Gosh – it’s hard to believe that it’s August already; thought I’d be further along with the Vicky by now but so many interuptions too little time … 100+ degree temperatures haven’t helped much either (especially when the garage isn’t air conditioned).

My wife got me a mig welder for my birthday last month; it’s an Eastwood 135 and works pretty well – I like it!  It was one of those sweet surprises that only happens every great once and a while.  My thanks to Dave for lending a hand with his Miller 130 model all these months – couldn’t have gotten this far without his help.

The exhaust has been run on both sides with mufflers that aren’t supposed to resonate very much, if at all, so we’ll see how that goes.  We located the mufflers under the running boards (or at least as much as we could).  The running board supports have been notched slightly over an inch to raise the mufflers for additional ground clearance.  The notched areas were boxed and seal welded.

I had pipes made to run from the collectors to the mufflers.  Dave and I mocked up electrical conduit and I took it to a local custom mandrel bending shop.  Other pipe components in the system were bought as a do-it-yourself kit and pieced together.  I used aluminized pipe this time around so maybe I’ll go to stainless steel when it’s time for a replacement.  I think it looks pretty good.  The outlet end was left intentionally a little long until I see what it looks like with the body on the frame.

Mission accomplished!  The headers now have room to breath…                                                                                           

We cut the frame with the engine still installed.  I originally didn’t think that we could do it that way but it worked just fine.  Afterwards, we pulled the engine and welded in the supporting pieces and boxed the open ends complete with a primer coat to keep it from rusting while we take care of other business.

I’ve tried four sets of headers from cast iron OEM to the tubular hi-performance variety and all refuse to be installed without a fuss as a simple bolt-on.  They all seem to have their own little quirks about inferring with something that would prefer to be left alone; but, no one ever said that building a custom street rod would be easy.  Well, actually there were one or two people but I’m considering a new motto, i.e., don’t believe anything you hear and only half of what you see.  Actually, I’m kidding about that because I’d be absolutely lost without my family’s help and support  plus my friends’ invaluable assistance (advice, knowledge, ”been-there-done-that” wisdom  and turning wrenches combined) – thank you all.

I now have a rather nice set of Sanderson headers to use on my LS-1 that were developed for an LS-10.  They dump toward the back like I need, perhaps too much, so I will have to finesse a couple of things to use them as well.  Hopefully, the overall plan will be less expensive than custom designed/fabricated headers …

We’ll pull the engine this weekend in order to deal with those pesky interfering frame stiffening members.  Stephen already has 1″ x 3″ rectangular tubing at the ready for reinforcing the frame post necessary modifications.  It’s going to be awesome!

With the engine pulled, it will give me a chance to clean up [its] aluminum block a bit.  Additionally, I still had a little grinding to do yet where the OEM A/C compressor resides.  Anyway, I’ll take this step backward as an opportunity and turn it into two or three steps forward!

Here is a shot of the plumbing job we did just today … My wife, Janet, loves it that I finally put something on this car that is of Edelbrock origin, albeit the “Russell” braided hose fittings.  Russell is an Edelbrock Company.

Down and to the right is a shot of the installed fuel filter and braided line that we ran through the frame and on up toward the engine.  We hand fabricated the brackets that hold the pump and the filter because we couldn’t find anything commercially available in the size or that would simply do what we needed them to do.  As my friend Dave always says – “we have the technology”!  My son-in-law Stephen even helped out today so thank you everyone – it was a big help.  Oh yeah, don’t go far, there’s a lot more to do. ;-)

And, yes, I’m aware that we still need a braided line fitting at the filter for all you really observent folks out there who caught that in the pictrure that I posted.

We also measured to maybe like have some custom headers fabricated because I just couldn’t find a pair of anything to work well enough with the clearance issues we face.  It has to do with where we located the LS’ motor mounts versus a very narrow frame rail setup.  More on that later … it’s all part of the fun – right?!

Here is a picture of the Z06 intake manifold installed on the engine.  I actually did this a while ago but just recently had the camera with me …

Although we installed the crankshaft, pistons, and cam along with new bearings and the oil pump and pan, etc. some time ago, we still needed to finish putting the engine together.  Over the weekend, Dave and I put on the ported and polished heads (complete with Corvette Z06 valve springs) and torqued them to specification.  This step was not without a minor set back.  Since these bolts are single use and get torqued to yield, torque is a very significant factor and the sequence used is also quite important.  My 3/8″ drive inch-pound torque wrench wasn’t performing like it should (didn’t hear any clicks when it reached specified toque values) so we switched to my larger 1/2″ drive foot-pound version and converted the inch-pound spec to foot-pounds.  All went pretty well until the very last bolt.  It snapped off in the engine block.  It took a trip to the hardware store for an extractor and new 3/8″ drive “dial-type” torque wrench plus a little time to extract it but success was ours in the end.  The bolt was successfully replaced without having to take the head back off and all was well once again.

Once that was done, the push rods were re-installed along with the rocker arms which also got torqued to their appropriate specification.  And, yes, we did use that neat super slick red assembly lube like you see used on some of those car shows on TV.

I put the valve covers on to keep it clean inside but didn’t go on to install the Z06 intake manifold that I got from my friend Phil just yet.  I need a different crossover cooling and venting piece to use with this manifold; the original won’t work with the Z06 setup.  It’s no big deal and not an expensive part either.

As time ran out on my play time this weekend, I did do a little more welding and grinding on the frame closing up the rest of those extra holes we manged to drill in to it.  It looks pretty good.

I haven’t heard in a while from the company that was developing the accessory pulley drive system that I thought might solve the A/C and alternator clearance problems so I’m forging ahead without them.

