57k Mile LX9 Alero [[swap]]

[slowalero]

Thanks young gun! The Grand Am looks sharp. Nice touch with the black GXP wheels. I feel terrible because mine's no where near photo worthy right now. That and if you've seen a stock Alero before, you've seen mine. But that will soon change. Thanks for the ET, too. Been very curious what people were getting with a full weight car on a stock swap. What manifolds did you use, both intake and exhausts?

[young gun]

Thanks young gun! The Grand Am looks sharp. Nice touch with the black GXP wheels. I feel terrible because mine's no where near photo worthy right now. That and if you've seen a stock Alero before, you've seen mine. But that will soon change. Thanks for the ET, too. Been very curious what people were getting with a full weight car on a stock swap. What manifolds did you use, both intake and exhausts?

That was a photo shopped picture of what it will look like hehe, And they are AT Italia Inox's MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITES! But all the other pictures are what it looks like now -steelies for winter tires

LOL My bay is terrible right now but i have a build coming up soon so it can wait til then :P

Oh its not stock lol. Although that run was with pretty crappy tires. I have a CAI, 65mmTB, 2.5in downpipe, Borla Cat-Back, and a tune.

[slowalero]

Oh I understand you have the bolt ons and tune, but it's still a stock engine. 14.6 is a little better than I was thinking I could go, especially with 3400 exhaust manifolds, and the rest is stock Alero. My PCM is tuned for post cat O2 delete so eventually it's Milzy's steel headers and his stainless off road down pipe, but with stock exhaust after that. Life for the resonator is undecided. But the headers and cat less down pipe are for the eventual WOT stage 2 heads, stage 1 cam, ported manifold, and other valvetrain goodies. That's not a pure stock engine anymore. I don't know where that would put me for horsepower, but I'd like to be at least near 300.

[Starglow]

Oh I understand you have the bolt ons and tune, but it's still a stock engine. 14.6 is a little better than I was thinking I could go, especially with 3400 exhaust manifolds, and the rest is stock Alero. My PCM is tuned for post cat O2 delete so eventually it's Milzy's steel headers and his stainless off road down pipe, but with stock exhaust after that. Life for the resonator is undecided. But the headers and cat less down pipe are for the eventual WOT stage 2 heads, stage 1 cam, ported manifold, and other valvetrain goodies. That's not a pure stock engine anymore. I don't know where that would put me for horsepower, but I'd like to be at least near 300.

Wow....you have much more ambitious and bigger plans than I do. I just want something that runs well with decent horsepower for my son's first car. and I'll be happy just to get another 4-5 years out of it. I've owned the Grand Am for many years, but the 3400 went south after 89K miles.

[young gun]

Oh I understand you have the bolt ons and tune, but it's still a stock engine. 14.6 is a little better than I was thinking I could go, especially with 3400 exhaust manifolds, and the rest is stock Alero. My PCM is tuned for post cat O2 delete so eventually it's Milzy's steel headers and his stainless off road down pipe, but with stock exhaust after that. Life for the resonator is undecided. But the headers and cat less down pipe are for the eventual WOT stage 2 heads, stage 1 cam, ported manifold, and other valvetrain goodies. That's not a pure stock engine anymore. I don't know where that would put me for horsepower, but I'd like to be at least near 300.

N/A 300 hp will be a very expensive task, unless your talking about crank horsepower and not wheel horse power.

Wow....you have much more ambitious and bigger plans than I do. I just want something that runs well with decent horsepower for my son's first car. and I'll be happy just to get another 4-5 years out of it. I've owned the Grand Am for many years, but the 3400 went south after 89K miles.

3500 in a grand am is more than enough for a first car. Better engine too. Then if he wants to get into modding he already has a great start. I have almost 30k miles on my swap and well to be honest i'm not the nicest to it and she hasn't had a hiccup yet.

[slowalero]

N/A 300 hp will be a very expensive task, unless your talking about crank horsepower and not wheel horse power.

Yes. 300whp is just too much for that kind of car, for me. There's better chassis's for that.

[slowalero]

Here's what state it's in now.

The front end is back on the car. Earlier photos will show it removed. The paint is really clean, I wanted to reduce the risk of the inevitible shop damage as much as possible so that's one reason and it's corny but, I see a VW friend always removing the front end's off Passat's and what not for timing belt/water pump jobs, and engine removals. Volkswagen calls it "service mode". It feels professional. That and like the VW, the Alero's nose comes off in like, 8 little bolts.

