LittleBlue! 102 Posted September 28, 2018 Author Share Posted September 28, 2018 (edited) I installed the boost gauge in my dash. I still have to run the hose through the firewall but there is a nice hole/boot for wires and I have a straight shot so it should be good. I'm happy with the look. This gauge has a backlight for night driving. I have read you should wire it to the dimmer switch which is convenienly just down and to the left a tad. I will have to do more research but that is the plan for now. I also decided to paint my intake pipes/boots and clamps. I'm happy with the results. I'll post pictures after they're installed. Edited September 28, 2018 by LittleBlue! Link to post Share on other sites
LittleBlue! 102 Posted September 28, 2018 Author Share Posted September 28, 2018 (edited) Here's a preview of the painted intake pipes. I painted them flat black. I plan on painting the car matte black in the spring. Little blue, no mas. I got my 45 degree elbow yesterday ( as seen below) it fits great with the rest of the pipes. Edited September 28, 2018 by LittleBlue! Link to post Share on other sites
LittleBlue! 102 Posted September 29, 2018 Author Share Posted September 29, 2018 (edited) The flat black helped clean up under the hood and I like the cleaner more discrete look. Edited September 29, 2018 by LittleBlue! SpaceCowboy 1 Link to post Share on other sites
LittleBlue! 102 Posted October 13, 2018 Author Share Posted October 13, 2018 (edited) My exhuast manifold is taking shape. I'm going to cut the bolt holes out and weld threads on the flange. The hot side of the turbo has a really weird flange so I'm forced to customize a bit. I still have a bit of cutting and grinding to do as well. Edited October 13, 2018 by LittleBlue! Link to post Share on other sites
LittleBlue! 102 Posted October 16, 2018 Author Share Posted October 16, 2018 I came across this youtube channel and specific video on decapping fuel injectors. With my turbo set up, running e30 and having hp tuners, I think this is a great option. I'm going to look into it tonight. Here is the video. Link to post Share on other sites
LittleBlue! 102 Posted October 18, 2018 Author Share Posted October 18, 2018 (edited) I will be decapping my injectors and sending the decapped injectors in to be flow tested.I will post the results for anyone interested. My injectors appear to have recessed caps so the process is a little more delicate and slightly less documented. Edited October 20, 2018 by LittleBlue! Link to post Share on other sites
LittleBlue! 102 Posted October 20, 2018 Author Share Posted October 20, 2018 (edited) To access the fuel injectors you need to remove the rear bracket from the intake manifold with three bolts and the two side brackets on the manifold. The side bracket near the throttle body (pictured) has three bolts and the one near the oil cap/dip stick has two bolts. Edited October 20, 2018 by LittleBlue! Link to post Share on other sites
LittleBlue! 102 Posted October 20, 2018 Author Share Posted October 20, 2018 (edited) Now, you need to remove the intakemanifold with ten bolts, three of the ten bolts are also securing the fuel rail. The fuel rail is under the top of the intake manifold like a surfer in the barrel of a wave. These diagrams are of the back of the engine and don't show all of the tubes and wires that make this slightly more challenging. I have 9 of the 10 bolts off so far. Edited October 20, 2018 by LittleBlue! Link to post Share on other sites
LittleBlue! 102 Posted October 28, 2018 Author Share Posted October 28, 2018 (edited) The exhaust manifold is finally welded. I ended up making my own pieces to better fit the turbo. I'm hoping to have the turbo mounted in the car before the end of next week. The exhaust manifold and turbo connection still need some fine tuning but it's getting closer Edited October 29, 2018 by LittleBlue! Link to post Share on other sites
LittleBlue! 102 Posted October 31, 2018 Author Share Posted October 31, 2018 (edited) I mentioned this in my hp tuners forum but I received my air fuel ratio gauge. I'm going to practice using the guage to tune my jeep using hp tuners and then move the guage over to the spark when it is ready to start. The obd II port allows you to plug into the car and hp tuners to see real time info on the guage and log data in hp tuners. Edited October 31, 2018 by LittleBlue! Link to post Share on other sites
