yeah i wrestle with the AC option on every project i do...it's a nusiance to work around...especially if you are doing custom work like you are....but it sure is nice to turn that switch on and get cool!

 

hey with the wondows down and the ttops off, cruisin who really needs AC?

 

Got the intercooler bracket welded on today, and modified my upper radiator shroud to work without all the stock fan brackets. I was going to make a custom shroud, but when I looked at the stocker and realized how easy it would be to just cut it up and do a little sanding, I had to give it a shot. I'm very happy with how it came out, and I love factory appearences. Heres a few pics...

Heres the intercooler mount welded to the framerail. It's now painted as well.


And heres the radiator shroud. After a bit of measuring, cutting, wet sanding, and buffing, it looks like it was meant to look this way!


And the whole overview. Still need some new bolts and body nuts for the radiator shroud since I seem to have misplaced the originals and they are nowhere to be found!

 

Somebody has been practice welding. Those tabs to the frame look GOOD!

 

whats up man? i have been really busy lately working(finally) so i havent had time to read through. i may have missed it but what parts are you waiting on now before shes ready to be driven properly and did you ever fix that transmission?

 

what did you decide to do with the interior, last pics i say it was just dash, and i dont recall if you decided on color or mod or anything

 

SWEET You got it running, I'm in NJ can I get a ride in it? LOL. Anyway, is that the factory radiator you're running? I'm wondering if my factory rad will keep my planned 383 build cool. From what I've read, it sounds like it will. Oh, and just for some more humor...My first thought on your welding job on the tab?

NNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO NOT THE PAINT!!!!! ROTFL.

 

I am finishing up the intercooler piping now and should have pics up very soon of it. As far as driving it properly, I need to finish the intercooler piping, get my BOV, and get a tune and thats it. After that the car will be 100% mechanically. I still need to get the frontend painted though (fenders, hood, bumpers, etc) So it won't be done done until close to spring. And for the tranny, reverse is still bad but I decided to keep the trans in the car until the engine is 100% done so that I can drive it a few times just to be sure everything is working properly, then I'll pull it out and get it fixed.

The interior is remaining stock for the most part. Only things aftermarket will be the seats and gauges, but my stock interior was in excellent shape so it's all going back in. Just need a new carpet and thats it. Not to mention I lucked out and got a factory black interior so thats def staying!

LOL....I'll give ya a ride in it, no problem...as long as you drive down here! And yes it's a factory radiator, but technically my engine is a stock motor too, so the cooling system really isn't straining to cool it. Stock timing, stock cam, low compression. I really don't need a beastly cooling system. Something like a 383 with a big cam, high compression, etc may need a little better cooling system, but you won't know till you try. A lot of people underestimate the stock cooling systems in these cars. They are awesome if maintained right. As far as the paint, in all honesty, I didn't want to do it either but every other way I thought of was nowhere near as strong, and would have gotten in the way of something else. You'll never ever see that area anyways though, so I guess it's not too big of a deal.

 

Not a huge update but I got one side of the intercooler piping finished up. My only concern is hood clearence but I am almost positive I'll be ok on that end. I'll bolt the hood on for mockup before I have the piping powdercoated but like I said, I think I'm ok. Just need to get the turbo side to the intercooler finished up now, get the BOV welded on, and I'm good to go! The tune will follow shortly after. Heres a few pics.

I love how it looks in the engine bay. Sort of hides the turbo for a sleeper look almost, but you can obviouly see the oddly routed exhaust piping lol.


And heres underneath where it goes up through the battery tray area.

 

I love how quickly you've become such a good welder. lol

 

My exhaust is still holding up well... that definitely says something!!!

 

I'd say I'm getting better definately. No proffessional welds from me yet but they are presentable now. Amazing how quickly you learn how to do something when it's thrown into your hands and you do it often haha.

I learned how to drive stick that way. long ago, my buddy dropped his old 87 350 5 speed trans am at my house one morning and told me to drive it to the shop to get his new exhaust put on since he was working. I had driven a stick car ONCE in a parking lot...and not very well either lol. Drove his car all the way to the shop and even got stuck at a light on a nasty hill. Ever since then I got pretty good at it. I still can't believe he trusted me with that!

