First Stage Assembly Instructions

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Adam

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Ground cables

Installing the main ground cable

Instructions

Use the donor ground cable to ground the battery to the battery box. Hold the battery cable against the passenger side of the battery box with the metal tab inside the large hole. Mark the center of the mount hole and drill an 11/32” hole. If you’ve already installed your battery, remove it before you drill so that you don’t poke a hole in the side of it.



Use one of your donor’s 8mm bolts and nuts to mount the ground cable. Install the bolt from inside the battery box so that the head of the bolt is toward the battery. This will make it less likely to poke a hole in the battery. Don’t forget to clean the powder coat and/or use a toothed lock washer so that the ground makes good contact.



After you’ve got the ground bolted where it needs to be, leave the battery disconnected during your build and only connect it when you need to fire up the engine or test the electrical system.

The ground cable has a sensor around it that measures current. You should have left the wires for the current sensor rolled up at the front of your car after you installed the harness. At this point, you can connect the current sensor. You can either trim and solder the wires shorter or just coil them up and zip tie them to the frame. Connect the black ground wire of the current sensor to the frame or sheet metal.



Mounting remaining grounds

Instructions
Depending on how you wrapped your harness, your grounds could be in slightly different places from ours. Be creative and use some of the smaller donor bolts and nuts to mount the grounds.

Here are a few places you should have grounds:
  • pedal box
  • tunnel - use a donor bolt and nut to hold this ground somewhere on the tunnel.
  • radiator fan - we like to use the front brake tee bolt to hold this ground
  • engine/transmission
If you attach a ground to something that is painted or powder coated, make sure to sand or grind off the coating under the ground and use a toothed lock washer to get a good connection.

When you ground to the engine, make sure you are not grounding to the valve cover. It is isolated from the engine by a rubber gasket so it is not grounded. Attach to the cylinder head or lower instead.
 

Adam

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Installing the positive cable

WARNING: DISCONNECT YOUR GROUND CABLE FROM THE BATTERY BEFORE CONTINUING

The full length of the positive cable is wrapped in plastic split wire loom. You can leave this on the cable or remove it. We like to remove it to give a little extra room in the tunnel but you have to make sure the cable won’t be rubbing against anything that could wear through the coating of the wire.

Since the cable originally reached all the way from the back of the Cobalt up to the engine compartment, it is too long for your Goblin. In the Goblin, the positive cable will reach from the battery to the starter. You can deal with the excess length in two ways.

The first option is to double the cable up and store it in the tunnel. With the ground cable disconnected from the battery, connect the positive cable and route it through the tunnel and to your starter. Then double up the excess in the tunnel. If you have an automatic car, make sure the doubled up portion is not going to be in the way of the shifter coming down near the tunnel divider.

The second option is to cut the cable to the right length and solder on a new lug that will mount to your starter (2 AWG lug with a 3/8” hole). With the ground cable disconnected from the battery, connect the positive cable and run it back through the tunnel, between the fuel tank and subframe and then up to the starter. Trim the cable near the starter and solder on the new lug.

Once you have the positive cable doubled up or trimmed to length, connect it and the original donor starter cable to the starter. Then run the starter cable up to the fuse box and attach it to the positive post.



 

Adam

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Installing the outside temperature sensor

The outside/ambient temperature sensor isn’t a requirement since you will be experience the outside temperature first hand while sitting in the car. However, without the sensor, the temperature portion of the info center on the gauges will read ‘---’. Hook the sensor up if you would prefer to have the temperature shown.


Instructions

The temperature sensor used to be part of a harness that also included the windshield washer fluid pump. We cut out the windshield washer wires so the harness only has two wires now.





Plug the little harness into the main harness and route the wires between the fuel tank and engine. Connect the temperature sensor to the wire and pop the sensor into one of the holes of the original radiator mounts underneath the fuel tank. Use a zip tie to prevent the sensor from hitting the ground if it ever pops out of the radiator mount.

 

Adam

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Wiring the radiator fan

Since the radiator fan is much further from the fuse box than in the Cobalt, you will need to extend the power supply wire.


Instructions

The stock Cobalt fan has three wires going to it. Black is ground, light blue is low speed power supply and gray is high speed power supply. The Goblin radiator fan is a single speed fan so you only need to supply power from the light blue wire.



You’ll need to extend the light blue wire from the rear of the car up to the radiator fan. Use a heavy wire such as the rear window defroster or power window wires. Remove the black ground wire and gray power wire. You should have connected the radiator fan ground earlier. If not, do so now.
 

Adam

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Installing the fuel pump

There are three different fuel pumps used in Cobalts:

Stock pump:

This is the most common pump. It was used in most of the naturally aspirated Cobalts and the supercharged Cobalt SS. It is the only pump of the three that doesn’t have removable hoses. BE VERY CAREFUL with these hoses where they meet the pump. If you break the plastic barbed section, you will have to replace the pump.



Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle (PZEV) pump:

This pump was installed in some naturally aspirated Cobalts. It is part of a system used to lower emissions. You can check to see if your donor has this option by looking for ‘NU6’ on the service parts label in the trunk of the car. This pump is complicated because the pump portion is mounted to a plastic tray fixed to the bottom of the tank. Because this pump is hard to manage, we do not support it in the Goblin build. Instead, you’ll need to buy a replacement pump: http://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/chevrolet,2010,cobalt,2.2l+l4,1444461,fuel/air,fuel+pump,6256

Turbocharged SS pump:

A larger pump was installed in the turbocharged SS. It requires a different tank so be sure to specify that you are building an SS turbo Goblin up front.


Instructions

Both of the pumps mount similarly but they do need some tweaking before you install them. First, let’s go over the stock pump.

Stock pump installation

The only modification you need to make is an adjustment to the fuel level float arm. If you leave the arm as it is, the arm will reach out far enough to touch the baffle inside the tank. So before you install the pump, you’ll need to carefully add a small bend to the arm.



When you install the fuel pump, make sure you have the original rubber gasket installed.



Install the fuel pump with the hoses pointed to the left and the connector aimed back. You’ll have to slip the float in first. Then as you lower the pump down into the tank, you’ll have to massage the hoses around to fit down through the hole.

Loop the aluminum retainer ring over the fuel lines and guide it down onto the fuel pump. Put a 1/4” washer on each stud and start nylok nuts on each stud. Look between the pump and the tank to make sure the rubber gasket is centered up around the pump. When the gasket is centered, start running the nuts down a little at a time so that the gasket won’t be squished out asymmetrically.

IMPORTANT: You will only tighten the nuts down until the retaining ring is 1/4” off of the tank. To measure this, slide a 1/4” hex key/allen wrench under the retaining ring near a stud and tighten the nut down until the ring just touches the allen wrench.








Turbo SS pump installation - Instructions coming soon
 

Adam

Administrator
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Radiator hoses -Driver Side

There are some differences between the early base model, late base model and SS cars when it comes to the driver side radiator hoses.
  • The early model base Cobalt has a plastic tee near the thermostat housing/water neck that connects to the coolant reservoir/overflow tank.
  • On the later model base Cobalt, instead of using a tee, there is an extra inlet/outlet on the water neck for the overflow tank to connect to.
  • The SS/TC cars use two plastic tee to get water to and from the oil cooler and overflow tank.
  • The SS/SC cars don't have any plastic tees to handle the oil cooler or overflow tank. Instead, the water neck has an inlet/outlet for each hose.
No matter which donor you have, you should leave the system intact and only trim the large radiator hose to match the hose we provide in the kit. Doing this ensures that your system will work as GM intended.

Base Model
Even though the early and late base model cars are slightly different, you will follow the same steps to get the system plumbed. If you have an early model car, just leave the plastic tee in the system so that you can still hook up your overflow reservoir. If the large radiator hose isn't installed, go ahead and install it now.

The first thing you will need to do is trim hose #22569. It is provided in your kit and is a long hose with many bends. Start by cutting 17 inches from the end with the tightest bend:



Save the end with the tight bend for the passenger side of the car. Take the other piece and trim the straight end to 4.5 inches.



The end you just cut will attach to the hose going through the driver side frame rail. You should have 3 to 4 inches of the frame rail hose sticking out. If you have more than this, trim it back. Use one of the 1 1/8 diameter splices (the smaller splices) and two hose clamps to connect the two hoses. Hold the trimmed hose in place near the stock Cobalt radiator hose, mark the stock hose and cut it at the mark. Use one of the large aluminum splices and two clamps to connect the hoses together.



The above photo is of P1. We used the plastic tee as a splice between the lower hose and the donor hose but you should just use one of the aluminum splices instead and leave the tee up near the water neck if you have an early model donor.
 

Adam

Administrator
Staff member
Radiator hoses - Passenger Side

Base and SS/TC

Unlike the driver side, the passenger side doesn't reuse the stock Cobalt radiator hose.

Attach the leftover piece of hose #22569 to the passenger frame rail hose with a small aluminum splice and two hose clamps. The tight bend of hose #22569 should be down near the frame rail hose. Connect hose #21744 to the upper end of #22569 with a large splice and two clamps. Attach the other end of #21744 with a hose clamp to the outlet tube coming out of the cylinder head.



A bracket or clamp to hold the hoses away from the alternator pulley is coming soon but for the time being, zip tie the hose away from the pulley. I'll update these instructions when the new parts are sent out.

SS/SC

The supercharged SS is different from the other cars because the radiator hose has to go around the supercharger. Because of this, you'll need to reuse part of your radiator hose and splice it together with the hoses we provide.
 
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