Sounds great! I am wanting to meet up with a few of you guys and maybe setup a little state to state cruise/drag/autocross outing for a few days. BMF150, futureuser, and steve68 said they were in on it. BMF is in Chicago, future is in Georgia, I am in NC, and Steve is in Florida. We have several drag strips centrally located, mountains to blast up, and VMS has an autocross and a dragstrip so it shouldnt be to hard to plan something out. Steve wants to try out the "dragons tail". I prolly wont be able to keep up with my dated suspension but we will give it a hell of a try. NC has plenty of armed force bases if you stay in the military.

 

I didn’t do a whole lot of work on the car this past weekend, but I’m bored so I figured I’d post an update anyway. I started out Saturday by doing some more wire wheeling and sand blasting on my passenger fender since the driver’s side had gotten the majority of attention last weekend. But by around 10am my last wire wheel was shot, I was out of sand, and short on patience. I had done just about as much work to both fenders as my equipment would allow me to do. My old clapped out 33 gal oiless Craftsman compressor just can’t keep up with a blasting job this large; much less any blasting job really. So rather than waste more time and money (electricity, sand, and another rebuild on my compressor motor) I decided to drop the fenders off with the guy that typically does all my powder coating as he’ll be able to make quick work of finishing this job with his sand blasting set up.

But, before I could drop them off, I still needed to “dissect” my driver’s side fender just like I had done on the passenger side. This involved drilling out the spot welds that retain the inner fender brace to the outer skin so I could separate the two. Even though there were only a few pin holes at the bottom of this fender (much better than the passenger side) I knew it would still be pretty rusty on the back side between the brace and outer skin.
Just as I suspected, here is what I found lurking behind the brace. Notice the three small holes in the worst spot. I suspect these holes will get larger and possibly a few more will form after some blasting takes place. Once it comes back from blasting I’ll determine what needs to be done to repair the holes, but I’m guessing it won’t take a patch panel to fix unless things really get thin.



And here is the brace itself. Luckily this is heavier steel than the outer skin is. So there’s no rot-through on the brace. Only minor pitting will be left after blasting.



The entire inside portion (back) of both fenders will be coated with POR15 to help prevent any further occurrence of rust. This will be especially important between the inner brace and outer skin before I weld them back together. It’s not much progress, but hopefully if I can get these back from blasting before this weekend, it will allow me to concentrate next weekend on installing the passenger side patch panel and maybe even sling some POR 15 on at least one of these. But this is my first time cutting and installing a patch panel like this, so my confidence in getting this done quickly isn’t terribly high. I’m sure I’ll have a lot of time into properly fitting and trimming the patch. And I expect the welding will be a slow process to avoid warping the panel with too much heat.

 

Seen your car on the LSXTV, or was it StreetLegalTV? It was great, I was like I PM'd someone famous.

 

LOL...yeah, it was LSXTV.com. Definately not famous here though.... Just an average guy building a car in a regular two stall house garage on a budget. But I guess that makes it pretty cool for me though....that they actually covered a "real guy's" car that most could replicate in their own garage. I know I get a little tired of reading in the mags about unattainable high-dollar projects that I could never replicate.

 

Now you are famous, will you still be working on your own car? Or will you have 10 people waiting at your beckon call?? Lol!!! Wouldnt that be nice? Hey body man I need this car painted, suspension man I need this car to handle whatever I throw at it, and you stripper lady wheres your pole, show me what ya got!!! Is that the way it is at Gary's house?

Any updates? Fenders in primer? Black marks laid out yet? Any 60 foot times?

 

LOL.....man, I wish that was how it worked! If I had it like that, this car would be done and I'd be on to the next one.....well....if I wasn't too distracted by the strippers!

I'm afraid your vivid imagination moves just a little faster than I do . I only average about 6-8hrs a week on this thing due to work, the wife, the kids, strippers (ooops ) and life in general throughout the week days. I hope to have the fenders back from blasting later this week. I SHOULD get the patch welded in this weekend and maybe some POR-15 on the insides. Primer may happen by the following weekend, which would be great!

I did test out my new line lock on Sunday, but it was in the driveway so I didn't hold into it . Its a rental house so I doubt they'd dig a striped driveway. And I'd hate to guess at 60' times at this point....but it feels kind ugly to me. This convertor is supposed to be a 5000-5200 behind a 6.0L, but I can only get it to go to 4000 on the brake. I'm hoping part of that is due to the extreme DA here at my house. The day I tested the convertor, the DA here was around 7100ft .

I'm also thinking VERY hard about having a better cam spec'd for this combo now rather than later. The cam I currently have in there (228/230) was one I had just picked up one a whim and, in my opinion, is nowhere near "right" for this single plain intake and L92 head combination. So rather than wait until later............

