evilstuie

Hi Guys,


I've scattered posts about my build all over the place so figured I should gather it all in the one place for easy reference.


Hey Guys,After a slow start over the past 5 years, there's finally been some progress on my build.I originally purchased my '85 TransAM about 6 years ago I think, and had wanted one since I was 2. I loved the look of these cars and have never liked the shape of another car since. Having no self-control or patience whatsoever, the first one I saw for sale in Brisbane I purchased, $15,000 with a 12month old crate 290hp engine, 6 month old transmission and $5k of Alpine stereo.
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I completely overlooked the leaking t-tops, sagging roofliner, a few other items, as well as didn't bother to check if it was LSD or gear ratio, but given the chance to do-over, I would still have purchased it.
After some cutting, fabrication work from a mate at work, and  a new seal kit, i was able to fix the t-tops, by making new seal rails and cutting out the rust and purchasing a new center bar for the t-tops
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So, July (2014) the best/worst thing happened, I was driving across an intersection and changed from 1st to 2nd (B&M megashifter with stage 2 T700 box) and at the same time hit a bump in the road and suddenly there was a loud bang, and the car was revving out and not going anywhere. I lost all forward gears and had to drive the car round the block in reverse.
Hoping it was a fluid pressure issue I got the car home and topped it up, but no luck. I gave up and figured I'd take the box out and take it to a transmission place to save some money.
So out came the 350 Tune Port injection motor and transmission, and at this point I decided that it was time for an upgrade, as I have a rule that money spent on a something should always end up better not the same, otherwise its wasted, so I purchased a 400 Small block motor to upgrade from 5.7 to 6.6L and put the bits I'd collected along the way into that.
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As i mentioned this was all on a budget, so a got a good deal with the block, along with the rods, new pistons, crankshaft and rings, purchased the bearings and got everything cleaned polished and balanced at hagen motors. Northside Cylinder heads prepped the block and cleaned up the heavily ported AFR heads I had, and assembled them ready to be installed.
Before:
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After:
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After the block and heads were assembled and installed by my mate who knew what he was doing, i was my turn to start, so I put the Holley Stealth Ram fuel injection intake on to get the top end ready.
After hours and hours of research I decided to go for the OBD2 sequential injection and coil per cylinder ignition mod the guys in the states were doing, so a VXII LS1 PCM and wiring harness was purchased to accomodate it, along with the vortec distributor for Cam position signal, and 24 tooth reluctor wheel and timing cover from the states.

evilstuie

Under the dash is a mad mess of wires from RHD conversion, and multiple stereo systems, and excess crap from god knows what.
So i took all of the interior out, as I had to anyway from the colour change to black, and removed the carpet and dash as well leaving the mess of wires.

This is currently untouched as I will need to splice the engine harness wiring in , and will try to clean up what I can when its time. I've installed a 2003 commodore fuse panel in place of the 30 year old one that was joining fuse rails with speaker wire to ensure no more electrical gremlins, and fixed up the rest of the wiring where need. It's a mess there at the moment, but its all functioning properly.
The headlights also needed so custom made relays build from SPDT relays grouped together as they no longer sell or make the relays for the motors.
So with the interior out, I decided to fix the annoying door sag with new pins. Took the doors off and removed the old pins, ground off and repaired the bit of surface rust at the bottom of the doors and realigned them.
One thing I will say, is make sure you buy the spring compressor for the door. We tried making one and all sorts of tricks to get them back in, but failed, and 30 seconds with the right tool is worth it compared to the time you lose trying to macgyver a solution.

At this point I needed to make some headway, so I started on the body.
There weren't any major dents or issues, just a 5c piece sized dent in each door and some crows feet and cracking around the front bumper.
An air sander came in very handy at this point and bought a compressor from supercheap for $199 with a 180LPH 40L compressor with accessory kit.




And now we come to the bumper. I always wanted my own K.I.T.T car, and to do that, you need 2 things: A black paint job, and the light
To get the proper replica bumpers, it costs about $1000 from the US, and almost the same in freight, and with the AUD going to hell it would be a small fortune, so I headed to the forums to see what I could find.... nothing.
So I decided to be the guinea pig and essentially ruin my bumper in hopes of customising it to have the light installed in the right spot.
My first attempt after cutting the bit out was fibreglass, this worked reasonably well until it came to bonding with the bumper.
The 3rd gen bumpers use Polyurethane material, which does not chemically bond to fibreglass resin, and with minimal heat, the thermal expansion property variations between the two materials will allow them to easily split from one another, leaving cracks and gaps between the two.

evilstuie

So, bumper is done, and light had arrived, I instantly opened it up when it arrived and wired it up to use a dc adapter from a 12v router to see it in action:
Well worth the $450 in my opinion, but for a led light...others may rightfully argue a ripoff.
Next job, clean out the engine bay. You saw the top pictures of it, wires everywhere and crap everywhere else, a bit tidier now:

Then primer time.
I sanded the whole car with 320 grit on the air sander, then 400 wet all over, masked everything up and was ready to go.
I used a primer filler to fill some of the sanding swirl marks and used a 1.8mm HVLP black ridge gun to lay it on.