LittleBlue! 102 Posted October 31, 2018 Author Share Posted October 31, 2018 (edited) Slowly connecting the turbo and the exhaust manifold. I had to remove the waste gate and I will have to make a custom bracket for the wastegate. I will include more info on this in my lessons learned but in a scenario like this just go universal turbo andyou will avoid many of my issues. Still loving the project though! Edited October 31, 2018 by LittleBlue! Link to post Share on other sites
Fire Spark 13 Posted November 4, 2018 Share Posted November 4, 2018 Have you installed lower compression forged pistons or pressing your luck with the stock cast pistons? Link to post Share on other sites
LittleBlue! 102 Posted November 5, 2018 Author Share Posted November 5, 2018 Fire Spark, I will be pressing my luck with stock pistons. I'm planning on running low boost and high octane with e30 or higher ethanol blends. Link to post Share on other sites
LittleBlue! 102 Posted November 5, 2018 Author Share Posted November 5, 2018 I worked on getting to these fuel injectors a little bit each day. It took a lot of patience and progress was slow but I have the first of 4 injectors. You can see the four pin holes for fuel to spray out. I'm going to carefully grind along that tiny circle weld until the cap pops off and I should have one large hole for fuel. I'm going to do a bit more research before I start to grind Link to post Share on other sites
LittleBlue! 102 Posted November 6, 2018 Author Share Posted November 6, 2018 (edited) Full disclosure, I failed miserably at decapping the injectors. The main issue is the cap is recessed where the injectors in the video I posted have caps welded on the outside of the tip. The good news is my efforts to remove the injectors were not a total waste. For about the same price as stock injectors, $175, I was able to pick up 4 80lb 850cc injectors. This will allow me to run e85 and means more fuel and more octane for potentially more boost. All in all I'm happy with the direction the injectors upgrade went. They are flow matched and more than large enough. Edited November 7, 2018 by LittleBlue! Link to post Share on other sites
LittleBlue! 102 Posted November 8, 2018 Author Share Posted November 8, 2018 (edited) I ordered a walbro450 for $100. This is a 450 liter per hour fuel pump. Like my injectors it is a bit overkill. However, I now plan on running e85. I dropped the fuel tank and removed the fuel pump basket. I'm working on getting the walbro450 to fit. As you can see, the pump is a bit larger. Edited November 11, 2018 by LittleBlue! Link to post Share on other sites
LittleBlue! 102 Posted November 10, 2018 Author Share Posted November 10, 2018 (edited) Happy Friday! My injectors unexpectedly arrived today. I did as much research as I could to try and find a match. Good luck finding something that states it fits a chevy spark besides an exact replacement. I looked for an ev14 which describes the electrical plug and the size of the inlet at the top. I then looked at the length of the body. As for the upgrade, my stock injectors were set at 24lbs/hr these are rated at 80lbs. Stock injector is on the right. The 80lb injectors have been installed. Edited November 10, 2018 by LittleBlue! Link to post Share on other sites
LittleBlue! 102 Posted November 14, 2018 Author Share Posted November 14, 2018 Possibly the first and only Walbro450 custom fitted Chevy Spark fuel pump set up. I decided to go minnow bucket style on the lower basket. MN custom touch. Link to post Share on other sites
LittleBlue! 102 Posted November 14, 2018 Author Share Posted November 14, 2018 The pump is back in the tiny tank. Time to hook the tank back up to the car. Link to post Share on other sites
zamlawls 11 Posted November 14, 2018 Share Posted November 14, 2018 do you need a special pump for e85? same with injectors? Link to post Share on other sites
