-TheBandit-

iTrader: (1)

It's been a busy couple of months since my last update. I've gotten pretty lazy about updating my build thread in the age of Instagram, but I still prefer the forums for long-form!

Early in May I decided to take the car out to the local cruise night in Santa Paula. I've been going to this for a long time now and still enjoy the drive, the nice mix of classic cars, and seeing my family that lives there. Before heading out I tried out a waterless wash system and I've got to say, I'm hooked on this wash method. The car came out nice and I was able to clean it inside my garage late at night while the kids were sleeping.



I found a good spot to park in front of the old movie theater and enjoyed walking around talking cars with anyone willing. I met a few people with LS swaps in progress, but still this show is dominated by carbureted small blocks. I like the classic feel of it all.










Not long after the show, I met up with a local buddy I found on Instagram who goes by @slayer_camaro. He has a single tubo'd 5.3 with a T56 Magnum and drives his car almost daily. Right now he's on a long distance road trip to the Pacific Northwest so if you live up that way, reach out and see if he'll meet up with you. I took him out to a favorite spot for photos and shot his car like I was trying to be some kind of professional.







I also got a few shots of my car too.








I really enjoy taking photos of cars. If I learned how to post process them, I might be able to make something half decent.

BillyFargon

I have been enjoying the Instagram posts but I am glad you are updating this thread cause its so much nicer to read and take in the pics normal size Keep up the good work!!

-TheBandit-

iTrader: (1)

Thank you Billy! I feel the same! Forums are so much better for substance. I haven't been keeping up all the time, because it takes a lot more time to edit/resize and upload photos, add text, etc. It's worth doing though! I have a bunch more to add - hopefully I can get it done today.

-TheBandit-

iTrader: (1)

TMI Products 1 PC Headliner

So for about a decade now, maybe more, I've been living with saggy headliner. The threads holding the material to the bows rotted and started to let go, allowing the seams to come apart. To make matters worse, the first time my son rode in the car he grabbed a part of the open seam and pulled it down, ruining the entire rear section. I used binder and paper clips to hold the material back up onto the bows but it has never really sat well with me. I finally did something about it last month.



I decided to buy a 1pc fiberglass headliner from TMI Products. This is a relatively new product and I couldn't find any installs into Novas, so I took a bit of a gamble knowing their Camaro and Mustang headliners have been used successfully by others. The reasons I went this route rather than a conventional replacement headliner are as follows.
(1) I felt a 1pc headliner would be easier to install successfully myself, with no previous experience, knowing that stretching and gluing material can sometimes result in wrinkles, sag, etc.
(2) I didn't want to pay somebody to install a conventional headliner because everyone wanted a fortune to do that
(3) A 1pc headliner can be removed and reinstalled easily, which will be great when I paint the car some day. It needs metal repair around the windows and roof so the headliner will definitely need to come out
(4) it should give a little more room for my race helmet.

After removing all the original headliner, I started by installing some screws and set screws in locations I'd need to find for holes. Here I installed a pair of 5/16" set screws where the shoulder belts attach.



Below you can see where I installed the visor mounting screws.



Next, my wife and I angled and brought the headiner into rough position in the car. We angled it in from the passneger side, putting he back of the headliner in first and titling it so one edge was at the top rear of the door opening and the other edge was near the bottom front/kick panel corner of the door opening. We then angled it up over the steering wheel and swung the rear around as we brougt it in. The headliner is semi-rigid, but there's enough flexibility to make it into the car. We use a combination of spring clips I had on hand to hold the headliner up temporarily along the door opening.



Next, to position the headliner front to back and centered on the car, I installed one rearview mirror mounting screw through a pre-drilled hole in the fiberglass. I did this with my wife helping to hold up the headliner while we found the hole. Later I cut the vinyl out of the way for the other 2 mirror mounting holes.



Then I went to work locating and making holes for the visors. The fiberglass has large cutouts in this area so you are only feeling for the screws through a layer of vinyl. Once located, I used an exacto knife to cut the holes.









Once both visors were mounted, I located the dome light mounting screws the same way. I really need to rewire my car because all the terminals are corroded pretty bad.





The visor and dome light mounting areas had cutouts in the fiberglass that made locating holes pretty straightforward, but there were no such cutouts or predrilled holes for the shoulder belt mounting points. That mean I had to somehow locate the holes and drill them myself without being able to feel for them through the vinyl. So I found something random I could use that would leave a mark on the hole locations that I could easily clean up if needed - plaster.



