I'm in the same boat. I'm driving mine as well. Still have some things to do also. The paint looks great BTW.
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I'm in the same boat. I'm driving mine as well. Still have some things to do also. The paint looks great BTW.
Thanks man! I'm pretty stoked, I signed up for my first auto x event for next Sunday. Anyone have an old helmet kicking around they want to let go for a good price? I'm a L or XL :)
I just saw the news congratulations on the new car guy! You made some nice upgrades to the car, good luck at the auto x.
I went to my first Auto X event this past weekend and it was an absolute blast. I was up the night before making a few tweaks to the car that I had been meaning to do. First was (embarrassingly enough) getting some exhaust hangers on the mufflers. When I first got the car together and the exhaust all welded up, I used some mechanics wire through some muffler hangers. Out of sight, out of mind but I wanted to address this since I knew I was going to be throwing it into some hard corners. Sorry no pictures.
Then I moved on to address a faulty knock sensor. I have gotten a P0327 Low performance code since I first got the car going and wanted to address it since I had the motivation. Installed the new AC Delco knock sensor, and this was the engine at about midnight before the event. Unfortunately on the way to the event, the code came right back on. So that leads me to believe it's a wiring issue.
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I had to grab something to eat and stopped by the Dunkin Donuts, and I'm sure it was a coincidence, but there were a few boys in blue. Thought it made for a funny picture.
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My buddy that came with me took several pictures of my car. It had minimal body roll and really hugged the corners.
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This is going to be my first of many events. I really had a great time and was so nice to use the car for the purpose of how it was built. The LS1 pulled hard and I actually never left first gear since it was such a short course. It's really a lot harder than it sounds to stay on course and not get lost in the cones... We were fortunate to have 5 runs in the AM and 5 runs in the PM. I got lost on the first two runs, the third I was able to complete and had a time of 34.9, then the last two were 33 and 32, but I kept going around the wrong cone so they didn't count.
Then in the PM after I had an opportunity to watch the others run, I got a better feel for the course and completed all of my runs. This time I was getting more aggressive and got a few penalties for cones. My best was a 27.1 with no penalties, but my fastest time was a 26.8 +2 for one cone.
It was really cool in the AM too, my Mom was watching my older son and brought him along to watch for a few runs. He really enjoyed watching all the "race cars". And even though I did poorly in the AM, it was really cool having my son wave at me and cheer me on!
Then on the way home at an undisclosed non-closed course, I tried to best my time of 5.4. I knew that I had more in it. Much happier with this! Other than the damn check engine light for the knock sensor...
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Cheers,
Ryan
The car has now been put up for the winter. I got a few more cruises in before the weather turned, and unfortunately we had a streak of cold weather come through and they salted the roads... Haven't done a thing to the car, but I did pick up a 6.0 that came from a H2 and a set of 821 LS3 cylinder heads in exchange for building an LS swap for a buddy. Now I'm not sure if I want to sell the LS1 and use that money to buy a good good cam and rebuild this motor, OR just sell this and use the proceeds to buy a cam kit for my LS1?
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I haven't had much to update in a while, but I've made a few changes lately so thought I'd share. As I ususally do, I was cruising the classifieds and I found a guy selling an LS turbo log manifold and he ended up swapping me for a LC2 wideband that I wasn't going to use. I haven't had a chance to test fit, but I'm hoping that it will make for a nice compact turbo setup.
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I'll definitely need to cut it down some to make it play friendly with my hood, but I'll test fit as is first. Maybe I'll get lucky.
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I've been thinking about making the switch to a Holley based EFI system for a while now for the added flexibility. Then I found that manifold, someone bought the engine harness from my Camaro, and there were discounts from one the sponsors on Black Friday. So I pulled the trigger and bought the new Terminator X kit for LS1's.
First I had to rip out my stock standalone harness and ECU.
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Then my Terminator X showed up!
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One thing that was very interesting is that the ECU is so much smaller than a factory 0411 ECU.
