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Finished the SJM ABS Delete. Let me say how much I hate double flaring brake lines...
Once that was done I was able to clean up the brake fluid mess and prepped the rest of the engine bay for paint. Should finish that tonight.
I was able to also get the rest of the AC Delete panel buttoned back up. I pulled it back out, Sealed it, and then reinstalled it in the car. Just need to install the heater hoses
New parts are starting to roll into the shop.
I got the ICT Coil relocation put together with the D585 Coils I picked up and cleaned.
LS Simple Procharger bracket will be here Thursday and the Throttle Body adapter will be here today.
Hoping to have the throttle body and non-tcs throttle cable installed in the next couple days
Didnt realize the LS Simple Procharger bracket ran in line with the serpentine belt. Not overly concerned with it at the moment but definitely will be looking to upgrade to an all 8 rib setup for everything with that being the case.
This weekend I am planning on starting on the fuel system. I got all the old lines and went to change the fuel rails and put the new injectors in only to realize I ordered the wrong rails and need new ones to make it work.
I ordered the Holley Sniper EFI Rails for an LS1 only to realize it meant the Sniper LS1 intake and not stock. My plan is to order a pair of Racetronix as they are reasonably priced and everything else I have ordered from them so far has been good quality.
Hoping to get new lines made and ran from the back to the front and maybe if I feel ambitious start working on the dual in tank pumps.
My pile of parts keeps getting smaller and the need to order new parts to see this thing run is becoming a bit more dire.
Really starting to get worried about the Holley Terminator coming in so I can get it together before the last big race at our local track.
Decided this last weekend was the time to figure out the procharger.
I knew I was going to be different because I wanted it to be on top and passenger side. I have the space it’s just making it all work.
I ordered the ls simple bracket and it’s a nice piece. I cut the inner fender out to give myself more space.
I will clean it all up after I get everything aligned.
this bracket bolts into the ears of the water pump and the two holes on the front of the head.
In all my measuring (which is tough with odd shapes) I thought the cutting of the fender would be enough space and we would be good to go.
Damnit
I was wrong lol.
I called a fabricator who does all our work and sent him pictures. Hoping we make a couple new upper arm mounts and control arms. He didn’t think it could be done to create enough space. I thought real hard at that moment about selling the procharger stuff and going turbo.
But I’m stubborn and want to be different.
Called my dad in for a look and after a bit of staring at it we think we had a plan. Few longer bolts and rearranging of pulleys. The ls simple runs everything off the serpentine. New plan goes back to what I’m used to and adding the blower pulley onto the balancer and a separate belt going straight to the procharger.
Quick mock up without removing pulleys and wrong length bolts
only problem I am having now is I need to move the tensioner somewhere else.. any ideas?
Well spent the weekend getting some more stuff done on the car.
Brought in another set of eyes to look at this bracket and see what we could do. With the initial thought of moving it out some and then deciding to cut the bracket and fabricate we came up with something that fits well and should work!
Ordered a tensioner kit from ICT for truck spacing that goes passenger side where I have my alternator. Cut spacers and it should work!
we are also going to make a bracket that comes off the head and ties in some more to the front bracket for strength. I wanted to run a brace from the strut tower but decided with the flex of the motor wasn’t a good idea. Best part is this fits under the hood and I can fill in some of the cuts I made.
I also got the template made for the bumper support just need to get it bent up.
I also started the one project I haven’t been looking forward to… the fuel system.
I got the trap door cut and used a template for a aluminum fuel door so I can close it up nice.
Anyone have any luck painting valve covers? I painted them with but came off when engine builder washed everything again.
By no means am I a professional painter, I'm a backyard mechanic but no one else chimed in so hope this helps.
I've never painted valve covers but I'd treat it similar to anything else I've ever painted. Prep is the most important.
I spray purple alkaline degreaser, give it a good wash.
scuff surface with scotch brite pad or steel wool.
I spray brake clean onto a new rag and wipe everything down good.