LittleBlue! 102 Posted November 14, 2018 Author Share Posted November 14, 2018 (edited) 6 hours ago, zamlawls said: do you need a special pump for e85? same with injectors? I'm new to this so additional research is recommended. However, in my mind it comes down to air fuel ratio and the capacity of your pump and injectors. The higher the percent of ethanol you run, the more fuel you need. I believe the stoichiometric afr of regular 87 is 14.7, for e85 I believe it is 9.7 depending on the actual percent of ethanol as it varies depending on the season. That number represents parts of air to one part fuel. If your pump and injectors can be increased and you can hit the afr you need you wouldn't need to change the pump or injectors. However, I'm also adding a turbo so I will have much more air entering the equation and therefore will also need to increase my fuel for this reason. Considering those factors I opted to upgrade both. I am also using this car as a way to learn more about these things so I wanted to do it anyways. I used to run e30 on the stock pump and injectors and it ran great. I didn't even tune it to run different at that point. I may not have answered your question relating to special pump or injectors for e85. I'd say no except you need them to be able to have sufficient flow for proper afr. Edited November 14, 2018 by LittleBlue! Link to post Share on other sites
zamlawls 11 Posted November 15, 2018 Share Posted November 15, 2018 18 hours ago, LittleBlue! said: I'm new to this so additional research is recommended. However, in my mind it comes down to air fuel ratio and the capacity of your pump and injectors. The higher the percent of ethanol you run, the more fuel you need. I believe the stoichiometric afr of regular 87 is 14.7, for e85 I believe it is 9.7 depending on the actual percent of ethanol as it varies depending on the season. That number represents parts of air to one part fuel. If your pump and injectors can be increased and you can hit the afr you need you wouldn't need to change the pump or injectors. However, I'm also adding a turbo so I will have much more air entering the equation and therefore will also need to increase my fuel for this reason. Considering those factors I opted to upgrade both. I am also using this car as a way to learn more about these things so I wanted to do it anyways. I used to run e30 on the stock pump and injectors and it ran great. I didn't even tune it to run different at that point. I may not have answered your question relating to special pump or injectors for e85. I'd say no except you need them to be able to have sufficient flow for proper afr. well maybe, in a more grand scale of things i think you would. but everything that you said seems to make sense. LittleBlue! 1 Link to post Share on other sites
LittleBlue! 102 Posted November 16, 2018 Author Share Posted November 16, 2018 (edited) On 11/15/2018 at 9:32 AM, zamlawls said: well maybe, in a more grand scale of things i think you would. but everything that you said seems to make sense. You may be right. Actually, the pump and injectors both had e85 compatible in their descriptions. I have always been skeptical if there is actually a difference but I guess error on the safe side unless you know for sure or are willing to experiment. Again, I'm new so I'm learning as I go. Edited November 16, 2018 by LittleBlue! Link to post Share on other sites
LittleBlue! 102 Posted November 16, 2018 Author Share Posted November 16, 2018 (edited) Here is a link to good write up on adding a flex fuel sensor to an e78. http://www.sonicownersforum.com/forum/do-yourself-articles/20205-flex-fuel-sensor-install-information.html The original poster installed a flex fuel sensor on their sonic. It explains there are two pins where the wires from the flex fuel sensor that I ordered will connect. In the back of the ecm there are three plugs. J1,J2,J3. The plug we are looking at is J3. On this plug we will be inserting a wire to spot 20 and 34. From what I have read there are grey plugs in these spots when not installed by the manufacturer. We take these plugs out and insert our wires. The forum linked also provides info on the correct plug size. Edited November 16, 2018 by LittleBlue! Link to post Share on other sites
LittleBlue! 102 Posted November 17, 2018 Author Share Posted November 17, 2018 My flex fuel sensor was delivered today. $35 and I bought the plug and wire leads for another $12. I still need to buy a fuel line connector removal tool for about $5 and a Male to female fuel line connector. Once everything is hooked up, the sensor will tell the computer the ethanol content and my computer will determine the right air fuel ratio, timing, etc. Link to post Share on other sites
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