Project 6.0L Sedan

[D_Eclipse9916]

So blah! Way behind schedule as usual. I got busy during this past weekend and didn't get much done on the car. And very few pics to boot as well, so this is a small update.

Saturday morning I covered up the electrical and removed anything non-essential and greased down the engine bay get it nice and clean. (Almost too clean considering this is going to be my daily driver!)

One thing I spent way too much time on is the heater control valve. It connects to the heater core by the firewall by 3 lines. People tend to ghetto throw them on the passenger side and I hated how you could see the valve, and the mess of heater lines. (cant avoid some because LS has 2 right in front that go back). Ill have to get some pictures, but I spent time by drilling out the spot welds of the stock bracket. I then took some angle aluminum and spent 2 hours, measuring, cutting, grinding, bending, and fitting. The end result was I managed to relocate the unit underneath where the Euro Coolant tank goes, is closer to the tank and heater core to reduce line length, has a permanent fit for the bracket, but uses stock rubber bushings and bracketes for easy removal. I then wired it up by lengtehning the lines using stock wiring I had lying around (I keep old harnesses I pull so I can use stock colored/guage wiring). I will have to get pictures later.

I then went to work on the engine a bit more and installed the intake, coil pack brackets, fuel rail, injectors and the fuel rail fitting that will adapt to AN-6 (how I am running my fuel lines).

I also put in a new BMW coolant temp sensor. The OBD2 sensors thread right into a port on the LS1, so this was plug and play, just gotta remember not to delete the electrical lines to it.

Second sensor from the bmw I am using is a new Oil Pressure dummy gauge. Both of these sensors interact with the gauge cluster. On the oil filter housing there is a piece right here that is ideal for putting an oil pressure gauge in.


Then I borrowed a M12x1.5 tap from Paul Galleron and had to pick up a drill bit at home depot that matched. Drilled and tapped:


Blow it out with an air gun and clean the threads. Threaded in nice, done!


I then moved on to the interior. We pulled out the lovely Dove Vader seats, and had a guy pick them up on Wednesday, helping pay for the black E46 M3 seats going in. Unfortunately I discovered an issue. The sedan has the seatbelts bolt directly to the rail, not the side of the chassis like the coupe. I will have to make a bracket, but before diving in, I am weighing my options on how I want to make the bracket. This is safety, needs to be taken seriously. Right now I am thinking using my 1/8 steel stock, bending a piece in an L and then cutting out 2 triangles and gusset the sides. This should be way more than strong enough. Debating on using the gussets or not, since the stock sheetmetal is like 1/16 and no gusset.....