403 LS2 FD - LS7 Build for 2020!

[halfspec]

I swapped my clutch disk with Monster.  I ordered my clutch a year ago and they exchanged the disk no questions asked.  Very happy!  I traded in my stage 3 disk for a stage 2.  With the shift in focus from dual purpose to street car it made sense to put a milder clutch in the car.  If I ever go crazy with power I'll probably go with a dual disk clutch, so I'm not too worried about out growing it.

I did the same thing last year. The customer service at Monster is definitely top notch!

Keep up the good work

Lane

[mdpalmer]

Your car is sooooo clean I'm jealous! Good progress, I have the same shifter You should try fitting the pass side manifold... it's stupid tight fit with respect to clearance to the frame rails on my car with samberg cradle & 2002 f-body manifolds.  The exhaust guy I went to managed to get cats in there, was some work, but it fits!

Got the shifter installed today.  Cellphone camera does great in the daytime...not so good at night.

I test fit the LS3 camaro exhaust manifold on the driver's side and it clears with quite a lot of room around it.  Its going to be tough to package the cats in there...but it'd be easy to build exhaust off it without a cat.  Unfortunately the runners aren't that big.  The L92 exhaust manifolds are significantly bigger, but really doesn't fit too well on the driver's side.

I just need to take measurements for the driveshaft and I can take the mockup block and trans out of the car.

Got my block and heads back from the machine shop.  I'm hoping to get the engine put together pretty soon, maybe this weekend 

I swapped my clutch disk with Monster.  I ordered my clutch a year ago and they exchanged the disk no questions asked.  Very happy!  I traded in my stage 3 disk for a stage 2.  With the shift in focus from dual purpose to street car it made sense to put a milder clutch in the car.  If I ever go crazy with power I'll probably go with a dual disk clutch, so I'm not too worried about out growing it.

[MPbdy]

Thanks!

Yeah I'll be test fitting the passenger side as well.  I've not seen anyone who has run these manifolds before.  It should work easily based on looking at the driver's side.  It really does fit well.  The bends are just going to be real tight right off the flange.

Does your floor get really hot from the cats being tucked up so tightly?

[mdpalmer]

Sounds nice. You're going to need a pretty good flowing exhaust mani to keep up with that motor of yours! I don't understand what people mean with all of this heat in the trans tunnel/floorboard... I was out for almost 4 hours non stop tuning session, thru hills, open road etc... I never felt like the shifter or floor got hot. Dunno... maybe I have a high tolerance for it or something. If you're out at Mazfest on sunday when I'm running the car you should ride along and see what you think. Or maybe on Saturday we can break out for a bit... see how much you sweat  Honestly... i don't feel like it's a problem... maybe it's just me.

Thanks!

Yeah I'll be test fitting the passenger side as well.  I've not seen anyone who has run these manifolds before.  It should work easily based on looking at the driver's side.  It really does fit well.  The bends are just going to be real tight right off the flange.

Does your floor get really hot from the cats being tucked up so tightly?

[MPbdy]

Well that's good to hear!  Not too many people run cats on these things so its hard to find feedback about it.

I think you're right, I will have to do a full evaluation 

[MPbdy]

Got the monster stage 2 clutch disk a few days ago.  Pretty surprised to see what it looked like.  I've only seen pictures of their old dual friction disk.  This is the same pattern and material on both sides.  Never seen a pattern like this on a clutch before that's for sure!



Got my heads cleaned and assembled.  Forgot to snap a finished picture, but there's all the parts at least 

[MPbdy]

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Boy that's embarrassing.

I've been on winter break for a couple weeks now and have been trying to get as much done as possible.  Little things have been getting done here and there over the past few months but nothing really worth writing about.  Usually enough work gets done to find a new problem and get stuck until more parts show up.

I guess I'll get the bitching out of the way first.  Some of you may have seen my post in the most regretted mod thread.  This kind of explains a lot of the hold up I've been facing recently.

I guess the regret would be getting a used power plant?  Even at 42k miles out of the GTO I parted the engine was destroyed.  So instead of spending way too much money to rebuild it with stock parts I opted to put a forged rotating assembly in it.  That engine has been a nightmare since day 1.

It took 3 shipments to get the correct/good rotating assembly to me.
  1.  Wrong pistons - crank balanced with those pistons - everything goes back
  2.  Crank was ugly and had a rusty journal.  First crank looked like a work of art.  Send everything back.
  3.  Everything looked great - went to assemble pistons and found they sent the wrong wrist pins.
The bores were out of round, deck wasn't square, and the main journals were about as round as an egg
The machine shop fucked my block up on the line bore...had to drive it back for them to fix their shit (still isn't great).  First time it came back much worse than it was initially.
The center main is on the block crooked and was pinching the crank...had to burnish the thrust bearing to get it to spin freely.
Because it was line bored twice I'm on my 3rd timing set trying to get a timing chain that isn't too loose.
They cut too much off the deck when they squared it and now the pistons come .0015-17 out of the hole...can't use the ls3 gaskets.  Need cometic$$$ made.

