[Super Serg]

My Red Line has 2 main wires (black/red) and a smaller gauge wire(white) at the plug connector, and then just two at the fan controller. I’m assuming all 2.0‘s are the same.

I’m sure the service manual has the wire breakdown, just need to find where.

 

[kgschlosser]

I wasn't listening to the audio and I didn't see the 3rd prong. You are correct there is the 3rd one in there... I am going to look at my fan today. It' going to be a simple PWM control if it is

To get the car to run at 180 all the time the temperature would have to be adjusted so it turns on at a cooler temperature then it does. The Water Pump I got has a controller and controls the speed of the pump. It also has a fan control built on but the fan control is a simple on and off. Making a controller to control both the fan and the water pump would not be all that difficult to do. Tricking the ECM so it doesn't throw a code for the fan controller is pretty easy to do a well.

 

[agent008]

I wasn't listening to the audio

many times when I don't want to bother others around me I turn on the closed caption function that youtube offers. It's very accurate.

 

[agent008]

I am going to look at my fan today

The fan is gonna have only 2 wires. But the loom from ECM to the controller is where you'll see 3 conductors.

Oh, wait, I'm preaching to the preacher here. Sorry... 😁

Anyway, the info above might be valuable to others.

 

[kgschlosser]

That wiring harness is not apart of the ECM harness. It's apart of the chassis harness. Which is what is strange. Makes me wonder if the fan is controlled by the ECM. I have to look at the shop manual.

 

[kgschlosser]

Update.

The 4 plugs used to delete the balance shafts are installed. And the water pump that I removed the impeller and the flang for the sprocket has been installed. I ordered GM timing components and I have to say it was a royal pain to get the chain on. There is literally like 1/2 a link of slack so no wiggle room when getting everything lined up. At first I had thought the chain was too small and I sized it up next to the old one it was about a link shorter. I then counted the number of links and they had the same number. The chain had stretched almost a full links worth of length. I did manage to get it done.

Here are some photos.


This is all the slack I had to work with

Here you can see the plugs for the balance shaft holes. One is hidden part way by the black chain guide.
All of the holes you see in the middle area are for the balance shafts and associated guides for the chain. A lot got removed so it's far less complex.

Next issue was the gasket for the cover. The part number was correct but this thing didn't line up properly

The gasket is aluminum and rubber and it turned out the thing was racked and bent.

After messing about with the gasket and getting it bent back into shape I was able to get the cover bolted on.

I still have to do the 2nd step torque procedure for the phaser bolts The procedure is 22lbft of torque then tighten the bolt another 100°.


I have all of the hardware bolted back onto the intake manifold. I still have to clean the valves and I will probably port match the valves to the head. It's pretty easy to port match the intake to the head and doing it will also increase the volume of the intake runner. I wish I knew how to TIG weld, if I did I would make a new intake manifold.

Tomorrow my game plan is to get the thermostat housing bolted back up. I still have to polish up the inlet pipe for the water pump before I do that.

I ran into an issue with a bunch of the AN fittings I bought and I e-mailed the company that manufactured them on the 31st of last month. They responded back saying there were going to check and see what is going on with the fittings and they would contact me back. Never heard back from them and I have until this Friday to be able to return them. I sent an e-mail this morning and I don't expect to hear back until tomorrow. The fittings that have NPT thread are horribly wrong, so much so that I am only able to get the fittings to screw in about 3 threads (0.20") when I should be able to get them to go in almost 8 threads (0.65" ). Last week when making a 6an hose I couldn't get the end on the hose. No matter what I did the thing will not go on without wanting to peel the braiding back. When putting a 12an hose end on it requires almost no effort to push the hose into the fitting which isn't right either. I am able to screw the nut down more then 75% of the way using only my hands. Not good because the clamping force on the hose isn't going to be right.

I am annoyed at the whole thing with the hose ends not going on correctly as it is simple quality control checks would have discovered these issues. Now I have to wait to get new ones in from a different company.

 

[agent008]

So in the end there's no more need for the smaller chain?

 

[kgschlosser]

not on my setup. Both the balance shafts and the mechanical water pump have been removed. The water pump is getting replaced with a variable speed electric water pump. The secondary coolant loops for the heater core, oil cooler, expansion bottle and turbo are being corrected so they no longer return into the lower radiator hose which dumps hot coolant into the line just before it goes into the engine to cool the engine. They are going to return the hot coolant into the upper radiator hose just before it goes into the radiator so it can be cooled properly. I have an external wastegate which optionally can be plumbed into the cooling system as well. I will be doing that also. And I figured since I was replacing all of the coolant lines with AN style connections I may as well go ahead and do all the vacuum lines as well.

 

[HHGadget]

I know my fan has at least two speeds for sure.
“loud” and “panic”.

 

[kgschlosser]

loud turns on at what 200?? and panic is at 220??

 

[CMYSOL]

Learning alot!!! Thanks for sharing

 

[kgschlosser]

I have the engine harness mostly installed. I took a couple of photos so you can see what it is kind of going to look like. I put the wiper cowl back on for these photos. There is no wiring that runs across the front of the engine block as you will see in the photos. It's coming along nicely.

