Been Busy

The engine and transaxle are bolted in. The front and rear suspension is reinstalled. The completed dry sump tank arrived today and is in its place. Lots of man hours invested but major progress has been made.  The goal is to start the engine by Sunday night. Much more to do. Will post pictures and another update tomorrow or Sunday night.

Christmas in May!

The chassis, bumpers and several brackets were dropped off at 7 AM Tuesday morning to be sandblasted and powder coated. Larry Dickson of Fox Valley Sandblasting and Powder Coating in Yorkville IL promised to do what he could to answer my plea to get the job done quickly.  He certainly did as he promised by calling me the next day shortly after lunch. He said they were done and to come back and pick up the completed job.

It was picked up and back in my shop about 36 hours after it was dropped off!  Wow. Great service and a wonderful job. Thanks to Larry and his guys.

We also got a call from a trucker that has another care package from Palatov Motorsports. This should be delivered tomorrow before noon. I should finally have all the parts I need to keep busy for quite a while.  The ball is in my court.  Just the way I like it.

We have an exhaust system!

Picked up the car from Midwest Hot Rods in Plainfield IL yesterday. Dan Ulreich did an excellent job of mounting the mufflers and fabricating 3" Stainless Steel tubing to connect the mufflers to the LS7 headers and making tailpipes to route the exhaust out the rear. Dan also welded various AN-8 and -10 fittings onto the oil cooler, radiator and engine oil manifolds.  Great job. ThanksDan.

Yes the mufflers are big. Magnaflow and other muffler tech advisors suggested that the larger the muffler's internal volume the quieter a given setup was likely to be.  I did not want to be told to load up and go home from some racetrack because the car was too loud. It will not need to be overwhelmingly loud to convince people that it is fast. I think the extra couple of pounds is worth the driver/passenger comfort and piece of mind.

 

Denise and I also picked up the dry sump tank from Saldana when in Indy for the Old Timers/Hall of Fame dinner Thursday.

 

Although the tank is not exactly in its correct place, you can get an idea how closely packaged things are.

 

The next project is to mount the steering quickener. DP ran out of time to get this done so I said that I would take care of it. Then disassemble the car and get it to the powder coater by Tuesday at 7 AM. Busy weekend.

Ready to load into my trailer and gain an exhaust system

Graeme asked for pix of the full car as it is now.

It is now in my trailer and ready to go next Tuesday to the shop that will fabricate the exhaust pipes to the mufflers and tail pipes from the mufflers to the back. Note my high tech cardboard dry sump tank. This should suffice as a place holder for the exhaust fabricator until the real tank arrives from Saldana. Also note the overly long stock GM wiring harness. I've begun to figure out where and how to shorten it so that it fits the D2.

This view shows the left rear of the car. Note the brackets and mounting for the engine oil to engine coolant heat exchanger. The fabricator will weld the AN-8 oil and AN-10 coolant fittings to my modified GM oil cooler. As shown in a previous post it would not fit within the frame rails . Also note the nice air inlet duct that DP fabricated.  It picks up cool and filtered air from a high pressure area upstream of the left radiator and feeds it thru the 4" ID duct to the engine's throttle body.  I hope to be able to post another update Friday that shows the completed exhaust system.

Moving along. Slowly

JT was still unable to get working on my exhaust system. Spent most of the week finding a quality shop that could quickly fit me in.  Two or three months ago this would not have been a problem. Now that spring has sprung in the Midwest all the good fabricators are busy.   The current plan is to deliver the car to a shop this coming Tuesday.  They promise it back by Friday. 

Also spent time on the dry sump tank design and agreed with Saldana Racing on a modification of DP's suggested tank. In addition, I made a cardboard mock up of the tank. This is now taped in it's place so that the exhaust fabricator will know how much room he has to deal with.

DP shipped a care package of needed parts Wednesday. I hope this includes the floor boards and at least the driver's seat so that I'll be able to mount pedals and get working on the steel lines for the clutch and brakes.

