Project C4, 85 Corvette

[JustinG]

I like everything you said.....except this whole muffler thing, needs less muffler, more header turndown.

[D_Eclipse9916]

I like your idea. If you dont have the ambition right now to race, definitely dont make it a compromise of a race car. My car would be miserable around town and honestly I miss something "fun" around town as well. The track is just too important for me right now and I wanted something safe. If I were you id get a HANS device, a proper harness, and just run the roll bar. Those will help immensely with safety, but easily liveable around town (lol you dont wear the HANS around town unless you wanted ot).

[Steve85]

Took care of an exterior issue that's annoyed me for a while.

The rear bumper wraps around to the rear wheels and bolts up to the quarter panel. The flange on the quarter panel that the bumper bolts too lost its bond so the bumper/belt line alignment was off. More suburbaneck engineering to the rescue..
Before:


Testing the bracket design


Bracket uses existing stud and is bolted to a very convenient flange. elongated top bolt hole for adjust-ability, lower bolt allows for the proper angle.


After



Also as part of the AC install I found a nice little mouse behind the AC chomped through a tiny hard vacuum line. There is no connector to repair this and a new line would require running a new vac line out to the heater core flow control. I tried a little trick...seems the vacuum line is same size as a yellow heat shrink connector. The shrink and the glue sealed it up. It was a delicate operation trying no the melt the vacuum line.



Working my way through little projects here and there. I can also finally run the the ECU software and the serial to USB adapter on Windows 7.

[ScottyB]

love the vac line repair, that's using yer dipstick!

[Steve85]

Solved a couple issues recently and providing the solution description so hopefully others searching the interwebs will find it

There is a lot of half information out there on how to get Accel DFI Gen 7 Calmap to work in Windows 7. The main error is:

This application failed to start because WKWIN32.Dll was not found.Re-installing the application may fix this problem.

Some people that fixed it say things like" I dowloaded it, then did some stuff and it worked" or "download an install the WkWin32.dll". Well what the hell does all that mean? It means this:

Go here and download this file to a place you can remember, in my Win 7, it dowloads to the Download folder.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?wkwin32">http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?wkwin32</a><!-- m -->

Open the Calmap FOLDER from the Local Disc C drive as seen below..NOT the program from the icon.

Open the local disc:


Click on the calmap folder: (the highlighted WkWin32 at the bottom will not be there for you, I'm telling how to get it there)


Open the folder that the WkWin32 downloaded to side by side with the above folder. Now simply click and drag the WkWin32 from the Download folder to the Calmap folder. (I guess this is the how-to of "download and install")In the pic below you can see where I've done the drag into the Calmap folder on the left, the WkWin32 is on the bottom.



Close those windows and start your calmap from the icon. Blookit!

Also, when the calmap program came out a popular serial to USB adapter was the Belkin F5u409 "USB to PDA Adapter". Go here for the driver for windows 7. Basically, Belkin doesn't have it but another company, MCT,that uses the same chipset and writes Belkin's drivers does have it for Win 7.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.clearchain.com/blog/posts/how-to-use-a-belkin-f5u409f5u409-cu-usb-to-pda-serial-converter-in-visawindows-7-64bit-mac-osx-10">http://www.clearchain.com/blog/posts/how-to-use-a-belkin-f5u409f5u409-cu-usb-to-pda-serial-converter-in-visawindows-7-64bit-mac-osx-10</a><!-- m -->

After a year of not being able to connect I am back in business. Thoughts of going to E85 for the next build provided the motivation to get this sorted.

took it out for some spirited driving this evening :mrgreen:

gratuitous recent pic (pre-bumper repair):

[ScottyB]

still one of the baddest looking C4's around.

[WRXtranceformed]

still one of the baddest looking C4's around.

:thumbup:

[Steve85]

still one of the baddest looking C4's around.

Thanks gents! It's kinda neat that it still turns heads on the road...prolly because you hardly see them though.

Tomorrow is Corvettes at Carlisle and I have a few items on my swap meet list:
seat belts
carpet piece for the rear (current has roll bar holes, new bar will mount different)
rear speaker cover
new top if I can steal one
driver door window
pass door interior panel
LS1/2/3/6/7
67 w/LS and sidepipes

None of it is need stuff, but given the right deals I can address some minor annoyances

[Steve85]

The next phase is a major step in a new direction. I am about 99% settled on putting in an LS based engine, L33 to be specific. The L33 is an aluminum block 5.3L truck motor that was considered a high output version with LS6 heads, higher compression and slightly bigger cam than the standard truck 5.3.

I will do some basic things like a cam and some headers but intend to keep the bottom end untouched. I should be close to 400 at the crank, quite a bit less than I have now which is fine.

With the reduced HP, better driveability and MPG, I'll be able to drive the car to work a few days a week without going broke. It's a long commute and I'm looking to make it more interesting and be able to change it up from the teggy without losing reliability and bunch of gas money.

Project cost - I should come out ahead, well sort of, I'll ignore what this stuff cost. So far I have sold:
Victor EFI intake $300
18┬░ Spider intake $200
Accel DFI $1100
24lb Injectors $150

I still have about $3K in heads and some other misc stuff to sell for $4750 in.

