[Doc-Z]

I bought my Fusion "5" as a daily, to match my Brazen '06 GTO. It had 104K miles on the odo., and looked pretty decent. There is the rust issue in the rockers, but I cleaned that and made a patch panel to close the hole. I had the hopes of eventually dropping in an LSJ (to match the LS9 in the GOAT). Then, after one oil change, blue smoke billowed out of the tail pipe. I was SOOOO happy to see this.

The car came with the GMPP CAI with Spectre air cleaner and I installed a new Stainless ZZP 2.5' exhaust (exh. mani to tip) when I bought the car. These mods were nice, and I figured the car was fairly well maintained (...but we'll get to that a little later). Knowing I was going to have to replace a bunch of parts, I ordered a Cloyes Timing and Balance Shaft chain kit (Part numbers: 9-4201SAVVT2 and 9-4202S - respectively). Since the cam gears were coming off, it wouldn't be hard to upgrade those and squeeze a few more horses out of the 2.4. (LE5). I wanted to get ZZP LE5 cam's, but they were out of stock (thanks CoVID 🖕). I opted to get SkunkWorks Stage 2's and bought the springs / lifters at the same time. While I was at it, I also found an LSJ throttle body locally. Once I had that, I ordered the ZZP adapter kit (plate & 8 to 6 pin harness). The ZZP shorty header is back ordered, but I messaged a guy on FB who was selling a new one...haven't heard back from him in a few days.

While ordering and acquiring parts, I began deconstruction to see what I needed to do and get done for the car. The last coil I pulled (cylinder #1) had all of this down in the tunnel:

o




Apparently, someone didn't put the little grommet back, when they tightened down the coil pack. This left a nice little opening for all this beautiful debris to collect down in the spark plug tunnel. YAY...More work!!! I did manage to get it all cleaned out, but this is the LAST thing I expected to see down there! For a comparo.,this is what it should look like:

Obvioulsy, this pic ( 👆 ) was after I pulled the valve cover off. Notice all the ****?

It was around this time I was NOT optimistic about a simple repair. It appears the car was run VERY low on oil, duwe to the chunks of goop all over and in the head. I think they even used thicker oil to help cover / mask the blue smoke from a bad ring. Judging the little I've uncovered about the cart while working on it, I doubt the previous owner did 👉 💩 for maintenance and did NOT keep the car very well. I spoke to my engine guy, who was less optimistic than I was. Under his advice, and in a crunch for time (as this is my Daily Driver) I chose to scrap this motor. I bought a used 2.4 with 65K miles out of a 2008 G6. The engine was purchased 5 days ago and at the time I'm making this post, I have yet to see the motor.

...

...

...in fact, I have yet to see my timing and balance shaft chain sets or the T/B adapter. 🤔


The car this replaced was a 2007 G6 GT convertible.

Now, that was one of the more FUN car's I've owned. This was a totalled vehicle I rebuilt (found it in the iaai.com website in Indiana). I did find a GXP hood and both bumpers and installed aftermarket side skirts. It got a lot of looks, but after 189k miles and a BUNCH of problems with it due to the mileage and age of the car, I opted to part it out. I did use the wheels from it for the G5. IMO, the "5" looks a LOT better with the G6 factor 5 spoke's than the OEM 17's.

This is my "5" after I did a couple of mods to it (SS rear lip, spoiler delete - was making a new spoiler - and painted the brakes Pontiac Blue Metallic):

This is a pic of my '06 GTO:

 

[Doc-Z]

So you all know I'm not full of 💩 , here is a side by side comparison of the two different throttle bodies:

On the left is the original 2.4 litre (LE5) and left we have the 2.0 (LSJ) throttle body. Without measuring, you can see there is a slight difference in the inner diameter, as well as a different overall look. The bolt patterns are definitely different as well. On the ZZP website, they state the LSJ is 10% larger than the LE5, and could give you between 2 and 8 more horsepower (depending on your build). Being, I like having a few extra horsepower, I decided this was an easy enough and fairly inexpensive mod to do.


