1dirtyZ's Conversion by 1dirtyZ

12 minute(s) of a 153 minute read

quick update, the tranny is done, and the new flexplate just came in and will be installed tonight . 

i'll be finishing up the temporary connections to the fuel system tonight , and installing the header and starter and firing her up to see if all goes well. 

i think i'll use the n20 fuel cell and stuff to get the car to start .

well i got the fule system rigged up :

but there was a small problem; the car would not start nor turn over. i can hear the starter click but nothing else. i tried jumping in but no luck eihter.

the other bad news is that the motor is hard to turn , i never spun it with the heads on , but its a bithch to do so now. i have a feeling i must have folded one of the oil rings again 

which means the motor has to come out and get torn appart again

8/14/08

well i ripped the engine out of the car today ( cool thing it took about 20 min - no trans attatched ), but not after trying to fire her up one last time . when i went under to check if the starter was at fault i noticed that the gear was out and still contacting the flexplate. i also noticed that the battery was not charged or had very little power - even though i jumped it for two hours straight last time.

i then put the thing on the engine stand and proceeded to take stuff off , i took the heads and the oil pan , i then removed the windage tray . thets when i saw some scuff marks on one side of the tray - and they looked fresh ...... so i'm starting to think could this be the cause of the rough spots or were those scuffs there from before. so i spin the motor and it spins freely. what i also noticed is that the windage tray has some side to side play in it when you lay it down, which led me to belive that the tray was bolted with it sitting more to one side before, which caused the contact.

any how , to double check , i spun the motor with the heads off and there was acceptable resistance , so i go to the camaro and try the same and it was harder to turn ( duh ), which is a good sign . 

so i proceed to bolt the heads and rockers, and spin it again and compare it to the camaro : same effort! 

so , i'm assuming that i solved the problem , it was actually a combination of two : bad starter/ battery and internal scuffing if you may call that on the windage tray.

so just to make sure , i'l be getting a new starter ( i need one as a spare since the original one is "wrapped" by the headers and i don't know how long it would last), and i'll be swapping the battery from the camaro just to make sure .

8/20/08

it lives ! 

well after messing with the starter issue for a while , i found out that the starter was ok , and it was the fact that the engine was not grounded properly that was causing the issues i was seeing coupled with a weak battery.

i fired her up today and got oil pressure . i had to shut it down cause i had no coolant in there .

so tomorow i'll proceed with finishing up the cooling system, bolting the blower , running the pipes from the blower to the intercooler , hacking up the front end some more , and if i have time , push that sucker on the lift ( after i get the camaro off of it )

8/23/08

well after filling it up with coolant and starting her up again , i noticed the car was starting to missfire and was getting harder to keep ideling . it was also pouring black smoke out of the exhaust . so i shut her down and ran out of the garage for some air 

. when things settled down i pulled a plug ( well all of them ) and they were all black and covered up in wet soot. 

at that moment i thought great ! this thing will never seal the chamber , then it hit me ...... i never reprogramed it for the 75 lbs/hr injectors 

well today i did that and cleaned the plugs , and now she purrs like a kitten ( like a kitten with a monster cam up its a$$ )

the blower sounds so mean on that thing , i think i have to find a way to quite it down ( yeah , like that will happen )

i should be putting it on the lift today , and then i can slap the trans in there, do the intercooler piping , start on the fuel system, and later on do the interior and electrical work.

here is how much clearnacce i have between the blower and the radiator & core support now :

i finally got the car on the lift 

so now i can put the tranny in and start with the fuel system.

i also got some 90 deg bends today ..... too blingy for my taste but thats what was available 

i guess tomorow i'll stab the trans in , drop and drain the tank in preperation for the sump, and finish up the damn intercooler piping. i just have to stick two 90's on the driver side from the blower to the intercooler and then run a u- bend on the other side after i weld the BOV flange on it . then it just curves straight up to the t-body.

