JCBeaver's 1993 GT Coyote Swap "The Never-Ending Project"

[JCBeaver]

Quick question: Am I supposed to replace the ignition fusible link (yellow wire) with a new 14 gauge fusible link?

Asking because I read everywhere that when installing a fusible link, it should be 1 or 2 gauge smaller than the circuit wire size. The ignition circuit this fusible link is powering is 10 gauge so does that mean I should run a 14 guage fusible link? Also the yellow fusible link that came from factory does seem to be a 10 gauge fusible link?

Just noticed that the link is partially melted last night when I took it off the 12V Fender terminal. I figured I should replace this just to see if it helps with my intermittent starting issue. I could not find any thicker gauge than 14 gauge at any local parts store so I am assuming it is normal to run 14 gauge for 10 gauge accessory wire? Let me know if I should source a thicker gauge fusible link.

I do not intend to replace this wire with an inline fuse since fusible link was there for a reason, but please do let me know if there is a better way to do this. Still learning those tid bits here. Never really understood the purpose of fusible links versus inline fuses (only understand that the fusible links can handle quick spikes/surges in electricity current while any regular fuse would not be able to)

This is what I got for now and I plan on putting that in tonight:

 

[JCBeaver]

In other words, Can I just replace the ignition fusible wire with a regular wire and an inline ATO or Maxi fuse?

 

[Noobz347]

Nice... Will add the TFI thing to the list. Generally, they wither work or they don't. First I've heard of one being 'weak'. Good find

 

[Noobz347]

In other words, Can I just replace the ignition fusible wire with a regular wire and an inline ATO or Maxi fuse?

Yes. Some folks have even used circuit breakers.

 

[a91what]

The tfi supplies the coil with its dwell... weak tfi will supply weaker spark at high(er) rpm, the lower the time between the spark events does not give the tfi enough time to saturate the coil

 

[3.5.0]

I had to sign up just to reply it was that important to me: Just wanted to say beautiful build, I've went over the 4 pages numerous times. It also saved me 6k Canadian -$500 more than I actually paid for my Black GT-, as I was one of the other guys who bought the new KB. While I was waiting for shipping details to be worked out I offhandedly came across this thread and started reading.

The new Blowzilla kits as stated here do not come with a bypass and it saved me a big hassle. I cancelled my order. It's too bad cause I've wanted a KB since they first came out and are a beautiful unit. Seriously, selling a super high ticket item like that and can't even get new accurate photos says a lot. That's all I'll say.

BTW JCBeaver your install looks great, too bad one has to rely on end users for details.

 

[JCBeaver]

I had to sign up just to reply it was that important to me: Just wanted to say beautiful build, I've went over the 4 pages numerous times. It also saved me 6k Canadian -$500 more than I actually paid for my Black GT-, as I was one of the other guys who bought the new KB. While I was waiting for shipping details to be worked out I offhandedly came across this thread and started reading.

The new Blowzilla kits as stated here do not come with a bypass and it saved me a big hassle. I cancelled my order. It's too bad cause I've wanted a KB since they first came out and are a beautiful unit. Seriously, selling a super high ticket item like that and can't even get new accurate photos says a lot. That's all I'll say.

BTW JCBeaver your install looks great, too bad one has to rely on end users for details.

Thank you!

I agree the KB support leaves a lot to desire for. I have been experiencing some oil shooting out of the snout of my KB, assuming from running too much oil for 13-14psi... however, I never could get an answer from Mike at KB... Any email I send him, I have to make sure I ask one question otherwise he is not going to directly answer all of your questions.

I will just enjoy this while it last until I decide on something else. I always have had my eyes set on a Coyote with Magnum T56 in the future.

 

[JCBeaver]

Got my seats upholstered a couple weeks ago. Very happy with how they came out! I bought the Corbeau rear seat cover and then had Josue from "Fast Enuf Upholstery" in San Diego match the Recaro front seats design to the rear seat. They came out beautifully. I went with black vinyl that didnt have too much shine in it. Just perfect in my opinion.