I am still waiting on my radiator and that is pretty much what is holding everything up. I need to know where the fittings are doing to be exactly located so I know where to run the hoses and what has to get placed where based on how much I can bend the hose. 16AN hose is extremely stiff as it is rated to 500psi for the nylon which is what I bought. The stainless steel is rated to something crazy like 2000psi.

You be like..."Where's the harness?". And I be like... "Like that?? it's all stealth and ****."

I spent the last 2 days hiding that thing. royal pain to do but the rewards are really nice. Gotta be really careful running it like I did. Has to be tied down all over the place so itdoesn't get pinched or rub anything. I will take some photos tomorrow that show how I ran it.

 

[kgschlosser]

update:

Almost finished with the body harness. I did the same thing as the engine harness and took the thing apart and ran the wires differently. I have to check the pinning to make sure it is correct and then install it into the car.

 

[kgschlosser]

More progress.

I am still waiting on the radiator to arrive and also a couple more AN fittings. I decided that I did not like the fittings that are made to work on a barb connection. They were not stable enough for my liking and moved around. They would more then likely not leak but the movement of the fittings would cause the o-rings to wear and leaks would happen in the future. One of the reasons for doing this is to lower the potential for leaks. It is also to reduce maintenance that would be needed. So I decided those fittings are a no go. This did increase work as I had to pull the oil cooler out and I did it with the transmission in the vehicle. I had the intake manifold off already and the new AN radiator hose was easy to take out so it wasn't too bad to do. I cut the barb ends off the pipes so a compression style fitting could go on. I decided to give the oil cooler a nice cleaning and then a paint job. I will post completed photos of the oil cooler later on today.

I have the water pump mounted using a temporary bracket I made. I picked up some thicker aluminum the other day to make the final brackets out of. I am still contemplating remaking the manifold I made to reduce it's size. It took me forever to make the first one and I really do not want to have to do it again. On the other hand it is not going to be as long and I might be able to use the drill press to make the new one. I have to get some final measurements together to see if it will fit in my drill press.

If I keep this manifold I am going to have to paint it again as I have scratched it up pretty good messing about with where I wanted to place it. I have to have the manifold be at the same height as the coolant level in the surge tank. This is so air will naturally end up into the line that attaches at the top of the surge tank.

There is a lot of trial and error with this so far and that's due to line placement. and also bringing all the returns to a single point along the upper radiator hose. So there is additional cooling lines being ran. The oil cooler is no longer connected to the water neck. I bought a new water neck that has a 16an connection on it. I am using the pipe on the thermostat housing that is closest to the water neck as the feed for the oil cooler. This pipe was originally tasked with being the return for the heater core. So again GM takes hot coolant runs it through the heater core and then dumps it back into the lower radiator hose bypassing the radiator all together. If the heat is not turned on in the car the coolant flowing through the heater core is not going to get rid of much of the heat it's carrying. Solstice = summer vehicle = heater not used all that often.

The heater core will return the coolant into the upper radiator hose as will the oil cooler. I am also adding an additional loop. The waste gate I have can optionally be liquid cooled. I connected the feed for that to one of the available bottom ports on the turbo and the return for that will go to the upper radiator hose.

The surge tank is no longer going to be connected to the lower radiator hose and the upper radiator hose. It is only going to be connected to the upper radiator hose. as coolant travels down into the different loops (because they are all connected to the upper radiator hose) air is going to travel past the coolant as the coolant fills. If for some reason one of the loops becomes air bound in it's return line and coolant is not able to flow past the air it's a non issue because the coolant will eventually go into the feed line for the loop and that will push the air past the coolant in the return line. Th large line from the bottom of the surge tank is connected to the side of the manifold and the nipple at the top of the surge tank is going to be connected at the top of the manifold.


Here are some photos of my progress..

I am routing everything to keep it away from the side of the engine so there will be better airflow around the engine. The lines for the AC have been pissing me off quite a bit and the brake lines as well and I am really thinking about routing them differently. The brake lines are a challenge because I cannot alter the lengths of them. I can make the backs shorter if I wanted to but the side to side needs to be the same. If I don't keep them the same the brake bias from left to right will end up uneven and that would not be good. The only thing with the brake lines is I do not have a 37° double flaring tool and those things cost 150+ dollars for one that works properly. New AC lines is a whole other set of challenges IDK if I want to tackle at this time. The brake lines are also steel and hard to bend without kinking them and/or making them weaker.

I have to extend the wiring for the AC clutch and I have to check the pin out of the EBCM and get a couple of wires put in place. Me being a ding dong forgot to mark same color wires so I would know where they go so now I have to trace them back and check which wire goes to where so I can get it pinned properly. Once I get that done then I need to cut the tape that is holding the bundles in place and bundle them together properly and use a wire harness tie down instead of tape to hold it in place.

My radiator was supposed to have shipped yesterday and I did not get notice of it shipping yesterday so I will be on the phone finding out where it is. I also need to get a refund for the 2 day shipping I paid for on my last order that took 6 days to get here.

 

[kgschlosser]

modified thermostat housing with 12an fittings on the pipes and a 16an water neck.

