[andrewb70]

Date: 1-1-23

One of the items to replace for this update was the steering shaft. There was nothing wrong with it, but I never liked that it was a solid shaft.

This is a collapsable shaft and new u-joints from Borgeson. I will also be replacing my 20 year old AGR steering box with one from Borgeson.
In this picture the shaft is is already trimmed to fit.



This is the bushing that supports the steering shaft inside the column. Whenever I would drive the car on a hot summer day, I would notice that the steering would get a little sticky. I suspect that this nylon bushing swell up from the heat and causes the steering to bind a little. The holes are from the screws that I installed to pull the bushing with a slide hammer.



The bushing on the left is one that Vic made on his lathe. It is made out of Delrin, which I hope will be more stable with temperature changes.



Here it is tapped into the steering column.



Andrew

 

[andrewb70]

Date: 1-2-23

Today we decided to take a little break from turbo stuff and figure out how to upgrade the brakes. Over the last year or so I have been seeing electronically assisted brakes on various cars and on a couple of YouTube channels that I watch. The technology seems really cool and by all accounts they work great.

I started by removing the manual MC and the old mount for the clutch MC. There is a little rust here and there, but remember, this car was "done" 20 years ago. That area will definitely get cleaned up.



I figured a good place to start to be these brackets that I got them I was planning on doing vacuum power brakes. These are from DSE and it is their reduced angle bracket.







The is the Gen 1 Bosch iBooster unit that I got. It is from a 2010ish Tesla Model S with the adaptive cruise control. Bosch has a Gen 2 model of the iBooster available, but I don't like the looks of them and I am sure that none of the features of the new unit are even applicable to what we are doing here.



After a little welding, milling and hole sawing, we had the bracket modified to fit the iBooster.



It is bolted to the firewall here, but there is still a lot to sort out.



I am not really happy with how the pushrod alignment is looking at the moment. The unit might actually need to be tilted up at the front a little more, but I am already concerned about hood clearance. We will sort out the details the next time.



I really like the way these look. They add a little high-tech touch to the engine compartment.



Andrew

 

[andrewb70]

Date: 1-3-23

This seems like a pretty straightforward part to make, but it's quite intricate. There is very little space and we had to use a donut to get the radii tight enough to connect the dots.



There is a slight gap where the pipe meets the compressor discharge. This was done to accommodate any movement due to heat, etc...The Summit Racing clamp is made to account for this movement. All that is left is to finish a couple of welds, add the blow-off valve, which will go on the outside bend just before the throttle body, and smooth out whichever welds we can.

Andrew

 

[andrewb70]

Date: 1-4-23

Today I had a few hours to spare, so I drove to Vic's house to make a little close-out panel that would go under the brake booster. In one of the previous pictures you can see the hole that was left after I removed the clutch MC mount. That hole needed to be covered up and I also needed to clean up some of the peeling paint and surface rust that was there.

I scraped the loose paint off and then scrubbed the surface with an abrasive pad. Then I sprayed some primer into a small cup and used a small brush to apply it and then did the same with some black paint. The point wasn't to make it look pretty, but to seal the exposed metal.



I then started to layer 2" masking tape over the whole area.



I used a pencil to trace out the outline of the patch that I wanted to cover and also marked out the 3 mounting holes.



I then transferred the masking tape template to some thin cardboard and used a sharpie to draw out the shape that would capture the mounting bolts and that would overlap the opening that I wanted to cover.



I cut the cardboard with some scissors and did a trial fit. Everything was looking pretty good.



I used the cardboard template to transfer the shape and the holes to a piece of 1/8" aluminum plate.



I cut the couch shape on a bandsaw and then used a belt sander the arrive at the final shape. I also used a 2" hole saw to make the hole.



Since the column pokes through the plate at an angle, the opening had to be oval, not round, so I used a file to contour the opening until the panel fit flush against the firewall.



Then I drilled out the 3 mounting holes.



The panel fits really well. It will get painted black and I will use some window mount urethane to seal the plate against the firewall. This will keep water from collecting and keep that area clean and dry. Once the booster is installed, the panel won't really be visible, but I think it adds a finished touch to an area that looks a little raggedy before.

Andrew

 

[andrewb70]

Date: 1-5-23

Today wasn't terribly productive. I managed to install the new Borgeson steering box. Overall it looked pretty similar to my ancient AGR steering box, with the exception of having 4 mounting ears instead of 3. My frame only has 3 mounts, so the 4th is just, there...