I lowered the headliner in this area, reached in and smeared a little plaster on the set screws I had previously installed.



Then after pressing the headliner up in place, the plaster was transferred to the hole locations on the fiberglass.



I was able to lower the headliner down and predrill holes through these locations before opening them up larger with a step bit from the inside.







With that done, I could install both shoulder harnesses. I must admit, this resulted in a little oil-canning / distortion of the headliner, so I eventually opened the holes up to be on the large side and provide more room for things to move around which helped prevent that from happening on final install.



TMI provides a pair of fiberglass sail panels with matching upholstery. It's a good thing because one of my sail panels broke as I was taking it out. One thing I did was transfer the stapled-on plastic retainer from the old sail panels to the new sail panels using 3M double-sided adhesive. You can see that component attached to the sail panel on the right below.



When I placed the sail panel in position, it became clear the rear was not matched up well to where the windlace would need to go. It extended beyond the windlace flange by about 3/4 of an inch and curved around more than needed. It also didn't match up to the headliner, which aligned very well with the windlance flanges all the way around.





Here is what that mismatch looks like from outside of the car. The metal flange under the window should match the edge of the sail panel, but instead it was extending about 3/4". There is no way the windlace would have covered this difference.



Once again I brought out the plaster, smeared it along the windlace flange, and then pressed the sail panel into place to make an impression. That gave me enough of a line that I could mark it with tap and cut the sailpanel down using my late grandfather's jigsaw.







Once trimmed, the sail panels fit perfectly.



Installing the windlace can be tough, especially in the tight confines of the backseat, rear window area. I lubricated the channel with some Dawn soap and combined a deadblow hammer with a piece of wood to work it into place. I didn't take a photo, but the both the center of the windlace and the windlace flange have small notches at the center where you need to start if you want the ends to end up in the right locations. I started there and worked my way around.



I did something similar for the front windlace. The side windlace was the easiest to install around the doors.



TMI also provides new fiberglass A-pillar covers. I think the original metal ones would work fine too, but I went ahead and installed theirs because they match and look a little nicer.



Tada!



A little tip - all purpose cleaner works well for cleaning up all the fingerprints on the vinyl from install. I used Chemical Guys "Nosense" in a spray bottle with a microfiber to clean things up.

-TheBandit-

iTrader: (1)

I also took this opportunity to install some retracting seatbelts from Morris Classic Concepts. I already have a set of their rear belts and decided to do the front ones now as well. I actually really liked the original, non-retracting shoulder belts that tucked up along the headliner when not in use. They were good for autocross because you could cinch them down and stay very secured in the seat, but they were also a little troublesome on a daily-basis because to reach anything or turn to look out of the window, you basically had to unbuckle. In they went...





When I reinstalled the seats, I found the retractor and metal strap would hit the seatback release mechanism. All I had to do to correct this was move the retractor and metal strap to the OUTSIDE of the lower mounting bracket rather than the inside (as shown) and turn the mounting bracket slightly to angle things out away from the seat. That worked perfectly and everything clears fine now.



Here is the finished product. This shot has just the right lighting to show how the rear area of the headliner is slightly distorted from installing the shoulder belts. Normally I can't see this at all but it's shadowed enough here to make it look more pronounced. I would love it if TMI would either prelocate these holes or provide cut outs in the fiberglass in this area so the seat belt mounting locations don't distort things.



Overall I'm really happy with the quality and ease of installation for the headliner. I like that I can take it back out later and reuse it and it could even be recovered if I wanted to change interior colors or if the vinyl eventually gets damaged by age. Now I finally have a presentable interior!

-TheBandit-

iTrader: (1)

Somewhere in the middle of all this, I did some data logging on my OBD2 reader and found my fuel trims were in the negative teens, indicating a rich condition. I also had some DTCs that didn't make sense, like a rear O2 sensor heater issue which should have been disabled in the original tune. Plus I have had a long cranking start issue from the very beginning, so I decided it would be a good time to schedule time with the tuner to see if we could clean things up. Back I went to Alex at New Era Performance in Agoura Hills after 2-1/2 years since the original tune.



Alex went right to work. Here's what she sounds like screaming on the rollers. It's so satisfying to hear and feel this thing at WOT, especially reverberating in a shop!


