Project Madera: A Jimmy GT

[mcmlxix]

Thanks<
I found Limeswap on one of the other forums and a few other sources for info. I also found a cast rear sump pan that looks sub par in quality based on some pics. I just found another pan that has a billet flange and the rest fabricated... If any of my plan comes together(getting the car I have my eye on), it will have a NA 4200; then maybe upgraded to FI later...

So now lets see some progress pics... even if it's just some cool new parts...

[skorpioskorpio]

quote=mcmlxix;6674394]Thanks<
I found Limeswap on one of the other forums and a few other sources for info. I also found a cast rear sump pan that looks sub par in quality based on some pics. I just found another pan that has a billet flange and the rest fabricated... If any of my plan comes together(getting the car I have my eye on), it will have a NA 4200; then maybe upgraded to FI later...

So now lets see some progress pics... even if it's just some cool new parts...[/quote]

hmmm, you are likely talking about the pans on the Vortec4200 forum, there is 3, all vaporware. The cast pan, the guy who did that one had to find another foundry after he made the first one (he may have made a few, but I've talked to most of the guys in that forum and no one has ever seen one in person), I was supposed to get the first one from the new foundry, after a few months of back and forth, they apparently blew out his mold.

The Billet flange pan with the fabricated bottom, that guy had to sell all his machinery, so that pan is gone. Also that pan did not have the bosses for the lower bolts for the AC compressor if that matters to you.

The "bolt on" rear sump pan is a one off, never made again.

There is also a mid sump pan made by a guy in Ohio for swaping a 4200 in to vintage Rolls Royces, it exists but is super expensive and really buys you nothing for a 67-72 swap.

Believe me if there was an off the shelf pan, I never would have gone down the Fiat pan path. However, the Fiat pan path can be done on many levels there is probably 8-10 different aftermarket pans for that old Fiat 2 cylinder with varying capacities. You only need the top 2 inches of the original pan, plus the transmission dirt skirt. You do however need to be able to get to the inspection hole in the skirt to put the torque converter bolts on, so the removable Fiat sump solves that problem. I've been told that if you had to, you could bolt up the torque converter through the starter hole.

Here is a pic of the Fiat 500 pan gasket laid over my broken pan to give you an idea of scale:

..and this is the Lavazza pan laid over that gasket in the position it would be, remember that the entire bottom of the pan will be milled off and replaced with a new bottom:


So, when you say NA and FI later, are you talking carbs? That maybe more difficult than you think. There are no aftermarket intakes for the 4200, only the factory composite (plastic) one. Also the injectors are in the head not the intake so if you plug those for carbs you may make doing fuel injection difficult later. After I posted my respose late last night I was on the phone with Jenvey in England (4am LA time) discussing my fuel injection plans, they suggested I would get better performance by moving the injectors out away from the head and into the throttle bodies. I guess I always assumed squirting directly into the port was the optimal position, Jenvey was telling me that that is done for emmisions and cold starting and that fuel injection atomises better and is more responsive if you inject at the furthest point in the individual runner not the nearest, and these guys are kind of the guys in that market so I tend to give a lot of credit to what they say.

Anyway this new info may make me reconsider the plan, since the OEM fuel rail and especially the injector plugs are really in the way for a good clean manifold design and if moving all that out to the throttle bodies gets them out of the way and actually improves performance, well that maybe the solution. Since the throttle bodies already have all the spots for the fuel rail and injectors in them already, the same style injectors, it's just a fuel rail and Jenvey will make one to order with whatever spacing I need for about $100.

So back to the subject of carbs, I will be doing my manifold (and chose the injectors I did) so that if I ever wanted to I *could* run DCOE weber carbs instead of Fuel Injection, not that I see that happening, but the option would be there if I ever decided to go all non-electronic.

Here is the throttle bodies from Jenvey, they sent me 2 rights and a left for a 4 cylinder, instead of a left a right and a center for a 6, so this is why the interlink linkages don't seem to work all the way through. They are sending me the parts to fix that as well as a left and right hall TPS and a batch of injector plugs I can use to cap either the injector bosses in the head or the throttle bodies:

Also new are the flanges for the stacks to mount an air filter which I've ordered from ITG, also in England:

I'm getting a taller one than that, not that you can really tell how tall it is from the pic. Oh and mine is being made with the logo upside down so the screw flanges are hidden on the bottom.