I was able to reuse the fittings from the old box on the new box. The Borgeson box uses metric fittings with o-rings, which were the same size as my old AGR box.



The Borgeson box also uses a slightly smaller input shaft.

Andrew

 

[andrewb70]

Date: 1-8-23

Before the next update, I want to send a shout out to a great vendor. It is not often that a company surpasses my expectations, but Stainless Bros definitely has.

This is how they packaged one half of the 4" v-band clams that I received from them.



Each v-band was in it's own box and the clamp itself was in its own sealed bag.



The v-bands themselves are like jewelry. Each half indexes into the other, which is a great feature that makes it easier to align the pipes.



I was also able to make it out to my local Napa store and picked up a roll of 5/16" butyl tape. I used it so seal the back of the close-out panel that I made the other day.



I was also able to use the boot that came from DSE. This is a boot they use with their low angle vacuum assisted booster.



Once the iBooster is installed the plate isn't really visible.




I also started on the new brake lines. I am using 3/16" NiCopp for the front brakes and 1/4" NiCopp for the rear brakes. The 12mm flare to AN adapters are from Earl's. I am not really happy with how far they stick out, but I am not sure what there is to do about it.



I also got this Cummins turbo drain as a starting point for my drain. More on that in a future update.



Andrew

 

[andrewb70]

Date: 1-9-23

I spent a little time at Vic's today working on various odds and ends.

This is a clever little part from Motion Raceworks. It's an oil inlet block that bolts to the top of the oil feed hole and seals with an o-ring. It then points the oil feed line straight out the side. This will connect to the oil feed line, which at the moment terminates at the front of the passenger side head.



A few days back Vic also made this fantastic mount for the Dominator ECU. It bolts in place of the glove box and will allow me easy access to the ECU connectors. Ignore the duct tape. I will be placing an order with Vintage Air soon to clean up the under-dash ducting in anticipation of having working AC in the car.



I also brought the shifter to see how it might fit inside the car. In the picture I have it sitting over the hole where my manual shifter was located. It is slightly offset to the driver's side. I am not really sure about the shifter placement yet.



Vic worked out the final placement of the waste gate and started on the fabrication of the needed plumbing.



It should have good priority flow in this location and provide an easy path to route the exhaust from the waste gate back into the downpipe.



Andrew

 

[andrewb70]

Date: 1-12-23

Finally I can say I did a few things on the car, mostly by myself...LOL

Yesterday I received the last few parts that I needed to finish the new brake lines from the MC to the distribution block.



I also welded on this oil drain tube. Vic made a couple of adapters on the lathe and I welded it together. The welds are horrible, but it should hold. Because of how everything is situated, the drain has to take a slight jog to the passenger side immediately after coming out of the turbo. This is a turbo drain for a Cummins something or other. It is fairly flexible and is made out of stainless steel, so it is relatively easy to work with.



Once it makes the jog to the left is has to sweep right, under the up-pipe and under the exhaust manifold, then towards the drain in the side of the oil pan. I will extend this tube so it is all metal under the hottest pipes and there will be a short section of hose connecting the drain to the oil pan.



The waste gate discharge is tacked to the downpipe.



The downpipe itself is also tacked in place.



There is also a 4" v-band at the end of the downpipe that connects to this pipe that shoots the exhaust straight back.



I am not sure yet what's going to happen with the exhaust once it is past the transmission crossmember.

Andrew

 

[andrewb70]

Date: 1-14-23

Split it... 👍

That's the plan. I am taking inspiration from your exhaust build. I got the same splitter from Burns as you have.

Today's update is a bit random because we kind of jumped around doing various tasks. Since the brake lines were done, I figured it was about time to see if the iBooster actually works ad if we can bled the brakes.

I have heard a lot of good things about the Motive Products brake bleeders, so I thought I would get one to try. I have to say that I will never bleed brakes any other way. The process was super simple and I barely spilled any brake fluid.



I got the version of the Motive brake blender that came with a MC cap that was compatible with the Tesla MC cap. It also works on many newer GM cars.



While I wasn't around, Vic changed the angle of the downpipe a little bit to move it a little further from the firewall. There is a little over an inch now.



Yesterday I also finished up the turbo oil drain pipe by welding on an extension that will feed the drain under the turbo hot parts and feed into the oil pan.



Vic also made these little tabs that position the coils a little higher and over. This was done to move the spark plug wires away from the downpipe.



