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Great video Andrew. Couldn't have done it better myself. One of my favorite tools and I have had plenty of success with both fuel lines on my car and hydraulic lines for industrial equipment. You did a nice job explaining how the tool works, including the break-away feature. Subscribed!
Joe - Flexible hose is pretty straightforward and demands fewer tools so if you are comfortable with the stuff I think you should stick with it in the interest of time and frustration. Flexible hose is a lot more forgiving in terms of routing because it's not as sensitive to length or exact location - just take it to where it's needed. I suspect hardlines would be a tad more reliable, but either will work and likely outlast this iteration of the car. I personally find a lot of satisfaction in doing hardlines, but it's a learning curve and you may not want to be making scrap lengths of pricey -10 stainless tubing if you could more quickly get the car together using hose. Either way you go, I think you should use the new motor mount pedestals and route the hose/tube underneath along the side of the pan. If you use hose, place some P-clamps strategically to keep it from rubbing on the frame and it should work great.
I can't believe how long it's taken to get a replacement valve. That ghost box you got was quite a forehead slapper. But I see most of the dominos are standing now - you just have to knock them down.
Got the valve last night! Inspected it, all looks good, so slammed it in the head and the heads are now finally ready to go on the short block tomorrow, along with the flywheel and clutch.
For the routing, I'm thinking the same idea of routing everything hugging the block under the motor mount, secured by several P clamps. I'm going to mock up the routing of the oil cooler hot/cold lines (-10AN) along with the driver side drain (-10AN) to see what packaging is like. For simplicity I would love to put a heat protective sheath (at the minimum) over the cold return oil cooler line, then clump all three lines together with a single P clamp to the motor mount adapter plate on the block. If space allows, I would like to have all 3 hoses have individual heat protective sheaths to keep that turbo drain heat away from the other lines.
Going forward of the motor mount, I'm going to snake all 3 lines around the P/S pump, then right around the subframe where the turbo drain starts to angle up, I'm going to make a "junction block" for the oil cooler lines. This block will be mounted to the subframe, which is why I'm heavily leaning towards soft lines for all the oil hoses snaking under the motor mount. This block will break up the length of the hoses going from the oil cooler adapter at the pan to oil cooler itself, in case a repair needs to be made. But the main function of this junction block is it will have two -4AN fittings welded to it on the oil cooler cold return side, to pull fresh oil for the turbos as the rest of the oil is en route back to the engine.
Tried a 45* -10AN adapter fitting on the oil pan, as well as got the motor mount pedestals mocked up..
Also cut a clearance notch in the subframe for the alternator plug. It's crazy do go thru all this work just to be able to remove the alternator plug, even though the alternator itself cleared the subframe. Oh well, everything is apart right now so it's easy enough..
This turbo drain routing is super tight to the block, but I'm still unsure what kind of room there will be for the oil cooler lines. I think I'm just going to go with 3x hard lines onboard of the motor mount for the turbo drain and oil cooler lines, just for added clearance...
Proceeding forward, my first turbo (Turbonetics TC76) got low oil pressure back in.... 2012(?) and disintegrated its journal bearing, and let oil leak into the air side. I found trace amounts of oil in nooks and crannies of the truck intake and the intercooler.
Most of the crud on the pistons was some carbon buildup, but other stuff was a bit crustier which I suspect was caked oil from that turbo blowup. Pretty easy to wipe the crap off with a quick spray of carb cleaner and a rag, some of the more caked on stuff needed a thumbnail scratch to be removed... but it's all minty looking now.
Can still see the cross-hatching from the rebuild bore in 2011...
Can see the difference in strengthening webbing on the LS9 head (left) vs the 317 head (right).
Can see how much bigger the exhaust ports are on the LS9 heads, and how much smaller the 317 heads' exhaust ports are relative to the exhaust manifolds.
Comparison of the intake ports between LS9 and 317 truck.
OF COURSE, there is always something. I totally forgot to order the $6 offset-intake LS3 rocker pedestal trays, so that prevented me from installing the rockers, checking for piston/valve interference, double-checking the pushrod length, and if the pushrod length is the same then installing and final torquing the heads. Dammit.. will see if the dealership has these cast aluminum bits tomorrow and maybe, just maybe finally wrap up the motor stuff.
