Trinten's SBC/F23 build - The work has begun! (Page 5/76)
Trinten AUG 22, 12:33 PM
I called Joe and Jeff on Friday after work to see how things were coming along. Didn't hear anything. Woke up to find an email and some cellphone-pictures that were sent around 3 a.m. Sunday morning (so about 9 hours ago from this post).

It was from Joe, being honest about not starting on the exhaust till yesterday. He has the rear bank done, and started on the front bank. From the pics he sent, it looks like he came up with something different than what he told me, or ran into a hiccup.


Shot from the back, you can see where the pipe for the completed rear bank ends.


A shot through the yet-floorless modified trunk. This is still looking like how he had originally planned/showed me. Check out my spiffy Borla Pro XS muffler!


Here's where it starts to get different. In the way he had originally showed me, the front bank muffler was going to have the same orientation as the rear, only sitting above and off to the side with some overlap. This would let Joe create a cross-over pipe by connecting the two mufflers together directly instead of the pipe. Apparently he's run into an issue with that, or came up with a better idea.

I emailed him back and let him know I was upset at the news, but appreciated the honesty. It's better than him just dodging me. I also asked him if Jeff had been out to get any of the stuff he needs to do done. I'll update when I hear something back... but right now Jeffs statement of "We'll do everything we can to get it back to you by the 27th." is losing it's credibility - though after all the other missed deadlines, I suppose I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up.
Trinten AUG 23, 10:17 AM
Got another email from Joe this morning and another pic. He did run into a hiccup, something with the firewall-side header. He didn't go into details, just that he finally got Jeff out there to take the cradle/engine back out of the car so he could work on it easier. He also sent along this pic.



You can see that the axles are attached now - probably to help make sure everything is going to fit/run right, and you can see a pipe peeking out under the oil pan, so Jncomutt may havebeen right, and before that other muffler wasn't hooked up, just in a test fit position. Either that or when Joe went to put the axles on himself, before the engine came out, he discovered an issue.

Regardless, the engine is out and Joe is going to modify the other header now to resolve the issues. At least progress is being made!
Trinten AUG 23, 02:13 PM
Got an email from Jeff!

He said that he thinks Joe will be done with the exhaust today and have it out to be ceramic coated, and he was still hoping to have everything done by/on the 27th. He did say it'd be cutting it close.

I'm on the fence about getting my hopes up. Part of me is excited, the other part is trying to keep me grounded.
Trinten AUG 24, 12:13 PM
More updates! Yay! I haven't gotten this sort of update/feedback since the first month of them having my car. It's reassuring!

The issue Joe had with the firewall side was that the collector dumped just above the subframe, no room to run the pipe - if I understood his email correctly. But he finished modifying the headers and running the exhaust.

He then ran into an issue with doing the crossover at the mufflers - apparently Borla doesn't joke around with the stainless steel they use, his drill bits barely scratched them! Which I guess is a good testament to Borla's quality. He has some concerns in general with it, since the link from one side of the exhaust will be after a few feet of pipe, the other will be just a few inches after the header. He's going to give Scott a call and see what he thinks.

He also talked to the guys who handle the ceramic coating for him, said that it could take a week to get them done - he said he'd call them back and try to get them to bump it up.

And lastly they got the scoop modified a bit to make it an easier (and cleaner) attachment to the decklid. I do have some more pics, but don't have the time to get them up right now. I'll do so tonight!
Trinten AUG 24, 11:35 PM
The exhaust pic I mentioned in my earlier post. Again Joe isn't sure how/if he's going to be able to do the crossover. Haven't heard back from him if he was able to pull strings with the people that do their coatings. I found out that Jet-hot (used to) do express jobs, I shot them an email but might just give their dealer in Charlotte a call tomorrow, since even at 24 hours that means they won't get it back till Thursday.

Trinten AUG 26, 09:16 AM
Latest email from Joe says that he's got to get one more bend piece, which he'll have today, then just 30 minutes more of work and the exhaust will be done.

