Okay so after my engine blew i got a new engine and im going to be droping it in about 2 or 3 weeks. while its out i guess i might as well clean up my bay a little eh? and plus i want me A/C and heat gone so perfect opportunity right! what i wanna do is really sand it all down, cover up stupid holes, smooth it out, HIDE THE WIRES, make custom brackets for alternator and PS pump, and paint it all black. only reason its gonna be black is cause if i try to match up the car color from the codes it wont be perfectly right, so ill paint it black until i paint the whole car. i took the engine out earlier last night. sooooo many stupid little sensors lol. i hope i will be able to cut out some of these wires since its going to be a straight carb'd engine instead of TBI. im gonna be updating every few days on my progress, hopefully i can get it how i want it. if anybody wants to post some pictures of their engine bay id love to see it. I have a pretty good idea of how i want it, but not sure how to GET there so id love to see some pictures for some ideas. heres some pictures of my mess. i took pics of the piston and rod that went through my oil pan to. glad it went through the pan i want to sell the heads and intake haha.

some more

some more

its rotted all the way through so i looked under my fender and find TTHIIISSSS!!!!



sorry for all the stupid questions.. i REALLY am but id really like to know what everything is, and id really like to ask a dumb question like (can i cut this?!?!) before i cut it. JUUUUUST in case.

Lookn good but on the painting one question when do you plan on painting the car? The reason I ask if it is going to be soon go ahead and paint the engine bay the color you want. It will be so much easier to do now rather than later when the engine is back in. Just my .02 but if your planning on really dressing up your motor would suck in taking a chance of having any overspray get on it.

In your first pic sequence of the three large ones where you ask what the single wire is. Did you have a hood light? I could be wrong but that is what it looks like to me, my car has a brown wire for its light. If not I dont know what it is.

im gonna be repainting the car prolly close to next year or so im gonna jjust go ahead with the black for now, and im gonna tape EVERYTHING up so i dont get overspray on any part of the car and the engine wont be in the car until im done painting the engine bay. im actually gonna be painting the engine to, but it will be when the car is sitting outside so i dont get overspray on it.

and never thought about the hood light, it doesnt have one anymore but im assuming it had one before the previous owner had it. idk it just looked a little wierd to have that whole harness there and that one little wire sticking out it. idk lol.

that little bundle of wires by the heater box can go if you are removing the heat and ac. I would recommend cutting it inside the car and saving it in case you change your mind later so you can reuse it.

Good job with the rod and piston! Im sure your head is wreched too by the looks of it.

I can't remember the actual name for that single brown colour wire but you disconnect it when setting the timing.

heads are both still good surprisingly. ill take pictures and show ya'

If i could go back id cut out the pass side firewall
and weld a huge plate there rather then making plates to cover up the wholes - i ran into wrapping the thin metal and having to use a fiberglass filler to try and make it look decent i also had roat in the lower part where the firewall intersects with the wheel well thats a pretty importn part. you have in the wheel well ,firewall. floor pan and right below part of the subframe - get a game plan for the wires. brackets what else do you plan to run for belt driven accessors? now like you said you want the alt on the other side you'll have to find out what o'clock style alt you need to run with your brackets. you can paint the bay red iv painted cars before and blended in the color to match a bay is a walk in the park you don't even have to be close because the cowl, front clip and fenders act as cut off points and you wouldn't know the difference.

thats a good idea about the paint, i might just paint it red and hope it works. i was thinking about just cutting a good section of the fender well out, and PROLLY cutting part of the firewall out to and replacing all that with good strong metal. i really have no clue how im going to put the alternator on the other side. i dont know what i have to look out for and i dont know if its that important where it is. im gonna just run the alternator and the ps pump and an idle pulley. dont know if i have to get a custom belt or not.. id really like to sort of copy what you did Fueledsoul. not copy.. but... well.. yeah copy i have an idea for the wires.. ill go into detail with that after i figure out how to explain it lol. and my wires go from the driver side to the passenger side, it goes through a hole and down to my inner fender and then plugs into the inside of the car where all that rust is.. i think that looks like shiit so im gonna fix that little deal to. i think tonight (since im on such a horrible sleeping schedule) im gonna make a FULL plan of how im gonna do this. Fueledsoul, id like to hear how you ran your belt drive, but i dont have money to just spend on brackets lol. i do have great metal working skills and a torch and some 3/8 thick metal. i wanna make my own brackets, but i wanted to know if you had demensions of yours, or if it really mattered how it was all set up. can i put my alternator and ps pump wherever i want or does it have to go in a certain position? can i just make custom brackets or do they have to be certain demensions.. WOW that was a long post. sorry lol.
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forgot to add, can i just take the whole unit out under my pass dash or should i just keep it there. i dont plan on ever running a/c or heat ever again so id like to take it out if i can..

