1964 Corvette Coupe

[FLYNAVY53]

I've been a long time lurker, I figured it was finally time to post my project...

I purchased this car back in April of 2017. I was very specifically looking for a 1964 Daytona Blue coupe with the solid lifter 365 horse motor and a 4 speed. The only additional options this car was ordered with is the two tone blue/white interior, off road exhaust, 3.70 rear end, and for an additional $10.80......reverse lights.

As I had/have no interest in conducting a full on restoration, I looked for an older restoration that still showed well. This one was completed between 1979 and 1982. It then sat in various collections, accumulating just 329 total miles, so for my purposes, it fit the bill perfectly. The intent is to build a fun street car with relatively minor modifications and just a bit of late '60s European sports car flair. The plan at the moment is to complete the work in three stages. As I type this, Im about 90% complete with the first stage of modifications....progress currently being put on hold by a Middle East deployment.

Stage-1 suspension and brakes:
-Global West front control arms
-Global West offset trailing arms
-RideTech shocks with factory springs
-13/16 front sway bar from 1973 Corvette
-1969 Corvette rear camber rod bracket
-Global West adjustable rear camber rods
-1965-67 Corvette spindles/hubs/bearings/discs
-Wilwood D8 brake calipers
-Speed Direct manual rack and pinion steering
-Baer 15/16" master cylinder for manual disc brakes
-all new NiCop brake lines
-all new stainless steel -3AN brake fittings
-Hurst shifter
-15x7 wheels (TBD) with Avon CR6ZZ 225/60/15 tires

Stage-2 electrical and subsystems:
-new nose to tail wiring harness with pinned bulk head connectors
-modern alternator
-DSE headlight motors
-DES wiper motor
-DeWitt aluminum radiator with electric fan
-Rebuilt factory gauge cluster
-Rebuilt factory radio with bluetooth connectivity and modern single dash speaker
-LED lights throughout including headlights/tail lights/blinkers
-power radio antenna

Stage-3 - engine
-Holley Sniper EFI with distributor and ignition module
-Holley EFI tank and pump
-New fuel line
-aluminum intake manifold
-Kooks stainless headers
-stainless exhaust system

Of note, I'm retaining the factory 327, Muncie 4spd, and everything is 100% bolt on, and could be reversed, should I ever decide to do so (not likely).

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[FLYNAVY53]

The first order of business was a quick tune up, and removing those horrible factory hub caps until I get a proper set of wheels after the disc brake swap.

I went with Accel 9000 wires with the ceramic boots and shielded cable. This allowed me to remove the tacky chrome trim that covers the factory wires and distributors in these cars. Not only is it ugly but its razor sharp, which makes checking the plugs down right dangerous. Speaking of, the stockers didn't look bad, but I replaced them with NGK XR4s.
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Next up was to address the oil leak from the old, factory style cork valve cover gaskets. I went with Fuel-Pro pieces....pricey, but they don't leak! While I was in there, I checked the valve lash on the solid lifter motor, and sure enough, I got lash setting anywhere from .028 to .034. I decided to go through, reset the lash, and then verified it a second time before buttoning everything up.
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I took her out for a little rip afterwards and WOW what a difference!!! I don't know if it was the plugs, wires, valve lash (most likely) or the combo of the three, but it runs like a whole different animal. The idle is smoother, and about 200 RPM lower, right at 1000, and the throttle response once its warm is instantaneous. Very happy with the motor....looking forward to eventually getting it running on fuel injection and uncorking it just a bit!
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[Steve68]

I like it!

Used to drive a 64 Roadster in the 80's was my dads friends, always put a smile on my face!!

[FLYNAVY53]

Thanks....looking forward to getting this completed. I've been building this car in my head since about 2012 when I sold my 2003 Z06. Here are some pics of the inspiration for the look and stance, minus the side pipes.

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[Jetfixr320]

Nice ride! Looks much better without the hubcaps.

[FLYNAVY53]

Rear suspension completely stripped. As you can see, the frame is in excellent condition. This pocket where the trailing arm mounts is a typical place to find corrosion and rust. Fortunately, this car is extremely clean.

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Even with the low milage, clean car, you can see all the dirt that had accumulated in the trailing arm pockets. There is a drain hole in there, but it easily gets clogged if the car is driven frequently. I cleaned out the pocket, opened up the drain hole a bit, and touched up any surface rust or bare metal with frame paint. On these cars, cleaning that drain hole is just one of those things you add to the "routine maintenance" list.

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The only permanent modification I'll be making to this car is cutting the factory bump stop mounting off the frame. When converting from drum brakes to disc brakes in the rear, this needs to be done in order to move the bump stop inboard, otherwise the factory drum brake bump stop would contact the new calipers instead of the trailing arm and potentially brake the caliper. A factory 1965-1967 bump stop simply threads into the hole remaining on the inboard portion of the original bump stop bracket.

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[FLYNAVY53]

Mocking up the new Global West offset rear trailing arms. The advantage of these is the inboard offset allows you to run a slightly wider tire. Additionally, they move the e-brake cable inboard, to prevent the mounting bracket from rubbing on a wider than factory tire. They're also significantly beefier than the factory pieces. The last advantage of the Global West arms are the Teflon lined spherical bearing that allows the swing arm to move through the suspension arch without bind. The result makes it easier to tune the suspension because the spring rate is not being affected due to bind.

The last two pictures show the shim mock up. 1963-1964 shims had holes in the forward portion of the shim. This made it very time consuming to adjust and change out shims as the pivot bolt would have to be removed and rethreaded through the whole stack with each change during alignment. In the pictures, I've changed to the 1965 and later, slotted stainless steel shims and hardware. These are slotted in the front, so that you can slide them in and out of the pockets without completely removing the mounting bolt. They have a smaller hole in the rear which aligns with the small hole I drilled through the frame pocket. This allows the use of a 2" long stainless cotter pin to retain the shims. Once the suspension is aligned, and the trailing arm retaining bolt is properly torqued, tension SHOULD retain the shims in the pocket. The cotter pin is really just added security that they don't back out over time. This is the factory configuration on the 1965 and later disc brake cars.

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[FLYNAVY53]

This is the build up of the new trailing arms. I specifically ordered the new hubs from Van Steel Corvette already pressed together as a unit that includes the mounting bracket for the rear brake calipers and the shock/camber road assembly. In the last photo, you can see the final assembly with the hubs installed along with the brake dust shield and the integrated drum brake style parking brake assembly. For the period look, I'm using PS Engineering "Trans Am style" long lug nuts. You can also better see the teflon lined spherical bearing in the front of the Global West trailing arms in this picture.

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- - - Updated - - -

Side note, does anyone know how to rotate pictures before you post them? I can't figure it out as they all appear upright before I upload.

Thanks
Greg

[lobudget]

I don't know it it's true or not but I've been told that the '69 and later front spindle can be used for the brake swap. It gives a larger wheel bearing.

[FLYNAVY53]

You are correct. I didn't bother due to the fact that I'm only using a 15x7 inch wheel and tire package. Had I been going full "Pro Touring" with wide, sticky tires, I definitely would have gone with the stouter '69 and later spindle and bearing.

[FLYNAVY53]

Rear suspension being put back together. Trailing arms are back in, Ride Tech single adjustable shocks installed with the Global West adjustable camber rods. I retained the factory springs (front and rear) on purpose. In talking with a number of guys that race these cars in various vintage racing series, you can set them up to handle quite well, over 1 G on the skid pad, with minimal modifications. By keeping the relatively soft factory front (280 lbs) and rear (140 lbs) springs, you can increase the front sway bar size to 13/16. With the adjustable shocks, and sticky Avon tires, this should yield a set up that exhibits mild, predictable understeer at the limits. Ill be able to adjust the understeer/oversteer balance via font bar changes. Fortunately, front bars are readily available for these cars in 1/16 increments. Additionally, I swapped the bracket the attaches the camber rods to the bottom of the differential from the '63-'67 Corvette piece to the '69 and later bracket. This moved the inboard mounting position for the rod down approximately 1 inch which effectively reduces the amount of camber gain in a hard corner. I posted a good video explaining below.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh1xoG4cYDE

[OLDFLM]

OMG! I love C2s and this is going to be an amazing car with the changes you're making! Subscribed!

[FLYNAVY53]

OMG! I love C2s and this is going to be an amazing car with the changes you're making! Subscribed!

Thanks....this is kind of my dream car build but its intentionally not a full blown "Pro Touring" build. Its more a modernization of the original design/hardware.

[OLDFLM]

Exactly how I would do a C2! Restomod with improvements to make it more fun to drive... stuff that can easily be undone if you should ever sell it. I'd love to drive a C2 on weekends and to work on a sunny Friday!

Looks like you picked an incredibly clean car to start with too! Keep the updates coming!

[FLYNAVY53]

On to the front suspension...what should have been the easier part of the build actually turned into a massive PITA....

Factory front suspension completely stripped:

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Shiny new stuff:

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Getting the 15" tall spring back into the frame pockets with everything bolted up turned out to be a major undertaking....far harder than any other car I've worked on as a standard spring compressor, won't work (external or internal). What I ended up doing was taking a scrap piece of 3/16 steel plate, drilled a 5/8 hole in the center for a 5/8 all thread rod. Also drilled two 5/16 holes to mount the plate to the bottom of the Global West lower control arm using the holes and hardware for the shocks. I ran the 5/8 rod through the top of the shock mounting hole, all the way down through the spring and the center of the lower control arm. I put two 5/8, grade 8 nuts on the bottom of the rod under the plate. Up top, I used a captive trunion bearing with a 5/8 inside diameter, and a 5/8 grade 8 nut on top of the bering. After I got everything lined up, I slowly started torquing the nut up top to compress the whole assembly. After much grunting and groaning, I finally had the whole thing compressed enough that i could get the spindle mounted top and bottom. I then continued to compress the assembly by turning the nut up top, to the point where the lower control arms lined up with the mounting holes in the frame. It took a fair amount of "finesse" to get everything lined up, and the hardware installed, but in the end, it was all installed safely.

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Finished up with new Timpken bearings in the new hubs from Van Steel Corvette.

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Hubs installed, dust shield and caliper mounting bracket bolted up along with factory discs....nothing fancy here as they need to fit inside a 15" wheel, and for a street car, these work exceptionally well. The 1965 and later Corvette brake system was well ahead of its time (more on that later).

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[HotWheelz]

Very Cool Project! I like it!

Best Wishes on your build!

[FLYNAVY53]

Thanks very much.....shes getting there slowly...

[FLYNAVY53]

On to the brakes.... One of the main goals for this car is keeping it as simple as possible. To that end, I very much wanted to retain a factory style, manual brake system. I did a lot of research into brake system design, and what you need for a good manual brake system. This also resulted in a lot of math. At the end of the day, I determined that in order to have the proper level of clamping force, I needed to go with a relatively small master cylinder with calipers with a large piston area. The Baer 15/16" Remaster was a perfect upgrade to the original single master cylinder. As far as calipers go, for a manual brake system on this generation Corvette, you can't get better than the Wilwood D8 caliper (also the only aftermarket caliper that will fit inside a 15" wheel). I used the 6 piston front and 4 piston rear derivative. Both Baer and Wilwood offer a number of high end calipers that will fit these cars, but most of them do not offer the piston area needed for a good manual brake system. By going with the D8's, I also eliminate the need for a proportioning valve, as they maintain the factory front to rear brake bias. If I decide later on that I want to adjust that, I can always add the Baer prop valve to the master cylinder later.

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These next few pictures show the proper installation of the Baer master cylinder using their tool to properly adjust the depth of the pedal pushrod in order to ensure you don't have any preload on the piston in the master cylinder. For 30 bucks, its money well spent...I've used it twice now as this is the second time I've used a Baer master cylinder.