The car made a baseline run of 401rwhp/386ft-lb. That's down within the margin of error from 408rwhp when it was tuned a few years ago, except this time the car was able to stay in 3rd gear instead of tuning in 2nd like we did last time due to shifting problems. Alex made a few changes and ran a few more WOT pulls before this happened:



We noticed the power jumped a whopping 15hp from the previous pull and as we started the next, coolant began spouting from the overflow tank. I shouted to stop and we shut it down. The belt had come off and the engine briefly overheated. We put the belt back on and continued tuning without further issues. Here is what we ended up with:




That's a healthy 417rwhp/400ft-lb peak, but more importantly a nice wide operating range.

Alex cleared up all the DTC codes and spent a long time trying to fix the long crank startup issue, but without success. He showed me how bumping idle airflow didn't improve the situation and he thinks the issue is priming fuel pressure being bled off. I have checked fuel pressure but I'm wondering if the gauge I used had some kind of check valve in it. His suggestion was to try hot wiring the fuel pump temporarily to see if that makes a difference and if it does, maybe install a check valve inline to keep pressure at the rails between priming. I'll try that later for sure.

After leaving the shop, i took a look at the belt to see what was going on an sure enough the idler pulley wasn't lining up right. The belt was riding off the side by about 1/4" and that was also causing it to rub the lip of the crank pulley.



So I picked up some shims and a longer flange bolt from the local hardware store and got it to align nicely. I also installed a new belt and kept the old one as a spare.



With all this power, fancy retracting seatbelts, and a tight headliner, I was nearly ready to go driving but I have been missing something for a while that has been driving me crazy - a place to put my dang cup! So I picked up a cheap cup holder at the autoparts store and damn has that been nice to have!



I also needed to replace my old window shade that disintegrated after 20 years. None of these things are short enough for the upright windshield on a Nova, so I just bought a cheapy and cut it down to fit. This keeps my car cool when parked on the tarmac between runs at autocross or while I'm in the grocery store on a hot day.





I also mounted a 5lb extinguisher on my transmission tunnel where it would be secure and easy to see / grab from either side of the car in case of the worst.





And then... it was time to put the numbers back on after a 1 year hiatus...



More on that to come.

G Atsma

Oh maaaan, that sounded GOOOOD!!

Motown 454

iTrader: (15)

The headliner came out great. It sounded good on the Dino.

-TheBandit-

iTrader: (1)

Thank you! She's gotten louder since I put the Super Turbos on originally. Every second it was spooling the dyno, I was bracing for the engine to grenade. I know it shouldn't, but when you hear that thing running at peak from outside the car, it sure gives pause.

jcastyo80

Hey Bandit that headliner came out really good!! Definitely will go this route for mine. What part# did you go with? The links you have posted go to Amazon but show a seat foam.

Thanks

-TheBandit-

iTrader: (1)

The TMI headliner part number for what I have is 20-8400-2295. Mine is black madrid vinyl; there are other materials/colors available with different suffixes if you check their website. I bought it through Summit. Freight was an additional $100 over their list price and it took several weeks to get to me, not because of slow shipping but I think they may be built to order.

-TheBandit-

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Thanks to keeping an eye on motorsportsreg.com, I finally found an autocross event on an open weekend and signed up in June. The event was put on by Vapor Trails Vettes at the Santa Maria Airport, about 100miles from home. I packed up the Nova and hit the road at 5am to make the drive. This would be the furthest from home I've driven the Nova since the swap and of course it would be to beat the hell out of it at autocross. I was nervous as hell!

On the way out, I pulled off the freeway and into a parking lot to pick up a special passenger - my MOM! She joined me for the road trip up and to ride along.



We hit heavy fog driving the 154 over the hills outside of Santa Barbara. I felt better knowing my LED taillights would be visible, but it was still a little scary when visibility dropped to maybe 15ft in front of the car.



After cresting the mountains, we pulled off at a vista point to see the sun rising over the clouds near Lake Cachuma.



We gassed back up in Santa Maria and made it to the airport by 7:30. My car was the only classic out there.





Vapor Trails Vettes did a good job of running the grid and timing equipment. It's always a thrill pulling up to the starting line for the first run. You'll see alternating numbers (70 and 69) in these photos because I double registered the car so my brother could drive. We each got 8 runs for a total of 16. He gave me a few of his runs, so I probably drove the car 10 or more times around the track.



I may have to Photoshop this next photo to fix the dead passenger tail light. My passenger side bulb socket was having issues due to corrosion. The Easy Performance LEDs come with a bulb-like pigtail that fits into the original socket, but after having a few problems with the socket, I think I will cut it off and add a connector to hardwire everything.