That brown and black striped wire and plug would be your EST wire for your distributor.

I spent a good amount of time gutting my harness to get all the "useless" wire out. I probably cut out about 5lbs of wire alone. It took me about a week to go through it all. I still want to do alittle more but for now here's a good idea of what you have to look forward to. I do have some wires left due to mine being TBI.

akmusclecar, since im going carb im not gonna have a computer controlled distributer, i can cut that wire out right?

robertfrank, how did you go through your harness? how do you know whats good and whats not? i figued after the swap i would make sure eveyrhting worked and then after eveyrthing worked, i would cut whatever wire wasnt conected. but how do you now which ones to get rid of while the engine is OUT?? thanks for the picture to, i reallly like your engine bay. it looks GREAT. it looks so great you got me confused on if i should paint it black or red now lol. i know yours isnt black, but its close i guess. what color is that called btw?

I wouldn't know for sure. Giving you are going to carb i think you can as long as you also change out the dist.

But you should really as the guys in the electronics section. They prolly even have some good wiring diagrams you could use.

Most recent pic I have. The stock coolant bottle is going bye bye soon as I order up a new one. Also need to make a new radiator hold down, change to a smaller coil, maybe mount the alternator lower and would like new pulleys.

engine bays look great guys, where did you all put that big bulky thing of wires at though? you can see mine in the pics stretching from one side of the car to the other. it goes everywhere. pain in the a$$. so where did you hide yours??

I can tell you from recent experience that the HVAC wiring and controls can be completely removed from the car without cutting anything. You could probably sell the harness and control panel for a few bucks. Im sure someone needs it.

As for deleting wires. The main thing here is to make sure you know what you are cutting. Im going to highly recommend that you pick up some wiring diagrams. You can find them online, and in a pinch, the haynes books will get you on a good head start. That way you dont have to ask what every wire is, and you'll be less likely to ditch something you might have needed.

To figure out which ones you need, you need to be sure of your next engine combo. If you are going carb, you can pretty much remove most of the engine related wiring. Like others have said, you'll have to switch back to a different distributor. You'd have to do an MSD set up or an old school set up. Then the only wires the motor needs is for the starter, alt, and coil.

For the most part, the wiring is bunched together for certain functions. The headlights, horns, turn signals are pretty much ran together. If youre keeping the wipers you'll need that bundle of wires. this stuff is all on the drivers side. You can pretty much ditch everything on the passenger side. There are a couple wires in that big bundle running from side to side that you have to give power to because they feed the interior of the car as well as the lights and what not.

I used all LS1 wiring for the engine harness and some of the body harness....and I was able to delete MOST of the thirdgen wiring. Just leaving the essentials, and letting the LS1 wiring take care of the rest of it. I have maybe half a doze wires coming out of my bulkhead connector now.

J.

finally making some ground! okay so this morning i got out of bed at 3AM (my sleeping schedule is sooo messed up right now) and since i have no job and dont go to school it leaves perfect time to work on the car! i have finally got every damn wire out of that engine bay that i could get my hands on. it took a lot of patience and a lot of curse words. i took multiple pictures of pretty much every stupid wire connector so that if i dont know where something goes, i can just take a look at the 300 pictures.

i have a haynes book, and i looked at the wire diagrams over and over again, but i still like to ask people JUST to make sure. so if start asking dumb questions im sorry. i ended up leaving a few things in the bay as you can see. im running new brake lines, so i left them there and ill rip the out when i change the lines, left the fuel lines cause im running new fuel lines as well. i left the speedo cable cause its not the right cable for the car, and its a PITA to hook up cause its about 1/4" to short. trying to stretch that 1/4" is very hard. also had to leave the steering column in cause im going to be moving it in and out of the garage and it needs painted anyway so ill paint it while im at it. i love how much cleaner it looks already! after i post this im up to my dads work to grab some metal to start filling holes, fix the battery box, and whatever else i need to do. thanks for posting all your pics and helping me out so far! should have more pictures posted by tonight on my progress!