Here's a link to their website for this info and adapter: 👉 - - ZZPerformance T/B Adapter Plate

LE5 Throttle Body Adapter Plate

This will allow a 2.4L cobalt to bolt on a stock LSJ (2.0 supercharged) throttle body onto their LE5 intake manifold. By using our adapter plate, you can bolt an LSJ TB onto your intake.

zzperformance.com

Below is a set of calipers, which I used to measure both inner diameters of the two parts. Here are the findings of what I measured:

When I pulled the calipers out, the measurements were thrown off a little; so I rounded the figures to the closest round number.
In order to figure the area inside of them, we need to use the formula:

AREA = Pi times Radius(squared)

Throttle Body FIGURES:
ZZP posted Values:
LE5 = 64.6mm
LSJ = 67.4mm

LE5 AREA:
A = (64.6 / 2)(squared) x 3.14
A = 1,043.2 x 3.14
A = 3,275 cu/mm

LSJ AREA:
A = (67.4 / 2)(squared) x 3.14
A = 1135.7 x 3.14
A = 3,566 cu/mm

*** Difference is only 8.8% larger

Throttle Body FIGURES:
My Findings:
LE5 = 2.550 inches
LSJ = 2.660 inches

LE5 AREA:
A = (2.550/2)(squared) x 3.14
A = 1.625 x 3.14
A = 5.10 cu/in

LSJ AREA:
A =(2.660/2)(squared) x 3.14
A = 1.77 x 3.14
A = 5.56 cu/in

*** Difference is only 9.0% larger

According to my findings, the 2.0 litre LSJ throttle body is roughly 10% larger than the 2.4 litre LE5. I'm not sure what the horsepower gains will be, but more air in = more air and power out. I'm optimistic I'll see around a 5 horsepower increase with this mod on my setup. This mod cost me under $200.

 

[Doc-Z]

Because of all the dirt and crud in the spark plug tunnel, I was thinking of buying a coil cover. However, they all are (basically) a piece of flat steel / aluminum with something etched machined or cut into it. I can't have that on MY CAR....heck NO! So, I went ahead and started making my own. I started by removing the valve cover (which I was going to do anyway, because I'm replacing the motor...

SIDE NOTE: My "NEW to ME" motor will arrive on Wednesday June 23rd, 2021 after 2 pm!!!

This is the first glassing (VERY CRUDE). I'm only trying to get a basic shape and uniformity. This is step #1 out of MANY!

After some sanding (with a power sander (cuts sanding time by at least 85% to 90%)

I glassed it a second time to help smooth out the low and high spots, plus to give it some contours (which you don't get with a steel sheet). I did sand through in a couple of spots, which I'll shore up by reglassing it from underneath. I also have to clean up around the coil pack

The valve vover is going to be painted Pontiac Blue Metallic (see pictures of the rear brakes above). I'll sand off by the "Ecotec VVT" so that is shiny. Then I'll skin the fiberglass with some aluminum infused Carbon Fiber (which has a shiny, sorta "chrome" look to it). I think that will really make under the hood look pretty cool.

 

[Doc-Z]

Pics of the parts going in / on the G5 (just to fill up the space).

 

[Dab]

Nice! So you're resurrecting the G5 with a 65k engine?? Fuck yeah! I like the photo in front of the brick building, brings the color out. Yeah man the top end you're showing looks as if that engine was abused. Glad you have a plan! Welcome to G5club dude!!

 

[Doc-Z]

Nice! So you're resurrecting the G5 with a 65k engine?? Fuck yeah! I like the photo in front of the brick building, brings the color out. Yeah man the top end you're showing looks as if that engine was abused. Glad you have a plan! Welcome to G5club dude!!

Thanks. I've been a member since '16....I just didn't have a car t post about. I was looking for either a G5 or a G6 at the time. I came across a G6 vert that I rebuilt (see earlier pics), but that car is gone.

 

[rowdydangerous]

does that valve cover come in and out ok?

 

[Doc-Z]

does that valve cover come in and out ok?

The valve cover is off the car. Once I took off the engine lift bracket fromt he drivers side, I was able to get it off the car.
The Coilcover will have to be lifted up from the front and then pulled forward to come off.

 

[Doc-Z]

The motor showed up 3 days LATER (6/26) than the stated arrival time (6/23)...thank's UPS! I was counting on trying to get the balance shaft and timing chains in on that day, but I had to wait. I didn't have much in the way of time to work on the motor over last weekend, but I did get some work done on the custom spoiler, coil cover and custom (automatic) shift handle. The motor is from a 2008 G6 and has around 65K miles on it. I was VERY surprised at the condition it was in.I knew they power washed it, so all the gunk was removed. Still, once I opened it up, I was even happier!!!