Of course on the first run I had to catch a cone. I drove aggressively throughout the day - too much so. I often blew my lines and was up against major limitations with my still-mismatched brakes.



That didn't keep me from having a great time and running faster than a lot of the modern ABS & traction control cars out there.













Here is a video from one of my better runs:


A common scenario was braking too late, locking the fronts momentarily due to the inherently bad bias (way to the front due to the original large piston calipers vs. rear small piston "LS1" calipers), and then pushing out of the corner. Even without braking, push was a major theme of the day. In hindsight I wish I had tried different rear bar settings to overcome that. Stiffening up the rear bar may have helped.

But then again, there was one run where I managed to oversteer and spin. This likely happened due to too much throttle input. I found I could compensate for understeer sometimes by getting back into the throttle and "steering" with the throttle, but I was a little too aggressive here and spun the tires. My brother caught this photo as the rear was kicking out.



One thing about autocross is every event organizer, venue, and track layout is different. The main reason I do autocross instead of track days is the relatively low speeds and low likelihood of crashing the car. This track had one big sweeping corner in the back with a scary barrier and some parked vehicles/storage. I drove a lot more conservatively entering and driving through this corner as a result.







The car did really well and I had an awesome time. I will say afterwards I looked through some of the video I took and really wish I had done that between runs - I could see a lot of obvious areas I needed to slow down and change my line or brake later or sooner. In generally when I slow down I tend to go faster.

The only issue I had was near the end of the day my passenger exhaust V-band came apart. You can see it dangling in the last photo above. The t-bolt went missing, but one of the guys happened to be a diesel mechanic and had a clamp on hand I was able to steel hardware from and put it back together. I am pretty sure the V-band was pulled off by a large lip entering the airport because on the way out, having just repaired it, the same lip pulled it back off and I had to repair it a second time before heading home. That poor v-band is just way too low on the car.

I also lost one of my center caps in one of my last runs. Luckily it came off at the same corner my brother was working and rolled right over to him. When I got back to the grid someone told me it was missing and I took the remaining ones off for the last runs. I was surprised it managed to come off because the caps are very tight, but I guess that's what 1.1g lateral does to things. Maybe the wheel heated up and/or flexed under load and sent the cap flying.

The car drove great on the 100mile trip back, but it very badly needs an overdrive transmission. With the TH400, 3.73s and 25" tall tires, it's turning about 3,500rpm at 70mph. When I get a T56 (which has a double overdrive 0.64 ratio in 6th) that will go down to a much more friendly 2,200rpm. Gas mileage is suffering tremendously.

I am ready to get back to the C6 Vette brake upgrade. Parts have been sitting for over a year now because I've been afraid of putting the car back on stands, but I pulled them all out and I'm back to work. Hopefully that 200mile plus racing trip will satisfy my thirst for driving until the brake swap is done. I'll post photos as I make progress.

G Atsma

GREAT report Clint! Looks like you had a real blast, and learned a lot about the car while you were at it. Waiting to see how the new brakes do....

-TheBandit-

iTrader: (1)

Thanks for reading. It's always a great learning experience. You just don't push the car (pun intended) on the streets the way you do on a course.

ryeguy2006a

iTrader: (27)

Looking great Clint! Your C6 brake swap will be night and day.

-TheBandit-

iTrader: (1)

And so the front brake upgrade begins... inventory:



Parts list:
- Kore3 hubs w/ Timken bearings, seals, caliper brackets, and stainless lines with ARP 1/2" studs
- Stoptech Powerslot rotors 325mm / 12.8in (standard/base Corvette) 126.62085SR & SL
- Hawk HPS pads HB247F.575
- C6 standard 2 piston calipers and abutments (used)
- Tuff Stuff 2229NC dual 9" brake booster (original application is C3 'vette)
- Generic 3/8-24 clevis rod extender
- DSE 050302 reduced angle booster brackets
- S10 RHD master cylinder 1" bore 18M974

I started by installing the wheel studs with a bit of Loctite and 85ft-lb. I couldn't think of a better way to hold them while torquing than threading in a couple studs in and holding onto lug nuts in my bench vise.







After that I decided it was time to get the car up in the air and on stands. This part of a project always gives me anxiety not knowing how long the car will be out of commission. Also I actually did this twice; the first time was Saturday after the Ridgecrest earthquakes and I realized just after getting it up on the stands that an aftershock could be dangerous, so I lowered the car and waited a few days before raising it again. Come to find out, someone actually lost their life under a vehicle during the quakes (article here).



