we're getting there. Later this week I'm going to sandblast and paint my headers. That's pretty much the last big thing I need to do before I can start dropping the motor in. Everything else I can deal with after the motor is in.

 

It's coming along nicely Jim!

 

It is looking good and great info on how to do some of the masking. I hope to be doing it this fall or winter myself.

 

I've made some decent progress since my last post. I got my headers sandblasted late last week, and I got them painted & baked over the weekend (and got a nice burn on my arm from the 600 degree oven rack). This week I've finished some odds & ends, including getting everything forward of the radiator support re-assembled, painted the clamshells & powdercoated the motor mount hardware, painted the sway bar, and a couple other small things. About all that's left now is to clean up the harnesses before I reinstall them, but I need some daylight to do that because I want to do it outside with the hose, so it'll have to wait.

I may be ready to start lowering the motor as early as next weekend if things start going my way. Of course, next weekend I'll be 300 miles from home.

 

I tried POR15 a long time ago and despised it. Absolute garbage. I switched to Rust Bullet ( available through Summit ) and it is so much easier to work with. No prep (other than normal paint prep), paints over anything: rust, bare metal, paint. Holds up great in the long term and extremely durable. Able to be top coated with most auto paints.

 

Yeah, I looked at Rust Bullet, but because POR had the Satin Black, I figured I was going to save a step. To be honest it may be partially my fault... I didn't stir the can before my last coat, so that may account for the uneven shine. I'll give it another shot on a different project some time and see how it treats me.

 

i used it on a radiator support for my wife's chevelle project. i wasn't super impressed, was really hard to get off my fingers and stuff if i was sloppy with it too. it took forever to apply the stuff too, and like you said, uneven finish. i should have painted it with the same chassis paint i used on everything else after the por15, but got caught up in the reassembly, since the car had to go to storage. when i pull it back out, i'll probably rectify that.

 

Great thread! I am just starting my own TPI Vortec swap this week. Pulled the carbed vortec from my old 82 and installing it in the 87 TPI. Not sure how the the Lt4 hot cam will take to the TPI intake though.

 

Between being out of town, and then being sick, I haven't made much progress, but I did spend all day Saturday working on odds & ends. I got the chassis harness reinstalled, which required taking the headlights BACK out of the car. I also threw a coat of wax on the engine bay to help it stay clean. I had planned on dropping the motor back in on Saturday as well, but I quickly discovered that my load-leveler chains were missing, and by the time I got back from the hardware store with new chain, it was too late. Hopefully this week I'll be able to drop the motor in.

 

Here are the final pictures of the painted engine bay:





And... now there's a motor in there.

 

 

hey, an update! Work got very crazy for a couple weeks, so by the time I got home, I had no interest in leaving my couch. In addition, lately I've been getting re-acquainted with an old hobby of mine (RC cars), so I haven't had much motivation to go out to the garage.

That said, last week I did manage to slip the passenger side header into place only to find out that my brand new allen head header bolts are a bit too bulky to fit into some of the spots, I had to clean and repaint (and bake) my old hex head header bolts. Last night I jacked the car up high enough to get the driver side header in from underneath, and I got both headers securely bolted into place. Next I suppose I'll throw the runners on, and then I can get the valve covers on and start on getting the engine harness back into place and hooked up.

 

last night I cleaned and installed my fuel rail & runners. Next I want to install the transmission. Once that's in and put into place, I can slide the distributor in, then put the plenum on. Prior to installing the distributor I also need to lay the harness into place.

 

DYING to see the numbers!

 

for sure, i'm ready for you to be done with this project too, so i can see you get back on the ls motor in the iroc.

 

yeah, I'm sick of working on this car now. I want it done. Friday night I put the clutch, pressure plate & bellhousing on, but now I can't get the clutch alignment tool out. Those stupid plastic tools just aren't precise enough to hold things where they belong. I'm going to install the clutch hydraulics tonight and have my dad push on the clutch pedal to see if I can get the clutch back where it belongs, otherwise everything's got to come back out again.

 

I've never had a problem with them after I learned you need to lift them up a bit as you tighten the pressure plate down. Otherwise it droops to much and can either get stuck or worse the trans won't go in.

Car is looking great though! It will be worth it in the end!

 

I unfortunately didn't have enough hands to hold it up a tad while I tightened. One hand was holding the flywheel-turning tool I was using to prevent the flywheel from turning while I used the other hand to tighten the pressure plate bolts.

 

Usually you can get all 6 bolts started and still move the clutch disc around via the alignment tool. So then all you need to do is cinch down on a couple of the pressure plate bolts while you hold the tool up a bit. Once the clutch disc is snug you can switch to holding the flywheel and tightening the bolts down the rest of the way. And once and a while make sure the tool can be removed while tightening down.

