Stock control arms are heavier than they look!

Car looks great. I love the headers especially. Look really bad ass.

And the stock giant springs too

Looks good!

Nice. I use the schringe and plate tool to pack bearings.. I could never do it right by hand

I like packing bearings by hand, pretty easy to me.

More progress today. Since I have new headers and I couldn't find the same flanges as I had on the BBC headers I had to do something else. The headers are stainless and I like the idea of the V-bands and they come in stainless too, so I decided to use them. I had to grind out the inside of the flanges so they would slip over the collectors, that took some time. I did the first one and after a few passes it still didn't fit over. The problem was that I couldn't really tell where I had already been over. I took some layout fluid and put it on a towel and wiped it on the inside so I could see where I had been grinding. After I did that on the second one it went much better and faster.

I also got the pipes cut and mocked up to replace the old pieces I was taking out of the exhaust. I am not happy with the end result because the exhaust on the car kind of sucks. I would just get something pre-fab, but I don't want to spend the money on exhaust right now. I'll do something better/nicer once I get the next engine in the car.

Tomorrow is welding up the v-bands to the headers and the intermediate pipes. I'll post some pictures of the welding tomorrow. This will finish up most of the under-car work until I re-do the battery trunk relocation and the emergency brake cables.
If I wasn't in such a depressed state I think I would be more excited about getting all of this done.

any progress is good man... im in same boat with my project taking way longer then expected, but just gotta keep thinking of your finished result and how awesome it will be. thats what keeps me going at least. your car is going to be a pretty bad ass ride when done.

I'm not going to post a picture of my actual welds, since they suck. My hands shake to much to really get a good weld and I also need a smaller diameter filler as what I had was too large. If my hands didn't shake so much I think I could actually get good at it.

Anyway, I had to do this to get the weld "in position" so I could attack it with a preferred angle. It looks crazy, but it helped a lot.

http://i494.photobucket.com/albums/r...804_151547.jpg

I got all the pieces welded up, but I didnt get as much other stuff done as I wanted. At least it wasnt so hot that I sweat my ass off just standing in the garage

tigged it huh? im gonna get my self set up to mig stainless soon because i gotta do my exhaust too. never done it before. as long as they hold and dont leak then your golden man. nobody is ever going to see your collector welds lol

Yeah, I have the TIG, on long term loan from a friend that wont use it again until his kids grow up, lol. another 14 years or so :rofl:

I would have gotten stainless wire for my MIG, but I didnt want to get Tri-mix for doing that

I bought a Tri-mix tank and stainless wire for my mig. I used it to install wideband O2 bungs in my ARH longtubes for the G8 and the welds came out great.

Went over one of my headers with some red Scotch Brite to give them the brushed look. I am really digging the way they look now. After I get them in the car I'll go over them again to get all the fingerprints off.

I also got some of my plumbing figured out for the fuel lines. I am going to be able to mount the fuel pressure regulator on the back of the drivers side head, most of the lines will be hidden behind the engine, it should look good when I am finished.

Also I bought one of these tubing benders from Rigid. It was really easy to bend the stainless 3/8" tubing that I have been using. It was a little expensive, but I figure I am going to bend quite a bit more tubing and this one does 180 degree bends. I was using Phil's 3 size combination bender and it was a lot more difficult to bend the tubing since it has such short arms. I am glad I got this one. I have to bend up the line for the pressure feed and from the tee to the rail and I plan on making a hard tube for the PCV and the brake booster. I made the hard tube for the brake booster on the BBC and I liked the way it came out. http://www.ridgid.com/ASSETS/7C6CE5E...Benders_3C.jpg

Fuel reg cannot be mounted on fire wall, and I know you said on back of head, but tech may throw a red flag at the proximity. Just sayin'

For what? Drag racing? This engine wont ever see a racetrack and my next engine wont need a FPR in the front. I only put it there because of convenience. I have a bunch of parts lying around that I am trying to use and this was the best place for it

Yea, I know for drag racing them be the rules, not sure how it applies to you silly people with turning cars.

Might want to question why nhra has such a rule, might be a good reason. I don't know why though.

For when you lose a clutch/converter etc, and it slices up wards.

I think there is a measurement for the fuel reg/fuel lines/brake lines off of bellhousing BTW.