Here is the stock front disc setup in all it's glory. It features an 11" rotor and a large single piston cast iron caliper.



After pulling the caliper and hub/disc assembly, you can see the spindle, dust shield, and caliper mounting bracket. The two lower bolts go through to the steering arm and the upper is threaded directly into the spindle.



I tend to make a mess. I like having all my tools in reach. This job was made a lot more comfortable with a stool.



Here is what it looks like down to just the spindle.



After a little cleaning, I attached the caliper brackets. The instructions provided by Kore3 show images with similar brackets mounted completely differently on a front-steer arrangement - I think the images were from a different application. The brackets mount with the milled-off pockets against the spindle and a large spacer at the top if you have disc spindles like mine. If you don't have disc spindles, you don't install the top spacer.





You might also notice I didn't replace the front steering arm bolt. I found the one provided by Kore3 was about 3/8" longer and could interfere with my swaybar standoff if turned to lock. So I reused the original bolt. I tightened the lower 1/2" bolts to 85ft-lb and the big 5/8" bolt up top to 135ft-lb.

Next I packed the wheel bearings with a high temp wheel bearing grease. I chose to do them by hand. Even though I have a tool to do this with a grease gun I just like doing them by hand. It's important to press grease all the way through and between the bearings so there are no air pockets and rotate things a few times to make sure everything is well coated.



Once the rear bearings were packed, I coated the rear seal with a little grease and pressed it in by hand using a seal/bearing driver.



Then I lightly coated the spindle seal and bearing surfaces with grease and installed the hub. Folllowing Kore3's recommendation, I tightened the spindle nut to a very light 12ft-lb and rotated/retightened a few times to make sure the bearings were seated, then I backed the nut off about 1/8 turn and installed a new cotter pin.



The hubs come with an o-ring sealed cap which is held by 4 very small socket cap screws. I'm pretty sure I'll strip these little guys out quickly so I may replace with something else if I can find anything more suitable.



Finally I was able to mock up the rotors and calipers.







I am pretty happy with where things are going. Here's the old vs the new:

Old stock discs, 11" rotor single piston


New C5/6 discs, 12.8" rotor 2-piston


Unfortunately I have a little work travel coming up so I probably will not make further progress for another week or so.

Project GatTagO

iTrader: (7)

Those should work very well!

Andrew

frojoe

iTrader: (10)

Nice!!!!

-TheBandit-

iTrader: (1)

I've been working on the brakes off and on and making progress. It was finally time to take out the old master/booster combo.



I took a few measurements on the existing line locations to get a relative starting point for new lines down the road. I plan to reuse the original distribution block and warning switch, so knowing the relative location of the distribution block should be sufficient for planning out the new lines.



Here is the original single 11" diaphragm booster and the new dual 9" booster. The booster is a Tuff Stuff 2229NC originally for a C3 Corvette. I am using DSE low angle mounting brackets.





I started by measuring the clevis length on the original booster relative to the firewall mounting surface.



I bought a universal 3/8-24 clevis extension which of course needed to be cut down to achieve the right length. The bandsaw made quick work of that.







I had read about folks needing to clearance the firewall hole for this booster. Sure enough the bellows on the input rod measures about 2" diameter while the firewall hole measures only 1-3/4". This bellows is not intended to seal on the firewall - in the original C3 application, there is a seal right up against the booster and the bellows is just under the dash area. Using this in my Nova, I don't think there's a good way to make it seal without potentially interfering with the pushrod movement. I'd rather not chance the brakes hanging up, so I have decided I am willing to leave this area unsealed.





Here's the booster loosely in place to show there's no way the bellows would fit through the firewall hole unmodified.





I decided to open the hole to 2" diameter. I picked up a special mandrel that holes two holesaws at once so the smaller can be used to pilot the larger one. This worked extremely well! The mandrel is part of the Bosch HE1 hole enlarger kit.





Unfortunately even after enlarging to 2" there was still interference with the bellows at the bottom of the hole, which you can see below from the inside of the cabin.



So I marked the hole and used a carbide cutter to enlarge it at the bottom by about 1/4", which provided adequate clearance.







Here are the master and booster now installed in their new home. I'm happy to report good clearance all around using the low angle DSE mounting brackets.

G Atsma

Nice job Clint! Very neat install!