Then I wipe it down with a new dry clean micro fiber cloth
Spray first coat super light.
Allow dry time.
I do 3-6 coats with dry time in between each coat. I usually wait 5-15 minutes in between coats depending on humidity and temp.
Let cure overnight.
If anything chips or bubbles something went wrong with the prep.
I use Hi-tech Industrial paint. Its hard to find and pretty expensive but you can find it online on Amazon. I buy it from a dealer.
Duplicolor works good and can be found at most autoparts stores if you hate amazon.
Good luck.
Pretty cool your rescuing this old girl from a snow bank.
By no means am I a professional painter, I'm a backyard mechanic but no one else chimed in so hope this helps.
I've never painted valve covers but I'd treat it similar to anything else I've ever painted. Prep is the most important.
I spray purple alkaline degreaser, give it a good wash.
scuff surface with scotch brite pad or steel wool.
I spray brake clean onto a new rag and wipe everything down good.
Then I wipe it down with a new dry clean micro fiber cloth
Spray first coat super light.
Allow dry time.
I do 3-6 coats with dry time in between each coat. I usually wait 5-15 minutes in between coats depending on humidity and temp.
Let cure overnight.
If anything chips or bubbles something went wrong with the prep.
I use Hi-tech Industrial paint. Its hard to find and pretty expensive but you can find it online on Amazon. I buy it from a dealer.
Duplicolor works good and can be found at most autoparts stores if you hate amazon.
Good luck.
Pretty cool your rescuing this old girl from a snow bank.
Thank you for the reply!
I think that is this weekends project. I am going to pull the valve covers off and redo them.
I picked up a can of the new Rustoleum Engine Enamel that is good for temps up to 600 degrees from Advanced for my water pump and was really impressed with it so might end up giving that a try on the valve covers.
I will do the solid amount of prep work hoping that it lays down nice.
While the old girl isnt perfect she is definitely getting there!
Got the old bucket out and had to cut up the bucket to get the dual pumps to fit the way I wanted. I will post a picture later.
In between runs down at Brainerd International Raceway with my Brother and Dads trucks I was tearing into that.
Had a good weekend overall with my dads truck running consistent 8.70-8.80 runs in the quarter and my brothers truck running 9.60-9.80 runs. (I will see if I can get a video to embed)
Got home with a little more push to get my car done.
Running -8 and -10 lines has been a pain in the rear. Ended up having to drop the front of the tank so I had some room to run the lines in the stock line locations. Ended up getting that done and was able to put the tank back up.
This weekend I will be running the rest of the lines to the front.
Terminator X finally comes tomorrow! Hopefully I will be able to get that wiring started Sunday!
it’s been a long few weeks and simple projects have taken some time.
Dual Pumps put together and back in the tank.
Super upset I had to open up more to get the fittings to tighten…
-10 feed lines made and ran to the front
-8 return line made and returned to the tank
Terminator X received and ran most of the way
Procharger bracket brace fabricated
Got the balancer seated today.
hoping to finish wiring up the fuel pump so I can close that back up but am stumped on the wiring.
Green wire from the terminator goes back to the pumps to trigger it. I bought the racetronix intermediate harness but am not sure how to wire the Holley into this plug
thinking I am going to have to cut the end and run it to relays..
Realized I haven’t updated in a bit so want to catch up before this weekend.
ended up getting the ICT truck tensioner bracket to place the tensioner passenger bottom. Cut the spacers and went in there really nice and will stay out of the prochargers way. I’ve been really impressed with ICT products on this build. They have become a first look for me when I need something
Got the from bumper support fabricated. It’s about a 1/3 of the weight of stock and allows for a lot of air movement. Not as nice as Midwest Chassis but cost me 1/5 of the price to build myself.
Been spending a lot of time wiring and buttoning up little projects.
got my fan relays and fuel pump relays installed and initial wiring routed. Just need to tie it all into the Holley and switches.