I sure hope it at least holds up better than those nice clamps you had on it!

 

That's funny you'd say that because I learned to drive stick in a similar way. My friend had just bough a 350Z and he had no idea how to even get the car in reverse. Well I totally bs-ed my friend and said I could show him how to drive stick. (I had only driven stick twice in my life before that) That was an interesting expierience, I could get the car rolling in reverse but as soon as we tried to move forward, disaster. Well here I was in my friend's brand new Z, stalling out. We took it for a few drives around the block and I got better and better. Then he did the same. Driving in circles around his neighborhood until like three am. Good times. lol.

And welding is definatley a skill I'd love to pick up. Props to you for doing so well at it!

 

Yep, I said it before, your welds are getting better. I haven't picked up a welder in about 4 years, I really hope its like riding a bike and something you will never forget.

 

I agree, the welding is looking great. Keep up the good work, can't wait to see the interior together.

 

Me too...with me sitting in the driver's seat rowing through some gears! But honestly, I am getting the itch SO bad to drive her again, especially now that it runs. I'm considering taking the front fenders and ground effects to the painter to have him do them very soon. I just can't take seeing it apart anymore, and with the engine 95% done, I tihnk it's safe to put the body back together.

 

Just make sure you don't rush it. BAD things happen when lust and desire begin to over take persistence and hard work, think with the head on your shoulders and not with your heart. Me and just about everyone on TGO do not want you to take this car out and wreck it because you rushed it and forgot to tighten a bolt or a nut up....... just the ramblings of a sleep deprived DA who's done something like that before is all this is..... never mind me just not enough slepe

 

Welding is pretty much like getting back on a bike, I used to be a certified welder before I joined the army. I haven't touched a welder in almost 8 years, and picked it up this summer on by buddies truck and laid down awesome welds with a malfunctioning welder.

Dad taught me to drive a 5 speed in a similar fashion also.

 

Nobody taught me to drive one. But learned the same way. Went to go pick up a car for the shop i work for and it was a manual and I have never even driven a manual but i made it without stalling or grinding the gears and didnt mess it up, which surprised me lol

 

Looks like this turned into a "how i learned stick thread"...I taught myself, but knew the concept of manual trans before. I have been teaching my girlfriend how to drive stick, and surprisingly she is a natural at it, but still wont leave the parking lot since she is afraid of stalling it in front of everyone (and hills too).

 

Reeeeeally. You're one lucky guy! Wait, are we talking about the same thing here?

Sorry man, had to do it. It was too perfect!

 

hey man i wrote ya on youtube a few weeks ago, build is going great, what kind of strut mounts are those? i am getting ready to start on my suspension. I ran those tokico HP's on my old red RS and really liked them, you prob will too.

 

The strut mounts are made by J&M, and I bought them from hawksthirdgenparts.com. Very nice pieces, and the price was very affordable too!

 

Intercooler piping is ALMOST finished. Just need to make one more little elbow that goes into the intercooler on the drivers side, and thats it! Anywho, heres a few pics of the newest piece I made out of the turbo itself...





And the overall view. Little crammed, but nothing is overly close to anything else so I'm happy with it!

 

Every time I see an engine bay shot of your car...it makes me want to do 3 things.

1) Paint/Clear my bay body color whenever I re-paint the car.

2) Ditch my A/C and use a delete box.

3) Add a friggin turbo with associated piping!!! Looks great man!

J.

 

I swear I look through this thread for at least 1 hr nearly every day.
Your doing an amazing job... Makes me wish I painted my interior BEFORE putting down the fatmat. hope my STS setup comes out this nice!

 

Thanks man! Your project is coming along great as well. I check it whenever I see an update. Can't wait to see how the STS does.

