Yes, cold start up IAC noise is very loud. Had I realized that I may have gone DBW but, too late for that now. Wonder why the LS IAC is so loud compared to the almost silent stock SBC IAC? I'm wondering if I take it apart if maybe I can smooth out the casting a bit to quiet it down some.

 

To be honest a lot of people who do drive by cable LS swaps just delete the IAC. I had so many problems getting mine to work properly I just gave up on it. I used an adjustable throttle body and set the idle that way and then did a TPS reset. I used a Holley IAC block off plate. Other than being just a little temperamental to start cold it's not a big deal.

 

Where did you get the headers from, can you give me the source?
Cheers,

Mark

 

They are Melarose C4 LS swap headers, that we added V-bands to and had cermaic coated 'Iron Gray'.

Sadly Melarose no longer produces them because they were threatned by the EPA for making non-smog legal parts and feared being fined.

 

Hey David, my IAC howls pretty decent. Once the car is warmed up there is no need for the IAC. The IAC is used like a choke for cold operation to allow more air to enter into the engine. Most of the noise is from the IAC being 100% open.

I just start driving the car, no need for the IAC at all then.

David you get any miles on the car yet? You should at least take your son out for a rip soon, that's how I got my kid hooked into cars. He wants me to swap a diesel 6bt engine into one of my 1/2 ton pick-ups. Hah that's not going to happen

 

Hi Mike, hope your doing well.

I drove it on Saturday a bit, put around 50km on it. Sunday it rained and I was working on it. The weather was ok earlier this week, but I was swamped with work. Sadly the forecast is mostly rain now for 2 weeks anyway. So I haven't gotten many miles on it. For sure once I get the car dialed in a bit, I'll strap the car seat in the car and give my son a ride, he loves car rides. He's just 2.5 yrs old so I want to make sure I get the car dialed in a bit before he comes along so I don't break down with him in the car.

 

I should also mention, now that the car is back I ordered up some new 1989-1990 leather Seat covers from top flight automotive. Hopefully they are as nice as the door panels I got from them.

They tell me they are made in house on as ordered basis and will be shipping once completed. They will be ready to ship in about 3 weeks, I have an appointment tenatively booked with an upholstery shop to install the seat covers first week of May.

The new mercury underhood light switch and a few other small items should also be shipping from Corvette central soon.

I think i'm going to try and finish the multitude of small jobs left on the car including the interior/uphostry work before I send the car off for the new paint job, that way i'm less likely to scratch it while doing the work.

 

I got going on a little bit of interior work yesterday.

I got some of the trim on the passenger's side put back in...


The hush panel or whatever its called is purposefully being left off to allow easy access to hook up the laptop for tuning.

I also removed serveral trim pieces and gave them a light sanding before spraying them with SEM 'Landau black'




They came out pretty and looked like they were the correct original color. However the new console trim piece I bought is apprently not Landau black, so i'm going to resand and try a matt black for the cupholder door and dash piece with the vents in it...I might also try calling topflight automotive and see if they can suggest a matching paint.


Anyway the pieces that are not going right next to the console looked good so I re-installed them.

The speaker and trim pieces I repainted look much better and more 'factory' in the Landau black v.s the gloss black they were painted before.

 

So while I wait to hear back from Ecklers about how to match the finish on the console trim plate. I decided to start on the passenger's side door panel.

Old panel off...


The new door panel did not come with a cut-out for the speakers. So I used a cut-off disc on a dremel to cut one out. I think it turned out all right.



New door panel and new trim insert piece going back on...



All screwed on and speaker grill installed...looks pretty good IMO.


That's one door panel done and one more to go.

 

I got the new driver's door panel put on today...

 

wow David the car looks good. Make me want to switch my interior carpet from brown to black now. Congrats

 

Thanks Mike!

 

Hey Guys,

So my seat covers arrived last night from top flight automotive. They look really nice and are suppose to be made in house to factory specs.



Sadly my appointment at the upholstery shop isn't until the begining of May, so they will just sit in the box until then.

I wasn't sure that the accent stitched shift boot and **** are going with the theme of the car so I also ordered a factory replacement shift boot. It looked nice but...



The shift boot bracket that was glued to the shift boot was WAY OFF, not sure how this was a reproduction made to orginal specs?

Anyway that was a fairly easy fix, I just ripped the bracket off and glued the old one to the new boot and it was ready to use.

I installed the new boot on the console trim piece, the whole thing did not want to sit down into place. After comparing it to the old one I noted that there were several 'extra' plastic structures on the underside of the new piece. So I went about removing them. That seems to have solved the problem, but I may need to do a hair bit more triming.

I need to also make some sort of collar to keep the shift boot achored to the shift lever, but so far I'm liking the way this boot looks better, feels more in line with the 'factory type' theme of the car.

