deja

I like the fade effect if its subtle. If I ever change my car it will still be silver but the bottom would fade to a darker silver. Maybe going from a dark blue to white is too much transition. Hard to tell form a photo vs. the real thing.

Yeah that's a bitch, sucks to have to pay high rates based solely on statistics. When I was your age insurance on my Sunbeam Tiger was more than my car payment. When I turned 25 it dropped more than half on my AMX. Funny too because the AMX would blow the doors off the Tiger! Good luck

I haven't gone to a Chevy dealer for this, scared what the price would be, LOL. Anyone that had a donor car and did not use this part still have it and want to sell it? Mine is all broken.

Yeah I did it with the engine in place. I started to pull the plate but decided to pull the column instead since it was pretty much pulled anyway.

My problem was more of access that anything else. I cut the rubber off the corner with the saws-all and then used the angle grinder to finish.

LOL, no that part is not moving. The Chevy motor mount was not tightened when I was raising and lowering the engine to gain access to grind on the Chevy mount. When I finished and lower it back down the motor mount sat in the center of the Datsun tower. It had been all the way toward the front of the tower.

I agree, they both are rather expensive with limited benefit. I will upgrade to the vented one when I build the new LT1 in the future. BTW I just ground off my motor mounts to clear the steering shaft, that was fun.....NOT. I have about a finger of clearance now, think that's enough? After loosening the bolts holding the motor mounts to the cross member and raising an lowering a car a few times its now sitting in the middle of the slots with about a finger width distance between the balancer and the rack.

Danno74Z pointed me at http://www.delteq.com/ as a possible substitute for the LT1 Optispark and its inherent problems. I went to Fbody.com and asked if anyone used this. One guy has replied so far and posted this other option which uses LS1 coil packs. Product: http://bailey-eng.com/LTCC.html Reference article: http://www.mtfba.org/tech/ltcc.htm

I'm going to play with it after I cut on the mount.

I think I know why. I slotted the cross member stand offs like JTR suggested. I was under the car this evening and noticed I am as far forward as the slots will allow. That would put the engine about 1/2" forward is I used the stock Datsun hole, Moving it back might give me a little more clearance for the transmission cooler lines but would make my steering shaft ever tighter to the motor mount. I am already going to have to cut some rubber off the driver's side motor mount. I think I'll leave the engine where it is.

Will do. And I think you were hallucinating, LOL

Yes I am using JRT setbacks but the balancer is still in front of the rack. This is the only pict I have now, I'll try to get a better one tonight.

Wow those are almost too pretty to install.

I bought a running wrecked Z28. But due to an injury it took me months to get ready to pull the engine. I had been starting the car every week or so and even driving it a bit. The week I decided to pull it in into the garage it wouldn't start, figures. Diagnostics said opti, as it turned out it was the ignition module and the coil wire. The opti could have also been bad, but I didn't put the old one back on to test it. The old setup was MSD, I've never been a fan of MSD. The cap and rotor needed replaced anyway so I'm sticking with the stock GM part. You don't have to pull the hub, you do have to pull the balancer and everything else on the front of the engine, what a PITA. What were the GM engineers thinking?. The balancer clears everything with plenty to spare.

Good input. But I already have the JTR radiator so I will use its cooler. As far as overheating, my car will be a daily driver so if GM has been using it this way for decades I shouldn't have issues. Granted a cooler is a step up.

I love coming home and finding those boxes on my porch. Its like Christmas.............until the Visa bill comes, LOL. Sounds like your getting close to build time. Nice weather in Georgia?? It rained like crazy this morning, beautiful after lunch though. It was nice to be able to work with the garage door open.

I got lucky and found a wrecked 94 Z28 that was reasonably close to home for only $1500. I was even able to drive it home with the help of a lot of duct tape to hold the body together. I've sold some of it to help recoup the costs. If I could find someone to take the suspensions, the hood and the hatch I would make money on the deal. I'm not really a racer, this engine is totally stock, I'm building this as a daily driver. But I will be at SEZ9 in September, hopefully and this time I will make a run or too, just for grins.

That's pretty slick. Not sure I like the 180 degree thing but maybe it was necessary in his case. He has a bottom radiator cooler, JTR's is a side cooler, a minor difference. Wonder how much he had tied up in that and if the Bowtie one would be about the same. Braided lines are expensive and all those AN fittings add up. I liked his connector rod dip sticks, LOL.

They look nice, a bit pricey, but thats exactly the way I thought I'd try to make mine. I'll have to price it out to see if its worth making my one. I so hate bending hard line.

For now I'm just using the stock Z28 shifter. I had a Z28 to do this swap. But the long term plan is a Twist Machine paddle shifter. http://www.twistmachine.com/

LOL your welding skills are still better than mine, I have none. Having real use of only one eye makes welding almost impossible, no depth perception!

I will check out the Bowtie kit, thanks. Bending hard lins is a total bitch. The place you'll need to beat on the passenger side is toward the front of the car before the old tranny mount. You can see in the pict I posted where we beat on it. I haven't tried putting in the shifter cable yet, hopefully it will fit.

Cool, I was thinking there should be a way to do that with lasers. Nice write up.

This may sound like a stupid question but here goes. I understand how to get the transmission angle set up for the differential. But with the motor mounts on and the transmission sitting in the tunnel you can move the rear of the transmission side to side quite a bit. How can I tell if it is sitting in exactly the right place before I bolt down the transmission mount? In other words how do I determine if the transmission is sitting square in the car in relation to the differential? With this engine/tranny sitting offset in the car do I simply measure the distance between the tunnel sides and put the center of the tranny at the center point of the tunnel? Seems like you'd be assuming quite a lot that way.