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How do you feel about helping the C4 community and sharing your 3d model of the stock hood? Keep your modification private of course, but many of us would love to have that stock file
That will be happening regardless, both the cowled and stock versions, I hate how small the aftermarket for these cars is since it makes it super cost-prohibitive for people to get into the C4, it's crazy how expensive some parts go for when in reality they cost $40. Unfortunately, it won't be this render and scan, for some reason the software decided to ignore all the targets and the hood in its entirety and delete the parts of the mesh that mattered. I'm working with a couple of people to find out what happened before I give it another go since it did take 30+ hours for this failed one and I don't want another repeat failure. If I can get this process to work well enough, I'll use my drone to get a couple of full car scans, with roof off, on, etc. Don't know if I'll ever get the time to make it into a full car model, but time will tell.
In other news, the 10* throttle body adapter is now available on Thingiverse for anyone who wants it. both the STL and STEP are there. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4833702
EDIT:
Rather than just say it was a bad scan, here's a snapshot of a super low res scan without the targets, this was comprised of about 270,000 points
And this abomination was comprised of about 2000000 points, almost 8 times that of the low res scan.
You can see that details like the headlights are wayyy clearer(and that the headlight is very crooked ), but everything else is gone, which is what everyone is very confused about. Our going theory is that the glass confused the software with reflections and it placed points in the air, so I will try again with the hood propped up on the grass and some settings tweaks. If you look at the driver's side of the windshield there is a red smear, there's nothing red inside the car, which is where we got the idea of the reflections being the problem. Not sure why the low res scan didn't have any problems with the glass, but that's a rabbit hole.
Last edited by ThatOneKid; Apr 19, 2021 at 09:13 PM.
Dang am I getting close, I ditched the last software and went with something completely new and I am pretty excited, to say the least. This time around it only took 6 hours(CUDA Accelerated for anyone interested) and there are over 20 million points, but that includes the environment around the car. This scan is workable and could be used for a CAD model, but I think I can get more out of this software so I want to give it another try, there are some weird artifacts that I think was caused by a either dirty camera lense or the fact that I accidentally flipped the camera going around the driver's side.
I think I'll be able to have a good result by this weekend and maybe even a CAD model by Sunday night, it's gonna be a wet weekend here so no installing the engine for me.
This is so flippin cool. Thanks man you're doing the lord's work
Thanks, very cool it is and it's surprisingly simple, could be a good way of replicating other rare or inexplicably expensive C4 parts for 3D printing.
Here's the crowd participation part of the hood recreation, I did some cleaning up and did some aggressive smoothing to the last result I shared. It turned out better than I expected, but definitely not close enough to accurately model in CAD. Pictures below, and questions below them. Ignore the bumps, they were small rolls of colorful tape that I was hoping would work as targets, didn't work all that well and they caused a raised surface that doesn't smooth away all that well.
It seems the fender flares came out accurate cowl seems to have been overly smoothed into the hood and the height diminished, does anyone else get that feeling looking at the pictures? Does anyone see something that is glaringly incorrect in the shape of the hood?
If not, Friday morning I have some help coming over to help me remove the hood, and then I'll be propping it up on some sawhorses and getting as high a resolution scan as I can. Part of this plan involves having the neighborhood kids doodle all over my hood to generate "unique" patterns for the software to pick up on, the hood needs to be sanded and reprimed anyways since it's been exposed to water. From then, I'll be turning my computer into a small space heater for what I expect will be all of Friday while I'm at work and most of Saturday to create the mesh, and Sunday night I'll be sitting down for a loooonnnnggg CAD session of what will hopefully be a close to final product. Sunday morning I'm going to the salvage yard because they got 2 84s in last week, hoping to pick up a cluster, steering column, and headlight motor, since those are either broken or worn out on my vette.
Last edited by ThatOneKid; Apr 21, 2021 at 08:32 PM.
To me the cowl looks right... the area between it and the wheel hump seems to be flattened but I'm not sure.
I think you are right, that area is where it is hardest to get good detail on the hood because of the smoothness and color uniformity. I'm actually surprised the fenders came out as half decent as they did as they were not my main focus. This is a pic with the smoothed and unsmoothed meshes, the black is the smoothed, gray is original. It seems the hood dips down towards the cowl, but the smoothed mesh blended the edge from the fender to the cowl into a flatter surface. There's a lot less of the smoothed mesh showing out towards the fender flares, and way more visible looking at the bottom up into the mesh.