Need to buy:
L33 $700
Cam $300
C4 LS Adapters $90
C4 LS headers $825 (might use C5 or C6 Z06 manifolds for $100 - $300 instead)
LS6 intake $320
ECM $100
F-Body/C5 oil pan $150
That's $2485 in major components (with the possibility of saving $500) plus budgeting about $1000 misc for brackets, accessories, hoses, gaskets etc for $3485 out.

Once I sold the Victor intake and DFI a couple weeks ago, I went ahead and pulled the motor: :thumbup:

[ScottyB]

it begins :thumbup:

does your wife even pay attention to how many times you're under the hood of that thing? :lol:

[Steve85]

Not anymore. I tell her I'll be in the garage for 15 minutes, she knows that means "Good night, see you tomorrow" :lol:

Total sales = $4580 and still have short block, going well!
Purchase total so far = $2670

I took a hard look at my original idea to go with a L33 out of a truck and by the time I got it to the HP I wanted, all the vette belt driven accessories, and intake to fit under the hood, I'd be close to just getting an LS1. So I went looking at car-part.com and scored a complete vette LS1 out of a 2000 with only 54K miles for $2100. Got my hands on an LS6 intake for 320 delivered, they normally go for 350-400 + shipping and "fees" from LS1tech.com and ordered the motor mount adapters for $90 from Vettaid.com

And just scored a "621" bellhousing from eBay. Had to pay a little more than expecting but oh well. $350 less than the aftermarket one I thought I needed when I started planning this.

It's a GM bellhousing used on 60's big block 4 speed cars... and how you get an aftermarket transmission designed for an 85-88 vette to fit an engine from a 97+ vette. I'll need an LS7 pilot bearing to complete the puzzle. I love this stuff!

A few months ago I read about an aftermarket bellhousing used to mount an LS to a Muncie /BW T10. The same Muncie /BW T10 that the Doug Nash 4+3 in 84-87 vettes is based on. So I went to Richmond Gears website and started comparing input shaft lengths and bolt alignments and turns out the 6 speed I have (designed as a 4+3 replacement) is identical to the Muncie. Once I felt like I could resuse my trans I started building my spreadsheet for this project. The 621 BH idea came from LS1tech and was a great find to save some money.

The major hard parts are all on their way and I is excited to begin fitting. :thumbup:

[ScottyB]

nice detective work. thats some pretty low mileage on that LS as well, hope it treats you right!

[D_Eclipse9916]

Wow thats a great price on an LS. Cant wait to see this beast again, I miss it so much.

[D_Eclipse9916]

Wow thats a great price on an LS. Cant wait to see this beast again, I miss it so much.

[CaptainHenreh]

This is going to be awesome. Bravo.

[Steve85]

Engine was delivered to a shop in Winchester, I just need a pick-em-up truck to go get it, probably do it Wednesday.

I had planned to do a full integration to the car including retaining cruise control by using the drive-by-wire and redoing a stock harness. This would require a new pedal and throttle actuator control module, ~$4-500 of stuff, a few days going through the harness, finding someone to reflash the PCM and hoping that the pedal/TAC/PCM were all compatible.

Instead..EASY Button. Called PSI Conversions and they are sending me a brand new stand-alone harness for drive by cable and a PCM with emissions and anti-theft removed. It's against my DIY nature, but agrees with my wanting to avoid days or weeks of delays from one misplaced pinout or something. It's a budget strainer at $700, not "can't feed the kids" strain, just goal of "spending less than I make on the sale of SBC stuff" strain.

I should have just about everything I need by the end of February to start putting the puzzle together. I need to get it in quick before I break down and buy a cam.

[Steve85]

Did some test fitting and it looks great. There are two issues that will need to be addressed -
Coils on passenger side interfere with HVAC box - coils will be mounted further inboard, attached to fuel rail/intake rather than valve cover
Wiper motor does not clear - Rain-X (for now)

Crappy cell phone pic test fit


Installing the LS6 intake:

The LS1 and LS6 intakes are different on the bottom so you have to remove the ridges on the LS6 to clear the steam pipes. A hammer and wood chisel takes the ridges off quickly and cleanly.

steam pipes


LS1 intake bottom


LS6 bottom modified


New gaskets and foam trimmed to clear steam pipes


Done with fuel rail reversed to put inlet on passenger side. (will make plumbing to stock system much cleaner)




Next step is to drill out metric threads and tap with NPT to use original sensors for the dash.

[SlimKlim]

^ This is relevant to my interests.

[Goodspeed]

Awesome work :thumbup: Looks like the LS6 intake matches up to the L33 cathedral ports? I know GM did different things with the shape and design between heads, I wouldn't have figured the truck variant had the same design as the hot 'Vette motor. Awesome.

[D_Eclipse9916]

Awesome work :thumbup: Looks like the LS6 intake matches up to the L33 cathedral ports? I know GM did different things with the shape and design between heads, I wouldn't have figured the truck variant had the same design as the hot 'Vette motor. Awesome.

Interesting that they used a more efficient cathedral designed port in the LS6 but switched back to a rectangle port for LS7s... Wonder why.