PontiacBonnevilleClub.com

Last summer I was trying to diag a TCC lock up issue on the 4t60-e I rebuilt but when talking with Dave at TEP, is sounded like the trans would have to come back out.. Having been DDing a 5-speed car for a while, I couldn't ignore this opportunity to do a G6 6-speed swap.. I followed the original DIY thread on fiero.nl by Joseph Upson back when but didn't have the time/place/experience for it. Fast forward 5 years later, just recently bought a house, with a garage, and a daily.. and it was a no brainer.

5 years of other F40 swaps helps a bit too. Noah's GP swap, timka86's Grand Am swap, SteveX's Lesabre swap, and a hand full of Fiero swaps. While these helped, I was more or less on my own for all the mounts, clutch pedal setup, axles, and clutch line among other things.

First thing I did was mount the shifter and get the cables in the bay. The reverse lock out got chopped off and the rear HVAC duct was trimmed.







Next was figuring out how and were I would mount the G6 pedal. There's a large wiring pass through that suspends the wires in epoxy and a plastic cover. I was able to break all the wires free, hole saw a new location at the top corner of the original pass through, and get them up and out of the way for the MC. The pedal it's self was modified for more rebound throw to get everything lined up with the appropriate travel. I went through a few sheet metal revisions but ended up with a water jet cut part that the MC clocks and locks into, and it bolts up to the firewall.

Location ironed out:



2nd version of the pedal plate:





Final prototype:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSfeo79j2X4



Before and after with final:





Trans out:


I found out that I needed to cut the unibody quite a bit more so since I raised my drivetrain 1.5". (keeps my axles closer to neutral)

More on that later.

I also found out that I needed to modify my jet-hotted long tube headers.. luckily it was only the front:



All mounts were developed in CAD, test fitted by printing 1:1, water jetted, and welded where needed.





Rear mount location:








Front:






Rachel (Zuper8) was cool enough to make a bearing carrier for the intermediate shaft for me:


Zeroing in the bearing run out:


Final:


Tied into the rear dog bone:



And tied into the oil pan:



Complete mounts powder coated:



I went with The Driveshaft Shop for axles:

These are actually Cobalt SS inners, G6 outers, and custom length 300m centers.

The stock G6 driver's side axle fit with a Malibu front hub (like Noah's swap) but it was completely compressed so the driver's side needed to be shortened. The passenger side was a few inches too short. Colbalt SS inners were used to keep cost down since they make custom Cobalt axles a lot.

I beat around a bunch of ideas with the unibody work and decided I wouldn't be happy unless I did something I could smooth out like the rest of the bay.

Water jetted rails mocked up:




And working them in and boxing it up:



I finished boxing in the unibody work with 1/4" steel and added another rail in the wheel well area. The bottom of the vertical sheet metal that I left was curved inward and closest to the trans when mocking things up. I opted to cut that out and add that wheel well rail right above it. This gave plenty of clearance when installing the trans. I underbodied in the void where the trans sits and I primed and rattle canned the top. I'll revisit the top with some more smoothing and real paint later.













Clearancing the oil Jegs universal oil adapter and stock filter housing for the axle.




For the custom length clutch line, I called up Rogue Engineering in NJ. They sell a DOT approved SS braided line for BMWs that have the same quick connect fitting on one end. The G6 has this fitting on both sides.. I was thinking I may have to run 2 of their lines with a double male adapter connecting the 2. I asked them if they can make a custom length line and they said 'We can do anything you want'. I LOVE hearing that.. 2 days later I had a custom line in my hand for $85 plus shipping.

The only thing I was a little weary about was the size of the O-rings vs. larger stock G6, so I just swapped those over.


Spec clutch kit for a S2 3800 and F40:


The Hydraulic Throw Out Bearing spacer in the kit came on another HTOB that isn't the same as the G6. So, I just swapped the spacer on the one that came on my trans. The point of the spacer is to keep the HTOB from over extending when pressing into the pressure plate. The stock dual mass G6 setup has a higher stack height.

G6 on left





Clutch installed:


Bracket for the relocated oil housing and re worked -10AN oil cooler routing:



Bracket holds oil housing on the left.

G6 brake pedal:


More or less together:






Temporary shift boot:


The electrical side of things was made easier by Ryan at Sinister Performance and Micky Moose on Fiero.nl:
http://www.gmtuners.com/fiero/transbypass.htm
http://www.fiero.nl/forum/Archives/Arch ... 16755.html

And when I figured out that the Malibu hubs are 5-6mm shallower than 00+ H body:

^^ that kinda sucked and required a 5mm spacer behind the brake rotor to space it correctly in the caliper bracket.

