Project C4, 85 Corvette

[Steve85]

Today was a good day...went to DMV and got it registered as an Antique. No more fake stickers made on a printer, "underground" inspections, or just plain driving around with no sticker at all. They have to order the plate so they gave me stickers good for 4 months and a temp registration that says the plates have been ordered. This gives me great piece of mind and eliminates what had become a serious PIA.

I have also started a couple projects. One is getting rid of the "Dual-Sync" distributor. It has a cam and crank signal built-in so you can run sequential instead of batch fire injection. If you have a lot of time to tune you can make good use of sequential but I am opting for simplicity and fixability by going back to the coil-in-cap HEI distributor. I made a harness today out of an old original engine harness and an extra harness sent with the DFI years ago. (I'll get some pics up later, my easy to use "garage cam" is on the fritz)

The other project is far more extensive. I got a killer deal on a 2 piece intake, the valley is seperate from runners. This valley has provisions for better coolant distribution in the heads and a much lower t-stat housing (necessary for clearance of the TB). I will be converting this to EFI myself and making a plenum that will allow me to use an original style throttle-body. I like making stuff and this will be fun project and also help me move towards additional simplicity. The elbow will made to fit under a stock hood and somewhere down the road I'll get rid of the scoop.

I will probably end up going back to the original ECM at the end of these projects. This is all in an effort to regain the reliability and driveability that the car originally had and with all off the shelf parts it would be quite easy to show up at the track with two of everything (which I pretty much already have)

[Steve85]

I had to correct a few pinout placements in the home-made harness but I am up and running on the original type distributor/coil. It was a bit of a pain, the wire colors in the pdf diagram for the main harness are different than my harness (??). Turns out, the wiring diagrams for all the various adapter harness' are in the calibration software help section.

So, now, a single piece readily available for $150 bucks at NAPA does the work of 3 $$$ things (coil, dual-sync distributor, msd box) that were spread from one side to the other under the hood.

[Steve85]

My "working from home this week" project has been porting my intake. I did a real hack job when I first got it with the very wrong tools. I used an air grinder with bits from Sears that just clogged every 30 seconds. I braved the cold garage for a little while and removed the intake earlier this week and this is the progress.

Started here;


Sharpie'd the area around the port and fit the gasket in place:


Made scribe marks:


Put this bit in the drill. The spread cutting teeth and curve design prevent clogging.


Made this pile:


And this is the new fit:


I'm thinking I'll put the other smaller cam in while I'm at it.

[Goodspeed]

Nice work, this project is so badass. Congrats on the antique plates, what all is now (not) involved with owning the car, inspection/emission wise?

[WRXtranceformed]

Nice that looks a lot cleaner!

[Steve85]

Nice work, this project is so badass. Congrats on the antique plates, what all is now (not) involved with owning the car, inspection/emission wise?

No more state inspections or emissions...although in this area emissions is just a visual to see that all OE equipment is present and appears to be in working order.

As with so many jobs, it's all about having the right tools. This bit works great; it cuts faster and yet is much easier to control than what I used the first time. I've done some touch-up and gone further into the runners since those pics and will go back with a flap wheel to smooth it a bit.

I'm now working on the transition from the TB/Plenum area to the runners.

[Steve85]

Intake porting is complete and the smaller cam is in. (I'll get a few requisite pics up soon)

The old cam was 254/260 @ .050 with .600 valve lift. The new cam is 242/242 @ .050 with .610 valve lift. Normally on a Gen 1 SBC, you have to drop the oil pan to remove and properly reseal the timing cover durng a cam swap. The front of the oil pan seal goes into the bottom of the timing cover. Since I am not car ADD, but very engine ADD, I opted for a three piece timing a few years ago and it made the job much easier, I simply would not have done the swap if I didn't have that cover. The face of the cover can be removed without comprimising the oil pan or cover-to-block seal. This cam should move the power curve much lower (and lower the power potential) which makes it much easier on everything and improves driveability.

I am going to shift gears now and get the bushings replaced on the front end and go with a more agressive alignment.i.e. camber something < 0. So the next learning point will be DIY alignments. I have a lot to learn on this. I'm used to just doing OEM alignments on a rack, "set the toe and let it go" as it were.

[WRXtranceformed]

I'm sure that thing still puts out plenty of power even with the milder cam.

[Steve85]

The old ignition system. harness, remote mount coil, dual sync dist. (with its second circuit board), MSD and capaitor cap to reduce RFI on the radio from the MSD. All so unnecessary for such a mild engine.


