Naptown Dave

Man I'm loving this thread, lots of great info! Keith, I'm 40 and 6-2, I am going to fab everything I can on the bench. I don't fit too well under any dash! I've worked with relays before, my wife has a 64 Corvair Convertable that I could not get to idle smoothly no matter how much I messed with the carbs. The solution was to add a relay controlling a 12ga wire tapped off the regulator to the coil, the factory wire just wasn't supplying enough juice at idle. Hooked up the relay, adjusted the carbs once more and it idles smooth as a 50 year old car can. Slow, that fuse/relay looks perfect. I will DIY myself to death but I have to recognize money well spent. That thing looks way easier to instal and 100x more clean than I could ever build it. I will be ordering it today. Even though I haven't been physically working on it this stuff is starting to come together for me. I was typing a long question, while looking at the diagrams I think I answered it. I know the ECM controls the alternator so all the Z regulator stuff can go away and I would assume it would be wise to ditch the fuseable links for large fuses or maybe a circut breaker. So I will have power from the LS alternator/harness, then a large fuse/breaker and then feed power to the new fuse/relay box and the existing Z fuse panel? Does that sound right?

I think you can get the speed bleeder fitting at a regular auto parts store. Advance Auto has them in my area.

I'm working away from home once again so this is just a thought, I can't take a look to see if it will work, but what if I mounted the ECU horizontally inside the cab on the passengers side with the pin connector going through a slot cut in the firewall? That way the ECU is tucked away out of sight but the connectors are accesable without doing a bunch of bulkhead connections. I would want to seal the ECU to the firewall somehow.

It would be interesting to see what it really is...

I bought my Z without an engine but it did have a trans and a trans mount I also had some shiny new poly bushings for the trans mount so with some 1/8" x 2 flat steel to reinforce the trans mount and some 1/4" flat for the engine connection I built mine. I may run some reinforcement down to the t/c buckets before it's all said and done.

double post

All good stuff up above. $250 for the ECU reflash and wiring mods? Keith I might have to get Lane's contact info from you. The engine harness mods don't really concern me that much, there are plenty of good write ups on LS1tech. I guess the grey area for me right now is how the Z harness interfaces with the LS harness - starter, alternator, gauges etc . I'm sure once I get deeper into it it will start making sense. I plan on new relays, fuses, and wire for the fuel pump, fan, headlights As far as mounting the ECU in the cab is the size of the connectors that have to go through the firewall a problem ei. you would need a big hole to fit them through?

My 30" was pretty close, if I was going to order another one I would go shorter and just run the solid line down the firewall a little more.

Dom I think you are right about a premade harness but I think I'll leave that for the last resort, I'm too cheap! Tex I'm with you on that, the more you can keep stuff shielded from heat and water the better you'll be. How much are you having to extend to get inside?

Blue Are you looking for the bleeder line or the one from the master cylinder? I got the 25" bleeder from speedway motors and it reaches to the top of the firewall. I got the 30" cylinder line but I am going to use a steel hard line from the master to the braided flex to keep the area around the masters clean.

I've been doing some research on getting the wiring harness for my 280 and LS to work correctly, hopefully the first time. I'm not deep enough into it to have any specific questions but I've stared at the diagrams enough to cross my eyes and started stripping the chassis harness of the stuff I know won't be needed. I imagine once I really get started and break the whole system down to manageable pieces it will be a lot less intimidating. I just wanted to know if there are any things you guys are glad you did or wish you would have done the first time around - fuse boxes, relays, routing, etc.

Thanks Matt, last weekend was supposed to be an all out garage jam but between me being sick and my wife changing my plans I only managed a solid 10 hours. The speedway kit is a pretty good start, I think building them with a bunch of bends would have been harder. Having to work within what was supplied narrowed down the options and kept me moving towards finishing.

My wrapping job is ugly enough to be a modern art masterpiece but it's all done but the itching (fiberglass). It's definetly a tight fit and I may have contact at the subframe on the passengers side, I had about a quarter inch before wrapping. It took me about an hour to put in 8 motor mount bolts and I'm pretty sure I can get the starter in. I still need to figure out what kind of exhaust flange to weld on to the collector reducer but I should be able to do that with the headers installed and I also forgot to layout the O2 bungs while I was building them so that will be another under the car weld. I'm probably around 25 hours and $300 for these.

http://www.f-body.org/gears/ Here is a link to a gear ratio to speed calculator that factors in tire size and final drive ratio. T56 gear ratios 1st: 2.66 2nd: 1.78 3rd: 1.30 4th: 1.00 5th: 0.74 6th: 0.50

Tig welding can be frustrating enough even when you're not getting shocked. Tell him to turn off the high frequency, or not

Thanks Matt Looks like this won't be too much cash to make work. Sorry to threadjack JM

Looks like they will fit pretty well as long as I can keep the pliers wedged in there! Plenty of room for turbos, I mean CAI.

Probably nothing if you keep moving all the time! I've been to Houston in April I don't think you can keep anything cool down there! I'll see if I can dig up that article, it was saying the shroud was pretty important becaues the air would just want to swirl around the fan housing and not pull 100% through the radiator

Damn I thought I was going to be able to get away without buying anything for once! I haven't searched photos on this yet, is there a different belt routing that would work without a p/s idler?

I'll have to look but I think the one I got is 1600-1700 cfm. From what I've read the fan postition and shrouding is pretty important. There was an article in Rods and Customs (it think) a couple months ago about cooling I'll look tonight and see if its online Edit 2070 cfm at 19 amps. This fan is pretty 'thick' though, 3.5", I'm pretty sure I will have enough room though.

I got a single 16" SPAL curved blade fan. I have some 20ga stainless sheet left over from work that I'm going to use to make a shroud. The radiator actually fits pretty well, I thought it was going to be too wide and it is a little tall but the core is fully exposed through the core support. Speedway sells an AFCO radiator that looks pretty much the same as the one I got but has mounting tabs on the bottom and sides for only $20 more. If I would have seen it I would have bought it. They are both double pass radiators. I am going to at least get it mocked up this weekend and I will take some pics to show the fit.

So you just have the crank, water pump, alternator and one tensioner with the tensioner on the upper passenger side?

Matt, do you have some pics of your front end drive setup? Thats one of my next items to work on.

I cut the only non rusted piece of my car out (spare tire well) to put duals on! Got my speedway motors radiator yesterday. Welds look better than I expected and it looks like it will fit between the subframe rails with just enough room for some rubber gasket material to act as an insulator.As long as it doesn't leak it's not bad for $180.

Thanks Matt, I got my wrap yesterday and should finish them this weekend. Management at work has had the nerve to have me do stuff for them so I haven't been able to tig out the drivers side this week, I'll probably just have to mig them at home. I'll take some pics once welded and after wrapping. The passengers side turned out to be pretty equal length at about 27" before the collector, the drivers side primaries ended up at 36" for the longest and 24" for the shortest. I probably could have made them equal length if wanted to get crazy with some additional bends but I've read that you only lose a couple hp for unequal length and the way I ran them I can use my stock brake lines I would like to build a set for someone with JCI mounts if there is someone local that wouldn't mind helping. All in all the kit was a pretty good start and I really didn't have much trouble adapting what was there to fit my Z. I probably have a leg up on most guys by being involved in the pipefitting trade for a long time but I think anyone with some welding and fabricating skills could build these. The biggest pita was holding the pieces and trying to measure or tack weld.