Going down the list just about everything has been resolved.  I've finally got a timing chain on the engine that fits great.  The last thing is the Cometics need to get here and the rest of the engine should be ready to go together.

I guess I'll just blast you guys with pictures now...little tough to catch up after so much time has passed 

Short block assembly:



Checking the crankshaft endplay











Stretching the rod bolts






Degreeing cam and finding the intake centerline:  The cam was ground on 116 with a +2 advance.  Luckily it actually installed in the engine exactly on 114.  No monkeying with the cam sprocket required.  There can be a stackup of errors that cause it to be installed in the wrong place.









Starting the carpet install:  First test fit of the carpet.  Quite a bit of slack going on.  Got the jute laid in nicely today and just threw the carpet in last thing before it got dark.  Tomorrow I'll lay it out in the sun to get more flexible and start trimming the excess.  There is a ton of extra that thoroughly in the way at the moment.

[MPbdy]

I forgot to add I've been pickup up quite a few parts recently.  Knocked out some fairly time intensive projects by buying these parts.  Bolt in stuff sounds quite nice at this point in time.

Radiator/intake - gave in and ordered the kit from Samberg.  It really is a very nice looking kit and has clear performance advantages.  I had planned on using a very nice be-cool radiator that we've got in the shed but I think I'll save that for another car.  It would have worked well, but no chance of doing an over the rad intake and wouldn't look as nice.  Also not bolt in

Driveshaft - picked up Marcus's old driveshaft since he's going to an 8.8

Battery - got a Shorai lithium battery for Christmas.  Its 5 pounds and has 540 CCA. 

http://www.batterystuff.com/batteries/shorai-lithium-lfx36l3-bs12.html

Case size. "3" is 6.55 L x 3.39 W x 6.10 H

I'll be putting this in the engine bay instead of trying to build a sealed battery box hidden under the rear bins with a questionable yellowtop optima.  Its brand new, but has been sitting for a long ass time now since the car is taking a bit long to get running 

And lastly I bought one of Shakenbake's sending unit kits for the mazda gauges.  Happy with the kit.  He's selling them here on the forum.  If your car didn't come with the sending units I highly suggest picking these up.  Was dreading tracking down used ones or having to buy them from mazda.

http://www.norotors.com/index.php?topic=9456.0

[MPbdy]

Got a lot done today.  Used up my spray adhesive so I couldn't go any further.  Ready to glue it down in a few places and cut some bolt holes.  The carpet is fully in the car, just needs final trimming to go around the interior properly.

Warming it up in the sun.



Jute laid in to replace the foam backing of the stock carpet.



Crappy picture showing it in the car.

[MPbdy]

Replaced the stock rotors with powerslot stock replacements from Centric.  Early on in the build I had my rotors resurfaced when I replaced the brake pads.  The fronts were cut for their last possible time and they were still way f'ed up.  We're talking at least 30% of the surface wasn't touching when you spun them around.

The powerslots are nice.  I put a pair on the front of my Miata too.  They had a pretty good shudder coming to a stop and now are perfectly smooth.

The carpet is almost entirely trimmed now and is glued down in the pesky areas.  Need to cut out for the bolt holes but its just about done!  Pretty happy with the kit.  The carpet looks great and it was molded pretty well.  I've owned the carpet since August of 2009...so I'm very happy with how well it came back to life when I unfolded it.  It is for sure not a very fun job though...can be frustrating to say the least.

[MPbdy]

Getting very close!  I believe the only thing left is the heads and valvetrain and it will be ready to be bolted to the trans.  The intake goes on after it goes in the car.

Going to spend tomorrow getting the trans back in my dad's roadster so we can race this weekend.  Hoping to get the heads on at the same time.  The Cometics came in today.  I believe they are .060 thick instead of the .050 thick stock ones.



Had to space up the windage tray to clear the longer stroke.  The pickup tube was going to be too low in the pan so it got rearranged by a bfh.  Used some clay to check the thickness and it is right about 3/8 of an inch from the bottom of the pan.  It was less than a 1/4 before the adjustment.

[Jordan Innovations]

Excellent!!

Really coming along now.

[mdpalmer]

Great work on the documentation. Looking real good, the attention to detail is great. I like how you handled the carpet. I may have to do something similar I like the power slot rotors, I have the same ones on my FD.

[marcus.raw]

looks great dude!

[MPbdy]

Thanks guys.  Feels really rewarding to finally be getting stuff done.  Hit a long slump between school and the problems I was running into.  Classes start up again next week but I hope to keep this momentum going for a while.

Fedex brought me a big box today




Thinking of having it powdercoated.  I was even considering anodizing it but the shroud is welded to the radiator already.  Torn on the color, any inputs?  Thinking about a flat/matte black or maybe even a silver.