mistafosta

That's so strange cause the msds are the only ones I can get to work well on my car haha

I do mine that way, it's super easy. You can do it with the trans on but you have to go slow and I would highly recommend having a helper so you don't tip it over while moving laterally.

Yeah, I use the same wires, with the fiberglass heat sleeves. On my blower setup they work for about 10k miles before the boot breaks down inside. (Due to the awful JCI header setup and about 800hp going through them) On my manifold turbo setup they last great so far.

Mayyyyybe

Ouch, clearance sucks. I would run the cable directly over the starter, then up the side where the block and trans meet (Maybe using an isolation clamp to bolt it to one of the trans mounting bolts, then across the gap 4+ inches over those headers. Wouldn't hurt to look into using a heat wrap either. (You can get the slip on non metallic covers from any hose building store)

Also, as for the engine damage, looks like the #2 and #4 main bearings took a bit of a beating. I'm told this is indicative of block flex on an aluminum block. (I was making mid 900RWHP on my last few passes, seems my block was not a fan) Luckily I pulled the motor early, and found it, so there was very little damage done. Only the bearings took much abuse, all the hard parts look to be fine. I'm pending sale on this engine to a friend who is going to be swapping it into an IS300 most likely, which will be a really cool build IMO. Heres some pictures of the engine Pistons were fine, just had a bit of buildup from the 30k miles. The coating seemed to let the carbon stick better, which is a bit annoying. Slight scuffing on the skirts, but no major scuffs and no traded metals, which is pretty common on a 4" stroke LS engine. Rods looked perfect. Bearings were good, no overheating and no spinning at all. Bores were fine, the camera picks up the vertical lines more than the eye, the walls were perfectly smooth, and the crosshatching is still there in its entirety. Heres the culprit! This is the #2 crank bearing. Both #2 and #4 looked pretty similar on top and bottom. #1, 3, and 5 were fine, no major wear and no sign of thrust wear at all. You can see the mushrooming of the bearing in this picture. These ones just fell out when I unbolted the mains, they were no longer the correct size due to warpage. Crank didn't look like it saw too much heat, and the block/caps looked fine as well. Glad I pulled the motor when I saw a small decrease in oil pressure instead of ignoring it and just continuing on... This would have gone from minor rebuild, to major overhaul if I had waited.

So I went home for an insanely hectic weekend! Pulled the old 402, and got the new 427 ready for install, hoping to get it in the car and running within my 4 day trip. Unfortunately I had incredibly bad luck all trip... First I got the old motor out, wasn't much work, took about 3 hours to pull. Nice thing, it comes out without pulling the exhaust system apart! Which is a nightmare... Next I prepped the new motor, put in the biggest cam I've ever run by far (Thanks to DRC for the beast cam), and swapped over the peripherals for the install. Unfortunately this is where it started to go downhill. The new motor had Lunati Link bar lifters, and 6 out of 16 of them decided to lock out in full extension and were unwilling to compress back down no matter what I did. Luckily I caught this on the cam install otherwise I would have been in for a world of bent valves on my expensive ass 6 bolt heads . So I had to pull the heads and install the short block alone, and next trip I will be putting in some Comp or high end Morel lifters. (Looking into the short travel style lifter now) So you can probably see my massive rats nest up there above the motor... That was driving me nuts since after I built my car originally, I did the wiring for Infidel's car and his is a billion times cleaner looking than mine. Since I had free time due to the lifter fiasco, I figured I would clean up the wiring behind the engine. This turned into redoing the ENTIRE engine harness, which was a fun adventure of re wrapping every section nice and tightly, and hiding all the main harnesses behind the engine. This is the result: (Obviously it isn't laid out for the wiring on the motor in the picture, but thats all confined to two banks now and everything is exactly the correct length now.) After the wiring was complete, I decided to tackle ANOTHER project that was sitting around mocking me, which is my NRG detachable steering wheel. When my window net is up at the track, its almost impossible to maneuver around in my car, due to my 6'2" 220lb stature, and the fact that we had to remove 2" of seat space for the 28+" wheel tubs. So I decided a removable steering wheel would make my life so much easier at the track. I didn't want to add a bunch of length to the steering column though, and the slim series NRG was not easily manipulated with fire gloves on, so I opted with the winged design instead and cut down a Sparco steering wheel hub adapter. We took about 1 1/2" of length and retained the crush style bracket so in an accident it will safely collapse. After that, the install was a cinch, just bolted it together and ran the wire for the horn button. (I use that for my trans brake at the track, so its important it works perfectly) Sorry about the awful picture quality, my phone was not being very cooperative this trip for some reason. One day I will invest in a decent camera...

http://www.scramspeed.com/products/lsx-billet-water-pump-spacers-for-ls1-camaro-truck-and-ls3-vette-ls1-swap.html I use those, but check ebay, Scram Speed sells on there with free shipping. Its a very nice piece, also I use the factory captured oring style gaskets since I HATE paper gaskets. You will need to use a LS3 corvette style belt tensioner as well, since that is spaced correctly. Its about $120 all said and done, but works great. Then you can just use an idler pulley instead of PS if you want, and it works perfectly!