And to everyone, sorry for the lack of updates lately. CT was just RAVAGED by a nasty snow storm which is VERY uncommon this time of the year. Because the trees still had leaves, the weight of the snow and ice did a TON of damage. We lost half the large trees in our backyard and thankfully nothing hit the house. There were also power lines down everywhere. We lost power for a full week. In all honesty, I cant even remember the last time I lost power for 24 hours, so it was a very tough week trying to stay warm and clean up the yard. The car def was not my top priority.

For the good news though, I recently got a sum of money which should cover all the rest of the paint and body work, so the entire car should be painted soon. In the meantime, I'm going to finish up the intercooler piping and hopefully will be wrapping this project up soon! Still can't wait for the day I take her for a spin!

And figured I'd share a few pics of my yard and the area after the storm. Here ya go...

My backyard BEFORE



And AFTER

 

Heres a few after the snow melted a bit





And a shot of my neighbors yard who got hit HARD



I was so bored during the power outtage that I made myself a snow woman...She seems to be a bit affected by the cold though...

 

Wow man i hope everyones okay! I heard about that storm. We had one similar in Indiana last year but only lost power for 2 days. And also, whats snow womans digits? I like a woman that doesnt mind the cold weather;D hahaha.

 

Oh yeah the storm was brutal considering the circumstances. Now it hasn't rained since the snow fell and the salty crap is still on the road and I'm still stuck daily-driving my Trans Am in this. I should get a new daily driver soon though hopefully. In the mean time I'm gonna have to wash the TA nonstop....

 

that's a great color choice, subscribing this for later use, can't wait to see a start up video. Good Luck!

 

Well you don't have to wait. I put a start up vid a page or two back lol. Turbo piping is not done yet but the car runs now. It's a link in one of my threads....if you go back you should see it! And thanks for the color compliment.

 

dangit, i knew i shouldn't have skipped around, car sounds real nice, looks real nice and professional. love the gauges also. thumbs up!

 

Hey RJ can you send me the actual paint code. My buddy who went with us to marks that night is going to use it on his truck hes building.

Funny thing about that is hes building a turbo inline 6 international. I guess all the turbo guys want orange cars???

 

Paint code is "YVF". 2002 plymouth prowler flame orange metallic. Once your buddies truck is done, we'll have to park next to each other at marks car show haha.

 

and youll have to take pics so we can see it.

 

Finally got off my butt and started working on the car again. Went to the junkyard today and picked up a few different wiring plugs off of random cars that had a male and female side. Going to use these to make a wiring harness for all my gauges in the dash....this way if I have to remove the cluster down the road I can just unplug it and not have to pull of 20 different wires. Also ordered up my autometer speedo, tach, and fuel level gauge which should complete the dash cluster. Can't wait till it's all wired in and mounted permanantly!

I also had a battery drain issue that I fixed as well. Car would sit for a week and have no juice. I bought a multimeter and tested a few circuits and narrowed it down to the power windows. The problem was that the relay was active all the time even with the key off. Fixed that and charged the battery and after 2 weeks of not running the car at all it still had 12.3 volts. Turned the key and it fired right up! Nice to see that my wiring only had one fault so far!

Anyways, once the gauges come in I'll get some new pics up.

 

Got the tracking number for my gauges and they will be here Thursday afternoon (so technically later today, lol). I'll be working on finishing up installing them into the cluster and will get pics up ASAP. Also got my engine PCM insalled under the dash permanantly. Came out great and fits in there like a glove! Now I just need to make a small bracket to hold the small engine harness fuse box and I can start getting the entire dash back together. Heres a few pics of the PCM.

You can see in this pic that it's a tight fit, but it's up against the insulation so it should be nice and cushioned in there.


Here you can see my crude bracket, haha. I used the factory TPI computer bracket, cut off the sides where the bolts would go, and used a rather large zip tie to hold the PCM to the bracket. The zip tie rests along the bottom "L" in the bracket, and goes through the cooling vanes on the PCM so it can't slide down at all. In all honesty, it's all I could come up with at the time, but it works very well!


And you can see here that it fits up nice and tight in the dash leaving plenty of room for the lower plastic cover to fit over it. Now thats one more thing not hanging down onto the floor!