Did get my radiator and cut it in so I could stand it up
The remaining parts are starting to show up. Got my harness extenders for my coils, the missing fuel fittings I needed, and my driveshaft!
Local shop did a great job! 1350 spicer joints and 3 inch tube
I got my procharger crank pulley and installed it but ran into a new problem…
Going to hit water pump pulley when tight
Procharger and pulley need to come out about half inch to 3/4 of and inch. Decided instead of fighting that right now I’m going to get old girl running and moving first.
I ordered a Mighty Mouse bracket that goes on the brake booster for my fuel pressure regulator and some ICT plug wires. Hoping I can button it up enough to start it this weekend. We will see how aggressive I get!
Man oh man does time has flown by and lots of progress.
Lots of wrenching the past month and trying to button up the last of the project so we can have it running for a local cruise we do in town benefitting a kid with cancer.
Pressure tested all the fuel lines and outside of the injectors not being seated and spraying e-85 all over my garage all the remaining fittings were tight!
Built a bracket for the top and bottom of the radiator and got that tightened down. I'm not 100% happy with the fans but the radiator is snug and turned out great. Probably run some ties through the radiator and fan to snug it up. then relook at it this winter to make it exactly how I want.
Mounted a Hayden Trans cooler in front of the radiator and ran the lines down the frame rail to the trans
Made custom length spark plug wires that go from the coils under the headlights under the frame rail and then pop up in front of the headers and go to the spark plugs
Installed Speed Engineering dual exhaust that dumps before rear end
Bump stops removed and replace with Jeep Stops
Put in Competition Engineering 3 way adjustable rear shocks. ($8 at a swap meet for the pair!)
Measured and bought a serpentine belt that fit with all the new tensioners and idler pulleys
Wiring... and more wiring....
Got the Terminator X in and all wiring joined and hidden
Wired in the transbrake and line lock to a master activation switch
Cleaned up under dash wiring and engine bay wiring
Installed more grounds and put in a positive and negative junction block
Wired in fans
Then we started going through the final checklist.
Bleed brakes
Fill with fluids
prime systems
Gap and install plugs
Double check everything is away from headers
Everything was together and as Bruce Buffer would say "ITS TIME!"
I was terrified so we started slow. Just click the key and make sure it will turn over.
Nothing.
No literally nothing happened. Knew it was a wiring issue and knew I would have some issues since I removed a bunch and tried to blend the holley and while keeping as many options as I can.
So apart came all the wiring again and out came the power probe.
I assumed Vats and Starter Relay had something to do with it. So out came the schematics and laptop. Realized I forgot to ground the relay for the starter.
Still wouldnt turn over by key. If I applied power with the power probe you could get it to "click"
Which was its own problem.. More on that in a second....
Ended up realizing after chasing wiring that there was an issue somewhere with the neutral safety switch. Unfortunately couldnt just disable it due to NHRA Rules.
Well 6 hours worth of chasing the problem, completely tearing apart the wiring again, and running two new wires it would engage with the key but wouldnt turn over.
So next problem was now that the starter would engage the balancer wouldnt turn more than maybe an inch.
Earlier in the post I mentioned that the ATI balancer with the upgraded hub was biting into the oil pump with the dual roller timing chain.
We had it put on a mill and matched it up to a stock balancer then put it back together. Lets make note that the 240 ft lbs to torque down the balancer is ridiculous.
Pulled the balancer back off and you could see the mark where the oil pump was still hitting. So back to the mill it went.
Always fun to have to mill a $600 balancer....
Either way set it to TDC and back together it went. Sure enough the engine would turn over now by key!
So I put all the pieces back together and called it a night.
Next morning went out to the garage to find a pool of water on the floor. Well where I tapped the steam vent tubes to the water pump didnt seal. I knew it wasnt the greatest tap but it leaked pretty bad.
So off came the water pump. Retapped the hole to a bigger size and put it all back together. No leak!
Decided it was time to fire the car. Turned the key, the pump primed, engaged starter and BOOM!