I was stupid and decided to drive my 200,000 mile daily with the 50,000 mile headlamps, and deer number four taught me that lesson. So now it's a new lamp assembly. However, GM does release the part number for export (Chevrolet Alero-U.K.) headlamps on several web sites, and they're $120 cheaper than domestic lamps. I don't get it, but from what I can find after careful scrutiny of photos of export Alero's, the only difference, seems to be, the corner reflectors are vertical prism clear lenses, versus what you may see around the 'states with amber pyramid prism lenses. Just have to use an amber bulb now.

Engine looks kinda sloppy, just installed things for an initial start. Some of the accessories up top, like coils, are only finger tight because it's easier to install heater hoses with them out. The ignition cables are mapped out, just need loom to make it look OEM boring, and clean. Got my 3400 thermostat housing from the last salvage yard visit. Painted Toyota beige and mounted with a 180* thermostat and new GM seal. Be advised N-body LX9 swappers, you need to keep this part as well. The LX9 housing has a barbed steel nipple for a slip on hose out to the side, OEM 3400 has a threaded fitting on top. If you dont care about cutting your OEM surge tank pipe and worm clamping a new hose on the LX9 piece, then I guess that'll work too. Just felt this was cleaner. Brass brushed my exhaust manifold shields, although no one gives a shit 'cause OEM manifolds suck. Just looks cleaner, even if it is only temporary. Also am interested in test fitting an LX5 intake bellows since it's round and not oval. OEM Alero piece is too long with the throttle body spacer/adapter to bolt the OEM air box down, so I'm looking for something OEM looking that simply fits better. We'll see what happens.

Still have to drill the EGR block off plate for the FPR/HVAC vacuum source, snatch a straight hex (UIM) bolt from an LX9 at the local salvage yard to replace the stud for the plastic OEM engine cover and bolt the ignition cable separator down, find a clean or new ($77) CKP sensor harness, and clean or new heater pipe. Don't really wanna spend $48 on a short, thin walled steel tube.

Purchased new heater hoses and clamps from my local GM parts center, $44, they'll be here tomorrow. Yes, I spent $12 on GM spring clamps. Also ordered thermostat bypass pipe from Milzy tonight. That should be here soon too, and when it does, the damn thing'll actually be able to hold coolant again!

More soon!

[slowalero]

Progress!

You'll probably notice right away that everything top end has been removed, again. If you've been following, I ground most of the flashing off the upper intake to dress it up some, but left myself unsatisfied with the finish. So being I plan on doing more engine mods down the road, I decided now was a great time to port the runner openings. It saves me money with the tuner's and being they're done on the exchange process, I didn't want another OEM plenum back.

I also decided to tackle the vacuum situation now as well. Not that I rely on the forums to solve my problems, but I scoured the pages to see what I could find, and I saw a lot of folks taping the EVAP port and installing a barbed fitting. I don't like the idea of just rubber hose, it looks cheap and I couldn't do that 'cause I'm using the OEM LX9 EVAP valve. So after many nights losing sleep, thinking about a clean solution, I came up with this.

I wanted it as hidden as possible, and run the shortest lines. After removing the EGR block off plate supplied by Milzy, I drilled a hole in the stainless and borrowed a 3/16" pipe tap, ordered a compression tee from my local NAPA (only real parts store around here), and it fit! I'll probably drizzle some thread lock to ensure a leak free seal. The FPR source is up top and as you may see, the ghost gray plastic hose that lies at the bottom is the HVAC line which will run out of the bottom of the tee. All you'll see is the one hard line from the FPR to the EGR plate. It will probably wear paint, not sure what color yet.

[Starglow]

Looks good....I can't do that on mine because the EGR needs to be in place for state emissions inspection. What are you using the 3500 EVAP for and how are you going to connect it electrically?

[slowalero]

Considering the vacuum supply isn't near completion yet, it's good to hear compliments already, thanks Starglow!

[slowalero]