 

will u start this beast already... im pretty sure everyone following this build has had blue ***** for a good sum of time already lol jk looking good man.. im in the process of buying some nice eye candy and a much needed part for my ta project.. be ready for some pics as soon as i close the deal with the guy..

so whats left till u can turn the key.. u better get the VERY FIRST START ON CAMERA!!!!!!

 

it has been started already

 

Haha, like Tyler said, it runs now! Go back a page or two and look for my youtube link...I have a vid of it. And I can't wait to check out yours again once you start working on it.

 

Got the rest of my gauges in the mail today! Gauge cluster is now finished and I am working on getting it all wired up. I looks awesome now that it's done, and I can't wait to see it all lit up in the car now! I just need to send my gas level gauge to autometer to have them recalibrate it to the LS1 sending unit and I'll be good to go. Heres a few pics.

Don't mind the cheap POS rusty bolts. I need to go over them with some black paint. They've been sitting in the garage and for some reason they started to rust already.




And heres the jumper harness all wired up to the gauges. All thats left is the actual signal wire to each of the gauges and then I'll attach a plug so I can remove the entire cluster without disconnecting everything.

 

That is exactly what I want to do with my Cluster. What sized gauges are the ones that replaced the original tach and speedo?

 

They are the 5" gauges. They fit real nice...just have to open up the factory gauge holes a little more and they slide right in like they were meant to be there.

 

Two things with the gauges. Well...three. They look great! You are going to love them!

Second...You might be completely fine. But Ive run into trouble stringing multiple power wires together for autometer gauges. I have NO idea why it makes a difference, but I had to run all mine as single wires out to a small little fuse box. I was getting weird results until I did. The grounds I have tied together into a larger gauge wire bolted to the steering column. Everything that I know about 12v systems is telling me there's no real difference. So I dont know. I had a fit trying to get a couple of my guages to work. Until I called Autometer and they told me to do it this way.

Here is what my little fuse block looks like. Autozone special... Again, you might be fine.



Third...The fuel gauge. Even after you send it back to autometer for calibration, you might not like the way it works. The Ohm range is close. All they are going to do is reverse the movement. So you'll still be off. The only way to get a decent accurate reading is by going with a programmable gauge. Thats what I ended up doing. Its more money, but works fantastic. You can set it so it shows E when you still have a few gallons left, instead of E meaning youre SOL.

But even on that point..you might be fine. Just my experiences.

It will be nice to get a dash back in the car! Thats always fun. Setting up some eye candy, making things look more complete!

J.

 

Now that looks slick

 

Musclecar70sfan, whens your autometer dash going in? LOL, jk! Can't wait to see it lit up.


And J, Thanks for the heads up on the possible gauge issues! I'll def test them out and see what happens, but when I had the car running, 3 or 4 of the gauges were hooked up with the same power wire and they all seemed ok. Guess it's just something I have to keep an eye on. The only difference between our cars is that I have the painless chassis harness with a designated fused power wire for the gauges. In the painless manual, it even shows wiring the gauges using the one wire for all of them, haha. Oh well, guess we'll see if it works or not.

As for the fuel gauge, I called autometer and they actually told me that they could set it for the 40-250 ohm range that the LS1 sending unit comes with. They told me to buy any of the gas gauges and just send it in to them. I know there was a guy on the Datsun Z forums who had it done for his LSx swapped Datsun, and he said the gauge worked great. I need to call them again and just double check but I think they actually re-ohm it to be exact. I liked the look of the short sweep style for dash gauges which is why I didn't go with the programmable, even though I knew it was probably the easiest to work with.

And yea, I can't wait to get some eye candy into the interior. Been too boring for too long!

 

Great build thread. I'm from western MA and I go to Mark's just about every week so hopefully I will see you there next year.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30GD25un0XQ


hahaha

 

You'll def see me there. I go every week granted the field isn't wet like it is half the season haha. If my cars not done this coming summer, I'm giving up! No, JK, but I do pray it actually is on the road by then.