1970camaroRS

iTrader: (8)

So pretty. Cam is in, oil pump installed.


Rear cover and flexplate.


Got the front cover, crank pulley and oilpan in as well as the lifters. Just waiting on those headgaskets.

Took an afternoon and welded the o2 bungs and v-bands on the headers.


Got them painted with some good ceramic paint. I've used this before in the past and you have to really clean the hell out of the surface and apply it when it's very warm out and in direct sunlight/under a heat lamp.

1970camaroRS

iTrader: (8)

Frustrating yet interesting update. The .045 Cometic gaskets that were "in stock" at Jegs switched to being back ordered after placing the order. I'm not waiting until 7/18 for them to ship. So plan b is the more common .040, 4.100 bore Cometics that are actually in stock. This gives me 11.7:1 compression, and .036 quench and 8.7 DCR. I have the correct colder plugs to make it work with 92 octane pump gas, but it's going to be fun to find the right timing with no knock.

1970camaroRS

iTrader: (8)

Engine is all together. Head studs were a pain in the *** to clean up and install. Very tedius work chasing and cleaning all the threads. Anyway, got it done including the rocker arms and valve cover. Getting it into the car was a fun chore since I'm a one man show.



I couldn't find tape to cover the intakes, so I was just very careful until I could lay some rags over them later.


Now to install the intake, headers, fuel, waterpump, radiator, e-fan, intake tube, finish battery wire, cut and weld exhaust for headers and that's it. No biggy.

1970camaroRS

iTrader: (8)

More progress today. It was a day of squeeze my hand into tiny places to turn a stupid bolt 1/16th at a time. Bellhousing and torque converter done. Intake manifold installed. Headers in. Those 2" primaries better be worth it when I squeeze it because they were a pain to install. Had to ding one tube on passenger side that was interfering with the lower control arm bolt. The driver's side hits the shift selector arm which is a bummer, but I will bend and grind to make that work.







These long tubes are LONG. Was just barely able to get the o2 sensors to connect to the wire harness.



Long day tomorrow. Removing exhaust and chopping it up to make it worth with the new headers. They're a lot more narrow and reach further back than the Pacesetters did.

Then all of the little things. Waterpump, radiator, intake tube, etc. A little more electrical work and I'm good to go.

1970camaroRS

iTrader: (8)

Very close to reinstalling the radiator and ignition system and firing it up. BUT, the waterpump is dead. After I had it installed I noticed the pulley was frozen. Took a good amount of force to get it to turn. After it freed up, it was chunky and wouldn't free-spin. New pump will be here tomorrow.



This is the main power feed from battery to starter and the other large one is the feed to the alternator/rest of the car. I'm not very happy with how close it is to the header. Going to have to take it apart and bend the terminal at about a 45* or so. And install a heat shrink around it. Sigh....that was a bitch to put together too.



And this is the shift arm hitting the collector. I think I can get away with taking it off and trimming it down. Maybe bending it over to the side a little more.



They look like they hang pretty low, but they're a little better than the Pacesetters as far as tucking go. They are much bigger and longer though.



I cranked it today and confirmed the electrical isn't going to burst into flames, so I'm good to go on that part. So many little things to do though.

1970camaroRS

iTrader: (8)

Bad news today. Cranked it to confirm oil pressure. Nope. I've never had a car make much pressure while cranking, so I fired it. Took a few tries as this was without a working alternator and fairly low voltage. Just wanted to get it up for 10-15 seconds. The results: speaker warning, I cuss at the end.


Voltage might be giving a false low reading, but it should still be much higher than that.

The real culprit is probably the pump. I reused the old pump since it's clearanced for the double roller chain. After taking it apart and cleaning, it was reinstalled. But I rushed the job and I don't remember inspecting the relief valve. I was going to put the stiffer spring in, but didn't want to dig the box out from storage, so I skipped that part entirely. Willing to bet it's stuck open. In fact, I bet that the relief valve sticking open is what killed my old motor. Starved the cam bearing for oil and making it walk out.

Anyway, pulling the crank pulley and front cover tomorrow. Really hate pulling the pump while it's in the car. That pickup tube it a pain without lowering the oilpan. I have about 1/32" clearance between my pan and steering cross-link.