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For the brake system plumbing, I'm using NiCop 3/16 hard line with stainless steel -3 fittings. I have an Eastwood flaring too for the 37 degree flares. In an effort to make everything completely reversible, I used holes already drilled in the factory frame with RivNuts (or Nutcerts) to mount a couple of brackets I fabricated. I'm using Frangola stainless braided hose at all 4 corners thats wrapped in a black sheathing to make it look more factory. Due to routing constraints, and the ability to take the master cylinder off the firewall without having to break into the system, I'm using the same Frangola braided lines to connect the master cylinder to the bulkhead fittings on the frame.

On this generation Corvette, the brake line running to the rear is actually located on top of the frame, and can't be accessed without pulling the body off the frame. After draining the old fluid (which was in excellent condition) and inspecting the factory line, I decided it was in perfectly usable condition and just cut and flared the front end to align with my frame mounted bulkhead bracket. This allowed me to retain the factory routing of the back half of the system.

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[OLDFLM]

Great work! Can I be first in line if you ever decide to sell this beauty?


What wheels are you planning to put on the car?

[FLYNAVY53]

Sure thing....dont hold your breathe though....I looked for this one for a looooonnnngggg time. Plus the selling price would also have to reflect the cost of my inevitable divorce....


I've had an order in since the week after Thanksgiving with PS Engineering for a set of their T/A-1 wheels in 15x7 with 4 inch backspace. These are by far the closest thing you can buy to the original Torque Thrust Ds from the late 60s. Unfortunately, the week after I made my order, PS Engineering and Vintage Wheel Works were bought out by Coker Tire. As they work through the finances and logistics of the acquisition, everything is pretty much on hold. I'm in the Middle East for another two months so I haven't completely given up on them, but if I don't have a resolution by the time I get home the first week in April, Ill have to start looking at plan B. I would just use the American Racing Torque Thrust D, but they only offer it in a 3.75 inch backspace and that quarter of an inch difference just puts the sidewall of the tire too close to the inside lip of the fender for my taste...one big bump going around a corner and you risk contact and cracking the fiber glass fender. With 4" backspace and -1 degree camber all the way around, I won't have any issues with a 225/60/15 tire.

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I would run then without the center cap. As you probably saw in some of the previous pics, I already have the extra long Trans-Am style wheel lugs.

[FLYNAVY53]

For the steering, I wanted to follow the same direction/theme as the brakes....simple and functional with good feel/feedback. There are a bunch of good power steering conversion kits out there, but I feel like most of them are over-boosted, and I didn't want the added complexity of the pump, reservoir, and lines going to the steering box. A rebuilt factory style box was also considered, but I've always found those to be numb on center, and the steering effort with the sticky Avon tires, even at only 7 inches wide would be significant. For all of the above reasons, I decided to use the Speed Direct manual rack and pinion conversion kit. The benefit will be precise feel throughout the range of travel, while resulting in approximately 20% less effort compared to the factory manual steering box. The kit consists of a remanufactured rack and pinion (not sure what model it comes out of), and all of the required brackets and hardware to mount the unit in the C2 chasis.

When the kit arrived, I was immediately impressed with the quality of the Speed Direct parts, and equally unimpressed with the quality of the rack and pinion itself. The R&P was clearly a POWER R&P junk yard take out, that was rebuilt as a manual unit, the line plugs cut off and bent over, and then hit with a black rattle can. It looked terrible. I called Speed Direct, and to their credit, the customer service tech rep was extremely up-font and helpful. He said that they outsource the rebuild R&P units and simply provide the kits to bolt them into the car. He assured me that despite the raggedy exterior, everything was 100% new inside the R&P, that it was in fact a MANUAL unit, and that they had never had a unit returned due to malfunction/faulty rebuild. Based on that conversation, and some members over on the Corvette Forum who have used the same kit and absolutely love the steering feel, I decided to rectify the cosmetics myself and roll with it.

I stripped the entire unit, and then repainted it with POR 15 grey paint. I then removed all of the bent over power steering fittings and measured all of the ports that needed to be plugged. Of course they were odd size and thread pitch metric fittings, but I was able to find all of the plugs I needed from AeroFlow out of Australia in nice black anodized aluminum.

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The rack bolted up with supplied brackets and hardware without an issue.

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In the below photo, you can see the adjustable steering rods that will eventually connect to the spindles. I've left them free at the moment as I need to get the car on the ground and then use the supplied spacers to ensure the rods are parallel with the lower control arms. This helps to minimize/eliminate any bump steer in the C2 chasis.

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I also haven't yet connected the steering column to the rack and pinion yet. Other users of this kit have suggested trimming the steering column about 1" and then using a longer intermediate shaft in order to make the angles on the U-joint less aggressive, thus reducing any chance for premature wear.

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[vette427-sbc]

The period trans am styling looks so perfect on a C2 coupe. Great looking car!

[FLYNAVY53]

The period trans am styling looks so perfect on a C2 coupe. Great looking car!

Thanks, and agreed! Looking forward to getting home and getting it back on the road!

[RMMiller]

Love where you're taking this one, hands down the sexiest car ever made!

Looks like a Cavalier rack, it's a popular conversion for Mavericks and sure looks like the same unit.

[FLYNAVY53]

Love where you're taking this one, hands down the sexiest car ever made!

Looks like a Cavalier rack, it's a popular conversion for Mavericks and sure looks like the same unit.

Thanks.....that sounds right actually. A couple guys on the Corvette forum are running this kit and love it. Strikes a good balance between the low speed lat work out of the manual box and the over boosted numbness of the factory power set up.

[vette427-sbc]

I ran that same rack (Pontiac grand am) with the ports plugged... I liked it, although a wide sticky tire might make it undesirable at low speed. I think youll be fine with your setup.

[FLYNAVY53]

Yea, the Avons are an R compound tire, but at 225/60/15, I don't think it will be too bad.

[FLYNAVY53]

Last update until I get back to the states in another 6 weeks or so....

Being 6'6/210, the small cabin of the C2 Corvette is obviously a little cramped for me. Additionally, the factory seats are just about the least supportive seat ever installed in a sports car. In order to address both issues, I decided to go with an aftermarket seat. After looking at a number of options, I settled on the Cobra "Stuttgart" seat. They're small enough to fit in the cramped C2 cockpit, offer excellent support and bolstering, and have a period correct look....almost carbon copies of the Recaros used in the late 60- early 70 Porsche 911s.

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The seats aren't yet mounted to the floor in the above pictures....I'm working on fabricating a bracket that will mount them directly to the floor as low and as far back as possible. The final version should gain me an additional inch both in head and leg room. Once that is all sorted, I'm also going to send the seats out for some upholstery work. I've always loved the seats in the Singer Porsche and thought the two toned Navy/White interior of this car was the perfect color combo to incorporate a little European sports car flair to an American classic. I found the fabric from a dealer in Scotland and ordered 5 yards which should be more than enough to do the inserts on both seats.

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I also wanted to do something with the steering wheel. The stock, 16" wood grain steering wheel is classic, but it feels extremely thin and flimsy...especially when you really crank on it in a parking lot due to the lack of power steering. Much like the Recaro seats with tartan inserts in the old 911s, I've also always liked the Momo Prototipo steering wheel in classic Porsche's. Unfortunately, the 14" Momo wheel just doesn't look right in a C2. Its small enough that it restricts visibility of the gauges, and in my opinion, looks too "European" for the car. What I decided to do was take a little bit of that style, and apply it to a more GM looking wheel. I found a 15" wheel from a 1969 Corvette and sent it out to have 1/8 inch padding added, and wrapped in the same leather that BMW uses on their steering wheels. Besides the aesthetic and tactile improvement, the wheel has 1" less dish than the factory wheel, and 1" smaller diameter so I picked up some much needed legroom as well.

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The last upgrade to the interior was to add 3-point seat belts. They were a factory option starting in 1965 but were not available in '64. This meant drilling into the fiberglass to mount the anchor for the reel in the back....classic example of measure 12 times, drill once. Thankfully, I got both reels mounted in the correct place. I decided to go with Navy blue belts as opposed to the factory white for a little bit of contrast....and because they won't look dingy after a few years of use.

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[frink84]

interior is starting to look real classy, very nice!

[FLYNAVY53]

interior is starting to look real classy, very nice!

Thanks very much...Im very excited to see it come together. I also have a black leather shift knob with a white pearl Corvette logo (looks classier than it sounds) that my dad originally had in his 1978 Corvette. Its been in all 5 of my prior Corvettes, to include the 1999 that was wrecked by a body shop employee who took it joyriding while it was in for some paint work. I had to break into the wrecking yard that night in order to "steal" the shift knob back before the car went to the crusher.

[FLYNAVY53]

Finally back at it....

Heres the new steering wheel installed
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I also got the rest of the steering buttoned up. Wheel and rack are perfectly centered (after much adjustment)....just under 1.5 turns either direction with no binding in the U-joints. In the second pic, you can see the steering arms attached to the spindles (although not torqued). You can also see the stack of shims on the under side of the outboard bearing, moving the rod as high as possible. The steering rods are supposed to be as close to parallel with the lower A-arms as possible in order to minimize bump steer.. I will probably need to adjust the shim a bit once the car is one the ground and under load...but for right now, the full stack on the bottom has the arms as close to parallel as possible.
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Lastly, the wheels and tires finally arrived! The 15x6 just barely clear the Wilwood D8 calipers, and the 215/70/15s are probably a touch on the conservative size, but I figured Id rather be safe than sorry, and if it looks like I have room, I can always go one size wider the next time I need tires. The tire stickers also arrived....I got one wheel done today just to see how they look. It is exactly the look I was going for. Once the glue dries, and you wipe away all the excess with a billow pad and some brake cleaner, they look like vintage raised white letter bias ply tires...you'd really have to be an expert to figure out they're actually stickers. It will be interesting to see how they hold up over time.
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Also got the seats back from upholstery....most Corvette guys cringe at the look, but I love them. They fit the interior look I am going for perfectly, afford more head and leg room than factory, and are far more supportive and comfortable. I'm hoping to get my mounting brackets back in the next day or two so that I can get these mounted in place over the weekend.
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Thats it for now. The plan is to get the brakes bled this weekend so that I can get the car on the ground and start working on the alignment.

[FLYNAVY53]

Brackets weren't finished yet, but I wanted to throw the seats in the car to get the full effect....many won't get it, but for me, it perfectly hits the happy marriage of Outlaw Porsche meets American sports car.

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[vette427-sbc]

it perfectly hits the happy marriage of Outlaw Porsche meets American sports car.



I think you nailed it!

[FLYNAVY53]

Thanks Chris. The crowd over on the Corvette forum HATES it....you'd think i had lit an L88 on fire and danced around it naked!

[OLDFLM]

One of my favorite builds! Nicely done!

What's next?

[c4racer2]

Ya I think it’s pretty cool !

[frink84]

Brilliant combo on the interior, can't wait to see more progress. Those vette dudes should best remember that the car came about to compete with those damn Euro rides like the 911...

[FLYNAVY53]

Thanks guys. Right now, I'm down to a bunch of little things....brake bleeding, front sway bar, suspension grease, then get it on the ground and start working on the alignment. After I get that close, it'll go out to a pro and then Ill start making shake down runs, bedding the brake pads, etc. The plan is to drive it the all summer and fall, then dive into phase 2 of the project this winter with the full electrical system and fuel injection swap.

[Gmachine1911]

Very nicely done! I love the plan you laid out and the execution as well. Such a clean starting point too. Looking forward to seeing more!

Btw, Thank You for your service.:usa:

[bkbkbk]

Love the vision and enjoying the build so far!

[Motown 454]

The car looks great with those seats. I like the wheels and the white lettered tires.

[FLYNAVY53]

Well, I suppose its been a minute...not due to lack of progress on the car, but most of it has been the frustrating, unexciting progress that exists between the glamor shots of cool aftermarket parts, and actually getting a functional car on the road.