At least that is how I do them and I usually am alone while doing so.

 

last night I put the hydraulics in, had my wife push the clutch pedal, and I still couldn't adjust the clutch disk, so the bellhousing came off and the pressure plate bolts got loosened. I got the clutch positioned in a happier spot, re-tightened the pressure plate bolts, and got the trans put in. Yay me. I hate ATF. I hate it in automatics, and I hate it in manuals, but more than anything, I hate it in my hair. Especially when it's accompanied with ATF-soaked speedy dry.

 

I hear you on the speedy dry and ATF, well, Kitty Litter and ATF on my part. I had to deal with that mess when I swapped the T56 in my 88. Since you've done both, I'm gonna just ask. You've built a TPI SBC, and done an LS swap. I'm debating doing one or the other with my own car. RIght now its just a rebuilt stock 350 bottom end, with an LT1 cam. No top work done. Some advantages to sticking with the TPI and building it up, some advantages to going LSx. Goal for myself is 500 horses. I have so many options available to me I don't know what I want to do yet. Funding is also an issue, but as I am sure you know, we car guys always find a way.

Either way, looking forward to what kind of numbers you are putting down.

 

Last night I got the transmission cross member bolted in, and I removed the old exhaust. Now it's time to route the harness and finish getting the rest of the stuff bolted to the motor.

 

Playing catch-up with pics, and a not so good update.

First, catch-up. Here's a couple pics of the headers installed.

Driver side:


Passenger side:


Closeup of how I mounted the rear a/c bracket mount:


And now for the carnage. As I mentioned above, recently I put the transmission in. To do that, I had to jack the back of the car up. Since I did that, I noticed some foul smells in the garage, but honestly, it's a garage, and it always smells bad, so I didn't really pay much attention to it. Yesterday I went in and it finally dawned on me what the smell was. Gas. I looked all around and found a puddle under the front of the car. When I raised the rear of the car, it forced some fuel out of my open fuel lines, and it got all over my freshly painted engine bay, and completely lifted up the paint in the areas where it soaked. I wiped the paint right off with a rag, and this is what the outcome is after I dried it up and put a fan on it:





I'm NOT pulling the motor back out to re-spray the area, so I need to figure out the Plan B. It's a small enough area, and most of it will be covered by the battery tray, so I'm considering just painting it with a brush. My father has a small low pressure spray gun that I may try a test panel with to see how much overspray it creates. If it doesn't create a ton of overspray, maybe I can spot in the area by just masking the fuel lines and the power steering box.

I'm extremely pissed that I made such a stupid mistake.

 

You should be able to move some of the the obstacles out of the way and respray it. It's down low and partially hidden when finished, so it won't be that noticable.

Of course you feel like a bonehead for something that was avoidable, but hey, we've all done one of those at some point.

 

If you want to spray, you could try an airbrush. I used one around the battery tray to get the job done.

 

Decided on the easy way out, and used a brush. Based on where it is, it should hardly be noticeable once I get the battery installed, and especially once it gets a little dirty.

I'm taking Wednesday and Thursday out of work to finish the car up. Unless I have some major problem (entirely likely), I expect to have it moving under it's own power by Thursday. Whether or not I get the rear swapped will remain to be seen.

 

Tonight I cleaned & painted my power steering pump. Tomorrow I'll be sanding off the runs and the fish-eye, and re-painting my power steering pump.

In other news, I started transferring my oil pressure sender, and quickly discovered that apparently the Vortec intake is thicker at the runner mount than the stock intake, causing the sender adapter not to be able to squeeze into the hole at the top of the block. Not sure yet how I'm going to solve this one, but I'm NOT taking the intake back off.

Fun night.

 

I had that same issue. I ended up moving the sender to the hole above the oil filter and just plugged the hole on top.

 

My 305 came orignally with the sender above the oil filter, so I kept it there for my engine swap.

 

That may be the best solution. Extending that wire would be pretty easy. Before I do that though, I'm going to try grinding down the sender adapter to see if I can get enough clearance to sneak it into place.

 

Just a quick cut and solder. Either way its no big modification that needs to be made.

 

Last night I trimmed back the adapter so it would clear the runner boss only to discover that the cutout in the baseplate is too small anyway.

 

I took today and tomorrow off of work so that I can work on the car, and had originally hoped to fire it off by the end of Thursday.

Anyway, this whole oil pressure sender issue is getting complicated. This afternoon I tried to get the bung out of the block right above the oil filter, and that sumbitch won't budge. It's been there since 1971 and isn't too interested in moving. Because it's only a 1/4" square fitting, you can't give it any torque before the tool lets go. I sprayed it with Kroil and left it to sit overnight, but I don't see it coming out. To further complicate things, I also discovered that on the stock 305 that I yanked, there's already an oil pressure sender in that hole, so now not only do I have the sender from the back of the china wall that's a refugee, but now I have a 2nd refugee that I can't find a home for.

