Long story short, I'm in a miserable nightmare of an experience with my local engine builder which just resulted in towing my car home unfinished and going to court to battle it out . Now I need to try to finish the car and the biggest obstacle appears to be the interference of the A/C bracket with the valve covers.

The photos show the overall interference





This photo shows the distance to go to get the bracket all the way on the studs.

It appears I'd have to grind out a whole pile of material from the bracket in the top left portion, possibly so much that I may lose the top left bolt hole, or at the very least, compromise the structural integrity of the top left bolt hole.

My questions are:

1) Opinions on the strength of the bracket relying on the remaining 3 bolt holes

2A) There is an additional hole that doesn't line up with the bracket that can be seen in the 2nd photo, "interference_3". Is the bracket supposed to line up with that hole?

2B) Tilting the bracket to line up with that hole makes it no longer line up with another similar hole. Do I just need to line up with one or the other? There are no studs for these two holes, so maybe the bracket isn't supposed to use either one?

3) Anyone have any other ideas? The bracket appears to be cast, so I don't think additional support could be welded to the bracket. Any welders out there know?

 

The upper left ear of the A/C compressor bracket should have a steel rod bracket going back to the middle header bolt for support

You will need to fab another bracket to replace that one; that may be enough to support the ground left ear.

Of course you could grind a little off the valve cover, or mod it to fit under the bracket, similar to the stock cover. If you slope the valve cover down to the same height as on the sides it will clear, which may be the best solution. You would just need to grind off the weld, cut the valve cover end straight across, cut the center of the top (back maybe a copla inches) and then weld it up.

Is that valve cover design due to fitment issues over rockers or just for a new design??

 

Those are some nice VCs and if it where me I would stick a notch in them and reweld. On my LT1 Billits I have asimmilar problem that I will be correcting someday. For the quick fix I modified mt Alt. but long term I plan on cutting the VC and placing a notch in it simmilar to stock. There is a good bit of distance before the rocker will be in the way and you can always yse your stock VC as a point of refernce. I have a good friend who is a great welder so my cost is a 6 pack but a local weld shop should be able to do it prety cheap. If you have the tools (An air grinder with cutting wheel) youcould do all the prep work your self by cutting the notch, could practice with a cheap set of VC's to make sure.

 

The usual mod is cut the front and reweld,On the LT1 you have to do the drivers side to clear wiper and the pass for a/c bracket.

 

So I got to thinking a little further and test fit the compressor too to see how it would fit after I managed to get the A/C bracket to fit and it too was not going to fit past the valve covers. So then I took the valve covers off and got to looking, well the stock VCs wouldn't fit because of the stud girdles. I took the stud girdles back off and tried the stock valve covers. With the oil tabs dremmeled off, the stock VCs fit and then of course the A/C bracket fits and the compressor fits. So now of course I'm thinking screw the stud girdles and all the hassle they create. Anyone think they are really necessary on a 90 L98 with LPE SuperRam, LPE 219 camshaft, 1.6 RRs, Dart Pro 1 190 heads and a few other relatively minor mods?

 

I've cut a notch on my bracket.
I have a set of tall valve covers.

Of the subject: Check the bracket very carefully. I've found cracks on mine and ones in the junk yard....

 

I've seen others notch those type valve covers before. Not that big of a deal to keep your valve train goodies. Keeping them depends on how high your RPM is going. Stable valve train at high RPM is what all of us want... too bad mine stops making power after 5k so not an issue for me.