Huge backfires out of the exhaust. Sounded like a shotgun going off in my garage.
Called a buddy and sure enough with some trouble shooting found out the passenger coils were wired backwards.
Turn the key again and now it will start but only run for 3-4 seconds and die.
Time to call in the tuner...
He came in and with ten minutes of working in the holley we turned the key and she came to life.
Let me tell you I have never heard a better sound in my life.
For this being my first full bottom up build I was terrified.
Newly built motor, trans, driveshaft. Along with wiring.
Took some time working on the tune as it was rich as can be. Burning your eyes in the garage with all doors, windows, and the fan running.
After about an hour worth of tuning ol girl idled great and cracking the throttle it was crisp and clean.
Except for the pool of oil on the floor.
Can anything ever go smoothly while building a car?
"It'll be fun they said..."
Pull the intake and sure enough when they put the motor in they didnt tighten the oil pressure sensor so it was pouring oil out of the sensor fitting.
While we pulled the intake we took off the 102. Tapped and plugged the vaccum port, ground down the iac channel, and changed out the iac as it was reading 100% open.
Back together it went again and runs clean and no leaks!
Started putting it back together as it looks like we will be making the cruise this upcoming weekend!!!
I still have to pour the trans fluid into it, make an intake pipe, work the air bubbles out, rebleed brakes, and put some miles on it before Saturday.
Oh and clean it cause its filthy. Maybe I will put the aftermarket wheel on it. Why not lol
I will snap a bunch of pictures tonight and do a big upload.
Then we move on to the procharger!
Spent the last couple days buttoning everything up. Well mainly fighting issues.
Ive had the driver side front brake line on and off from the SJM T about 10 times trying to get the flare to seal right.
I admittingly am terrible at flaring so have been getting some assistance. 3 flares later and replacing a couple parts it no longer leaks (knocks on wood....)
Got that buttoned up only to realize I wired my shut off incorrectly to the alternator. So ordered a new holley alternator pigtail that will be here today.
In the meantime adjusted the shutoff wiring and put together some resistors to make an exciter wire.
Fabbed up an intake and got ready to take it for its initial maiden voyage. Then it died and wouldnt restart.
Genius I am i ran it out of fuel...
So off to the gas station I went. Then it started raining
Nothing like a maiden voyage in the rain on radials!
Went to pull it out of the garage and the exhaust hit...
So back in it went. Did a quick temporary fix and pulled the "mufflers" up towards the hangers and gave them a quick tack weld to make it through the weekend.
Now its pouring but I would not be stopped!
Rumbled it out of the garage and off to the gas station we went.
Drove great! But it is absolutely pig rich and needs the tune adjusted.
Im so used to stabbing the throttle with the sad 5.7 and breaking the tires free. The tune right now wont let it do that lol Pretty weak throttle response.
Had 5 guys come up to me a the gas station and just get excited about the exhaust on it.
I will say the Speed engineering exhaust does give it a really good rumble. Just needs to be adjusted to sit up a little bit.
Took the long way home to get a few more miles on it. Temp stayed great. AFR's adjusted down some and she didnt skip a beat.
AFR's were perfect at idle but was going really lean when on throttle.
Up where it started to make me a little nervous.
We did take it down to the meet up for the cruise and I will admit it turned some heads as it made its official unveiling.
Met up with the tuner and had him start going through the computer.
Once we started looking at it the learn table was all 0's so it wasnt learning at all.
Started cranking into the tune and playing with fuel tables and no matter what fuel we threw at it AFR's wouldnt come down.
I was looking into something else when Im not sure what was cracked in the tuning code but the AFR's started coming down, and then it all went to hell.
It wouldnt idle, had to stay in the gas to keep it running. So I had to limp it home.
Determined either a coil is out or an injector is stuck closed open or closed.
Dropped them off to the shop this morning and will hopefully know more this afternoon.