Andrew

 

[andrewb70]

Date: 1-15-23

Before talking about today's update, I realized that I really didn't mention how the iBooster feels. After bleeding the brakes, we powered up the iBooster and it just started working. The pedal effort is pretty light, but very smooth. Pedal travel is also fairly short before the pedal gets really hard to press. As of now I think the driving experience is going to be greatly improved over the manual brakes that I had before.

Today's update is also just a random collection of small projects. Last week I ordered all new ARP hardware for the intake lid and the intercooler. The included hardware was adequate, but silver cad plated bolts tend to look like garbage after a very short time. The ARP stainless hardware will look great for a long time.



I also finished installing the new, collapsable steering shaft and new u-joints from Borgeson.



I also finished up the oil drain for the turbo. Here is how it wraps around the up-pipe.



Then it goes under all of the turbo hot pipes, pointing at the fitting in the oil pan.



The only thing left is to put a bead on the 5/8" tube and add a short length of rubber hose between the tube and the oil pan fitting.



Lastly, I have been doing a lot of looking and thinking about where to mount the boost control solenoids. There is quite a bit of plumbing that needs to go between the wastegate, turbo compressor outlet, and the boost solenoids. I want to keep that plumbing as short and simple as possible, so I am thinking about making a bracket and mounting them under the nose of the intake lid.

This location will make the plumbing relatively short and keep the solenoids relatively hidden.



Andrew

 

[andrewb70]

Date: 1-16-23

Today I got some PTFE hose and -4AN fittings and made the flex line for the turbo oil feed.



I gave it a nice, soft S-shape to keep it tucked away.



Vic made a little bracket to hold the boost solenoids just under the intake lid snout. The mounting points for the bracket have slots, so the bolts just need to be loosened up to put it on or remove it.



One of the big reasons for choosing this location and orientation is so that the two nipples face the general direction of the wastegate and turbo. One of the lines needs to go to the top of the wastage dome and the other needs to go to the turbo compressor discharge.



Here is the view from the other side. I am going to have my friend Blake design and print a cover for the solenoids.



Since the wastegate is not super accessible and is surrounded by hot parts, I decided to plumb everything going to it using NiCopp 3/16" tubing. That way I don't have to worry about melting through the typical nylon hose and push-lock fittings.



This is the line from the compressor discharge to the bottom of the dome.



This TurboSmart wastegate has provisions for water cooling, so once the heater hose fittings are finalized, I will tap them and feet coolant to the dome of the wastegate.

Andrew

 

[andrewb70]

Date: 1-19-23

I try to do a little something everyday to keep making progress. We added a bung for the oxygen sensor. I wanted it easily accessible, but also not super visible.




We also added a bung in the charge pipe and I added a small tube to feed boost pressure to the feed side of the boost solenoids.



It was also time to think about where the fill tank for the A2W intercooler might go. I am thinking about this location on the firewall. I added a 45 degree fitting to the intercooler just to see how the hoses might be routed.



The tank looks like it is close to the downpipe, but there is actually quite a bit of space. The tank also needs to have a fill bung aded to the top of the right side and an outlet on the left side.



This is just an overall shot of the engine compartment as it sits now.



Baby steps...

Andrew

 

[andrewb70]

Date: 1-20-23

Since I am replacing all of the more visible fasteners on the engine with ARP stainless bolts, I wanted to replace the studs that Holley includes with the Low-Ram intake manifold. I carefully measured the needed length and it looked like ARP already had an intake bolt kit in that length (55mm UHL). Long story short, the ARP bolts didn't have the needed thread length to fully engage into the heads. Vic machined the shank of the bolts so they would torque down against the intake manifold.



I also finished the last bit of NiCopp plumbing for the boost control systems. There is a tube from the turbo compressor to the bottom of the wastegate. There is another tube from the compressor to the fill side of the boost solenoids. Finally, there is a line from the boost solenoids to the top of the wastegate.



For the intercooler water hoses, I am using the Earl's Super Stock hose and swivel fittings. I have never used these before, but they work awesome. The ferrule spins over the hose to give the hose end a finished look.



I used dish soap as a lubricant.



Little dab here...



Little dab there...and...



Viola!!!....oh, and Vic had already welded the fittings to the tank and mounted it with rivnuts.



We also added an EGT probe just before the turbine housing.



Andrew

 

[andrewb70]

Date: 1-21-23

This morning I received the 1/2" hub centric wheel spacers that I ordered for the rear.



