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View Full Version : Supercharged Lebaron-24 hours of lemons



the570z
08-01-2012, 01:57 PM
Howdy folks,

I made some inquiries for parts and discovered there was some interest in this build, its not a turbo per say but it is boosted anyway :). What we have here is a 95 lebaron LX v6 with an Eaton M62 off a 92 buick park avenue ultra grafted to the original intake. Originally when I did this I used Megasquirt and the buicks 36Lb/Hr injectors but this time around I decided to try it with the stock electronics and an OBX 8:1 FMU. So far its working pretty well but im having some issues with the auto trans, torque reduction requests I think as the ECU is pulling mad timing during shifts and it makes the whole car buck and shudder since I retarded the timing a bit to reduce some pinging I had. Feel free to ask any questions you want and or let me know how to make the stock electronics cope with boost better! Oh and I almost forgot we are entering this car in the 24 hours of lemons this year as "The Red Baron" we plan on adding some tri-plane wings and perhaps a paintball gun or two in the front.

Thanks,
Derek

Pics!
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s175/SNAFU_DAY/Lebaron/5fda644f.jpg
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s175/SNAFU_DAY/Lebaron/e0c37af9.jpg
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s175/SNAFU_DAY/Lebaron/696e7f2d.jpg

RoadWarrior222
08-01-2012, 02:11 PM
Muhuhahahaaaaaa, awesome!

Makes me want to build a doghouse to race you.

the570z
08-01-2012, 02:42 PM
Since I forgot to mention it in the post we do need to upgrade the brakes and suspension still in order to go round those natural enemies of american cars, corners. Brakes we can spend a few bucks on(not much we are actually poor, thus racing in lemons) and the suspension upgrades have to be like less then 150 bucks, total. If anybody has an ideas of where to go for all that and also any ideas on how to stiffen up our motor mounts as we will probably rip all of the current ones right out.

johnl
08-01-2012, 03:10 PM
Fabulous, just great. Best Lemon I ever saw.

RoadWarrior222
08-01-2012, 08:13 PM
Since I forgot to mention it in the post we do need to upgrade the brakes and suspension still in order to go round those natural enemies of american cars, corners. Brakes we can spend a few bucks on(not much we are actually poor, thus racing in lemons) and the suspension upgrades have to be like less then 150 bucks, total. If anybody has an ideas of where to go for all that and also any ideas on how to stiffen up our motor mounts as we will probably rip all of the current ones right out.Well teh cheap way is to fill the mounts with windshield urethane adhesive... higher rate coils for the front, methinks pull some from a windstar van at a cheap yard and then cut them so it's not a 3" lift. Vigo was mentioning something about drilling shocks/struts and refilling the oil, so thick stuff in what you've got might work. For the back if you don't find any other ideas, you could put in two rubber coil assisters and then cut some off to bring it down again, but that will be rather solid.

Dunno if anyone's tried case hardening swaybars, but I'd figure on doing something like digging a long fire trench, filling it with free firewood, getting it going good, throwing the swaybar on top, then covering it over with metal sheets to leave just the ends open and force feeding it air with a box fan or something.

speedfreek500
08-02-2012, 01:41 AM
Looks good! Have you thought about a Greddy emange (Blue)? It only works for high imp injectors, which you have in there already. I seen one in the forsale ad's on here yesterday.

http://www.kmperformance.com/techcenter/emanage/eManage_install.pdf

Force Fed Mopar
08-02-2012, 08:39 AM
Not the most awesome thing ever, but welcome to the site anyway :) Pretty good for a Lemon car I guess.

contraption22
08-02-2012, 12:01 PM
Lemons is alot of fun!

What I've learned so far in the two races we've run.

Reliability trumps speed.

Braking and cornering are more important than power. Especially if you do whatever you can to make the car as light as possible.

Vigo
08-02-2012, 12:46 PM
If you can get some complete srt4 front struts in good condition for really cheap thats a fairly easy front suspension upgrade. Springs are about 70% stiffer than stock.

Ive welded plates onto the rear axles to box them in on several cars, that is a cheap rear sway bar. :)

If you can find some used jeep cherokee front coil springs from a lift kit (or maybe even stockers) and cut about half the length off them you should have a super stiff spring that fits in the rear perches.

