Alright guys, I'm trying to be better about posting updates. Here's the latest.
My Howe radiator arrived. I originally planned to have the inlets and outlets on the driver's side as shown here, but decided to turn it upside down as you will see later.

I made some radiator mounts. I designed them to maximize space for intercooler piping.
They bolt to the bottom of the frame rails and use rubber spacers. The are very sturdy and I will be adding upper mounts too later on.
They are so wide on the radiator because i originally made different brackets, tacked them, then decided i wasn't happy with the solution.
Anyway, i wanted to cover up the old tack marks. Disregard my shakey welding there. I didnt really have any room to prop my hand.


...and the radiator mounted. Note that with a little modification to the tubular brace, I have room for an AC condenser. That will be future project.
I had to trim the shroud mount off the front of the radiator.. im surprised how well the cut and filing turned out.. you can't even tell it was there.


OK..... so you may have noticed the turbo location in a previous pic...
Well, I've always wanted to build my own turbo setup, i just didnt have the welding ability..
After a month or so behind the mask, i'm feeling pretty confident and decided to jump in.
I've decided on truck manifolds for now. They'll look a lot nicer once they are coated.


I bought a lightly used Precision 7675 with cast wheel. My plan is to place the turbo in front of the motor but off set towards the driver's side.
This allows a 4" intake to be run under the frame rail to the stock driver's side oil cooler location.
This is a piece of 4" aluminum I'm using for mock up.
What i'm showing here is that I've found there's enough room to run a 3.5" - 4" downpipe between the block, motor mount, and manifold/crossover.
It'll be a bit tricky, but i'm pretty confident i can make it work with no rattling. The wastegate will sit centered below the turbo. If everything goes as I plan, all the hot side piping will be low in the engine bay and spark plug changes will be a 10 minute affair. I will also have room for an AC compressor.


I bought a cts-v waterpump and balancer to buy additional real estate in front of the motor. CTSV's use the vette style belt location which is 3/4 closer to the motor.
This water pump also moves the outlet toward the driver's side which gives me more room for my IC pipe will will now come up from the pass side.

yea, the water pump is pretty much even with the TB.

new aprox placement of the turbo. This is still with the fbody style balancer installed. The water pump outlet will clear the turbine housing, the angle makes it look like it wont.


I have 2.5" of space for a radiator fan without pushing down on the turbo blanket.
This will accommodate a flex-a-lite 420 fan shroud setup, but i'm going to try a volvo fan i pulled from the junk yard for starters.
The volvo fan is considered to be more or less the same as a tauras fan just packaged a bit differently.
It'll be a tight fit on the core, but with a custom offset shroud and some trimming, i think it'll work perfectly.
It'll buy me room on the driver's side for the turbo, move more air than the flex-a-lite setup, and cost a lot less.


I also did a quick clean up on some of my rear suspension parts. I hope to have the rear end in the car soon.