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When I started reading the instructions I realized that since this ECU doesn't use an MAF, I needed to get a new IAT (or MAT as referred to on the Holley instructions). Since the 85MM MAF I'm using has an integrated IAT I couldn't use that. I found that a few people were using a threaded IAT from a 90's Typhoon, and it would thread right into one of the unused ports on the LS6 intakes.
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All for now. I've got some stock harnesses and ECU's that I'm converting for a few people so until those are complete, I'm holding off on installing the new ECU. I can't wait until I can install it though.
Thanks,
Ryan
Hey Ryan,
Looking forward to your progress. It's a shame you didn't get the Terminator X Max. I am a huge fan of DBW and even with a manual transmission the Terminator X Max has easy inputs for vehicle speed, which I like having for added tuning ability.
Andrew
Nice upgrade Ryan, it should make small adjustments easier.
I haven't gotten much work done on my car, but I've been keeping busy. Thankfully, our son is starting to sleep all throughout the nights. Now that I'm caught back up on my sleep, I can go out into the garage for a few hours after everyone goes to bed a few times a week. I've taken on a few side jobs modifying harnesses for some friends, so I've been busy working on those. I've finished one and am in the middle of the other one.
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My wife got me a few car parts for my birthday earlier this month. A long time ago I bought some Holley EFI fuel rails at a swap meet, but didn't want to run the AN fittings that they came with. My car is running 3/8 Nylon lines with the factory GM quick connect fittings. So I needed to find a -8 ORB to 3/8 GM quick connect 90* swivel. Only one that I could find was made by Russell #644-063, and it was just what I needed. She also got me the USB to Can harness for the Terminator X system so I can hook my laptop up to make changes.
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Once I get the last harness finished up, I plan to jump back on my Camaro. I need to finish the interior; Dye the door panels/ Dash pad, install headliner and sail panels, and button up a bunch of things I didn't get to last year. One of the things I've been keeping an eye out for was any radio that I can use to just fill the hole in my dash. A local member hooked me up, Thanks Mitch!!
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Eventually I'll get something else for a radio, but this one will make the dash at least look complete.
Thanks,
Ryan
I just spent the last 6 hours reading your entire thread. All I can say is wow. What a lot of time and work that you've done. Impressive.
Thanks! Yes, it has certainly gone through quite a transformation.
Hey Ryan
What a nice build thread, do you know that Dakota has a CAN reader for the Holley: BIM-01-2-HLLY . If your Dakota cluster support CAN Bus, you can now read all the infos through the CAN Bus.
I had seen that a while ago and I'll have to look into that again. I'm planning to add a turbo in the next year or so and it would be nice to display boost and fuel pressure on my existing dash.
I haven't done any work on the car until last weekend. I pulled the cover off to see what needed to be done in order to get it back up and running again. It took me a while to decide where I wanted to drill the rather large hole in the firewall for the ECU. Since I had my 0411 ECU mounted behind the passenger headlight, I didn't have a big hole. After a lot of thought, I found that the most discrete and accessible location was right above the throttle pedal mount.
2" hole saw per Holley's instructions.
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Once the hole was drilled, I started to lay out the harness to see how it fit. Overall pretty happy, but I will likely re-loom it at some point for a little cleaner install. I'm waiting until I get the system fully up and running before I do anything like that though.
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Right now I'm in the middle of figuring out what wiring I need to install in addition to what the Terminator X comes with. I'm going to add an input for VSS right now, and an output for my cooling fan and reverse lockout. I'll likely have to change that when I add my turbo next fall, but time will tell. I need to add a wire for the alternator exciter, reverse lights and various loose wires outlined in the Holley instructions. I also need to route the wideband wires. I'm going to run it to the passenger side since I'll eventually have my downpipe there. I'm also in the process of thinking through how I want to mount the ECU, wiring and fuse/relay block in the glove box. Right now I'm thinking about either building a new glove box liner out of aluminum and then mounting it all there, or possibly using my stock one but mixing up some resin to harden it. I'm leaning more towards the aluminum and if possible I'd like to make it out of one piece.
