(groovy music)
- Alright guys, welcome to this week's show.
We left off with me making a stupid mistake
with thinking I was gonna weld this into the car.
I was gonna weld it in right there,
but that's aluminum, this is steel, whoops.
So, what I'm gonna do first,
is make a plate,
rivet nut it into the aluminum,
and then at that point, the steering column
will pretty much be done and we can move on to other things.
This week, we're probably gonna be fitting
the engine into the car.
I got my motor mounts from LG Motorsports,
I got the new torque tube coming,
so we'll put in our mock-up engine
and start fitting supercharger and all the stuff,
as long as they come in on time.
Probably going to also be working on, like,
waterlines, firewall bulkheads,
placement of those type of things.
Pretty much mounting anything that we currently have
that we're not waiting for parts on.
We get the pedals done.
It should be pretty easy 'cause it's a flat floor,
but should keep us busy.
Alright, this is a new top plate
that I'm gonna weld to the piece
that we have in the car there,
and drill it and rivet nut it into the chassis.
You can't weld steel to aluminum.
(groovy music)
Alright, we got this piece.
Swing it up.
Piece we just made.
Oh yeah,
money.
Two rivet nuts right at the top, be good to go.
So, I'm gonna go ahead and weld this together
and then we will drill the chassis,
make it fit.
(groovy music)
Perfect.
Alright guys, what I'm gonna be doing today
is actually bolting the pedals to the floor.
Fortunately, this car is much easier
than almost every other car
that I've ever done floor mounts in,
'cause the floor's flat.
But, it also comes with its own set of challenges
because the floor is fiberglass
and bonded with all kinds of, I don't even know, who knows?
So, I'm gonna first drill my holes into the floor
to locate the pedals and then at that point,
I'm gonna come underneath the chassis
where there's two steal rails
and build some sort of steel structure
with nuts welded into it, so that I can just
thread the pedals right in.
So yeah, easy and hard for both of those reasons,
but you can take a look.
See how nice and flat the floor is?
So, right now, I'm just trying to set the correct distance
to get the pedals square in the car.
I know where I want them,
I basically need them as far forward as possible
while still being able to get the lines in
and out of the master cylinders.
I'm using this to kinda see where the seat is square
so that I can square the pedals up accordingly.
I'll show you underneath the car.
We are totally flat underneath the car
and here, I'll build some sort of steel structure
'cause this is steel and that rail over there
is steel as well.
(groovy music)
So, from what I can tell,
it's straight, square in the chassis, so I guess...
(drill starts)
(groovy music)
Alright, so it's been, like,
an hour with me moving the pedals, like,
a 16th of an inch this way and that way, and ugh.
But, it's done.
They're bolted to the floor.
Still have to work on the structure part,
but you can, like,
wee, move them around and do my thing,
and all happy now.
So, I had to be very careful to make sure
that that fitting clears in the back right there.
We should be good to go.
Alright, so I'm under the car.
Here's where the pedals come through.
I've got my template material and some material here,
and I'm gonna make a steel floor plate
and weld it into the chassis with nuts on the back,
so that we can just bolt the pedals right in.
'Cause this floor is fiberglass and wood,
and all kinds of crap, so we need some sort
of steel structure for it to mount to.
I'm gonna build this steel structure,
weld it in and then see if the pedals flex,
and brace it up from there if they do.
(groovy music)
Alright, so I got my pattern, my material.
I'm gonna lay the pattern down on the material,
trace is out, put it up to the floor,
drill the holes for the floor, see where it's gonna be,
drill some speed holes in it, pop out some dimple dies,
weld the nuts in,
go from there.
(groovy music)
Alright, so I got my dimple die set.
This is the floor plate,
that's where the pedal set bolts through the floor.
I'm gonna drill some holes, put some dimple dies in it,
and I'll weld the nuts in and go from there.
(groovy music)
Oh, yeah.
Alright, so I got my dimple die.
Got my plate.
Going to go ahead and dimple die this
in our trusty, piece-of-junk press.
(groovy music)
So, the floor plate's all dimple died, looking sick.
Now, I gotta weld these nuts on the bottom.
We will be in business.
I like to use a countersunk bolt
because it holds it completely center
when you go to weld it on.
(groovy music)
A'ight.
Alright, so the plate's done
and I'm actually gonna paint the inside of it,
before I weld it up, because there's no way
that the inside of it's gonna get welded,
so it would just sit there and rest.