The fit was spot on.



I added this spacer to center the tire in the wheel wells. There is about 1.5" from the tire to the frame on the inside and about 1" on the outside. Also, both sides looked the same, which means the axle is well centered in the chassis and the body is well placed on the frame.



The Mickey Thompson ET Street SS tires look amazing! The rear end is in full droop in this picture. Ride height is still to be determined.



After the fun stuff, it was down to a rather tedious project. These are some banjo -AN adapters for the transmission cooler lines, compared to the stock adapters on the right.



See that hole at the top?



That one...That is where the longer fitting has to go, and there isn't enough room in the transmission tunnel to take the fitting out. So I had to remove the transmission crossmember and lower the trans in order to install these. This picture is with the transmission at full droop.



Here they are installed with the transmission back in place.



Then I got to looking at the intercooler and grabbed a gray scuff pad and started to rub. I really like the brushed look for the intercooler, so I will use the gray scuff pad over all of it and leave it a natural brushed finish (the rest is bead blasted for now).



A big "Thank you" to one of my customers, who graciously engraved my logo into the intake manifold plate.



She is starting to look like something!



Andrew

 

[andrewb70]

Date: 1-23-23

This morning I received this 4 cavity Deutsch bulkhead connector from Prowireusa. They are one of my Go-to vendors for wiring products.



The idea behind getting this connector is that I would be able to wire the boost control solenoids to this connector and have a neat way of connecting them to the rest of the engine harness.




My friend Blake designed this little cover for the boost solenoids and it will hold the bulkhead connector in place and also give the solenoids a much cleaner look. He is also going to 3D print the cover.




Vic also added an elbow to the end of the downpipe with a v-band. The rest of the exhaust system will be built from here back.




This is a terrible picture, but I was just trying to show that the downpipe doesn't hang very low. In fact, the crossover pipe from the driver's exhaust manifold is the lowest point under the car.




Vic also made some adjustments to the short pipe that goes from the wastegate into the downpipe. It was about 3/32" too short which made it difficult to install the v-band. Vic cut that pipe, sleeved it, and welded it all back together.




You can better see the sleeve here.




He also added a small tab to keep the downpipe more stable.




Tomorrow is a big day and I can't wait to share what we have planned.

Andrew

 

[andrewb70]

Date: 1-24-23

I love this country. Yesterday I made a call to a local company and this morning a guy named Matthew showed up with a big computer.



and a 3D scanner...



and a bag of cocaine...(just kidding...baby powder) The baby powder was used extensively to knock the shine off the finish.



Then he proceeded to start scanning the bottom and the top of the hood. The purpose was to crate an accurate model that can the be used to design various options for the hole in the hood.



This is at the start of the process and it took about 4 hours to do the whole hood. In a few days I should have a cleaned up 3D model of the hood.



While Matthew was doing the scanning, I decided to install the new automatic brake pedal. Before installing it, I took some measurements to check the pedal ratio with the existing holes. The top (manual brakes) hole gives about a 6.5:1 pedal ratio. The bottom hole (stock power brakes) gives about a 3.5:1 pedal ratio.

The various information that I could find about the iBooster said that the Tesla pedal ratio is 4:1. So we added an extra hole just above the stock lower hole, which resulted in about a 4.25:1 pedal ratio. This was about as close as we could come given the proximity to the lower hole.



This change resulted in a much more favorable angle for the pushrod.



Andrew

 

[andrewb70]

Date: 1-26-23

Progress is being made. Yesterday I sent off the up-pipe and the downpipe to HeaderShield to have them wrapped. Today I showed up at Vic's and saw that he had installed the firewall shield that we had been discussing. We will probably take the intake off and go all the way across as much as we can with it.



I also pulled the drive's side seat to start mocking up the shifter. What you don't see is that under the carpet I had removed the shifter hump that was installed 20 years ago to make room for the Richmond 6 speed shifter. With that hump gone (it was bolted in) the console that I plan to use actually sort of fits. I ordered a partial left side front floor patch panel that includes part of the transmission tunnel. We are going to use that to close off the hole and have the shape of the floor be how it was with an auto trans. Then the 70 Chevelle console that I got should fit a lot better.



In order to do the power steering plumbing, this little nipple for the fluid return had to be cut off because it was pointing right at the steering box.



The hole is quite small, so we are going to install a 1/8" NPT to AN-6 fitting there.