For starters, I realized shortly after buttoning up the steering that there was still a good bit of slop in the system overall. This led me to rebuilding the steering column. Fortunately in these cars, you can pull the shaft out from the top, and replace the upper and lower bearings without actually removing the column from the dash.

OLD UPPER BEARING:
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OLD LOWER BEARING:
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NEW UPPER BEARING INSTALLED:
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NEW LOWER BEARING INSTALLED:
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After getting everything buttoned up, I still had small spots of resistance in the steering travel. Everything was lined up perfectly, with no extreme angles on the U-joints.... but on closer inspection found this:
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You can see the aluminum transfer from the inside of the U-joint as it just barely scrapes the tip of the steering shaft. I had read other write-ups on the steeroids install alluding to trimming the steering shaft. Fortunately, I invested in a Fein cold saw a few weeks ago for these types of occasions (I really hate the death wheel). I took 3/10s off the end of the shaft and everything buttoned up perfectly. The slightly bind in the steering is gone, as is any residual slop. I'm very excited to get it out on the road as it finally has the feel of a proper, manual steering set up.

To that end, the car is finally back on the ground after almost a year!
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Terrible picture, I know, but I don't have a whole lot of space in which to work. The ride height is currently in 4x4 territory, but I'm going to let it settle for a few days before I start messing with anything, to include the alignment.


It took far longer than it should have, but I finally got the front sway bar issues properly sorted.... backing up a bit, the pieces I chose for my suspension are not accidental. All of my decisions with regards to parts were made after reading Herb Adams articles on this chasis as well as Fred Puhn's "How To Make Your Car Handle". That was followed up with multiple conversations with Corvette Forum members with more knowledge and experience than I. To that end, I settled on retaining the factory springs and going to a SLIGHTLY bigger front bar.... the 13/16" bar out of the '73-'74 cars. This decision was based on many things, most notably the limitations of the 15" tire, and the fact that this will remain a street car, so ride quality was a consideration as well as predictable handling. These cars in stock form tend towards understeer with snap oversteer at the limits...obviously not ideal. The marginally bigger bar on a factory spring car with 15 inch tires is significantly more progressive and predictable at the limit.

The challenge however has been finding pillow block bushings to mount the C3 bar in the C2 chasis. There was no 13/16" bar available in the C2, and the C3 had significantly bigger sway bar mounting brackets, so finding a bushing, either rubber or poly, with a 13/16" inside diameter that would fit the C2 mounting brackets was impossible. As you can see from the photo below, I tried multiple different bushings to include C3 and C1. In the end, the right answer was a set of stock replacement 3/4" C2 poly bushings that I put in the freezer for a few days, and then clearanced another 16th with the dremel to properly fit the 13/16" bar. Some recommend rubber for the pillow blocks and poly for the end links because the bar does move slightly under load, and while the rubber will give, the poly will eventually wear. That being said, I chose to stick with the poly knowing that it I will need to replace them every so often as it was much easier to grind down the stiff poly vs. the rubber.

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The last little hiccup are my seat brackets. I thought I had measured very carefully before sending the dimensions out. You can see that the riser in the front is only .5" off the floor with the rear being 1.5" off the floor. This gives you a perfectly level mounting surface that just clears the carpet and padding when the feet are directly on the mounting points. This does however mean that you can't install the mounting bolts from the top. My solution was to drill out the threaded mounting points in the floor, have captive nuts welded to the brackets, and then install all of the bolts from under the car. This results in a very simple installation while keeping the seat as far down and aft as possible. The only issue is that the brackets are perfectly square in all dimensions, and the floor of the car is not, so once you have 3 or 4 of the bolts mounted the remaining holes are off by a 16th or two. The best solution I could think of was to start over. So I'm having another set of the exact same brackets fabricated, but without any mounting holes or captive nuts. Ill then coat the mounting points with blue dykem, and then mark the holes from the bottom of the car. After the holes are drilled, and verified, my buddy will weld the nuts onto the new brackets in the same fashion. I did a test fit with the seats, and I gain approximately a much needed inch in head room and an inch in leg room. The head room was especially nice as my hair no longer brushes the ceiling and I'm actually looking through the windshield as opposed to being eye level with the visor. As for weight, its roughly a wash with the stock seats. I forgot to put them on a scale before they went into storage, but if I were to guess, I'd say the new pieces and mounting bracket are 2-5 pounds lighter than factory....likely due to the lack or sliders.
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And one last pic because it makes me happy.....15" R-compound fake Good Years, Torque Thrusts, disc brakes, with Trans Am lugs...absolute perfection after I fix the ride height!!
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[FLYNAVY53]

Well...pulling a page from the book of 3 steps forward, 2 steps back, I give you:

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I had gotten everything buttoned up and was verifying the tension on the parking brake cable....specifically the last step in the AIM, verifying that the wheels spun freely with no drag when I heard a big "clunk" from the other side of the car. It would appear that the C-clip on that side fell out/let go. Initially I was pretty pissed. But in retrospect, it was probably good that it happened this way for a few reasons. To start with, the rear in this car has had a "clunk" when backing out of the garage ever since I brought it home. I'm just glad this didn't happen half way through power tour, on the highway or on some road trip in the middle of nowhere. Additionally, this may be part of my problem with getting the rear alignment dialed in.

So given my options, I've been in touch with one of the members on the Corvette forum about rebuild options. I'm leaning towards his standard "blueprint" build using a '72-'79 case, but he wanted me to pull this one out, open it up, and send him pics before we settle on a specific plan. Given that everything will need to come out, I dove right in after work.....

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In the interest of time, I cut the stock exhaust off. I had planned to eventually replace it...mostly because some of the welds in the mufflers had rusted through, and I hate doing things twice. Additionally, I hate how the factory exhaust doesn't have any way to remove just the mufflers to help access/work on the rear without removing the pipes all the way forward to the frame pass through. Whatever I decide to replace this system with, I'm going to have a shop weld in V-band clamps at the joint in front of the frame pass through, as well as just before the mufflers. This will make it much easier to remove and reinstall sections of the system to facilitate other maintenance in the future.

I managed to get the exhaust out, and the rear spring removed before the wife got home from work. I really hate the springs in these cars....front and rear. Initially I was against coil overs due to the fact that I'm not building a race car or pro touring poster child, but I've had the front and rear apart and back together enough times now that I would consider going coil overs just for the packaging convenience and ease of installation. Anyway, I luckily have tomorrow off, so I should be able to get the strut bracket removed, driveshaft and half shafts disconnected, and the diff dropped. Ill post pics once I've got it open and we can all compare notes on whatever carnage may or may not exist.

I made sure I had enough "supplies" to finish the job

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[FLYNAVY53]

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[OLDFLM]

C-clip let go... but why? And what's that chunk/dent in the diff about?

[FLYNAVY53]

Dont know, dont care. The ‘63-‘64 diffs are junk. I found a clean ‘79 core in CA that Im having shipped to a guy in CT that specializes in blueprinting and rebuilding Corvette differentials. Given my meager power levels and small tires, the diff will last forever.

[FLYNAVY53]

Not super exciting, but progress none the less....got the crusty original manifolds pulled. Those along with the hardware will be bagged and tagged and join my ever growing pile of original parts.

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In looking at the available space, I'm still not convinced that long tubes are going to fit in here due to the steering linkage from the R&P on the drivers side and the bracket holding the rack in place on the passenger side, but I guess we'll find out. At the moment, I have a set of American Racing Headers on order. They're designed for a '68-'79 Corvette, but given that the chassis are the same, they SHOULD work. ARH is allowing me to fit these at no risk, if they dont fit, they're allowing me to return them for a full refund. My fall back plan is the shorty headers that Stainless works makes.

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The last little bit of clean up before the headers arrive is to build two new battery cables, and reroute some of the wiring going to the starter. I dont like how they cross over what would be the collector area. Slightly longer battery cables will allow me to keep the whole harness along the firewall, then come directly forward from the back of the starter as opposed to going across that open space. That will make it easier to install the pipes without damaging the wires, and prevent them from touching any collector or mid pipes.

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[vette427-sbc]

Gary is the man when it comes to rebuilding these diffs... Like you said, better to find it now!

[FLYNAVY53]

Absolutely, and he's been great to work with. I've got a '79 core that should be here on Wednesday. After I verify its as advertised, Ill ship it up to him in CT. Fortunately, he's only a few weeks out on work as opposed to his usual few months.

[FLYNAVY53]

Ok, donor diff from CA just arrived. Its out of a '79 with 3.55 gears, so I'm going to reuse my '64 cover but the rest of it looks pretty good. Hoping to have it shipped off to Gary by this weekend or early next week at the latest. Given my modest power levels and skinny tires, I'm going with the Gary's standard "blueprint build" with 3.70 gears. Looking forward to getting this thing put back together!!

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[OLDFLM]

Looking forward to the progress... and pictures!

[David Sloan]

Nice Vette!
looking forward to updates!

[FLYNAVY53]

Decided to tackle the Hurst shifter while waiting on diff parts. I've been dreading this for a while, but decided to bite the bullet while the exhaust was already out and there were no seats in the car. Rest assured, it was as painful as advertised. I did use the aftermarket (not Hurst) steel bushings instead of the plastic pieces of crap that come with the kit. I also ended up making multiple hardware store runs as the assortment of nuts and bolts supplied with the kit is terrible. One key feature, I fed the shifter in from the top.....replacing the bulky lock washer and regular washer with slim Nord-Lok washers allowed both mounting bolts on the shifter body to slide far enough into the shifter to slide through the console. That was not possible with the stack of Home Depot hardware supplied with the kit.

Thankfully, everything worked perfectly after all the adjustments were made. It really does feel like a bolt action rifle now....zero slop. The cheap plastic shift ball and shifter lever are going to be replaced with much nicer pieces....unless Hurst wants to pay me for advertising their stuff...I only had them installed to adjust the stops.

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[FLYNAVY53]

New shift lever from Lokar. Its about an inch longer than the Hurst lever, but I like having the shifter a little closer to the steering wheel. The incrementally longer throw also takes just a bit of the effort out of the Hurst shifter while retaining the smooth mechanical feel. I like the brushed finish and the design as it plays well with the brushed dual spokes on the steering wheel.

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On to the shift knob.....this thing has a lot of history. Its an aftermarket leather knob from who knows where, that my dad ran in his Corvette back in the day....I believe a '78. When he sold the car when I was born, he kept the knob. He never got another Corvette, but the knob was always bouncing around in his office junk drawer. When I bought my first Corvette, a '99 FRC back in 2002 (with my monthly ROTC book/computer/meal stipend), I installed this knob on the shifter. Shortly there after, the lot boy at the local Chevy dealership took the car out for a joyride while it was in for some work, and flipped it at 110 miles per hour.

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I climbed the fence into the impound yard where the wreck was being kept for the insurance appraiser, specifically to retrieve the shift knob. It has since been in a 2002 Z06, 2003 Z06, 1968 Convertible, 1969 Convertible, and now, my '64 Coupe....which will likely be the last car it sees.

In order to get it to fit the Lokar lever, I had to remove the original thread insert, grind down the splines that held it in place, and then bond a new insert with the proper 3/8-16 thread pitch. It worked out well, and should tie everything together once I've got the console back in place with the black leather shift boot.

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[FLYNAVY53]

I ordered this leather shift boot from Red Line for $22. I was shacked at the quality of the Napa leather....and it perfectly matches the leather on my steering wheel.

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I used the retaining ring to mark the holes, then used the punch included in this grommet kit I bought off Amazon for $11. I then installed the grommets so that I wouldn't have to worry about the holes tearing with use.

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It installed as planned with no issues under the stock ring but on top of the factory rubber boot. I think it does a good job of cleaning up the center console in the car. I always hated the look of the rubber boot poking through.

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I was really hoping to get the entire center console buttoned up today, but when I went to install the replacement arm rest, I realized what an absolute piece of crap the aftermarket piece is. Its not square, and doesn't fit properly, so I decided to do what I should have done in the first place, and just take the original to the upholstery place that did my seats, and have them recover it in white leather.