His coaters said it'd be a few days no matter what. Which sucks. So if they get everything else done to get the car running and check everything by tomorrow night I'm still going to just pick it up and then drive it around for a week or two before bringing it back to them to pull the exhaust and send it out. I think since I need to do that, I'll probably go with Jet-Hot coating. Though it won't look as nice, I'm thinking about getting their S2000 stuff, since it has the highest heat retention out of all their coatings. There's only one Jet-Hot dealer that's within 25 miles of Vixen, so I'll probably give them a call since that's likely where they'll need to take it.

So as of right now, I'm still keeping my fingers crossed to pickup the car tomorrow night.

On a funny aside, when Joe was telling me about the exhaust, he says "So when you bring back next week from blowing up your transmission, we'll get it coated then." to which I responded with "Thanks for the vote of confidence there!" and he emails me back and says he tried to get a pool started on when I'd blow up the transmission... but said everyone wanted to pick "one week". lol
Trinten AUG 29, 06:31 PM
Well, the Friday pickup didn't happen - for reasons other than the work on my car and therefore not mine to spread/get into.

Since they'll have it till next weekend now (the weekends are the only time I'd really be able to get it), Joe'll be getting the exhaust coated.

So now I'm hoping for picking it up next weekend. Time will tell.
Trinten SEP 03, 08:49 AM
Joe has found a few issues, including one where he couldn't rotate the engine... now here's what he said he found:

"its the ****ing crank pulley. Scott has a diff timing gear cover on there that is all sorts of in the way. The rubber in the pulley was barely bumping against the plastic cover and jamming everything up. "

Now what worries me is - to my knowledge - that crank pulley and timing cover is the same one that was on there when Scott had this engine on his dyno stand for the break-in. So I let Joe know that this morning by email and asked him if it's possible that the pulley got smacked and messed up anything inside the engine. Joe's been really good about checking with Scott on things when he had a question about the engine, so I'm hoping he will for that.

I was hoping to pick it up this weekend... but now with this latest happening, I'm not sure. I guess it depends on what he finds about this timing gear cover/pulley situation.
fieroguru SEP 03, 11:40 AM

quote
Originally posted by Trinten:

Joe has found a few issues, including one where he couldn't rotate the engine... now here's what he said he found:

"its the ****ing crank pulley. Scott has a diff timing gear cover on there that is all sorts of in the way. The rubber in the pulley was barely bumping against the plastic cover and jamming everything up. "

Now what worries me is - to my knowledge - that crank pulley and timing cover is the same one that was on there when Scott had this engine on his dyno stand for the break-in. So I let Joe know that this morning by email and asked him if it's possible that the pulley got smacked and messed up anything inside the engine. Joe's been really good about checking with Scott on things when he had a question about the engine, so I'm hoping he will for that.

I was hoping to pick it up this weekend... but now with this latest happening, I'm not sure. I guess it depends on what he finds about this timing gear cover/pulley situation.



The plastic timing pulley... is this the standard L31 vortec timing cover? If it is, Archies SBC balancer/pulley will hit the crankshaft sensor boss on that cover well before the balancer bottoms out on the timing gear. I did a bunch of clearancing to the sensor boss and both side of the Archie balancer/pulley so it could be as tight as possible to the cover and still clear the passenger side frame rail. Even with all this work, I still needed to install a 1/4" spacer to bottom out the pulley. If you need more info just PM me.
Trinten SEP 03, 12:12 PM
Hey Guru!

This is a different cover from the one that was on my original SBC. Joe sent me some pictures, showing how my new timing cover protrudes a little further than the old one. I'll get them up on webshots and then link them here, and you'll see where the new cover protrudes out some. I'll let Joe know that there's someone who's run into issues like this and see if he needs more info, if he does, do you mind if I PM you his email address/TN# so you can get ahold of him directly?

Thank you!

Here are the pics. New cover, then the old cover.

http://inlinethumb08.websho...05923S600x600Q85.jpg

http://inlinethumb06.websho...05923S600x600Q85.jpg

For some reason it wasn't linking/showing them correctly - after two tries, so here's the links.

[This message has been edited by Trinten (edited 09-03-2010).]