Here's the GUTS, which is MUCH nicer than the goopified engine it's replacing.

I will say that Cloyes makes a real nice timing / balance shaft chain kit. The colored links make getting it all correct is SUPER easy. I'm sure, this is a WHOLE lot easier with the motor pulled, than in the vehicle. Below are the pics I took of the chains installed. Unfortunately, I did NOT get the cams in. I don't have the right spring compressor. Being I'm doing this with the head installed. I also need to stop the valves from falling into the engine. I will post up more pictures when I get to doing that.

 

[Doc-Z]

continued

...and I did say I was making a spoiler (hence the blue masking tape on the deck lid. Here's a teaser of that project:

It probably would have stayed on the car, but I used some sticks and a few rectangle bars to help hold it in place. This is a one piece spoiler that will extend over the sides of the car a little. It may (sorta) resemble the RKSport spoiler, but that is 3 pieces. This is the third try at getting this right (hopefully, the third time's a charm...:fingers crossed).

 

[Doc-Z]

I went to replace my cams and I sorta F__k'd myself. I tried doing that rope trick, to keep the valves in place, when you're replacing the valve springs. Well, I was told to use about 6 feet of rope. This is how much was shoved in (about 7 feet in total length) before I rotated the assembly, so cylinder #1 was close to TDC.

I got the retainer off. It wasn't too hard, but not something I would opt to do for a living. When I went to put the new spring on, the valve disappeared into the cylinder. It was at this point, I gave up doing the valve spring job. I ended up pulling the head and sent it in tobe worked on professionally. WhileI was waiting, I decided to paint the motor Pontiac Blue Metallic. Here are some pictures to compare the before and after paint...

I should have the head back today and the head gasket / head bolts are waiting for me at the Auto Parts store. With any sort of luck I'll have this all assembled back together again tonight. The used ZZP Shorty header is en route, the ECM and TCM are being programmed...so hopefully, I'll have a running vehicle by Monday!!! Here's a RARE pic of a Fusion Orange G5 GT in front of a Brazen Orange GTO...both with Metallic Blue engines that didd not come with the car OEM.

 

[darkandshadow]

Very nice. Glad to see some progress here.

 

[Doc-Z]

Here are some other things I'm doing to the car. This is a close up of the custom automatic shift lever I made. The top section is from a 2004 Monte Carlo, the bottom is from a 2006 Cobalt Base. I used a hack saw and cut the two,and spliced the bottom of the Cobalt lever, with the top of the Monte Carlo lever. I then used JB Weld to bond them together. Once I had it pretty secure, I used bondo and shaped the lever into what you see here. The Carbon Fiber insert, started out as a scrapped rear bumper for a 2011 Honda van. I cut that, molded it and glued/plastic welded it into this insert. I then skinned it using Composite Envisions Carbon Fiber. There are still some minor flaws and I have a teeny bit of work left to do...but it's almost completed.

I am also finishing up the a coil cover (posted some pics earlier). This is the second to last glassing and sanding of it. Again, there's still some minor sanding and glassing work to do, but I'm starting to love the overall shape of this. Once I skin it with Carbon Fiber, the angles and curves will look REALLY COOL!!!.

Another custom touch I'm doing is on the vlave cover, where there's a recess saying --> "EXH" and "INT". I painted in the recesses to match the VVT Solenoids (and cam gears under the valve cover-you can't see them unless you remove the cover). The EXH is dark charcoal and the INT is silver. I'd guess 90% of the people wont even notice this. Of those who do, I imagine 5% understand why they are painted those specific colors.

I kinda screwed up because my brush was too big. I did manage to get in the recess, but I also got it on the tops too. Clearly, my brush was inadequate. Then I tried to sand around my mistake...but then I sanded through the paint, down to the aluminum. Below is where I cut some masking tape to try to cover the recesses and paint underneath. I'm going to try this again (wish me luck).