A lot of stuff is ordered and in transit, my paddle shifter is at the anodizers apparently, and the steering wheel, I dunno maybe being stitched up by Luigi in Italy. My short tail shaft for the 4L80E (so that the 4l80 is size interchangable with a 4l60 should that ever be a thing I need to do) is on order along with the trans controller, apparently waiting on the shaft itself from the mill. I did recieve what I'll be using for the floor P-N-R-D-L Floor selector, a B&M Quicksilver, nice piece and probably overkill for just selecting drive, but I want things to feel solid in the truck, and it certainly does. I'm probably only going to use the mechanism so the knob, floor housing and cover (which are the cheesy parts) won't be used.

Oh and I got the last pieces to make my '69 Grand Prix door handles work, this one you have to use your imagination on a little:

The cutouts get welded into the doors and the stamped pieces are the backing plates. The handles are recessed so you basically push the ribbed part to pop the handle out. Cool old Pontiac parts.

[mcmlxix]

Sorry....
NA = Naturally Aspirated (stock)
FI - Forced Induction (turbo)

[skorpioskorpio]

I just figured FI was fuel injection, so I was thinking NA must be...

These engines do boost well, real well, 500hp on stock internals with an OEM PCM is doable, and 700hp on a built engine has been done... It's tempting believe me. I just always loved the look of a Weber carbed straight 6, especially one with a cross flow head. This all started because I was origionally thinking about doing a Northstar and came across one some guy adapted Hayabusa throttle bodies to, sounded wicked. The Nothstar was really to expensive and complicated (the best of the Northstars were made for front wheel drive cars and took a lot to make them work in a north-south orientation), so then I came across the 4200, but that ITB seed was already stuck.

I know this sounds crazy, but I really wanted the engine in my project to sound right... um, but wrong, if you know what I mean. I am kinda bored with the sound of loppy pushrod 8s and if I'd done one it would have been some giant aluminum Merlin block whose displacement was measured in gallons that I couldn't afford to feed.

[mcmlxix]

If it sounds like that Jag, it will be awesome... very vintage racer ...

I'm working on picking up a 1962 Rambler American that came with an I6... no room for a V8 without major surgery... so the LL8 will be perfect...

[skorpioskorpio]

Originally Posted by mcmlxix

If it sounds like that Jag, it will be awesome... very vintage racer ...

I'm working on picking up a 1962 Rambler American that came with an I6... no room for a V8 without major surgery... so the LL8 will be perfect...

Really? the Atlas is huge, length wise and top to bottom I think it's bigger than a big block. It maybe narrower, but it's really big everywhere else. Even in a 67-72 I don't think you could run a clutch fan on the front of it and have it clear a radiator in the stock location. I don't know how Limequat on the 4200 board ever squeezed one into a Supra.

[truckeez]

Originally Posted by skorpioskorpio

...and here is her new heart:

Is this some sort of prop from the original star wars movie?

[jimbug]

Those Pontiac handles are pimp!
My best friend has a 71 GP and always loved the door handles. Oh and the aircraft carrier sized hood!!

[skorpioskorpio]

Originally Posted by truckeez

Is this some sort of prop from the original star wars movie?

Yes, It's the machine they use to make the Wookie noises with.

[skorpioskorpio]

Originally Posted by jimbug

Those Pontiac handles are pimp!
My best friend has a 71 GP and always loved the door handles. Oh and the aircraft carrier sized hood!!

Yes the 60's and early 70s concept of the Personal Luxury car. Giant hood, check, poor visability, check, kooky obscure details, check. I had a '66 Olds Toronado, I've had 2 actually, I loved the look of that car, absolutely massive hood and massive wheel arches, it's kooky bits were a speedometer that rolled and the needle was stationary, and the vacuum operated auto seek radio, the "Wonderbar". I swear that car had more vacuum lines than wires.

I haven't decided yet whether I'm going to leave them chrome or take them apart and powder coat them body color or maybe semi-gloss black.

[jimbug]

+1 for the semi gloss. Don't remember are you going w flat black paint?

[skorpioskorpio]

Originally Posted by jimbug

+1 for the semi gloss. Don't remember are you going w flat black paint?

No, the whole truck is going to be powdercoated silver and will get color matched wet paint some time in the future. Silver is pretty close match to GM Switchblade Silver, AKA, Silver Ice Metallic, it's basically the Silver of the new Camaros. The powdercoat color I'm going to use is Tiger Bengal Silver. The goal is to sort of color match it to the cargo which is 2 1972 Honda XL250s.

