bit slick and part of me hates the idea of scuffing up a brand-new aluminum radiator.  The other part of me knows I need to paint it though cause that aluminum will dull and turn colors over time and heat cycling.

Yep, I do need to pull the plugs out so I can put a little oil in each cylinder before I go rotating the engine over by hand.  I need to do that then pull the distributor and spin the oil pump while rotating the engine by hand slowly to make sure all lifters are full, I never did that when I first primed the oil pump, so I had some push rods that weren't really putting much if any oil out which I know is because the engine wasn't rotated while priming.  But I need to do that, and I also need to spin the engine over with the distributor in to spread the assembly grease all over the cam gear and distributor gear then apply more.  I don't want that to be dry on start-up.

On a side note however, I saw a Dakota-Digital post few months back about a new cluster they are coming out with and I commented that it looks nice but what about the RTX cluster for the 80 - 86 Ford truck/bronco, this time I didn't get told that there is no plans for it, the guy told me to keep an eye out this fall they are releasing a bunch of new clusters.  Then I saw another guy ask about a RTX cluster for his vehicle and I don't remember if it was the same guy or not, but they told him that they have no plans currently for that cluster.  Makes me think that was a confirmation the RTX cluster will be coming this fall for 80-86 Ford trucks and bronco.  If so, that will be great because I'd rather wire that in while I am doing the wiring for my EFI and all my auxiliary circuits.  I can also set the odometer wherever I decide to have it at from the start vs doing it later.  I still do know if I want to take my new cluster odometer reading now from when I installed it and add the miles to my original odometer then put that as the starting point for my RTX cluster or just start it off at 0 miles.  This odometer can't be changed after so many miles and it will read six digits, I don't know if my truck has already hit 6 digits yet or not, I know the ball joints are original and they are just starting to pop so I suspect my truck might not have rolled over 100k yet.

I'm going to leave this here though, I'm finished with my lunch so going to head back outside see if I can get enough finished to get the garage open and get my engine out so I can get some photos of the Y pipe loosely bolted up.  I been thinking about maybe the easiest way would be to chop the pipe under the oil pan in two bolt the two collectors up then put in a filler pipe and weld it in.  I could grind the weld down so it's not as noticeable, thing is I would have to find someone to weld it up for me because I know with my welders last time I welded on exhaust it didnt go too well.

[Rusty_S85]

Here we go, got enough moved out of the way to get the engine out and I loosely bolted up the passenger side collector.  I didn't run the nut all the way up as the bolts and nuts included with my hedman headers are black oxide bolts and steel flange head lock nuts (I won't be using these, I'm going to order some good quality ARP bolts in the same dimensions and source some good quality brass nuts as I prefer brass nuts for exhaust they are easier to get off than a steel nut if they strip out on removal years later.), I did however hold the collector and Y pipe flange together how they would be when tight and snapped these two photos showing the driver side collector and how far off it is.  It is not off by a mile, its off by about 1/2", if I center the Y-pipe and shift both sides out I would only have to shift each side 1/4" to get the fit to work.  I don't think I want to do that however.  I think I rather leave the passenger side alone and shift only the driver side to fit.





The two options I am thinking about to tweak the pipe is either A) buy some 2" steel round pipe in say 6 foot lengths insert into each side and use it for leverage to push by hand outwards and tweak the tubes out or B) chop the pipe under the oil pan bolt both sides up and slip in a fill piece and then weld it in and grind the welds down to hide the extension joint.

Either way I go with A or B, I am still looking at spending hundreds of dollars to do.  I have had some say to just bolt one side up in the truck and use a ratchet strap to pull the other side past the collector then allow it to flex back some to fit.  If I had cast iron heads and cast iron manifolds, I would do that, but with aluminum heads and steel tube headers I don't want to put that kind of stress on my headers nor my heads.

I don't know if I could take the Y pipe by itself to an exhaust shop and have them tweak the tube slightly out, I don't need to bend the pipe I just need to tweak it half an inch so the cone and socket will line up properly.  I don't want to put the bolts in and just force it in place, that is how these type collectors leak is by over tightening them and deforming the collector, forcing into place I fear will deform just the same and I dont want to take that risk.

[Gary Lewis]

I see your point about the aluminum heads.  However, the tension on those bolts would be in shear and the heads will be very strong in that case.  So I think you could heat the header up and tweak it to fit w/o any problem with the heads.

However, I don't think the mismatch is that bad.  As you said there's 1/4" mismatch on each side and I think the flare will match up with the cone easily.

[Rusty_S85]

Gary Lewis wrote

I see your point about the aluminum heads.  However, the tension on those bolts would be in shear and the heads will be very strong in that case.  So I think you could heat the header up and tweak it to fit w/o any problem with the heads.

However, I don't think the mismatch is that bad.  As you said there's 1/4" mismatch on each side and I think the flare will match up with the cone easily.

True they would be in shear, I probably wouldn't have a problem doing it that way, but what I have been thinking about it and I wonder if my square box tube posts for my carport would be strong enough to ratch strap each side and pull the Y pipe open some.  If so, I could put a marker mark on each one measure it and pull it out 1/2" then relax it and see how much rebound it has so I can try and hit a measurement that would give me the width I need for proper fitment.

I dont know if my propane torch would get hot enough to help soften the stainless steel and allow it to cool after pulling to retain that position.

From what I am hearing seems like 1/2" off is a pretty common thing with Y pipes.

[Haystack]

Exhaust tubing can actually stretch and contract a surprising amount just between heat and cold cycles.

If it's really only a 1/4" difference, I wouldn't even worry about getting the exhaust modified personally. I have had worse gaps then that on existing exhaust going back on the same car.

[Rusty_S85]

Haystack wrote

Exhaust tubing can actually stretch and contract a surprising amount just between heat and cold cycles.

If it's really only a 1/4" difference, I wouldn't even worry about getting the exhaust modified personally. I have had worse gaps then that on existing exhaust going back on the same car.

The 1/4" difference is if I center the Y-pipe to put each side off an equal amount.  If I mount one side the total is 1/2" difference.

I haven't tried it yet but one of the guys I was talking with said instead of bending or trying to stretch it by hand, take and apply some heat on the inside of the curve and then use a ratchet strap to pull that one tube over.  I also thought about getting some regular nuts and washers bolt one side up start the bolts on the other side and then heat just the Y pipe up in the bend and slowly snug the bolts down to see if I can get it to shift without deforming the cone.  The next question if I do this would be will it retain its new shape after fully cooling off and is removed.  To ensure a good seal I have already planned on a nice thin layer of grease in the cone so I can't have it dragging too much as it will scrape the grease off before I can super heat it with exhaust to turn it into a sticky Schellack.

This past week I was spending time away from home, this upcoming week will be rain from a hurricane passing through so I don't know when I will get to try this but from here till fall, I am going to be finding time to focus on getting this done.  That is my goal this year, get my truck completed to where I can drive it and then find out if need to do brakes or anything else after sitting.