"Fuel blocks must be located at least 6-inches (15.2 cm) forward of the flywheel/bellhousing area. "

Will there be an issue running a solid line to the brake booster? Since the motor shakes and ****.

There will be short pieces of hose at either end

what do you use to tig stainless just straight argon?

Yes, I used straight argon. I think you can use a 5% mix of CO2, but I dont think it is necessary in most cases. I have a tall cylinder of Argon and a small 25% cylinder CO2 for my MIG

For what it's worth, I wouldn't put the regulator on the head. The heat is going to be bad for it's durability, and will warm the fuel up.

I didnt think about that. It is good advise, but for the moment I am going ahead with that since I have all the parts I need for the plumbing. I actually entertained the idea of the regulator on the return under the brake booster, but I like the way this is coming out better. I can still switch to that design if I choose.
This engine is probably not going to see track time, just a cruiser until I can buy the new engine in the spring. Since this is a truck engine and it uses a return I am staying with that configuration. The next engine is going to be a car gen IV engine and I will then move the regulator to the rear and the pressure line will be dead-headed at the rails like the cars are currently using.

At the rate I am going, this engine will never actually see the road, lol. I am going to have to re-do work one way or another. If I cant get my wheels soon I am going to have to put the stock brakes back on. If I do this, then I may see a few days on the road in the fall and nice days into the beginning of winter.
If I do get my wheels soon the delivery will be sometime in the late fall and I wont be driving it until spring most likely. Come tax/bonus time I will be buying the engine I really want and changing out the engine after I get that. All of this current work is not in vain since it is "mockup" for the next engine regardless. If I get this engine running and actually drive it, it is just a bonus.

I think I am about two weekends from being able to try to fire up the engine. I have to mount my ECM and then wire in the power, tach, etc to the car.

Well, I didn't get a lot done this weekend since I went to NJMP to see Lemon's on Saturday

I made a tubing straightener based on another person's design over at NastyZ. It didnt work as well as I hoped though. I had bought Summit's 3/8" stainless tubing to make my fuel lines, it was quite a pain to try to straighten since it comes in a large coil ~1.5" diameter. It was difficult and time consuming. Here is the link to the build at NastyZ and Here is the link to the guy he designed it off. I just bolted my stuff to a flat piece of 3/16 aluminum and spaced the rollers appropriately. It took some trial and error to get the spacing right, but it is a lot faster than trying to un-bend by hand. I was disappointed because the tubing still has a bit of an arc to it, but I guess that is the problem with the stainless, it is too hard. Also the tubing mucked up the ends of the rollers. I'll have to re-do the setup on pieces of angle like it shows in the build. For now I had everything but the rollers.

So after I finished the straightener, I made this nice little PCV tube for my 4.8. Yeah, yeah, I know, catch can..... I'll worry about that later if it is a problem.

http://i494.photobucket.com/albums/r...811_183241.jpg

I also got the headers in the car, hopefully for the last time. I just have to tighten up the bolts, I just snugged them so they touched the head. I'll tighten them when I know I wont have to take them out again before the first start. You can see the LH side in place in the picture. I went over it again with Scotch Brite before I put it in too. Just have to wipe it down to get my fingerprints off meow.

Tomorrow i'll order a few more things I need from McMaster Carr. I need a variety of stuff to mount/space the ECM off the firewall over the AC delete plate under the fender.

I think I can actually see the end of the spending for this damn build.

I got my new car balancer on the engine tonight. I would like to thank Featherburner for letting me borrow his LS balancer puller tool, don't worry man, I'll give it back in the next year or so. I have an ARP bolt to replace the one I took out, but I will need to borrow a tarq-rench from someone as mine only goes to 200 lb-ft

I also got my Tick clutch master cylinder mounted tonight. I bout this from Mike since the buyer for his T56 didn't need it. I am glad it was the old style with the steel bracket. I had to drill out the mounting holes since aluminum bracket they sell now is threaded and wouldn't work with my firewall bracket as easily. Eventually I'll take the bracket off and clean up the wolds and repaint it. I also have to figure out how to get a boot behind it to seal up the firewall hole.
http://i494.photobucket.com/albums/r...815_211100.jpg

http://i494.photobucket.com/albums/r...815_211048.jpg

Need to get a clamp on that fuel line so it doesn't move any closer to the steering column once it's all put back together.