If you're going to have real traction on the back you NEED to reinforce the track bar, they bend like crazy. Since i have gone through a bunch of parts car what ive done is take another stock track bar, cut the bushing ends off, and weld it upside down to the first one to box it .

I have pictures of all this stuff somewhere if you need em.

94GTC
08-02-2012, 12:56 PM
I have a soon to be 3.8 powered 94GTC, and can tell you that a 6 point roll bar that tied the front and rear together will be far more noticable than any thing else you can do. You need to tie the rear shock towers together and then triangulate the front shock towers to the firewall also. If you can tie the subframes together that would also help. I have high rate lowering springs and a 1 1/4" front bar, and although it handels fairly well, if you hit any bumps when cornering, you can hear the body flexing. I have minivan brakes on mine on the front. For the trans you could try an older, tcm, as they started the torque managment, I think in 95. If you can find an older tcm with the o/d lockout button that would be the best. Have fun and keep us informed.

the570z
08-02-2012, 01:11 PM
Thanks for the tips, Ive heard about refilling the shocks with thicker oil from some lemoners before that was on the list of stuff to do, we figured we would cut the stock springs first and see what we got but they do seem a might soft. We actually managed to dig up a manual lebaron v6 in our local pick a part and promptly stripped it of everything needed to convert ours to 5 speed. What are the biggest brakes that will bolt up that we might stand a chance of actually finding(the v6 manual was lucky enough!). Right now its an LX so its drum rear and what looks to be awfully small fronts, though the wheels appear to be stock and are 15" which if I have been reading correctly would mean they were the larger of the two options? I mostly need a caliper that I can fit some big aggressive pads in more then big rotors as I could give a crap if they warp but if we run out of pads bad things happen. A full roll cage is mandatory and we will of course be doing what we can to make it structural :). Also in winning on distance reliability may trump speed but we are in it for the lulz and just to have a good time more then go for the overall win. Though there isnt much reason why the 6g72 bottom end would break under 8 psi, we are not exactly going for record horsepower. In another random note I have a car full of parts, some of which are quite decent(top motor is new, so is some of the A/C system which still works great for example). If anybody needs parts for their cars let me know I plan on selling everything at token prices, just need to make our 650 purchase price back in sales. Even if you dont want the parts buy something anyway so we can be legal to race :)

Vigo
08-02-2012, 01:26 PM
Measure your front rotors to be sure. The largest brake setup you can get from the junkyard has 11.25" rotors and if yours dont measure that you dont have them.

Since you have a late model car it is pretty easy to get those brakes on there. If your junkyard has any 91-93 daytonas i would check those first as they seemed to get them almost as a crapshoot regardless of trim level. If you do find them, you would need the caliper, caliper bracket that bolts to spindle, and the rotor. You may want to take a pic of your existing caliper with your phone or something and take it with you because you MIGHT already have the same caliper and then you would just need the caliper brackets and rotors.

If you dont have late-year daytonas, i would just go for any long wheel base 91-95 caravan/voyager. They have the same brakes but a 5x114.3 bolt pattern. So you would get the caliper and caliper bracket, and just buy the 5x100 pattern rotors from a parts store for $20-30 each.

those 11" brakes DID come on 91-up lebaron GTCs i believe, but those are even harder to find than the daytonas. They also came on spirit r/ts but if you see one of those in the junkyard you better be prepared to pull the whole drivetrain out because its worth a lot more than they'll charge you.. :)

There is a rear 11.25" vented disc brake setup. Honestly i wouldnt bother going out of your way to find it unless you just happen to see it. All the cars that had the 11" front will have the 11" rear. The vans always had drum rear so dont bother with them. If you do find a car with the 11" brakes i would get the proportioning valve too.

Also, cars with the 4-wheel disc setup had a master cylinder with a 24mm bore vs 21mm for most of the disc/drum cars. The master cylinder will have either a 1 or 4 cast into the front of it under the reservoir to tell you this. Your car may already have the 24.

