Br3w City's Project omgwtfbbq

[BR3W CITY]

Got my tbss manifolds on saturday. Here they are with the shields.


no shields


Fit awesome! Have to make a TINY trim on the frame rail for easier access to the outside flange bolt. Here they are, and a couple of clearance pics to the perch.





And I took a few minutes to start dismantling the dash for the custom gauges, and stripping un needed wires from the dash.

[BR3W CITY]

Had my new tach and OP gauges show up, as well as some switches I'll be using for the accessories (wipers/lights etc will be moved from the gauge bezel)




Got behind the gauge cluster and started taking out all the old hardened and frayed wire.


And snagged my handy wiring cart from work. This makes running full lenghts of multi color and multi strand wire a dream


And finished my stainless rad pipe. I still need to trim the hose ends better, but for now it looks pretty good, and was easier than finding a single rubber hose to make that run

[Clyde65]

your original guage pod looks real nice BR.

[BR3W CITY]

Ya the original cluster is REALLY nice. It has the 1 year only double line temp gauge as well. I'm keeping it all together, I don't want to ruin such a nice peice. I'll probably throw it up for sale if anyone needs it. Everything still works on it, but the speedo was only tested with a drill (I never had it hooked up to my trans).
I've got some 20ga stainless and I'm making a new panel for the tach, op gauge, and my scangauge. That will pretty much be my whole cluster, as the scanguage will be my speedo, temp and volt gauge in one.

[BR3W CITY]

Woot! Had some nice flanges cut out of 3/8 plate by a friend.


And picked up some other parts to make the downpipes and mount the o2 sensors.
The spark defoulers I was going to use for bungs didn't work (we need 18mm i they only had 15mm) so I'm waiting on regular weld in bungs from summit.

The pipe fit up perfect, just need to weld it up.


And started trimming some 20ga stainless for the gauges cluster.

[BR3W CITY]

Picked up an ebay intake for a silverado. Cut it down a bit and modified a bracket, but she fits in pretty good. The 22* bend makes it perfectly over my upper rad hose, and angles the filter enough to keep it clear.

[BR3W CITY]

Got a little surprise this afternoon from my guys in the fab shop (hey having pro welders working for you makes being a ****ty welder myself easier). My exhaust stubs are done, so I can finish that up and pretty much have this thing ready to start, sans a driveshaft and the finish wiring.

[Pop's C-10]

nice build

[BR3W CITY]

Thanks Pops!

Painted the gauge surround


Started making some exhaust gaskets. Since I had custom flanges made, they won't take the standard style donut gaskets (my flanges have no relief cut into them), I needed to make some. I found this stuff on summit, called Percy's Carbon XX gasket material. Some guys on a turbo forum had used it with good success, so I figured I'd give it a whirl.

Its a felt-like material with a metal sandwiched in between the layers. Its somewhat tough to cut but makes a pretty nice gasket when all is said and done, and due to its thickness it looks like it could absorb a good amount of imperfection in the flange surface.


And got my o2 sensors mounted into the pipes and connected to my harness. A bit tough to see in the angle of the picture, but theres plenty of clearance on both sides.



And another shot of the engine bay with my better camera, instead of on the cell.

[chad64chevy]

nice build! moving very fast through it!! you can send me your sbc motor since you updated yours, lol!!!

[BR3W CITY]

haha thanks Chad. The old 355/700r4 combo is making its way into a co-workers g-body. His anemic smog-era 305 just wasn't doing the job anymore lol.

No pics from this weekend, just A LOT more wiring. It turns out my old fuse panel had melted a good portion of the original harness, and on top of the that the various retro-fits over the years and really messed things up.
*Insert pic*
We are ripping the entire thing out and starting from scratch. Fuel pump and rear lighting has all been handled. The headlights and dome light have been moved to 2 seperate dash mounted switches, removing the multi function switch from the dash, and the foot control. The wipers will also be moved to this same panel, so only the ignition will remain on the bezel.
*insert pic*
Running ALL new wires is a serious headache, but luckily I have some help. Mike (I have a picture of him doing some wiring here somewhere), is a 35yr veteran mechanic. He's currently a medium duty dodge truck senior mechanic, but used to work on anything (including military vehicles) for the military when he was living in soviet Russia. He has made sense out of this mess and is getting the wiring cleaned up so not only can we start the truck, but everything will be easily traceable and serviceable in the future. All new fuse panel in cab, all new wiring, fuses, grounds and more. Only a few select stock peices will remain.

[BR3W CITY]

Just some small progress from the week.
Continued on the bezel

I'm waiting for my seats to show up so I can mock up the dash with the column and seats all together for gauge positioning.

That being said, the old column came out, and the new 5way tilt column showed up. I had to adapt some wiring, but it was fairly smooth going. I also put my old adapter and existing Grant wheel on the new column.



And I picked up my new custom shaft from A1 driveshaft here in Milwaukee. Made from .083 steel (I was told roughly 1/3 thicker than stock), and rated to upwards of 800hp.



I wanted to protect it from the elements...so paint was in order...and for whatever reason, I decided it was a good idea to Candy Cane my driveshaft.




No one is really going to see it anyway, but I had some free time (and beer) so I said screw it.

[SFTorange]

You always need a diversion from the tedious problem solving part of a build like this!

