That sucks! sounds like its merely a speed bump for you though. Are you gonna tear the other engine down and rebuild it? You could do a 400-450 hp build on it pretty easily

 

I am going to rebuild it. it's a solid 4 bolt main block. I'm going to take my time though. I want to drive and enjoy the car for awhile. I still have to get through the torque arm modifications.

 

Thanks to my son for helping me over the weekend and treating me to the new Blade Runner movie I have it swapped in. Everything is new now so I should be able to start it and drive away right? Still waiting on the headers. I ordered them from Sanderson Headers. I should have found the part number and ordered them from Summit. I would have them already. But anyway I have to finish up the trans tunnel fab for the torque arm so that will take me a little while. looks good and everything went right back in.

 

Looks good! I bought Sanderson Headers as well from Summit and they had to drop ship them...Also make sure you put plenty of silicone on them when installing, I have leak on the #3 cylinder that I need to reseal.

 

i took some fine sandpaper on a block and worked the flanges until they were nice and smooth. No leaks.

 

Been working on the trans tunnel for a while. Turned out to be a lot more work than I thought. (isn't everything?) I got it done though. Raised it up an inch. should give me plenty of room for the driveshaft and improve my pinion angle as well. I need to make a cover for it that also houses my window, head light door and rear hatch switch.

So now I have to make down pipes to connect the new headers to the existing exhaust. I'm going to wrap the new headers also because I'm a big fan now of not getting an instant 3rd degree burn every time I touch them.

Then it's bleed the brakes and should be driving it again.

I also ordered new seats. The other driver seat cover kept coming off just from getting in and out. Cheap ebay seats. these are the ones i ordered, supposed to be here today

 

Might have missed them, but do you have any pics of what you did with your floor? I'm not happy with how the Sparco is mounted in my drift car (too high and too far forward) with the brackets I made to bolt to the stock mounting points. I'm thinking I need to drop the floor a bit and make new mounts - just looking for ideas and I think you've done what I'm thinking of...

 

I do have pictures somewhere I will have to dig them up. It was a lot of work. I basically cut the bottom out of the floor and added structure and then welded sheet metal into it. You might want to consider what cutting that structure does to the car. I knew I was going to have a full roll cage to add rigidity back to the unibody

 

Yeah true. A full cage is in the plans for this car, but that'll likely be a while. Maybe I can just get away with removing the stock seat mounting "tabs" (towers, whatever you'd call them) and building something that sits flatter to the floor.. I'll have to take another look at the car tonight and brainstorm!

 

I took the rear tabs off and left the front piece since it goes across the entire floor. I am using the stock seat rails and it worked good at my last event with a helmet. I can get pictures if you want and if you want to talk any drift specific stuff let me know, I'm currently working on reducing the ackerman and increasing the steering angle on my car.

 

Ok I found the pics of the mods I did to the floor. I wish i would have dropped it another couple inches to be honest. the hump on the passenger side was the biggest problem with putting aftermarket seats in it.

I got the new seats yesterday. They are nice! my rails bolted right up which is nice. They lay back a bit more than my current seats which is perfect. Hope to have them in this weekend.

I need to get my pictures off photobucket. What a joke of a website that has become. You can barely see your own pictures with all the popup adds even when you're logged in and the pay to link crap.

 

That looks great. Probably more extreme than I need to go though, now that I see it. I'll have to do some mock up this weekend. Thanks for the pics.

Freekier7791 - thanks for the input. Cool to know there's a few of us drifting these silly cars! I really need to start a thread on it (and all my other builds, I've been busy). It's not like anything else that shows up at the drift events here and gets lots of attention. In a sea of 240's... the lone FB lol That said, I haven't been able to make it to the majority of events this year... oh well

 

Well, that took entirely longer than expected. I spent most of the weekend working on a console to cover up the torque arm mounts and house a switch panel. it turned out ok but I felt rushed to get it done. I still have to fab down pipes to connect the exhaust. that should be it with the fab work though. (I say that...................)

It took me a couple hours to get the pattern down. Then I built a hammer form to make the top. rest was just adding sides to fill it in.

The bad part is I broke my hatch release switch so if anyone knows where I can get one.

 

Well, I was able to re-solder my hatch switch thankfully. It works fine so the center console is all finished.

The Torque arm mod to the trans tunnel was well worth the work. I installed the driveshaft and it has better than an inch of clearance at full compression. The pinion angle is only off by less than a degree now and should be fine. So the drive train is done. Now the only thing left is the downpipes for the exhaust and I should be back on the road.

I had to do a bit of tweaking to the floor but was able to get the drivers seat in. It fits great and looks good too. Nice seats. They are just a bit wider at the base than the previous ones. I was able to use the sliders they sent so the seat is adjustable. The passenger seat will be fixed. That's next.

 

Looks great!

 

Wow! It's been awhile since I've been on here and I see you've been busy - looks awesome! Jealous of your fab skills!

 

I've definitely had some setbacks but it's close now!!! Good to see you back.

 

The exhaust is done and wrapped. everything is back together. just need to bleed the brakes and it's ready for a shakedown cruise. Since it's now virtually a new car I don't expect any problems..........................

 

Awesome! Car guys are the most pollyannish people in the world!
Seriously, looks fantastic and engine placement is great. Should be a killer ride.

 

haha. what else can you be after working on something this long? No one I know ever expected me to drive it. so ha! jokes on them!!!

I should probably drive it before getting cocky.

 

I had to look "Pollyannish" up haha. I always expect the worst hope for the best!

 

HA! I had to look up the spelling but I have lived this behind the wheel.....

One time at the start of a race (I had qualified 4th out of 25 cars) I had an oil line fail on the pace lap in the second to last turn before getting the green flag. Despite nearly driving off the track because of oil under my tires and a HUGE cloud of smoke coming from the front of the car, I took the green flag. The voices in my head kept telling me "its fine, probably a tire that has clagg on it, or it's a piece of rubber in the exhaust, or the car in front of me is leaking oil, or a car in the last race was leaking oil, BUT THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE CAR!" So I kept driving. Seized the engine.....stupid pollyannish voices!

 

You showed em!

 

So, this is my fist GM engined car. I'm still learning a lot as I go. I turned the engine over and no oil pressure. Ok, new engine, maybe my sending unit was bad so I hooked up an old mechanical oil pressure gauge I had laying around and yep, no oil pressure. I'm not freaking out yet.............ok maybe a little. I pulled the distributor and I can spin the oil pump shaft. Ok, research time. i found out that not all distributors are created equal. Actually the distance from the manifold distributor seat to the oil shaft is not created equa eitherl. And the oil pump shaft itself can be different lengths. for Pete's sake.

After a quick check with a scale sure enough my dist is about an inch too short. Never considered this to be honest. So how to ensure I get a dist that is the right length without a bunch of hassle. Some of the MSD distributors have a collar that is adjustable. Genius! so I ordered a MSD Pro billet dist and a MSD 6 ignition box. So much nicer than the cheap ebay distributor I had. Plus the end play on the ebay dist was crazy excessive. I could move it like an 1/8 of an inch. Once again I was schooled in the "Buy the good stuff" school of hard knocks.

So anyway, all this long winded ranting resulted in me driving the car again yesterday. Everything is pretty much new now. The car is fantastic. It talks to you as you drive it. The trans shifts great, the Torque arm works well with no interference.

 

awesome job! now go enjoy it. =)