---------- Post added at 12:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:19 PM ----------

If you're swapping to 5spd you'll want to weld on the bracket for the 4th mount that is used on 5spd cars. Do it while the trans is out or you'll have to drop the k-frame.
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk124/Vigo327/DSC02093Large.jpg

We have a member on this forum who makes and sells this bracket cheaply to save you time if you dont want to make it.
http://polybushings.com/pages/moparubrkt.html

There is a small chance you MAY already have this bracket on your k-frame so i would check.

I have also made this bracket out of some pieces i cut out of a truck bumper if you want to do something like that.

RoadWarrior222
08-02-2012, 01:28 PM
Well you could find some flared flowerpots, (Nice rolled edge) set those in the airdam at each bottom corner, then clamp dryerhose to the back of them to make brake cooling ducts, if you can't find the cheap/good option. Use detergent bottles or something for the other end for a rectangular nozzle. Immobilise everything with plenty of zipties though so it won't rattle off.

Vigo
08-02-2012, 01:39 PM
Well since i already wrote this out for someone ill post it here for the OP too.

About the suspension stuff i mentioned.
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk124/Vigo327/DSC02368Large.jpg
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk124/Vigo327/DSC02371Large.jpg
^double track bar.

http://s279.photobucket.com/albums/kk124/Vigo327/?action=view&current=DSC08410Medium.jpg
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk124/Vigo327/DSC08412Medium.jpg
^Plate to box in axle for rear sway.

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk124/Vigo327/DSC03131Large.jpg
Once you cut a rear spring (stock, cherokee, etc) the end is uneven. Depending on how you rotate the spring in the car, you can get a small adjustability in ride height/weight jacking. Putting the cut end at the front raises, putting it at the back lowers.

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk124/Vigo327/DSC05274.jpg
You can use neon srt4 front struts and springs either with the k-car strut mount or the neon strut mount. This picture is with the k-car mount.

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk124/Vigo327/DSC05273.jpg
The k-car strut mount requires modifying the strut shaft.

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk124/Vigo327/DSC03696Large.jpg
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk124/Vigo327/DSC03699Large.jpg
using the neon strut mount requires redrilling the strut tower with a 3.5" hole saw and redrilling the bolt pattern.

RoadWarrior222
08-02-2012, 01:50 PM
:hail::thumb::clap2:

94GTC
08-02-2012, 04:02 PM
My spindles are from a 92 minivan, with 11 1/4" rotors. I got by large discs off of a Daytona along with the prop valve. I am putting stock springs back on mine next week, but I don't know if I am ready to sell the lowered springs just yet. They are just too stiff for a vert.

the570z
08-02-2012, 04:31 PM
We will be fine on that end, the car is getting a full weld in cage as per Lemons safety requirements. Our chassis rigidity should be well in excess of a street coupe by the time its done. Its all good though we couldnt afford to pay more then like 25 bucks for the springs which is very lowball so ill probably just go try and junkyard a set and cut em down.

Vigo
08-02-2012, 05:53 PM
A while back i heard something about the v6 taurus sho front springs fitting our stock spring perches and they were supposed to be ~220lb/in. Stock is right around 100.

94GTC
08-02-2012, 07:47 PM
We will be fine on that end, the car is getting a full weld in cage as per Lemons safety requirements. Our chassis rigidity should be well in excess of a street coupe by the time its done. Its all good though we couldnt afford to pay more then like 25 bucks for the springs which is very lowball so ill probably just go try and junkyard a set and cut em down.

The cage will be huge. Like I said, brace between the rear shocks also. This looks like about the most fun that could be had racing. From what I have read, the most important thing is the car still running at the end!

Force Fed Mopar
08-02-2012, 11:41 PM
All the factory and aftermarket spring rates I have been able to find:

http://boostedmopar.com/forums/showthread.php?16963-FAQ-Stock-suspension-info-%28spring-rates-steering-ratios-alignment-settings-etc%29

the570z
08-03-2012, 01:56 PM
Damn those mopar springs were cheap, too bad they dont sell em anymore. Id love to get my hands on a set of the 300lb eibachs but retail is too damned expensive!

Vigo
08-03-2012, 06:58 PM
IIRC those are discontinued too.

the570z
08-04-2012, 02:07 PM
Still around but I'd need a used set not new.

