RatCityRex

iTrader: (3)

Well all valvetrain parts are cleaned and lubed up and ready to go in. Only got about 20 min of garage time in this morning so the only thing I was able to get done was get the pushrods, bolts and rails cleaned and ready to drop in

RatCityRex

iTrader: (3)

So I skipped taking a few pictures but, i got all the rockers and pushrods in, Valve covers painted and new gaskets in/on and bolted down, timing chain cover painted and lightly tightened down (still need to drive the balancer on b4 i crank it all the way down), Cleaned up the steam port caps and crossover and got those bolted down and last but not least I set the intake on to take a look at what it will look like when it's almost done.


Pic



Getting close now. Just need to put a freeze plug in intake manifold to plug the big egr hole in the side, and drill out the purge hole and rtv in my iat sensor, make a couple of fuel rail spacers and drop in my big injectors, bolt on my oil pan and rear main seal/cover oblong the holes in my flexplate for my converter to bolt to and the motor will be ready to drop in. Then it's trim and plate my shock towers and start fab on turbo ****.

RatCityRex

iTrader: (3)

1 3/8" freeze plug rtv'ed in where the egr hole in the side of my lq4 intakemanifold, also popped in my intake air temp sensor with a little rtv as well. Drilled out the hole on the top like others I've seen and smacked it in.



Arp flex plate bolts showed up



And last but not least my ebay twins

SS-TEN

So you got twins! Thats awesome. I've never seen anyone use the internal wastegate type turbos. I'm interested to see how they end up. Are you gonna build your own manifolds? Keep up the good work!

RatCityRex

iTrader: (3)

I'm gonna go with a set of truck manifolds that I have and cut, chop and weld up some flanges on them. Gonna start really making forward progress next week. Now that all the holiday bs is over.

RatCityRex

iTrader: (3)

Ok so surgery has happened on 1 side. I opened it up a little to much at the top and I don't really like the way it's going to look once some sheet metal is welded in. So I'm going to tack weld a piece back in and re cut it, and then make a template and transfer it to the other side. Once it's all done I'm going to pull the springs and make sure I have full travel without the upper a arms hitting anything. Once that's done I'll finish welding everything in and then paint the plates and spray some undercoating on the wheel side. Anyways..... onto the pics.

Safety gear


Using a angle grinder with a cut off wheel on it. Going to use the air compressor with a small cut off on the drivers side because it's alot tighter on that side with the steering box and brake lines.









That's it for now. Next phase is to tack weld the big chunk back in and then recut the top and then start tacking in some sheet metal.

RatCityRex

iTrader: (3)

Well templet is all done. Gonna take some hammering and some heat to get it where I want it once it's all cut. But I checked clearances and the upper a arm looks like it clears along with the spring. Onto the pics.

RatCityRex

iTrader: (3)

Ok so I've been doing a little more work on the shock towers. I am not a welder by any means, but my harbor freight mig welder does ok and i can melt 2 pieces together. But the harbor freight gas regulator is a piece of ****. It keeps sticking closed. I'll weld a inch and it's great and then all of a sudden it's like it runs out of gas. Try and start back of and it still welds like there is no gas. Give the regulator a smack and it welds great for a while and then it starts acting up again. So here is where I'm at.





Just have to burn in a little piece at the top and then start on the other side.

IronBlocked

Damn dude you got some serious skill

SS-TEN

Wow, looks like you're gaining lots of clearance by modifying those shock towers. Looks good man! I'll be watching you're progress!

RatCityRex

iTrader: (3)

Thanks guys. Gonna try and get time tomorrow and finish up this side and maybe start on the other side.

RatCityRex

iTrader: (3)

Ok so passenger side is all welded up. Looked like **** too. So I took all the measurements I could and converted everything over to the drivers side. Which turned out killer. Then I started grinding on the passenger side and I think k I'm gonna grind it down and make it look good. But before I shoot the wheel side with rubberized undercoating I'm going to weld the backside so I know it's good. After all I am grinding the engine bay side down.




Pass side started to grind on the top

sleekpeek

Very nice fab work! I too am starting on a turbo ls build for my 65 nova. I'm still debating cutting the shock towers or just saying f*ck it and buying a TCI front clip. I saw your going to run twins on this... Which manifolds are you going with and any ideas on the downpipe(s) routing?

RatCityRex

iTrader: (3)

I will eventually buy a front clip. So I'll toss mine in the garage when that point comes. Until then I'm gonna rock my cut/hacked front end. I'm going to use some stock truck manifolds, but I'm also going to to hack/cut those up so they will be nice and tight against the block. I don't have a full scope on how it's gonna happen. But I will defiantly post pictures when I get to that point.

SM105K

iTrader: (3)

Again, thank you for saving that Chevy II.

97camaroguy

iTrader: (5)

Can you link me which turbos you ended up going with ?

RatCityRex

iTrader: (3)

I went with 2 of these.

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item...063265&alt=web

Now I don't know/think that the internal wastegate will be large enough to handle my lq4, but if not then I'll just add 2 38mm wastegates when I get to that point.

RatCityRex

iTrader: (3)

Got a little more progress done today. So I started grinding all my welds to make it pretty the other day. Today see how much more I would need to do to make the shock towers look worth a damn I decide to say screw it and went to town.

Got the spring and shock out of the way.


Welded up the outside


Cleaned it up and Taped it off and sprayed with permetex rubberized undercoating.




So I didn't get a pic of the engine bay side but I went back over my ground off welds and welded some new better looking slug trails.

oscs

iTrader: (19)

Cool idea

74propu

I have the same turbo's on my 5.3 started the truck on 10/26/14 on dyno it was 515whp with th400 stock converter oblonged 5.3 flexplate ( trashed frontpump on 12/14/14) down for 3 weeks put in a 6.0 flexplate new th400 1/21/15 trashed one turbo less then 2000 miles and the shaft moves all over the place now looking for better turbos