Project Stress Relief
By Tim Baillie
Project Stress Relief is a Buick Regal that we have been working on for a few years now (be quiet, you know who you are). Why is it Project Stress Relief? Well, working on cars soothes me, it calms me down and relaxes me. Running two businesses, I am stuck behind the desk and on the phone all day and I no longer get to work on cars as much as I used to or would like to. So this is my stress relief; it’s one of those cars that, just when it’s finished, it’s time to change it.
Over the next 6-8 issues we will be taking our readers step-by-step into how to build, assemble and install a frame into an existing vehicle. We will walk you through having the frame sandblasted and powder coated, mocking up all of the suspension, steering and braking components as well as things like fuel and brake line plumbing. We will show you how to do all of this using basic mechanics’ tools and that it is something that you can do at home in your garage.
Since we are going to go through this step-by-step, we are going to need a motor and transmission on the frame to install as well, because I am not going to go through all of this work with a V6.
We decided that we wanted to show people how you can build something that is fuel injected without spending a lot of money, get great fuel economy, as well as get great performance out of it. You can spend the money to make it look good, like we did, but everything we added to the motor is simply for the eye candy factor.
We decided on using a Chevy TPI (Tuned Port Injection) motor in the Regal.
Here is a basic rundown of the TPI’s life and history and things you need to know when looking for a TPI system. There are two types of systems; there is the MAF (Mass Air Flow) system and what’s called the Speed Density system. Now, the TPI guys have debated which one is better ever since the system arrived in 1985 on the Camaro IROC-Z with 215 hp as a 305 and made it all the way up to 250 hp on the 350 in 1991 on both Camaros and Corvettes.
The two big differences between them and the reason one way or another that most people decide which style to use is that with a MAF system, you need to have some type of intake system between the throttle body and the air cleaner. Somewhere on this intake system, the MAF has to be installed inline with it. The Speed Density system allows you to bolt on a RC-5000 or RC-5050 K&N filter right to the end of the throttle body.
One more bit of important information is, there are two different styles of TPI intake mounts. The ‘85/’86 intakes bolt up to any old small-block, while the ‘87-’91 will bolt up to the newer vortec-style cylinder heads. So this gives you some options when it comes to what TPI to use if you have an existing motor already.
We started looking for a motor that was a solid foundation from which to start. A few years ago, my mechanic father put a 290-hp 350 GM Goodwrench motor in his friend’s van. Several years later, the van had literally rotted away but the motor was still intact. We picked up the entire van for $500. It turned out that even though the van looked like hell, it had sat up north and rusted away but the motor only had about 5,000 km on it. We got the motor, a TH350 and a big 4-core radiator (might use it someday) and sold the van for $200. So we were into this so far for $300.
We then fired up the internet and started looking on eBay and Craigslist for a used TPI setup that we could get. We found a complete Speed Density system with ECU and Harness for $200 on eBay. We took the entire unit apart, cleaned all the fuel rails out, took the fuel pressure regulator apart and cleaned all the sensors. Once we knew we had all good working parts, we turned our attention to making it look good as well. We started assembling everything. We took the harness apart and removed the entire vehicle’s wiring so that we had a standalone engine harness.
The great thing about the TPI motors is there are a ton of books and internet sites dedicated to installing these motors into everything including Jaguars.
The TPI requires an electric fuel pump and a tank with a baffle inside of it so that it doesn’t lose fuel when going around corners. We got a tank/pump/sender set up out of an ‘87 Buick Grand National off Craigslist for $500. Since the car had the computer-controlled carburetor on it, it already had a heavy fuel line and return line which saved us some money, but we priced it out and it would have cost us about $75 to run our own new return line if we had to.
We replaced the water temp sensor, the air intake sensor, MAP sensor, and fuel pressure regulator for just over $300, and a set of replacement injectors cost $200. So you’re looking at a total of $1,575. Now, can everyone find these deals? Sure, you just have to put in the time to look for them. You’re not going to be able to log onto the internet and find deals like this in one night. I spent a few months sourcing out all of these parts.
Now, because we were putting this motor into a show car, we wanted to go with some new items, for dress-up and performance.
We turned to Pertronix for all the ignition products like their Flame Thrower Distributor, Flame Thrower E-Core Coil and Flame Thrower 8mm custom-fit MAGX 2 Spark Plug wires. The Flame-Thrower HEI distributor produces 67 percent more energy with a 45 percent faster spark breakdown time when compared to the stock HEI. This means twice the energy to the spark plugs. The Flame-Thrower E-Core coils feature optimized winding design to maximize spark gap current and have available 50,000 volts. When teamed with Flame-Thrower ignition modules, they produce 100 percent more energy across the spark plug gap (during a one millisecond burn time) compared to the OEM coil.
We removed the stock rockers from the GM heads and replaced them with PRW rockers and pushrods. PRW’s rockers are lightweight and made from 15-5ph stainless steel. They are designed to give plenty of clearance for large diameter springs.
We used JBA Performance Exhaust shorty headers because they use all mandrel-bent stainless steel primary tubes with 3/8-inch-thick laser-cut flanges. They use oversized ports, extra thick collector domes and Silver Ceramic Coating on all of their headers. They also come with a factory-style emission connection (O2 Sensor) already welded into them which makes them a perfect fit for our TPI motor.
We wanted to get more performance out of the TPI system, so we contacted our friends at Painless Performance and got one of the PERFECT EFI wiring harness systems. The wiring harness is a standalone TPI wiring harness, but it also comes with their own ECU which is totally programmable with their laptop programmable PERFECT Cal Tool software.
Once we had it wired, we added a billet serpentine system for our Borgeson Power Steering pump and our electric water pump. We finished it all up with some miscellaneous small details like the stainless socket head fasteners, billet breathers and chrome fuel pressure gauge. We then started to take everything apart and start cleaning, sanding and spending a crazy amount of detail work on everything to make it look good. We smoothed out the block, heads and all of the TPI components with several hundreds of dollars of abrasives and primer to get the final look we wanted.
The final product is a very clean and subtle look for our motor. Now can you do all of this with the stock HEI distributor system, water pump and alternator? Yes, you just need to spend the time to clean it and detail it how you want it to look.
Next time, we will start with our “spare” frame that we have by boxing in the “U” channel sections of the frame and getting it sand blasted and powder coated.
For more in-depth and expanded build coverage of the project check out www.projectstressrelief.com each month.
If you have any questions don’t hesitate to contact us at (604) 888-6568 or info@hzemall.com
Tim Baillie is owner of HzEmall Customs in Surrey B.C. and serves as Project Manager for this publication. You can reach Tim at 604-888-6568 or tim@rpmprojects.com.
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