Electrical System:
The wiring of the engine has begun. We mounted the ECU and have started wiring the engine. Our MAST Motorsports wiring harness has so many options for controlling the engine and other systems. It is designed to control almost every system in the car, but since we already have a pretty good wiring harness in the car, we are only going to use it to control the engine. We ran the wiring as clean as possible, but we will probably construct a few covers to make the engine compartment look even nicer.
Intake System:
We finished relocating the throttle body and constructing the intake tube from the blower to the throttle body. We are just finish welding it, and it will be ready to install for the final time. (We will have more pics of the intake system when we get the final weld done on the intake tube). The last part of the intake system is to construct the airbox and the intake gill. The airbox will be located in the cavity between the outer panel and the inner engine bay panel.
Intercooler System:
With the stock intercooler, we couldn't fit the water line adapter between the window and the blower. To overcome this issue, we made adapters that would convert the intercooler to AN style fittings. Now that we have that done, it's time to plumb the water lines to the intercooler radiator located at the front of the car.
Speaking of, we finished mounting the intercooler radiator in the front of the car. The last thing we have to do is mount the reservoir for the system which fits PERFECTLY behind the drivers side headlight bucket.
Fuel System:
The fuel system is getting close to completion as well. We designed a custom fuel tank and had it built, and it is awesome! The rough capacity is around 15 gallons and the tank is built out of 3/16" aluminum for extra strength. This will help balance the weight in the car as well. With the great fuel efficiency of the LS9, that should give us a realistic 300-350 miles of range on the highway (although, I don't think we will be taking it easy with this engine so I am not sure if we will attain that figure ;-) ). Right now, you are probably thinking "where are they going to put the battery?" We have decided to move it to the back, near the engine. We are going to use our current Optima Red Top, but we are looking into a lightweight lithium-ion racing battery to replace the heavy lead-acid battery.
Since the fuel tank is now in the front of the car, we thought it was a good idea to integrate a high-flow fuel sump system in the car for high performance. Our friends over at Radium Engineering thought our project was really cool so they decided to sponsor and help us out with a Fuel Surge Tank (FST). If you don't know what that is, an FST is designed to prevent fuel starvation to the engine on vehicles with inadequate fuel tank baffling. The FST fuel pump feeds the fuel rail. The volume of fuel inside the surge tank acts as a buffer to always keep the FST pump supplied with fuel. In this system, we will have that pump supplying the engine with fuel, and a lower powered pump to keep the FST filled with fuel.
So I guess my original prediction of 5 weeks until the car is drivable was a little bit exaggerated, but we are definitely getting way closer.
Oh, and I forgot one last thing. We decided to go with the exhaust manifolds until we take the car back apart to paint and do bodywork. Because of this, we decided to polish the manifolds and WOW do they look great.
Our to-do list is dwindling.
For more pics, check out our post on http://zr1pantera.com