 

Oh I understand about the time factor. I am at a snails pace at this moment on mine. My night shift counter part has been out for 4 months to date and will be out an additional 4 more or longer once he decides to have surgery. Work load is piling up, kids are starting back to school, house isnt fixing itself, etc. etc. Maybe its me, maybe my age but I am tired every evening when I get home. It seems with some liquid encouragement (beer) I have the strength to get out there and work on the old car. Problem is, the week gets longer when I partake in a few beverages.

Good to hear you took the fenders somewhere to get blasted. This time of year I would hate to be out there blasting.

Thats a mighty high stall speed! 5200r's to me is a lot. I wonder how that is going to work on the street. Isnt the heavier the vehicle the higher it will stall? Maybe it will get better once the rest of the body is on. Not much but maybe a little.

Yeah that seems like a small cam for your combo but it would be worth a few passes either way to get a baseline before you change it. I have a 236/242 @.050" with .580"/.590" lift on a 112 LSA and it really is a kitty cat compared to the cam I ran in my 327sbc.

 

I know you do man. I would say 95% percent of us face the same exact challenges with not having enough time in the day to tackle all of our responsibilities.....let alone our hobbies. Yet, those who persevere and keep at it eventually end up with some of the nicest rides in the end. The end of Aug/beginning of Sep will mark two years that I have been consistenly working on this car. If I can take this car for its maiden voyage anytime near that date, I'll be thrilled! But if I can't.....I'll just keep plugging away until I can.


Yeah, like I said in my update yesterday.....my equipment just isn't suited for a job this big. Someday I'll have a big boy compressor, but not until I own my own home where I can run 220v to the garage.

Yeah, it's a lot of stall, but it should be "streetable" for my purposes. Don't get me wrong though.....I would personally never want to daily drive on something this loose, but it should let me cruise at my own pace around town just fine. For longer cruises at highway speeds (if I should ever want to do something like that with this car) I would surely need to drop in a tighter converter. You are correct about a heavier car making it stall higher when it comes to flash stall speed. But when stalling it on the transbrake like I was, vehicle weight is completely taken out of the equation because the transmission is locked and you're not fighting against the weight of the car. From there its just a battle between the motor and the converter. But, like I said, extreme DA can really knock the power out of a motor quick. At close to sea level, I wouldn't be suprised at all to see this thing stall closer to 4800 on the transbrake with no other major changes (minor tuning only).


I had thought of leaving this cam in for the first trip to the track just for "learning" purposes. And, I still might if I can resist swapping the cam before I make it to the track. Your cam with it's larger in/eh split seems much better suited to the L92 heads. I also feel like I need something with a tighter LSA (mines 114) for a single plain carb set up. I think something in the range of 110 to 111 would be great and still have a much tamer idle than many conventional SBC cams. Most of those are ground on a 108 or even 106 when you get into real aggressive "race" cams.

 

The last cam I ran in my SBC was a Lunati solid lift with 239/248 @ .050" .517"/.542" lift on a 106 centerline. For no more cubes than I was running it was a nice thumper. It wouldnt pull a wet noodle out of a cats *** but from 3,000 on it was a beast. I also like the saying "it wouldnt fall out of a tree" it so weak on bottom end. Doesnt the transbrake lock first and reverse together? Not to sound stupid but what is the DA you are referring to? I am pretty hip with most abbreviations but for some reason I am not getting this one. Sorry!
I agree with you on the stall. Everybody said my 3,500 I ran was going to make the car a burden to drive. That couldnt have been further from the truth. Unless I flashed it or pushed it up against the brake it was almost unnoticable. It helped out the puny 327 down low as well. Sort of took out the weakest part of the torque range and got the car under good power, faster. Youll make the anniversary date! I am sure of it.

 

Dude, I'm glad you check in here so often......you're freakin hilarious. For what it's worth....I got another cam spec'd out by Patrick G. I'll be contacting EPS tomorrow to grind it for me.


Yes sir....that is correct. Basically puts it in a bind with itself so the convertor has no choice but to slip to it's limit....or as far as the motor can take it.


Not a stupid question at all. I was referring to Density Altitude which is a reference for the effects of actual elevation and weather on air density. There's a great DA Calculator here: http://www.dragtimes.com/da-density-...calculator.php

But, to give you an example of the effects of positive (above sea level) DA on horsepower: If a given car ran a 12.0 @ 110mph at a location with a DA of 7100ft (that was the DA the day I tested my convertor), that ET and MPH would correct to approximately 10.9 @ 120.5mph at 0ft DA, or sea level. So, by using common racer math of 10rwhp=10mph, that means this car was down around 100rwhp from sea level when ran at 7100ft DA. The actual elevation at my house is 4575ft, so the rest of the effects were from the weather that day (temp, baro, and humidity). If I remember correctly, it was a little over 100 degrees that day.


