Luce

I'm amassing a BIG pile of new parts for a repower of an old vette.

The lovely bride has always wanted a C3 with chrome bumpers, so back in September, we dumped the '13 Durango for a fun car.

The PO found it stored, got it to run, painted it and replaced the soggy interior pieces. But there is some rust in the birdcage, and the old 350 has no oil pressure at idle after it's warmed up.

Plans are,

Keeping the 4 speed
Add vintage air AC (heat only now)
Change to Borgeson steering (current PS is very lose)
Retrosound stereo, replace factory speakers in factory locations only
Flowmaster exhaust
Stainless headers
Vacuum pump
Blueprint's 430 HP 383 longblock
EFI with overlayed wiring harness so the original isn't hacked up

Luce

Here's where I'm starting with the engine, but I'm not taking the easiest road. I'm taking my own personal newly paved 4 lane highway.

I'm making all of my own brackets and a lot of plumbing under the manifold so I can have closed loop idle control and MAP signal for the megasquirt EFI.

Luce

The Chinese 8 stack needs some mods to make it fit under the hood, and I'm not running an engine without an air cleaner.

So I added 2 plenums under the manifold. One for the Ford IAC, and one for the MAP and fuel pressure reg.

I also parted the trumpets down on the lathe a little, and started on an air cleaner base.

I mounted a router on my CNC plasma table to carve a mold for a carbon fiber intake filter.

Luce

I went with all custom made brackets for the accessory drive, and I'm adding the vacuum pump from a 2000 or so ford diesel van. Before they started using hydro boost and electric HVAC controls, ford used this pump on their 3/4 ton vans with the diesel engine.

I drew up and cut out a trigger wheel on the CNC plasma table to weld to the crank pulley. Then I trued it up on the lathe. It onlu had a couple thousandths of run out

I'm also ditching the distributor for Dodge Neon coil packs.

Luce

More pics of the accessories including measuring the belt.

Luce

The Chinese intake has a lot of extra work put into it. It's a crappy casting that I did a little port matching on, and I wanted to clean up the looks and improve the fuel spray direction, so I swapped the throttle bodies around so the rails are in the middle and the injectors spray the fuel at the back of the valve rather than the intake manifold where it can pool up and dribble down. But this really complicates the plumbing and requires the small injectors. I'm using dodge neon 42 lb/hr (I think stage 2 whatever the young tuner punks call it) injectors, and screwing the rails on is a HUGE pita. Note to self, removing an injector will require pulling the manifold and doing it on the bench.

The funky little breather looking thing is the Ford 5.4L IAC valve with a valve cover breather glued to it. It lets air in through the 8 copper tubes under the manifold for closed loop idle control.

In the second pic, you can also see the incomplete oil pump drive I'm making. I bought a old dizzy to harvest the shaft, but it was a little undersized for the new (roller cam compatible) gear, so I'm welding it up and will turn it down to size.

diehrd

Very nice , It is gonna be a very unique build !

Have you considered coil on plug coils mounted to the valve covers ?

Luce

And yes, the PCV valve also feeds into the plenum with the IAC.

I bought some cheap stainless headers off ebay, but the tubes interfere with the plugs, so I made a tool to dimple them.

Luce

To Diehrd- Thought about it, but that would either take 4 more coil drivers and I wanted to keep the valve covers clean. I may clean up and use the cast aluminum covers on the current engine.

Next challenge is fuel. Near where the expansion tank is, I'm putting a surge tank. I'll keep the factory fuel lines and mechanical fuel pump and filter to feed a tank mounted behind the passenger front wheel well. Overflow will be routed back to the tank through the vent line... I hope. That part of the plan can change if needed. The fuel pump is mounted under the tank and will have 2 lines to and from the back of the engine.

Luce

Vacuum assisted carbon fiber layup is a new one for me, so it took a couple of iterations to get it right...sort of. The base has very steep draft angles, so I didn't get the fiber 100% into the deepest of recesses, but close enough for the base. The top will have less draft, and it'll be seen, so it'll be perfect before I call it done.


It still needs a little final trimming and dressing, and the mount holes drilled. I also want to put the intake air sensor and a breather pipe so that any blowby will get piped in and sucked down the intake rather than coating under the hood with the oil mist.

havesometo

'75

Nice work, you got skills!

gkull

since you are worried about oil mist from blowby, did you consider using the vacuum pump to draw a vacuum under the intake?

Impressive everything except the 430/383

c3_dk

wow this looks nice :- )

diehrd

I use a Aerospace pump on my 427 . I would also just add one little tip.

With your fab skills I would drop the tank and install a sump and intank fuel pump before I would use 2 systems and a reservoir.

ddawson

Wow, cool build.

Question. I see fuel injectors at the top.
What are the tubes under the intake for??

Luce

Let's see if I can hit all of the questions.

The tubes under the manifold are for idle air and PCV, and vacuum signal for the EFI MAP sensor and fuel pressure regulator. I noodled that I needed separate plenums or the IAC would cause inaccurate MAP readings.

I thought long and hard about the fuel reservoir. The original tank is in excellent condition, so I have no need to replace it, and there is no way I'm welding on a tank that has had fuel in it. It's near impossible to get it out well enough that it won't go boom. And I also want to do minimal irreversible modifications. So the surge tank was the path of least resistance. I'll use all of the factory plumbing but the line from the pump to carb will go to the surge tank instead. I got a big honking 110 GPH mechanical pump. AND, this is the best way to be able to use the full tank of gas before you get air to the pump. On my Cobra, I made a stainless tank with an internal swirl pot fed by a venturi pump on the return.

I've been there and done that with building engines, but now days, it's hard to say no to a long block. I hope no one takes this wrong, but it's a SBC. They're a dime a dozen. If this blueprint one takes a crap on me, I'll replace it with the GM performance equivalent, or maybe a local built one, but I'm betting this one will work out fine. If you do your part right, you have a very affordable and potent engine. 430 HP is more than enough for the wifey's car. I wanted to maintain some level of street-ability for her. I have the ford racing 535 HP 427W in the Cobra for my tire lighting pleasure, and after a few rides in it, she has no desire to drive it. Again, the vacuuming the crank case is not needed. She wants it pretty, so venting to the air cleaner keeps it clean. For that matter, the 8 stack is more for looks and fun than performance.

I wish I was a little better with the tig welder, but the only way to get that is practice, so I fab on.

I still need to weld the O2 bungs in the headers, but I want to make sure where the best place (Corvette space wise) to put it is.

Another thing I failed to get pics of is the aluminum radiator and shroud. As soon as I got the thing home and at the inspection station, the original radiator sprang a leak, so I had to make a hasty fix, so I've already fitted that one.

The car is not an LT-1, but has the hood. It has the original motor, so I don't really want to permanently desecrate the car, so my mods will be reversible, and I'll save the original engine and parts that come off in case we at some point sell the car to someone who wants to return everything to original, but I really can't imagine some one wanting to pull this engine and EFI setup for a crappy old solid flat tappet lifter 350 with a Qjet.

Luce

If you want ot see where I cut my teeth on fabrication, have a look here.

http://www.cobrakitcar.net/viewtopic...=1861&start=25

The car has almost 10,000 miles now, none of them easy!

Here's some more.

http://www.cobrakitcar.net/viewtopic...=2096&start=25

BV85

Great work.

homestead

Ok that's a cool build you have going on! Love the fabrication! Keep it up!