Project 6.0L Sedan

[SlimKlim]

A 1st gear that ran to 65 would be sorta cool though. It'd feel like an old Ferrari with a 4 speed that just revs for ages and ages. I guess it makes sense to be able to use all of your gears though

The wheel I linked is a plug & play swap in 96-99 cars. If you actually want it order it well in advance, mine took at least a month to make it over from Germany. I think if you contact him you can give him specific specs for materials, colors,thumb tabs and 12 o'clock stripe. I have that same basic shape but thickened to the E46 M size (i think all of his are), perforated/standard leather, M tri-stitching, and thumb tabs. I also paid $10 to ship a $8 chrome SRS logo for a Z3 from Germany, because a bit of bling never hurt nobody.

This picture was taken with a potato but you get the idea:



Also, these are dirt freaking cheap and surprisingly nice quality. Lauren got me a shift/brake boot combo for my birthday last year for less than $50, You just have to very, very delicately remove the old one from the base ring and glue the new one on. Took me about an hour on the couch on a Saturday morning. http://rallyroad.net/catalog/8

If you want we could work something out and I'll hook up the interior for you. Suede headliner/dash, carbon fiber wrap, seat/wheel swaps, boots, all of the above. I've gotten pretty good at it and I could use some extra cash right about now.

[D_Eclipse9916]

if you dont mind a fixed back, try to find some Sparco Roadster seats. They are a street friendly fixed back. They were discontinued a couple years back so they can be a little harder to find but ive seen a few new old stock for sale.

Ive considered picking up one or two now before I even need it because it really is IMO the perfect street car seat

Ohhhh that's cool, I like how the middle isnt as set back as a regular one, so you can use a regular seat belt. I may keep my eye out on these, if I find a set, I may switch in the future. Autox and maybe some track HPDEs are inevitably going to happen, I know it :lol:

I just made it easy on myself and will be picking up Jon's E46 M3 seats during Summit Point August.

[JPolen01]

:thumbup:

[Goodspeed]

Good call on the seats, I was just getting ready to post that you do NOT want the Chronos. Huuuge seats, that are fairly hard for your back.

In reference to the silver sedan pick you posted, please do all the typical Euro touches (that wing, DTM tips, a little poke/stretch, faux german plates) with the V8 soundtrack :lol:

[Jake]

Yayyy. Good call on the seats.

[D_Eclipse9916]

Progress!

Now that August Summit is out of the way, full steam ahead on the Sedan. After work yesterday I dropped by home depot to pick up some 5/16 dowel rod (ill explan in a bit). Then unpacked the rest of my crap from the weekend, and got to work on the LS1 at around 8:15pm. Wanted to just poke around and get the engine ready for the cam swap. Well, turns out smallblock chevys are perhaps the easiest car ever to do a cam swap on.

First thing is first, pull the valve covers and undo the 10MM bolts holding down the valve rockers.


This what you end up with:


Then pull the crank pulley off with a pulley removal tool. One of the 3-prong free rental tools you can get at advance auto. Then comes off the timing cover and cam gear with 10mm bolts holding it all together. This is what you should be seeing at this point.


At this pont remove the 4 bolts holdin in the cam cover. Again 10mm and straight forward. Now comes the 5/16 dowel rods. When you pull out the cam, ther eis a risk of a lifter dropping. If that happens, you are pulling the heads. Instead, take the two dowel rods, and in the holes seen below, insert them and they wll prevent the lifters from dropping.



Now pull the cam out slowly. It rides on bearings, so you just have to make sure it comes out straight, wiggle wiggle wiggle. Out she comes.



New cam to old cam:



And inserting the new cam, I poured and smothered the cam with 30W oil to prevent a dry start.


Then drop in the new pushrods. Stronger pushrods, "magnum" (I got a kick out of that)



I made such good progress so quick, I decided to call it a night. All in all, it took me about an hour. Not too bad for my first time, but could have been done in 20-30 minutes or less if I knew what I was doing. Springs/LS6 oil pump/improved racing oil pan baffle/upgraded timing chain go in wednesday.

[Steve85]

Edit "smallblock chevys" to read "LS Series". Pre LS small block requires you to R&R intake (a "wet" intake unlike the dry LS) to remove lifters and R&R oil pan so you can properly reseal timing cover. And all that entails, draining all fluids, resetting lifter preloads, three times the bolts to R&R and properly torque and so on and so on...

I was absolutely giddy to be working on the LS after 5-6 cam swaps done on early SBCs, mostly while in the car.

You get the spring tool?

[D_Eclipse9916]

Edit "smallblock chevys" to read "LS Series". Pre LS small block requires you to R&R intake (a "wet" intake unlike the dry LS) to remove lifters and R&R oil pan so you can properly reseal timing cover. And all that entails, draining all fluids, resetting lifter preloads, three times the bolts to R&R and properly torque and so on and so on...

