I want to see if the serpentine brackets will clear something I want to try before I spend money on buying some...

 

I am probably 1 to 1 1/2 hour from you in Hampstead, MD. Northwest of Baltimore and east of Westminster up MD route 30. I got an 88 Trans Am GTA 350/5.7 L TPI, Auto Trans

 

I am in La Plata MD and I have an L98 TPI setup complete with 88+ F body serpentine accessory set in a K1500 pickup!

 

Man, there has to be someone closer.

Any chance either of you can take a couple of pictures of how the brackets and accessories line up on the front of the engine? Primarily, I want to know if I could route a hose out of the front of both heads about 1 - 1-1/2" from the outside bottom corner of both heads, I have no problem going through the bracket, and might be able to move stuff around a little bit, but if an accessory is right in front of that spot that would probably keep me from trying it.

Actually, also how do they attach to the front of the engine?

 

the two aluminum bracket halves bolt right to the heads, they cover up the entire face of either head.

Here is my K1500 w/ the L98/TPI setup underhood

 

I'm not really worried about it being there, as long as I can drill or cut through it without majorly compromising it's structural integrity and as long as I can get around the accessories.

One of your pictures makes it look like it's possible, below, where I circled in yellow I can't tell what is going on, but if there is nothing but the aluminum bracket covering the outside say roughly 2x2" corner of the head I can probably make it work (with the earlier brackets, the filler for the PS pump blocks the area that I'm talking about)

 

Here is that bracket before I had the accessories al together

Does this help?





And here's a pic during mockup with the belt and P/S pump now in place



If you want to see more pics like this and in MUCH higher resolution here is my K1500 set of photo albums. If you mouse over the large image on the right you can choose to display it in ORIGINAL size which is like 12 megapixel.

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/1988-Chevy-K1500

The TPI pics start in the folder Feb. 10, 2011 titled "Headers and Serpentine"

 

So close but between how you have it painted and the location of that bracket I can't tell if it will work... how about this, would I be able to get something with a roughly 1" OD in the location shown in this picture on the driver's side head with the alt and PS pump installed?

 

I'm gonna say no, the power steering reservour is going to be in the way

 

only one question what exactly are you doing? and i live in delaware not too sure how far you are from here in Newcastle but i have a serp set up on my 88 with a deleted smog pump all yours to try and play the fit game... yeah,

 

This looks like it must be an LT1 attempt? I just bought a set of $100/each engine quest Vortec heads off Ebay, new, bare heads, which I would do way before I started trying to plumb LT1 stuff.

 

i hope its not a lt1 attempt that be crazy i would just yank the engine out and do a full swap before i would even attempt that, regardless a ls swap is much more preferred...
but i guess to each thier own...

 

I am playing with LT1 bits, but that's not really the important thing, I just want to put a coolant port and connect a hose, like a Yunnick style coolant mod.

 

Is all that work really worth it?
you know these cars run naturally hot and were designed to run that warm on purpose...
so i mean if running a coolant line directly from the head is really worth it or gaining much by all means do it but if i can add my 2 cents i think you ought to lookl else where on modifications...
like i said just my 2 cents...

 

Can you run the coolant lines out the backs of the heads or is there not enough room to the firewall? Worst case scenario you may just have to run V belts

 

Worth it? I have $67 in them and my own work. All the work that I've done I would have done with any set of heads besides drilling and tapping 2 holes and welding 4 holes shut.

For that work I have aluminum heads that are lighter and will outflow the set of vortecs that everyone keeps suggesting, a better cooling setup, a good intake (that fits under the stock hood, the Vic Jr that I was going to run probably wouldn't) without spending $300-600 + labor for the vortec style intake and similar money for the heads + a bunch of extra work or paying a machine shop to clear almost mid/high .5xx" lift and clear the small bore of my 305.

The way I see it I'm saving something on the order of >$1000 which I wouldn't spend on the 305 in the first place if I had to, and I'm saving 50lbs off the front of the car also.

Suggest a set of non vortec bolt pattern (traditional sBC bolt pattern) heads that I'll get the same flow out of that will work on a 305 for less that $500 (even though that will probably cost 5x what these will, that's still cheap enough that I won't blink about it for the car to save some hassle) and I'll listen... I'd still rather run the vic jr that I already have the labor in to convert to FI... Or heck, someone want to sell me a set of fastburn heads and a matching FI intake (I'll take a converted victor or even an aftermarket TPI setup which will flow less) for a few hundred $?

 

I just put a Powermaster alt on my serpentine TPI setup tonight so I got to look again at how the driver's side aluminum bracket mounts to the head. There are a ton of reinforcement ribs there, there is no way you can run any coolant lines out the front of the driver's side head. You're going to need to run them out the back, if you have room.

 

Thanks, but to be honest I've given up on the idea of using the factory serp brackets...

 

yeah you kinda have to after looking at it today. I just thought of this thread when I was messing around under the hood