Trying to think ahead.
So, there's our plate.
All the nuts and everything, welded in.
Bam.
I put bond, window bond stuff on here
because I wanna glue this to the floor
to help spread the load through everything,
'cause it's gonna be welded around here,
and also bolted in and then glued in.
(groovy music)
Alright, so I just got the floor all welded up.
Obviously, these bolts are way too long,
but we are good to go.
Pedals are mounted.
Alright, what's going on, guys?
Today, I'm gonna be getting the mock-up engine ready.
We have a mock-up block here from RHS,
the torque tube, the bell housing,
motor mounts, so I'm gonna be getting rid
of those stock motor mounts,
putting on my nice, billowed aluminum ones
from LG Motorsports and getting that motor
into the car.
Alright, these are engine mounts from LG Motorsports.
They're just nice, lightweight, billowed aluminum stuff.
Simple.
Get rid of this giant, heavy, rubber nonsense.
And the great thing about building a car
that came with an LS,
this or that
bolts in.
(groovy music)
Alright, so Andy and I are being dumb
and we're trying to lift this thing in,
but I'm too lazy to grab the engine hoist.
(groovy music)
Alright, so right now,
I'm gonna work on the battery mounting.
I have this box from Trail Gear,
just this very simple, weld-in Optima battery box.
A 34R RedTop Optima, it is just super simple.
No fabrication necessary.
I'm gonna put this up in the chassis,
weld it in, battery's mounted, done.
And fortunately for us, when you come over here,
we have this giant, open area right here
that I'm gonna mount the battery to.
This is where one of the two fuel tanks went,
so there's the one, there's two,
and I'm actually gonna be using the right-side fuel tank,
the passenger side, because it's going to offset
the weight for me,
having eight or 10 gallons of gas right on that side.
So, on the other side, it's just wasted space.
Might as well mount our battery there.
I'm gonna clean off the paint here,
get the frame rail ready to weld the battery box on.
(groovy music)
Alright, so I got the chassis cleaned,
I have the box, I have it marked out where it needs to be.
I'm gonna put this up here.
Tack it, check it one last time and then weld it in.
(groovy music)
Alright, so it's tacked in.
I just hope that the battery fits in between here,
so I guess we'll see.
So, it fits.
It goes in and out.
Just gotta weld it up.
(groovy music)
Alright, so what I'm doing right now,
is I'm drilling our firewall plate.
I'm putting the rivet nuts in
'cause this plate is gonna go right here
with our waterline fittings coming through it.
These 2-20 A&A fittings are gonna be running
to the water pump.
So first, I have all this pre-drilled
where I want it on the firewall.
Put in my first rivet nut,
I'm gonna go ahead and put in the other ones
and drill off the plate.
(groovy music)
Alright, we got the piece in the drill press.
I'm gonna drill out these holes
and then check if it fits.
(groovy music)
Alright, today's a pretty exciting day.
First of all, we have Cody and his dog, Ryder,
were helping us, that's always a bonus.
And the stuff from A&A came in.
A&A are kinda the Corvette supercharge specialists
and you can tell, I mean, this stuff is just so nice.
So this year, we're actually gonna be ditching
the cog setup and going with the more
traditional 10-rib belt.
Should be easier on the supercharger,
should be easier on the bracket system
and I don't foresee any problems
'cause this is the same setup that we use
on the 86 in China and we've had zero issues.
These guys, like, welded the spacers in
so I don't have to fumble with them
if we ever have to go and change a belt or a supercharger.
Here's a Vortech off the S14.
I'm not sure how this is all gonna work,
since this was designed for my S14,
so I will have to see what's up with that.
But, all this stuff is super nice.
We're gonna go ahead and start putting it on the car today,
but first, we gotta put some heads on our mock-up RHS block.
(groovy music)
- Alright, got the heads on for the mock-up
and now we're gonna go play with this stuff.
- [Matt] Making sense of this stuff yet?
- Yeah, so now we gotta cut stuff.
- [Matt] Give it a little trim.
- [Cody] Yeah, cut some brand new stuff,
I like that. - Fortunately,
A&A has very good instructions on how to do all this
because Cody's a little confused.
- Yeah, superchargers are-- - To be completely honest,
I'm a little confused, too.
There's a lot of parts here.
