Father & son having fun

I came across this at lunch today and it made some of my hard work seem worth while. Top 100 cars This article self proclaims the C2 as #7

Work and other activities has slowed progress over the past couple weeks.  Today I primed the rear end and door along with a couple other pieces like clutch & brake pedal, deck lid hinges, and the Z-bar. I was doing some online search for possible colors.  This is a pearl base coat color that brings the appearance of being candied.  Don't want to do candied since its hard to touch up / spot in for possible issues. Work has been a bear lately so I'm going to slack on this post.  The next post should have some images of the rear strut mount change to improve the suspension geometry and tire contact patch. Update: (2/5/2021) Decided to change the color to silver.  Looking at the Mercedes AMG McLaren silver as a option.

It's been a couple weeks since we posted our activity.  The lapse in time is partly due to only incremental changes and the start of football practice for Brandon. As you can see in the picture below, the entire chassis with wheels are ready to go.  The wheels came in a week or two ago and I had the tires mounted to complete the setup.  The tire are 225/50 - 17 which should maximize the contact area on the road to bring some needed performance to this vehicle.  I'm kind of glad I didn't go straight to the 480-525 HP create engine in case the transfer of power to the road is minimal. Here you can see we completed the exhaust from the headers to the side pipes which was a added twist to this project.  We took the plunge and bought a TIG welder (sprung for the AC/DC unit to do most any metal).  This wasn't a planned portion of the project but you can read the bottom section of this post to see what prompted adding this trade to our skill set.  We p...

This weekend was very exciting as we did the initial starting of the engine to make sure activity so far has been correct.  Since this was my first crack at weeding out and re-configuring the wiring harness, I wanted to make sure all was correct. Below is a video of the first firing of the engine. Since this was a success, I started to look around for the next steps and quickly realized I need to start back on the body of the car.  Aside from tiding up the harness and possibly working on the side exhaust, there not much else to close out the chassis. One thing I have been putting off was painting the brake calipers since the weather here has been hot and humid.  This morning was amazingly cool with low humidity.  So, I took this opportunity to finally paint. Here are some closeup pictures of the engine even though the wiring harness hasn't been tided up to the final configuration.  I wanted to makes sure the system was working fine before closing...

Lots of stuff happening this weekend.  The main objective was to start the engine but that was quickly changed by me not researching the required injectors for my intake manifold.  I learned this the hard way when we did the final purge of the manifold where it was clear there was a leak before gas spewed (hissing of air from places other than the port I had loosened).  Prior to doing the manifold, I ran the system into a bucket to ensure all debris was removed from the lines.  Since my engine came from a Silverado 2500HD, it had the shorter LQ9 injectors.  Upon the rapid purge release from the fuel rails, I came across this website to reference LS engine difference: http://nookandtranny.com/Info_LSx.php Well, the new injectors are on the way along with the EV1 pigtails since I'll need to modify the engine harness for the new style injectors.  At least this gives me more time to work on other parts of the harness and not rush to fire the engine. Since...

I missed last weeks post since activity was impeded by missing parts from Hurst.  The transmission kit I bought had the trans, bell housing, flywheel, pressure plate, hydraulic clutch, throughout bearing, pilot bearing, etc.  What they didn't provide was bolts for the flywheel to crank...really?  If you buy a bolt in kit, shouldn't it come with everything to bolt it into the vehicle? Anyway, I spent some valuable time with the car this weekend which included using Eastwood Exo-Armor to protect the polished components of the engine (  http://www.eastwood.com/exoarmour.html ).  This stuff is suppose to be good to 2000 degrees and held up against 4000 hrs of salt spray. An air brush was used for application.  This stuff needs to have thin coats and it was easy to build too quickly.  Overall, I was quite pleased with the results. I also sprayed the bell housing and transmission to keep them looking new. Here is the intake, A/C Compressor, and m...

Not to much to share from this week.  I've been neglecting the yard and such so, this weekend entailed the movement and distribution of 12 cubic yards of mulch.  However, I did find some time to work on the water pump.  Since my engine came from a truck, the accessories and such are not configured to fit under my hood. Here is the new water pump which I promptly pulled the heater hose end out and tapped the holes for plugs.  The new water pump fits the F-Body vehicle which also required a new harmonic balancer to re-position the serpentine belt.   Installation of the new balancer will require a special tool (M12 Threaded Rod) to do the job correctly.  The old seal in the timing cover came out pretty easily and the new one installed without incident.  I figured if I was putting a new balancer on, I better install a new seal. Previously, I had a concern with clearance on the headers.  I took a shot and ordered a set from Ebay which really ...

I was looking over some of the pictures in my post and for those people that know me, sub-par pictures are not really acceptable.  Anyway, I plan to spend more time on the details associated with documenting this adventure. This weekend was hot here in Houston...it is our bad weather season.  It seemed like I went through two to three changes of clothes just working through the morning, up through lunch.  Clothing needed changed because I was too soaked to be comfortable and not stick to everything I touched.  This weekend the work was focused on a number of small items associated with the rear suspension.  The drive shaves and shocks where the major addition this weekend along with other small pieces needed to close out this portion of the drive train. It was interesting looking back at the original strut rod that came on the car.  From what I've read, they use to bend the rod to achieve alignment on the rear wheel if the existing adjuster didn'...

I missed posting last week but things are moving.  After installing the engine and doing an initial fit of the upper control arm to the frame, it was clear we have a clearance issue with the water pump outlet.  Looking online, this is a typical problem for some swaps...funny that no one has solution for purchase.  So, it looks like I will be pulling out the current pipes, tapping them for a 3/8" and 1/2" plug and then relocate some pipe fittings else where on the water pump.  The thermostat neck is an easy fix since a straight version is available.  This is part of the reason I went with a cheap used engine first to prove out these solutions before dropping some serious money on a create engine.   This weekend, Brandon and I worked on the front suspension.  We are going with a semi coil-over shock to gain the ability to adjust the ride height.  This setup also allows us to adjust the damping level of the shocks.  I'll let Brandon take ...

Well, the full force of summer has hit Houston but work is still progressing.  This weekend Brandon and I stripped the engine down to the bare essentials.  Basically, I wanted to do a trial run on the installation to see how everything was going to line up. Brandon here, today me and my dad bolted the transmition to the engine then we installed it to the frame.  The combined engine transmission assembly weighed a lot...I estimate 1.5 tons. We had to adjust the engine to align the mounting bolts so, I used a 2x4 board to make subtle movements. Before we installed the engine, we stripped the engine of accessories and manifolds.  I used the impact wrench which made stripping the engine so much easier.  We had to keep changing sockets to fit the different bolts.  When we were finished, we jumped into the pool since we were so hot. Once the engine was cleaned, we did a coarse assembly of the bell housing ...

Took a little time off this week and only ordered the materials to install the fuel line and other miscellaneous items.  Earlier this week, the new transmission arrived but the order was missing a number of items.  Fortunately, I had the opportunity to spend some of my spare time calling Hurst Driveline again.  To their credit, they did resolve the situation promptly.  I'd like to say it was minor miss but they forgot to send the bell housing, flywheel, pressure plate and clutch. Brandon should be back from his summer vacation next week and we can move forward with the frame assembly.  He was concerned that I had built the rolling frame for the body without him. We are quickly closing in on working the body which means we need to pick a color.  I thought I had the color decided but doubt was introduced when my wife and I saw a red one at a car show.