'90 "T-Type" Turbo 3.4 Five-Speed, 2nd Build
Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2013 7:18 pm
1990 Chevrolet Beretta ‘T-Type Turbo 3.4 V-6 Build #2
The Car:
This was my first Beretta. I bought this several years ago from my ex-girlfriend after she had it for a number of years. I had replaced the serpentine belt, alternator, heater-core, clutch, transmission oil-seals, rebuilt the power-steering pump, and replaced one wheel and rear wheel bearing (I bent one of the rears against a curb after avoiding a truck that swerved into my lane), rebuilt the ignition-lock to better-than-factory, and put in new front brakes while she had this car. I also installed a Pioneer CD deck for her. When her health deteriorated enough that she didn’t want to drive a clutch anymore, I offered to buy the car, and she sold it to me for $750. It is an original 3.1 V-6 5-speed blue-on-blue car, F40 ‘Heavy Duty’ suspension. It now has roughly 157k miles on it.
I had installed a Firebird wing-spoiler, 15” Beretta GT Cross-lace rims, and grafted in a Turbo 280Z hood-scoop to feed the intercooler after I located it to where the battery originally sat, and moved the battery to behind the engine on a modified HAVC (blower) plenum. ICM was relocated to the recess behind the right strut-tower with a new ground-wire to get it away from the heat of the exhaust manifold, and I installed Accel 8mm cut-to-fit ignition wires, mostly because they were cheap and in-stock at the parts store and because I had had good experiences with them on my old Camaro. I had also put blue LED lighting into the instruments, driving-lights behind the grill, and eventually removed the diffuser lenses from the headlights replacing them with clear plexi-glass, which made for some obnoxious spot-lights up front (these headlights are currently on the ’95 Z-26 I had, as it is ~ 1” shallower and allowed for grills to be placed in front of the headlights, which fit the look I was going for with that car). I also installed an in-flight adjustable boost-controller, and ran the car anywhere from 4-5 psi (normal setting –enough to b!tc#-slap your average 4.6 GT Mustang) to 9psi (high setting –better for highway grudge-matches) and even a run at 12psi (unintentional, but the engine handled it okay). I adapted a spare heater-core to help provide cooler coolant to the turbo too, which was eventually a source of dispute from a previous bstuff member who thought I was trying to pass that off as an intercooler.
The Reason:
Well, it may sound a little ridiculous, but with the LG5 turbo 3.1 in the car, it was fast, virtually uncontrollable at full-throttle in either first or second gear due to excessive torque-steer, and it ran great for me for years. But, a friend of mine had bought my ’92 Grand Am SOHC Quad from me, and was planning on shoe-horning a semi-built 3800 Series II Super-Charged engine into it (an engine that I built for him), and I didn’t think my turbo 3.1 would be competitive against it, so in an effort to keep in front of the Joneses, as it were, I started to build up a 3.4 for my car. As it turned out, my friend never completed his project, and gave it all back to me, so I bought a 1989 GTU to put the engine into instead, but that is a different story…
The Engine: I ran across a wrecked ’99 Grand Am GT with low miles in the salvage-yard, but the 3400 was already gone from it. About a week later, the engine was returned, allegedly due to a blown head-gasket. I bought the engine, complete from intake to oil-pan, with all accessories, wiring harness, and PCM for $65, on the condition that it held no warranty, and the yard wouldn’t have to see it again. No problem! As it turned out, it only had the typical 3x00 LIMG failure, the head-gaskets were fine. But I didn’t want the heads that were on it, as I wanted to retain the LG5 “3.1 Intercooled Turbo” manifold that was already in my car, and more era-correct MPFI-style intake setup, even if that ultimately cost me a little bit of power. I started with a good set of MPFI heads, modified them to accept the 3400’s roller-based rockers, matched in correct-length push-rods, rebuilt all 12 roller-lifters, and ported-out the heads, fabricating locator-pins for the modified LIMG to keep it from walking when the lower intake manifold was set in place. I modified the cast aluminum oil-pan for an oil-return from the turbo, and I set up an oil-supply line from the oil gallery on the front of the block. I painted the exhaust-system and turbo’s hot-side with high-temp black paint, built a 2.25” short-run catless side-outlet exhaust system for the car, and put in a new clutch (this installation coincided with the failure of the first clutch I had put in the car before I owned it, and my ex had conveniently thrown out all of the warranty info –thanks- leaving me with the additional cost of a new clutch). I welded up a temporary front engine-mount out of 1/8” steel (which was already distorting slightly by the end of the week, but held the engine in place for testing, as intended), and put about fifteen miles on the engine during testing. Unfortunately, the engine developed only very low oil-pressure, and replacing the oil-pump didn’t help. So, out of time and patience for the project, I pulled the 3.4 and dropped the LG5 3.1 back in.
A couple of years ago, I finally got around to the 3.4 again, and found that the rear main crankshaft bearing was chewed and the crank was toast, certainly due to the LIMG failure it suffered before the donor car was wrecked and scrapped. Things like this make me wonder about the timing of certain wrecks, and the pay-out amount of full-coverage insurance that doesn’t pay to fix engines with defective engineering…
I needed a decent front engine mount for the 3x00 block since I was working with an older Beretta, and my old temporary one couldn’t properly support this engine with the old turbo, exhaust, and 3.1 ECU during very gentle test-driving. It wouldn’t hold up for long under the updates I made, so I didn’t bother with it, except to use it as a template for a heavier-duty unit. I used ¼” thick 3”x3” steel angle stock for this one, and it looked and worked perfect.