The bikes have black and like a dark mauve accent stiping on them that I plan on kind of mocking in the truck paint. So like a wide black stripe from roll pan to roll pan with the mauve as a heavy pinstripe accent. There is pictures of the bikes earlier in the thread.

[skorpioskorpio]

What I was up to while watching the 24 hours of le Mans, dimpled died my floor ends and rear roll pan, and bead died my rockers:

The rockers are bead died and are punched to fit plastic plugs, I have 3 types , not sure which ones I'll use yet, 1 is a simple black plastic plug, I also have clear polycarbonite ones and black louvered ones.

The dimple dies here (and along with the rockers) will allow these areas to get powder coated on the inside, as well as offer airflow to dry these areas out. I also figure it gives me a stealthy way of running wiring to the rear of the body.

Here the punches allow the trapped air to get out from under the body, and let's face it it's just cool looking. They'll peek out from under the sectioned and widened '69 Camaro bumper.

As far as the front, that ended up not going according to plan, the front pan makes it pretty obvious the difference in pointiness between the 67-72 front end and the later 454SS airdam I was planning on using, worked behind a stock bumper, but under a pan, not so much, so scrap that idea. So now I think I'm going to go with a first gen Camaro style chin spoiler instead of the airdam. Spoilers by Randy offers a frame mount one for our trucks, and really it will probably do the job better, the job being to get that low air and direct it into the radiator as well as keeping the air from under the truck. Here is my re-rendering with the chin spoiler and the fog light moved up under the bumper:

...and if you're paying attention I also moved the dimple died holes in the render from the bottom edge of pan to the top.

[skorpioskorpio]

I also got the seat brackets and paddle shifter in, the brackets line up in the front holes but not the back, so I guess I'll need to drill the floor for the back holes. The steep angle of the brackets makes for a ton of leg room, almost too much. They go way back to the point where I will barely be able to touch the pedals, and I've never had enough leg room in anything. When forward it raises the front edge of the seat up maintaining a lot of leg room even forward and my Recaros have adjustable thigh supports on top of that. I guess no one short will ever drive this truck.



...and here is the paddle shifter, really nice piece:


My steering wheel is still lost in Italy somewhere, but as soon as that comes in I can measure for the column length.


It's all a puzzle, the seats and brackets change how far you are from the dash, the paddle shifter changes the overall length of the column, and the steering wheel has a different dish from stock, so in order to know what the length of the column needs to be you need all the other pieces.

[skorpioskorpio]

I also got the windshield top frame patch kit in from GMC Pauls, nice kit, the top piece fit great lays right over the original top piece, and I believe it's pre-drilled for a soft top (which I don't need). The kit effectively replaces the entire top of the windshield frame, the one issue though is that while it does solve this issue:



It stops short of dealing with this issue:

[skorpioskorpio]

Oh, and my custom airfilter from the UK came in as well:



Now how cool is that?

[jlsanborn]

Pretty damn cool!

[Spray-Bomb]

Liking this pretty good, but I just can't get myself to dig all those tail lights

[skorpioskorpio]

Originally Posted by Spray-Bomb

Liking this pretty good, but I just can't get myself to dig all those tail lights

I'm thinking those taillights will turn out better than you think, and if it turns out worse than I think, it's a real easy undo, Just change the tailgate.

[70blackfish]

NICE BUILD.....

[jimbug]

I kinda agree w spray bomb But I'm sure you will make it tasteful like the rest of your selections! You sure do have some Gucci parts on this thing!

[truckeez]

Yea,
er....... are, uh, are you from France or sumthin?

[skorpioskorpio]

Originally Posted by jimbug

I kinda agree w spray bomb But I'm sure you will make it tasteful like the rest of your selections! You sure do have some Gucci parts on this thing!

There is nothing gold, fringed, patterned or patent leather and I'm hoping it doesn't come off looking like a rappers shoe, so I guess I'm not sure I get the Gucci thing. Then again if I was a goomba from Jersey that would probably be a huge compliment so um, thanks... I guess.

[skorpioskorpio]

Originally Posted by truckeez

Yea,
er....... are, uh, are you from France or sumthin?

France? no I'm originally from the Midwest, and I'm Scottish and Norweigen and I do own both a kilt and one of those helmets with the horns on it but only wear the two together if I'm eating Haggis and Lutefisk in the same meal.

[jimbug]

Yes it was a compliment and way to build it the way that you want!