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[FLYNAVY53]

Well, I've been hugely delinquent in updating this thread, but the good news is, I've also made big progress in that time...

Since I had to pull the old rusted exhaust off for the rear end rebuild, I decided to bite the bullet and do it right. I went with Stainless Works long tube headers, fabricated mid pipes, and Corvette Central's rear exhaust kit with Magna Flow mufflers. I also used the slightly bigger tips off the '68-'69 C3.

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[FLYNAVY53]

I also got the rear end back from Gary and installed. Its a 1979 case, with an NOS Eaton posi carrier and 3.73 gears. I found it easier to bolt everything together, and then inch it forward from the rear of the car as a unit. You can also see in the pics that I cleaned up the rear crossmember and installed new "sombrero" bushings and the Van Steel reinforcing kit.

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[FLYNAVY53]

I also finalized the seat mounting in the car. I ended up removing the factory arm rests from the door cards as well. They are kind of cheesy, aren't functional as arm rests, and really just encroached on my hip/leg room. So I went on Etsy (of all places) and found a girl that makes leather pulls for cabinets and ordered two in the size I needed in navy blue leather. I also ordered a spray can of interior dye that matched my interior color code, knowing that the shade of the leather was likely not going to match. I hit the door pulls with two coats of dye, and bolted them in. I think they look perfect, and are just as functional without taking up as much space.

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[FLYNAVY53]

And that brings me to where the car is now. After some issues with the brakes that required a change to a 1.0" bore master cylinder, the car is finally on the road. The brakes have been bed in, the alignment is done, and I'm half way through the 500 mile break in period on the diff. I still have a few projects to get to, but at this point, I'm calling stage one of this build complete. The plan is to drive it, beat on it, and expose any weak points or issues over the course of this spring and summer. After the holidays next year, Ill put it back up on the list for the second part of the build which will include a full rewire along with fuel injection and a few other bits. More to come....

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[thumper877]

Love the car and the white letter tires look great

[C Presley]

Bitchin Car Dude

[Dave Pratt]

My favourite year/favourite colour! Great work on the car...now drive the hell out of it!

[FLYNAVY53]

So a little back story....when I was initially deciding what I wanted to do to the suspension while I was doing the disc brake retrofit, I leaned heavily on Herb Adams' article about how to make the C2/C3 chasis handle like the then new C4, and the Corvette Handling book. Both sources recommend trimming 1/2 coil off the front springs to lower the ride height slightly, and increase the spring rate slightly, app. 10%. Factory small block springs at 280 lb while the Corvette Handling book recommends 300-350 lb springs. I never trimmed my springs when I put my suspension back together, but after putting 500 break in miles on the car, I wished I had. The performance and handling are exactly what I was looking for, but the ride height is too high in the front (personal opinion) and the factory small block springs are a nightmare to deal with if you have to do any sort of maintenance requiring their removal.

Ride height adjustability and ease of installation led me to start looking at some of the hybrid coil over kits. The hybrid set up is nice because it doesn't require any modification to the frame...the spring and shock mount in the factory locations. The key is that the bottom of the spring rests on a perch, threaded onto the shock body. This allows precise adjustment of the ride height. I ended up going with the set up from Viking. They have been around a few years and are well known in the C5/C6 and Pro Touring communities. I like the fact that they are made in the US, and if you call to ask questions, the tech guy may very likely be the owner of the company. The other selling point for me was that they offered a 350 lb spring....the lightest you can get from QA1 is 450 (which coincidentally is what Viking recommends for big block cars). Additionally, there is a roller bearing collar that fits in between the spring and the spring perch, thus making ride height adjustments a relatively easy affair. Viking only offers double adjustable shocks, which is overkill for my street car, but because they only offer double adjustable shocks, they're at a similar price point as most performance single adjustable shocks. As a point of reference, the Ride Tech shocks I had on the car were $785. The Viking front semi-coilovers with double adjustable shocks front and rear were $960...made in the USA out of billet aluminum. I was quite pleased with the quality of the set up, and the directions include a very comprehensive guide to getting the double adjustable shocks dialed in....I'm always leary of unnecessary adjustability, but the guide is a very good starting point.


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The switch to the semi-coilover did necessitate a change in lower control arms. Global West sells a lower control arm, similar to their factory replacement arms I had on the car, that has a reinforced mounting pad specifically designed to handle the load of a coil over. The minimum recommended thickness for mounting the coil over is 3/16 and the mounting surface on the Global West arms is 5/8.

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It took about 4 hours of total work from the time the car was on the ground, until everything was buttoned up and bolts torqued and striped. (yes the lock collar is backed off in this photo as I anticipate having to make some adjustments to the ride height after I see the car on the ground for the first time.)

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[FLYNAVY53]

I finally got a break in the weather this morning, so I decided to take the car out for a test drive....actively looking for the bumpiest roads in Norfolk, and to get a few side shots to judge the ride height from a distance.

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The ride quality is perfect....pretty much the same as the set up with the factory front springs and the Ride Tech shocks, so I'm very happy with those results. I gained the adjustability in ride height, while maintaining the ride and handling quality I already had. As far as the ride height at the moment, I'm inclined to leave it where it is.....at least for the time being. I have the factory castle nuts in the rear backed down as far as I can get them, while still getting a small cotter pin through the hole in the bolt. I did order a set of 7" bolts and nylock nuts from McMaster Carr in the event that i want to go slightly lower. The front still has plenty of adjustment in the coil overs, but I think the current setting did a good job of taking the gap out of the fender and bringing the nose down to level with the rear. Eventually, I may go down an additional half inch in the front and rear, but nothing more aggressive than that. For now, I plan on just driving it, and I'll reevaluate in a month or two.

[_BQ]

I recognized your username and car from CorvetteForum. Good to see another midyear here. I joined a few weeks ago and posted my twin turbo build...figured it might not be appreciated so much on CF...

Your car looks great. I’m hoping to do front coilovers soon...maybe they’ll tide me over until I can do a full chassis swap.

[FLYNAVY53]

Yea, the crowd over there can be a bit stuffy, but you can get a lot of good info from those guys. I've found that the purist/NCRS types are actually in the minority, they're just the most vocal on the forum. Theres a good contingent of us on there with varying levels of modified builds, and everyone enjoys seeing each others progress.

[_BQ]

I may post something more general over there. Probably not as in detail as here.

Your car is turning out awesome. How do you like the Sniper? I was using one until we converted to a conventional EFI setup for the new build.

[FLYNAVY53]

I may post something more general over there. Probably not as in detail as here.

Your car is turning out awesome. How do you like the Sniper? I was using one until we converted to a conventional EFI setup for the new build.

Haven't gotten to the fuel injection yet....still running the original Holley 4150. I am running the Terminator on my LS swapped C20 Suburban and really like it. The integrated trans controller for the built 4L65E really does a good job of keeping the engine and trans in sync, especially at part throttle driving and down shifts.

[OLDFLM]

I've got the Holley Terminator TBI on my Firebird now with a Rick's Restomod tank and drop-in GM fuel module and love the super clean install... along with proven GM engineering and parts availability.

[FLYNAVY53]

I've got the Holley Terminator TBI on my Firebird now with a Rick's Restomod tank and drop-in GM fuel module and love the super clean install... along with proven GM engineering and parts availability.

Is that GM fuel module returnless?

[OLDFLM]

Yes, it's returnless! ACDELCO MU1959 includes the regulator, filter and fuel level sender... just get the Gen4 fuel pressure regulator and adapter from Carl at VaporWorx and you're all set!

[FLYNAVY53]

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[David Sloan]

That's a cool picture
I wonder how old that establishment / building is ?

[andrewb70]

Very cool Corvette! I think the ride height is perfect. I would not go any lower.

If I can be of service with any Holley related tuning or wiring, please let me know.

Andrew

[FLYNAVY53]

Very cool Corvette! I think the ride height is perfect. I would not go any lower.

If I can be of service with any Holley related tuning or wiring, please let me know.

Andrew

Andrew, agreed completely....as you can see, it settled a bit in that last picture compared to those from March. The ride height is exactly where I wanted it. I will definitely give you a shout when/if I get to the fuel injection. Right now, Ive got the motor running so well with the rebuilt carb, I'm tempted not to mess with it. I've got a dyno tune scheduled for the 28th of the month with a wide-band O2, so I'm hoping Abacus Racing will be able to dial in the carb and timing well beyond my rudimentary skills.

[68EFIvert]

That is a great picture and stance. Good luck on the 28th. Always a fun day when the car is on the dyno.

[C Presley]

2 words describe this Car... Bitchin Corvette

[_BQ]

Love it.

[FLYNAVY53]

Thanks guys, I’ve had this “European influenced” Corvette build kicking around in my head for years now....it’s been fun to see it finally come together. Next up will be figuring out how to mount a Tilton or Wilwood pedal assembly to fix the terrible ergonomics and provide a brake pedal with a correct manual brake pedal ratio.

[FLYNAVY53]

Another small update...as I like to get the car on the lift and give it a good once over every couple hundred miles, just to make sure everything is functioning as intended. I've made a point of specifically not babying the car...full throttle short shifts up on ramps, full speed over railroad tracks, etc. I want this thing to be as reliable as possible, so I'm not opposed to breaking things in the short term.

To that end, it was clear on our last drive that we banged a bump stop at least twice that I can remember....and the stops told the tale...

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The good news is, they are functioning as advertised....and no longer clipping any brake lines, or other parts of the suspension. The bad news is, we didn't really hit anything terribly aggressive. The fact that I kissed the bump stops twice, combined with the oil line on the shocks showing how far they compressed, seems to be a good indication that my shock settings are a little soft, even for street use.

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Going into the double adjustable shocks, I knew I had set them up on the soft side of things. I wanted to get a feel for just how soft, "soft" was. Compression and Rebound both have 16 clicks of adjustment. 1 being the softest, and 16 the hardest. Viking does a very good job providing you initial settings, as well as general rules for tuning the shocks.

For a street set up, they recommend:

Front 1-4 compression/ 4-8 rebound
Rear 0-3 compression/ 2-5 rebound

They also state that generally rebound should be 2-6 clicks stiffer than compression. My initial set up was 2/6 in the front and 1/3 in the rear. Based on the bump stop contact, and the fact that the car has a tendency to bounce a lot when coasting in neutral at low speed, it was relatively apparent that I needed to stiffen things up a bit. In doing some research on how to tune double adjustable shocks, I found this very general chart from the guys over at Grassroots Motorsports. It seems to agree with my findings.

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Most guys I could find running the Viking shocks on other forums said that 2 clicks in any direction was minimally noticeable, and 4 clicks was a significant change...so I split the middle and went up 3 on compression and rebound at all 4 corners. I'm looking forward to getting some more miles on the car this weekend to see how it responds.

[_BQ]

Great info. I have Viking coilovers ready to go on the fronts and double adjustables for the rears of my ‘64. Have never fooled with adjustable shocks before.

[FLYNAVY53]

Great info. I have Viking coilovers ready to go on the fronts and double adjustables for the rears of my ‘64. Have never fooled with adjustable shocks before.


What spring rate did you go with on the fronts? I found that the 350# springs in the front go really well with the factory 140# leaf in the rear.

[_BQ]

It’s the 350s in the front. I am switching to a composite spring in the rear, so we’ll see how that goes. I believe the composite spring is 355 pounds.

If the composite spring doesn’t work out, I can put it on the ‘71.

[FLYNAVY53]

It’s the 350s in the front. I am switching to a composite spring in the rear, so we’ll see how that goes. I believe the composite spring is 355 pounds.

If the composite spring doesn’t work out, I can put it on the ‘71.


Yea, Ill be curious to hear how that works....