alright so ive literally been working on my car for about 10 hours steady now. little half hour breaks every now and then. ive got a lot done, at least i think at so. ive got all the wires taken out, the power brake booster off, the wiper motor off, i got one side of the engine bays holes filled, and i even put a little primer form a model paint to make sure it was smooth. about 10 holes prolly. just welded them up and grinded down smooth. then took some engine degreaser that i bought from wal-mart for 3 bucks and started getting all the grease and dirt build up off the power steering pump and all on the driver side. it was COVERED in grease. took about 2 hours just cleaning off grease lol. got my a/c and heat holes in the firewall all planned out. only took 5 mins but hey its something lol. only reason i didnt cut and weld them in is cause i need to drive to my grandpas to use his plasma and beverly and the a/c and heat isnt pulled out of the car yet. oh and btw while doing a little cleaning, i found a weak spot in my driver side fender-well. to weak to just leave it so i poked it all out and now i got another hole to fix lol. my dads bringing home metal to fix my battery box and that rust spot that went through my fender. so its gettin there little by little! im just dredding having to take all that paint off not sure if i should hand sand it, or use a good ol' grinding wheel. pics of the progress for today!

tomorrows game-plan
-build new battery box
-fix driver side fender hole
-cut and weld in rusted fender-well
-get pieces cut for a/c and heat holes
-get the damn a/c and heater out form under the dash
-get some sanding done!

how did you guys approach taking your heater and a/c out? did you pull the whole fron of the dash off, or just lay upside down with your head tweaked to far to the left and your legs sticking straight up in the air (much like changing a spark plug in our newer cars) id like to do it the easiest way possible, so help is appreciated!!

ps, sorry this was so damn long lol

heres the new pics.

here are some pics of my engine bay, just no engine yet lol, but there is a zz383 going in hopefully haha.
a (4).jpgcamaro pics (16).jpgcamaro pics (78).jpg


by the way don't let a few holes bother ya, just cut them out and weld in new, keep up the good work.

Im going to replace the faded wire looms and already have painted the brace red.

here's mine

had it installed for one summer....and love it over the 305 tbi I had

oohhh shiney

Here is a shot of mine from last summer.

Hey Michael,
Since your batt tray is pretty rusted, and you want to clean up your engine bay...have you considered a 4th gen overflow bottle/battery tray? It goes in that spot, and you have to cut a decent sized hole in the battery tray. When finished, you will only see the coolant overflow cap sticking up over between the fender and battery. You're already going to be cutting...

Just a suggestion..

You can just barely see it in this pic. Really cleaned things up for me. This is my old set up. My new car has a new thirdgen bottle and the 4th gen washer bottle. Decided not to cut into my tray since it was perfect.





Not sure how you get all the HVAC stuff out from under the days...but Im thinking you might need to pull the dash. Which, might actually be a good thing. You are deleting wires and cleaning things up. Might as well clean up the wiring you dont need behind the dash too...whatever you might be getting rid of.

Heres a pic of mine from last summer.

Heres mine kinda shitty pics but I did gloss black and a Red Pearl to match the out side of the car.

you have that nice clean engine bay and you're holding the hood up with a stick!??
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not bad man doing great keep us up to date

Red406, where did you get that coolant over flow tank from? Id like to pick one up.

hey ghetto cruiser, i wish you would have said somehting a little sooner lol. i made a battery box yesterday and i was wanting to get rid of that damn overflow tank lol. i really like that idea there, and red408 where did you get that tank from and for how much?? it doesn't look to complicated i might make my own outta some aluminum..

tonys91rs, dont feel bad, mines being help up by a broom sick lol. my shocks are weak as hell lol.

i need to run an AFPR, and a TV cable.. just a couple questions, did you (anybody who answers me) have to run new fuel lines from the tank? did you run the lines from the tank to your AFPR or did you run it from the fuel pump on the frame rails? does the fuel filter go before the AFPR or after?
about the TV cable, how do you run it, how does it WORK?? where does it plug into the tranny?? sorry i know these are kind of amature questions, i just wanna make sure i have everything right.

thanks everyone!! posting pictures in a little while.

alright everybody.. i been really thinkin bout this and ive asked the question a couple times.. but nobody has answered it. i dont want to buy an a/c delete pulley, in fact i want to put the alternator on the other side and make my custom brackets. does anybody have any specs of your bracket so maybe i could copy them instead of payin an outrageous amount of money for them. i like robertfranks and red406's. i especially like the look of robertfranks, but i like the adjustabilty of red406's. if you guys read this, please tell me what you did and how you did it.