I have decided I do want to know more on the computer side after this weekend though....
hard to know if I’m updating people or myself. Either way glad I can track it.
Injectors come in today! Going to get them cleaned and hopefully in tomorrow. Figured I could update with some pictures though Headlights in Could relocated to under headlights. Wires run up frame rail Speed engineering exhaust sure hangs low like the rest of them! But sounds good! All together. But still think it looks terrible and needs to be cleaned up
Really need to tear some stuff apart this winter and redo some stuff.
radiator is tucked up nice. Sneaky gasket well done
Nice brackets
hoses are run right, super clean
hose clamps same direction
Coil relocation makes it look less cluttered
I have been collecting parts for almost a year so I could get after it hard and get it running this summer. Honestly was trying to get it done in around 3 months but got nickeled and dimed to death trying to button it up right. Well that and chasing events with my old man.
Some things I am just OCD about lol
I want that 9 second drag car with the luxuries of pwer windows, defrost, and wipers. We street cruise a lot.
Engine bay gets a bit more cluttered when the procharger goes back on it. I just lost some motivation when the injectors took a dump.
Its been in the garage with a sheet over the engine bay since I dont want to look at it.
Should have been finishing the procharger brackets and cleaning up some wiring but am expecting to do a pretty solid teardown come spring and reroute more. That and probably find a way to paint the engine bay a little cleaner. I dont like that I can see the paint lines and runs in photos. Probably sand it down and use the same stuff I used on the valve covers.
Put the new injectors in and cant get them to seal so going to order in some O rings. No biggie
In the process of trying the adapters from my new set and the old I finally looked at the old injectors and they were packed full of stuff. Black almost like plastic or paint in the inlet side.
I then realized that I didnt bloq out the lines after I assembled them so I brought the punishment of tearing apart the fuel system again upon myself.
So Saturday I will be ripping out the filter and praying its clean so then I only have to run the front side of the system.
But guessing I wont be so lucky....
Well filter wasnt clean... And was also the problem. Was an e85 approved filter and the e85 broke down the gasket material on the filter and sent it all through my fuel system. Sitting and waiting to hear back from Racetronix.
Got to spend some time on ol girl as parts showed up.
After not hearing back from Racetronix for a week I ordered a Aeromotive filter setup and it showed up Saturday.
Got it all back together and primed the system. rear injector blew e85 everywhere. After looking into it the rear bolt wouldnt tighten but would just spin. I tried lock washers and adding nuts to try and gain tension. To no avail.
So off came the intake. I drilled and pulled the Nutsert that was in the intake as upon further review it was just spinning.
Put a bigger Nutsert in and decided to replace O-rings on the injectors with a set of Felpro's. Put it all back together and crossed my fingers...
Primed the system again and watched for leaks and made sure fuel pressure was where I wanted it, 43-45 pounds. No Leaks and great fuel pressure!
Turned the key and it started right up! backed it out of the garage so I could drain the water out of the cooling system. Getting down to 15 degrees at night now so time to winterize it.
Filled with antifreeze and fired it back up to let it run.
Sat in the driveway and let it get warm so I could check for any leaks. No leaks!
Even better part is the changes I made to my inputs in the tune worked correctly, temp stayed low, AFR's finally stayed in the 11-13 mark, and it finally went into learn mode!
Huge win since we have been fighting with the temp, AFR's, and it going to learn mode...
Biggest loss is that there is now snow covering the ground and I didnt get to beat on the car once this summer.
Gets to get winterized and put in the pole building
Going to measure out the charge pipe and spacer for the procharger so I can work on fabing that this winter. Cage is on the way. Hopefully be ready to get to the dyno in the spring make a few adjustments and then go chase some no prep events all over the midwest!
Also Racetronix did get back to me and said they cant figure out why the filter went bad. Assuming an additive in the E85... Kwik Trip e has been good for everyone else in town and a lot run e85.
Either way they are going good on the filter and are willing to work on the injectors. Just took a while for response
06-13-2023, 11:22 AM