Being my first time painting I think i did ok. There were a few runs and light spots, but I sanded them all back using a guide coat of matt black and they came good after that.

evilstuie

And as of Saturday, we're in the black!



Again the camera makes it look better than it is, but with a bit of a run near the hatch, and some crap on the rear bumper, once it's sanded, I'll put the next coat on, repeat sanding and next coat until i'm 4 coats in, and then I'll think about clear coat. I used Jet Black Acrylic as its the colour I wanted, and acrylic I can spray and sand the stuffups back, and buff it once it's done to get the shine.

evilstuie

I put the top coats on today, and had nothing but troubles.
The spray gun decided to play up in the most fun of ways. Would work perfect for the spray pattern check, and then came out dry. Took the gun apart, cleaned it, ran thinners through it, worked perfect... then put paint in put the lid on same problem.
Ended up the relief hole on the top of the cup had clogged with dry paint and wasnt letting the paint flow down. GRR!
Then when I finally got some rhythm going, the gun started spitting paint instead of spraying, and then figured out i'd bumped the regulator down to 12psi for half a coat.
Anyway, I got 4 coats on, so I'll let it dry and on Sunday might roll it out to get some sunlight. Then see how bad in looks in full natural light and work out whether i need to re-do any bits, add more coats, or leave it for the week to do the 2000 wet rub and buff.
There's still a couple of small runs that showed up after I went around the car with a high powered lamp, but I think I'd need to rub back pretty far to get them out, I'll see what it looks like in daylight.





Hopefully by Sunday afternoon, I can bolt the bumper and bits back on and mockup the scanner light

evilstuie

So I checked up the paint instructions and it said it would be fine to sand 24 hours after application. I'm still going to give it another day just to be safe, but I bolted the bumper back on and rolled it out in the sun to see how horrible it looked, and it doesn't look too bad even before the sanding and buffing.
I also couldnt help but chuck the light on haha.






I hit the car with 1500 wet all over today and it looks like the hood has come good.
Unfortunately, I got carried away on the rear hatch and went back to primer on the edges, so I'm gonna have to put at least one more coat on that. But as far as I'm concerned, the car is black now, so a respray later will be a lot easier than a colour change, so I'll buff it and see what sort of end job I have.
I'll most likely use the skills and practice I racked up this go to do a better job next time. It just feels a bit sad when you get to the end of the paint job and know where you went wrong and how you could've done it better.

wet with the hose after sanding, very smooth now.

evilstuie

I buffed out the bonnet, and it came up quite nice

But I got a bit carried away and took some of the paint back to primer, which sucks, but I haven't finished painting the headlight doors etc, so it's not a complete screwup, there's still paint left.
I'm hoping (if anyone can confirm) because it's acrylic, I can scuff the areas up with 400 wet and respray those areas, and sand and buff it back to blend it yeah?
I got a bit on the rear quarterpanel, the front right wheel well, and the rear bumper.


So I'm procrastinating a bit, but wanted to get the engine all done before lowering it in, so gave the valve covers a quick coat and put the proper bolts in.




So by this stage the body stuff was done, and it was on to the interior.


I went through several iterations on the dash, from modying the stock dash, to putting a 98T/A mould in, to a custom dash from scratch, and finally settled on using a VY commodore dash and modifying it to fit.




-Dash update,
Back to full custom one, frame is done, just need to put mounting tabs in, and then start cutting the perspex panels.

Little bit more progress...



This also included some tidying of the wires:

Horrible:

Slightly less horrible, almost ready to bind and wrap:

evilstuie

At this point, the VY dash came into play, and I decided to go the whole hog, cut the harness out of the car, and got a VY BCM, PIM, and dash harness from a wreck and decided to go from scratch.


This was a much bigger job than I anticipated, as the BCMs don't have any wiring diagrams readily available because of the security aspect. So I went alogn for a few weeks with a multimeter and some stickers tracing each wire to where it went and sifting through wires and plugs until I'd mapped the whole harness.


I wired everything in and then decided to switch out the steering column as well.


I had some clearance issues with the stock RHD setup as is anyway, so the VY column with some modifications allowed me to get a bit more clearance and use the VY key and connectors, indicators etc.