If you keep it on the back firewall its still far enough from the header that it works fine on the JCI kit. What setup are you using?

Ahh theres your issue. Yeah ls3 engines run the belt WAY further back than the f body configuration. You can probably pick up an fbody balancer for fairly cheap used, or summit makes a reasonable new one too that is SFI approved. The good news is you can get spacers to use your ls3 water pump with an ls1 crank pulley. I currently have that setup since the ls3 pump is the lowest profile LS pump out there.

What bracket setup are you using? Most jci mount guys use the fbody brackets which sit further out than the ls3 depth ones. Not sure if it's possible to do the ls3 depth setup on a Z. Got any pictures of it in the car?

You paid for it but he refuses to tell you? This is the same guy that had a motor die twice? Sorry man, you should just take your truck elsewhere and sue the guy, thats awful

That looks like its a camaro depth mount, not a truck depth. Maybe they shipped the wrong one...

Do the hawk mounts sit a lot higher than the JCI mounts? I feel like that intake Is taller than I remember on the Z chassis.

LS6 (c5 corvette) bracket does not work without modifications to the shock towers and a truck style alternator being used. I wouldn't recommend going that way.

I used a hacksaw, it was super smooth and quick. Maybe get a new blade on that saw of yours

They are normally very difficult since they mount on the bottom of the shock. But when I talked to Stance about that, they said they will make them with a remote adjustment so you can do rebound adjustments without taking apart anything. I guess some other models use that, and they can adapt it without issue.

I originally mentioned penskes because I thought the shock might be a reasonable price. 6k for just front shocks on a drag car is absurd, end of story. I hang out with some of the fastest drag racers on the west coast (record holders in multiple classes) and none have spent anywhere near that for excellent suspension. If I was road racing, I would think about biting the bullet, but I just don't see value in spending 4k the price for an upgrade that all people can do to justify is down talk the alternative after openly stating that they have zero actual experience with that product. I asked here since I was hoping for some unbiased opinions, which I got a few of. I got a lot more biased opinions which is fine too, but I'm inclined to call them on the bias since it seems nobody else will. Just amazed how close minded a website about swapping different engines into a chassis can be. You would think this community would be open to trying new things instead of just doing the same exact thing because "its the best" without looking at the alternatives with less of a negative eye. It's quite ironic if you think about it.

5k is an insane amount of money for front shocks on a drag car first off. It's a double adjustable shock that needs a very tight rebound and a fairly soft dampening. Not incredibly hard really, and just silly to drop a massive amount on. I don't know about the D1 thing, since I don't care for drifting even a remote amount, so I've never looked at the cars up close. I'd be surprised at a car having a full sponsorship running a different product. I don't like to discount a company due to some of its customer base. They were named Stance long before the entire stance scene came about, and now they sadly have to live with the connection that is made. I have now talked to most of the staff at stance since it is local to me here in Chicago. (They do all the custom work here in house and have excellent customer service/support from what I've experienced so far talking to them) For my price range of "normal person not looking to spend more than the price of a decent used car on shocks" it seems my options are pretty limited. Why not go with the company that is actively willing to work with me one on one and build a complete set of custom coilovers all while working inside my price range? Especially when I've actually seen their lower end stuff, that everyone in this conversation seems to hate, last for years on a few friends cars without a single issue.

Nice, how much did it run you? My door cards are pretty sad looking currently...

How did you get the suede done? Did a shop do it for you?

Sounds like fun man! Safety stuff is expensive, lemme tell you. Sounds like you're well on your way though. Where is the event?

So for some clarification, since I talked to the Stance guys in person today. Their product wasn't on the market until 2009, so its no surprise they weren't on the podium before 2010. Seems a bit harsh to give a blanket negative to them because you see one model of their product fitting a class of vehicle you don't like, or throwing them into the "junk" category since their cheaper line (SS) is popular among drifters and street cars. They are on some record holding land speed cars, a few big name import drag vehicles as well as a ton of Japanese racing and drifting cars. The product is not made in China. Its manufactured in Japan, and then modified here in Chicago if needed (Custom stuff). They do all custom valving and shock testing in house here in Chicago as well. My needs are well within the abilities of their shocks, and they are willing to go to great lengths to make the shock work perfectly for me. The camber plates they use are from Sakura Garage and look to be extremely good quality. I'm 95% certain I will be using either their DA or TA setup on my car this year after discussing everything I need and that they can do in person.

I got about 15k miles out of mine. Maybe more, I honestly can't remember when I last replaced them.

What are those speed rated to?