I was absolutely giddy to be working on the LS after 5-6 cam swaps done on early SBCs, mostly while in the car.

You get the spring tool?

Ah okay, well then blessed be thy name LS1.

Yup got the spring tool, planning on making quick work of the springs this afternoon.

[D_Eclipse9916]

Last update before the weekend as I am headed up to NJMP. Last break before diving into this non-stop for the 2 weekends after.

I used Steve's Crane Cams tool to replace the springs/retainers/seals on the LS1. I messed around and took too much time, so I ended up not getting done with a pair of springs before I had to head out. Once I got home later that night, I took care of the last 2.

With the tool it is fairly straight forward. I had the rockers out, so just bolt the tool down where the rockers used to bolt down. Make sure the piston is at the top of the cylinder in case you drop a valve. With the piston at the top, the valve won't drop down far enough that you cant just grab it.


Then just tighten down on this bolt till the springs compress, lightly tap the old springs with the hammer, and this will help pop the retainers/valve off the spring. Tighten down a bit more and pull out the retainers. Unbolt the compression piece of the tool and pull out springs/seals. Installation is reverse of removal. Quite easy. I almost messed up on one cylinder and had an "oh shit" moment when I realized I didnt have the cylinder at the top. We held the valve, and I rotated the crank to the top and no harm/no foul.


And...finishing up.



I didnt have time to take care of the oil pump/pan due to a class I had to go to; but next update will be oil pump/pan/timing the motor. From there I have to install the BMW water temp sender (threads right into head no modification), and then install the BMW dummy oil pressure gauge. A 12x1.5 tap into a piece on the oil filter housing solves that.

[BFisch06]

Things are moving fast! Great stuff!

[D_Eclipse9916]

^^ Thanks!

I have a couple days this week/weekend to work on the car. Plan is to have it 90% finished by the end of this labor day weekend. There are so many small little projects that have to get done, that I have never done before, so this is taking a long time. I gotta order all the exhaust and intake components, and knock out throwing springs, new lower control arms, and differential in, once all the regular LS1 swap stuff is done.

[D_Eclipse9916]

Last night's update.

I received my new LS6 oil pump in the mail courtesy of Brian Bowers.

In order to get the old oil pump off, you must unbolt a 10mm bolt that keeps the oil sump connected to the pump. Rotate off and voila, no more oil pump. In order to get the oil sump off the pump however, you must at least lower or take off the oil pan. This was not a problem however, since my oil pan needed the improved racing oil baffle put in.

What's really cool is to swap oil pan baffles, it is simply a matter of unbolt and bolt in the new one. Unlike BMW oil pan baffles that need to be welded in.
Stock pan/baffle with bolts removed.


Remove the baffle and you can see the "gates" to help prevent sloshing, surely not enough.


Install new baffle in place and bolt down to torque. If I remember correctly, 108in/lbs.



Throw a new gasket in and install. But before installing, a little teaser photo of my Mini Spec Triple Disc Clutch. Much much smaller and less rotating weight, you can see how small the clutch is at 7.25. A normal clutch is that entire flywheel size, this is much smaller, as well as having the flywheel itself lightened as much as possible. Should rev quite well!



Bolted back up the oil pan and getting ready to throw the new LS6 pump in. Here they are side by side:


A little more detailed picture so you can see how the oil pump works (old one disassembled). You can see where it rides on the crank.



Timed and installed new LS2 timing chain


Bolted on the rockers and torqued to 22ft/lbs.


New gaskets go on and button up the top of the head. Unfortunately I could not finish tonight because I couldnt find the front timing cover seal. Going to check tonight and hope its just stuck in one of the boxes.

[ScottyB]

i love this thread.

carry on.

[D_Eclipse9916]

Thanks! I gotta order the exhaust stuff but I am hoping I am real close to having all the parts needed to get this done. Tonight I am finishing up the motor and putting the ABS relocation bracket in. Tomorrow will be the focus on getting the wiring done, and I gotta send out my ECU for a tune. Saturday is the plan to roll the engien bay out....clean it all up and throw in the motor for its first test fit. At that point I can measure all the fuel lines and power steering lines that I have to make. Sunday ill actually yea know...do something social. Then Monday knock out the coolant lines and euro expansion tank setup. Somewhere in this I gotta put the rear suspension back together with the new springs and flip the tophats and new springs on the front end of the car.

[HAULN-SS]

Should you stop everything and buy this?

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[JPolen01]

Should you stop everything and buy this?

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Why?

[HAULN-SS]

1700 bucks, sounds glorious, way different

[D_Eclipse9916]

Good luck cracking Ferrari engine software for under 3 grand.

[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.....

[SlimKlim]

Can you steal the factory brackets out of the race car and bolt them to the chassis the same way the factory does it? How were the vaders installed, aren't those coupe seats too?