A long long story short, I got all the gauges working and error codes clear (except fuel gauge calibration which needs to be recalibrated) and installed


Here's the dash so, far still needs a little bit of tidying up and a proper dashmat to hide where the dash meets the windscreen.


Here's the dash so, far still needs a little bit of tidying up and a proper dashmat to hide where the dash meets the windscreen.




Alarm system and in-car PC are the last items to go in, which I'm working on now, but the car is ready to be tuned and registered.


I'll do the last paint coats and repairs once the tuning is done.

evilstuie

I also now need to take the intake off and re-apply the RTV sealant to the water passages as I skimped on it and got about 2000ppm of water in my oil.


I run an oil analysis lab so its handy to have the instruments to test it all.


I also had 7% fuel dilution after running the motor for maybe an hour at most, which made me think I had a big problem with either broken ring, leaking injector or dead plug, but checked all of them and it was fine.


Then I remember I spent a lot of time cranking the motor without joy when the crank sensor was playing up, and then again when the firing sequence was out of order thanks to some rewired coils, so there was plenty of fuel pooling up in the cylinders to drain down into the oil.


Once I've done the intake I'll dump the oil and put fresh oil in and run for a bit and see what the oil looks like.


The timing advance for idle is way too low, the scanner is saying between 8 and 12 degrees with my foot on 5% throttle, and I'm told the SBC motors need about 30 at idle, so the tuning shop should be able to fix this, but I just want to run the motor long enough to make sure thermos kick in and cool and everything else works as it should before I hand over a grand to the tuners.


My thermostat is a 180F one, which translates to 93C, does that seem too high for a 400SBC, or is it ok?

evilstuie

Oh goody.
I went to put some more RTV sealant on the water ports in the intake and found one of the lifter link bars sitting on top of the motor....
Possibly ****ed lifter and cam now, what a lovely gift for the festive season

LX_SS

Ouch that hurts. Least you caught it early enough before it could have been a lot worse. I wonder what the roller of the lifter and the cam lob are going to look like. (presuming you got hydraulic roller lifters)

evilstuie

That's what I was wondering too:

Spun one


Non-spun one:


Base of the lobe looks "ok" but I haven't turned it over yet to see how bad the peak is.

It's **** luck, but if I have to replace the cam i suppose its not the end of the world, but I'm more worried about the pieces of lifter and where they went.

With these damn cars you can pull the pan without almost removing the motor and I don't know if I've got the physical and mental fortitude to pull the motor and rebuild.

LX_SS

Yeah damn, that really sucks.
I've heard of the damage to the roller lifters if those link bars let go or arn't connected but never seen it.
To be honest, the time just lifting the engine to get the pan off, you might as well just take the engine out, fit a new cam/lifters and clean up any existing mess/minor issues.

Since you haven't been driving the car per say yet, i dont think the damage would be very extensive more than what you mostly see.

Kind of makes me feel a little better having non roller hydraulic lifters, tho there is a power difference, i couldn't justify the cost between them.

evilstuie

yeah, especially when you have to buy them twice haha.
I've ordered a new set with fixed/attached link bars instead of the slip on crap that's on these ones, and I pulled 2 of the others and they still looked good, but I'll replace all of them and use the good ones as spares.

I'm gonna run a speaker magnet over the sump towards the sump plug and drain the oil, I'll see what comes out and if the puzzle pieces all fit, I'll know I'm ok.

The car wouldn't have revved past 2500rpm and has mostly been at idle while i got everything sorted with the setup so hopefully not too much damage.

Tuned Performance

iTrader: (92)

Did you install a cam button ?
A nylon button may wear through the composite cover. Iirc camshaft end play on retrofit roller lifters are 0.005-0.010 inch

evilstuie

So much for luck, cam is ****ed


its got a gash each side with some of the metal still hanging on. Maybe I could get away with it for a while if the roller is dead centre, but I think it's toast.

Not sure if I could get it reground on that lobe to smooth it out, or if I just go for another cam?

evilstuie

The pic i shiity because its a picture of the snap-on scope screen, but the dark fleck between the two lobes is the piece of the left lobe protruding out at 90 dgerees

evilstuie

Yeah, installed the button, but i doubt it would wear through in less than 2 hrs running time

evilstuie

Here's the video of the cam lobe inspection.
Anyone think I can get away with it?

The damage to the edges of the lobe can be best seen at the end of the video.

evilstuie

Well I drained the oil and couldn't find any pieces of lifter, so I'm wondering where else it could've ended up.

It's either sitting up in the upper part of the sump, stuck in the filter, or balancing on the edge of somewhere just waiting to fall into a crank bearing or rod.

I'll pull the filter tonight and see.

