AUGUST 2011
I decided to box in the front control arm mounts with the stock frame.
The ever growing “To Do” list
When building the oil pan, the idea was the use no gaskets on the motor (or as little as possible) everything that needs to be sealed was done so with right-stuff.
(I over-estimated how low the oil pan went on the motor plate. Oops. (I fixed this later)
Between the notched pan and girdle
View of the oil return plate on the stock oil pump mount. The welded on sheet goes to the sump pickup. I don’t remember what I was going to use that hole for, but decided it wasn’t needed
Installing the headers was a major pain in the butt. I took a belt sander and flattened the flanges some, and then due to the tight bends right out the head, I had to notch a couple bolt holes (not fun on 3/8” 308 plate)
This looked like a good location for the oil filter.
Off a diesel motor. Apparently pretty good filter with high flow
Belts came in and I converted the dry sump to HTD belt also
Trying to figure out where to mount the fuel pressure regulator, and this semed like the best spot. When I drew up the intake elbow flange, I left a couple inches on one side thinking I’d probably need it for something later. Turns out I did.
Built a bracket and mounted it to the space on the flange behind it
Then because I like to have redundant safety catches, I decided I need a direct gauge. Those plugs on the FPR look like a good spot!
With a lot of power and heat I definitely needed some coolers and dedicated fans. These apparently review pretty well (with ebay special fans)
Wanting to make the options versitile for adding/removing things later, the coolers needed their own specific mounting location. In comes more 1” angle
add a 1x1” tube in the middle
mount fans and you have a trans and oil cooler
This looks like a good spot to mount them. I’ll fab up the ducting later
I took some 1/8” strip and bent/drilled/welded it onto the crossmember up front
In the back on my tube crossmember, I ran a 3/8” threaded rod through a ½” tube, cut it in a few pieces and welded some to the crossmember, and some to the coolers. Therefore I can now unbolt the front, swing it down, or completely take out the entire unit. I figured it would be in my best interest to make it removable
view underneath
Lower radiator support (yes, you're thinking "why a radiator?"- more on that later)
Dumb mistake of the day. Think about what way you’re bending tubing.
I cut the tube, spliced it together with another tube in the middle and welded it back up. Good as new
The radiator is 19x31”. It’s not the width that’s an issue, it’s the height. So it would have to lean back like this:
After it dawned upon me that I had previously cut off the oem hood hinge mounts since I wasn't planning on using them anyway, theres no point of having the hood latch. Time to make a new upper support. Some 1”x2” tubing works
much better
Also made vertical supports for it that bolted to the stock bumper mounts
What I did with the bottom of the radiator is cut some 1x2 in half then welded on angle in the middle so it would ride on that lower support bar I made. Seemed simple enough
After the radiator was sitting on the lower bar, I bent up some tubing and made upper mounts
The vertical supports made a good spot for the radiator overflow can
Time to finally finish the intake elbow: I took some aluminum flashing and used it as my mockup piece
then cut some 1/8” sheet
Beat it to fit with lots of cutting
top and bottom tacked up (notice extra pieces on the tube to the firewall. I cut those out later
all done
Throttle body finally mounted on the inside
I also welded in a bung (center bottom) for the Intake air temp sensor
Oh, cheap homemade tool trick. Go to lowes in the bandclamp section, they have this tool specifically for tightening band clamps to 5 ft/lbs (aka, torque wrench). It costs $7.
Cut off the end and weld on a 3/8 – ¼” socket adaptor
Cheap torque wrench!
Ok, back to build
Since I wont immediately be running the turbochargers (need to get NA tune down) I hodgepodged some old mac flowpath mufflers I had (used to be on Cadillac) and made temporary bolt on exhausts. Wasn't too concerned with flow with the pie cuts since it's only temporary
I ripped out the stock rear end so i could more easily access the body in the rear. The only problem is it was only made for the Cadillac, so there are no parts available. Some GM 10/12bolt monster child. No worries, I’ll figure out how to build stuff for it until i switch it out with something else.