J body questions from a newbie - First Generation Forum

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J body questions from a newbie
Saturday, July 01, 2006 1:00 AM
Hey yall... Ive owned a couple J bodies for a few years now, never thought about performance out of them untill now. We have a 90 Sunbird that shes driven for about 4 years. Im currently stripping it down to have it sent to its grave.. its just got too many problems to list. I have been driving an 84 Skyhawk for the last 2 years. This is the project car. I bought it from her uncle with a blown 1.8 motor for 125 bucks. I found someone on ebay selling crate 2.0 motors for 300 bucks plus shipping, so I bought 2 of them. Once they arrived I found out they were for like 91 up (no dist and tpi). The first one dropped into her car no problem, just changed out the intakes and used her distributor, been a great running motor ever since. My car however, was a different story. Since the intakes bolt up different, and I didnt have the wiring harness for the newer motor, I changed heads. Kids, dont try this at home, the compression ratio was astronomical, I had to pull the head back off to have the combustion chambers hogged so it would run on pump gas (I still have run premium or I get ping). But the upside is she runs like a scalded dog... ok.. a scalded puppy. Now Ive gotten my hands on a turbo and exhaust manifold for the motor but I have no idea where the coolant and oil lines connect. Ive checked my Chilton's and Haynes manuals with no luck. Im planning on hooking all this up on the motor out of her car with her wiring harness. I also am going to have to figure out a way to get the air into the manifold, since its a tbi.

Any help yall could offer would be greatly appreciated. I know a pretty fair amount about these cars in the stock form, but when it comes to modifying or swapping Im a novice. Im sure SOMEBODY out there has done this before and can help.

I plan on living forever... so far so good

Re: J body questions from a newbie
Wednesday, July 05, 2006 3:48 PM
Ok, so I think the long and short was you wanted the oil and coolant line locations for a 2.0 turbo? They don't exist on a 2.0 N/A engine...

Oil feed is tapped on the back of theblock, near the oil pump's pressure sender outlet. It's post filter, but it's a dedicated feed. The feeld line wraps around the back of the block under the intake manifold, and around the head. It's bent double flare 5/16" hardline. AFter it comes around the side of the head a flex line connects it to the turbo.

Oil drain is a flex line off the turbo that screws into a 5/8" NPT hole that is drilled and tapped on the front of the block, above the pan. On the N/A blocks you can see a "flat spot" where it would be.

Coolant return is off the large coolant "pipe" that runs along the backside of the engine under the intake manifold. The Turbo 2.0's have a different pipe that has a nipple welded to it.

Coolant feed is right into the thermostat housing. Turbo 2.0's have a different thermostat housing that has a RESTRICTOR (important!) in it attached to a bung.

I probobly hvae pictures of all this if hyou need it.

-Jim



Re: J body questions from a newbie
Wednesday, July 05, 2006 7:00 PM
Ok, so does the n/a engine have a fitting for the oil feed line? and is there another place I can create my own return fitting? I have the thermostat housing for the turbo, just dont know where to return the water as well.


I plan on living forever... so far so good
Re: J body questions from a newbie
Thursday, July 06, 2006 8:31 AM
The n/a version does not have the fitting for the oil feed. You could Tee off the oil pressure sender in theroy. The return water line is going to require you get the rear coolant pipe off the turbo engine or tee into some other coolant hose.

All this being said, dont' bother wasting time and money trying to turbo the n/a engine. It was not built to withstand the power, nor was the tranny. You'll spend a lot more money and time trhying to turbo the n/a engine only to make less power then you could with the turbo one, and less reliably. It would be far cheaper and easier to either buy a turbo GT (and as such gain the GT suspension and steering) or find a donor car and swap the engine powertrain assembly.



Re: J body questions from a newbie
Thursday, July 06, 2006 10:00 AM
ahhh.. ok. thanks for saving me time and trouble.


I plan on living forever... so far so good
Re: J body questions from a newbie
Thursday, July 27, 2006 12:53 PM
Yes the N/A does have a fitting for the oil feed its in the same location as the turbo model as for the return tap into your oil pan thats what i did
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