Rally Pat Posted July 2, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 2, 2019 Its a good thing I decided to act on my own instincts rather than only trust the richbois in the 944 V8 community. I kept getting told over and over and over again that the Corvette accessories dont fit because the alternator hits the hood in the stock location, despite the fact that the company that makes the bracket they (Texas Performance) sell that relocates the F body spacing alternator to underneath the PS pump also sells one that does the same for Corvette spacing. But, I still had to verify my gut feeling first. So the Corvette spacing bracket I bought from LSX Innovations still requires that you use an F body alternator, which I didn't have any alternators on either engine I bought but a truck one probably would have worked. I wanted to get this test run knocked out quickly, so I went to AutoZone and bought a $200 98 Camaro alternator just for test fitting. I am going to return it when I am done so I can buy the $70 cheap chinesium one from RockAuto . While I was there, I purchased a timing cover gasket set and I rented the tool to press on the Corvette balancer. Talking about the LSX Innovations bracket for a second, its actually 2 kits. One is the bracket itself, and if you have an engine that has both mounting holes underneath the PS Pump then you are good. I have a truck block that only has one hole, so I had to purchase the additional drill and tap kit to make a new hole. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rally Pat Posted July 2, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 2, 2019 I also picked up this Monkey Fab Garage 3D printed tool for centering the timing cover. Yes you can use the balancer, but I've heard that leaks are pretty common using that method and this is only $10. If you have your own 3D Printer, the file for this is available for free on the Sloppy Mechanics facebook group. The guy that runs Monkey Fab has a sense of humor, so it has a dick drawn on the side of it because of course it does. I hammered out the old crank seal and put in a fresh one that came with the gasket set I got and bolted down the timing cover for the last time, using the alignment tool to keep everything perfect. Like the back side of the oil pan, a little dab of gray RTV where the oil pan and timing cover gaskets meet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rally Pat Posted July 2, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 2, 2019 I've learned the past couple of years to lean pretty heavily on the AutoZone Loan-a-tool service for the weird speciality tools that I only need to use once in a while. Its free, you just pay a desposit on the value of the tool. They had the long reach balancer install tool that made quick work of putting the Corvette balancer on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rally Pat Posted July 2, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 2, 2019 Here is where I hit a major speed bump and my first real fuck up of the whole project. The drill and tap kit doesnt come with a tap handle, and I had never had a use for one before so I just did what I always do and improvise using an adjustable wrench. This was a mistake. So. The idea is take the relocation bracket, and insert the spacers that come with the tap kit that help guide you to drilling the hole in the block. Easy peasy. Bolt the lower in, make sure the top one is flush with the radius of the spot on your block that you are drilling, then make sure the lower is tight to keep it in place. I drilled the hole no problem. You are then supposed to tap through the same hole using the same guide you drilled through to keep the tap straight, and after you get a few threads in, you can remove the bracket and guides and continue to tap the hole like normal. I was being very careful, or so I thought. I was going slow, backing the tap out regularly to make sure I wasn't stressing it too much and I had oilied both the drill and the tap. Apparently my wrench was giving it too much torque or something because the inevitable happened, and I broke the tap. It was sunday evening, so my options were limited on stores with extractor tools, so I tried improvising using stuff I had like my collection of Subaru timing tensioner pins and punches. Then I broke a chunk of the hole off. FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rally Pat Posted July 2, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 2, 2019 Monday at lunch, Sean came to the rescue and let me borrow Northend Wrench's tap extractor set, which itself was already pretty beat up. It has fingers you slide in around the gaps in the tap and lets you get leverage on the tap to hopefully pull it out. I wasn't having a ton of luck and ended up taking parts from several of the extractors to make a custom one that ended up helping me get the tap out. I had to run to AutoZone to return the loan a tool, so while I was there I picked up a $10 tap set with handle, and proceeded to very carefully continue tapping the hole. I managed to finish tapping the hole without losing another tap. Hell yeah! Even though there is a chunk missing, the hole has lots of threads and I think I am just going to send it. It should be just fine, I was able to smoothly run a bolt in and out of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rally Pat Posted July 2, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 2, 2019 Back to actual progress. The bracket kit for the alternator says that sometimes you have to clearance the block a little bit depending on your application in order for the alternator to hug the block correctly, and this looks like the case with mine. So that means I need to go get an angle grinder and some death wheels - another tool I suprsingly haven't needed until just now. Thats fine, since I need to order the cheaper alternator anyway, but I still bolted up what I could to see if everything lines up and it looks like the F body alternator lines up perfectly with the Corvette accessories. The tape measure shows where I need to grind away some of the block. I also need to trim the bracket for the power steering pump since parts of it are in the way now. We are getting really close to being able to drop the engine in! I'm hoping by the end of next weekend, I will have the engine basically ready to go. I still don't have a harness solution, but honestly I don't think that is going to slow us down much. The harness is the easy part on an LS swap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