1970camaroRS

iTrader: (8)

Oooooops. Forgot the front oil galley plug. Kind of important. Can't find one the correct size locally, so I ordered the GM part and it will be here Monday. I'm going on a trip tomorrow morning until then anyway.

not4grandma

following this intently,doing a 77 4 door nova myself but ill be doing the harness work keep it up man

1970camaroRS

iTrader: (8)

Got that plug finally and installed it. Worked as advertised. 50psi cold idle.



Sounds good open header. Lots of voltage though....


I also have consistent Forest Gump moments where I say aloud, "Jenny, I am not a smart man." This is the result of one such moment.


Forgot that I had to at least hook up the trans cooler before a quick test fire to check oil pressure. I was smart enough to have a drip pan under everything at least.

All that's left is to install the rest of the cooling system, add coolant, top off trans and modify the exhaust to fit the headers. That will be fun...then I can do some street tuning and get some miles on the new shortblock.

1970camaroRS

iTrader: (8)

Finally got a chance to get at it again. Today's task was exhaust and I also get sidetracked by a necessary repair. While I was under the car I noticed that the driver's side rear seat studs had pushed through the floorpan due to corrosion, lack of washers and my fat ***. Yanked them out, pounded the sheetmetal back to shape, clean some corrosion and painted it. Then it was off to the hardware store to grab some thick, large diameter washers to do a repair. Sandwiched a pair of washers on either side of the floorpan, used a good amount of RTV and all is well again. But this sidetrack almost killed my day.

The goal of the day was to get the exhaust completely done and put the cooling system together so that tomorrow I'd have all day to tune and maybe take it for a drive. Got a lot done with the exhaust, but I still have to finish the welds and do a few repairs on the existing pipes. Got it all cut and fit and tacked together though.









Soooooo close. I should be finishing up tomorrow.

jimmyg

What size rims/ tires/ back space on the rear? I'm trying to fig out a rim/ tire combo for my cutty

1970camaroRS

iTrader: (8)

Unsure of the backspace, I've never measured and they came with the car. Running an 1/8th inch spacer in the rear. Not sure of width either, but I think the rears are 15x8 and the fronts are 14x7. They are Enkei 52s and a nice person gave me a pair of 15x10s, and 15x8s that need repair that I'm going to use with my slicks. Also, with a 275/60 tire, I had to roll/trim the inner wheel well lip completely away.

Have you looked at the gbody forum for finding out common sizes?

1970camaroRS

iTrader: (8)

I pretended I know how to weld again today. The welder fought me a bunch. It likes to stutter sometimes and not feed. End up with a lot of bird **** and boogers. When it does run, it's good and I say, "damn, now that's a nice weld." but that is rare. This exhaust is the first thing I had ever welded when I did it the first time 3 years ago. Had a ton of terrible welds to redo and touch up. Got it done and I even painted the welds this time so that won't rust and leaks will be easier to spot.





All done. Just needs a hood and power steering fluid. And then it's time for me to figure out how to make this thing run right.



Bonus battery cut-off switch picture.


Short video of when I first got it started. Bit of a bad noise coming from the passenger side head. I'll figure that out soon, but it just sounds like piston slap. Got quieter after a bit. This engine was built for nitrous and a bit on the loose side. In my opinion the car sounds a bit worse at idle now with the new headers. I'm ok with this.


Then I spent a little time getting the tune for idle OK so that I could pull it out and turn it around so it's facing the right way in the garage. Capture the dumbest sounding laugh of my life on the video too. This is all with most of the same tune I had with the lower compression 6.0l with a 231/235 112 cam. New engine is WAAAAAAY different. Wants a ton less fuel that the old engine and a bit more timing at idle.


Just need a good day and some power steering fluid and I'll nail the tune down.

1970camaroRS

iTrader: (8)

Finally got back at it today. Got it to idle much better. I had to take a TON of fuel out. Previously my VE at idle was 44 to 46 or so and at 55 to 60kpa. Now it's 28 to 33 at 70 to 80kpa. And I still think it idles rich. My wideband quits counting at 1.10 Lambda, but I know that's a false lean from the big cam and it's still rich. After getting that better, I finally got the courage to put it in drive and take it around the block a few times to dial in the high-use VE cells. I have a nice little circuit I drive that includes a long, low use stretch of road, a hill and plenty of area to pull over to adjust the tune and do long-lazy constant throttle acceleration. I then return on a freeway where I can do 60 to 70mph without worry. I did this a few times and it started to run really well in SD only mode. It's really interesting how I'm having to take a lot of fuel out everywhere below 4,000 rpm. Also, that noise the engine was making before went away after 15 minutes of running. Suspect it was the lifters not getting their fill. Anyway, here's a happy idle video. People sure did look at me funny while I was driving down the freeway without a hood...

