Leaderboard

^ What he said. If you wanna go the extra mile line up the timing mark on the harmonic balancer and check the flats on the cams, one bank should be up one should be down depending on the stroke Being a 94' If you wanted to do it "by the books" you absolutely could make your own cam hold down tools, you need but a piece of flatbar stock and a couple metric bolt(the size and pitch escapes me at the moment) to hold the cam flats down. But beware despite 94-97 LQ1s having the improved cam cogs I've still seen them get stuck on real good.

Schurkey is almost completely right but you need a small flatblade screwdriver to wind it back in is all. My main concern is once I need one next its going to be figuring out how to rebuild one or adapt something to fit as I've had more then a few fail in my time. Just a point of interest not that this anything to do with anything but I've done more LQ1 timing belts then most people and NOT ONCE have I actually gotten oil out of a tensioner. when I serviced the belt. I always put some back in... just thought it an interesting thing to point out.

A better pic.

The booster has to twist counter-clockwise from under the hood to release. (Clockwise from the driver's seat.) There's a lock-tab that supposedly has to be pushed, and then the booster twists and falls off. I made a tool to turn the booster, and brutalized it enough that I never did deliberately "release" the lock tab, which I couldn't get to anyway. Tool is ordinary steel channel, (angle-iron, or even flat steel bar would work as well.) three holes drilled. Center hole tapped, ran a flange-head bolt into it, cut off the excess threads from the rear, and welded the M-F'r into place. Drop the tool over the master-cylinder retaining studs. A long-handle ratchet and socket on the bolt head is enough to turn the booster. Close-up of the tapered slot that the lock-tab engages. Good luck getting to it. Which is why I just cranked the booster enough to pop it free. As you can see from the shape of the slot, you have to turn that side of the booster "down" to free the lock-tab on the booster from the bracket on the firewall. Lock-tab is easier to see on the "new" booster, left. Hangs straight down from the lower right rivet, in the photo. In this photo, the boosters are rotated 90 degrees, the lock-tabs should be horizontal, not vertical. I replaced the booster on both my '92 and my '93 Luminas. The brake-light switches at the brake pedal were different. Had lots of trouble getting the '92 re-adjusted. Had to completely remove the switch and re-set the position, install it, and THEN it self-adjusts to whatever it's supposed to be. Took me hours to figure it out. The '93 was "improved" and I don't remember it being any particular problem. As alluded to earlier...I'm convinced that 80%+ of the complaints of poor brakes on first-gen W-bodies is due to faulty boosters that only partially work. There's still some "assist", but not nearly what it's supposed to be. And the boosters pass all the usual tests, they're just under-powered. Replacing the boosters on my two cars made a HUGE difference in the braking power.

Well I've been driving the L26 with DOHC 3:43 trans a while. In town gas mileage ranges from 16-19 mpg pending how I drive. I've taken two trips and figured 25-27.5 MPG.

That trans bracket is used on all of the 98+ 3800 wbodies that I have worked on.