The New Life of the 3800 "Formula"

[GTRS Fiero]

Have to figure out how the mount will attach, first.

[TopNotch]

Actually, Lee had something similar to what I did on the car when I got it. He had a turnbuckle attached to the alternator, with the other end attached to the back wall via a hole drilled in it. I guess he didn't like the noise either. And I would think that would be harder on the alternator than what I did.

[TopNotch]

I've got a belt routing for no power steering pump that works. I learned about it from one of the many 3800 (not Fiero) forums out there. Someone with a Buick Skylark wanted, for some reason, to remove his power steering pump. He came up with this routing:

The stock tensioner pulley, which is a type 38015, is replaced with a larger type 38007 pulley. The belt is a Gates 5060663 or equivalent (metric size 6PK1685). The tensioner pulley is actually a little closer to the alternator and a little bigger than my crude drawing indicates, and the belt deflects a bit more than the drawing indicates. This routing seems to work OK.

[GTRS Fiero]

Glad you got it figured out.  Great info.

[TopNotch]

DANGER HIGH VOLTAGE!
Those of you who looked at my engine compartment at the last club meeting may recall seeing the reflective stainless steel on the firewall, and what looked like a light below the bar that the forward torque struts are attached to. Well, today I removed that light. It's wires weren't connected to anything.
Here is what I removed:

This is a neon-type light, which means that high voltage would be required to light it. Notice that the plastic sheath around the light is melted. The writing on the leads indicates that their insulation is good for up to 16000 volts. Personally, I don't think I'd want high voltage that close to the gas tank.

[Fierofool]

Neon actually runs off 120.  I used to build channel letter signs which are lighted by neon.  I always wired them into 120.  They have a ballast transformer that pumps the voltage up but it's DC voltage. 

I have a bunch of papers that go with your car.  Part of them are for an Audiovox alarm system and there are other notes on things he did. 

[TopNotch]

Real neon lights run off several thousand volts. A "neon sign transformer" is used to step up 110 volts to light them. I have two neon sign transformers. When my brothers and i were kids, we played with them, making "Jacob's Ladders".

We also made van de graaff generators, Wimshurst machines, and Tesla coils -- a regular Frankenstein laboratory.
Note: Coat hanger wire works perfectly fine for Jacob's ladders. You don't have to spend the bucks on copper tubing.

[GTRS Fiero]

DANGER HIGH VOLTAGE!
Those of you who looked at my engine compartment at the last club meeting may recall seeing the reflective stainless steel on the firewall, and what looked like a light below the bar that the forward torque struts are attached to. Well, today I removed that light. It's wires weren't connected to anything.
Here is what I removed:

This is a neon-type light, which means that high voltage would be required to light it. Notice that the plastic sheath around the light is melted. The writing on the leads indicates that their insulation is good for up to 16000 volts. Personally, I don't think I'd want high voltage that close to the gas tank.

What held it in place?

[TopNotch]

What held it in place?

Zip ties.

[GTRS Fiero]

Hmmm.  Zip ties seem to be a recurring theme, on that Fiero.

[TopNotch]

Now you jinxed it!

Could be, because another part bit the dust. I was driving around, testing the AC, when the get-up-and-go got up and went.  I turned off the AC, and still no power. And it was worse the higher the RPM got. Felt like a clogged cat.
I originally wasn't sure whether the thing at the cat position was a cat or just a muffler, but since I had felt it get hotter than the rest of the exhaust system after a little running, that told me that it was a cat. So I cut it out. Inside was some very fine honeycomb structure, and the structure on the intake side was broken up. Fortunately, the structure on the output side was still intact, so no junk got blown into the muffler.
So I got an appropriately sized "test pipe" at the parts store and put it in. The get-up-and-go is restored, and the exhaust sounds better now.

[Fierofool]

Does it have a deeper rumble than with the cat? 

[TopNotch]

Does it have a deeper rumble than with the cat?

It has a deeper rumble with the test pipe. But the cat may have been partially clogged all along. The honey comb structure in it is much finer than the structure in Rodney's "high flow" cat. So it probably never was "high flow". The car seems to run better than ever without it.

[Fierofool]

I have the stock system on the 86 and there's a world of difference in the volume and tone of it and the 87. 

[TopNotch]

What do you know? It works! But who wants to carry a 10 pound transformer in their car, just to power an engine light?
It looks white in this picture, but it's actually purple.
(Powered by 12 KiloVolt neon sign transformer.)