 

[Doc-Z]

One thing I'm not overly fond of the G5 is the dash gauge cluster. I feel, it's a step up from the Cobalt. That's MY OPINION. Some prefer the Cobalt dash...whatever. There are a number of vendors who make aftermarket gauges that resemble the dash cluster for the Cobalt, but nothing is even close to the G5...which is COMPLETELY understandable. The 'Balt SS came stock with power adders, the G5 didn't. So, it makes sense to me; the more popular car would have more products for people to mod their cars with-especially when it comes to aftermarket gauges.

I was looking around for something that was similar to the G5 dash cluster and I couldn't find ANYTHING. Seriously, I spent DAYS looking at stuff on Google, Bing and eBay. I did find a company who will make a new cluster overlay for your car (and they already have the template for the Cobalt!!!). I had soke ideas and when I saw these gauges from Classic Instruments, I reached out to Black Cat Customs. I liked these because they aren't what you would see typicallly. Plus the yellow accent on an orange car wouldn't look too bad (IMO). They do stand out a little bit, but I don't mind. These are their "Yellow Autocross" series (hence the yellow line). They also have a Gray Autocross series, with a gray line.

The test fit revealed I have some modding to do, in order for them to fit. The center pod is open, because I couldn't get a gauge to go into the hole. I managed to find this triple pod on FB second hand.

After some back and forth with Black Cat Customs, we came up with this design (which is a slight adaptation to one of their ready made templates). This was their first rendering...

I was really impressed with their first rendering, but I wanted some slight changes to this design. To match the Classic Industries gauges, I addedsome black hash marks and modified the tach somewhat. This is more like what I wanted. PLEASE PARDON how CRUDE this is. I did it at work using some white out tape, highlighters and pens. It's not a perfect rendering, but I feel it gets idea across easier than just writing and telling them what I wanted.

I just e-mailed them this and hopefully I will have my overlay back and on the car soon!

 

[Cherry GT]

My black cat gauge back

 

[Doc-Z]

I tried to post this earlier, but had to repost it as it was "pending moderator approval" MODS....If it needs to be deleted, feel free.

I didn't have a whole lot of time the weekend of July 10th, but here's what I did do....


Side by side comparo of the OEM (shorter) to the aftermarket (taller) lash adjusters. There is roughly a .04" difference. You may also notice how the oil hole is slightly larger than the OEM. The tops are also rounded more because of the increased motion of the rocker.

...and in the head:

The lighting isn't the greatest, but the recessed EXH and INT in the valve covers are painted to match the VVT cam sprockets and solenoids

It was right about at this point, when I noticed I forgot to put in 4 hex bolts into the timing area of the head. It might not seem like a big deal, but the cam bolts are TTY (torque to yeild)...a.k.a. ONE TIME USE ONLY. You loosen them, they are pretty much JUNK. Luckily, 3 were easy to get to with the valve cover off...but one was a real P.I.T.A.! I had to come up with a way to get something over the head of the hex bolt. This is what I came up with. It's sort of like an alan wrench...but for a hex bolt.

I started with 3/4" rolled steel bar. I managed to cut into the end of it to fashion some teeth to go over the end of the bolt. Problem is, the bolt and the 3/4 rolled steel was too wide to fit between the VVT sprocket and the side of the head. I had to grind off each side of the bolt head in order to get it to go through the narrow opening. I used roughly a half of an inch of 3/4 rolled steel. I then welded that to some 1/2" rolled steel bar to it so I didn't have to grind the metal down. In order to tighten it down and torque it, I welded a nut to the opposite (bend end) of the hex bolt alan key.

After about 3 tries of making this, I came up with a better design and stronger teeth. For about 2 hours of work, I didn't think that was too bad of a turn around for a new tool! ...but then I burned myself while welding. Oh well. It kinda matched the busted knuckles I've gotten these past couple of weeks. (see pic above ^^).

lastly, here are some of the mods that are going onto the car after the motor goes in. Pictured are the OEM 2.4 intake (which I port matched the inlets and removed the molding/ casting marks), LSJ throttle body (which I ported, using a dremel to remove a couple of mounds before and after the butterfly; then sanded smooth for a more OEM look), and used ZZP shorty header. The car already has the 2.5" exhaust.

So, you know when you have a problem???

I happen to have a BIG Pontiac problem...especially when it comes to rare parts.



