SS Camaro - Track trips, build pics etc.

[Weldangrind]

The bushings you mentioned are in the underside of the upper support?

[01SSRedA4]

They are on the top side of the lower support. They are what holds the weight and prevents metal to metal contact on the bottom of the radiator. The original OEM upper cover was plastic lined with rubber to hold the radiator back about 30 degrees slanted towards the engine.

[01SSRedA4]

So we left off with the radiator mounted but taped to hold up top. I originally ordered an LT1 top cover because my plan was to keep the radiator in the stock position, and this was the cheapest route to do that. Now that I moved the radiator I had no game plan. The radiator has moved down almost a full 2 inches so there is no bolt on solution here. I started with trying to fit the fans. The shroud above the drivers side fan must be trimmed some. You also must take off about 1.5 inches across the entire top.



I had to notch and bend just a tad of the upper support for the fans to slide all the way up in position.



Passenger side tab lines up with the condenser mount, driver side i looked for a simple solution since they didn't line up. I folded the condenser bracket down, then just hold the fan in position, drill a hole through the plastic and aluminum, and put a bolt there. You can see it here folded over.



That was pretty easy. I decided to trim down the LT1 top cover and make two short aluminum straps to hold it. Turned out pretty good considering.....The brackets are offset because there were holes already in the plastic so i used them instead of drill more.



Wiring done. It will need to be extended.



E85=E70



Holy mother these pumps move some fuel!!! Went ahead and mocked this up to do a line flush. Good thing i did cause there was crap down in the cups, dont want that getting into my injectors. Quick math fun, stock pump 190 gph, typical Walbro upgrade 255 gph, these are dual 450s, so at 900 gallons per hour its capable of moving 1 gallon every 4 seconds, wowzers! You dont need the key or PCM installed to prime the pumps, pull the fuel pump relay and jump the corner terminals, #30 and #87.



Dialed in pressure to 60psi, and no leaks. I went ahead and hooked up the boost reference line.



So basically everyone bitches about the Lokar flexible dipstick. My buddy offered a solution (cause there was no way in hell the dipstick and tube was fitting this car), measure stickout, cut the tube, replace with 3/4 hose. So thats what i did. I was able to slide this in and the stick will be hidden under the cowl. I probably wont even make a mount for it.



I also got some of the wiring cleaned up under the hood, hooked up the trans cooler fan, and decided to redo the coolant crossover line. Turbo kit "should" ship monday, I still need a belt and to add the boost gauge inside the cab. We are getting dang close!

[roundhouse]

Great thread

[01SSRedA4]

Originally Posted by roundhouse

Great thread

Thanks bud.

Had to tie up some loose ends, needed some coolant line for the radiator connections but got all that handled so I figured I would go ahead and fill up the fluids since it will be starting up soon enough. I plan to run Rotella oil but went ahead and used some pennzoil this time and i plan on doing the first change pretty quick. Grabbed the Rotella when i saw it at the store yesterday, the rest of the bottles are empty.



Removed my trans temp gauge from the middle and replaced it with the boost gauge. I hate two are digital and one is analog but i liked the 65 dollar price tag of this analog gauge. Bottom one is engine temp.



Needed a spot for the trans temp gauge, I had the nitrous panel left over from before so i went ahead and installed it. Its obviously custom made for me, but I may contact the guy and get him to make me a new one with turbo stuff on it, or blank under the switches? Also I got the boost controller mounted where i can reach it.



Jack: 1, oil filter: 0. Whoops, minor miscalculation.....I'm building a turbo car I never said I was any good at it!



Still waiting on this raggedy ass turbo kit. Starting to get a little irritated. The original estimate was 6-8 weeks and we are now at TWELVE weeks. He says he has the kit in hand but is waiting on a turbo filter and oil lines. I say ship what you got so i can get things fit up and the exhaust made am i right?

[Weldangrind]

So, what do you do when you've built an E85 car and you're getting E70? Pull timing out?
Are the LT1 fans pushers or did you reverse the polarity?

[01SSRedA4]

Those are oem ls1 fans from the car, yes I reversed polarity. Our e85 runs e70 almost year round. If it takes a spike plus or minus I will watch afrs closely and adjust the fueling table as needed. Anything over e50 will run the same timing. Say I got true e85, and needed to adjust, I would save the new file, while keeping the original e70 file and can flip back and forth as needed when filling up. Only takes 30 seconds to flash a new calibration file in the pcm.

[01SSRedA4]

Didn't get a ton done this weekend. Had a buddy who needed his 10 bolt rebuilt so I did that for him as a favor. I did get to do a few things, the kit came in late Saturday evening minus intercooler. Randy wrapped the hot-side with fiberglass wrap. I threw some high heat paint on it. Whether it will bake into it, or turn into a smoky mess when it heats up I couldn't tell you. Guess we will find out. I also clocked the turbo where the output faces correctly (forward and down) and drilled and tapped the outlet for the wastegate feed. Huron Speed said just pull the signal from the manifold but that doesn't seem to be recommended so I added one on the turbo outlet. I did a quick mock up, slightly bent the PS lines, and the hotside pipe fit fantastic. Love the extra room standing the radiator up gave me.



