1968 Camaro Resto-mod LS3/6 speed; Project Penny Pincher
07-09-2021, 06:50 AM
#162
did you buy a LSA complete engine or just the blower set up and install it on a LS motor, sorry I haven't read the complete thread, I was just reading about the HX and air problems, pretty cool, during the drought time here in FL, my pool does that sometimes if I don't pay attention to it,
07-09-2021, 07:43 AM
#163
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Hey Steve, no this wasn't a complete LSA. I pieced together a complete motor. It's a SBE L92 with new King bearings throughout, Mahle file fit rings gapped to .024/.026. Stock 821 Heads with PAC dual springs, LS9 head gaskets, ARP head bolts, Summit stage 1 cam, 2.5" upper pulley and a reinforced intercooler brick. I'm really happy that I solved the IAT issues I was having.
I wanted to do a "stress test" to see if my current setup could hold temperature or if I needed to upgrade to a larger/better fan. I got my wish by accident and was stuck in stand still traffic earlier this week. It was around 80* and cruising down the highway the ECT was around 190-192 with the IAT was around 95. That's where the engine temps normally ran the last two years with the LS1, so I was stoked because it was really efficiently cooling the new motor AND the IAT's are right where they should be around 20* over ambient. Well that changed when I was in stand still traffic for about 15-20 mins. I changed the fan temps to come on at 200 off at 205, so the engine temps went up to around 205 pretty quickly and the IAT just slowly gained a degree or two every minute. I had to pick up my wife from the service department for her car, and by the time I got there the engine temps were around 225 and the IAT's were 140. The temps just slowly creeped up which tells me that the fan just couldn't keep up.
I was hoping to get through the summer with this fan, but I don't want to hurt something by pinching pennies, so I picked up a low mileage take off C7 fan. Not sure if I'll try and use the stock shroud or make my own mount in my existing shroud. I want to get my hands on it and I'll make that decision later. It should be a huge difference. My cheapo eBay fan is rated around 2000 CFM, but I extremely doubt that is true. Maybe half of that. I found a company online called DeWitts who tested the stock C7 600 watt fan vs their upgraded 19" fan. The stock fan tested at 2900+ CFM at 90% duty. This should work really nicely for my needs.
I wanted to do a "stress test" to see if my current setup could hold temperature or if I needed to upgrade to a larger/better fan. I got my wish by accident and was stuck in stand still traffic earlier this week. It was around 80* and cruising down the highway the ECT was around 190-192 with the IAT was around 95. That's where the engine temps normally ran the last two years with the LS1, so I was stoked because it was really efficiently cooling the new motor AND the IAT's are right where they should be around 20* over ambient. Well that changed when I was in stand still traffic for about 15-20 mins. I changed the fan temps to come on at 200 off at 205, so the engine temps went up to around 205 pretty quickly and the IAT just slowly gained a degree or two every minute. I had to pick up my wife from the service department for her car, and by the time I got there the engine temps were around 225 and the IAT's were 140. The temps just slowly creeped up which tells me that the fan just couldn't keep up.
I was hoping to get through the summer with this fan, but I don't want to hurt something by pinching pennies, so I picked up a low mileage take off C7 fan. Not sure if I'll try and use the stock shroud or make my own mount in my existing shroud. I want to get my hands on it and I'll make that decision later. It should be a huge difference. My cheapo eBay fan is rated around 2000 CFM, but I extremely doubt that is true. Maybe half of that. I found a company online called DeWitts who tested the stock C7 600 watt fan vs their upgraded 19" fan. The stock fan tested at 2900+ CFM at 90% duty. This should work really nicely for my needs.
07-09-2021, 02:09 PM
#164
What’s the size of the fan(s)? What size opening are you working with? (Core). Hooking this up with the Terminator, right?
07-09-2021, 02:21 PM
#165
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It's a single 16" fan, but is crazy powerful. My core is roughly 21" x 18". Yes, I'll be hooking it all up using Terminator. I should just need to change the output to PWM rather than a ground signal and create a PWM- duty cycle table.
07-12-2021, 04:49 AM
#167
07-12-2021, 07:28 AM
#168
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John, I think the measurements were something like 20" x 16" for the shroud. I bought one and received it over the weekend, so I can get an exact measurement for you. I also measured the fan diameter itself and it is not a 16" fan, but rather a 14.5" fan. So it's actually more compact than I though originally. After an initial test fit, I'm going to modify the C7 shroud to fit on my shroud. I like how it has the integrated "flaps" for the air when the car is moving forward.
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07-13-2021, 01:21 PM
#172
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I'm definitely interested in the dimensions on this. When I looked it before (Andrew B suggested looking into it), I was getting really wide dimensions but sounds like I was looking at the wrong ones.