My car was a carb car already. I removed the computer and the harness.

Here is the coolant bottle. http://www.cantonracingproducts.com/...ion&key=80-223

thats a nice bottle. not sure its worth that much! but its very nice and it looks great in your car.

i was actually refering to your alternator and ps pump brackets.. or turnbuckles. did you custom make that or buy that to??

Darn...stinks that you already fixed the batt. box... Oh well. All is not lost. You can still buy new overflow bottles. And new washer bottles for that matter. Not all the washer bottle styles are available, but you can make any of them work. Nice new white bottles will go a long way to making an engine bay look fresh and clean.

I cant help ya on the alternator mounts, sorry.

J.

There prices have gone up. I know I didn't pay that much.

The brackets and turnbuckles are all Summit Racing brand the pulleys too.

you know what looks even better? no washer fluid bottle at all lol. im not re-using mine. the trigger on the steering column never worked and i would never use it anyway. think im going to build my own overflow tank though.. i have a pretty rough idea of how i want to do it. it'll look much better than whats in there now!

Haha..yeah man. No bottles looks great! I had both bottles in the last car, and they were both hidden. I couldnt come up with anything creative for the 86 as far as the coolant overflow. So I decided to just go with a new one. Best solution for now. I was going to re-locate the battery to the back, and put the overflow tank where the batt sits.

Either way...I did manage to hide my washer bottle good this time. I need washers to pass safety inspection.



J.

yeah ghettocruiser that does look much better it being hidden like that. bout to go cut the battery box out and put the 4th gen one in lol. think im going to go ahead and go to some junk yards and see if i can get a nice overflow tank. maybe one thats small enough i can hide it somewhere.

okay with this whole alternator and ps pump brackets, i want to buy the ones off of summit like red406 has. but i have a big problem.. i think. i run a serpentine belt set up and i dont think i can change that unless i wanna buy new pulleys (and i dont) how the hell do i keep my serpentine belt, and still run my alternator on the pass side? need answers quick, my deadline for having this done is approaching.

When I installed my march pullies they weren't designed for an 87+ vehicle. I had to get a standard rotation water pump to solve the issue. It's an easy fix.

where did you get the water pump at and how much did that take you back??? and i know the engine is actually out of an old 84 van.. does that mean anything orrr..?? no??? idk confused lol.

and where did you get your new belt at? you have to get a custom one or no? its hard to see in your pictures but do you have a tension arm inbetween your ps pump and your water pump?

Did you get your question answered you wanted to know yet?

Before bay:



After bay:



Before bay:



After bay:

Heres my pulley setup this is.

wow that is such a huge transsition. takes time and patiance. i think all this aggravation is going to pay off when i complete this project. itll all be worth it. your given me inspration fueledsoul! lol

its an old pic. i have replaced the hood struts last summer.

alright so 2 days ago i got the patches filled. then yesterday i got the bondo on it and sanded. because of how crappy and thin our firewalls are, just taking the grinder and grinding the paint off warped the metal, so i really had to take it easy on welding in the plates. for some reason my dad got me 14 gauge metal instead of thin stuff so it was a PITA to weld up. i had to tac. tac. tac. tac. couldn't get a good bead going without burning through the firewall and puttin a huge a$$ whole in it. but i finally got it done, and when i did, the firewall had more waves than the ocean. reallllllllly wish i would have just cut the whole half of the firewall out and replacing it. and i didnt get it smooth as possible because if i used to much bondo it would crack under the heat of the engine bay. so its a little curvy and isnt as great as fuelsoul's looks, but i didnt have any fiberglass filler so it is what it is! but its much much better than it was. now all i gotta do is take some 100 grit and go over all the paint and get it scuffed up nicely. then i gotta heat the garage overnight to get it at least 50* so it'll be okay to prime and paint! should be done painting by about monday or so. then ill bring in the engine and start working on it. hope to be done in about 2-3 weeks!

okay so im kinda in a pickle lol. im going to run the stainless steel braided fuel lines. how many feet will i need? what size do i need? 3/8"?? and what else would i need if i wanted to run the lines?

depends how you want to run them. if your on a budget like you've been saying there not really necessary. but if thats the route you want to take all be glade to help you