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It is finally starting to take shape. Bought this car back in March of 2015. It is a very solid rust free 99 with 97,000 miles. Started tearing it down shortly after getting it home. As it often does, life got in the way and progress was slow. Finally got the tunnel work done last summer and the Lizard Skin sprayed this winter.
I have a friend who had this 28k mile 2003 LS6 out of a Z06. It is mainly stock with the exception of an LS3 hot cam and upgraded Comp pushrods. He also built me a beefed up F body T56. Plans for the upcoming weeks is to mate up the engine, trans and subframe and lift everything in from underneath.
Coming along nicely. Ready to put engine and trans in today. I did hit one snag though. I ordered a starter from Pace Performance that was listed for LS1, 2, 6, etc. when I went to put it on, I found that the mounting pad is too tall. I bought my bellhousing used and it had GTO written in paint marker on it. Not sure if the GTO and Fbody bellhousings were different or if I simply got the wrong starter.
Fast forward. Can’t believe I never updated this. Yes the GTO bell housing is different. Got the right starter and all was good.
The thing that really had me intimidated with this build was the wiring. I ended up ordering a stand alone harness from PSI and got to figuring it out this summer. After a lot of thinking about it and studying the FM instructions I just dove in to the wiring, following their instructions where they made sense and ignoring them where they didn’t. I didn’t really know what was going to happen until I turned the key for the first time.
Looked like this when I turned the key for the first time. Ran rough and definitely was not happy. Turned out I had the small harness to the coils on the right bank of cylinders swapped end to end.
Next issue was a clutch master I could not bleed. Peeked under the car when I went to walk away for a while and saw a puddle of hydraulic fluid under the bellhousing. Ordered a new GM slave cylinder and new braided hydraulic lines from V8R and made plans to drop the trans.
My dad come over one Saturday with a borrowed transmission jack and we knocked it out in under 4 hours. I’m 53 and my dad is 73 and he was under that car on his back working like I remember when I was a kid. Got the clutch to bleed and I also got him to run the brake pedal and get the rest of the air out of the brakes while he was there too.
At this point it ran, and all of the gauges and stuff were working just like they were supposed to, even the reverse lights. I had been ordering all of the little stuff you need like wiring pigtails for the speed sensor, backup lights, temp gauge, etc. but I was still somehow surprised when everything worked.
Next was to put put it on the scales, set the ride height and align it. Using the Iron Canyon string alignment setup I bought from a friend I got to work. It took almost an entire Saturday to get it dialed in but I guess, everything had been blown apart until a few months before.
I was getting anxious to drive it at this point so I started cutting the hood for the Corvette snorkel and Aerocatch latches. Another weekend day down the tubes.
Weight with soft top delete and about 3/4 tank of fuel.
Finally able to drive around the neighborhood and up and down the side road a few times, I was able to fix the exhaust clamp that rattled against the unibody, the coil over collar that was slightly rubbing the axle boot, and a host of other piddly things and it was time for it’s maiden voyage a little farther from home.
I set out on yet another Saturday morning for a local dyno shop that was having an open house and dyno shoot out. I bought my engine and trans from the main tuner there so I wanted to show the car off a little. It was about 35 miles from home and I got 30 feet from their driveway when the car shut off like it was out of fuel.
After checking a few things we determined that the fuel pump was not running. A $160 tow bill and a few days later I reached the conclusion that the fuel pump was bad. I started the process of filling a claim with DeatschWerks since the pump should be under warranty. The ship-test-claim decision process would take 1-2 weeks by the time I packaged it and shipped it to them for testing.
I decided I couldn’t wait that long and bought another pump from FM and installed it the night it arrived and it fired right up. In the meantime, on the advice of others on the V8 Miata Facebook group, I installed a heavier gauge wire from the PSI fuel pump relay to the connection at the tank itself. In the end, DeatschWerks warrantied my pump. I received it today and will keep it on the shelf until I am comfortable I won’t have any more pump issues.
I was able to talk to a few guys at the dyno shop that day while I waited for the tow truck to come and loved people’s reaction to the car. I tend to underestimate my abilities at times but talking about everything I had done to the car made me realize I can do more than I think. When I took my wife for a ride in the car I looked at her after running it up through 4th gear and said “you don’t look impressed” to which she said “I am, I thought this thing would never drive again the way it looked for the last three years”. She’s so supportive. lol
I put about 70 miles on it last Sunday, being careful to not be much more than 10 miles from home for the first half of it. Things went well so I decided to run 15 miles south on the newly finished lanes on I-94, turned around and came back. All good. Runs 195 degrees on the highway or in stop and go traffic. We have some things to tidy up when I take it for final tune, hopefully in the next week or so. Should have it buttoned up just before the snow flies.
Tomorrow or Saturday I will put it up in the air and check nuts and bolts before taking it to the last Cars and Coffee of the season this Sunday morning.
Good looking.
It is good to see that yo have gotten it back up and running and can finally enjoy the payoff just in time for Winter (what a bummer).
Do you have a pre-dyno estimate on the horsepower?
Put the car up in the air to check for loose nuts and bolts yesterday. The right inner cv boot had a fair amount of grease slung out of it but when I cleaned it up I couldn’t find any apparent tears or holes in the boot. Is it possible that it was so full of grease from the factory that when it got warm some squeezed past the band that holds the boot in place?
Put the car up in the air to check for loose nuts and bolts yesterday. The right inner cv boot had a fair amount of grease slung out of it but when I cleaned it up I couldn’t find any apparent tears or holes in the boot. Is it possible that it was so full of grease from the factory that when it got warm some squeezed past the band that holds the boot in place?
Probably more full of air than grease. They may not have "burped" the boot when installing.
Found a pinhole in the cv boot. I smeared a little silicone on it and went to the dyno today. I’ll check this week some time and see if it held.
Went for some drivability tuning today more than the search for horsepower. Honestly I didn’t care what it made for power. On the ”butt dyno” it feels fast enough.
Where did winter go? Ended up getting a replacement cv boot for the inner joint. Just a slight nick in it probably when the guy was installing the clamp on it when it was manufactured. Got it back together and got the hood adjusted better to tighten up the gap to the bumper that had been bothering me.
I need to add some hood vents. I ran it up to possibly illegal speeds last week and could see the hood lifting in the middle pretty bad. I guess when you remove that much inner structure it doesn’t have much strength left.
04-22-2018, 08:46 PM
99 LS6 starting to take shape
