J32A2 + 6MT swap in my '01 F23/H23 5MT chassis

Finished installing all new a/c components yesterday. Took care of a few boring things today: welded in new 3" cat, bled brakes and clutch line, filled trans with fresh gear oil, and started hooking up the radiator hoses. Ran into a slight issue with the lower heater hose. The 4cyl cable was too short for the v6 heater control valve. For now using the 4cyl valve, v6 hoses and ziptie, to keep the hose away from the header.

 

Couple fitment notes. 4cyl throttle cable was too short. So swapped over the cls gas pedal with cable. For some reason the cls has an extra piece welded on toward the top, guessing counter balance?

Fuel supply line did fit. But, both the 4cyl and cls return hose were too short. Picked up some 1/4" fuel hose, about 18-19"did the trick.

Mounted the comptech battery tray, re-installed the engine harness, pressure tested the coolant system and did a vacuum test on the ac lines. Motor is starting to look more like it used to.

 

Motor is alive and kicking on 1st start. Let it warm up, to bleed radiator, the fans kicked on as it should. Idles around 800 rpm. Couldn't post a mp4 vid, but here's a pic of the engine bay.

 

best i can do without hosting a vid is post a gif, lol

 

Just wanted to say I've really enjoyed this thread and following the progress. Great work to both of you. Definitely inspirational/motivational.

 

Thanks, appreciate the support. It's nice to know someone besides me is getting something out of all this.

 

Car is running well except for lack of ABS, which I still need to extend wires for. For anyone who is considering v6 swap into 4cyl, the rpm on the tach reads 150% of the true rpm. For example at 5k true rpm gauge reads 7500.

Cheapest ways around this are run a v6 cluster or use a signal converter. I read somewhere the AEM EMS for the j series swap was designed for a 4cyl gauge cluster. For now I ordered a rpm signal converter off ebay. Speedo seems accurate compared to obd2 scan tool.

I considered the CLS dash swap, but it sounds like a huge hassle esp since this car was 4cyl with manual hvac controls.

 

75A motor mounts are in. ABS is wired up. supercharger is in. seems to boost a bit quicker with the headers. plan to drive it like this for a bit.

 

Hellz yeah, nice work! I chuckled reading a few of the mishaps, brings back memories haha.

CL-S dash swap was the one mod I never did that I had hoped to.

Have fun with the car, hope to see/hear some drive by clips to hear what it sounds like.

 

Thanks, I'll try to get some vids uploaded to youtube. I think it actually sounded better with the CLS stock manifold and j-pipe. Now its just obnoxiously loud like a truck with a big exhaust. At least until the s/c whine comes on. lol

I do have a cls dash laying around. The gauge faces are nice. But, not a fan of the automatic climate control. In the CLS, the AC was always trying to go full cold, when all I wanted was cool. I find it easier to feather the manual control just like I want.

Middle pic is of the current dash setup. AV6 coupe cluster should be here any day to hopefully rectify the rpm glitch. For now it's funny to watch the rpm spin to 9k.