Finally got the new 3 row radiator in today. Its not 100% drop in, the rubber mounts need to be cut down and I expected that. Also had to trim one of the ears on the radiator cap to clear the radiator shroud. The nipple for the overflow is 5/16" so I had to make a custom hose to splice a 5/16" hose into a 3/8" hose. But its all together and doesnt leak. Need to burp it again and throw some antifreeze in it before it gets too cold.

 

In the second picture below the trans line there is a port coming out of the radiator that gets a plug. anyone know what this is called? I broke the ears off trying to get it out of the old radiator and will need a new one, I superglued them back on but not too confident it will hold.

 

Got a few miles on it today and put some more gas in it. Gonna bump up the idle to 850 and readjust the throttle blade. Still has an off idle stumble and the a/f ratio shows it going lean if you just touch the throttle. May have something to do with the cheapo throttle body, not sure. But she feels pretty strong. Also need to dial in the shift points, shifts very quickly into 3rd.

 

The plug you are referring to is the coolant level sensor. The part number is 10054615. I definitely wouldn't trust it with both ears broken off...

https://www.rockauto.com/en/partsear...rtnum=10054615

 

I had a similar issue with mine. I added more cc's of fuel to the acceleration schedule for the idle on mine and it got rid of the bog. Works good. Curious on what A/F your using?

 

I'll have to check on the air fuel ratio. Is your system self learning?

 

I have never used the Holley system, but my FAST EZ LS system is self-learning at at times it needs help. There is an option screen on mine to adjust my idle, I can add/remove fuel/timing as required. My throttle body has an adjustment screen to adjust the butterfly position to add/remove air for the IAC.

 

Mine has that too on the hand held 3.5" screen. You can set the idle speed there but you need to be careful about it as the throttle blade needs to be adjusted to keep the IAC at or around 0% and the TPS as well. I opened up my throttle blade a smidge to make the IAC show 0 to 3%, it varies with the lope of the cam. Hope to get some miles on this weekend and if the off idle issue persists I'll do some manual tuning.

 

Today I was able to get the speedometer working by running the "OUT3" on the Dakota Digital box to the yellow wire on the grey connector (circuit #400). The calibration is set to 2 and the output set as "low-low". However my odometer is now not working. The digital trip odometer does work. Guessing the odometer motor either isn't getting a signal or its shot. Also made some adjustments to the IAC settings and the bog is less than it was, so I'm headed in the right direction. Got about 16 miles on it this afternoon running up and down the hills over here in western cincinnati and I must say: this machine has POWER! Can't wait to get it fully broke in and do some WOT pulls.
When I got home I felt some heat coming from the left rear wheel, it was much hotter than the other wheels. Time to go through the brakes, I did a rotor/pad upgrade when I got the car so now it's time for some hydraulic work.

 

This week I was able to get the odometer working again. I ended up taking the motor apart to see if it was able to spin and it wasn't. I'm guessing that the grease inside the motor had become solid and prevented the armature from spinning. I freed it up by gently spinning the motor gear with a pair of pliers. Lots of tiny gears in there!

 

Over the past few months I decided I wanted to install new speakers in the doors and have tweeters in the dash. The previous owner had already removed the bose head unit and installed an alpine cd player which still works fine. They also installed 4x6 speakers in the dash which were junk when I removed them. My plan was to install 6 1/2" woofers in the doors and tweeters in the dash utilizing a 2 way crossover.


I bought these speaker plates off eBay. The speakers I used had larger magnets than your typical car speaker so I removed the spacers and reattached the 2 plates with screws and pvc cement.
The plates in the dash had already been cut out so I used a piece of hobby plastic I had laying around to mount the Morel tweeters



The Dayton crossovers are quite a bit larger than I was expecting them to be. However I think I can mount them under the dash board to the metal braces that support the front of the dash/instrument panel.




The door speakers were a little more involved. Removing the old bose speaker box and replacing with the adapters took some time and patience and some trimming of the door opening but they found their way in. These are Goldwood GW-6024 6 1/2" speakers from Parts Express.


The original speaker wiring appeared to be fine so I reused it and just soldered the connections to the speaker to prevent any corrosion from interfering with the connections.
I havent finished this project yet but I expect the sound quality to be greatly improved over the bose system. I'll be doing something similar at the rear, maybe with 8" speakers and a 3 way setup.

 

Very nice work on the audio upgrade. I did a little audio work on mine a couple years ago and really enjoyed the better sound, looks like your taking it one step farther than me, should sound great. Are you going to add 6x9 in the hatch area also? Swapping the 4in to 6x9 in the back helped a lot on mine.

 

The previous owner installed a set of Polk 6x9's in the back and they sound pretty good. I'm on the fence as to either replacing them with a newer set or going full custom with 8" woofers similar to what I did to the doors.

I got it all wired up and it doesn't sound too bad. I've never been impressed with 6 1/2" speakers in doors, they are small to begin with and never have much low end bass. These sound ok with the doors closed but the 6x9's really make the car thump. At least as much as a 6x9 can. I don't care for rap music so its not a huge deal but I do like the thump of the bass drum when Lars Ulrich lays down the hammer

 

Ya the 6x9 in the back really help the sound. Years ago I used to 10in then a 12in sub in the Corvette, speaker amps etc... they could really rattle the windows, although since it was high school the quality of install was lacking and a decided to downsize the system to save weight and allow some cargo space. Some people do really nice jobs putting 8in subs where the rear speakers sit. Is that what your thinking of?

 

I was considering 8" subs or woofers and then a mid range and tweeter. Still havent decided which way to go. I did order a new Kenwood cd receiver after the alpine started cutting out, I wanted more options and this model Excelon kdc-304 fit the bill. Should be here friday and hope to install it this weekend.

 

If you have an issue where the cloth covering on the dash pad speaker plates is coming off, I used weatherstrip adhesive to glue it back on. I set the cloth on a table, laid the plate back on to the cloth getting all the edges folded back over, then used a tooth pick to apply the adhesive in between the plate and cloth around the edges. Seems to hold much better than the krazy glue I tried a while back

 

If any of you have a non functioning power antenna and need just the cord, check out theantennasource.com. I had a new cord with the last part of the mast along with 3 different ends delivered in a few days for $32. Fit perfect and made my antenna work properly again.

 

Another issue that came up this past week is the small gear in my rh headlight motor stripped out. Found a set of gears for both sides on amazon for $37. I read that its difficult to replace the small gear but it really wasnt. I set the headlight side of the shaft on top of a vice and easily hammered out the pin, took it all apart and replaced the gears and put it back together. Took maybe an hour tops including cleaning and greasing the gears with general purpose grease.

 

May I suggest going to metal gears like I did in my 89 Convertible. Had grief galore til I put a set in and solved the issue permanently.

 

I may go that route if these plastic gears don't hold up. The set I bought had 4 gears in it to do both sides and they had good reviews so I will stay hopefull for now as my rh headlight is working fine now.