over the next few posts there were a few small projects that started and finished. I've done some editing to group the whole thing together. Like the new drivetrain skid. So some things are technically out of order chronologically, but make sense from a contained story about that facet.
August 28th 2021.
Mike was busy with the exhaust system. I had bought two segments of oval stainless with 90 degree bends, one piece had the bend 'the easy way', and the other was bent 'the hard way'. (basically bent along the wider part of the oval or the narrower part of the oval).
I had also bought a bunch of oval stainless pie-cuts. Mike was spending a lot of time with the pie cuts, working on making a collector for the exhaust manifolds to get it buckled up to the turbo. There were a lot of pieces but I figured it'd look a lot better when it's a little more assembled.
Now here is a cool thing -- I had bought my 1500cc injectors from Snake Eater Performance about a year ago. A few months ago, they publish a big update that they contracted with BOSCH to produce two more injector lines for them!! The Bosch 1400cc are made in the German plant, the 210/hr injectors are made at one of Bosch's other plants.
A few weeks ago, they sent an email to all their customers asking for product feedback. I admitted I couldn't give product feedback, but gave feedback on the pre-and-post sales support, and admitted I was kicking myself for jumping on the 1500cc injectors so early (they usually sold out fast).
The owner of the company emailed me back, thanking me for the feedback, and said if no fuel had passed through the injectors, they would offer me FULL CREDIT to exchange them towards the Bosch's!! I let them know that I had installed them so we knew what size adapters to get for the fuel rails... they said that was fine!
So I put in the order and shipped them back. They were so cool about it that when I sent them the USPS tracking number and thanked them again, they even sent out my Bosch's before my return got there.
So that's my big news for right now, and these are the higher end ones made with stainless steel components, not the (almost) all plastic ones that are floating around out there! And just like their other injectors, SEP does flow testing to make sure everything has a tight tolerance, marks the numbers on each injector, and sends you the flow sheets.
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The following Saturday was an productive, with one facepalm moment.
Facepalm first. Mike wanted to start working on the extension of wiring that would run through the cabin, from all the FAST stuff up front, to the engine compartment. Cool.
So we get our length of 'measurement wire', he gets out the FAST wiring diagram for the colors, and he starts rattling them off, I cut them, he puts on the terminators, and starts putting them into the Deutsch connectors...
He gets about 6 wires in.. and I go "oh hell." and he stops.
"What? Cut something the wrong length?"
"No... we forgot about the sleeve I bought for the interior."
"Oh no."
So I get the sleeving, he gets out his Deutsch connector pin disconnect tool. Unfortunately, here's where my desire to get high-quality stuff causes an issue. All the wiring I bought is SXL, so it has a slightly thicker insulation to make it more resistant to abrasion and what not. It also prevents it from slipping into the channel on his disconnect tool. Sigh.
He pointed out that inside the cabin it's not going to run into a lot of stressors, I just wanted something a little cleaner looking then using zip ties or reusable "christmas tree" ties.
He's going to talk to his tool guy at work and see if they have something with slightly bigger channels.
Onto other things where I have some pictures! So when dropping the cradle, we've been using two car-dollies (the ones you put under the tire and can push the car around, sideways and whatnot). It's a little wobbly, and usually an a-arm winds up dragging, but it functions. We built a sled with casters. It's been through a few small revisions. Larger (taller) and heavier-duty casters, as well as braces to keep it from shifting around:
Here was the original one.
I know it looks like an upside down skid, and it sort of is. It's orientated that way, so main weight bearing parts of the cradle will be supported evenly on those 4x4s, and it will sit at the right width so the smaller 'cross arms' in the A-arms will be supported on the back 4x4, lifting the suspension up a little bit closer to 'neutral' like when the car is sitting on the wheels.
The next issue is lifting the car up. Yes, we have done it the 'wrong' way, lifting the car up by the trunk latch, which always makes me cringe. The secondary problem with this method is the legs of the cherry picker get in the way of the cradle, requiring a lot more wibbly-wobbly to slide the cradle/drivetrain out.
Mike had a solution for that.
"So what did Mike think of?!" I know you're all excitedly asking....
Well, it required me taking the bumper cover and bumper off... and started off with...
I didn't get my phone out fast enough to take a picture when it was glowing red hot, and the zinc coating that was in the threads was glowing gold-green.
Next up is this nifty thick-walled heavy duty tube, welded to the nut. Yes, it's a little 'bubble-gummy', but welding in a recess doesn't give you much options.
Next, boxing it in to add some strength and spread out the load....
Finished up with that boxing in.
Bumper is back on the car! Now here is where I goofed and forgot to take a picture. After Mike modified the bumper cover (don't worry, it was a repop, and so the actual bumper. Apparently the car had gotten into a rear-end collision, but not bad enough to damage the frame). So the bumper cover now has this quarter-sized hole in it, that'll be hidden by the license plate. And for what??
For this! This is the first draft (for length measurement) of the anchor that will screw into the nut in the first picture, and the cherry picker (or a come-along hook) can be connected to. So now we can lift the car up higher without using the trunk latch and not have the legs of it get in the way. And if the car slides off the track at VIR, or needs to be pulled up onto a trailer, that's where the hook will connect.
It's not designed to lift up the car with the drive-train in it. It is for towing and drive-train-dropped lifting only.
Okay so now onto the stuff I'm really excited about. We slide my drivetrain skid under the cradle, unbolted the engine, and the skid worked exactly as intended, supporting the cradle, engine, transmission AND the A-Arms, so they didn't drag. We unbolted the upper control arm... then used the neat new lift point Mike put in before to life up the body of the car!