07-15-2021, 02:06 PM
#173
Was Andrews fans C7/8 or Volt? I thought he used Chevrolet Volt. It’s so hard to stay up on all the good builds on here.
07-16-2021, 07:26 AM
#174
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Andrew's fan assembly is from a volt. It runs twin 12" 300 Watt motors in a nice shroud. Mine doesn't quite fit the core as nicely as his, but hopefully I can come up with a clean install.
07-21-2021, 08:53 AM
#176
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I'm happy to report that the C7 fan install is now complete. I really liked how my current shroud covered the entire core so I wanted to find a way that I could mount the fan assembly to it. I started by removing the shroud and then test fitting the unmodified C7 fan.
The picture makes it look bigger than it is, but it has about 3/4" on both sides of the shroud when centered. Just way too deep and needs to be trimmed down. First picture is unmodified and mocked up. Could definitely be used as is, but I wanted it to fit tighter to the radiator.
Here's a close up of the motor. The 600 in there means that it's the 600 Watt version of the C7 fan. The earlier models could have come with a 500 Watt version.
I also debated on removing the fan from the shroud and making my own custom mount similar to what VA does with their aftermarket fan for 67-69 Camaro's. It fits nearly perfect in the 16" fan opening.
This is a VA shroud for my car that I saw at a Car show this past weekend. I think that is based of the Gen6 Camaros as it uses an even bigger 850 Watt fan!
Problem that I didn't want to deal with was how far away from the shroud it was going to sit. I could have fabricated something, but I didn't want to do that at this point.
One thing that was pretty interesting was that the inside of the fan shroud has these little ribs that are the same depth the entire way around the inside of the shroud. Stock there are 4 of those ribs, so after deciding that I as going to modify the C7 shroud, I cut 2 ribs off which was about 5/8".
With the 2 ribs cut, you can still use the stock mounting tabs, but since my radiator wasn't quite wide enough to easily use them, I decided to cut another two. Ended up being quite a bit of material that I removed.
I took measurements before and after cutting and the shroud must be parallel since the measurements were the same. Width is 21 3/8", side height is 13.5" and the height at the center is 15 3/8"
Here is right before one of the final test fits. I found that in between two of the ribs for the upper part, it lined up perfectly with the upper nuts that were already on the shroud. For the rear, I found a space between two ribs, but added my own Rivnut. Really easy and mounted very solidly.
Then I mounted up a 70 amp breaker for the fan. It draws a lot of juice and this was recommended to me by Andrew. I was able to use a little pillar and threaded a bolt I had into it for a solid mount. Very pleased with how it all came out. I had a few missing "flaps" and found a guy on a Corvette forum who had a few spares. So they are on the way, but for now I made a few temporary pieces. I'm not sure if I will end up trimming the shroud in front of the "flaps" to encourage more airflow at speed or not. I want to run it and see how it performs. If I am not getting the cooling I want I'll modify them for more airflow.
Installed in the car and ready to wire up. I'm really pleased with how it turned out.
I bought some more 8 ga wire, a 70 amp circuit breaker and a Yazaki connector kit (bought on eBay) with an assortment of terminals to get it all wired up.
I found that my big crimpers did a great job on the open barrel terminals once I bent them over slightly. One thing on this connector that was a little different was there is this inner white locking piece that had to be popped up in order to insert the terminals into the slots. Otherwise it was very straight forward.
Used some appropriately sized terminals and glued heat shrink. I didn't get any pictures, but the ground side goes directly to the battery. The positive side goes from the connector, to the breaker, then directly to the battery. From all my research it is critical to get the appropriately sized wire for this job. You will not be able to get away with 12 ga wire. According to Spal, this wire could get hot enough to melt the connector, so make sure the wire is sufficiently sized for the job.
The last thing was adjusting the tune in Holley to use a PWM- signal rather than a straight ground. I tested it in the garage and it worked great. I didn't get a chance to test it as it was raining, but I'm hoping to within the next few days.
Thanks,
Ryan
The picture makes it look bigger than it is, but it has about 3/4" on both sides of the shroud when centered. Just way too deep and needs to be trimmed down. First picture is unmodified and mocked up. Could definitely be used as is, but I wanted it to fit tighter to the radiator.
Here's a close up of the motor. The 600 in there means that it's the 600 Watt version of the C7 fan. The earlier models could have come with a 500 Watt version.
I also debated on removing the fan from the shroud and making my own custom mount similar to what VA does with their aftermarket fan for 67-69 Camaro's. It fits nearly perfect in the 16" fan opening.