10phone2 Posted July 2, 2019 Report Share Posted July 2, 2019 sir thats great. kudos to you Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cordell Posted July 2, 2019 Report Share Posted July 2, 2019 So that’s an F-body alternator with Corvette spacing? Are you running power steering? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rally Pat Posted July 2, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 2, 2019 So that’s an F-body alternator with Corvette spacing? Are you running power steering? Yeah, F body alt with Corvette spacing. Yes I am, but I need to trim the stock PS bracket because the new alternator bracket takes the place of the idler on the bottom of the PS bracket. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cordell Posted July 2, 2019 Report Share Posted July 2, 2019 Yeah, F body alt with Corvette spacing. Yes I am, but I need to trim the stock PS bracket because the new alternator bracket takes the place of the idler on the bottom of the PS bracket. That makes more sense. Looks just like an F-body bracket but I haven’t seen a short one like that. :thumbup: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rally Pat Posted July 5, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 5, 2019 We are aiming to try and drop the engine in the car this weekend, so I am trying to get the last little bits of things like the accessories sorted out this week. I started with the powersteering/stock alternator bracket. Since the low mount bracket takes the place of the stock idler location, I had to trim it off of the factory bracket. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rally Pat Posted July 5, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 5, 2019 The next thing I needed to tackle was grinding the relief needed in the block for an F body alternator to fit properly. I am a total noob with a big angle grinder, as I really haven't had a need for one until this project, only ever using a small air die grinder with 3M bristle attachments for cleaning gasket surfaces and the like. At this point, I have already returned my super expensive AutoZone alternator and the RockAuto Chinesium one won't show up until later today, so I ground some of the block away based on the measurement pictures I took while I had the alternator. Hopefully I took off enough in the right spot for it to clear, but I will finalize the check on that tonight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rally Pat Posted July 5, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 5, 2019 Next thing was to attach the water pump for the final time. In my small apartment garage, I don't have a bench grinder with wire wheel setup to clean up bolts and the like, so a brass brush had to do. I had to text Scott, because I couldn't figure out why the hell my gasket set had both metal and paper gaskets for the water pump. He literally said to throw the paper ones out, they were meant for early LS' and the metal gasket is more bettah. Can do. Ran the bolts down with the harbor freight cordless rattle gun, and torqued them to spec for the final time. I turned to the power steering pump to check the clearances and make sure things like that low mount alt bracket wasn't hitting. Bad news is that the stock Corvette pressure line does appear to hit, but the good news is that I am pretty sure the kit for the power steering and hydroboost uses banjo fittings, so I think I can snake that through and make something work, but we will mess with that before we drop the engine in. I also plan on running AC on this car, although it probably won't be plumbed up right away, that will be a "nice to have" down the road, so I went ahead and bolted up the bracket and compressor for that. I also decided to toss the header on that side to make sure it clears. I will pull it back off because we have a couple of broken studs to extract, but it looks like it will work just fine. Plan for tonight is hang the alternator, rent the tool for pressing on the power steering pulley and get that on, then maybe finalize Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rally Pat Posted July 8, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 8, 2019 Happy Monday! On Friday, the $70 no core charge Chinaboi F-body alternator showed up, and I could work on finalizing the mounting for the alternator and bracket and check to see if I ground off enough in the right place to clear. As it turns out, I actually still hadn't ground enough off, and had to take some more material from the block. Eventually though, I got there, but something still wasn't right. The directions suggested that the plastic shroud on the back may need removed, but mine didn't seem to be hitting any thing. I trimmed it a little where it came near the block, but something still didn't seem correct about the way it was sitting. I inspected it for a minute before noticiting that the corvette idler that I was trying to repurpose was rubbing one of the water pump bolt heads. I double checked the directions, and it said to use a specific idler part number. $20 later, the alternator was finally mounted up and cleared everything properly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rally Pat Posted July 8, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 8, 2019 At this point, the engine was esentially as ready as it was going to be in my garage. Were ready to transport it to Northend Wrench and begin the process of putting the engine in the car. One more test fit to make sure that nothing was hitting each other in this mashup of Corvette/truck/F body/custom bracketry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rally Pat Posted July 8, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 8, 2019 Saturday morning, we loaded up all the parts I had at my place, loaded the engine up on the trailer, and headed for the shop to hopefully make the majority of the mechanic progress. The plan was drop the flywheel off at Midstate Auto Parts and hopefully get it machined while we got the car pushed in and did some small stuff to make progress while we wait, like Sean and I have done with projects for years and years. Except we hit our first roadblock. Apparently, the owner of Midstate has decided to start not being open on Saturdays. Shit. We