I drove it around the block last night and back and fourth down my street.. *dang* that felt good.

My front alignment is way off and my tune needs some work but it runs and drives good.

Here's where it all went down..

Mike, you HAVE to bring this my over my way so i can see this thing

I love the shift boot. I'd leave it like that.

Sweet Jesus, you and Matt have me so jealous at your fab skills. I have dreams about being able to do stuff like this, but funds and lack of experience get in the way too much.

Great job on the swap! I can't wait to see this thing tuned and finished up!

So great to see it finally done. So jelly!

How much money do you want to do mine? :p haha it's going to need a trans overhaul shortly anyway.......

What cam do you have?!

@Pat, I can't wait to get back to putting miles on this thing again. That might mean heading out that way

@Joseph and nosblood, thanks guys

@Joseph, I know you're just playing around but it's hard to put a price on all this stuff. I have a ton of hours in and due to work related travel my free time is pretty limited. My OCD controlled how I did the swap more than anything..

@Matt it's an Abbott Racing n/a cam.

Here's the rest of the mod list:
Yeah I guess I never mentioned what I'm doing to the engine in here huh?

Low mile L26
ARP head studs
0.045” MLS head gaskets
Electric water pump
Home made 33" long long tubes with true merge collectors and up-swept primaries to match exhaust port angle
Full SS 3" exhaust with Magnaflow cat and Borla F body style muffler
Heavily ported L67 TB (69mm)
S1 L67 Injectors
HV3
Vac pump setup.. I had this on the car before and I need to get a new pump.. might come later
Some oiling mods to the front and rear covers and oil cooler
Revised HS 1.6 roller rockers
Abbott n/a Racing Cam
-210/220 @ .050
-.320" lobe lift on the intake, .512 with a 1.6 rocker ratio
-.320 lobe lift on the exhaust, .512 with a 1.6 rocker ratio
-112 lobe separation
Abbott Stage 3 Heads
-ARH Competition valve job
-SI Stainless valves, 1.840" intake, 1.550" exhaust
-Fully ported combustion chambers, intake, and exhaust ports
-Decks are milled and combustion chambers are C.C.ed to spec size
-All ports are flowed and tuned on the flowbench to ensure they meet
spec flow rates
-Guides cut down for high lift cams
-New valve seals
-Check for cracks
-Bronze valve guides
-Asked to mill 0.050” (which combined with the smaller HG's will yield over 10.5 static CR)
-Ti retainers With 90# springs

I chose these heads for a few reasons..
1. The highest n/a whp record (270 whp) was achieved with these
2. The intake to exhaust flow ratio is near perfect 80-85%
3. They come with flow data and chamber volume
4. 30 years of head porting experience
5. Good reputation (more so in the 3.8 F-body crowd)

Flow comparison.. For a general idea not all are from the same bench.




And I do all my own tuning Via TunerCATs RT and EFI Live.

Sounds like a real monster of a cam. I will never understand why everyone doesn't want their car to sound like that.

I LOVE the sound of a huge cam, or at least one with a narrow LSA and lots of chop haha.


I figured that's what you'd say Mike, I know something like this is spread out so far over time as well, that it's really hard to put a price on your passion. But if the day ever came, I would be more than happy to pay one of you guys 5-10 grand vs. $3k+ for the trans guy to do a likely shotty job (no good shops for transmissions around me).

Kinda bad news.. The trans has to come back out. The hydraulic throw out bearing is leaking.. The HTOB spacer SPEC includes with the kit might not be thick enough to keep it from over extending. Background info - The G6 has a thicker dual mass flywheel. This means the HTOB had less distance to travel stock to hit the pressure plate. The spacer should have solved that problem but it looks like it didn't. Not really a huge deal in the grand scheme of things. Especially since I can drive to my buddy's shop and work on a lift there.

For now though, I'm going to drive it, dial in the tune, and work on a few misc. things.

I was able to get over to my buddy's shop last week to get on a lift and the alignment rack.

On the lift I installed real 5mm wheel spacers behind the rotors to space them correctly, did an oil change, clearanced a p/s line from the header, tied up the aft O2s, and bled the p/s a bit more.

On the alignment rack I added a little more camber than I had before up front and got the toe in check. I'm about -1.6* camber all around. When they're not slammed with jobs they let me have free reign over their alignment rack. So I can go back and tweak whenever.



Yesterday I got the dual widebands hooked back up (1 front bank, 1 both banks) and today I installed and unlocked a factory CD player with a new display bulb from corvette radios. An aux input is on the to-do list.. I like the radio to match so it's staying for a while.