Water pump to thermostat housing hose.

oil cooler with 12an fittings attached

 

[kgschlosser]

Radiator should be here Saturday!!

 

[kgschlosser]

OK so after 4 or 5 attempts at getting the coolant lines installed I now have everything routed nicely minimizing any disruption to airflow around the engine. It also looks good.

Here are some photos.

I am going to have to pull everything back out and tighten up all of the hose ends and I need to add 3 more branches on the manifold and give that a new paint job. I still have to make all of the vacuum lines as those are all going to be AN as well. I am waiting for the last order of fittings to come in and I have to file down all of the barbs to make the nipples straight for a compression fitting will slide on. There are a lot of them that I have to file. Here is a list of all of them

cold side charge pipe next to the TMAP.
intake manifold
wastegate solenoid, 3 nipples
bypass valve solenoid, 3 nipples
front of the turbo

I believe that is all of them. I already have the m10x1.0 to 4an fitting for the wastegate.

What I am waiting on

1/4" hard line to 4an fittings
a single 3/4" hard line to 12an fitting (heater core)
#3orb to 4an for the bypass valve
1/8" NPT to 6an, surge tank connection at the manifold
1/8" NPT to 4an, wastegate coolant return at the manifold

Because of how populated the manifold is getting and how short it is I have to put a little bit of planning into what lines are going to connect where because all of the branches have to come off the manifold as elbows. I don't want to have to use extensions but I may have to on 3 of the branches to lift them up high enough so another branch will fit under it.


This is what I have going on

The expansion lines on the top have to stay on the top. those cannot be moved at all. They also have to be higher then all of the lines. so I can't move a 12an connection from the bottom of the manifold to the top of the manifold so it goes over the 6an connection. can't change that at all. I can probably move the radiator expansion. if air is in that line and the air gets pushed into the manifold it will eventually end up going into the line that goes to the surge tank. The surge tank most also be the closest line on the top coming form the head. All the lines attached at the top will be as far left as possible as this is going to give as much space as possible for bubbles in the coolant to rise to the top of the manifold where they will then go into the surge tank line.


I am going to take some measurements tomorrow to see how tall the extensions needs to be and if they make them in the sizes I need. I do have a limited amount of space under the manifold so I have to get it right.

 

[kgschlosser]

OE system

Look at the arrow colors. This is what is going on with the coolant system. The arrows indicate flow direction

New system. The lines are messy and this is not how the lines are ran it is to show coolant temperature and flow direction.

cold coolant enters all of the things that can heat it up and then it puts the heated coolant into the radiator to be cooled down. Not like the first one where heated coolant is being dumped back into the cold coolant just before it enters the engine block. That is what is causing the cooling issues in the engine.

The water pump is only going to run for short 3 second bursts every 20 seconds or so until the coolant temp reaches X degrees below what I set as the target temperature. I don't remember how many degrees below it. Once the engine gets to the target temperature it is going to maintain that temperature changing the pump speed as needed. If the pump is not able to maintain the temperature an alarm will sound letting me know that the engine WILL overheat and it does this if the temperature exceeds the target temp by I believe it's 20 degrees

I am going to set the target temperature for 195°F as I know that this temperature doesn't cause the ECM to pitch a fit. I will lower it 2 degrees at a time to the point where it will pitch a fit. I want to know what that temperature is. 180° is really the minimum the engine should run at and that is probably as low as I would go with it. If I am able to get the system to hold that temperature that would be awesome because then the timing can be advanced more because the cooler temps will keep the engine from knocking.

The system is going to need some tweaking in order to get it dialed in right. I may have to put reducers on the return lines to limit the flow in some of the branches. I don't want to rob too much flow from the engine. a 5/8" hose size for the heater core is pretty large considering the size of the vehicle and it could be made smaller without having any impact on how the heater works. The turbo is at 3./8" and I may bump the return line size up to 1/2" so there is less resistance and the coolant will flow easier through the turbo. See what happens with that. I can also restrict the oil cooler down some because with the original design warm coolant was being fed into the oil cooler where now it's cold coolant so the oil cooler is going to work a whole lot better then it did and I might have to tone it down a smidge. So there are thing I will be able to do t get the system dialed in correctly.

 

[agent008]

A solution for the coolant manifold -- maybe you can fabricate a second piece of manifold tube to screw into the one you already have, and add ports to this second piece? Resulting in a longer overall manifold that is a two-piece affair.

 

[kgschlosser]

The length of it would then be a problem. I am taking a gamble that the hood is going to close properly with where it is mounted now. If the hood hits it then I am going to have to make a new one that is shorter.

Because I need to have the highest point in the cooling system needs to be the surge tank and the height of the manifold needs to be second and is what is going to dictate the coolant level in the surge tank I am more then likely going to have to drill a hole in the hood for the radiator cap to go into. The hole is not going to be all the way through the hood. It will only be through the inner support structure.

I have an RKSport fiberglass hood and the support structure is not the same as the stock hood. There is a flat spot where the D ring is located and that flat spot is 2-3 times larger then the OE hood. Even with the surge tank in it's factory location the cap was contacting the hood and would have needed a hole drill into it anyhow.