Finally got this "completed" look after I got the seats done. I think I can rest a bit easier now

I am still battling with the intermittent starting issue. Very annoying at this point and I am pulling my hair out. Cleaned all of the grounds last week. Nothing looked off and it appears to have gotten worse after I cleaned the contacts haha. I am thinking about testing the solenoid mounted on top of the starter to see it is faulty in any way.

 

[Noobz347]

Thank you!

I agree the KB support leaves a lot to desire for. I have been experiencing some oil shooting out of the snout of my KB, assuming from running too much oil for 13-14psi... however, I never could get an answer from Mike at KB... Any email I send him, I have to make sure I ask one question otherwise he is not going to directly answer all of your questions.

I will just enjoy this while it last until I decide on something else. I always have had my eyes set on a Coyote with Magnum T56 in the future.

Is the oil coming from the vent in the snout?

 

[JCBeaver]

Is the oil coming from the vent in the snout?

Yes, sir. It is coming from the vent. I am positive it was slightly overfilled for 14psi. I have it back to 7 psi now and I dont see much oil anymore.

 

[JCBeaver]

It has not been eventful for me last couple of months other than running into some luck - the fox started to overheat regularly as I was trying to tweak the tune in with my tuner. I noticed the coolant keep blowing out top of the radiator causing it to overheat. I did a head gasket chemical test, which confirmed I had gas in my coolant. Tore the top end down and found the head gasket to be warped at cylinder 3, which seems to be from a bad install? Looking back on it, that explains why my fox always ran warm/hot - it was more than happy to run above 200 degrees, which did not seem to be normal. Go figure.

I took my edelbrock heads to a local machine shop to have them resurfaced and they replaced the valve seals for me as well. Got the MLS head gasket so I thought I would be all good with the boost. After 2 go rounds, I cant get my motor to seal with the MLS gaskets. Spoke to the machine shop guys and read a bunch online, I have concluded that I have imperfect block deck surface that caused the seepage. 3rd time around, I went back to composite head gasket with copper spray. It sealed right up. Took it for a spin here and there, seems to be fixed - does not exceed 198 degrees even after some hard pulls. $160 down the drain on the MLS gaskets pfttt.

The tune still needs some more work. My tuner is coming on Tuesday to hopefully get it running close to perfect. Gonna have some fun with it for now. If anything happens again I will pull the motor and have all surfaces machined and sealed up properly

Decided to ditch the AC system considering I will barely use it. I welcomed the change during the install - one less thing to re-assemble haha

My own biggest lesson out of this job: Use a coolant pressure tester after new head gaskets so you dont assemble everything together for nothing.

 

[Noobz347]

Yes, sir. It is coming from the vent. I am positive it was slightly overfilled for 14psi. I have it back to 7 psi now and I dont see much oil anymore.

You can install a simple catch-can or separator inline with the vent and a metered vacuum source.

KenneBell [used] to sell a kit but it's not difficult to duplicate. I reduced the oil in mine until it wasn't an issue.

 

[95BlueStallion]

Damn, bummer to have to have torn it all down again, but hopefully your issue is now solved. Enjoy the car, it looks killer!

 

[JCBeaver]

You can install a simple catch-can or separator inline with the vent and a metered vacuum source.

KenneBell [used] to sell a kit but it's not difficult to duplicate. I reduced the oil in mine until it wasn't an issue.

My bad. I must have been half asleep when I read your post. I want to say I think oil came out of the pulley considering the oil is splattered on underhood right above the pulley, but it is still in the proximity of the vent. The vent seem to have normal amount of seepage, which is very small compared to what I am seeing underhood when I ran 14 psi. I can see some oil around the vent which apparently is normal. Now that I am back at 7 psi, I no longer see any more blower oil on the underhood. I will update as I drive it more.

 

[JCBeaver]

Damn, bummer to have to have torn it all down again, but hopefully your issue is now solved. Enjoy the car, it looks killer!

Thank you! I look forward to driving her more regularly!

 

[JCBeaver]

Sean came by on Tuesday to help try to get the car dialed in. The whole time he was fighting the idle surging / idle hunt (however you like to term it). Before Sean came, we were trying to get it dialed in remotely, but my fox was very finicky when driving her around. She would run good at one point then she wouldn't. I could hardly drive her around low speeds/ in turns without jerking my head around.

