The thick black spacer between the engine and the f23 is the adapter that doubles as the starter mount. The original 4.3 starter location interferes with the passenger side axle.
The relocation interferes with the oil filter and sometimes the exhaust depending on the manifold used.
I’ve had 3 oil filter adapters, 3 different manifolds, and 2 different starters over the years. No failures, just continuing improvement.
The 4.3 is also a common marine engine and another source for carbureted intake manifolds.
The ecm provided the timing curve to the electronic distributor instead of advance weights and vacuum advance. The distributor I have is a basic sbc hei type with weights and vacuum but a six point pickup instead of the 8 point pickup for an sbc. It has one spade terminal for the ignition power and one for the tachometer output.
The adjustable engine support worked great. Just a few turns set it to where I needed it to pull the trans.
While I have it out, there is an area on the subframe that I would like more clearance from. It isn’t necessary but since it is easy to get to….
HTOB/HRB MEASUREMENTS
A few posts back, I mentioned that I tested the clutch system and found 0.480-490” of travel at the HTOB with one full stroke of the fiero master. This is the minimum that the HTOB must be compressed from the end of its travel to ensure it cannot over extend (To compress more than this can result in reduced clutch life, since the pp fingers move toward the trans as the clutch wears and can unload the clutch if shimmed too much).
One way to do this is to make sure the engine side protrudes far enough at the pp fingers to compress the HTOB this far. For tolerances, I chose to use 0.500” as the minimum cushion.
Fully extended, I measured 1.890”. 1.890+0.500 = 2.390” as the minimum distance from the bell mating flange to the HTOB.
For the engine side the pp finger height needs to be a minimum of 2.390” from the bell mating surface with a new clutch.Here is a comparison of a replacement pp and clutch for a 2002 cavalier and the standard fiero pp used in most applications through the 90s and the aftermarket ceramic clutch I’m using.
The ceramic clutch is 0.320” thick at the facings as is the cavalier clutch with the marcel spring squeezed.
Installed,
the standard fiero pp puts the fingers at 2.300“ from the bell housing mating surface on the block adapter and
would require a $5 0.89” crank shim if the clutch is new which is slightly less than my cushion minimum of 0.500 but greater than the actual measurements of 0.480-490”. It should be fine.
The cavalier pp puts the fingers at 0.135” further (than the standard fiero pp) from the block adapter at 2.435”, no shimming required.
So now I just need to bench bleed the HTOB and put it back together.