Before I got the Holley install started, I test fit the console that came with my car just to see what it looks like. Not sure how I feel.
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I also bought this SD card adapter so I can help my dad tune his Holley EFI this summer.
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All for now. Hope to have it running by the weekend.
That Holley is a nice system, it does plenty of important stuff that Factory doesn't.
Looking good!
I made a little more progress last night on mounting my ECU. A few nights ago I played around with a few ideas and came up with a design that mounted the ECU in the glove box. When it was late a night after I finished it, I was happy enough and thought that it would be fine since nobody would really see it.
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Well after thinking about it, I wasn't happy with it. There wasn't much room for mounting a relay, fuse panel or other things. So after searching around a while, I came across a post here at PT, and someone built exactly what I was looking to do. It was great to see what was done, and it gave me the inspiration to build my own.
Out with the old.
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Then I started on Version 2.0. I went out to my metal pile and found this old block off plate that I made for my 1976 Trans Am, and will re-purpose into my glove box plate.
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The piece wasn't quite long enough to make the panel in one piece, so I decided to make it in two and just rivet together.
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Test fit both pieces to mark where I had to bend and rivet.
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Now it's one piece and a test fit with the ECU bolted down.
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After I mounted the ECU, I realized that the rod for the glove box door went right through where the ECU plugs go. I got super lucky because it passes right between the main power and the two plugs and clears everything by at least a 1/2". :)
I was playing around with different options so that I can have a radio this year in the car, and am contemplating running this Double Din radio I removed from my old truck before I sold it.
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It kinda fits there, but not sure if there was enough room for the plugs to fit in the rear.
Then I stuck in my Freebie AM radio so that the dash looks complete. Thanks Mitch!! That looks so much better!
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Lastly, I picked up some plugs for my t56. Since the new ECU doesn't incorporate the 6 speed by default, I need to add these wires so I can have reverse lights, vehicle speed (VSS) and reverse lockout functional. I'll have to use one input to add VSS and output to activate the reverse lockout. Both will require programming to work properly. I'll be sure to add some screenshots of how I do this down the road.
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I've got a few parts on the way to hopefully finish up this install one of them is a large enough firewall grommet. A 2" firewall grommet was surprisingly difficult to find. I was hoping to find some sort of cheap bulk pack so I had them for future projects, but I didn't feel like searching any longer, so I just bought the one pack I found on eBay.
I also need to find a good place for the 3.5" screen that came with the Terminator X. Anyone have any creative suggestions?
Yesterday was finally warm enough to get outside and paint some parts. I bought the SEM Vinyl paint a while ago, but am finally ready to attempt dying the panels black. I started out by cleaning the parts off with window glass cleaner two times with a plastic scrub brush. First time to get the bulk of the junk, second time for good measure. Next I used a painting cleanup product called Preps-All, that's meant for cleaning up grease and wax before painting a car. The last step was recommended to me by an old body shop guy in lieu of the SEM adhesion promoter. I took some lacquer thinner and wiped it evenly across all of the parts and let it dry. The lacquer softened up the material and made it a little tacky. Then I sprayed one light coat, one light to medium coat and then one heavy coat waiting 5-10 minutes in between. Here are the results, I'm very happy and so far the coating seems very durable. I scratched a section with my finger nail and it didn't peal or flake off.
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I started with those two panels since they weren't in the best shape, and couldn't really make them much worse. I was so happy with the results, I decided to paint my blue dash pad as well! The dash had more of a build up of dirt/grease/grime so I got out my copper wire brush and that did the trick.
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The finish is a dead ringer for the original color!
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I'm hoping to get the dash wiring cleaned up over the next few weeks so that I can get the gauges reinstalled. Then I can finalize the Terminator X install and clean up any wiring related to that. I'd love to get that done in the next few weeks and possibly get it out for a test drive since the weather is unusually warm for this time of year.
Thanks,
Ryan
The dash came out nice, no one will ever know.
damn, that worked great