Thanks for the compliments guys. I appreciate it.
So a little update, a very frustrating one for me, but hopefully someone will learn from my mistake. I started dialing in the scattershield. First I had to buy a dial indicator and a magnetic base. Some write ups I read said you could use a 3" bolt and a c-clamp, but for $18 I thought the magnetic base would be easier. The dial indicator cost me about $20. You can also use a test indicator for this.
I hooked the dial indicator up to the magnetic base and put it on the flywheel to give a good picture of how it looks without the scattershield on.
The scattershield went on and I put the dial indicator back on the flywheel. Here's some pics of how it looks
After posting several questions on another forum, I found out this was not the right way to do it
It needs to be as flat as possible like this
Once the dial indicator was in place, I turned the engine 360 degrees and found the high and low points. My high point was at about 7 o'clock which put my low point around 2 o'clock. Your high point should be almost across from your high point. Once you get your high point and low point numbers, you take the difference and divide by 2. Then you get the off set dowels accordingly. For mine, I needed 0.0021 dowels.
Here's where I made a big mistake. It was recommend that I get some dowels from
http://www.robbmcperformance.com/ but I thought "they're all the same and I can just get them in Canada and not have to pay the duty". So I had a pair of Lakewood ones shipped to me. They cost $19 for the dowels and $15 shipping. The Lakewood ones are supposed to turn using a screwdriver......I call bulls$*t. I'll get back to that in a minute.
So I finally got the new dowels
And it was time to take out the old ones. This was quite easy. I took off the exhaust manifolds as they're not being used anyways and used a long bolt. I then tapped them out with a hammer.
Now you want to put some grease on in the dowel holes and on the dowel and tap them in.
Before putting them in, look at them and find out where the high point on the dowel is, for both. You want to have them parallel in the block.
Here's where I was/am getting confused. My high reading was at 7 o'clock and my low was at 2 o'clock. I wasn't sure which way to point the dowels. After watching a video by Keisler, I found you want to point the high side of the dowel towards the biggest number you got with the dial indicator. This is because that number is telling you that it is 0.0035 (for example) away from the center. I think this is correct, but please if someone knows...correct me and help me figure this damn process out. I want to do it right.
So I went to try and turn the dowel with a screwdriver, like it said to do, and I'm not sure who was doing it, but there is no way in hell those things were moving. So I grabbed some vice grips and was able to turn them with those. I kept turning the dowels and remeasuring but ended up no farther ahead. The annoying thing is everytime you need to turn the dowels, you have to loosen all the bolts holding the scattershield, turn the dowels and then tighten them back up. On the passenger side I had no problem fitting the vice grips but on the driver's side, I had to cut out the mechanical linkage bracket. Good thing I'm going hydraulic.
Before
After. I'm going to grind it down smooth and put some red paint on to clean it up.
That last picture gave a glimpse as to why not to use the 'screwdriver type' of dowels. You can only clamp them so many times before they end up looking like this
So basically I wasted $40 on dowels when I was told to get the good ones to start with. Take my advice....get the good ones to start with!!!
Yesterday I called RobbMC Performance and they will ship me a new set on Monday. The new dowels run $28 and the thing that pi****es me off...I paid $15 to have the first ones shipped from a place that is 3 hours away. RobbMC is charging $10 to be shipped from Nevada. The difference between the good ones and the Lakewood ones are that once they are in place, you can use a open end wrench to turn them. They also have a screw down the middle that allows you to loosen the dowels so they turn. Once in final place, you tighten the screw and they are locked in place. Here's a link to the good ones:
http://www.robbmcperformance.com/products/dowels.html
Another thing I found during all the trial and error runs was that my magnetic base was not sitting completely flat on the flywheel. I could lightly touch the shaft on it and it would rock. I found out why. When it was sitting on the flywheel, the lip on the crank that comes through the flywheel (hopefully that makes sense) sits slightly higher, causing there to be a ridge. Also, the magnetic base would not sit flat between the two bolts as it was a little bit two wide. Nothing a grinder can't fix.
So today I am no farther ahead, but actually down $40 and a few frustrating hours. Hopefully next week I will get a chance to put the new dowels in and get this done once and for all. I just hope that I have all the kinks worked out and it goes smoothly.
Please if anyone has any suggestions or advice on dialing in the scattershield, please feel free to join in. I want this to be as informative as possible for anyone reading this.
Pro-Touring 68 Acadian (Nova) with L92 
1971 Nova w/98 Camaro Z28 LS1, 1933 Ford w/01 Camaro B4C LS1, and the ONLY 5.3 powered Family Truckster in the world!