After deliberating a bit this past weekend, my friend Dave and I decided to move the motor mounts again and believe that we really will have the clearance we need for the accessories.  Some minor adjustments to the strut rod brackets are still needed to complete the installation but we anticipated that we would have to do that – not a biggie.

One slight mishap occurred when I accidentally bumped a small floor jack that was supporting the engine from underneath while we reworked the motor mounts (again).  The engine/transmission started to roll over slowly and went down onto the floor.  It was like watching in slow motion.  No one was hurt but some transmission fluid did spill out onto the floor.  It took the engine lift to get it back into position plus we switched to a larger floor jack to better support it while we finessed the mounts.  We got it cleaned up pronto and no overall harm was done.

Progress has been slow (not a revelation) but it’s been fun to see it coming together.  The weather was absolutely great for February as well (actually warmer outside than in the garage) so it was a fabulous day to work on the car.

Well, boys and girls - we were at it again over the weekend trying to resolve the fit and clearance issues to shoe horn the LS1 between the frame rails with an AC compressor, alternator, and power steering pump hung on it.

As a few of you know, I’ve been looking around for potential solutions to the inevitable accessory drive clearance issues that would work on my car but would not break the bank as some of the bigger names and bling mongers in the market can provide for my LS1 application.  Because of a tip from a vendor, I stumbled upon a company that is in the development stage of an accessory drive pulley arrangement for LS1s in vintage car applications.  It isn’t quite ready yet but they asked if I would help by taking some hood clearance measurements.  Because I don’t have the body on the frame right now, I mocked up the hood and side panels on the body over the weekend to see if the dimensions they provided would do the trick.  I also touched base with my friend Phil who has a ‘34 with an LS1 in it and we concluded concurrently that the proposed arrangement would in fact be too wide for the application.  I’m afraid it’s back to the drawing board for now on that one although it probably would work on a “newer” 40’s fat fender model car.

Dave and I got together to try and work some magic on it too.  We mocked up a new bracket out of poster board and taped it together for later use as a template in order to fabricate a new motor mounting bracket.  Our hope was that it would provide the needed clearance we’re looking for to mount the accessories without interfering with the mounting bracket itself or the infamous installed strut rods of the Mustang II suspension.

We did the origami thing after a failed attempt to use a set of LS1 Camaro motor mounts I had on hand – they just plain didn’t fit (too big).

As a side note: Phil successfully used a set of stock LS1 Corvette motor mounts on his ‘34 application (they’re different from the Camaro).  He fabricated a special cross member to support their “vertical” installation and it worked out quite nicely but acquiring the Corvette motor mount hardware is a little pricey.

We performed a trial fit up of the AC compressor to test our poster board wizardry.  It was immediately apparent that the AC unit hit the motor mount itself while barely kissing the strut rod mounting bracket.  We can trim that bracket for clearance.  It got a little brighter in the garage when it was decided to turn around the adaptor plate so that we could move the motor mount back a little further while leaving the engine where it was.

Let me explain – the newer  LS1 design uses 4-bolt motor mounts but we’re using the older style 3-bolt motor mounts that the frame rails were originally laid out to accept.  Doing so required the use of adaptor plates on each side of the block that would theoretically locate the LS1 appropriately with respect to where a typical small block Chevy (SBC) or small block Ford (SBF) engine would sit.

By the way, we are using Energy Suspension’s polyurethane components for hot rods and competition vehicles – yet designed to be used for street vehicles too.  We test fit the earlier style components upside down because the 3-bolt arrangement worked that way with the existing threaded holes .  Keep in mind that we turned the adaptor plates around – hence the reason for the upside down configuration.

We did a trial fit up of the alternator on the other side without clearance issues.  On a whim, we right-sided the Energy Suspension mount and held it in place with just one bolt to see if it would allow for two additional drilled and tapped holes to be put into the adaptor plates.  It did.

The engine is supported while we drill and tap the new holes on each plate.  Stay tuned but it’s looking promising.  I’ll worry about the exhaust headers later …

Dave and I got a little tinkering time in over the weekend; Dave brought his 35,000 BTU kerosene heater which handled the cold garage rather nicely.  We left one of the garage doors open about 4 inches so as to minimize the potential CO2 effect of the heater plus put a tray of water in friont of the outlet to boost moisture in the air.  It all worked splendidly and we working in shirt sleeves in no time at all.

We bolted up the rear axle assembly to the frame and everything went together pretty well actually.  I’m considering whether or not to upgrade to an air ride suspension package back there for an improved ride compared to what will otherwise mimic a stiff buckboard.  The overall cost versus ride quality will figure significantly in the final decision.  I need to assemble the rear brake components so that the brake lines can be routed and secured.

We checked some critical angles and made an adjustment to the driver side frame motor mount bracket so the LS1 is now better positioned between the frame rails and is within 1 degree of the horizontal plane.  Looks as if we’ll be welding up a few holes on the frame and re-drilling the bracket’s new position.  I don’t think we did it particularly badly or wrong the first time around but having the engine in place (supported by the hoist) certainly was a good move to fine tune its location.

I finally got to see what the LS1 with its 4L60E tranny would look like when resting between the frame rails.  After some gentle persuading, the engine and transmission slipped into place.  It still needs some adjusting but it looks pretty good if I do say so myself.  I’ll post a picture or two shortly if all goes well (my image resizing software isn’t functional at the moment).

I also did a trial fit up of the floor pan because the tunnel looked too small to adequately clear the rather large bell housing of the 4L60E.  As best as I can tell and to my pleasant surprise, it clears all around by about a half inch.  That was very good news.

The down side became pretty clear that the motor mounting brackets and/or the suspension strut rods would probably interfere with the A/C and alternator when installed in their respective low OEM mounting positions.  I’ll have to ponder on it since the solutions could be a tad on the expensive side.