As a reference, the stock small block springs were 280/140 with a 3/4 front sway bar and the big block/F40 springs were 550/305 with a 15/16 bar. With the added weight of the turbo set up, your small block MIGHT be approaching the weight of the factory big block. If thats the case, you may find that you're better off keeping that composite spring in the rear, and swapping the fronts out to the heavier Viking springs as well as upping the front sway bar diameter.

[_BQ]

Yea, Ill be curious to hear how that works....

As a reference, the stock small block springs were 280/140 with a 3/4 front sway bar and the big block/F40 springs were 550/305 with a 15/16 bar. With the added weight of the turbo set up, your small block MIGHT be approaching the weight of the factory big block. If thats the case, you may find that you're better off keeping that composite spring in the rear, and swapping the fronts out to the heavier Viking springs as well as upping the front sway bar diameter.

Yeah it’s one of those things I’m just going to have to try out and see. I added weight with the turbos, but we scrapped a lot of weight at the same time, between the accessories, new radiator and fan shroud setup, etc. Hopefully the weight gain was minimal. Won’t know until I get everything installed and start tuning the ride.

[_BQ]

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Well, the hood is on. I feel like that is a good sign.

Like pretty much everyone else, 2020 has put us through the ringer. There have been delays on this build but we’re moving forward and are finally approaching the finish line (fingers crossed).

The car is idling with no leaks. This is big progress. We also struggled with the cooling system holding air pockets and have remedied that situation as well. Only some minor tweaking to the final overflow setup and it’s finished.

These panels are fabricated to protect the hood just above the turbos. The location for these couldn’t have worked out better.
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Driveability tune is inbound. Then off to dyno.

Soon.

[RMMiller]

Stealthy, I like it! Sure wish I would have just knuckled down and bought one of these in my 20's when they were relatively cheap, they are the sexiest Corvette to roll off the line.


179585Like pretty much everyone else, 2020 has put us through the ringer. There have been delays on this build but we’re moving forward and are finally approaching the finish line (fingers crossed).

I guess I get to be the exception, I made more headway on my turd this year than I have in a long time. I was fortunate enough to have time off with pay during the early part of the year. My wife was working at home so I spent a bunch of time in the garage to let her concentrate and the car saw some actual progress.

- - - Updated - - -

Stealthy, I like it! Sure wish I would have just knuckled down and bought one of these in my 20's when they were relatively cheap, they are the sexiest Corvette to roll off the line.


179585Like pretty much everyone else, 2020 has put us through the ringer. There have been delays on this build but we’re moving forward and are finally approaching the finish line (fingers crossed).

I guess I get to be the exception, I made more headway on my turd this year than I have in a long time. I was fortunate enough to have time off with pay during the early part of the year. My wife was working at home so I spent a bunch of time in the garage to let her concentrate and the car saw some actual progress.

[_BQ]

I just realized I posted my updates in the wrong 1964 Corvette thread. Sheesh.

My bad FlyNavy.

[FLYNAVY53]

hahaha....the best part is, I read your update, and didn't even realize it was in my thread!

[_BQ]

LOL that’s awesome

[C Presley]

Love the Stance of the Corvette. Excellent work and choices.

[redmanf1]

Nice mod's, great looking car..

[jimco84x]

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Just found your build thread. I love the period road racer type look you are going with.

I'll tell you honestly though, There is something totally bad-ass about the simple, understated look with the black steelies.

[FLYNAVY53]

Just found your build thread. I love the period road racer type look you are going with.

I'll tell you honestly though, There is something totally bad-ass about the simple, understated look with the black steelies.

Agreed....I may get a set of black 17 inch steelies with some more modern rubber at some point....just to alternate the look a bit.

I really wish a set of vintage, made in the USA TT2s weren't $4500+ as thats what Id really like to have on the car.

[jimco84x]

I really wish a set of vintage, made in the USA TT2s weren't $4500+ as thats what Id really like to have on the car.

That is a bunch of money for old 15 inch wheels. We both know that the right wheels can make or break the entire build, but I don't know if I could do $4500 for a set of wheels that wasn't pure track car. New repro TT2's are out there, but it just isn't the same. Not many wheels made in the USA at all anymore.

[FLYNAVY53]

Agreed completely. Its hard to justify that amount for old 15" wheels when you can get a set of Made the USA Forgelines or CCWs for about that money. Since PS Engineering got bought up by Coker, who has not thus far continued to offer their wheels, there are no Made in the USA 15" wheels available.

The mini-lite repros made by Trans Am Engineering may be an option as they're made in Australia and have a good record on the track.

[Motown 454]

They do look Sweet!

[FLYNAVY53]

This thread is long overdue for an update....though I don't have anything super exciting, as I've put more miles on the car, I've found plenty that needed fixing in the name of reliability.

We'll start with my failed attempt at a dyno tune. Theres a local shop race shop that also does tuning, so I made an appointment as I knew the car was running pig rich, and I was sure the timing could probably be tweaked a bit. Abacus Racing started by welding two bungs into the exhaust just downstream of the header collectors in order to be able to use a wide band O2 gauge with the car on the dyno.

All was looking good, but we found that timing was breaking up above 4K RPM to the tune of +/- 10 degrees...

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On further investigation, we found that the stock distributor had excessive up and down play....roughly 4 times the factory spec. I looked into rebuild options, but found they were all far more expensive and time consuming than just switching to an MSD distributor and box. Additionally, we found that the original water pump was puking its guts out at high RPM, so a new water pump was in order.

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So I moved on to a Stewart STG 2 aluminum pump, with the appropriate thermostat, and the MSD billet distributor, ignition box, and coil. I mounted the box inside the car, under the glove box. A lot of people complain about the MSD boxes failing, but generally, those same people have the box mounted in the engine compartment near heat. I used one of the mounting holes in the firewall for the factory sound deadening to install an aluminum grommet and pass the wires to the distributor. I used the same trick with the coil mounting bracket so as to not drill any new holes.

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I also cut up a custom set of wires using Accel's ceramic boot wires and some trick separators from Squeegs Hot Rods.

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Coming off the dyno, I also found that the factory half shafts were slinging liquified grease EVERYWHERE. So it was time for a rebuild...

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So that brings us pretty much up to speed. I've been driving the car regularly when the weather permits. It has a hard starting issue when its been sitting for a while, which I suspect is a fuel pump on its last legs...I have one on order. We're moving to Austin in June, so I need to get this thing completely sorted as I plan on a cross country road trip sometime in April to drop the car at our house and fly back as I dont trust Navy movers to move the car undamaged. Plus, I'm excited about a 4 day cross country drive taking only back roads in the car.

More to follow...

- - - Updated - - -

Also, new dyno appointment coming soon....

[OLDFLM]

A Holley Terminator TBI with a dual sync dizzy will fix all your fuel and timing problems!

Great update! Still one of my favorite builds on this site!

[FLYNAVY53]

That is on the agenda, however its going to wait until we’re all moved to Texas as Im going to rewire the entire car, which will encompass the fuel injection and fuel system, cooling upgrade, and an instrument cluster restoration/modification.

[andrewb70]

With TBI there is no need to use a dual synch. I would use a TerminatorX Stealth with a Sniper distributor and HyperSpark box.

[FLYNAVY53]

Yea, the plan is to use the full Holley set up with their distributor

[andrewb70]

Yea, the plan is to use the full Holley set up with their distributor

Let me know if I can help with tuning.

Andrew

[FLYNAVY53]

Definitely!

[andrewb70]

Definitely!

Shoot me an email if you want to discuss options.

Projectgattago at gmail dot com

[SPLATT71MC]

Great looking Vette. Just needs some white gumballs and some numbers on it.

[FLYNAVY53]

Thanks....its has crossed my mind. I keep going back and forth about pulling the bumpers as well to complete the look.

[FLYNAVY53]

I thrashed on the car for the last few weeks to get all the final details ready for a cross country drive to Austin including a new fuel pump, new high torque starter and getting the timing dialed in on the MSD ignition. We will be moving permanently at the beginning of June, but with multiple vehicles that I dont trust to the care of Navy movers, I decided the best course of action was to burn some leave and enjoy a cross country road trip. A good buddy of mine from college flew in to assist with the driving/breakdowns/hijinx. We took all B roads, and did it over the course of 6 days in an effort to provide ample time for break downs, breweries (and the end of the day) and side adventures. The tentative schedule was:

27 MAR - Norfolk VA to Danville VA
28 MAR - Danville VA to Asheville NC
29 MAR Asheville NC to Chattanooga TN
30 MAR Chattanooga TN to Oxford MS
31 MAR Oxford MS to Lake Charles LA
01 APR Lake Charles LA to Austin TX

We made it on time and casualties were limited to:

-1 brake line
- speedometer
- tachometer
- odometer
- battery
- driver door lock

In general, I couldn't be happier with the car. It cruises great at 75 mph, even with the 4 spd and 3.73 gears. The exhaust selection is perfect as it rips at WOT but is barely audible at cruise. There is a bit of gear wine from the built differential, but that was expected. I'm also super happy with all of the ergonomic changes I made....I was still anticipating to feel beat up after a few hours but even after 6-7 hours straight, I didn't feel any worse than I would in any modern car.

Areas that definitely still need addressing include the steering....the manual rack and pinion with the sticky tires and smaller steering wheel is too tough to enjoy around town. I may look into adding electric assist, or going back to a power box....we'll see.

Additionally, the pedal assembly NEEDS to be addressed. The brake pedal is much too high for proper heel-toe downshifts, and the power pedal ratio with a manual brake application requires far too much effort.

That being said, I'm very happy with the car and look forward to the next round of modifications. Enjoy the cross country photo dump!

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And finally at home in the new shop....very excited to be out of a one car garage for the first time in my life!!!

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[C Presley]

Nice Ride Dude! Pic in front of a SR71 too! Both are Classics.

[Motown 454]

Glad you had a good trip with few problems. It must have been a fun ride. I agree great picture with the SR71. Nice shop.

[andrewb70]

What am awesome roadtrip!

Andrew

[FLYNAVY53]

Nice Ride Dude! Pic in front of a SR71 too! Both are Classics.

Fun fact, its actually one of the 13 A-12's built for the CIA.....the predecessor to the SR-71. The big giveaway is the lack of a rear cockpit among other small details.

[FLYNAVY53]

Finally time to resurrect this thread....lots of life stuff since the last update but I'm finally back to working on the car after the move to Austin. It took a while, but I finally got my "shop" set up the way I wanted it.

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First project was to remove the 1.0" master cylinder I had been running for the Wilwood 15/16" master cylinder and the pushrod specifically spec'd for the C2 Corvette. The pedal ratio still isnt correct in these cars for a manual brake application, but the change was definitely a step in the right direction, and the best its going to be without changing the pedal ratio completely....something Ill eventually get to down the road.

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Next up, as much as I hated to do it, I decided the car needed power steering. I very much want to keep this car as analog as possible, but with the smaller steering wheel, and sticky tires, the change was a must. I decided to go a little different route and instead of buying the usual gen 1 pump with the "canned ham" reservoir, I found a bracket that Detroit Speed sells enabling the use of the GM Type II pump off the LS motor. I like this set up because it allows the use of a flow regulator to limit output all the way down to 2-2.5 GPM as I still wanted to have some effort required in the steering. I'm using the Borgeson steering box, along with a remote Detroit Speed reservoir I mounted to the core support. I fabricated all the lines myself using Fragola PTFE hose and fittings. The benefit to the remote reservoir is that the increased volume "should" negate the need for a power steering cooler...we'll see.

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I only have about 100 miles on the set up, but so far, I'm VERY happy with it.

The next project was to replace the factory rear, transverse leaf spring suspension with Ride Tech's suspension kit and Viking Coil-Overs to match what I'm running in the front. I spec'd the springs to match the spring rate of the factory transverse spring, as the car rides and handles great. The point of this change was to make ride height adjustable, and to lose some weight. All in, I lost 41 lbs by ditching the factory set up.

