Neil87Z28

Looks great!

You'll have a blast at the Silver State. I've run both the Silver State Classic and the Pony Express, so let me know if you want to chat about that. There's nothing like hitting those 'cattle guards' at 150 mph.

SuperTrans Man

Hey Comp Ive been following your build and sent you a PM if you havnt already had a chance to see it. Great work by the way thus far! Real quallity stuff.

BOTTLEDZ28

iTrader: (9)

any updated pics on exhaust setup? Im dying to see how it turned out. I recently made a custom crossmember for my LTs and Id like to compare the difference in claearance between mine and yours. If yours looks like if has more ground clearance then I just may have to start re modding my car then.

Comp788

I saw your thread about your LT crossmember set up. It looked really nice.

The transmission crossmember and TA mount are done. Waiting for some other parts to get completed before I send them all off for power coating. (stuff I have not posted in the thread) I have been busy getting the house ready for the xmas party here (first year in the new house). Also have had to do the typical holiday & honeydo stuff. Shopping, visiting with out of town family and other stuff.

Next chance to work on the car will be the 26th as I have the day off. My goal is to get the whole front Y pipe built. I have the passenger side pipe built from the collector up to where the transition goes from 3" to 4". The drivers side pipe will merge into the same 3" to 4" transition. Basically I am taking two 3" pipes and then grafting them into a single 4" which will run allong the driveshaft and up and over the rear end. If I get the Y pipe done you will be able to see a side view pic and check out the ground clearance that I have aquired. As of right now I have lots of room for exhaust. I very happy so far. I am pretty **** on how stuff looks and I know what I want it too look like so not sure if it will happen on the first attempt. I hope it does as 304S/S is so expensive right now. I would hate to scrap a bunch of pipe.

BOTTLEDZ28

iTrader: (9)

Sounds good. Im just waiting tosee how your gonna run the drivers side pipe across the center of the car. Oviously it has to go under the torque arm at some point and thats where it seems like it will be the lowest

Comp788

If you look back on the first page of this thread where I quoted this post you will see the clearance that I have for the exhaust. It is going to go under the TA Just behind the crossmember. This is the highest point that I was able to get the exhaust up too. I figured with the TA articulation that I will need to leave no more then a 1/4" clearance from the top of the crossover tube to the TA. At least that is what I have in mind right now. Time will tell.

Comp788

Howdy all. Whell the exhaust took a bit longer then what I expected ... OK a lot linger then I expected. It tool me almost four hours just to weld it all up once it was fabricated. It was very happy how it all turned out and it looks great. The lowest point is my transmissionthe the secont lowest point is my crossmember. For this round of pictures I did not have the TA in the car. I was tired of putting it in and out everything I had to do something with the exhaust. I have about 3/8" clearance from the bottom of the TA to the top of the exhaust. I still need to redo the brake lines to the back of the car and also build a new fuel line from the gas tank. I cut all of the old stuff out as I was not going to use that stuff. The exhaust was built out of 304 S/S tubing and is 3" from the headers to the y pipe. From the y pipe it is 4" out the back. I stopped at the rear end and have not built the back of the exhaust. I need to get a 4" v-band clamp before I build that part.

Comp788

Here are some more pictures.

89_ho_rs

Its lookin nice. I like how tucked up the exhaust is. keep us posted.

Kory-88Iroc 350 tpi

iTrader: (1)

I'm very impressed. I may have to do this. Nice work
How long before you will have the car driveable?
Kory

Comp788

Kory, I just keep doing all of the little things. Still need brake lines redone, fuel system, and get some parts powder coated and the put back in the car. I am hoping that by the first week of March to have it up and running. I want to basically have it all done before I drive it.

Comp788

The exhaust is almost done now. I'll get some pictures next week. The Y pipe was built as you could see in the last picture and got the 4" exhaust up and over the rear axle. Being that my car is lowered about 2" the exhaust was really tight over the rear end. I ordered a custom Spintec stainless steel muffler yesterday. It is 4" inlet with dual 3" outlets. I also ordered some more tubing to build the tail pipes. Should have it all complete by next weekend, assuming that Spintec ships my muffler on time.