 

So my package from Corvette central arrived which allowed me to take care of a numer of items.

First I added some emergency hood release cables. I tested them and they work well.

Second item was, I replaced the mercury switch on the driver's side hood light. Sadly the light still doesn't work so i'll have to dig deeper into why...

I also got the 'screw' that secures the fuse panel cover.


I also bought another C5 Z06 shift ****, and made a shift adapter for it, I inset this one a bit in order to lower the shift a little bit... Additionally I drilled out a washer to have a slight interference fit and pushed it onto the shift lever, it will ensure the shift boot does not slip down.


Here's a test fit of the shift ****.


The 'stock' C5 Z06 shift **** and stock shift boot aren't as 'fancy' as the accent stiched ones but I think they fit the theme of the car better so i'll use them instead.

The final item I started today was machining up custom bracket to hold the A/C lines in place so they can never rub on the belt.

The aluminum started out as a 1.5in slice taken off a aluminum 1x4 I had in the shop. I used my restored 1969 well-index knee mill.

Its awesome having a knee mill in my workshop not sure how I got by without it for so long.

Anyway I'm not machinist by any means, but I managed to make a part that'll work.

Here's where i'm at with it.


I've still go a bit more work to do on it but most of the machining is done now. The idea is it bolts to the compressor mounting ear, and the compressor body prevents it from being pushed downwards. And the A/C lines run through the holes and are thus held in place. I just need to Cut down the middle of the bolt holes and then thread the hole to hold the two halfs together. After that i'll clean it up a bit and smooth out all the edges to make it look like a OEM part.

 

I should have had you get a measurement for me while it was still sitting in the shop...

I'm wanting to know the distance from the trans mount face on the bellhousing to the center of the shifter hole (OEM)...I'm getting ready to order my Magnum trans...and have 3 choices in lengths...they come in 21", 23.9" and 28.4" lengths.

Trying to (obviously) get one that's closer to the original ZF spot...and I'm getting it with dog-rings from Liberty Gears...https://libertysgears.com/our-products/tremec/

I don't have the motor in place yet...although that might be a great project for next weekend (IF I can find where I put the cherry-picker)...

 

I didn't have a pre-existing OEM shifter hole because my car was born as a 4+3 transmission car. They have a shifter box with 3 shift linkages, but no shifter hole.

A good sized section of my floor was cut out including the shifter box and a new section was made to cover it with a hole for my T56 magnum shifter. In order to get the shifter in the stock location we had to make an offset handle that moved the handle about 2inches to the driver's side and 2 inches rearward.

*I think* to get the shifter as close to the ZF spot as possible you would want to order the T56 Magnum 'F' (LS1 F-body shifter placement). It would put the shifter 2 inches farther back than mine (should be perfect) then you would just have to offset the handle 2 inches to the driver's side. All of that would depend on your engine placement of course...

The only reason I used the Magnum instead of the Magnum 'F' was that tremec hadn't yet released the 'F' version when I bought my transmission.

1991Z07 Your build is really awesome i'm sure the 'built' magnum trans behind your big LS engine is going to let your car really fly on the track Definietly a step up from my more street oriented build!

 

I'm not worried about the left/right placement so much on the tunnel...

I found a really trick shifter for the Magnum...turns it (almost) into a sequential. With the dog-rings and the shifter (with a pressure sensor) it might as well be a sequential for 1/2 the cost. https://www.s1sequential.com/sequent...v=13b249c5dfa9

I'll rework the plate on the tunnel so it all works...but that shifter is sure nice....

 

Hey Guys, so I managed to get a little done on the bracket that secures the A/C lines so they cannot rub on the belt.





This was just the test fit, but so far it seems like its going to work out perfectly. I'm going to mill the pocket for the allen head bolt just a hair deeper as its sticking up just a tiny bit and that bolt will get replaced with a stainless bolt (its just what I had laying around). Also although I can clise the hood and I don't think its rubbing I'l going to mill a 45 on the edge of the bracket just to ensure I've got enough clearance. (right where i'm pointing in the picture)


The bracket is quite solid I pushed on it pretty forcefully and it doesn't move at all, so i'm confident the A/C lines will never be able to come in contact with the belt.

Just a couple for slight adjustments and this bracket will be squared away.

 

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Hows that passenger side panel attached and can it be easily removed to get to the relays and speedometer box underneath? I'm assuming it's an aftermarket piece. I really like the placement of the computer and relays there and would like to do the same for my build, but probably keep the original padded piece.

 

Yes, I think it is an aftermarket piece. I think places like Ecklers and Corvette Central still sell them. It came with the car when I bought it many years ago. it basically just sits there and the edge on each side gets sandwiched behind the two adjacent trim panels. So to remove it you just have remove either of the adjacent trim panels then you can slide it out. So it can be remove in proabbly less than 5 min.