After the exhaust is done, I'll pull the engine and get the frame powder coated. Once that happens, progress should speed up. I hope!

Moving the Engine Oil Cooler

A couple of posts back I said that moving the engine oil cooler would be "a piece of cake". Wrong!

I spent most of the weekend cutting the LS7's stock oil cooler manifold apart, fabricating and mounting brackets so that it can be mounted to the frame, using part of the stock maniflod to route oil thru AN-8 hoses to the now remote oil cooler etc.

It is complicated to describe. After I order some aluminum weld on AN fittings from Earl's Indy Servishop and get them welded in place, I'll post pix of the assembled arrangement.

Mufflers are in. Hopefully JT will be able to finish the exhaust system this coming week. Lots more to do but progress is being made.

Added lower trans mount. Modified dry sump manifold.

DP suggested that I fabricate a link between the bottom of the Porsche transaxle and the frame to absorb rear wheel torque. When the engine torque is multiplied by my 9.01 overall 1st. gear trans ratio and fed thru to the rear axles, this would be well over 4,600 ft. lbs.  IF the tires were able to hook up 100%. Sounded like a good idea so I did it.

Also modified AN-12 45* fittings so that when welded to GM's LS7 dry sump hose manifold, the hoses to and from the dry sump tank will not interfere with the chassis, exhaust pipe or motor mounts.

The mufflers arrived on time but J.T. the header guy is still trying to finish his current project so that he can work on my exhaust system.

I wish this was February. I want to be driving this thing. Working on it and solving normal issues is fun but driving and racing the car is what it is all about for me.

Engine Mounts Finished

Finished the engine mounts, rubber cushions and transaxle mounts today. I decided to raise the engine 1/8" via a shim on each side to provide better clearance between the transaxle and a cross frame tube.  Still need to grind off remnants of the original mounts. This will be done before powder coating. DP said there is no need for rubber isolation of the transaxle mounts, so I did not spend the time to do that. There is always the option to do it later if needed.

See pix of right side, left side and transaxle mounts below.  The rubber pad below the mount is 1/2" 70 durometer. Top pads are 1/4" in slightly softer 65 durometer.

Note the water jet cut header flanges I had made. GM does not offer these. The headers are made of stainless steel. The exhaust pipes and mufflers will also be stainless.

I also began to scope out the GMPP engine control computer wiring harness. This was made for a much larger car and I will probably shorten it to fit better.

Engine Mounting Challenges Resolved- Almost

Got the oil cooler hose adapter from Gandrud today. It should work out well. Still need to adapt the hoses to the oil/water heat exchanger and mount the heat exchanger. That should be a piece of cake once the exhaust pipe and muffler are fitted. Left side shown below.

Also note the new flat mount for the stock GM LS7 motor mount. The silver large OD washers will be replaced by flat 1/2" rubber sheet that has a 70 durometer rating. The rubber sheets will be above and below the aluminum motor mount. Final welding will be done by the header guy.

 

Right side shown below.

 

The old bracket remnants will be removed when the engine is pulled after the exhaust system is finished and before power coating is begun.

Engine Installation Challenge #2

The GM hose kit to route oil to a remote oil cooler is expected to arrive today. Will post pix ASAP.

Also DP's LS3 E-Rod engine mounting brackets interfered with the LS7 headers.  Consequently the decision was made to use the stock LS7 engine mounts and modify the frame to mate with those mounts. This has been done and the engine and transaxle installed. The engine/transaxle have been removed to allow final welding and dressing of the frame and mounts.

I think DP will look at and probably adopt a similar arrangement so that future D2's will accept all LS engines without frame changes.

Pix will be posted when that is done. In the meantime business and family obligations will take up most of my time for the next couple of days.

A friend that is a dragster chassis builder and header construction specialist is scheduled to take the car for several days next week so that he can construct the exhaust pipe and muffler combination.  This assumes that the Magnaflow mufflers arrive in time as promised.