Last weekend, I managed to find some oddball "Pontiac Stuff" that I couldn't let anyone else get their hands on. Sunday afternoon I saw an ad post on FB, for busted up G8 GXP front bumper. These things are exceedingly rare and if you can find one for a decent price, I'd advise buying it. Between 2008 and 2009, they imported roughly 20,000 G8's. The GXP was a one year deal and there weren't many made.

I drove 3+ hours and picked this up for $500. The gentleman who had it, didn't want to spend the $$$ to fix and paint it to match his (gorgeous) G8. The bumper came WITH the lower grille and fog lamp inserts (those will run you around $250 to $350 if you can find them). It is broken, but I can plastic weld it and fix this to almost as good as new. The last one I saw sell in the G8 Classifieds FB Group went for $2100 for JUST the bumper. NO grilles or fogs....it was JUST the bumper. That price didn't include shipping or being painted to match the new car either.

I know this one looks pretty bad, but that's because it had about 20 layers of paint and all kinds of plastidip on it. Best part....100% (ALL) of the tabs and most of the bolt points are intact!!!

I probably wont be able to get to fixing this until next year or so. By that point, it should go up in value. I previously had one of these that I sold to a friend for $1200, but that was ONLY for the bumper (no grilles / fogs).

 

[Dab]

Score!!! GG man, yeah Pontiac parts are starting to become hard to come by.

 

[Doc-Z]

UPDATE:

I was cleaning off a bunch of rusted parts. I was going over everything, checking all the parts to make sure everything was O.K. At first, I was feeling this was bad, but wasn't sure how bad. I was pretty concerned when I removed the sway bar bushing bracket and saw.....

That hole means iNO BUENO!

What you're looking at is the bracket for the sway bar bushing. I was using a coated wire wheel to remove rust from the subframe and was getting the scalyness off these. They are only held on with one bolt, so I decided to remove them and clean it. This chunk fell off the underside after I tapped it (sort of hard) on the concrete floor. This resulted in a hole in the part, which you can see in the picture above. You can also see how thin the remaining metal is and how thick the metal was.

The sheer amount of force and torque that goes into these parts is pretty spectacular...which is WHY it was so thick. Honestly, this piece that came off is easily 1/4 INCH thick. It was a stout piece and I'm glad I looked at it. I couldn't imagine what could have happened if this came off and what it could have done to the steering rack...

Speaking of the steering rack...I saw this too!

Yeah, it was an expensive weekend!!!
After I bought and installed the new steering rack, a buddy of mine told me about FLEX SEAL. Apparently, you can use that to seal up the holes in rubber parts. Good to know NOW...well after the fact, but Oh well. I'm happy putting in a new part / not having to worry about a hole in the steering boots. I also noticed a crack in the front sway bar (which is VERY hard to get a decent picture of). I managed to find a FE5 front sway (24mm) on LKQ's website. I looked for one the size (22mm), but I couldn't find one of those for sale anywhere online or on eBay. The FE1 front sway bar (18mm) are EVERYWHERE!!! That gives a softer ride...which isn't anything I'd want to do. Having a GT with stiffer rear shocks / springs, would have changed the handling of this car and not for the better. Plus, I don't feel like replacing every part of the suspension on this car. Below are some before and after pics of the subframe. I used a coated wire wheel to get the rust off initially. Once 'cleaned' it, I used a smaller grinding tool on my dremel to get into the crevices better and coated it with POR-15.

 

[Doc-Z]

I had to do the same under the car. The rust is pretty abundant, but after using that paint / rust removing wheel, it cleaned up pretty O.K. Once I used the Dremel with a small grinding bit, the rust FLEW off the car. I feel I took a good 3 pounds (not even joking) of rust off the car doing this. I mean, it completely filled up the dustpan!

I've had these hanging around for 2 years, so I might as well install these too. I was going to put them on my G6 GT (where I got the wheels from), but I never had a chance to pull the front end apart. Coupled with a set of drilled / slotted front rotors and 8 mm spacers / longer lug studs, this will be super simple to do. The way this car is sitting now, I might as well throw them on. At least I'll be able to stop better...🤞

 

[Doc-Z]

WOO-HOO! New parts just arrived today. I'll post up pictures when I get them instralled and /or put on the car!