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Thats where the car sits at the moment. I still need to adjust the ride height, then get it on the ground and go through the painful process of aligning the rear trailing arms...1/32 toe-in on each side with a half degree of negative camber.

I do have a few more projects on deck...

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[brickwhite]

Sweet,love this build.

Did you have to change the front arms to use the viking coilovers?

[FLYNAVY53]

Yes, if you go back to post #63, you can see I used the Global West upper and lower control arms. The lowers are specifically designed for use with coil overs. The upper portion of the coil over sits in the factory frame spring pocket and mounts to the factory shock location. That technically makes it a "semi-coil over" I suppose...but functionally, its the same.

[brickwhite]

Any updates? did you get the Trans in yet?

I'm going to go with the 15x6 AM VN105 TORQ THRUST D on my 64.

But still wavering on a Tire... The Avon looks great and seems sticky but I wonder with lack of more treads how would it be in the rain?

The Pirelli Stelvio or the Michelin XWX (same price as the avon or more) seem like a good choice also.. doing more research.

[FLYNAVY53]

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Just finished the alignment this afternoon...the rear trailing arms are tedious because I have to re-square the string set up after every adjustment. I havent started on the transmission yet...

I went down a rabbit hole of getting some more supportive seats in the car, which led to teaching myself how to use Fusion 360 so that I could design some proper seat mounts....

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Now I'm waiting for the parts to come back from Send-Cut-Send so that I can weld them up and test fit the seats. Once thats done, I want to put a few miles on the car to get the ride height and shock settings dialed in and verify my alignment before I put the car back in the garage for the transmission swap.

As far as tires go, I cant comment on the other options, but I found the Avons to be perfectly stable in the rain. I wasn't running any canyons or doing anything aggressive on them in wet conditions, but we got rained on multiple times while driving cross country and they handled predictably at speed. In spirited driving in dry conditions, I think you'll be very happy with them!

[1968driver]

awesome writeup man. beautiful ride.

[FLYNAVY53]

Thanks!....it's been a long process but it's getting there finally. If anyone has some used race scales they're looking to sell, I'm in the market. I need to corner balance this thing and do some math to figure out if I've got the correct spring rates in this thing.

[ryeguy2006a]

Looks great, and love that garage! How did you do that floor? Looks really cool. Also just noticed you are in Norfolk. I'm just north of Charlottesville.

[FLYNAVY53]

Thanks....funny you mention the garage floors... They were stained concrete when the home was originally built in 2007, but over the years, the stain has been pulled up due to hot tires being parked on it. It also has plenty of scratches, tape marks, etc. Some day, I'd love to redo the floors in porcelain tile that looks like hardwood but that would be a pricey undertaking.

For better or worse, I currently live in Austin TX. I was stationed in Norfolk for 10 yeas, and made many trips to Richmond and Charlottesville on the weekends, but we left in 2021. I do miss thinks like green grass, rain, and you know.....seasons!

[brickwhite]

got my Avon's , well one... waiting on the others... We'll see if I can get all 4.

Do you remember the size of the GoodYear letters you put on your tires? 1 inch? Did yo have to shave the hairs off the side walls?


Found out Avon is closing their factory in UK and sold the name / tire to another company so Nova is the new name of the company and will not start production till Spring of 24... :(. This is what Roger told me from Roger Kraus racing.



Also, when you upgraded your front springs to Viking, you used a 350lb spring are you glad you did? Or would a 250 be closer to stock?

Their website is terrible.

[FLYNAVY53]

Yes, the white Good Year letters I used are 1 inch tall. I mocked them up before applying the adhesive and just used a nail clipper to trim any tire nubs that interfered.

Thats unfortunate to hear about Avon....it seems like every time a small market company gets bought out, the niche products are the first thing cut from the production line. I had a set of wheels on order with Vintage Wheel Works when they were acquired by Coker. Got my money back, but really wanted the wheels.

As far as spring rate, I found the 350 pound springs in the front were just right at a 1 inch lowered ride height. I think 250 would be too light and 450 way too stiff unless you have a big block motor.

[FLYNAVY53]

Borrowed a gantry from a buddy of mine that just barely fits in my garage with the wheels off...hold my beer.....



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[FLYNAVY53]

Got the motor and trans out, started disassembly and cleaning of the parts that will be going back on. All black parts are getting painted with "Steel-It" while the motor and anything else orange will be painted using Eastwoods 2K AeroSpray engine paint. More to come once my engine stand gets delivered.

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[FLYNAVY53]

Here's the Steel-It paint I use for anything flat black. It's by far the best product I've found if a can with regard to durability and how it lays out.

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I also spent some time cleaning up the factory aluminum intake. This will likely go back on the car despite the fact that I have a '69 Z/28 service replacement intake in my parts collection. The Z/28 intake is a slightly better design than the factory L76 intake but it also sits roughly 1/2" taller, which can lead to hood clearance issues under the factory small block Corvette hood. I have seen guys machine a bit of material off the Z/28 carb mounting pad to get it to fit, but at my current power levels, it's probably not worth the effort.

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[ryeguy2006a]

I'll have to check out that Steel It product! Looks great.

[FLYNAVY53]

I'll have to check out that Steel It product! Looks great.

I've had good luck too, if you prefer a more satin or gloss finish, painting the part in steel-it, then doing a top coat in VHT's Chassis/Roll Bar paint.

And for what it's worth, I painted my mailbox in the Steel It two years ago....it's faded slightly in the laser beam that is the Texas sun, but overall I'm pretty happy with how its weathered.

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[FLYNAVY53]

Everyone loves a good bit of "project creep", so here we go.... Ive got a new set of Tillett Racing seats to put in the car, and we'll get to those later. But in order to make sure I had the measurements for the mounts properly taken and the design finalized, I pulled up the carpet to get to the floor board. That led to the decision to pull up all the jute insulation to replace with something more effective and less musty smelling. I'm open to suggestions....leaning towards DynaLiner. I'm not concerned about noise or rattles as it's a fiberglass car, just thermal protection as the floors got pretty hot in the Texas summer with just the old jute insulation.

While I was at it, I decided to remove the inoperable heater box and core. At some point down the road, I may decide to install Vintage Air, but for now, I pulled the whole assembly and will install the firewall block off plate from Dynamic Corvette.

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[FLYNAVY53]

The last step before things start going back into the car was to get the motor on the stand, and push the car into the driveway to give it a quick rinse and a wash/degrease of the engine bay.

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[c3rocket]

I like your vette keep the pics coming and you will really like the borgeson box and vintage air if you do it .

[FLYNAVY53]

I like your vette keep the pics coming and you will really like the borgeson box and vintage air if you do it .

That sir, is one angry looking C2....love it!

[Jimbo1367]

Man that’s a beautiful car!!!

[FLYNAVY53]

Been doing a lot of work on the car, but nothing particularly exciting or photogenic. Lots of cleaning and painting parts. I did a test run on some of the accessory pieces using the Eastwood 2K aerosol paints. They dont lie, it's as close to a spray gun as you're going to get out of a can. That being said, it is expensive, and the coverage is VERY thin. It took 6 coats for a total of 2 cans just to do the oil pan, bell housing, and a few other pieces. The finish is very nice so I ordered another 4 to do the engine with.

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Speaking of the engine...when I dropped the oil pan, I noticed that at some point in its prior life, a beaver had made its way into the motor, and chewed up some of the baffling in the pan...

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There was also dozens of small dings in the bottom of the pan. My assumption that a rod let go at some point in the past was confirmed when I flipped the engine over and looked at the rotating assembly. It's not as apparent in the photo, but the number 1 rod is actually a lighter gray than the other 7.

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On closer inspection, I confirmed one of my big fears which is that when this motor was rebuilt during the restoration in '79-'82, the engine builder reused the factory rods (or at least 7 of them). The early 327 rods were prone to developing cracks where the rod bolt head seats. Starting in 1966, the rods had material added to them in that area to prevent the issue. From what I've been told, it's a matter of when, not if one or more will fail.

So for now, the plan is to put it all back together and drive it, but maybe dial back to frequency of the 7000 RPM blasts. Ive been kicking around some ideas for a replacement in the future, with my current line of thinking being Dart SHP bored 30 over, Lunati XL Extreme Lightweight rotating assembly, AFR 210s, and a solid lifter comp cam. That should give me a snotty little 357 at about 10.5:1 compression that has the same characteristics as the factory L76 but with more power and torque across the board. Then I can pull the factory motor back out, clean it up, and turn it into a coffee table or something.

While I had everything pulled apart, I went ahead and replaced the cam bolts with ARP bolts and red Loc-tite just for piece of mind. I also installed an aluminum timing cover to replace the factory piece....it's a little bit beefier so hopefully it will seal better. Additionally, it gets rid of the tac welded timing pointer as I'm dropping from the 8 inch factory balancer down to a 7 inch ATI balancer and a bolt on pointer.

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The factory oil pan went back on with a 1 piece Fel-Pro gasket, ARP studs, and one of those oil pan girdles to help evenly distribute the torque and hopefully seal up better than before.

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I completed an initial cleaning with purple power and taped everything up. Once the paint arrives, I'll do a final wipe down with brake cleaner and hopefully have it at least in primer by the weekend.

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[Vjjack03]

FlyNavy53,
Johnny J. here from Hereford AZ. I posted a few responses and such over the years on Corvette Forum. Man you post a good, detailed thread. I, of course, am in a different direction with SRIII chassis and LS but still have the same hot rod thought process so its good to see what you are doing. I don't have any points or comments except one, and I am sure you have thought some about it. As you know, if you intend to put in a vintage air unit, going ahead now will make it that much easier. The unit has so much behind the front box that is is a "bear" to deal with. I also put a piece of fiberglass over the original firewall hole. I glued it in and then smoothed if with filler. I was just thinking about it as I typed. If you could put that Dynamic Corvettes filler panel in with small button head screws to make it an access panel, not a permanently glued in piece, it the long run it would help with access when you do put in Vintage Air. The vintage air hose connections are right there and if they leak you have to pull the box. Anyway, just a thought.

[FLYNAVY53]

Hey Johnny! Love the LS and SRIII combo, it's just beyond the scope of this project, both in cost and performance. I do love the LS platform and in looking for a replacement motor for this car, I had considered it but in doing the math, building what is essentially a circle track small block with super light weight rotating assembly will cost the same as a base LS3 with heads and cam. If that were the only costs associated, I might still go LS, but then theres the additional expense in motor mounts, ECU, fuel system, headers, radiator, accessory drive, converting to a hydraulic clutch, etc. It would rapidly exceed double the cost of the motor to complete the swap....at least if I did it to the level I would want to.

So for now, the plan is to build a replacement small block that will be a simple swap when the time comes. As for the vintage air, I hear what you're saying and completely agree with you. That being said, I really dont want to put a/c on this car. I'm trying to keep it as mechanically simple and bare bones as possible. I'm hoping that Dyna-Liner on the interior and DEI heat shield in the trans tunnel will help keep excess heat out of the cabin. My plan with the Dynamic Corvettes heater block off panel is to use nut certs in the factory firewall holes and stainless button head bolts as you described. When I rewire the car, that will not only provide an access panel, but also a place to drill a hole for a single aviation style bulkhead connector for the harness to pass into the engine bay without drilling any holes in the factory firewall.

More to come!

[FLYNAVY53]

Pain finally showed up....this is what $280 in rattle cans looks like. A little pricey, but if you dont have a compressor and gun, probably your best option.

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I randomly mocked up the water pump and realized that it no longer fit with the cast aluminum timing cover...the interference point is the bolts on the back of the pump, so I'm going to replace them with 1/4-20 stainless button head bolts without washers and that should solve the interference issue. Just another one of those issues when you're mixing aftermarket aluminum water pump with aftermarket aluminum timing chain cover.

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After some intense yet disorganized Hot Wheels with my 3 year old, I moved on to prepping to spray the motor with primer....doh!