Replaced with (DANGER :roll: )


With all the wires going back and forth to the MSD / coil / dizzy removed, I turned the injectors around and the harness is pretty well hidden now.


Close-up of the new BBS RKs These were always a favorite wheel of mine but they stopped making C4 fitment many moons ago. Picked these up on the cheap. Best part is tires are 125-140 a piece as opposed to 400+ each for the CCW sizes. The CCWs look really oversized and I think I'm just over that. Haven't sold them yet though...


Fitment:


Your basic poor lighting point and shoot pic:


The wheels are good 10-footers and will need some refinishing eventually. What color do I go with? Gunmetal or bronze top the list, but I got a wild hair to do them a deep red, like the band on the back of the cream Charger recently posted in H&B'd.

I had a couple issues wih the ignition change over. During a quick test start everything seemed OK. After the cam swap it ran like shit, missing pissing and backfiring, hesitating, hard to idle. It was a real WTF moment. I traced it to a bad coil ground inside the cap and then I have no idea how it happened but the # 7 plug had no gap like it was dropped or something hit it while it was out for the swap.

It is absolutely amazing how much better it runs and drives now. The parts selection went from "what do I have laying around from other motors" to "what works". That, combined with taking care of some the details (gasket matching, etc.) the idle is 200rpm lower, I cruise through the neighborhood at 1500 rpm with no cam surge, and throttle response is instant.

So glad I did this, it drives like a street car again.

[JustinG]

this car just makes me really happy inside.

[V1GiLaNtE]

man... this project is coming along nicely! Keep up the good work Steve! :thumbup:

[Jake]

Those wheels are hot. My vote on color is the red... although if you choose a more "sane" shade, gunmetal > bronze.

[Goodspeed]

So sick, though I do miss the look of Mike Mulligan's Steam Shovel 585's on the ccdubs. I vote keep the BBS's the way they are, silver is sooo classy.

[fiveoh2go]

I vote keep the BBS's the way they are, silver is sooo classy.

+1


Less is more.

[Steve85]

I vote keep the BBS's the way they are, silver is sooo classy.

+1


Less is more.

Soooo if I were to throw some flat black paint on the scoop, say 3 hours ago, that would not be cool? It needs some filler and sanding work so I decided to play a little. Maybe I'll throw up a pic tomorrow...

I'm really having a great time going "backwards" with this car. 6 months to port a manifold, replace a dizzy, and do a cam swap is a little frustrating but, priorities...and 4 months of a freezing ass garage...A set of Azenis will likely go on soon, $80 rebate through Discount Tire Direct through the end of April.

I wish I would have painted the car blue or a deep red instead of silver so that's probably where the colored wheel thing is coming from. I honestly think it would only work if it was a dedicated track car. I feel like I need some contrast so 5 years from now when I get around to doing them, they will probably be done the color of the belt line which is two shades darker than the M3 silver paint on the car.

Goodspeed, you get the Dennis Miller Reference award. :wink:

When is the next autox? :evil:

[Jake]

When is the next autox? :evil:

May 2nd, look in Events for the thread!

[Maengelito]

Close-up of the new BBS RKs These were always a favorite wheel of mine but they stopped making C4 fitment many moons ago. Picked these up on the cheap. Best part is tires are 125-140 a piece as opposed to 400+ each for the CCW sizes. The CCWs look really oversized and I think I'm just over that. Haven't sold them yet though...

Steve, please be careful. The next opportunity I get, I will bash your head in with a jack handle and steal these wheels from you. I loooooove the RKs. :thumbup:

and I vote on keeping them silver. Something about BBS wheels that look so good in silver (unless they're gold BBS on Subies, of course)

[Steve85]

I guess I need to be on the lookout for black S2000s now?

Found some old pics of the original red paint. Almost forgot how bad it was :vomit:

[Steve85]

I've been digging up and organizing some older photos and came across these. In 2002 we moved from MD to Winchester and the day we closed on the MD house hurricane Ivan sparked a tornado in our neighborhood. It took out a neighbors tree and this is what we came home to...

"Don't hit the still faded ass red car on the left, hit the one that's already been painted...fuck you very much Ivan"







I found a few of my interior work (which was almost ruined here) and hopefully find more to throw in here.

[Sijray21]

holy crap - this sucks!

sorry to hear about this and i hope you get it resolved with as little cost to you as possible