That looks pretty darn good, how did you model that?
Looking at yours, the cowl and the hood surface are much more pronounced, where the scan has a gradual curve and blended edge. That's something I'll need to figure out how to capture better.
Also, turns out I didn't have the camera set to as high a resolution as it could go, the next shot should hopefully capture some more detail.
Last edited by ThatOneKid; Apr 21, 2021 at 09:27 PM.
I think you are right, that area is where it is hardest to get good detail on the hood because of the smoothness and color uniformity. I'm actually surprised the fenders came out as half decent as they did as they were not my main focus. This is a pic with the smoothed and unsmoothed meshes, the black is the smoothed, gray is original. It seems the hood dips down towards the cowl, but the smoothed mesh blended the edge from the fender to the cowl into a flatter surface. There's a lot less of the smoothed mesh showing out towards the fender flares, and way more visible looking at the bottom up into the mesh.
That looks pretty darn good, how did you model that?
Looking at yours, the cowl and the hood surface are much more pronounced, where the scan has a gradual curve and blended edge. That's something I'll need to figure out how to capture better.
Also, turns out I didn't have the camera set to as high a resolution as it could go, the next shot should hopefully capture some more detail.
Its just a video game asset, may not be highly accurate. It’s used in this weird video for example
It's been a while, I got swamped with work and that of course ate up all my time to work on the Vette. But I finally have part of a weekend to myself, so I'll be picking up where I left off with the 3D scan. I don't want to put the motor in until the intake will fit under the hood, cheap insurance to guarantee rainwater won't get into the motor. That doesn't mean I didn't make any progress, I've begun work on a rough guide on how to integrate the LS into an 85 fully without needing the LS fuse box, I haven't gotten as far as I would have liked, but I'll update it as I build my harness out, the hardest part has been decoding the C2 connector block that connects the engine harness to the car. The guide can be adapted to any MY C4, the only changes are pin numbers. I'll go back and update this post when the document has been updated and my harness is built, so this is the post to keep an eye on. This was all made possible by LT1Swap.com, with the awesome documentation there, it's made most of the process a breeze.
Last edited by ThatOneKid; May 6, 2021 at 11:26 PM.
What are you doing for accessories? Will you have AC?
Yep, easier in actuality than the internet would have you believe. The trans mated up perfectly using an LS clutch (mine is for a 99-03 Camaro), BBC bell housing, and hydraulic throwout bearing.
I'm allegedly using the truck accessories, they fit during the mockup stage but I still need to check hood clearance to see if I'll need to cowl that far to make them fit.
I initially planned on not having AC and just driving fast, but on my daily commute to work the last couple of weeks, I tried it, and failed miserably, so AC is the current hurdle to figure out. I'm starting to lean towards using the R4 compressor and either an eBay high mount bracket or designing a C4-friendly bracket, the LS compressor would have been great, but it's too costly to make work. At least this way the plumbing all stays the same and it's as bolt-on as it can be with an engine swap of this magnitude.
Wow, project creep is real, and man does it hurt. This weekend was unprogressively progressive, parts have been showing up so I've been slowly getting them ready for install. My attention got yanked away from the vette this weekend for an emergency clutch replacement on my brother's daily, so it was a slow weekend to say the least.
With great power come even better brakes, my vettes
has terrible brakes that just wouldn't cut it in VA traffic. The first time I took it on a high way I nearly rear ended a minivan with me standing on the pedal slowing down from 45. So I've gone about fixing it a couple of ways, the cars getting new rotors and pads on all 4 corners, the fronts get drilled and slotted rotors with ceramic pads, the rears get the same rotor treatment but with semi-metalics to increase rear bias a bit, I'm personally not a fan of drilled rotors, but these have a no questions asked lifetime warranty so cheap rotors for life even if they crack the rotors. Second thing is full brake flush, the fluid in the master does not look healthy, I’m surprised the pedal hasn't gone spongy yet. I'm going at it rather aggressively and draining the system completely, so while the master is somewhat empty, I'm also putting in a DRM bias spring to make those semi-metalics actually worth something. Odds are high I'll be taking the plastic booster off and inspecting it for cracks at the same time, it would explain the stiff pedal but I have no point of reference for how stiff the pedal is on a normal 85. Lastly, the cars getting C5 calipers up front, I do plan on tracking this car a couple of times a year, and it was cheaper in the long run than the J55 upgrade. The C5 has a way better aftermarket and selection of pads and rotors and that brought the price way down for good quality parts.