I sourced some nickel plated steel JIC tube sleeves and tube nuts locally, found a place that has stainless tube in a variety of diameters and wall thicknesses, and ordered the Ridgid 377 last night.
On the topic of multitasking, since the dealership parts desk wasn't open on Sundays, I made a bunch of progress on stuff in my work's shop yesterday. Phewph.. I think I've put in about 15 hours of wrenching/fabricating this weekend.
I'm going to pick up new rocker pedestals from the dealership today, and pick up the exhaust manifolds from the ceramic coater tomorrow, as well as some new engine mount bolts.
I'm still unsure if I'm going to reuse my pushrods, but wanted to check them anyways. It'd be good to know if any were bent, just as a data point.. luckily all were arrow straight! Also helps to have a nice expensively-flat surface table at work...
Next up I wanted to chip away a bit more progress on the intercooler.. this thing has been sitting in the back at work for what feels like 2 months already. Got the bottom tanks all welded up, will now wait till the engine and turbos are back on to final-fit the upper outlet and then figure out the upper tank geometry.
It was super tricky trying to manage the heat going into it, since the end tanks were 0.100" wall and the intercooler core is so much thicker. Also avoiding melting back the fins was a tricky situation. I normally ball up the tungsten to help with heat dispensing, however I got best results with having the tungsten an un-balled slightly blunt tip, with about 1/8" stickout from a #6 cup to really be able to laser-beam direct the heat, favouring the core however not soaking the core to the point of melting fins. I needed to use an 1/8" tungsten to help with the 210-230A heat, since I actually tried using a 3/32" tungsten but the heat melted the tungsten itself twice.
Then I wrapped up the motor mount pedestals. I triangulated the drive side since it's under tension, but I didn't want to eat up too much room on the inboard side so I just added some 1/8" flat bar strapping to strengthen the rectangular tube weld to the flat plate, as well as give the flat plate some rigidity...
I also added a simple rectangular tube gusset to the passenger side (under compression) just to help the welds and spread the load on the plate a bit better...
Lastly, I face milled the T3 turbo flanges on the hot piping, since they experienced some warpage. I normally try to weld things on a jig or with some type of reinforcement, but with the flanges being 3/8" thick, and in the interest of time, I gave it a go. Lesson learned...
The 1/2" thick SS304 flanges for the manifolds came out nice and flat...
The 3/8" T3 SS304 flanges from Precision didn't come out as flat...
On the passenger side I ended up removing about 0.030" to flatten the gasket area..
The driver side only needed about 0.010" removed...
Face milling after welding is key. 0.030in is plenty to cause a gasket leak. I don't see enough people doing this step I'm sure due to lack of equipment - good call. Why didn't you face all the way to the edge where the mounting holes are? Or is the photo/reflection playing tricks?
The motor mounts look indestructible. I'm sure the frame will tear out before those go anywhere. The motor mounts themselves are your weak leak.
I'm sure you'll be happy with that 377 flaring tool. What bender are you going to use? Are you doing stainless or plain steel lines? Plain steel will be easier to straighten, bend, and flare plus cheaper. I don't think I'd do stainless given the extra headache, but you are a bit of an overachiever.
I like the progress on the intercooler. Look forward to seeing how you do the outlet. I'll bet welding that thing was a PITA.
The face-mill pics aren't playing tricks.. I left the couple areas unmilled as I didn't want to keep removing material.. the key areas for the gaskets are flat now so it's all good. There's also the possibility that those areas could add some spring/preload to the bolts going thru those holes, and maybe act kinda like spring washers... who knows.
Good notes about the mild steel vs. stainless steel. SS is for sure harder to work with.. but what would you recommend for a coating if I went with mild steel? I guess surface rust on the outside of the tube isn't a huge deal.. but would be nice to just not have to worry about that. Some high-temp VHT spray paint?
I'm happy with the motor mounts.. I was a little on the fence about the space (between gusset and bolt holes) on the outboard side of the driver side (yellow circle below), but I wanted to keep that area open for downpipe clearance and possible turbo drain line routing. After thinking about it a bit, I figured the engine torque is going to be pinned about the passenger side mount, so the torque will be pulling directly up, which will try to "open up" the inboard side (red arrows) more harshly than it will try to rip open the yellow circle area.. so I left the yellow area untouched and added the 1/8" strap for rigidity to the red area.