(groovy music)
So, Cody's putting on the secondary drive for this
'cause this supercharger setup's kind of interesting,
in that it's different that it has a secondary drive
that actually drives the accessories
and a separate belt that drives the supercharger.
It's definitely a benefit,
having a supercharger dedicated on its own belt
and A&A are some of the only people
that do that for a Corvette.
Most people just use one giant serpentine belt
for the whole thing, so.
It's a lot of components, but it makes it better.
(groovy music)
Alright, let's try to get this alternator situation on now.
I think it takes two people
to get the tensioner and the alternator on.
It's got, like, a proper amount of that.
(groovy music)
Alright, we're actually bolting this thing on.
Obviously, this is from the S14,
so it's facing the wrong direction,
but I just wanted to see what we're working with.
Intercooler room, stuff like that.
(groovy music)
Alright, so we're getting the intake manifold on
from the motor that came out of this car, the LS3.
We're gonna be using a fast intake manifold,
but just for mock-up reasons while we wait
for that one to come.
LS3 will work.
This is the exact throttle body
that we're gonna be using, drive by wire LS3 throttle body,
and now we're gonna work on getting
the intercooler mounted up.
So, there's our intercooler.
It's from Treadstone Performance.
Same intercooler that we run in the S14.
Just gotta figure out our height
and where we're gonna make it fit,
but seems to me like there's plenty of room up in here.
So, we got the intercooler placed, basically where we want.
It took way too long to do that,
this intercooler's kinda hard to mount,
seeing as this isn't flat at the bottom
and trying to make sure this lines up.
So, we have our vertical mounts here
that we're gonna tack in,
and then we have a template for our secondary mount here
to help reduce some flex.
Yeah, the intercooler fits good.
Here's our intercooler brackets.
This one goes on the frame rail.
Intercooler's gonna bolt to it, just about right here,
and then these are the secondary braces for it.
Alright, we got the intercooler mounted.
It's done.
Really happy with how the mounts came out.
Just have to drill holes for the intercooler here
and then it's good to go, but obviously,
we're gonna take it off, weld it all up.
And we have our intake figured out right here.
Easy-peasy.
So convenient.
And it clears the hood, no problem.
This is gonna go directly to here
and we already have our CX Racing intercooler piping
that just, bam, S's out, cast 90,
right up into there when we get our new blower.
So easy.
Alright, so we got most of the front end stuff
all mocked up and done.
We're gonna be waiting for a couple more parts.
An oil cooler from CX, a couple other things,
so in the time being, I'm going to actually make
my anti-intrusion bars.
And yeah, this doesn't really look like
an anti-intrusion bar, but on a Corvette,
as you can see, there's not a lot of room
to make that happen.
This is inside the frame rail,
so it's pretty much impossible
for any wheel to come through.
This is the actual frame rail,
so after working with Kevin Wells for a while,
kinda going back and forth since
the FD rule book does state that we have
to have anti-intrusion bars so
that our legs don't get broken when we crash
into the wall at Seattle, came up with this.
This is gonna go right here
and tie into this steel structure that is,
well, this is aluminum, this is steel.
We're gonna weld it to the cage right here
and then that way, if the wheel ever does try
to come into here, the box will be tight to the A-pillar
'cause that's really what it's all about,
is making sure that a wheel can't come in
and tie it to the A-pillar so
that it doesn't break your feet.
(groovy music)
Alright, I got the anti-intrusion plates all cut,
and done and drilled.
I'm gonna paint the back of them,
so that they can't rust, 'cause they are gonna
be flat against the car and welded into the cage,
so moisture or anything gets in there,
it's gonna rust on the backside of the panel,
just like I did to the floor plate.
There they are and here we go.
Alright, so that's it for this week's episode
of Field Prep.
We got a lot done, as you can see behind me.
Focused a lot on the supercharger setup,
the engine, figuring out where stuff goes,
but be sure to check back next Tuesday
where we're gonna be putting up our dry sump system,
figuring out where all of our coolers
and filters are gonna go,
and just more focus on the engine bay
and placing things out.
I'm gonna be installing our CX Racing oil cooler
in kind of a V-mount setup with the intercooler,
so it should be pretty cool.
Make sure to like, comment, share and subscribe,
and let me know, am I missing something?
Think you can do it better?
Am I doing it wrong, doing it right?
Be sure to let us know in the comments
and check back next week.
Later, guys.