JZUPS

Troy, I also purchased a salvage/wrecked ls1 6-speed combo, and have been impressed with your work and photos. I am in process of researching and swapping into my 66 malibu.
Keep up the good work, and keep the updates coming.
John

99VetteFRC

Your PCV situation, the vent from the TB to the vave cover is how the factory hooks runs it. However, the PCV would go in the back driver valve cover and to the intake. On my 4.8L the driver valve over has a PCV grommet, and the hose goes right to the top of the intake uner the cover. Your valve covr appears to have an oil fill with some kind of vent adapter. My 99Vette PCV runs frm the port on the intake that you have capped round the back o the intake to th PCV in the driver rear valve cover. After I did the LS1 intake conversion on my Chevelle, I put a small vent breather on the passenger valve cover vent, and then ran a hose around the back of the intake from the PCV in the back of the driver valve cover to the port you have capped in the intake. ope this helps, might be overkill but I wanted to give a good explantion.

71Fakes

iTrader: (2)

Update time!

Pic 1:
I got the radiator and electric fans back in. The radiator is a Be Cool Chevelle unit that has been on the car for many, many years now. Factory Chevelle inlet/outlet locations and size. The fans are a dual setup from Derale. When we did the wiring, we used the F-body fan connections to hook-up the fans.

Pic 2:
For the lower radiator hose, I used part number 70649 that I found at my local parts store. If you look closely in the picture, you can see the pieces I cut off to get it to fit.

Like many others have done, I got a good idea of what the hoses needed to look like, then spent some time digging through what was available at the parts store.

Pic 3:
The upper radiator hose was more of a problem. I could not find a single hose that would work. The Chevelle radiator outlet was 1.5" OD. The F-body water pump inlet is 1.25". Since I also needed a location for the steam vent line to connect to, I decided to use two hoses and an adapter.
Parts used:
1 - 71713 hose to connect to the radiator
1 - small 1.25" hose with a 90 degree bend
1 - Be Cool radiator hose adaptor #72102
1 - brass hose barb

Sadly, I have found out my heater core is leaking, so the heater hoses will just be looped together for the time being.

71Fakes

iTrader: (2)

I was able to use a couple rubber couplers and some leftover piping from my old supercharger setup to get a system together. Ended up being pretty cheap and should work fine.

What is not pictured is the K&N air filter. I ended up mounting it down near the bottom of the radiator. If I get some more pictures later, I will post them up.

71Fakes

iTrader: (2)

These headers have been a continual pain-in-the-tail during this whole build. I went to install the oil filter, and it wouldn't go on!!! One of the primary tubes curves so close to the oil filter adapter from this Champ Pan that it doesn't let the filter even get close to screwing on.

I tried to show this in pic 1, but it is hard to see.
Compare it to Pic 2 and you can see the difference after I removed the headers (AGAIN!) and reworked them some more.

Another note: the Champ Pan adapter uses an AC Delco PF48 oil filter, not a standard F-body oil filter.

chuckd71

iTrader: (23)

What is your time frame for having this finished?

71Fakes

iTrader: (2)

I also ended up having to modify the oil dipstick. As you can see in the picture below, the bracket for the oil dipstick hit the header flange and would not sit all the way down. In fact, the head of the OE bolt also hit the flange and needed to be ground down.

After a little cutting and grinding, it fit nicely.

Not a big deal, but just annoying that it needed to be done.

71Fakes

iTrader: (2)

This is the one that fit my application. It might be slightly big, as the tensioner is not 100% in the middle of its area. We will see how it holds up over time.

71Fakes

iTrader: (2)

I have done a lot of investigating what it will take to get my Auto Meter gauges to work. Fortunately, there is wealth of information out there on this.

First step for me was the temp sender. Using the Auto Meter 2259 and 2277 allowed me to utilize the factory tapped location in the rear of the passenger's side head.

Note, I haven't hooked this (or any other gauges) up yet until after I fire the motor...just in case.

71Fakes

iTrader: (2)

The big update is that I actually fired the motor for the first time!!! This happened last Tuesday 1/8.

As normal with anything like this, there was a host of problems:
- First attempt was highly anti-climactic as the starter just "clicked". The starter gear was coming out, but nothing was spinning. We then noticed sparks coming from the starter! Not good. 1.5hrs later from troubleshooting (including a trip to the parts store to test the starter), we realized the grounding strap on the starter was not tight. The sparking was the arc from the solenoid to the grounding strap.

- The second attempt had the motor fire up right away! Success!! We were very excited for all of about 10 seconds before one of the fuel injectors started spraying fuel everywhere. Turns out one of the O-rings had small tear that I hadn't noticed. Just enough to let lots of fuel soak the intake.

- The third attempt was after replacing the O-ring on that injector. Fired up smoothly again. No fuel leaks. Power steering was making some noise even with the reservoir full of fluid. I think it turns out this was just excessive air in the lines with the hydroboost unit. This has since gone away.

- The fourth attempt was the first run over a about a minute. Now I started to notice a very distinct lifter tap. This eventually went away. I am assuming one of the lifters has collapsed since the motor has been setting for so long, and it just took some time to get oil to it.
This does bring up another point though. Champ Pans claims their oil pan is 5.5qts. I put a 5+qt jug in the motor and it didn't even show up on the dipstick. It took 7qts before the oil level showed correctly on the dipstick.