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Through much back strain, I got the motor outside and primed. Very happy with the way this stuff layed down. Two good coats, just under one full can. I moved it back into the climate controlled garage over night since its 1 million% humid here tonight and hopefully I can spray the orange paint tomorrow.

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[Dodge383fi]

Progress looks great.
You have the same crane I do. Have you thought about something like:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09HKK1VSK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

& something like:

https://www.harborfreight.com/1300-lb-electric-hoist-with-remote-control-62853.html

I have them and it makes life easier, especially with my bad back.

[Vjjack03]

FlyNavy, I like your plan on the car, you seem to be keeping a "race-e" theme but addressing the little things across the spectrum. Solid lifter SBC will be awesome.....and wow, spray can paint is getting out of control. I recently bought some SEM Trim black and its over $20 a can. Hard to believe. Anyway, your engine paint job is pretty cool. It all should be fun when back together. I know you drive that thing, hard.

[FLYNAVY53]

Progress looks great.
You have the same crane I do. Have you thought about something like:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09HKK1VSK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

& something like:

https://www.harborfreight.com/1300-lb-electric-hoist-with-remote-control-62853.html

I have them and it makes life easier, especially with my bad back.


That gantry crane I'm using is actually borrowed from a buddy of mine. At some point, I'm going to open up the ceiling in the shop and see if I can run a steel I beam between the two sets of pillars supporting the middle and rear of the house and then run another I beam between those to have something of a permanent overhead crane that can move forward and aft in the back half of the garage.

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[FLYNAVY53]

FlyNavy, I like your plan on the car, you seem to be keeping a "race-e" theme but addressing the little things across the spectrum. Solid lifter SBC will be awesome.....and wow, spray can paint is getting out of control. I recently bought some SEM Trim black and it's hanksover $20 a can. Hard to believe. Anyway, your engine paint job is pretty cool. It all should be fun when back together. I know you drive that thing, hard.

Thanks....my vision for this car has always been something of the American version of the "outlaw" 911s that have been so popular the last 10 years. Light weight, super sharp, and well balanced. I'm excited to get this thing on the scales and see where it is weight wise. I'm hoping to be under 3000 lbs with a half tank of gas. We'll see.

[FLYNAVY53]

It's not perfect, but I'm happy for my first attempt at painting a full motor. Whenever I get around to building a replacement, I'll probably spray the block the same way, but leave the heads raw aluminum. I kinda like the all aluminum top end on the painted block.

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I'll let this sit in the climate controlled garage for a few days to make sure everything has set properly and probably move it back to the engine feet and start reassembly on Tuesday.

[brickwhite]

Is the TKX next? What ratios is you choose?

Are you going hydraulic clutch or standard mechanical?

The engine looks great, did the Water pump fit with the new bolts?

The freeze has started up north here so my C2 update projects will start here as well.

[Vjjack03]

FlyNavy,
Saw your suburban in the other thread. I am working on a friends blazer right now. Just finished a wiring harness. Next will be sorting the transmission and steering column. Doesn't shift right. The car sat for 7-8 years....fun found the desert rat living in it a day after I brought it home. Had been sitting in the body shop overflow yard for all those years....
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[FLYNAVY53]

Is the TKX next? What ratios is you choose?

Are you going hydraulic clutch or standard mechanical?

The engine looks great, did the Water pump fit with the new bolts?

The freeze has started up north here so my C2 update projects will start here as well.

Getting close on the TKX....should be working through aligning the bell housing by the end of the week. I went with the close ratio with the bigger overdrive....cant remember what the ratio is off the top of my head. I'm sticking with the mechanical clutch for now. A future project is to attempt to swap a set of Tilton over hung pedals into the car, which would require the switch to a hydraulic set up but Ill probably hold off on that until I build the new motor down the road. I do need to rebuild the current pedal box as its got a bunch of play in the bearings.

The button head bolts helped the water pump fit, but I found that the stamped and contoured rear cover on the pump were still just barely interfering with the timing cover. I pulled the back of the pump off to see how much clearance I had inside the case, thinking that if I just used the cover as a template and made another one that was perfectly flat, Id have clearance but the cover is contoured for a reason. The pump shaft sticks through the impeller slightly. What I did realize is that Stewart used an unnecessarily thick gasket on the back cover...about an 1/8th of an inch. So I removed that, cleaned up the surface, and ordered a Fel-pro gasket thats much thinner and should be here tomorrow. That should provide the clearance I need. In addition, I ordered a set of extra thick gaskets for where the pump mates to the block. That should also push the pump out an additional few millimeters. I'm not worried about belt alignment on the pulley because I previously had a shim between the pulley and the water pump snout to get the mechanical fan where it needed to be in the fan shroud. Thats all being replaced with an electric fan and a DeWitt radiator, so I can pull that shim out and everything should still line up properly even with the thicker gaskets on the water pump.

[FLYNAVY53]

FlyNavy,
Saw your suburban in the other thread. I am working on a friends blazer right now. Just finished a wiring harness. Next will be sorting the transmission and steering column. Doesn't shift right. The car sat for 7-8 years....fun found the desert rat living in it a day after I brought it home. Had been sitting in the body shop overflow yard for all those years....


That Blazer is cool....and the price of those things has gone through the roof though I dont know if lifted 4wd and slammed 2wd bring the same money. Either way, really cool trucks. I enjoy having the two extremes on the spectrum...the Suburban for when we need to take both kids, the dog, the wagon, the cooler, etc. And the Corvette when its just me and the wife.

[FLYNAVY53]

The work progresses, though sometimes it feels like running in waist deep water. The first fun one was the other night when my 3 year old decided he was going to "help" by dropping the little 1/4-20 bolts from the timing cover INTO the spark plug holes. That led to about an hour with the motor in all sorts of convoluted angles and me with a magnet on a stick. I was extremely happy I sprung for the fancy engine stand with the hand crank and infinite adjustability!!

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After that fiasco, I decided to at least show him what the right answer was, even if he probably wont remember it...

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So, lots of freshly cleaned and painted shiny parts waiting to go back together... I got the intake and the valve covers back on with some fresh false advertising stickers. Richard Holdner put one of these motors on the dyne with long tubes, no accessories, and a perfect tune, and it only made 355 hp so the GM rating of 365 was more than a bit optimistic.

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Today, my plan was to get my fancy McLeod 15 lb aluminum flywheel installed, and then get the equally fancy ATI damper pressed on the front. In order to ensure I had the damper installed and indicating TDC correctly, I set the motor to TDC using the dots on the cam and crank sprockets before I installed the timing cover. My plan was to then install the flywheel, and use one of those nifty locking tools that mounts on the dowel in the back of the motor and physically locks the flywheel in place and prevents the motor from moving. Then I was going to press the balancer on, and set my timing pointer.

My plan was foiled when the bolts for the flywheel passed through the crank flange and hit the engine block....despite calling McLeod, to verify that this flywheel needed standard length bolts, which are 1.00" before I ordered it, it does in fact require the .875" bolts from ARP. Fortunately being in Austin, anything that ships out of the Arlington Summit Racing gets here in 24 hours with standard shipping. So the bolts should be here tomorrow afternoon and we can continue.

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The last bit to note for today....for the non-Corvette guys following along, the cooling system in the C2 is unique. In the stock car, there is a large puke/fill tank located above the battery in the passenger side fender well. In order to fill the system, you fill that tank and let it circulate as there is no cap in the radiator. I've always thought the additional plumbing to be extraneous and overly complicated. So I bought this little combo thermostat housing and fill port since the intake is the highest point in the cooling system in these cars. This should make filling and bleeding the system significantly easier going forward. The part is raw billet aluminum but I'm thinking of hitting it with some sort of aluminum or stainless steel colored paint to knock the bling down a bit and make it blend more with the intake and valve covers. If anyone has a recommendation, please let me know.

210245

[69stang]

Duplicolor Metalcast paint. I've used it on some aluminum parts. Can't vouch for the durability but it looks good. KBS has some options also with the XTC line of paints.
210260

[FLYNAVY53]

Thanks, I actually just realized this morning that Steel-It offers a cast grey finish in addition to the flat black that I used on a lot of other parts, so I ordered a can on amazon....we'll see how it turns out.

[ryeguy2006a]

Looks great!! Love that you are getting your kids involved. My boys (8 and 4) help me in the garage all the time and they love it. Start them early!

[FLYNAVY53]

well, today's effort started off productive....

I got the last few parts stripped and painted. That included the factory crank and water pump pulley. Mine were pretty beat up, and I had planned on just ordering new ones, until I saw the price. $300+ for an original crank pulley?!? I understand the "corvette tax", but no thanks. Mine cleaned up just fine with some effort and patience. Forgot to grab pics though.

By the time that was done, my new flex plate bolts arrived. And wouldn't you know, the bolts marked as "only for Tilton flex plate" are EXACTLY what I needed. When torqued to 85 ft/lbs, they are exactly flush with the inside of the crank flange.

With the flex plate installed, next up was the ATI damper. And thats where things went south. Everyone I've talked to who has installed one of these says they are VERY tight and take some muscle to install. I took measurements before starting and the crank OD measured out at 1.254 and the balancer hub ID measured out at 1.256 so I figured I was good to go as that is actually over the published .0008 to .0011 which I chalked up to second hand machinists tools and lack of any real skill or training.

I also made sure to take all the measurements per the instructions so that I would know when the damper was full seated. With that, I started the install, and as promised, it took some effort but the damper was slowly moving. I had lubed the crank snout and the inside of the hub per the instructions. In retrospect, I should have also lubed the threads on the tool, but that was not stated in the instructions for either the damper or the tool itself. At one point, resistance went up significantly, so I backed the tool out and measured the depth inside the snout of the damper, though I could tell just by looking at it that it wasn't fully seated. Sure enough, I still had 10 mm to go. So I put everything back together and kept pushing. The damper continued to move and I eventually hit a point that looked about right, and resistance had gotten to the point where I couldn't turn the wrench by hand anymore. So I attempted to back the tool out again, and quickly realized everything is seized in place........

210266

I dont know what I F'd up, or what part of this equation is broken, but she aint commin out! FWIW, here's the diagram of the tool...

210267

I cant back down the puller body at all, and if I put a breaker bar on the puller screw, it will slowly back down, but its that bad kind of back down where you know you're either galling the hell out of something, or about to twist the head off a bolt. So I stopped doing that. That odd part is that you can watch the puller screw slowly turn in the puller body, but the body hasn't back away from the damper face at all.

At that point, I was frustrated and angry and decided it was best to walk away for the night. Unless anyone has any more intelligent ideas, tomorrow's plan A is to find the longest 1 1/16 box wrench I can find, and attempt to back the puller body off while holding the puller screw steady. Plan B would be to continue to man-handle the puller screw with breaker bar and deal the the resulting carnage.....ie hope that I've only destroyed the tool and that I can still back the adapter out of the crank shaft.

I'm open to any and all suggestions at this point!

[FLYNAVY53]

Good news....crisis averted.....mostly.

Option A, just getting a bigger hammer, or wrench in this case finally broke the tool free with significant effort.

210280

Interestingly enough, the only galling was minor, and on the adapter that fits into the crank. It's also interesting that the threads on the tip of the adapter are clean, but the few that are galled are further up the shaft. The rest of the tool looks perfect. In checking the crank threads, I found that the old crank bolt would thread in most of the way by hand without issue. On trying to install the ARP bolt, I found it tight and hard to get more than two turns on it by hand. So just to be safe before I put a wrench on the new bolt, I ordered a 7/16-20 thread chaser/cleaner just to make sure the threads in the crank are still good.