This is a VA shroud for my car that I saw at a Car show this past weekend. I think that is based of the Gen6 Camaros as it uses an even bigger 850 Watt fan!
Problem that I didn't want to deal with was how far away from the shroud it was going to sit. I could have fabricated something, but I didn't want to do that at this point.
One thing that was pretty interesting was that the inside of the fan shroud has these little ribs that are the same depth the entire way around the inside of the shroud. Stock there are 4 of those ribs, so after deciding that I as going to modify the C7 shroud, I cut 2 ribs off which was about 5/8".
With the 2 ribs cut, you can still use the stock mounting tabs, but since my radiator wasn't quite wide enough to easily use them, I decided to cut another two. Ended up being quite a bit of material that I removed.
I took measurements before and after cutting and the shroud must be parallel since the measurements were the same. Width is 21 3/8", side height is 13.5" and the height at the center is 15 3/8"
Here is right before one of the final test fits. I found that in between two of the ribs for the upper part, it lined up perfectly with the upper nuts that were already on the shroud. For the rear, I found a space between two ribs, but added my own Rivnut. Really easy and mounted very solidly.
Then I mounted up a 70 amp breaker for the fan. It draws a lot of juice and this was recommended to me by Andrew. I was able to use a little pillar and threaded a bolt I had into it for a solid mount. Very pleased with how it all came out. I had a few missing "flaps" and found a guy on a Corvette forum who had a few spares. So they are on the way, but for now I made a few temporary pieces. I'm not sure if I will end up trimming the shroud in front of the "flaps" to encourage more airflow at speed or not. I want to run it and see how it performs. If I am not getting the cooling I want I'll modify them for more airflow.
Installed in the car and ready to wire up. I'm really pleased with how it turned out.
I bought some more 8 ga wire, a 70 amp circuit breaker and a Yazaki connector kit (bought on eBay) with an assortment of terminals to get it all wired up.
I found that my big crimpers did a great job on the open barrel terminals once I bent them over slightly. One thing on this connector that was a little different was there is this inner white locking piece that had to be popped up in order to insert the terminals into the slots. Otherwise it was very straight forward.
Used some appropriately sized terminals and glued heat shrink. I didn't get any pictures, but the ground side goes directly to the battery. The positive side goes from the connector, to the breaker, then directly to the battery. From all my research it is critical to get the appropriately sized wire for this job. You will not be able to get away with 12 ga wire. According to Spal, this wire could get hot enough to melt the connector, so make sure the wire is sufficiently sized for the job.
The last thing was adjusting the tune in Holley to use a PWM- signal rather than a straight ground. I tested it in the garage and it worked great. I didn't get a chance to test it as it was raining, but I'm hoping to within the next few days.
Thanks,
Ryan
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Pro Stock John (07-21-2021)
07-22-2021, 01:06 PM
#179
Just wanted to say I've spent the past 2 days reading the build from the beginning over on the pro-touring site after seeing the car on here. Awesome build from start to finish, and really has me wanting to button up the 82 squarebody I've been working on with my dad for the past year and a half. Fighting what we are assuming are wiring issues at this point 
Keep up the good work man!
Keep up the good work man!
08-02-2021, 07:19 AM
#180
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Thank you, this has been a great project and has come further than I ever imagined when I first started building it over 5 years ago.
I'm pleased to report that the fans are working really well. I actually got stuck in stand still traffic over the weekend for about 15 mins and the temps stayed in right around 202-204. I have them commanded to come on at 202 and off at 198. The IAT's were good as well. They were around 90* cruising and crept up to around 108 and pretty much stayed there. The ambient temps were right around 70, so I'd like to do a stress test to find out what it does if the temps are 85-90 doing the same thing.
I'm still running the fan shroud as is and never cut open the inside. I think that I'm going to modify it to give the fan a more open space to draw the air from. I think that may encourage more airflow to possibly lower the IAT's. When I'm cruising down the highway I'm usually about 15-20* above ambient, so I know that it's cooling efficiently.
I'm pleased to report that the fans are working really well. I actually got stuck in stand still traffic over the weekend for about 15 mins and the temps stayed in right around 202-204. I have them commanded to come on at 202 and off at 198. The IAT's were good as well. They were around 90* cruising and crept up to around 108 and pretty much stayed there. The ambient temps were right around 70, so I'd like to do a stress test to find out what it does if the temps are 85-90 doing the same thing.
I'm still running the fan shroud as is and never cut open the inside. I think that I'm going to modify it to give the fan a more open space to draw the air from. I think that may encourage more airflow to possibly lower the IAT's. When I'm cruising down the highway I'm usually about 15-20* above ambient, so I know that it's cooling efficiently.