Vigo
08-04-2012, 05:10 PM
Ive seen used sets around $100 every once in a while. I think you'd still be a lot cheaper doing something like SHO front and Cherokee rear from a junkyard or something like that. You can actually mod the rear spring perches to run coilover springs (in the stock location, not around the shocks) which are floating around all over the place.

the570z
08-06-2012, 07:27 PM
Right on, ill keep an eye out in the yards for those springs, thanks again for all the help and ill post updates as things move along.

the570z
05-02-2013, 01:56 PM
Sorry for the long delay in updates, life sort of got in the way. The weight shedding has begun. Anybody need any interior or other bits? Its not in too bad of shape actually, grey cloth interior. I also have a good radio and the entire HVAC system to get rid of as well. The A/C currently works quite well I should mention so if anybody needs a good working one I would be happy to get rid of it.

Vigo
05-02-2013, 03:19 PM
Once you get your belt routing done for the blower i would like to see a picture of that.

the570z
05-02-2013, 03:56 PM
Oh that's been done, it's ridiculously simple actually just used a longer belt and added the blower pulley inbetween the alt. and the upper idler. Cuts the belt contact on the alternator by about half but it hasn't been slipping on us. I'll drawup a routing diagram if you want.

the570z
05-02-2013, 06:05 PM
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s175/SNAFU_DAY/Lebaron/42236180_zpsce3f77b1.gif (http://s152.photobucket.com/user/SNAFU_DAY/media/Lebaron/42236180_zpsce3f77b1.gif.html)

Vigo
05-03-2013, 12:08 AM
Excellent, that was what i was planning to do for mine as well. I was mostly interested in a pic to see if you had to do anything with the fuel lines.

the570z
05-03-2013, 10:23 AM
Fuel lines went through the belt, for a street car I'd probably reroute them for safety reasons.

Reaper1
05-03-2013, 07:53 PM
That's enough wrap on the SC pulley that the belt doesn't slip under full boost? I thought I remembered them having more than that?

Still...AWESOME project! :thumb:

There was a Neon a guy did YEARS ago where they swapped in a 3.0 and mounted the supercharger exactly the same way you did. At first it was an M62, but then they went with an M90! It was MASSIVE on that engine mounted like that! LOL To cover it they built a cowl hood...it must've been over 12"!! It looked ugly, but is supposedly RIPPED!

the570z
05-03-2013, 07:59 PM
You pretty much can't get any more belt around the blower pulley then that, its just shy of 180 degrees. I did this more for LOLs then speed, Lemons rules pretty much prevent me from fueling the thing properly, however with some creative epoxy work all of the ports to remove the blower whine are gone so it makes a lovely howl. Perhaps when they value it nothing a few more times I can get away with doing some more work to it, like an extra injector or two on a pressure switch I think. Its funny the blower was 45 bucks, all the crap to make it work was another 200... lol.

carmody87
06-04-2013, 02:12 AM
I am working on putting a m90 on my lebaron and I am replacing the plenum and making it from scratch I am using a t bird housing and the neck and pully from a 96 riv how fast is that one you got spinning

the570z
06-04-2013, 02:27 AM
I am working on putting a m90 on my lebaron and I am replacing the plenum and making it from scratch I am using a t bird housing and the neck and pully from a 96 riv how fast is that one you got spinning

Im pushing 14k rpm with it due to the sheer size of the crank pulley on the engine. The largest pulley I could find(3.125" IIRC for a shelby cobra) just barely got it to below blower redline at 6k.

carmody87
06-04-2013, 02:39 AM
so if I run it as is I will over rev the blower?

the570z
06-04-2013, 02:44 AM
Easy calculation there, Im not sure what the redline of the M90 is. Your crank pulley is 7.5in. So if you divide that by the blower pulley diameter it should give you your drive ratio. lets say you have a 3.25" pulley, your drive ratio would be 2:1. So if your engine redline is 6500, your blower would be spinning at 13k at that speed. Make sense?

carmody87
06-04-2013, 02:53 AM
yes that dose thank you. from what I found the m90 makes 500cfm at 12k so I think that might be redline

Vigo
06-04-2013, 10:35 AM
I chose to use an underdrive crank pulley with the stock Tbird SC pulley to bring down my ratio and lower the boost number. Someone in the past (forget who) ran this combo and landed at about 7psi which is right where i'd want to start.