The Car:
This was my first Beretta. I bought this several years ago from my ex-girlfriend after she had it for a number of years. I had replaced the serpentine belt, alternator, heater-core, clutch, transmission oil-seals, rebuilt the power-steering pump, and replaced one wheel and rear wheel bearing (I bent one of the rears against a curb after avoiding a truck that swerved into my lane), rebuilt the ignition-lock to better-than-factory, and put in new front brakes while she had this car. I also installed a Pioneer CD deck for her. When her health deteriorated enough that she didn’t want to drive a clutch anymore, I offered to buy the car, and she sold it to me for $750. It is an original 3.1 V-6 5-speed blue-on-blue car, F40 ‘Heavy Duty’ suspension. It now has roughly 157k miles on it.
I had installed a Firebird wing-spoiler, 15” Beretta GT Cross-lace rims, and grafted in a Turbo 280Z hood-scoop to feed the intercooler after I located it to where the battery originally sat, and moved the battery to behind the engine on a modified HAVC (blower) plenum. ICM was relocated to the recess behind the right strut-tower with a new ground-wire to get it away from the heat of the exhaust manifold, and I installed Accel 8mm cut-to-fit ignition wires, mostly because they were cheap and in-stock at the parts store and because I had had good experiences with them on my old Camaro. I had also put blue LED lighting into the instruments, driving-lights behind the grill, and eventually removed the diffuser lenses from the headlights replacing them with clear plexi-glass, which made for some obnoxious spot-lights up front (these headlights are currently on the ’95 Z-26 I had, as it is ~ 1” shallower and allowed for grills to be placed in front of the headlights, which fit the look I was going for with that car). I also installed an in-flight adjustable boost-controller, and ran the car anywhere from 4-5 psi (normal setting –enough to b!tc#-slap your average 4.6 GT Mustang) to 9psi (high setting –better for highway grudge-matches) and even a run at 12psi (unintentional, but the engine handled it okay). I adapted a spare heater-core to help provide cooler coolant to the turbo too, which was eventually a source of dispute from a previous bstuff member who thought I was trying to pass that off as an intercooler.
The Reason:
Well, it may sound a little ridiculous, but with the LG5 turbo 3.1 in the car, it was fast, virtually uncontrollable at full-throttle in either first or second gear due to excessive torque-steer, and it ran great for me for years. But, a friend of mine had bought my ’92 Grand Am SOHC Quad from me, and was planning on shoe-horning a semi-built 3800 Series II Super-Charged engine into it (an engine that I built for him), and I didn’t think my turbo 3.1 would be competitive against it, so in an effort to keep in front of the Joneses, as it were, I started to build up a 3.4 for my car. As it turned out, my friend never completed his project, and gave it all back to me, so I bought a 1989 GTU to put the engine into instead, but that is a different story…
The Engine: I ran across a wrecked ’99 Grand Am GT with low miles in the salvage-yard, but the 3400 was already gone from it. About a week later, the engine was returned, allegedly due to a blown head-gasket. I bought the engine, complete from intake to oil-pan, with all accessories, wiring harness, and PCM for $65, on the condition that it held no warranty, and the yard wouldn’t have to see it again. No problem! As it turned out, it only had the typical 3x00 LIMG failure, the head-gaskets were fine. But I didn’t want the heads that were on it, as I wanted to retain the LG5 “3.1 Intercooled Turbo” manifold that was already in my car, and more era-correct MPFI-style intake setup, even if that ultimately cost me a little bit of power. I started with a good set of MPFI heads, modified them to accept the 3400’s roller-based rockers, matched in correct-length push-rods, rebuilt all 12 roller-lifters, and ported-out the heads, fabricating locator-pins for the modified LIMG to keep it from walking when the lower intake manifold was set in place. I modified the cast aluminum oil-pan for an oil-return from the turbo, and I set up an oil-supply line from the oil gallery on the front of the block. I painted the exhaust-system and turbo’s hot-side with high-temp black paint, built a 2.25” short-run catless side-outlet exhaust system for the car, and put in a new clutch (this installation coincided with the failure of the first clutch I had put in the car before I owned it, and my ex had conveniently thrown out all of the warranty info –thanks- leaving me with the additional cost of a new clutch). I welded up a temporary front engine-mount out of 1/8” steel (which was already distorting slightly by the end of the week, but held the engine in place for testing, as intended), and put about fifteen miles on the engine during testing. Unfortunately, the engine developed only very low oil-pressure, and replacing the oil-pump didn’t help. So, out of time and patience for the project, I pulled the 3.4 and dropped the LG5 3.1 back in.
A couple of years ago, I finally got around to the 3.4 again, and found that the rear main crankshaft bearing was chewed and the crank was toast, certainly due to the LIMG failure it suffered before the donor car was wrecked and scrapped. Things like this make me wonder about the timing of certain wrecks, and the pay-out amount of full-coverage insurance that doesn’t pay to fix engines with defective engineering…
I needed a decent front engine mount for the 3x00 block since I was working with an older Beretta, and my old temporary one couldn’t properly support this engine with the old turbo, exhaust, and 3.1 ECU during very gentle test-driving. It wouldn’t hold up for long under the updates I made, so I didn’t bother with it, except to use it as a template for a heavier-duty unit. I used ¼” thick 3”x3” steel angle stock for this one, and it looked and worked perfect.