FIRST DRIVE

Well it's been awhile again. Been busy. Very busy. Last saturday I spent ALL day on the car. Actually I did take a break to watch my boy's soccer game but other than that I worked on the car. I put in the radiator, driveshaft, part of the exhaust and a ton of other stuff. I ran the engine until it came up to temp and made sure the electric fan came on. The fan did come on and my daughter said the fan sounded like shaking a box of rocks. The fan blades were definately hitting something. note to self remove the fan and check it.


I put the car on it's own wheels. Was funny to see it down on the ground again. I wanted to take it for a drive but it was dark and I didn't have any head lights. Or a muffler. So night driving was a bad idea. However the next day I backed it out of the garage under it's own power. My wife, my 2 kids and I all went for the first ride together. With no muffler it makes quite the sound. Very strong solid sound but nonetheless loud. Still didn't keep me from flooring it a few times though. Then brought it back home and parked it. No lights, no muffler, no front bumper expired inspection sticker it was just not a good idea to drive it much. So the first trip was only 2 miles. All went well though. Only other problem found was the Tach didn't read correctly.




Tuesday I came home at lunch from work and drove it again. Couldn't resist. Wife and I went on another 2 mile run. I got on the gas even more this time. Man that was fun. However, that night i removed the PCM (engine computer) and sent it away to get the tach signal corrected. I hated pulling it out when it was running and driving but have to have the tach working right. The rest of the week I spent intalling the head lights and turnsignals, few more interior bits, Fixing the fan rub (fan blades were slightly bent and rubbing on the fan housing) and started installing the muffler.


I need some more 3" dia exhaust pipe to finish the muffler installation. Doesn't appear that anyone in town has any so I ordered some off the net. Should be here in a few days. By the end of this week I should have the PCM back and the muffler installed. We'll see how it goes.

Wow where does the time go.

Well since my last post I pulled the motor back out to finish some details. I painted all the heater lines black. They look much better. I also cut part of what would be the battery tray if this were a TI (the battery on my car is in the trunk). This gives plenty of clearance to work on the relocated heater valve if ever necessary. I also remounted the ABS again in a slightly different location getting it a little farther from the header. Let's see what else. Oh I made a heat shield for the RH motor mount. I added some heat barrier to the transmission tunnel and a number of other small items (including new set of spark plugs).

I then reloaded the engine into the car for hopefully the last time!! Whoo hoo. I bled the clutch and it releases easily. I need to clean up a few more wiring looming issues, reassemble the interior, Mount the A/C condenser and do a little suspension work. I'm thinking in a week or 2 I'll take it for a drive. It won't be done but it I feel I deserve a trip around the block. Things that will have to be done after the first drive are rear differential stiffening, New struts, Rebuild the steering rack and perhaps a new sway bar or 2.


More later.

Getting there!! Light at the end of the tunnel

Wow, a lot has happened since my last post. Due to trips and Internet problems I have gotten behind. Here is the update:
I finished my fuel lines all the way to the engine. I've attached some pictures showing the aluminum fuel line and the beading tool used to construct the lines.








The beading tool is Earl's part# 008ERL



Heater lines. I wanted to use some hard line instead of rubber line for the heater runs to keep the OD of the lines down and less worry about being close to the exhaust. I ended up going with copper pipe. To fit copper lines to the 3/4 rubber heater lines I had some standard copper fittings machined to .75 dia (thanks Lee) and then sweat soldered a ring to keep the hose from slipping off. For the 5/8 dia line a the standard 1/2" copper pipe was just right with a ring sweat soldered on it in a similar way. I'm sure there was probably a better way out there but that's what I've done. I spent about a day cutting, fitting and soldering. After all that time I have what is in the pics. Looking at it now I think it turned out but took way to long.
















I also finished the shifter close out. I want a nice fit to keep the noise and heat out of the cabin. I used the rubber boot from the f-body car. I removed the metal from around the perimiter and cut it smaller and rewelded it together. Then cut the boot down as well. Seems to work just fine.









I currently have the engine loaded into the engine bay with both headers on this time (to help set the placement of the heater lines and shifter closeout etc). I couldn't resist. I plugged in the wiring hooked up the battery and attempted to connect through the OBDII port with my laptop. Wouldn't connect. After some trouble shooting of the wiring I found it was just the software I was using was getting impatient and the autoprotocol feature wasn't working with the PCM. manually set the protocol and...Hello. hey PCM is working, engine's in.... SO I ran a quart or two through the fuel lines to flush out any dirt or metal in the section after the filter. Connected up the fuel line and....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T4qxA7LEkI

Only ran it for a few seconds since I don't have the cooling hooked up. Oh I also finished the throttle cable.

I think the next step is to pull the motor again and finish the hold down's on the heater lines. Misc work on the ABS mount. Clean everything up and add some heat shielding.