As always, it has taken so much longer than I planned to get the car back on the road. Last Sept (2009), I took the car for the first time to the local strip. Right off the highway and onto the 1/4 mile, stock rimmed Nitto DRs out back, all season tires on front and 3650 raceweight. I had the T56 transmission and 3.55 gears and took off with minimum wheel spin. I short shifted the 1st to 2nd shift to keep the turbo loaded in that gear. The car pulled harder in that gear than I ever remember(14psi) and by the 1/8th mile, it had gone 108mph. Shortly after that, the car felt 'funny' and didn't pull nearly as hard so I let off for a bit, getting an incomplete run. When the video is viewed, you can see crap coming out of the exhaust. Since the engine was pushing water, It may have been that. On the return road, the car felt fine and all gauges showed there wasn't a problem. I got right back in the staging lanes and waited for the next pass. When it was my turn, I warmed up the Nitto's but after bumping up to the staging lights, the clutch locked up and wouldn't disengage. I had to be pushed back and then moved the car to the pits. I decided to ditch the 6 speed and go back to a built TH350. I took the engine/tranny out in Sept and started getting all things ordered, fully planning to have her back on the road before the first NY snow.

As they say, the devils in the details.... I decided to also swap the ported LT1 castings for some Canfields I'd bought a year or two before. They presented a lot of question marks since almost no one has Canfields. I spent a lot of time trying to find out the proper gaskets(After trying a few, turns out the FelPro 1074s (Standard Lt1 gasket) works fine and the stock LT1 type Felpro intakes are fine too). There were some dowel issues with the Canfields as well (Head dowel holes too small, no intake dowel/pin holes for the gasket pins). Then the .0150 offset intake valves caused me to travel down an expensive, labor filled road.

• Thought I needed the rockers to be offset by .0150 so I ordered some Scorpion 1.7 w/.150 offset for $250. Got them, they made the alignment worse. Sold them to a fellow LT1 guy for a $100 loss.
• My old Guide plates wouldn't work with the new offset, ordered Isky Adjustables. Lots of trial fitting, grinding, etc to get them just right.
• Stock valve covers I'd been using hit the top of the rocker arm adjustment nuts. Ordered Jegs Aluminum tall valve covers(cast aluminum). Got them, tried to put them on, Alternator hit the passenger side. Found bracket that reputedly raised the alternator up out of the way for $50. Fail. Does not work. Ordered a pair of Canton Valve covers to get the Alternator clearance. Fail. They (a) Hit the guide plates (b) Hit raised bosses on the interior of the gasket rail (c) Hit the trunion of the CC Promag where the inset is for the alternator (d) Were a cast iron b*tch to get the gaskets to stay on (No retention lip for the valve cover gasket)
• The drivers side Canton VC can't be used because it hits the hotside manifold because the Cantons are so wide.

Because of all that the snows arrived and kept me from progress until last week. I did get to get out the welder and welded up a completely new route for my exhaust system from the downpipe to the Borla Catback. It's all tucked up neatly and I now have ground clearance again.

I tried the LTCC system again but this particular one has given me nothing but sh*t since I bought it. Even though the car runs great on Opti alone, the LTCC says it's getting bad signals from the Opti. I've checked the harnesses again and again and I'm sure they're right. I sent the box back to TurboBob (Bailey) and he tested it and said it worked fine on his test car. I tried it again and same thing, fail. I'm back on the Opti and sending the LTCC back to Bob again for further testing.

All I have to do at this point to be back on the road is put on the radiator hoses, fill it with coolant, bleed the power steering system and rerun some brake lines.

 

Go get em Dave.
Wish I was that close. Hope to see a lot of turbo cars back on the road this year.

 

Me too! I'm looking forward to driving down the road in the car again. I took out the 14 psi springs and put in just a 7psi in the wastegate. I'll rely on the AEM TruBoost to put the boost up in the 14 psi range when needed. I had to reorient the WG to get it out of the way of the new exhaust routing. I hope the angle doesn't negatively affect the WG effectiveness.

 

Good luck Dave - I've seen some of the headaches you had. Hope it turns out good in the end.

 

Woot woot! Get her done!

 

There are so many boosted cars in Upstate NY now we should start a support group when things don't go well.

Get her done!

 

Topped off the fluids, checked everything one last time before driving the newly headed (Canfields) Turbo (T76) 355 LT1 with the Vigilante(2800 stall) equipped TH350 manual valve body. Holy smokes, scared the sh*t out of me twice in one drive. The way the automatic loads the Turbo is really amazing. I'm loving it!

 

It probably feels like a sling shot when the converter starts to catch just as the turbo gets into boost

 

video!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Sweet

I made progress today too - 2 of the a-arm mounting tabs for my k member. Woohoo lots done.

 

update? Video? When ya hitting the track?

 

Awesome dave! did you weld on those shinney flanges i made ya?

Cant wait to see video and pics!

Jay

 

Not yet but I'm dying to use them. I want to get some .25 wire for my welder and practice a bit more before I mar those pieces of art

What size pipe did you get in your $89 jegs headers kit?

Thanks!
Dave

 

I got 1 5/8 16aeg for my LT1 headers and the 1 3/4 for my LS headers.

.025 welds good for the piping, but welding to the flanges I would go .030 or .035. i used .035 wire on mine.

Jay