Andrew

 

[andrewb70]

Date: 1-29-23

A quick trip to Star Performance produced the 1/8" NPT to AN-6 Male fitting, and the power steering return is now sorted.



The next project to tackle was this hole in the side of the transmission tunnel.



The hole used to have a cover that had a shifter hump in it to clear the shifter and linkage for the Richmond 6 speed that used to be in the car. With that transmission gone and the 4L80e in its place, a new cover needed to be made.



Here you can see how close the transmission is to the trans tunnel. My body bushings are 20 years old. They are not cracked, but I am sure they have settled some, which is contributing to the lack of clearance.



A quick Google search showed that partial floor pan patch panels were readily available. I called The Parts Place and they had one in stock and had it at my door in two days. You can see that part of the panel includes the needed piece to start making a new cover for the tunnel.



I trimmed it big to start...



Then trimmed it to the final shape...



and started to drill the necessary mounting holes.



Turned out pretty good in the end, without having to do any custom metal shaping, which I don't have the skills to do anyway....

Andrew

 

[andrewb70]

Date: 2-1-23

I took my intake to Hot Rod Express, where they welded the engraved manifold cover plate to the Holley intake lid.



Today was the day that I wanted to get the heat exchanger mounted and start thinking about running the plumbing (so much plumbing in this car!!!) the A2W intercooler system. When I originally asked Vic to mount the heat exchanger to the radiator, I really had no idea how things would be plumbed. I had him mount the heat exchanger with the inlet and outlet (dual pass) on the driver's side. Clearly this is not going to work.



With the intercooler, fill tank, and circulation pump in place, it was clear that the best option would be to have the input and outlet on the passenger side. Before digging into that further I wanted to make sure that the circulation pump fittings would be oriented in the correct direction. I emailed Tobias at Tecomotive and he quickly responded that the pump inlet and outlet cover can be clocked in any of the 4 positions relative to the pump body.



I unscrewed the top and it sure doesn't look very fancy in here, but this pump is supposed to move A LOT of water.



Not much to see here....



I positioned the pump body in such a way that the connector was close to the fan shroud so that the wires for the pump could be routed along the bottom of the shroud.



I clocked the top so the outlet would face the passenger side (the top is the inlet).



I also pulled both grill inserts so it would be easier to work in front of the radiator. As I was going along, I always had to make sure that I could get to everything without having to pull the grills, because once the radiator is installed, there is no way to access the grill hardware.

Here you can see that the heat exchanger was flipped (the drain is now at the top and can't be used). We couldn't rotate the heat exchanger because that would have required a complete reworking of the mounts and I did not want to do all that. I can live without a drain.



There is a lot more room on the passenger side for plumbing because the radiator core is slightly offset to the driver's side (note the larger tank on the passenger side).



With that orientation locked in, we moved to the bench where some minor fiddling had to be done to make the mounts work.



Both the inlet and outlet hoses fit pretty well using 90 degree fittings. With the fans removed and the radiator top tilted back, there is enough room to access these fittings from the top.



I also trimmed the core support slightly so that the hoses can pass in front of the radiator. You can also see the Low Doller Motorsports temperature/pressure combo sensor in the cooling system.



I still have to finalize the exact hose routing, but this is pretty good progress.

Andrew

 

[andrewb70]

Date: 2-3-23

I had mocked up the shifter a while back and it turned out that the 4 foot cable that was included with the Lokar shifter was not going to be long enough. So I ordered a 6 foot cable (which honestly could be 7 feet) from Summit and after it was defrosted in the Texas warehouse, I received it yesterday.

So it was time to put the big boy pants on and poke some holes to mount the shifter. I positioned it in such a way that with the shifter in Drive, I could, very naturally, put my hand on the shift level and slide it to the right and use the forward and backwards tap shift feature.



I drilled the first hole and shockingly it lined up perfectly where I intended it to go. I mounted the shifter and marked the other hole.



I used nut-serts (riv-nuts) inside the hole and temporarily mounted the shifter.



I did a little more measuring and drilled a hole in the floor for the shifter cable. ICT Billet posted a teaser on their Instagram about their new shift cable pass-through and I have been bugging them about it for weeks. I am hoping it will be available soon so I can use it to seal the hole.



For the front of the shifter, Vic whipped up a simple bracket and we (yes, I welded one side and he the other...thanks you...) welded it to the floor.






The shifter feels pretty good, but there are some minor adjustments that need to be made still.

Andrew