I also need to get a new crank /balancer bolt as the one that I've been using to manually crank the motor has almost completely rounded off.

Any ideas of the thread and length for a 2pc rms 400 crank (+ 3/8" spacer)?

Tuned Performance

iTrader: (92)

Thread Size: 7/16-20 in. The crank bolt is to help insure the balancer stays on even though it's a press fit. To turn the engine use a bump starter or flywheel turned.
I'd be worried about a uneven high or low that can wipe the cam further or a new lifter.

evilstuie

Yeah but the motor is in the car already with the trans attached so no chance on the flexplate.

I ended up pulling the fuel pump relay and quick-checking the key to get it to where I could see the lobe, but I really wanted to check it bit by bit, and winding it by the crank bolt was the only way i could take the time to see it.

Did you take a look at the video?

Its horrible quality, and the "in-person" eye-view wasn't much clearer, but I couldn't see any visible high/low spots in the centre of the lobe. Other than the 2 bits on each side that got gouged, it looks pretty smooth, and it was only running for a collective 30-45 minutes since the motor was built, and chances are the lifter spun in the last 15 minutes of running.


I was hoping maybe someone saw something I didn't in terms of damage.

evilstuie

It's been a while, and a lot has happened with the car, but its back on track now, and final paint is done, and car is assembled, just waiting to get the exhaust finished up and last of the dash and car pc and stereo wiring done, but its looking good so far.

Not bad a first attempt at painting and rebuild :P

LX_SS

I was wondering how you fared after the lifter/cam saga.
Good to see it almost ready to go.

rgauder

iTrader: (1)

Looks good. Stinks about the bad luck with the cam though.

So the stealth ram fits under the stock firebird hood?

evilstuie

Yeah, fixed that and had about 20 other problems, most to do with the power steering pump with leaks, and replacements that didn't fit, and then alignment issues, but its all fixed up now.


I got a quote for $1000AU for the header to cats for the exhaust to get that done, and another $1000AU for tuning and then it'll be on the road.


I've still got a bit of work to do on the centre fashia of the dash, but that can be done later if need be.



Yeah, these things are sent to try us.
The stealth fits, it's pretty close, but fits. The intake pipe was more of a problem and required some angling and force, but its all nice and snug under there. I'll take a picture tonight and post it.

Overtemp927

Well done there Stu!

You have a lot of patience and did well with painting in your garage, even with the pole in the way.

Is the TA back on the road?

peterc005

What headers are those and how did they fit with the RHD steering shaft?

How did the LS1 ECM coil-per-cylinder work?

evilstuie

Thanks overtemp. Yeah the pole was a bit tricky LOL

PeterC: I used a set of clipster headers. For the stock steering shaft they had to to have the cylinder #2 pipe cut and pushed in a bit, which has caused the #2 spark plug lead to be VERY close to the header.

I ended up using the VY commodore Steering column and made an extension and bracing joint to the steering box which sites a lot closer to the edge of the engine bay so the clipster headers would probably fit without modification.

I'm looking to see if i can get a RHS set only to see if they fit, might look a bit nicer than the cut up and beat up ones in there at the moment.

The coils setup works pretty well.
I took the coils off the LS1 brackets and just used some pipe as spacers to line them all up, and mounted them on the firewall.

rgauder

iTrader: (1)

How did you integrate the LS1 coils?

evilstuie

What do you mean integrate?

I used a vortec dizzy for the cam position sensor, vortec crank sensor, timing cover and reluctor, 0411PCM and wiring harness repinned to SBC firing order.

rgauder

iTrader: (1)

I am looking into doing this, wanting to get rid of the distributor cap so I can mod the firewall and slide the motor back a little bit.

peterc005

@evilstuie - some fantastic fabrication with your car.

Can we see pics of the steering column and shaft?

I replaced the factory bell-shaped joint with a billet piece from Flaming River and would be interested to see your setup.

I'd also love to know more about how you setup the LS1 ECU and coils.

evilstuie

There's no cap on the dizzy, you can buy a plate to put over the top to keep dirt and crap out.

It's the only pic i have that shows it, but right at the back you can see the flat metal plate over the dizzy

evilstuie

Yeah I'll take some pics of it tomorrow for you.

"Fantastic" is probably too much praise haha.
LX_SS helped a lot with ideas for the steering, I just did the cheaper, less work version of what he did to an extent.

I think my proudest part of the build was modifying the bumper to take the KITT scanner light.

Well that and deciphering the entire BCM system from the VY commodore with a multimeter and beer.

Vini

looking good Stuie, so much fun hey lol. Where did you get the clipster headers from?

evilstuie

Ebay,

I think it was $279 for ceramic coated ones.