Finally got the Motor back on the K-member today We had a little trouble lining up the bolts through the motor mounts but a little bit of patience and some prying here and there we got them in and torqued down. Then I tackeled the remaining accessories and really filled up the front of the motor. Next time I'll finish sorting out the wiring harness and making all the connections and than it should be time to mate it to the waiting trans and get it back home.

 

Had a little snag the other day when I realized that the harness I bought from Katech to extend the knock sensors and cam position sensor did not fit into the female end of the cam sensor that mounts in the timing cover. Apparently there is a small pigtail harness that comes out of the timing cover sensor that I didn't get with the shortlbock I bought. Luckily the dealership has it coming in today and its only $15.

Katech connector

Female end of sensor


On a brighter note I got a package yesterday. Its a Innovative Motorsports LC-1 wideband with a gauge and the included software. Just a little added insurance in case the car ever decideds to run lean again or I can log runs with it as well.

 

Looks like you making good progress. Goob Job!

 

Got the trans and converter bolted up yesterday, all thats left to do is finish routing the wiring harness, bolt up the headers, and then go through the engine bay and move everything out of the way. Once that is done the motor will go back into place and it shouldn't take but another few hours to get it ready to fire. Unfortunatly I don't have a lot of time to do it this weekend and my wife is due any day now so it may be a few more weeks.

 

Heres a few pics from the little bit of work we got done today and also some of yesterday.






WTF is Mike doing!?

 

so did you use your harness, and just buy adapter harnesses for like the knock sensors, cam and map sensor? one other thing. is your fender cracker or am i seeing things?

 

I bought the katech harness extension for the cam and knock sensors, and yes my fender is cracked from an accident last year where someone hit me.

 

Hey, cool build. I'm watching it to see how much faster your 6.0 will be than my 5.7 We are both full weight streetcar TA's.

I went through this whole thread trying to figure out what heads you have. I figured you would have L92's by the big split cam specs, then I saw the fast intake and cathedral ports and knew otherwise. Are they LS1 heads? You should have had some 243's with that LS2 longblock, but you sold them I'm thinking? Can't wait for some times.

 

Im gonna be way over full weight. lol but im not worried about times.... but if im not in the tens i might cry.

 

Yes the car is pretty much full weight aside from the fiberglass hood and now the new k-member. The heads are ETP 5.3s that flow 320 on the intake and 222 exhaust at .600" so they should flow well enough for a little H/C car. I did have a set of 243s but sold them to a friend of mine.

 

The car is officially ready to start now! We got a lot of work done today. First I tackeled everything in the engine bay that wasn't connected aside from the coils and fuel line, got all the wiring harness routed properly and had an absolute hell of a time getting the a/c lines all connected again with everything together, what a pain in the ***. After that we decided my dad and I spent about a good hour getting the damn torque arm back in the clamshell which sucked but oh well it got done. After that we took a look at the driveshaft only to find that the u-joint was pretty tight and need replacement.

After making a small list of supplies I headed out to Murray's and came back with all the necessary fluids I needed to get the car back and runing again. After we replaced the u-joint I made the decision not to go ahead and put the driveshaft on just yet because tomorrow I may be picking up something, lets just say my dad was not happy to hear this after we spent other time on this part. The worst part of it all now is that I want so badly to crank the car over and make sure everything is in working order and then recheck it all again tomorrow....................but I still have no valvecovers and my tuner checked on them today and they said maybe by the end of the week now I have to sit around all week waiting. Oh well guess it gives me time to check and recheck every little detail beforehand.

New u-joint installed




May parts pile is very slim now

All new fluids I bought today

 

Man, I hate to see the shitty, horrible, worthless stock shocks go back in! You really have no idea how bad you're screwing yourself.

Otherwise, I am totally digging your build. Wouldn't have been my cam choice but I really like how you're making this a budget build without cutting any important corners. It's very efficient, nice work! Bet it's killing you waiting to start her up...

 

trust me it really pains me to put the stock shocks and springs back in but when I upgrade to tubular arms that will be the best time to do them, also I want to go with some AFCOs so it'll be a while. Thanks for your opinion though

 

Well guys I had kind of a rough day yesterday because it was filled with some major highs and lows and my car decided to play a horrible April fools joke on me. Heres how things went down. Matt was kind enough to lend me his valvecovers for the day, thanks again Matt I really appreciate it. So I got to work on getting the car ready to fire up, made sure I had all the necessary fluids in it and of course got really nervous and excited. The first time I turned the key I always leave the coil packs disconnected so that I can make sure the motor spins freely and it also helps to prime the oil pump, before that though I make sure the fuel pump kicks on. Well guess what no fuel pump.

Ok so its not the worst thing to happen so I begin to check over the wiring and find out that a ground wire on the back of the head is disconnected, sweet easy fix. So for now we just connected some wire and grounded it up in the engine bay, which is why there is a white wire hanging all over the engine bay in the video. That solved the fuel pump issue and we were ready to crank it over, it cranks over once or twice and then the battery dies, even though I had it on a charger an hour prior I had it on a 2 amp charge (DOH!) so we set it back on and give it 50 amps so it'll start. I connect the coil packs and take a huge gulp as I turn the key slowly forward.

Sure enough the car fired up beautifull the very first crank and man is it loud (open headers) oil pressure come up almost immediatly and then we start looking over all the fluids again and refilling the radiator ect. The car runs fine but gets a little hot due to some air pockets in the coolant system so I shut it down. I repeatedly asked a few of my buddies if anything is leaking under the car, they take a look and tell me it all looks good so good news and I am all smiles. Then while the car cools I meet up with a guy that I'm buying a torque arm off of and go pick that up, I am elated to say the least.

I come back to the car and we get ready to fire it up again and let the coolant work the air pockets out of the system and run at a steady temp for a few minutes. We fire it up again perfectly and let it run, no problems whatsoever. I shut the car off and get ready to head home and get some dinner for the night, as I bend over to look under the car this is what I see.






My heart instantly dropped into my stomach as I knew it was oil so we lifted the car up only to discover that it appears to be coming from the rear cover. This in turn means that I need to drop the trans and see if I can't get to the cover and change it once again. Lots more work that I totally am pissed and disappointed about, its times like these where I ask myself why I do this **** Not that I'm excited about it anymore but here are the videos we took and a few pics of my new torque arm. The first vid is the actual first startup and the second is after it caught a little better idle, sorry if the sound quality sucks but it was very loud.

 

Just picked up the new valvecovers today.

 

Well I finally got the trans out yesterday and found the leak. It looks to be the rear main seal as I expected so new gaskets are in order and then back together again.

 

This post is WORTH w/pixes
Keep it up

 

Nice Build!!. I almost bought a brand new LS2 block earlier in the year for like $750 bucks, but then i discovered what it costs to build a forged stroker, and i quickly decided i had better things to spend money on. lol

I'm in michigan too, maybe i'll see you around. PM me when you get your car going, i'd love to meet some cool people around detroit to cruise around with. I live in Redford, but i work in Troy

 

Glad the leak turned out to be fairly easy to fix! Valve covers look good! Again, I really like this build. What fuel pump are you running? More pics! Btw, congrats on the new baby in order?

 

Yeah the leak isn't too bad and I'm just glad the car ran fine because I could of had much worse problems. The new baby girl has defiantly filled my schedule lately but in the next week or two I should have it all back together and ready for the exhaust and alignment. Also I am running a full racetronix kit with the harness