The power bump I mentioned is courtesy of a TBSS intake, which outflows and has better top end than the LS6 intake while sporting a supposed 15lb/ft torque gain from the truck intake, which is why it's touted as the best factory LS intake. The power bump is nice but this intake looks better and is about an inch shorter than the NBS truck intake I was going to use. That means a smaller cowl that better blends in with the C4s lines and curves.
Don't think I've mentioned it yet, but the car will be painted black and I'm trying to place subtle yellow highlights throughout the car to match the interior. The interior is black for the most part with yellow seats, im still trying to decide how much yellow I want to have.
Fun fact: The calipers went through three different shades of yellow and being baked before I settled down on this one. Yellow is a tricky color to match.
Last edited by ThatOneKid; May 9, 2021 at 10:27 PM.
Those Gen 4 truck intakes can be smoothed and made to look amazing.
I wonder if a TBSS NNBS intake like the one in his pic would fit under a stock C4 hood if you smoothed it out and removed all the mounting stuff off the top?
I wonder if a TBSS NNBS intake like the one in his pic would fit under a stock C4 hood if you smoothed it out and removed all the mounting stuff off the top?
I wonder if a TBSS NNBS intake like the one in his pic would fit under a stock C4 hood if you smoothed it out and removed all the mounting stuff off the top?
Originally Posted by JoeNova
Highly unlikely, but I can't say for certain
If my measurements are right, no, you'll need at least a 1 inch cowl, but my measurement were taken with the trans supported on a jack with the alignment eyeballed so it could be way off. Looking at some old photos there is a slim chance that it would, but the LS6 intake is probably still your best bet. I'll crawl under the car tommorow and get a few measurements like from the engine mounts to the hood to get a rough idea of where it lies.
Last edited by ThatOneKid; May 18, 2021 at 10:00 PM.
The worst part is that the throttle body mounting flange aims upward a few degrees, so not only do you have to worry about the intake manifold, but you also have to make sure that whatever intake you're using clears as well.
If my measurements are right, no, you'll need at least a 1 inch cowl, but my measurement were taken with the trans supported on a jack with the alignment eyeballed so it could be way off. Looking at some old photos there is a slim chance that it would, but the LS6 intake is probably still your best bet. I'll crawl under the car tommorow and get a few measurements like from the engine mounts to the hood to get a rough idea of where it lies.
That's what I figured. I have the LS6 intake on it now. But I'm going with direct port nitrous and a bigger throttle body with the new motor. I would love to use a TBSS intake instead of a FAST 102. But i don't feel like cutting the hood. The Dorman LS2 is another option but it's almost as expensive as the FAST LSXR now.
I haven't been on the forum a lot the last few week. I really enjoyed catching on on this build. The 3D scanning is very cool.
As far as the intake goes having to redo the cowl on the hood is a lot of work, and by the time you buy all the materials to reglass and repaint etc the cost is going to add up too... I'd say your better off getting a car intake. I watched Ebay for a few months and found a older ported fast 90 intake for $500 shipped. If your patient I think you could find a similar deal. Just my 2 cents.
I haven't been on the forum a lot the last few week. I really enjoyed catching on on this build. The 3D scanning is very cool.
As far as the intake goes having to redo the cowl on the hood is a lot of work, and by the time you buy all the materials to reglass and repaint etc the cost is going to add up too... I'd say your better off getting a car intake. I watched Ebay for a few months and found a older ported fast 90 intake for $500 shipped. If your patient I think you could find a similar deal. Just my 2 cents.
Or I could be convinced to sell my LS6 intake off my motor now and buy a LSXR 102 a little early.
), but everything else is gone, which is what everyone is very confused about. Our going theory is that the glass confused the software with reflections and it placed points in the air, so I will try again with the hood propped up on the grass and some settings tweaks. If you look at the driver's side of the windshield there is a red smear, there's nothing red inside the car, which is where we got the idea of the reflections being the problem. Not sure why the low res scan didn't have any problems with the glass, but that's a rabbit hole.