Moving on to the next item on that POS vortec intake that makes me want to choke the Edelbrock morons, I tried to install the vacuum fitting that the PCV hose goes on, but it won't fit. It hits the SLP runner mounting flange. Apparently, the fitting hole isn't quite in the same spot on the Edelbrock manifold, so it interferes with the runner mount. So, I had to take the runner back off and grind a clearance.

Aside from that, I got my exhaust put on with the exception of one 3" adapter that I need to fit the test pipe to the intermediate pipe, but I'll put that in tomorrow morning. I did tackle a bunch of odds & ends, including mounting the power steering pump, coolant temp sensors, etc. There are so many little odds and ends that it's really not looking like I'll get this thing running by the end of the day tomorrow like I'd hoped, but at least I'm making progress.

 

keep plugging away man

 

This morning so far I got the exhaust adapter installed, so the exhaust is done. Yesterday I bought a pipe thread male-male coupler and an elbow. After I trimmed it down, I was able to get that concoction installed behind the manifold. I'll at least be able to run 1 pressure sensor at the back of the manifold now. Unfortunately, I absolutely can NOT get the bung above the oil filter out of the block. I pretzeled my 1/4" to 3/8 hex adapter, and any 1/4" extension is going to suffer a similar fate. I installed the dual-sensor fitting that I had on the IROC, but it points the two in directions that I can't use. I'm going to try to find a T-fitting at the hardware store.

Plugging away...

 

I know exactly what you mean. I tried to get mine out of the china wall of my old 305, broke a few tools before giving up. Try heating it up? if GM used something like thread locker on it then hwat might get it out

 

I can't get heat to it. It's already in the car. I just came back with a bunch of 1/8" fittings and adapters. I'll get something to work up top.

 

Forgot about that, i was thinking about mine because i did it out out of the car. Hopefully something works out for ya.

 

Keep it up, extremely anxious to see the numbers and finished swap!

 

why does it have a second sensor? what does the second sensor go to? only oil sensor i've ever seen in a stock thirdgen was something for the gauge. the ecu doesn't use it.

 

right. I believe that the big zinc canister is for the gauge. The smaller one with the metri-pack connector is for the ECU. On my Camaro both were behind the manifold. On the GTA, the gauge one was behind the manifold and the ECU one was above the oil filter. Now they're both behind the manifold, thanks to some close nipples, an elbow, and a T-fitting from the hardware store.

 

Here's a picture update to go along with my last couple updates.

First is the PCV port in the intake. From this pic you can see how close it's located to the runner. On the accel intake and on the stock intake, it's much farther away and does not interfere. You can see where I marked the runner to grind it.


Here it is installed after I ground the runner:


Here's my hardware store oil pressure sensor config. You can see part of the brass elbow, along with the iron "T".


Here it is with the gauge sender installed:


Here's a pic of the stud & nut configuration that I used to anchor the alternator & power steering pump:


Lastly, here's a couple "progress" shots:

 

Looks good, Jimbo. It's always amazing how many little details have to be hashed out even with a "simple" swap like this.

 

I finished cleaning the harness, fixed one broken plug, and then pulled it back through the hole back into the engine bay. Although I'm not a doctor, I'm convinced that after pulling the entire harness through the little hole near the heater box that I'm now qualified to deliver babies.

 

Only one way to find out, huh? Grab a white coat and wait in the delivery room

 

I'm chipping away at it! The harness is all installed, the battery cables are back in, the starter is in and wired up, and the radiator is back in. Radiator shroud and water neck are painted and ready for installation, then it's on to fluids! Fingers are crossed that I fire it this week.

 

gonna be very rewarding man.

 

I hope so. I'm very sick of working on it. I want to take a break, then get to my Camaro.

 

Made a little more progress last night. The water neck is installed, and the radiator hoses to the motor are installed. It dawned on me last night that before I can run the car for very long, I'm going to need to plumb my heater core hoses & overflow hose, neither of which are going to follow stock routing. I can't just reuse the heater core line that goes to the front of the intake that I had on the IROC because of the serpentene accessory system on the GTA, and the overflow tank is being moved, so that's going to take some work. Rather than run black hoses all over the place, I may try bending up some hard lines, though I'm not sure how well I'm going to be able to bend the big 1/2" stuff that I'll need for the coolant lines.

 

Tonight I installed my coolant overflow bottle. Seems simple, but it took all night. Once I run the line from the radiator I'll be posting a "how to" thread on it. I like this solution better than using the 4th gen style under the airbox.

Please excuse the filthy air intake. I didn't clean it yet.


In other news, I'm searching all over for the bracket that holds the MAF to the radiator support. I can't find it anywhere. :-/