1970camaroRS

iTrader: (8)

Some updates. I've driven it to my apartment complex 20 miles from my mother-in-laws garage that I've been working in. So that's a huge milestone. While tuning the VE I noticed a lot of inconsistency in fueling from the car and chalked it up to perhaps the wideband being faulty. Then I noticed my IAT was reading -39 on a recent cold-start to verify RAF. The harness wires are somewhat loose at the plug (my IAT is remote mounted at the filter, divorced from the MAF). After this I was getting 1.18 lambda nearly all the time. So I started thinking maybe my wideband is faulty. I need to calibrate it I'm pretty sure, but I think maybe the VE is roughly 20% lean due to the IAT being faulty when I tuned it earlier. Seems like the engine would be very unhappy being that lean...it would run hot, have a lot of knock retard, etc. My timing is very conservative while I tune. I use the 2002 C5 Z06 timing map which is 22 degrees WOT as a baseline to tune off of. Plan is to recalibrate the wideband, add 20% to 1,600 rpm and up and see what the meter reads.

It other news, the idle is rock friggin' solid and idles at 70kpa now instead of 80kpa. Smells slightly rich, but it's happy there and makes the most vacuum at 28 to 30 degrees timing.

1970camaroRS

iTrader: (8)

Did one last RAF run from a very cold start. Nice to just sit there and enjoy the idle.

Things are looking good.


All systems nominal.


Took it for a drive to verify if fixing the IAT was what lead to my constant lean reading on my wideband. Yep. She's mostly dialed in on the low end now. Also decided that the mix of 2" primary headers, and a fairly large overlap cam results in poor wideband readings if RPM is less than 2,000 and TPS is less than 3%.


Had to call it quits tonight on account of rain.


Not fun end of the night, the solenoid lead on the starter wiggled off. That was a bitch to get back on and not burn myself. I'm going to have to address that problem with wire ties or it's going to happen again.

1970camaroRS

iTrader: (8)

Did some wire-tie magic to the starter control wire and went out for a tuning session. Wanted to get some upper-rpm cells nailed down on my VE before switch to my MAF. It did pretty well. Here's a shot of the 1st and 2nd gear run. Went very rich at the top and the VE had to be dial back a ton. It's getting choked beyond 7,000rpm it seems. Guessing it's the heads. Probably going to bring the shift-point down a bunch if that's the case. Lots of lean-tip-in too. I'll address that later. One thing at a time.



On my way back home the car died while coming to a stop and wouldn't refire. Lots of electric arcing coming from the engine compartment when I turn the key. It was the starter control wire again. I'm going to have to get it up on jackstands and address the problem properly.

jimmyg

I'm glad your back on the road finally ! I'm at the point that I need a bat switch for the track. How do you get your car to shut off? My batts in the trunk , but everything else is up front. I'm thinking of running the ecm power wire back to the switch along with battery pos wire. I run a 200amp alt with a 4 gauge wire and would like to avoid running it all the way back 2 the switch if I could.

1970camaroRS

iTrader: (8)

I have a 4-terminal switch, each pole is rated for 175 amps continuous. The plan was to run the battery off one, and the alternator off the other. I ended up running a single wire from battery to starter and then from starter to alternator. This was actually sufficient to kill the car, at least at idle. Good enough for now.

1970camaroRS

iTrader: (8)

Drove it 90 miles up to my parent's house to celebrate my birthday this weekend. Drove more or less perfectly. Occasionally went very rich when lifting after cruising at 75mph. Also, had the car just about foul out the plugs at the top of a hill at one point. The log doesn't show any reason why. I believe that the TR6 plug I'm running now is gapped for nitrous at somewhere near .030 or .035. Since I'm not planning to run my nitrous for a while and I picked up a set of dedicated 7 plugs for that, I will pull them tomorrow and gap them at .050 and see if that solves it. Oh, and the car absolutely lights up the tires at 30mph now.