I've been trying to get the speedometer dialed in but haven't had much luck. The PPM function in my software doesn't change the cluster output. I played with the instrument panel divisor setting to get it lower at least but after I adjust past a certain point, the speed gets worse. I'm probably going to hit up Ryan at Sinister Performance for guidance on that.

The car also wanted to stall out a lot when coming to a stop. I played with the IAC follower and commanded airflow per gear but ultimately fixed the problem by adjusting the idle set screw.

Here's the car going through the first few gears (cluster speed is 1.7 times real speed):
http://youtu.be/zPfwJ1ZJyLQ

Ahh sucks to hear that you gotta yank it out again. But still! Love that video. So weird to see a manual in the Bonneville. Still not used to it. XD I wish they came this way. Would have been so much better/fun.

I am curious, is that much camber going to start costing tires? If so, how bad?

Also, is it just me, or does it seem like it doesn't want to go in to gear? Is that normal?

I don't know if it will work for a 95, but there is a speedo recalibrator that might work.

http://shop.zzperformance.com/store/p/6 ... ation.aspx

RJolly87 wrote:I am curious, is that much camber going to start costing tires? If so, how bad?

Also, is it just me, or does it seem like it doesn't want to go in to gear? Is that normal?

The toe being off is what kills tires, not 1-2* of camber. You have to get really aggressive with the camber to make a drastic change in tire wear. I’ve been running a degree or so of camber for years without problems.

The way the trans is gated is much different from my 98 5 speed i30 I've been driving for the past couple years. Muscle memory is telling me to go where the i30 would have me shift but it's obviously going to be different on a 6 speed. Light pressure in the right direction gets it into gear just fine.

J Wikoff wrote:I don't know if it will work for a 95, but there is a speedo recalibrator that might work.

http://shop.zzperformance.com/store/p/6 ... ation.aspx

I fired off an email to Ryan last night after my last post and I got a detailed response 9 hours later this morning. (can't say enough about that guy)

Paraphrasing he said: The 97-99 pcms calculate the speed differently from the 94-95s. In my pcm there’s a VSS calculation for the pcm and a separate instrument panel calculation which is manipulated by a divisor. The PPM value I can change does calibrate the speed for the internal pcm calculations but none of the options for the IP divisor will generate the needed 4k ppm output needed.

The stock trans has a 30 tooth reluctor with 24k ppm. The F40 has a 72 tooth reluctor with 60k ppm. The stock ppm is divided by 6 to get a 4k output but there's nothing to divide the F40 ppm by to get 4k.

0 = Divide by 1 (for a 4000 ppm VSS)
32 = Divide by 9 (for a 36000 ppm VSS)
64 = Divide by 7 (for a 28000 ppm VSS)
96 = Divide by 11 (for a 44000 ppm VSS)
128 = Divide by 6 (for a 24000 ppm VSS)
160 = Divide by 10 (for a 40000 ppm VSS)
192 = Divide by 8 (for a 32000 ppm VSS)
224 = unknown/invalid
256 = Divisor disabled, no output

Ryan suggested a Dakota Digital SGI-5. And since I know the internal ppm is correct, I'm just going to use the box to manipulate the signal to the speedometer.

I love/hate you.


I would very much enjoy seeing your Bonneville in person one day, not to mention going to a ride!

WhiteArrow3800 wrote:I love/hate you.


I would very much enjoy seeing your Bonneville in person one day, not to mention going to a ride!

So awesome to see a manual H body.

WhiteArrow3800 wrote:I love/hate you.


I would very much enjoy seeing your Bonneville in person one day, not to mention going to a ride!

This! It's in my list of cars to see from the forum for sure!

Lol. Thanks guys. I'm really pumped to be driving it again.

So I fried the power cable from the alt to the fuse box.. at the fuse box. The wire cover melted and the copper turned black.. My alternator also had a humming noise coming from it..

So, I made a new alt to fuse box wire, cleaned up the the fuse box contacts and cleaned up all my grounds. All while re-dielectric greasing everything.

A strange problem I also had with the previous alt was I couldn't get it to charge without adding the 99+ +12v ref sense wire.

I installed a new alt without the sense wire and got it to charge fine. So that's good news.

I also installed the Dakota Digital SGI-5. When I took the Bonnie grocery shopping today.. lol.. The speedometer wasn't working.. Luckily it comes with diagnostic blinking lights to narrow down the problem. Wrong output type. I had it hooked up as 4k square wave out but it needed to be 4k AC. Simple fix. When verifying via GPS, the speedo seems spot on up to 50. I`ll verify further when I take it back on the highway.

I routed the wiring into the glove box through a hole the PO had for a kill switch.