- The fifth attempt was to get the motor all the way up to operating temperature to see if the fans would turn on. Right about the time the coolant system started to really build pressure, I had a huge gush of coolant from my heater core. I guess I cracked it at some point during this whole process. So, I now have the heater hoses looped together until I get a chance to fix this.

- The sixth attempt was again trying to get it up to full operating temperature. About 30 seconds into the run, a different fuel injector started to spray fuel all over the motor.


At this point I am getting enough O-rings to replace all of them on the motor and be done with this!! I'll post up again whenever that happens!

Anyway, this was a big step in this swap, and I am very excited. To get the car all the way back on the road, I still need to finish bleeding the brakes and clutch and install the interior. I will probably leave the interior as just seats until I get the heater core fixed. I hope to have the first test drive here very soon!

71Fakes

iTrader: (2)

I put the car up on jack-stands to test to see if the clutch and trans would work properly.

Even with the clutch pushed in all the way, the tires would not stop spinning. Obviously, I was not getting full travel on the clutch master cylinder. The clutch pedal was on the floor board, so obviously something else was up.

After some testing, I realized I simply needed more travel (not just air in the lines or something like that).

I originally had the clutch master cylinder bolted to the factory Chevelle location. Instead, it needed to be in the location you see in the picture below. This brings the pedal up higher, which allows me more room before bottoming out.

Problem solved!

71Fakes

iTrader: (2)

The Chevelle finally moved under its own power yesterday!!

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ZB7MQSiZ9d0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Alternate link just in case that doesn't work:
The LS7 clutch was very touchy. Only engaging/disengaging about 1mm from the bottom. Doing some research on here says it will correct itself over time. Makes for taking off very touchy, but doable.

Things left now:
- trouble-shoot fans. They are running all of the time.
- wire up gauges
- stop a PS leak
- re-install seat belts
After this, I will start to drive it for awhile. Make sure all of the bugs are worked out. Then:
- install AC system
- install interior carpet
- recover seats
- make a custom center console

LS2GS

Your car looks and sounds great! I am at the same point you are, fine tuning, chasing demons, tightening bolts, and finishing touches. These Ls engines and 6 speeds are so rewarding! Nice Work!

cprmn14

Sounds and looks great!

71Fakes

iTrader: (2)

Thanks!

alaninin

iTrader: (1)

Nice job!!! Watching your video gets want to het to here mine for the first time. Your car sounds great. I am doing the same build.on my 70 Chevelle.

71Fakes

iTrader: (2)

During my first drive, I noticed a lot of power steering fluid leaking from the gear box. I had forgotten that I needed to adapt the old style Chevelle flared PS hoses to the new Jeep Grand Cherokee steering box.

A call to Lee Manufacturing (http://lee-powersteering.com/) got the 2 fittings and the installation tool. See the pictures attached.

Easy to install, and seems to have solved my problem.

71Fakes

iTrader: (2)

It has been some pretty cold and rainy/snowy weather here lately, but I finally got it out for a venture outside of the neighborhood. Drove for about 15-20 miles.

Still a slight PS leak. Now seems to be the hose itself. This is one of the original Chevelle hoses. I am not sure how old it is. I also have a pretty significant squeak coming from the tensioner (of course, as it is one of the only pieces that is not new on the car!!).

Here is a picture afterwards. I just knocked the dust off, and it is already looking a lot better. Can't wait until I really get after it with the clay bar and some wax. Should look a lot better.

71Fakes

iTrader: (2)

As it turns out, once I fixed the leak noted above on my power steering, I then had fluid coming from around the output shaft where the pitman arm bolts on.

For those that need to look into it, the Jeepforum.com is an excellent resource. A guy over there did some very detailed write-ups on dissassembling and reassembling these gear boxes.

Dissassembly: http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f13/h...-gear-1287129/

Rebuild: http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f13/h...-gear-1287958/

<$20 of gaskets later & using pieces of the instructions at the link, I have fixed this link again also!

71Fakes

iTrader: (2)

As many people have noted before, the KWiK Performance brackets can have a tendency to chip or squeal depending on the setup.

My setup is factory F-body (water pump, etc) then using the PS and ALT bracket from KWiK.

During my initial drives, it has sounded like a pack of chicks chirping under my hood. No relationship could be seen to temperature or speed...just to engine RPM.

I could tell it was coming from the idler location between the crank and PS pulleys. So, I took the idler apart and made put some wheel bearing grease on the surfaces between the idler and the standoff and the bolt head and the idler. This didn't really make much difference.

Following some google searches recommendation on really looking at pulley alignment, I put a straight edge across the PS pulley and then measured to the edge of the belt on the crank and alternator.

Crank flat-edge -> belt = 6mm
PS flat-edge -> belt = 4mm
ALT flat-edge -> belt = 8mm
(see pic #1)

Seeing how the Crank -> Idler -> PS are so close together, it makes sense it is chirping since the belt is needing to move 2mm in such a short distance, across the idler. The chirp is coming from sideways movement on the idler.

Using this info, I pushed the PS pulley on past-flush with the end of the PS shaft (see pic #2) until the above measurements were the same on the crank and PS.

Result: chirp is GONE!!!