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Very nice looking engine bay! - BC

Absolutely love how the engine looks. The blue and wrinkle black look great with the headers.

Good work buddy!

Thanks! I promise that once I get it done a 1st start video and proper photo shoot are in order.

On a side note, I think I like the look of the silver crosslaces on this car. The one you can see is a 16x8, I have three others that need to be cleaned up an get a matching finish on them. Are these powdercoated, and where might I find a place that can refurbish them for me? I know I don't have a way of getting that same color and finish myself.

Looking good.

Blowing the dust off:

Idle video





Got a few things to sort out before it's road worthy. The water pump gasket leaks, have a slight leak on one of the fuel fittings (didn't get pushed on all the way) need to get a base tune loaded in, and the trans feels like something is hanging up a bit in drive; I'm not sure why yet, hoping it's just low fluid combined with cavitation or something silly. Of course, leftovers to finish from before include getting the downpipe sealed, fixing the rear exhaust hanger, adding exhaust tips, proper wheels and tires, welding up the access hole to the subframe bolt, etc...

Love that idle. Hahaha

Looks good!

Looking great! Is this one going to the show too?

Love the colors and the car sounds like it thinks it's related to something "Big Daddy Dan Garlits" would run. I'm jealous of you. Wishing I could live close to you and a several of other members. I know, I know, there I go wishing my life away, LOL! - BC

I love how I never really get this car finished...

That is changing for sure though now. I sold my winter beater and this has to be running for winter.

The list of things that need to be finished before I can drive it:
-Major vacuum leak under the plenum
-coolant leaking past water pump bolts
-exhaust, too loud and leaks
-transmission issues

I pulled everything to get to the LIM and water pump. I figured that while I have it apart I should just powdercoat everything I take off. Ran into a snag with the water pump, it doesn't look like I have a viable method to pressing it apart due to the bearing arrangement. I am still working on a solution, in the meantime I ended up re-painting it (the primer I used didn't adhere to the aluminum for some reason so some of it was flaking off). But everything else that I could get in the oven is now PC!

Rebuilding the alternator, new bearings and powder is all this time:


Got the LIM cleaned up and powdercoated. Color is really close to the paint.


More exhaust madness. Adding two more resonators. Still waiting on a tight radius bend donut.



When the pulleys all need new bearings, instead of buying all new pulleys I bought a pack of bearings. $15 for 10 bearings, and now I have an excuse to press out the old bearings and powder the pulleys!


More to come.

Can't wait to see how it sounds, I'm intrigued.

Well, good news is I got the engine all sorted out, the vacuum leak at the plenum was the cause of the crazy loud whine noise. It runs and idles well now.

Still waiting on the tight radius mandrel bend donut to get here to start the exhaust, (tracking shows it sat in a Chicago area USPS facility for a week, should be here today) and I'm thinking about grabbing a U-pull transmission to get by on while I go back through the one I rebuilt.

The goal is to have this running and driving this weekend.

Come down here and pull it out of chassis and you can have the trans from my 98 Olds 88, nothing really wrong with it yet, but has 215k on it and also has the 2.86 fdr in it. But I'd let it go for probably nothing. Lol. Otherwise it's going with the body to the scrapper, engine and virtually everything useful is staying with us though.

Edit: Just remembered the 97 NA should be a 4T60, not a 65 like my 98. Lol. D'oh!

Pulled a trans from the local u-pull this morning. Something oddly satisfying about ripping things apart that are junk anyway. It was an olds, with a rotted and dropped subframe. Pulled the trans pan from several cars (including one that had over 300k and one at 100k) before I settled on this one.

Spent the rest of the day getting the drivetrain from the car ready to pull. Ran into a few self-inflicted hurdles; might have to remove the rear header first for example.

Planning on replacing the 4th hub and the PCS and put a shift kit in it - then send it. Also have to decide if I want to use the non-HD passenger axle or swap the HD diff out. Recovered about 9 quarts of new trans fluid from the trans, just going to dump it into the junkyard one.

I will eventually (next year) tear back into the trans I built up to figure out what I did wrong on the rebuild.

Got the motor and trans out tonight, managed to not scratch any of the paint or powder coat in the process.


Currently planning the mode of attack for tomorrow: have to put the temp trans on the stand and rip it apart while I'm waiting for parts to arrive. Going to attempt to clean out the PCS and hope the smell of the fluid was (again) correct in that the clutches are good to go. Planning on stocking up on neodymium magnets (verified by my brother, holy cow do they catch a lot of *shoot* that otherwise would circulate through the trans).

Pulled the entire valve body/pump/side cover assembly in one piece in about 5 minutes to gain access to the 4th hub. good news is, it's a good thing I did, what was left of those splines might have lasted a few months if that, but the 4th clutch pack is in nice shape, the chain is in nice shape... really, aside from fluid that needs to be changed I think this trans is in good shape. Absolutely not going to go any deeper into it to figure that out, the smell of the fluid really gives it away sometimes, .

Added a few springs and the normal spacers to the accumulator, mostly waiting on a few choice gaskets and seals at this point.

Going to button this one up and send it, waiting on shipping gives me more time for powdercoating!

Got the motor and trans back where they belong. Modified the headers to eliminate the slip flange where the front header fits into the rear header. Mocked everything up on my spare block, and added a V band flange in just the right spot. Everything fit perfectly, I welded it all in place mocked up on that block. Transferred the sexy new headers with no leaky flanges to the motor in the car, and wouldn't you know it, they don't line up Fixed that with one of those safety seal bands for now, will re-visit that again next time I remove the motor for whatever. Other fun - the trans I grabbed was a non-HD trans. Thinking I had a set of non-HD axles sitting around....I didn't, so had to get a new axle for the passenger side. Lifetime warranty, hoping to get my money's worth out of that one.

Tonight I fired it up for a minute to get the trans fluid to start working it's way through the system. Going to work on the exhaust next. It's way to loud with open headers, but man, that lope...

Have to figure out a cold air intake, I think I'm going to stick to paper filters on the daily cars. I need to figure out a PCM tray and cold air intake.

Got some exhaust work done tonight:





Between the 180 bends and the two glasspacks, it's quiet enough now that it's tolerable. Needs a few more braces, maybe an extra hanger, the exhaust tip and some protective paint and it's done (finally).

Lots of fun happened today!

So i figured out why the trans wasn't working before, because this new trans was doing exactly the same thing... Tech 2, service manuals, would not have helped in terms of a diagnostic. Well, maybe, but not really.

It was something stupid, even dumber than a blown tcc fuse....

You ready for this?

The 1997 4t60e equipped LeSabre c101 connector pin a3 is different than the 4t65e equipped h-body cars. With the 4t65e pin a3 supplies the switched 12v power to the trans and I think the cam sensor. The 4t60 LeSabre that pin appears to bea sensor ground wire. Same year, rather than capture the difference in a single engine harness, they make two harnesses different... As far as I can tell it was literally a single wire that was different. So i removed pin a3 from the engine harness c101, tied it into pin b5 which is where the 4t60 12v switched is normally, the 4t65 harness uses that for various other sensors..

Finally, a single wire later, I havea working transmission in this car. Did some burnouts in the driveway to celebrate.

Other fun facts:. The A/C compressor is stuck on, one of the keys for the ignition has a bad resistor chip, the alternator stopped working, and the usual 225/60r16 wheel and tire rub on the front fender with the wide grand Prix Crosslace