I don't know what's available in 1/2", but I have been using terne coated steel for my fuel lines. That's the same kind of finish used on gas tanks. I haven't had any issues with corrosion. Plain steel would be perfectly fine for oil lines (plain steel is very common on industrial hydraulics), but a coated steel wouldn't require finishing to keep it from rusting on the outside. Zinc, terne or ni-terne would be my preference IF they're available. You can still paint over them if you don't like the silver finish, but they will be protected from corrosion inside & out. I would look to your local hydraulic supplier for options - they will likely stock some flavor of hydraulic steel tubing to get the job done. If coated isn't available you may be "stuck" with painting plain steel or using stainless. Stainless would be the best from a corrosion-resistance perspective, just a lot harder to bend and flare plus more expensive when errors happen. I personally don't think stainless is warranted in this application.
I don't think you have anything to worry about with your frame stands. The rubber mounts are going to fail way before those have problems
Last edited by -TheBandit-; May 1, 2018 at 10:01 AM.
Reason: fixed autocorrect and typographical errors
Thanks for all that info Clint. I'm totally fine with not using stainless, I just haven't looked into coated-as-purchased tubing yet.. I was figuring I would probably only find mild steel and then have to deal with it from there. I'll call around this week and see what I can find.
Had to order the rocker pedestals from the next province over.. should be here by Wednesday. I have everything lined up to check the heads and final-torque them Saturday morning, then install flywheel/clutch/trans and maybe if all goes well install the engine/trans in.
I'm running out of things to machine independent of the garage (AKA after hours at work), other than modifying a neat new shifter/lever/**** setup that will look a little more modern-purposeful, AKA racecar.
I've also prettymuch set up the trans cooler pump and lines system, I just need to make a bracket to hold the pump to the trans and then I'll upload all those progress pics.
I'm not familiar with manual transmission coolers. Do/will you have a transmission temperature gauge? I'm kind of surprised a cooler would be needed? Are they known to cook behind big power?
Clint the oil pump is purely to move oil from the back of the trans to the front. The Magnum has an "access" port pointed just above the meshing point of the front gearset (not sure what actual gear that is). Under sustained acceleration, the oil sloshes to the back of the trans.. when the front gearset and bearing(s) run dry, they get hot... when they get hot, bad things happen!
Damn Joe, You don't get much sleep do you? LOL. Looking fricken awesome.
Haha thanks Jim. I'll admit I'm starting to get a bit fatigued with crazy busy regular work, then car work after hours... but I'm a man with a mission! Aside from all the stuff I've posted, I've also been working on: new shifter, fuel rail brackets, trans pump setup, and driveshaft yoke swap... it never ends!
One of the other side projects has been adapting my Summit fuel rails to the new LS3 intake. I got new short LS3-style 95 lb/hr injectors to replace the previous 56 lb/hr mid-length LS2 style injectors.
Turned an aluminum insert to tightly fit in the injector cup on the intake, to measure the angle that the injectors are supposed to rest at...
The bolt hole spacing is pretty close, but not overlapping, so a little bracket is indeed feasible...
Here are the little brackets, with one side milled at 11 degrees which is the inboard angle of the injectors relative to the mid plane... AKA the "camber" of the injectors+rails, in case anyone is interested...
Slotted one of the two brackets per side just to help with assembly misalignment etc...
And there they are, installed!...
Well what I thought was an LS3 intake is actually an L76 intake.. which means a clip-on MAP sensor and not a bolt-on sensor. First issue is the bore in the intake that the sensor rests in is smaller for the clip-on sensor, so I had to drill it out to 12mm to receive the body of the bolt-on style MAP sensor...
The other annoying part is the installed height leaves a gap which allowed the whole sensor to wiggle a LOT. Best to fix that...
I made a little bolt-on bracket that wedges between the MAP sensor and its clip on the manifold, and the bracket bolts to the sensor so that it doesn't wiggle out. This sensor is now jammed on there TIGHT.. perfect...
Is that the same MAP sensor you used previously? I seem to recall the bolt on sensors have a different connector than the clip on sensors. I know i had to swap connectors on my harness when making the change. Is your harness compatible with the sensor you're using now?
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