RU-QWIK

iTrader: (3)

That is looking very good man !! Dan is an outstanding header builder, as well as a really nice guy. Do you have any pictures of what the headers look like up top? I have Eibach sportlines and am looking into a set of headers like you have. I will likely go down to his shop Tuesday morning and inquire....

Jason

Comp788

Jason,

Dan is a truely talented fabricator. My headers are almost header art. He built one side and had an issue getting it out of the car easly so he reworked it. That is a stand up guy. I have other headers made in the past and people could care less how they fit or installation/removal ease.

The pictures of the headers are in this thread. https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/exha...t-picture.html

If you want a picture of anything specific let me know I'll be happy to take them for you. The spark plugs and plug wires fit great and the header bolts are easy to get to! Plus the starter and full size oil filter come right out of the car with the headers installed.

Brett

Comp788

So the big brown truck delivered the stainless steel custom Spintech muffler today. I plan on installing it tomorrow night. After looking at it I think I am going to put a v-band clamp on the inlet. If that is the case I will just be able to mock it all up as the v-band clamp usually takes a day or two to show up.

Pictures to follow.

Kory-88Iroc 350 tpi

iTrader: (1)

Comp,
I'm planning on doing this. Could you tell me a little more about how you made the new rails. Did you make them from flat stock formed in a metal brake? Or did you start with some large square tubing and cut out one side? Also what is the verticle height of the rail from the floor to the spot where the crossmember mounts to.
Thanks for the info, and for paving the way to perfect ground clearance.
Thanks again,
Kory

Comp788

Kory,

The new section of frame rails were fabricated from 11ga P&O material. That would be 1/8" steel to the average person. They were calculated out with bend allowences to be the proper height. They fit where I needed them to be. I put mine 1/8" lower then the stock rail for my exact needs so that I could have everything level and square. I moved them tward the outside of the car probably about 6" per side. The drivers side is going to be easy but the pass side with the cat hump in the floor is a big pain in the butt.

They were bent in a large press brake at my work. They are not universal from side to side nor are they the same height at front to back.

Make carboard templates and have them fit perfect before you try and put the new section of frame rails in.

This is not an easy job and requires pretty good welding skills. You also need to support the car so that it does not flex when you cut the old sections of frame out. You will be cutting through material that is twoa md three layers thick. This is unibody structure!!!

I also tied in my SFC into the new section of frame that I built for added strength.

Read the entire thread I have put some key points to this job in this thread.

If you have any specific questions you can always PM me.

rof51

Hi: Need to know where did you get the bellhousing from . Need one for my 87 formula with a t56 from a 97 formula.

thanks:

Osvaldo

Comp788

I got mine from Summit and it fits a T5.

Keep in mind my transmission is one of the aftermarket retrofit transmissions.

Comp788

So was able to get a bunch of work done over the past couple of weeks. I had to remove my 9" so I could drop down the exhaust and finsih weld it. While I have the 9" out I completed the assemble of it. I still need to pull a couple of parts off and send them out for powder coating. The rear axle was just in there for mock up and now it is ready for final assembly. I ordered the parts for the lower control arms and cut the 4130 tubing to fab them up. I started on the wheel well mods to make more room for tires and ran out of construction cardboard to make some more templates. The brakes are all set up and fit the wheels great. Should have plenty of stopping power for the rear of the car now.

Comp788

Here are some pictues of the completed exhaust assembly. It is 4" and uses all of the factory shielding for the body and gas tank. It fits perfect.

toxik IROC

iTrader: (12)

wow all this is realy amazing work

Import Killer

Looks good, i wish that i had the time and equipment to do all this. i'll keep checking in every so often to see how it out, keep up the good work.

Comp788

So was able to get the exhaust back under the car tonight. Figured out how the tail pipes are going to be run and also where they are going to mount to the frame. I need to make some S/S mounting brackets and get some rubber isolators.

I took a bunch of measurements and going to get the 4130 tubing for the LCA and panhard bar tomorrow. I will also order up the rod ends as well as the tube adapters.

laiky

If your interested coleman sells threaded alluminum tubes (reverse thread on one side) that are perfect for control arms etc. Cheap too.