So I had Sean come over and try to diagnose it together. We came down to a few things that need addressed: Distributor/PIP - timing would not lock in place, it would wander around the 20 degree mark when the timing was set to fixed at 20. PIP was completely rusted in my dizzy. I have an autozone distributor in there for now while I wait for the Accel dizzy to arrive in the mail soon, which seems to fix the timing problem for now (it locks in place accurately now). There was an exhaust leak out of smog port on passenger side head, which just needed some RTV. I had a "tired" IACV on top of a bad (sticking) starter - we had to bang the starter to get the car started a few times.

Good news, it appears I had a bad starter the whole time leading me to think that I had a short or a bad ground somewhere. I guess I did not realize that is how the car would act when the starter is finicky. The bad luck continued after I got the replacement from CarQuest under warranty - it would start my engine only twice before going completely dead. I went back for another one today and now I am back in business. I guess it is a bad idea to go with a parts store starter to begin with. I paid $100 plus some change for it a year or two ago. Probably will consider quality starter if I come across another bad one. It fired up like a happy camper now. Seems like I got a good starter for now... :lcoff: Slapped on the new IACV (yet another parts store item...)

Took it for a spin today, it sure does drive smoother, but the idle hunt is still there. The surging is less volatile this time around. The car doesnt buck around at low speeds or in turns like how the old dizzy would. I am pretty sure I have no vacuum leak, but I cant be 100% sure unless I do some testing. Hopefully we will be able to eventually figure out the idle surge issue. Let me know if you guys have experience in chasing this kind of issue especially on KB applications. Thanks!

 

[stanglx2002]

With particuliar changes that you made to the car hardware wise the tune will need to be smoothed out quite a bit in the VE Table. That should get rid of a lot of the bucking and jerky issues you are mentioning. It doesnt take much to cause those issues at low speeds/rpms since there isnt a lot of air moving.
With the idle issues you are talking about is your tuner (Sean) trying to tune it in Warm-up or Closed-Loop?

 

[JCBeaver]

With particuliar changes that you made to the car hardware wise the tune will need to be smoothed out quite a bit in the VE Table. That should get rid of a lot of the bucking and jerky issues you are mentioning. It doesnt take much to cause those issues at low speeds/rpms since there isnt a lot of air moving.
With the idle issues you are talking about is your tuner (Sean) trying to tune it in Warm-up or Closed-Loop?

Thank you for the few cents!

I really do believe that PIP sensor had a lot to do with how the car ran at lower speeds. It does feel a lot smoother now with the new dizzy I have in there and I hope it is just a matter of tweaking the VE table to dial it in at this point. I am waiting to get a new map back from Sean after sending him a new log last night.

I think he tried all sorts of things but I think he mainly was trying to work it in closed loop. I can ask him. I kind of left the tuning part to him, but I realize I should try to acknowledge myself a little more on those stuff to help me down the road. On top of that, I am still learning a lot of things about tuning and internal combustion engines so I try not to bog anyone down I do know the basics of Megasquirt at this point, but since we started digging things around, I have begun the hands off approach to try not to confuse myself and mess something up haha.

I attached the map and the log if you are knowledgeable with those stuff. Log is tad bit long as I drove it around the neighborhood from cold to warm to show how it acted. No WOT yet.

 

[JCBeaver]

I should add that I have been fighting idle surge from day 1. It always have been there. Sometimes it is major, sometimes it is not so bad... I think it used to be due to the bad dizzy(PIP) confusing the system but now I am hoping that a new dizzy will help get it perfect.

 

[Noobz347]

With the idle issues you are talking about is your tuner (Sean) trying to tune it in Warm-up or Closed-Loop?

I should add that I have been fighting idle surge from day 1. It always have been there. Sometimes it is major, sometimes it is not so bad... I think it used to be due to the bad dizzy(PIP) confusing the system but now I am hoping that a new dizzy will help get it perfect.

Guys... Do I remember that this build does [not] have a bypass valve? If so, the surging idle is part of the territory.

Lookup on youtoob, any PD blower video where there's no bypass (usually big roots setups). They surge at idle.


View: https://youtu.be/M0UjYDEmz8Q?t=276