I've really enjoyed watching your build. These modern swaps really have me thinking.... dang, my current build isn't even done!

[BR3W CITY]

thanks man! The "candy cane" was just that. I was tired of wiring and thought I would do something a little goofy to take my mind off of it.

Tonight should be the final install of the now-dry candy cane driveshaft. Hopefully I should be able to get my oil bypass tapped for the pressure port, and get he nylon line run for the gauge.


SFTorange, your truck is lookin good as well. Love the big back window, sadly one option that my truck didn't get.

[BR3W CITY]

pulled the old bench out


So i took the opportunity to do a little cleaning. The carpet needs a wash, but the rest vacuumed up well


Now I could start to mock up the new Procar seats


I plan to trim the rear inner panel to gain some room for the back rest




And finally I was able to move forward with mockup of the gauge cluster. The scangauge is mounted from behind, on the bezel, and is taking care of the Speedo, temp, and voltage monitoring functions (as well as others available). This setup lets me keep a "race" style cluster with the tach as the focal point. I plan to add another gauge just to the left of the tach, to keep thing symetrical...but its tbd right now.



I still need to take it all back out to re polish the panel, and permanently affix it in the bezel. Hopefully more updates will come after some more work tommorow.

[BR3W CITY]

I headed down to the fab shop today and decided to start on some seat brackets. Grabbed some 1" square tube and made some 17 and 19 inch sections to make a square base.



And since all the good gear is at the shop, I used my favorite welder.. A 40 year old Union Carbide. I don't know why but I weld better with this that anything else.


Ant they fit right into place on the floor


And presto, they are mounted and solid to the floor (used some 5/16 bolts and fender washers with nylocks to spread the load).



I need to get some better pics, but I only had my phone at the time.

[BR3W CITY]

A pic of the seats with the better cam


The gauge bezel and new gauges; I may add a CEL light but I'm not sure if it will end up on the cluster


Did a couple coats of spray bedliner on the bedsides. I'll do this on the tubs and bed floor as well, but haven't fabbed them up as of yet.,

[BR3W CITY]

Ahhhhhh wiring!


Started fabbing a bracket/mount for the dbw pedal. The heavy plate might be a bit much, but I wanted to make sure if I "pedal to the medal"...the pedal would stay mount.



Still need to do some test fitting before I clean up the corners and paint it up.

The po was a short little bastard I guess, because the floor shifter location jammed the handle right up into my knee. Rather than pay B&M for a new shifter (since mine works fine), I decided to see if I could mod mine up, plus it allows me to make a larger "hot rod" shifter. Its not done yet, but the first step was to bend the aluminum shift rod outward so it would clear my leg. Bending the heavy aluminum is a *****, even with a large amount of heat. Luckily the 50 ton press at the shop makes it a bit easier.



Doesn't seem like much yet, but I'll have it finished later this weekend.

[BR3W CITY]

Like they used to say on Monster Garage
FREEEEEBBBIEEEESSSSfreeeebbbiieessssssFREEEBIEESSSS

Its not much, but our shop's welding supply rep hooked it up with a free set of shoulder wear, and apron. Gotta love comp'd stuff.

[BR3W CITY]

Its been a few since my last update, but I've been making some progress. Right now I'm just waiting to finish the last of the interior wiring for the cluster before installing it...the last step on my interior. My tuner should be coming over this week and she should be running!

My Epco knob came in, and I affixed it the the shift rod I bent earlier. I made 2 sizes, one that gives it a more "hot rod" feel, and another that is a bit shorter and more controlled. I'll be getting them both powder coated along with some other parts in another stage of the build.




I also picked up a new brake switch for the swap and got that installed. You need a new switch to hook up the TCC correctly; the stock switch is only a 2 terminal, while this replacement is a 4 terminals. I found it at napa part #SL186SB.

[BR3W CITY]

While I was trying to paint the glovebox door trim, it snapped at a stress point.


I needed a replacement and figured the sheetmetal guys at the shop wouldn't mind a little extra work. They laser cut a replacement out of stainless, and decided i should rebadge it as in Isuzu.



MmmmShiny



I also had them cut and fab up some tubs for me from 16ga, I had them make them a bit big so I could fine tune them down. I have them mocked up right now, gut they will be cut down almost 3" and trimmed inward near the same. But, for fun--->




And my engine cover came as well, its the 3 piece Vortec Max cover.


We sanded her down, and with some creative masking we were able to paint it to match the rest of the under hood goodies.

[ruffrida2005]

The work put in looks really nice!

[BR3W CITY]

thanks 'rida

It was also time for that crappy intermediate shaft to go, and replaced with another new joint from CPP






Tonight the wiring should be near complete (I've said that before tho!), and my tuner will now be coming over on friday for the "official" first startup and quick tune. Then its off to the dyno!

[BR3W CITY]

Well at 8am this morning we woke the neighbors up with the sound of LS fury. The Lq4 lives! Big thanks to Tom from West Bend Dyno Tuning for coming out and helping me get it started.
Fullscreen vid (low def)
http://www.youtube.com/v/g6JXFak4Qpk...bedded&version

We did run into 1 issue. When I rev the engine, it goes fine, but after taht first rev the pedal loses communication with the engine. I get a U0107 fault. I'm going to look into this one this weekend.

[BR3W CITY]

Ok, I'm working on the video thing