I ordered some filters and plan on swapping to the rotella oil after a few heat cycles and before any heavy boost. Also have to replace the coolant tank due to the extra thick hose putting pressure on it and cracking the bottom. I am also going to a lighter duty hose to prevent this error in the future.



Found this guy wandering around. No clue how his wings got so messed up.



Intercooler "should" be here any day and i still need to build the exhaust (likely wrap it as well) and buy a belt. It will be running and driving very soon!

[JerryHawk250]

Cars coming together nicely. With this fall weather coming i'm getting the fever to do a build. My favorite time of year to race.

[BlackBike]

It's been you and the night creatures keeping you company night after night in the ol shop.

[01SSRedA4]

I live on the edge of town with lots of woods and fields around. There is always something crawling around close by. The most common i see regularly are racoons, skunks, possums, rabbits, and sometimes deer in the field. And my cat has made a nice dent in the gopher population.

[01SSRedA4]

Intercooler showed up and I had to do a quick mockup just for fun. Brackets fit nice.



The pic above with the turbo mounted.....it was just barely bolted on. Here's why. Not thrilled I had to pull it back off.



Here is my solution. I red locktited them into the flange, time will tell if it holds or not.



Mocked it up on the table to save me some work laying under the car.



Final mount-up, got the alternator mounted up top also.



All the coldside done, it lacks a belt at this point to be running.



Got the tubular bumper support to work with the intercooler....it required some minor trimming.



They said 73 inch belt, that turned out to be too long. Ive got a 71 on there now but its a smidge too tight but will work for the moment. The stock tensioner gets relocated to where the alternator used to be, and the iron blocks dont have one of the holes for the mount. I ended up grabbing the side bolt hole and making a bracket from scratch, and so far its holding good.



You can see the bumper was already cut for airflow to the trans cooler, but i wanted to trim it more. This is what I started with.



This is how it ended up.



What do you do when you want your exhaust tip centered but dont have anyone to help you?? Well you electrical tape bolts to the dang thing. Made great spacers.



Turned out nice I think. I did go back and paint the hanger/frame red.





Piece to the front brake line. I found it crushed and replaced it. No clue how that happened but glad i saw it.



Ive got the segment swap done, and the 3bar VE with real time tuning, which Ive been playing with and its cool as shit. It was fighting me all day but i believe I had incorrectly input some of the injector data. I was starting to make some progress but ran out of daylight. It also added some fuel to the oil (running pig rich) so I got that crap out of there and put the Rotella in. Motor purrs and is very smooth but now Im showing no oil PSI, Im thinking my chinese sending unit didnt like the e85 oil. But, no leaks, and Ive heat cycled it about 5 times. Fuel psi crept down to 50 psi? So i dialed it back up to 60. Little crap now at this point.

[Weldangrind]

Good catch on the brake line!

[01SSRedA4]

Well I figured I was tuning this week but it just didnt work out that way. While working on the idle tuning i noticed the oil psi showed zero. I honestly didnt think much of it because the motor was very quiet and I knew i used a chinese sending unit. When the turbo started blipping oil out of the exhaust i figured i better investigate. Yep, mechanical gauge showed 5 psi. Hoping for a pinched pickup o ring i drained the oil and filter. When pouring the filter out I noticed specs of trash coming out of it. So I cut it open to investigate further. Whoops.



New oil, new filter and Ive got 70 psi again. I decided to check reverse and see if she could back into the yard and sunbathe for the day.



I need to put the hood back on but it bothers me my stickers are now inaccurate. So I decided to go ahead and clean the underside of the hood and dig in my sticker stash to keep things updated. Also, the black above the Cam Motion sticker was where i had some foam tape to keep the clear lid from rubbing the hood. Glad that can finally go away.



Here's the new sticker arrangement. Pic is a little washed out but you can see Aeromotive, circle D, autometer, transgo, turbosmart, msd, hptunders, and sje were all added.



Hood and headlights are back on, and i also glued the tab for the rearview mirror to the lexan front windshield. We will see if it holds, and I hope it does because you cant see shit out of the tiny side mirrors. The brake pedal is ROCK hard. I'm going to give it a fair chance however if it proves to be miserable stopping the car I will admit defeat and go back to the booster. And we do know at minimum reverse and first work in the trans because it pulled itself back in no problem. You can also see the shock tower bar I added, not for looks but because the front lexan is lifting slightly and I believe its from cowl twist. This should help, I also added more screws to the lower edge. Next, we terrorize the neighborhood.

[Weldangrind]

Scary filter. What do you attribute the shrapnel to?