i might even start running the fuel lines too

8/24/08

those are stock l92 heads. nothing fancy ( yet )

sultan , my goal is to see an ls1 in every car ( bill gates did it with a computer in every home , why can't i )

v8rumble , thanks ! dunno how that came out 

cam72aro, thats one of tha major reasons i switched to F/I ( i was sick of carrying 4 bottles around every time i go to a race ) , that and i had the F1-r laying around 

didn't get much done today since i spent the majority of the time disassembeling the camaro motor and cleaning it before i delivered it . i did however manage to slap some bling on the thing :

according to my calculations i should have the tranny in tomorow ( i wounder how many times i sadi that already ), and if i'm lucky and don't run out of t-bolt clamps i might just finish up the whole intercooler piping thing. then maybe i could drop the tank .

another thing i noticed is that i moved thee radiator so much forward that it now has a bit more space than i need between it and the blower . i'm debating whether to pull it back , or see if i can fit the stock fans in there.

8/28/08

i finally dropped the tank today, i was planning on cutting it and welding a sump in . but after i took it off the car i found that the sump i got was a bit big. it was not going to be a cut and weld deal. it would have required a bit more fabrication and time to get it to fit; so i decided to just use a bulk head fitting on the bottom of the tank. i located it centrally so that if you remove the fuel level sender you will have direct access to the nut. and from that i'll just run a 90 deg -8 hose end to the rest of the fuel system. ( no pics today- i forgot to get the camera )

i also finished the bov deal; i cut a hole in one of the 90 deg bends and welded a tube and the voretech mondo BOV to it . the BOV sits just infront of the pass. side front tire. all that is left is to run a vaccume line and finish the maf part and the elbow into the T/B.

so the plan tomorow is to clean and button up the tank and start running the fuel lines and pumps/filters. i'll also try to finish up the intercooler piping and a few odds and ends under the car. 

the next few days i'll focus on the top end of the car again; i'll mount the water injection pump somwhere and plumb that, finish the front bumper and mount it and then start on the interior ( guages and what not) and the wiiring .

8/30/08

well i got the tank sump deal done , i had to use 2 bulkhead fittings since i'm using 2 pumps. i also mounted the walbro pumps and filters right behind the rear bumper :

the pumps have their feed lines go around the tank and meet in front of it using a y connector ( both hoses on each side are -8 , and the outlet from the Y is a -8 too), from there i'll run a hose under the passenger side and into the engine compartment.

and as promised , pics of my sexy vortech mondo BOV resting on my even sexier welds

and here is how the intercooler piping looks so far:

i finished bolting the torque converter too, i just need to run the fuel line now, install the rear bumper, and find the stupid shifter bracket spacers that i seem to have missplaced and install the bracket .

and here is a shot i took on the way to the garage ,,,, i like to call it " just chill'n "

9/4/08

i got a bit done today, i bolted up the exhaust and insulated the fuel line where it need to be insulated. i also finished the top intercooler brackets and then proceeded to hack the face of the car up 

it took quite a bit to finish it , here is how it looks :

i also got my new license plate and regestration in today 

at least now you guys can read them 

i did findout about a "potential" problem. i say potential cause i'm not sure if what happened would cause an issue or not: as i was filling the tranny up with oil , i noticed that tranny fluid i had was two kinds, dexron 3 and type 3 (H) . i remeber some time ago some one said nexer mix the two , or if you use one kind, you can't use the other or else the cluth material will flake off??? 

is that true? and should i be worried?.should i just drain it and put dexron 3 stuff inthere and not worry about it anymore?

9/9/08

well i finally started her again , this time i wired up the fuel pumps temporarily and finished wiring the fans.

found out a couple of things, first the cheap fans i bought are cheap for a reason; you can bearly notice them working i was planning on using them temporarily untill i get a decent set. guess now i have to get the decent set sooner than i thought 

second thing is that i'm having starter issues again. this time after i started it and let the car idle for a few minutes , i shut it off ( mainly to re connect the coolant bypass tube that i forgot to connect as well as to get a chance to breath in the garage )

when i tried to restart it it had a hard time turning over, then i noticed smoke coming from the grounding strap from the head to the body. 

what is going on ?? its the same setup i had before i pulled the engine and it worked fine before. can it be that i should run a dedicated grounding strap from the battery to the head??

why is the ground getting hot?