Saturday a COMPLETE update with pictures AND videos will come. A little anticipation never hurt anybody...
I haven't checked in with this thread since it began and I just re-discovered it. Super cool. All the fabrication work and custom bits are fantastic. I'm very interested in your cable shifter as well. I'm even more interested to see how the car drives when you get it on the road. Boost on!
Scott,
Your car is gonna rip........can't wait to see and hear that video. Awesome engineering. Keep it up!!!
Mark
Your car is gonna rip........can't wait to see and hear that video. Awesome engineering. Keep it up!!!
Mark
I'm holding you to that promise of pictures on Saturday. You don't want to disappoint the Reaper.
Scott,
I'd love to see a video of a quick 1st to 2nd shift with the new cable shifter!
I'd love to see a video of a quick 1st to 2nd shift with the new cable shifter!
quote:Originally posted by The Reaper:
I'm holding you to that promise of pictures on Saturday. You don't want to disappoint the Reaper.
Well with two hours to go, here is the update (as promised because I don't want to upset the Reaper
)After two months (from our last update), we have finished so much on the car.
Here are our main items we finished on the car:
Air Intake: We finished the intake system and have the air filter installed and functional. The only thing we have left to do is build our side gill and build an air box around the filter. We should be finishing this within the next month.
Wiring: We did an enormous amount of wiring over the past two months. September was almost completely dedicated to wiring within the car. We finished wiring the controller for the air suspension, re-wired the entire interior of the car including a new fuse block for both the driver and passenger side, as well as integrating the engine controller wiring into the car. We also re-located the battery and moved the main power cable to the middle of the car. The wiring was a huge process that is now complete.
Fuel Tank: We got the fuel tank completely installed in the car including fuel lines, fuel pumps, etc. From our preliminary calculations, we calculated that the tank would hold around 14-15 gallons. After filling it with 10 gallons of fuel, it looks like the tank will be around 16-16.5 gallons. Very good size for our application. (Especially since the LS9 will get around 21 MPG on the freeway.)
Fluids: We filled the engine up with all of it’s fluids! Oil, fuel, and coolant.
Over the last week we got the engine started! We had an issue initially with the engine harness not firing the cylinders on the right side of the engine, but it turned out to be a connection issue within the harness. We got that problem fixed and then we decided to install the old exhaust system from the LS3 to get it fired up. After that bolted right up, we were able to start the engine, and WOW, this thing sounds great. Watch the two videos below and you will hear what I am talking about!
(At time of posting, the videos are still uploading. They should be up and ready in about an hour
) https://vimeo.com/110684477
https://vimeo.com/110684503
Our last issue that we are overcoming now is an issue with our clutch connection to the engine. Unfortunately, when we first mated the engine and the tranny, we noticed an issue with the clutch disengaging. We recognized the issue and it was going to be a 50-50 shot if the clutch was going to disengage fully when installed. Unfortunately, the clutch does not fully disengage, like we had anticipated early on. Our next step will be pulling the transmission out, by itself, and swapping out the current throwout bearing with a hydraulic version that will have more throw. A slight monkey wrench in the project but not detrimental. We will get that changed out and we should be on the street in no time.
Once we have that issue knocked out, our last projects include finishing the air intake system, the intercooler system, the LS9 exhaust system, and buttoning up the interior including fabricating our new hatch cover. If all goes well, we should be on the road in the next month or two.
dude congratulations!
That's awesome! Congrats!
Awesome effort guys. Congratulations! Very impressive feat.
Congrats Scott and Chris !!! Excellent work !!!
Fantastic !!
Nice work!!!
Ron
Ron
Just one word .....
Wait for it ......
AMAZING!
Wait for it ......
AMAZING!
quote:Just one word .....
Wait for it ......
AMAZING!
LOL!!!! Good one!!!!
quote:
Originally posted by desert_detomaso:
Just one word .....
AMAZING!
Very impressive work Scott and Chris ! ! You guys are mega talented ! ! Thanks for sharing !
I am also interested in the cable shifter and was able to get a feel for it first hand. I'd seen and played with it at the POCA fun rally and was impressed, but it wasn't hooked up to a ZF there. Last month we were in Temecula and were able to stop by and visit with Scott in his shop and got to shift it in his car. He said they still had a few tweaks to do, but I thought it was fantastic as it was. The shifting was very light an precise and the throw was significantly (1/2?) shorter and the shifter was perfectly centered in the gate. On my car the shifter is maxed out (almost rubbing the gate) in R and 4th-5th.
I had a few concerns (about grit, dirt, and wear and also corrosion of bare aluminum) which I asked about in a followup email. Scott replied
"The reason the stock unit is enclosed in a case is because the pivot shaft must be heavily greased to function normally. It has a ball socket arrangement that must be clean and greased for a smooth operation.