It's can be a pain to deal with government vehicle regulations when modifying your car, especially when it comes between an affordable solution and a means to a successful state inspection. Many states require certain emissions system component presence, and, or operation. The New York State Vehicle Inspection Program is among the most strict in the nation, second only to California by sampling exhaust exclusively in the (New York) Metropolitan Area. Along with visual aspects of a vehicle inspection, one functional test is the communication between the vehicle diagnostic system and NYVIP's online database, via the OBD II data link connector. The most scrutinized emissions system by NYVIP is the EVAP system. Along with obvious, present EVAP system components, the EVAP system is tested for readiness and functionability during the online communication. For those reasons, I chose to retain EVAP on project slowAlero. I'm a car guy-I leave things in better shape than I found them. It's a responsibility for me as such to address issues with our environment regarding our enjoyment with automobiles. Raw gasoline vapors deplete more ozone molecules than burned vapors do. If I were to fully delete EVAP, it's in my OCD nature to remove the canister and it's plumbing. That's more labor than I wanted to invest. I also hate the idea of raw gas vapors eminating from under my car as the gas tank purges vapors at will. There also is not much to offer in the way of mounting of the 3400 EVAP valve in the original location in the bay on the LX9 plenum. The LX9 valve offers a direct vacuum source, cleaning up the bay of ugly rubber hoses running everywhere too. The electrical connection is also fully compatible between the 3400 EVAP valve and the 3500 valve. GM uses an exclusive red weatherpack connector for all EVAP valves, and has done since it's introduction with weatherpack connectors. The other inspection law is if the vehicle was originally equiped with an EGR system, the valve must be present, and only obviously functional. The Alero had EGR on the LA1 3400 originally so therefore, an EGR valve must be present, and obviously functional-plugged in and hooked up. The most essential component to evading EGR inspection law was the ignorance of open circuits programed into the PCM. This will show up on the online communication as a fault-free, apparently functioning EGR system as the harness connector lies abandoned. I have to comply with state inspection regulation as well, I just know loopholes.

[slowalero]

Ok, so it's time to conclude, or rather add to this post. The car has been driving for nearly a year now and although there have been a few issues regarding MIL illuminations and some other driveability concerns, for the most part it runs excellent. I am absolutely satisfied with the swap. Power delivery is awesome (versus stock 3.4), very wide range and I especially love the top end gains. Another thousand revs to pull from and that's where the power lies-where the 3.4 didn't want to go. Albeit the LX9 utilizes the same cam as the LA1 3400, the heads and intake really prove whats in these little motors.

But last week I experienced the largest problem to date-differential failure. As soon as I drove it last year for the first time on the swap, I noticed the shifts felt funny. My theory is the electronic tranny compensated for the blown motor so much that it was altering shift points and line pressures to the point where it was harmful. That, and several hundred launches over the last 11 months. But still, I figured I'd experience clutch slip wayyyyy before the diff popped. Oh well, now it's time to do the things I wanted to do last year.

So the cradle was dropped, engine and trans separated, new tranny prepped and now it's time for engine work. I am really torn between wanting my car back and throwing a cam in it. It's out, I might as well, but to do so I need to generate $$$ for one. That takes time and I'm currently driving whatever my boss has on the lot that hasn't been driven in a while, so I don't want to wear that out 'cause I wanna make my car go faster. Although he is an avid drag racer with his Nova, I'm still putting miles on potential sales and deer run amok around here, so there's that risk too. But anyway, I'm following this post with some photos to show whats happening.

[slowalero]

This is my favorite photo so far. It's wearing last year's 15's, side mouldings and no GM squares on the fenders.



This is the engine finished for last year. It looks a little different now and it doesn't run the OEM air box anymore. You'll see more later.

[pocket-rocket]

It looks very nice. You did a great job and it looks factory.

When the first auto in the 91 went out it would only move when cold. It sat for a good while as I tried to track an affordable trans but since it worked fine cold I would take the garbage down or the compactor in our community in it. A couple weeks later it ended up developing a diff failure as well. In the autos it seems semi-common, mostly associated with one wheel peels.

Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2

[slowalero]

Thanks pocket-rocket, I've been gaining compliments everywhere. The car that bit the 60v6 bug was a base 4 door column shift '90 Lumina Euro. Neutral bomb champ.

Anyway, these are some of my "for sale" photos. They don't have the greatest backgrounds. They were taken after a 21 hour detailing binge @ the body shop. Notice no side mouldings, GM squares on the fenders and the clean trunk. Interior doesn't have any leather or custom anything, just like the day it rolled off the line...

And look at those door jambs.

The engine bay is a little different. No air box, or filter for that matter. Oil and valves are still clean. MAF cleaner is just part of an oil change now.

I visited my local mom 'n pop hardware store and found black oxide metric Allen bolts exactly long enough to serve as my UIM bolts. Also found these plastic screw covers @ Tractor Supply and x-acto'd the flip caps off and bored the holes out and made nylon washers that were also black. Hated the engine cover studs on the previous photos.

Also have fluid cap upgrades. Coolant and brake are from a '13 Silverado, oil is from a '13 LaCrosse, steering is new GM for an '05 Grand AM, and washer is from an '11 Tahoe.

If you can tell, the alternator is not Toyota Almond Beige Pearl. After 5k miles the Duralast rear bearing s***.

I also removed the GIANT wire loom on the plug wires. I need 3/4", not that stuff. Also need a rear wire retainer at the back of the UIM. That bothers me. I'm sure it will get taken care of this time around...