Off to the races!
Flywheel PN, pilot bearing and Crank sensors location for future reference
With clutch and pressure plate and oil sending unit pig tail
On the driver’s side of the engine the center bolt boss needs to be carved down for engine mount saddle clearance. I did not grab a picture of this during the K10 8.1L swap so here ya’ll go…
After
After ORD HD engine crossmember install. The 8.1L will not fit a square body GM 4x4 truck with the stock engine xmember due to oil pan clearance. I suppose you could be a hack and cut chunks out of the OEM xmember but that would be pretty crude.
This is a comparo pic of the stock ’89 Suburban TBI underhood engine harness (Right) vs. a reworked ’89 Suburban underhood engine harness with all of the TBI circuits removed (Left). I had the luxury of having an extra harness so I didn’t have to chop up my stock harness that way I could sell the old harness along with the old 5.7L. Basically, everything on the right is the old brains of the TBI 5.7L
I scored a nice rubber plug from McMaster-Carr to plug the hole in the firewall where the old TBI harness ran into the cab to the ECM.
Then sprayed a heavy layer of undercoating over the plug to match the OEM undercoating. Even made sure it was all clumpy and runny just like some 1980’s UAW flunky did it. Looks stock! LOL
Ah! This was on a COLD snowy night in February.
Ah..HA!
Very weird. So when I did the 8.1L swap into the K10 the #5 coil pack cleared the brake vacuum booster where I didn’t convert the K10 to hydroboost for a couple years after the 8.1L swap. On the Burb, the #5 coil pack would NOT clear the brake booster at all so I was pushed into doing the hydroboost swap now. Hydroboost was in the plan for the Burb anyway but I didn’t plan to do it on this round. Oh, well…it has it now!
RayLar spark plug wires with ceramic boots. An absolute MUST if running an 8.1L on headers. Very nice quality!
Hmmm, sexy!
Double checking circuits before I throw the reworked ’89 underhood harness on. A good wiring diagram like factory GM manuals are a must.
Um, ya…. For a while I had every tote of my GM truck harness hord opened for the sake of using ONLY factory GM connectors and wires with the proper color coding on extensions, etc. Call me anal but at least of if I ever die someone with GM logic can work on this thing.
Then it was time to start on the Howell Engine Development stand-a-lone harness. I want to be clear on this….I am a huge fan of Howell but keep in mind their harnesses are “UNIVERSAL” harnesses which most people may drop on an engine and be good with. I wanted circuits routed in certain locations and in a cleaner fashion so I ended up spending about 4 hours opening and reworking/rerouting circuits to lay the way I wanted them to go. Next time I order a Howell harness for a project I will request they do not tape their split loom unions so it is easier to open to tweak for personalized fitment.
After the engine harness was roughed in it was time to drop the fuel tank and remove the low fuel pressure TBI fuel pump (12 psi) to a higher PSI pump (60+ psi) EP381 pump
Once I dropped the tank it was a rat’s nest…..literally
After the new EP381 and sock were installed on the stock 1989 fuel sending unit
In process pic….roughing in the power wires to the passenger’s side mounted ECM
Dropping her off at the exhaust shop for new plumbing. It ran at this point but now well. 8.1L Silverado towing an 8.1L Suburban. 16.2Ls of awesome GASOLINE power!
Home from the exhaust shop. They made me a really nice new y-pipe with O2 bungs
This will probably be something to upgrade later but due to budget constraints I had them just connect the new Y-pipe to the existing old exhaust which is a single pipe where the old cat converter lived at one time then into a single inlet/dual outlet Flowmaster. It sounds pretty good put pretty poppy with the way the ECM is currently tuned. I’ll revisit the exhaust later but at least now I can hear myself think to run it enough to work out the bugs.
How she sits at this very moment.. She still needs A/C lines built, final ECM wiring/routing, missing some air induction pieces and the radiator/fan shroud still need to be installed whenever the Canuk radiator shows up.
Look at that piss-ant radiator and no fan shroud….errr
On to the videos…
Initial fire up. Pretty uneventful fireup. Started much easier and quicker than expected. After it didn’t fire on the second crank I had to double check the fuel pressure. The GoPro battery died while bleeding the power steering/hydrobooster
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0g71t-drJ8
Loading it up on the trailer. Running pretty crappy with the O2’s swinging loose, TPS inop and mistuned ECM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNDhf0FWUNo
And a time lapse of the install
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQ4_5m-e9KM
That’s it for now. Got my work cut out for me to address the little bugs. I'll update as more as things happen. I don't expect much to happen for the next week or two until the canuk radiator gets here and a ECM tune solution is sorted out then if things drag out too far I have a bunch of work travel coming up then I need to get back on the K10 to prep it for Desert Trip 2015 plus FIL's Super Sportside will be coming home from the paint shop where I need to reassemble it back to a working truck. Poor Polar Bear project may drag on until summer