Our design is maintenance free and does not require grease. There is nothing that will get gummed up with road grit with our design. There are only 2 moving parts. The rail direction movement has a ball bearing for the pivot. The cables are marine grade cables so they will be fine in the environment of the Pantera engine compartment. There is ZERO wear in the gear select direction of movement. Nothing to gum-up or get dirty that would affect functionality. There is nothing to have reservations about regarding the environment."
So now all we need to know is availability and price
I had a few concerns (about grit, dirt, and wear and also corrosion of bare aluminum) which I asked about in a followup email. Scott replied
"The reason the stock unit is enclosed in a case is because the pivot shaft must be heavily greased to function normally. It has a ball socket arrangement that must be clean and greased for a smooth operation.
Our design is maintenance free and does not require grease. There is nothing that will get gummed up with road grit with our design. There are only 2 moving parts. The rail direction movement has a ball bearing for the pivot. The cables are marine grade cables so they will be fine in the environment of the Pantera engine compartment. There is ZERO wear in the gear select direction of movement. Nothing to gum-up or get dirty that would affect functionality. There is nothing to have reservations about regarding the environment."
So now all we need to know is availability and price
Great work. Very impressive.
I really like the sound of the supercharger. This engine sounds really healthy in there -- I'm sure you guys can't wait to put some street and/or track time on that bad boy. Congratulations! Looks like the stock engine cover would fit if you wanted it too. Total sleeper.......
Mark
Mark
So after a few weeks of troubleshooting, with tons of measuring and CAD drawings, we figured out what the issue was with the clutch.
We were completely off with the thought that the throw of the bearing was the issue. Our clutch only requires .375 in of throw to disengage, and we had well over .700 in of throw. After we figured that out, it was back to the drawing board to find the issue. We spent lots of time measuring the clutch and the transmission and drew both in CAD to see if we could diagnose the issue on the computer. Sure enough, after enough analysis, we figured out that the stack height within the clutch was too tall, and was arranged in a way that the second clutch disk was too thick to be completely engaged on the spline, and was rubbing on the stepped edge of the spline causing the disk to be engaged even when the clutch was depressed all the way.
The solution: we called up SPEC and discussed with their tech support and they decided that they would build us a new set of clutch disks based on our CAD drawings that would engage the splines correctly. In about 5 days, we had a new set of clutch disks sitting on our front porch, and sure enough, once we got those re-installed in the transmission, they worked like a charm!
The reason we had this issue is because of the design of the dual-disk clutch for the LS9. It was designed for the ZR1 Corvette, obviously, and the Corvette is designed with the transmission in the rear of the car with a torque tube that spans the distance between the engine and the transaxle. Because of this, they do not have to deal with the clearance issues that come with a transaxle being bolted directly to the engine.
After we got that issue fixed, we decided to go for a drive in the car before finishing up the rest of the systems.
The car drove GREAT and wow does it have a lot of power. Unfortunately, the car started to feel a little bit less powerful after driving for about 20 minutes and then we got a check engine light. We figured that it probably had something to do with the intake air temperature since the intercooler is not yet functional. After we came back to the shop we plugged in our laptop and sure enough, we had two trouble codes, Intake Air Temperature Warning Level 1 and Intake Air Temperature Warning Level 2. As expected, the intake air was getting a bit too hot for comfort so the engine started to pull timing to protect itself and threw a check engine light and trouble code. Even with that little issue, boy was it nice to drive the car after over a year of hiatus.
When we got back it was time to get some of the other items on our to-do list finished. The first thing on that list was obviously the intercooler.
Our previous design for the intercooler connections was a bit convoluted due to the space constraints between the firewall and the engine. We came up with a great new design that looks WAY better.
We also got the intercooler lines from the back of the car to the front of the car. (Also, check out all of the lines that span the length of the car! We will be constructing some nice stainless steel splash shields to protect all of our lines.
Our last tasks include finishing the connections for the intercooler to the intercooler radiator at the front of the car, constructing a new exhaust system using the LS9 exhaust manifolds (temporary until we decide to go with 180 headers), finishing the air intake system, finish the roll bar installation, upholster various interior pieces including the engine hatch cover, etc.
We are so close to having a completely functional car. With the exception of some other miscellaneous tasks that we have after our last big tasks, the car is almost done! We are aiming to have all of our tasks completed over the next 30 days to give us ample time between then and our next track event to break-in the engine and work out any bugs. We will be out at Willow Springs this March so we can track test our new beast!
Check out some additional pics of some other things we got completed over the past two months including the installation of our new seats and roll bar