Comp788

Thanks. I know that Coleman makes them but at the speeds I am going to be running I do not want to worry about aluminum tubing.

Comp788

Well after a long hiatus I finally got to start working on my car again. The new job is great but had to take some time off of the car.

I got all sorts of parts powder coated and started installing them. Found out the material I needed to make the spacers for the lower control arms and the PH bar was out of stock until Tuesday. Guess I will have to wait until then.

Here are pictures of the SFC, trans crossmember with TA mount. So far it all went right together.

There are more pictures on this thread.

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/susp...-wont-fit.html

BOTTLEDZ28

iTrader: (9)

very nice. it loks like you did some work to the trans tunnel to get a little bit more clearance for the exhaust pipes. Is this what I am seeing? Did you cut sections out and redo them for for more room? I made my owm custom corssember for my LTs but I still need more ground clearance. This may work forme with a little bit of time as long as the interor goes back together like it should. Then I can run my ypipe over the crossmember and not under it.

Comp788

As we all know too well there is not a lot of room for exhaust on our cars.

Probably the worst part of these cars!

I cut out the factory frame and fabricated new sections of frame the go out straight and allow tons more room for exhaust. I have much more room then a little bit of room for exhaust. I have 3" pipes coming out from each header and them merge into a 4" custom single exhaust. The 4" goes up and over the rear end and into a custom S/S Spintech muffler. I have yet to fabricate the tail pipes for the exhaust.

I saw your post for your crossmember and it looked nice. I want to keep my car low and this was the only way I could see doing it. I played around with oval tubing and it was not the best way to achieve my goal. Everyone has there own idea's..

If you read the front part of the thread you can see how it was all done. Well worth it IMO! I have read other people have done something similar. I did not know about the board or anyone who had done this prior to doing this to my car.

BOTTLEDZ28

iTrader: (9)

well I was thinking of this more and more late last night and tried convincing myself to do this to my car to get more clearance but I will still be stuck with the little ground clearance where the header collectors end under the car. Thats where my exhaust gets caught alot. The only way to eliminate that would be to shorten the height of the entire header by cutting sections of each tube out and rewelding it back together. But doing that it will bring the header collectors up against the bottom of the trans tunnel. It can be done but there will be a lot of fab work involved to gain 2 in" of clearance. maybe I will live with it for a while and then do that when the car is striped to the frame and started over from scratch. I'll bug ya when I get to that point.

Stephen

iTrader: (12)

Instead of the "traditional" 4-into-1 collector, rework it to be a flat-4 collector. There's 1.5" to 1.75" more clearance right there.

zracTA

cool thread

Comp788

I think the Hedman race collector is a flat 4 into 1 collector. With doing the frame change it was amazing how much room I was able to gain.

muddyjimmy

iTrader: (2)

I am interested in doing this down the road and am glad you posted this up for me to read. You have done a very nice job with this and it looks like you fabrication skills are great. I am running an 4L60e transmission and am having a hard time getting my exhaust to tuck up close to the bottom of the car. Right now it goes under the factory auto cross member and I hate the way it looks. Not to mention I have a stripped out bolt in the factory frame rail. Even if I tried to build a custom cross member I still wouldn't have room between the frame rail and the transmission. Do you think that it could be done with an automatic transmission also? If not 3" pipe maybe some 2.5" that doesn't hang so low. I am not running custom headers but the Headman headers I am running dump really close to the floorboard of the car. Thanks in advance for the info.

askulte

The ones I've seen with the 700R4's have used the stock crossmember, but notched and reinforced to give 1/2" more clearance at the xmem. Since the xmem is further forwards, it doesn't seem to force the exhaust down as low.

On the stripped bolt - just drill out the threads, and use a helicoil kit (screw thread insert). Most auto parts places have the repair kits.

muddyjimmy

iTrader: (2)

Mine seems to hang lower than I would like but then again I did just fab something up real quick. I am sure it can be tucked up a little higher. I like the way the OP's car turned out and would like to try doing that someday.