Project: BLACK METAL - '67 Camaro

[67rally]

Thanks guys.

The eBay headers hang lower on the drivers side than the passenger, and needed to be dimpled in 3 places to fit around my steering box. And that was with using the Dirty Dingo engine sliders and and adjustable trans x-member. The only good thing about them is that they cost less than $200 so I didn't mind banging on them. They also still have a slight header leak, maybe a warped flange?

I thought the Dynatech's were supposed to fit well? I may look into some Doug's in the off season, or just get a machine shop to mill the flanges for me.

In a nutshell, I wouldn't recommend the eBay ones.

[rickpaw]

I thought the Dynatech's were supposed to fit well?

The Dynatech headers fit great. Did not hit anything, although I had to get a different trans pan to clear the pass side O2 sensor. But they hang way too low. I wish they can make it tuck up tighter. I'm using DSE LS swap mounts, btw.

[67rally]

Just realized I haven't updated in a while.

I ordered a Strange Engineering S60 just before Christmas. It's their version of a Dana 60. It'll have a 4.10 TruTrac posi unit, 35 spline axles, 1350 pinion, multileaf perches, etc. This is total overkill. But it was still be cheaper to sell the 12 bolt and buy a brand new S60 than upgrade the 12 bolt. Plus it will be stronger by a long shot.

[67rally]

I couldn't get the rear shackle bolts out past the gas tank. It wasn't even close. Maybe the Tanks Inc. tank is different enough from stock? I just filled the tank last week with 18 gallons, so I didn't want to drain and drop it.

I ended up removing the calipers and rotors, raising the rear enough to slide up and over one leaf and dropping the opposite end under the other leaf. I repeated this on the other side and had the whole rear under the leafs, then dropped it onto a furniture dolly and rolled it out the back.



I removed the axles and the backing plates. I'll send the backing plates with the internal parking brakes to Strange for install on the new S60. Then I reinstalled the axles. Gonna do a little cleanup and give it a quick coat of paint for the next owner.

[67rally]

Here's the old 12 bolt all cleaned up for whoever buys it:

[67rally]

My 12 bolt sold!

Here she is all palleted up and ready for shipping across the country. I have an exterior particle board shell that will get screwed on to box it all up. Just waiting for my shipper to get me an invoice/authorization and try to get this thing out tomorrow before the loading dock closes for the holiday.

[67rally]

Huge hassle with trying to get it shipped on New Year's Eve. Between building the pallet, communicating with the buyer, the guy who's helping me ship it, his shipping broker...and then my paperwork was missing a 9 digit tracking number, lot's of phone/e-mail tag.

To top it off, the loading dock was closing at noon, and I don't think any of the workers really wanted to be there. Everyone helped out in the end, and now it's in the hands of the trucking company.

Looks kind of like a casket in this photo. This should have been a 2 man job, but it fits inside a Grand Cherokee:


Here it is at the loading dock. One of the guys was nice enough to drive a forklift out to pick it up from the ground, rather than making me lift it up onto a loading dock myself. (still looks like a casket to me):

[67rally]

-My S60 shipped on last Friday and arrived 2 days ago.

-I ordered the DSE multileaf lower shock plates and u-bolts for the S60 swap.

-I pulled my speedo out and sent it back to NVU. I have been using the GPS speedo sender but wanted to switch to the output from the LS PCM. The speedo was programmed by NVU to only go down to 10,000 PPM (pulses per minute), and the LS PCM sends a 4,000 PPM signal, so I couldn't pull my signal from there. Not a big deal, but I live near a tree covered parkway, and there are enough tunnels around Boston where you drop the signal, that it had become an issue. NVU is going to reflash the speedo and ship it back.

-I have a new front spoiler waiting to go on, but I can't get to the front of the Camaro because the rear is out and my thimble sized garage won't allow access to the front right now.

-I think I'm going to fabricate a driveshaft loop while I'm doing this rear end swap. I'm playing with a welder in my spare time. It's a cheapie flux core welder that I picked up at Harbor Freight, and so far I've mastered the art of creating splatter.;)

[67rally]

It arrived! It's a little heavier than the 12 bolt, only by 25lbs, but it's noticeable when you're moving it yourself.

Strange S60 w/ multileaf spring perches, aluminum diff. cover, Detroit TrueTrac 4.10's, 35 spline axles and a 1350 pinion yoke:

[67rally]

I ordered the S60 through Central Racing Parts. They are a sponsor on LS1Tech.com, and the owner Carl has some of the best customer service I've seen in the industry. He always answered his e-mails and phone calls and took all the time in the world to answer my questions. Much better price than a Moser or Strange 12 bolt as well. I looked at 12 bolts, 9" and Dana 60's and the S60 was the best as far as price and strength. CRP is out of Witchita, KS if you're looking for a unit. I would certainly use them again.

I got my DSE multileaf shock plates in the mail. I also ordered the 1/2" U-bolts instead of the standard 7/16" U-Bolts, so I knew that I'd need to bore out the holes a little, same with the spring perches on the S60.

DSE shock plates:


The one on the right has been drilled to 9/16" to accomodate the 1/2" U-bolt:


I don't know if it was the shock plate or the spring perch, but after drilling out for the larger U-Bolts, I was off by 1/10" on each side. I ended up widening the holes to allow the U-Bolts to slip in place:



Here's a closeup of where the axle meets the end. Very nice welds, almost too pretty to paint:


Here are the welds on the spring perches, again almost too pretty to cover up:


But, you gotta do what you gotta do. 3 coats of VHT Roll Bar & Chassis Gloss Black:

[Steve68]

nice, you'll never break that!

