It has been some time since I last posted my progress and the reason for that is there really hasn't been a lot to write about. I have been doing a bit of travelling around but mainly needed to recharge the batterys but I am now getting back into it.
Having got the car home from the Auto Elec, I was able to have a good look over it and see the amount of work it takes to get the wiring into the right spot. The engine loom had to be split into four looms to feed it into the cockpit to mate up with the Ford Racing ECU loom and components and having very little space, this is quite a task
In my last post I showed the headers for this project. As was expected, they took a bit of fitting and I found out during the fitting process that they could be fitted to the engine while it was out of the car but as I has all the wiring in place I didn't want to pull the engine out completely.
To get the headers on, I had to move the engine forward 150mm. Fortunately for me we had enough slack in the loom to allow this so we just put a sling under the pulley and lifted the engine as high as it would go and juggled the headers until they went in. Getting the bolts in was a trick but we managed it. As you can see, it is very tight. No, that is not a V16, just reflection.
An interesting thing about the rear axle is the clips holding the stub axles into the diff. The ones supplied by Pace are too small in diameter and very much out of shape. Fortunately for me, Guy, Cam and I were refitting my gear box after repairing a severe leak in the hydraulic throw out bearing when Cam noticed my axles were dislocated, they had just pulled straight out of the diff. I was advised to get the genuine GM clips and that made all the difference, the axles snapped into place beautifully. For the sake of $23,anyone using the VF Commodore diff, make sure you have genuine clips or it could be nasty. The variation in the clips is evident in the pics.
Recieved the tail shaft a little while ago, haven't fitted it yet but what a solid piece it is. I can't see me ripping that out in a hurry.
I have decided to make my own working side pipes and so far have put together the merge collectors and made the flange gaskets. The merge collectors will run into a pair of 4" diameter 400CPSI Euro 4 catalytic converters then into the side pipes.
The collectors are on an angle so they align with the opening in the body. The collectors have just been tacked to the flange plates at this stage as provision will need to be made to the collector to allow spring washers to be fitted, this mean reforming the collector around the bolt holes. The gaskets have been made from a sheet of exhaust gasket material using the flanges as a guide. By just cutting the gasket material to size with tin snips then clamping between the two flange plate, drill the four mounting holes and bolt the flanges together. The bolts give a positive position to grip in a vice and then you can run a hole saw through the gasket. In this case the primary tube holes are 1-5/8". Once the drilling was done, I just cleaned everything up with a file.
The merge collectors are now fitted temporally so that when the body is fitted they can be properly aligned.Once again, the reflection plays tricks.
I had to shorten the steering column shroud about 16mm to allow the steering wheel hub to seat correctly on the steering shaft spline and taper and to allow the indicator stalk to sit into the dash. Having done this and having the indicator stalk in the right place, the steering wheel hub requires modification to get the internal taper and spline to fully seat. I did this with a rotory drill and sanding sleeve.
The body has now been fitted but I will post on that in a few days.
Till then Cheers
Russell