Yeah, today's custom built convertors are a lot more efficient that the shelf convertors of old. Where you really get into trouble with loose convertors is when you have to pull a long and/or steep hill. That will increase slippage (and therefore heat) a great deal. Other than that, I'm sure it'll be fine for my uses. I want this car to be somewhat streetable, but not at the significant loss of dragstrip performance. I'm looking for "just streetable enough". My TA is my real street warrior. When I was back east in June I put nearly 2000 miles on it in a little over a week. I was a road trippin fool! Nothing like a T56 to make just about any engine combo streetable!

 

I got my fenders back from blasting earlier this week. They came back very clean and rust free.




So Saturday morning I started fitting and installing the lower fender patch on the passenger side. This was my first time doing this sort of thing.




After getting the patch fully welded in, I noticed that the bodyline on my patch is running slightly down hill. Oh well…..at least its low on the car out of sight and it can be fixed later when the car finally gets professional body work and paint sometime in the distant future. For now I was going more for a simple fix than perfection and doing it myself gave me a little experience in sheet metal repair. So, the next step was to apply some filler, just to make the repair a little more presentable. I had also welded shut the body trim and emblem holes while I was at it. The entire fender needs a lot more body work, but that wasn’t my goal here. That will be addressed much later in the car’s life.





Next I was on to the passenger side fender. It only had a few pin holes in the bottom (with just a few more added after blasting). Because the clean blasted metal was so thin around these holes, I chose to fill them with USC All-Metal. Attempting to weld them shut would have only burnt larger holes. I used the filler on the front and back sides to build up some strength in the material. Then I welded shut the molding and emblem holes just like on the passenger side and skimmed them with All-Metal as well.

 

Then today I was able paint the insides with POR-15, making sure to get as much as I could down in all of the seams, and especially between the fender braces and outer skins which are still separated for now. Here is the passenger side one after being wiped down and prepped.



And here it is after…….





And the same shots of the driver’s side…..




I used both a paintbrush and a mini roller to apply the POR this time around and had great results. I was really happy with how well this stuff rolled out. Now next weekend I can spot weld the fender braces back in place and get these things in epoxy.

 

Looks good. I read in a recent mag that it isn't recommended to try to weld thru Por15. . For whats its worth.

 

Looks like tons of progress is being made! One tip I learned from an older body man was to fill the dent and gradually work it outwards. Rather than coating everything and try to find the high spots, build up the low spots. It sure does save time and materials. Body filler is a royal pain and its prolly why I would never make it a career. I dont mind spraying but the body work is for the experts!!!

 

Thanks Jim. I shouldn't have to weld through the POR15 if things go the way I expect them to. I drilled all the way through the edge of the fender lip and the brace, so I should be able to line the holes back up and plug weld the insides of the holes, which should still be bare metal.....or at least can be cleaned out prior to welding. I'm certain I'll burn some POR away from the areas surrounding the welds, but I'll be epoxying over that area when I spray the rest of the fender. At least I hope that's how this works out. I just ran out of gas for my MIG this weekend, so unless I can get my bottle filled soon, I may end up flux core welding these. I'm sure it won't be my best looking work......

 

Thanks man. I'm pretty happy with what I got accomplished this weekend! Oh, and that's a real good tip on the filler. I definately wasted a whole lot of puddy and paper taking all of that back off!!! I guess you live and learn though. But the one thing I really learned (or re-affirmed, I guess) is that I'm with you......I really want nothing to do with any major body work. I too will leave that to the pros.

 

If one good skim coat of filler and a few layers of high build doesnt fill it I usually dont mess with it!!! I think I was born with crooked eyes. If I really take my time and use a guide coat to sand by I am usually ok. It never fails though, I get almost to a flat surface and bam metal pops through!!! Time to lay down some more high build and do it again and again. I guess thats why I am a machinst and not a bodyman!

 

Amen brother! This car has given me a new found respect for the work the "quality" bodymen do.

 

I got in some Camaro time this weekend despite having a few other commitments. First I welded the braces back to my fenders and then prepped them for primer by going over them with the DA and then wiping them down.



Here they are after being shot in epoxy. The second shot shows just how much body work these fenders (and the rest of the car) need before the car ever gets painted. But for now I’m gonna run it like this until I have all of the bugs worked out (which may take years).





Then today the fenders went back on the car……..



……..followed by the hood and header panel.





I still have a ton of panel alignment work to do before I’ll be satisfied. For right now I’m just lucky the hood closes.



Maybe next time I have a full day to work I’ll get the front springs cut to get the front end of the car sitting down like it should be. Right now the upper bump stops are resting on the frame. This thing sits like there’s no motor in it.

 

luk n gud