weren't sure what we were going to do, but wanted to still make some progress. So we moved a bunch of the shop cars, and pushed the car in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rally Pat Posted July 8, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 8, 2019 More pics of moving the car Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rally Pat Posted July 8, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 8, 2019 Dave, the owner of Northend Wrench, suggested maybe trying to turn it the flywheel on the shop's brake lathe, but we weren't happy with the results, so we resigned ourselves to the fact that the engine wasn't going in today, but we have other stuff to do so we got to work. I started with the foam heat insulation on the hood. This stuff is just flaking off of the car, and it smells absoutely horrible. The best way I can describe the smell is it smells like really bad BO. I ran the shop's industrial shopvac along where it was and it luckily came right off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rally Pat Posted July 8, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 8, 2019 We turned our attention to the braking system. Using the factory brake booster is not an option, it doesn't clear the driver side head and coil packs. In this instance, you have basically 2 options: you can run a hydroboost setup, or you can convert to a manual brake setup, be it with a dual master cylinder configuration or a big single one. Many people were complaining about the braking effort of the manual setup, so I went ahead and purchased the whole hydroboost kit from Texas Performance Concepts to compliment the rest of the kit. It comes with a Ford Mustang (I think) hydroboost unit with accumulator, bolts, lines, and fittings to terminate those lines. It also has a thick reinforcement bracket to help with firewall flex under heavy braking. It also has an aluminum adapter on the end to allow the stock Porsche master cylinder to be used and spaced our correctly. We also started to see how the heater lines were going to work. The kit comes with a pretty generic control valve, a Ford style one we think, and hoses and clamps for attaching both hoses to the engine, control valve, and heater box. I basically just attached the hoses to the heater box end, and left them tucked out of the way. I didn't want to cut them up until we have the engine in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rally Pat Posted July 8, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 8, 2019 The next thing we decided to tackle was the throttle setup. The kit comes with a pretty generic universal carb throttle cable setup, and it comes with throttle stops for you to customize the length and make it fit an LS throttle body. I was actually less impressed with this part of the kit for what you get for your money. We fished out the two stock throttle cables, and using a washer to help us use a stock hole we fished the new one through. At some point, we need to drill the throttle pedal to make it fit, but that will be another day. We put the carb style throttle stop back on the opposite end to keep it all together until we get the engine in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rally Pat Posted July 8, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 8, 2019 I have a bunch of parts from a 1989 944 Turbo (951) that was rolled that I got for free, and one of them was this really nice radiator. The 951 has a larger radiator than the NA cars, and I was under the impression that they were interchangable, so I figured I would give myself a free cooling upgrade. This appears to not be the case, as the opening wasn't large enough to fit it in the car. We ended up doing a flush on the one we pulled out and stuffed it back in. We will see how it holds up for now, maybe some sort of fancy all aluminum one is in my future.....who am I kidding it will proabably be an ebay chinaboi special like everything else. We were running out of things we felt we could accomplish right this moment in time, so we pushed the car out of the shop, and sprayed the bay down with degreaser foam. Let it soak a few minutes, then rise it off. I had family obligations that night I couldn't be late for, but if I had more time I would have power washed it. We plan to degrease again when we have the engine in. I had no easy way of cleaning the engine at my apartment or any easy way of getting it to a car wash, so I figured in the car is fine. We pushed it back around the shop and called it for that day. The engine is also stored at shop while it waits to go in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rally Pat Posted July 15, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 15, 2019 We didn't have a ton of time this weekend, but we manage to get the engine in to try and do a few things so that we have made some sort of progress. We wheeled the engine in on the cart we have been keeping it on at the shop, and got to it. So, apparently Corvette flywheels are pretty hard to machine and we were quoted more than the cost of a new flywheel to machine the one that we had. I figured if I was buying a new flywheel, I might as well get a new pressure plate too. One RockAuto order later and we were ready to attach the clutch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rally Pat Posted July 15, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 15, 2019 Why setup an engine hoist to work on an engine when you have a perfectly good lift? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rally Pat Posted July 15, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 15, 2019 Unpacking the pressure plate and clutch, literally just found the cheapest of both available on RockAuto. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rally Pat Posted July 15, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 15, 2019 Cleaned all the anti-rust lube off with liberal brake cleaner application to both the flywheel and pressure plate. Got the flywheel on, used some blue locktite on the bolts as I've read that they can get virbrated out. Torqued everything down on that. Then Sean brought his new toy out and I got distracted for a few minutes lol. Hopefully he creates a project thread for it, it should look familiar to some people on CR. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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