210281

210282

Something that I didnt cover earlier....the whole reason I went with the ATI balancer was because with my factory balancer, the timing marks were very imprecise and difficult to read. When we initially rebuilt the carb and tuned the motor, we got it running strong, but were never really confident as to where exactly the timing was set. Now it's legible and precise. The other reason I went with ATI specifically was because these motors initially came with an 8 inch balancer, which not many companies make any more. I talked to the tech guys at ATI and they walked me through how they work, and how the ATI, even at an inch smaller diameter, is much better at absorbing the crank shaft harmonics across the RPM spectrum based on the materials used and the construction techniques. It's definitely pricey and probably over kill for this motor but I can swap it over to the new motor whenever I get to it.

210283

With the balancer fiasco over, I moved on to the water pump. I installed the original backing plate with the new fel-pro gasket and a light coat of silicon, along with the stainless button head bolts. Everything clears....just barely with the pump gaskets installed and the hardware torqued. I did use silicon on the bolts as at least one of them goes into a water jacket.

210284

And thats probably it for the week. Wife is out of town on a work trip, so Im wrangling two toddlers and a German Shepherd all weekend which wont leave much time for wrenching. The plan is to start checking bell housing on Monday and get the templates made for the tunnel heat shield so that get be installed. That will be the last thing that needs to happen to the car before we can bolt the trans to the motor and dump it all back in.

210285

[brickwhite]

Did you shove that engine back in yet?

[FLYNAVY53]

Oh man.......I was cruising right along before the holidays. I got the bell housing runout all dialed in, got the clutch set up, and got the engine and trans mated without much issue.

211830211831

The week before Christmas, we got the motor and trans bolted into the car with relatively little effort....it's kinda cool to see it installed without the accessories or radiator....it really is a mid/front engine car with even the water pump and crank pulley well aft of the center of the front spindles.

211832211833211834

That unfortunately is where the progress came to a screeching halt....in trying to get the trans crossmember and bushing sorted out, we realized that the gearbox was hitting the inside of the tunnel. Obviously, the whole point of the TKX is the shaved/sculped case that allows it to drop into just about anything without tunnel modification. What we determined is that all of my body mount bushings are completely shot....

211835211836

So I ordered a completely new set of bushings, as well as some additional floor supports that mount to the transmission crossmember to prevent the center of the floor from sagging over time. And thats where the progress stopped as the holiday invasion.....errrr....I mean quality family time started. I also started my 9 month welding program at Universal Technical Institute the week before Christmas so thats taking up a good chunk of my time now too. I'm hoping to find some motivating to get back in the garage in the next week or so. I have a laundry list of things that need to be disconnected or loosened before I can jack the body up one side at a time to slide the old mounts out and install the new ones. Fortunately this car is super dry, so I shouldn't have any issues with the mounting bolts.

More to follow.

[brickwhite]

Ahhh! At least it's progress...

Body Mounts... so much fun... Will you go Rubber or Poly?

Let's hope you don't find any of these.... hockey pucks on the old frame of my Impala

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2024/01/Jo7iH89-1.jpg

Mine is still sitting... Nothing really changed


https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2024/01/VI1vvqH-1.jpg

Did get my later Bad diff crated ready to send off to Gary...

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2024/01/W2XZlwA-1.jpg

One other question? Do you like your 13/16" Sway? I have a 1 1/4" up front and I think it's too much. Found a 13/16 online for a good price and I thought I would try it.

[Hotwire]

If you don't mind springing for a new thermostat housing gasket, I would highly recommend when you go to add coolant, pull the housing and thermostat out, fill the engine at the thermostat opening in the intake until it's just about full, then reinstall thermostat and housing. This way you eliminate 95% chance of any air pockets in the engine and it takes 1/3 of the time to fill the cooling system up.

Good luck and great build!

[FLYNAVY53]

Going rubber on the bushings....the car as it sits is shockingly squeak/rattle free and I didnt want to inadvertently introduce potential squeaking with the poly bushings.

I really like the 13/16 sway bar.....with the 15 inch tires I think it's just right for the street. The only issue is that nobody makes a 13/16 pillow block to mount that bar in the C2 so you need to buy 3/4 pillow blocks, either rubber or polly and bore them out to 13/16. The only place I've used poly in my car is the sway bar pillow blocks and sway bar end links.

Gary does excellent work....what ratio are you going with?

[FLYNAVY53]

In addition to the cap at the high point, that filler neck I'm running has a groove machined into it with a reusable rubber O-ring.....much like most of the mating surfaces on the LS motors....so hopefully bleeding the system will be relatively simple compared to the factory set up.

[brickwhite]

Going rubber on the bushings....the car as it sits is shockingly squeak/rattle free and I didnt want to inadvertently introduce potential squeaking with the poly bushings.

I really like the 13/16 sway bar.....with the 15 inch tires I think it's just right for the street. The only issue is that nobody makes a 13/16 pillow block to mount that bar in the C2 so you need to buy 3/4 pillow blocks, either rubber or polly and bore them out to 13/16. The only place I've used poly in my car is the sway bar pillow blocks and sway bar end links.

Gary does excellent work....what ratio are you going with?


3.70...

[FLYNAVY53]

yea, that's what I'm running too....

I did the math, with the TKX and 3.73 gears, the overall ratio in first gear is the same as the factory muncie with a 4.88 rear gear. One of the reasons I opted for the lightweight clutch and flywheel set up. It should rev quickly without any drama getting going in first.

[brickwhite]

I had 3.08 gears with a Wide ratio Muncie.

I know she's going to scream more with the 3.73 than a 3.36 but may be a little more fun to drive.

:yeah:

[FLYNAVY53]

you'll be fine....I drove mine from VA to TX with the close ratio muncie and the 3.73s....RPM was obviously on the high side, about 3K at 75 mph but the Corvette Central exhaust with the MagnaFlow mufflers was amazingly compliant. Really smooth and mellow, even cruising at 3K for hours on end.

[brickwhite]

Finally back at it....

Heres the new steering wheel installed
163980.

I know it was a while ago, I was wanting to use a 69 steering wheel also, I bought one and noticed it does not sit flush on the boss like the original. How did you get it to fit and not make the horn honk?

Did you have to bend the horn contact or shim it?

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2024/02/563111_5631113main-1.jpg_1

[FLYNAVY53]

Assuming your '69 wheel looks like this:

212037

You need a shim that looks like this:

212038

I got mine from a Corvette Forum member a few years back....Tom Shelby (Sky65). Dont know if he has any left, but if he doesnt, allegedly a standard plastic light switch cover from Home Depot is the exact thickness you need to make your own shim. I think Id be inclined to take some measurements, draw it up in CAD, and send the file to Send-Cut-Send and have them cut it out of the proper thickness of aluminum before I'd use the plastic light switch cover.

[brickwhite]

Thanks! I'll contact Tom


Update Tom had another!!

[brickwhite]

Did you get those body mounts replaced?

[FLYNAVY53]

Unfortunately not yet. The project kinda stalled over the holidays and we’ve been surprisingly busy this spring. Hoping to get back on it shortly .

[brickwhite]

Now?

[brickwhite]

Any updates?

[FLYNAVY53]

Any updates?

no, unfortunately not. I just completed a nine month welding course at Universal Technical Institute, so that ate up a lot of my time. We’ve also decided to pull the kids out of school/daycare and Im going to do the home school thing while my wife continues to work so my free time is going to be pretty limited. That being said, now that Im not getting up at 0430 to make it to class every morning, Ill be more inclined to put in a few hours each night on the car after the kids are in bed….so hopefully we’ll see some progress here shortly.

[Steve68]

Ah yes dad duties,

I raised 3 girls, 2 of them middle and the youngest, started cheer in Pop Warner, then all through elementary, middle, and high school, both on Varsity, then competition and travel cheer,

This is why my car never got finished, still slowly working on it, but there all gone, even the wife,

[brickwhite]

Greg,

Question about your PowerSteering setup.

Did the GEN typeII pump come with the Pulley, and is there a difference on the what PS pump adapter you use?

You said you used detroit Speed adpater on the 327.

Think these will work -


- Borgeson Corvette Power Steering Kits 999031
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/brg-999031

-Racing Automotive Group Power Steering Pump Mounting Brackets PSP115RD vs the detroit speed one.
- https://www.summitracing.com/parts/rau-psp115rd

- Not sure what pump you chose, I just picked one on Summit,
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/rau-pspa002
Racing Automotive Group Power Steering Pumps PSPA002 with a V-belt

[FLYNAVY53]

The type II pump did not come with a pulley as the normal LS set up uses a ribbed belt as opposed to the old school v-groove belt. I believe the pulley I used is from All - Star Performance.

It looks like that is the correct power steering box.....though I didnt purchase the kit, I just bought the box then fabricated my own lines.

The Racing Automotive Group bracket appears to be similar in design to the Detroit Speed bracket I used.

[brickwhite]

this one comes with a pulley.

https://www.speedwaymotors.com/Aluminum-Power-Steering-Pump-With-Pulley,487211.html

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2024/10/WaDIX1H-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/noimg.gif

I know the issue most of the time with adding pulleys is the belt alignment.

Is this the std PS unit by itself?

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/brg-800108

[FLYNAVY53]

I can only speak to the accessory drive on the Corvette 327, but I was able to get everything to line up perfectly but running the power steering pump off the front groove of the crank pulley, then running the water pump and alternator off the rear groove on the crank pulley. I fixed the alignment with the alternator pulley by swapping the factory Corvette pulley to that of a '69 Z28, which was shorter.

[brickwhite]

Do you remember what A/N Fittings you had to use on the PS unit?

I assume it's an adapter of some type.

I think I found them.

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/clp-605anf-or

[FLYNAVY53]

It was…I dont remember the exact size but you can google “GM type II power steering pump AN fitting” and find what you need.

[brickwhite]

I can only speak to the accessory drive on the Corvette 327, but I was able to get everything to line up perfectly but running the power steering pump off the front groove of the crank pulley, then running the water pump and alternator off the rear groove on the crank pulley. I fixed the alignment with the alternator pulley by swapping the factory Corvette pulley to that of a '69 Z28, which was shorter.

Greg,
You swapped the Alt Pulley from a 69 z28?

[FLYNAVY53]

Greg,
You swapped the Alt Pulley from a 69 z28?


Yes, here's a pic of the pulley installed on the factory alternator. The stock Corvette piece is twice as thick with the groove for the belt double the distance from the nose of the alternator.

214975

[brickwhite]

Greg,

Working on a brake issue on my c2,

Did you have any concerns when you moved to -3an hard lines with a 37 degree flare for your brakes?

I'm thinking of going the same route but there are some articles about single flare brake hardlines etc etc.

https://www.pro-touring.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=161214&d=1549636083

[brickwhite]

Greg,

Anything new

[FLYNAVY53]

nothing unfortunately

[OLDFLM]

Bro! We need our fix!

[FLYNAVY53]

I know, I know.....seems like every time I think I've got all the more pressing projects taken care of, something else pops up. The most recent "event", one of my kids managed to leave a bath towel draped over the faucet in our bathroom which left the water trickling out while we were away for two weeks. The water wicked up the towel, and all over the floor. So now I'm in the middle of a full master bath renovation and partial kitchen renovation to fix the damage. And much like any good car project, "While we're at it, we might as well also......"

[andrewb70]

...."While we're at it, we might as well also......"

This is why I am still not done with the GTO updates.

Andrew

[FLYNAVY53]

yea I've been following the GTO build.....very cool stuff.

Adding insult to injury, my "project creep" is related to the kitchen and bath disaster, not the car :hand:

[FLYNAVY53]

Greg,

Working on a brake issue on my c2,

Did you have any concerns when you moved to -3an hard lines with a 37 degree flare for your brakes?

I'm thinking of going the same route but there are some articles about single flare brake hardlines etc etc.

https://www.pro-touring.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=161214&d=1549636083


Apologies....just rereading some of the thread and realized I failed to answer....

So, my lines are all double flared using the Eastwood 37 degree double flaring tool. That being said, I use Nickel/Copper (NiCop) line that is more flexible than regular steel or stainless line, so even in a single flare application, its far less likely to fatigue crack over time.