[67rally]

nice, you'll never break that!

Thanks, I hope not! I did have a small issue with it already...I forgot to update this thread.

[67rally]

Here's the new S60 coming apart. I was told that Strange would not be able to install my old parking brake components onto the new backing plates we ordered from Wilwood. I was a little surprised/happy when I saw that they had installed the brakes for me. Well, it turns out that someone intalled my old brakes and old backing plates (not the new ones). This means the calipers would have sat to far inboard and I would have to shim them to an unsafe degree risking the bolts snapping.

The S60 axles have the bearing pressed onto them, sandwiching the backing plates and parking brake drums on them. They are getting shipped back to Strange, they will dissasemble them, and press new bearings back on. The new backing plates will fit over the bearing (the opening in the old backing plates were too small to fit over the bearing). Then I have to swap over all the parking brake components and reassemble when I get it all back.

[67rally]

I got my speedometer reinstalled. I just had to cut one wire (from the GPS speedo sender) and solder the new wire from the ECU. I won't be able to test it 'till the wheels are back on the ground.

One thing I must say is that I have been dealing with Mark Surel at NVU for a couple of years now, from the design stage to all the trouble shooting and they have been nothing short of stellar. I sent the gauges back once because I'm a bit anal and there were finger prints on the inside of the gauge lenses and they cleaned them right up for me. Then I sent them back because I wasn't happy with how well they lit up at night. They were happy to redesign them and change the pointers out to a slightly different style. This time I sent them back because I needed them to read a 4000 PPM signal from my ECU. It was set up to only read 10000+ which is what would have come directly from the T56, rather than through the ECU.

Here's a pic of the first layout of my custom gauges vs the second layout. They are subtle difference, but the pointer in the new style has more orange and lights up all the way. Also the Oil and Temp gauges are now layed out more rounded vs linear and the lettering moved to the bottom. Anything else is just an optical illusion due to the different camera angles:



I'm wondering with the LS engine if I should send them back again and have the speedo top out at 160 instead of 140? :noway:

[67rally]

And I got the S60 back upstairs out of the basement. It was much easier/lighter without the axles and brakes attached. I bolted some casters to the bottom of the pallet so I could wheel it around easily for the time being.

[67rally]

I got my axles back from Strange, along with the new backing plates. I swapped over all my old internal parking brake parts and reassembled. Too cold to do much else today.

Here's the old assembly:


Old setup on top, new plates on bottom:


New plate on top of the old one. The new one has a bigger center bore:


Ready to switch:


Reassembled:


Same as above, but with the U-shaped retainer plate in place:


Yes it's cold and snowy out. New plates loosely attached to the housing:


Fully assembled and ready to go in. DON'T BE JEALOUS OF MY SPACIOUS GARAGE!!!

[67rally]

I also picked up a brand new set of LS3 coil packs, brackets, wiring harness, and spark plug wires. I'm going to relocate the coil packs off the valve covers, but I need to find a good location.

The truck coil packs that I'm using have a mounting bolt in line with the spark plug boot. This prevents you from stacking them together with two long bolts.



Here are the LQ9 coil packs on top and the LS3 on bottom. Even though the LS3 coils are bigger, they will take up less space when I get rid of the mounting bracket:



I'll use something like this to tidy them up and mount them out of site:

[67rally]

Ok, now that I'm caught up...

Since it got up to 29 degrees today, I decided to install the S60. This really should have been a two man job since I didn't want to drop the fuel tank, and therefore wasn't able to drop the rear shackles. I used a Harbor Freight transmission jack which tilts side to side and front to back. I raised it up over one set of leafs, moved everything towards that side, wiggled it, grunted a lot, pushed, pulled, swore (a lot) and finally wrestled it into place. The 12 bolt was a little smaller and came out a little easier. The S60 just barely squeezed in this way without dinging up the new paint job.

Here's a shot of the S60 on a makeshift platform and the trans jack:


And here it is resting on the leaf springs. I need to temporarily add a small spacer above the leafs because the bolt that locates the spring on the perch is a little too tall and doesn't allow it to sit flat on the springs. I think a 1/4"x2"x4" piece of steel bar stock will do the trick. Then I can measure for the new driveshaft as well as figure out my pinion angle.

[67rally]

I put in a little more work on the rear today. I added the spring pad isolators, and the new DSE multi leaf shock plates. I upgraded these to the 1/2" U-Bolts. Bolted everything down. Re-mounted my shocks. I didn't take a pic, but I had to add a couple Grade 8 washers between the spring pad and the shock because it the body of the shock was just barely touching the shock plate and wouldn't sit flush.

DSE Plates:



I installed the brake hardline. I was able to re-use my old hardline and just give it a slight bend to clear the bigger S60 housing. I also mounted up my rear sway bar:

[67rally]

I figured I'd try to finish up the brakes by installing the rotors, calipers and connecting all the brake lines. I went to mount up the rotors and...Houston, we have a problem...








My rotors don't fit on the on the new axles. I called Strange Engineering to let them know the issue. It turns out they went on the Wilwood website and looked up the brake kit number I gave them, and Wilwood lists the center register as 3.06 for my rotors. It looks like Wilwood must have just changed the register size without issuing a new part number. From the Wilwood site:

New! Rotor has been updated to new 3.06R register and will allow use of register ring adapters.

Strange is sending out new registers for me. Unfortunately this puts a huge damper on any more progress this weekend. I was really hoping to be back to roller stage by Monday. I still can't do any other work on the car until I can roll it in and out of the garage.