This also worked as planned, the cherry picker legs stayed clear of the skid/cradle. Now that he knows it works, he'll make the final version of the bolt that screws into the reinforced mounting point.
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Another Fiero member had posted up some stuff in his thread on water pumps, including the cool stuff that Davies Craig makes. It was on my list, and then I ran across a thread where La Fiera posted up about the BMW pump he uses (CWA200, with an aftermarket controller). That pump has been used on BMW engines (v6 and v8), included mounted in some places where they take a lot of thermal abuse.
La Fiera has been running this pump without any issues. So I figured, hey, this is an off the shelf pump I can get (somewhat) easily if I had to replace it on the side of the road. And we are mounting it up front (though not the same way La Fiera did), so it'd be away from all the engine heat. A phone call later, and viola, we went to a local store and picked up the pump. Mike isn't sure if XFI will be able to do a PWM to control this pump, so I'm going to get the controller for now -- and yes, I'll pick up a backup at somepoint to throw in the trunk on long trips, just in case.
So let's start with some pics of that!
Here is the pump next to an energy drink for reference. When the guy at the parts store pulled up the image of it on his computer to see if they had one, he commented it was the strangest water pump he'd ever seen. The top of it looks like a little turbocharger.
Mike made a bracket after figuring out a good place to mount it up front where it wouldn't be in the way of things. Plus with the fuse block he put up front, we'll have power for it and the controller up there already too, so this works out well.
I went with the LS Simple water manifold. It fit on very well, we just had to rotate the cam sensor 180 degrees, so the plug cleared the lower tube. It's very close to the block, so maximizes space! Mike penned out how to hook in the steam ports for the heads, so he's going to make a radiator overflow tank that will mount in the engine bay, so air will bleed out of the steam vents and into the tank at the top, and we'll have a return hose at the bottom. He'll be fabbing up that tank.
This was one of the few times I came up with an idea he liked. Originally he wanted to make a surge tank, but didn't like that the routing could have trapped air in the steam vents.
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Mike had to redo a lot in the radiator area to accommodate my new water pump, including some additional modification of the radiator itself. In the end, the connections from the pump and radiator to the radiator pipes going to the back of the car are going to be closed off with short heavy duty silicone hoses, and all-stainless t-clamps.
Mike also started running the lines for the transmission cooler. Here's some pictures of all that stuff!
And also here is a picture of my drivetrain skid with teh wheels on there. Just enough clearance. Haven't had a chance to test it yet. Thankfully it was cheap to make, so easy to build another one and improve it if necessary.
Anyhow - I mentioned before about modifying the radiator a bit more for the coolant piping to/from the water pump. Mike then tackled starting to run the transmission cooler lines. In my previous post I think I showed a pic of that getting started, and he finished it up (at least going back to the rear bulkhead, more on that later).
We did have to pull the radiator again, which lead to a good, but unexpected, test of how well it could go in/out around the transmission lines. It requires lifting the driver side first, but then it slides out without an issue. Could probably be done by one person, though two is definitely better (at least with the hood on).
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We also took apart the bracket setup for the FAST so we could mount the Tecomotive pump control on it. Check out the cool little connector channel! This thing is way smaller than I expected. At least it makes it super easy to package!
Once the drivetrain was out, we rolled it into the garage so Mike could start working on packaging accessories. The AC Compressor will use one of the original mounting points. Then he used some cardboard to start working out the template for the alternator, going as far as even bolting it up to the block, and I would hold the altnerator as he checked things out.
This bracket will be spaced out from the block to get the alternator pulley into alignment, with it sitting as test fitted, it is backspaced about .75". It's made from .25" 6061 aluminum. The spacers will be made from the same.
I'll be using a CS130 alternator from Power Master. I've used their alternators in the past and have had great luck with them, plus their tech support and pre-sales guys have always been great. Also, the last two alternators I got from them had higher than advertised amperage. They (used to) do a bench test and have a tag attached to it with the exact amps that unit put it out. The alternator in the mockup is an SI12 case, which has the same mounting hole distance and orientation as the unit I ordered.
Mike had finished up the mods to the engine cradle to allow safe clearance for the belt. So accessories are finalized.
He also tacked in the mounting points for the oil cooler. Even though it doesn't appear there will be much air flow there, Mike says it'll be okay and he's going to be putting some scoop/ducting under there at some point. And even ambient cooling is going to help a little. The red/blue AN fitting is for mock-up, a black one was delivered, it also has the port on there for the turbo-oil feed.
Solid color wire from ADI shipped out this week - well, most of the colors, a few were on backorder. We're also still waiting on the metal pieces for Mike to start mocking up the gas tank.
And this was just a funny picture after we put the wheels back under the car without the drivetrain.
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This time out, while Mike started working on the brackets, I cleared out what was left of the old nasty insulation in the Fiero engine compartment.
I will be replacing it with Thermo-Tec insulation, part 13590. I emailed them describing where it was going to be used, and this is what they suggested, so, we'll give it a shot! We'll also be putting back in the super-awesome Decklid brackets that FieroGuru made for my last Fiero, which will require us to fabricate the spreader bar that went in above the 'lip' (there are square holes cut out in there already) to help offer support. I'm going to go back in this thread and find that section to make sure I have the information handy for Mike. We'll also be reinstalling the super nice heatshield/smoothplate he made, which means I'll be taking off all those little stands off the bulkhead.
I also have some TechFlex SRF28.0SV material that we'll be using in other temp critical places, like on the manifold shields (definitely the inside of them). This stuff is crazy expensive, but that's partially because you can normally only get it in giant rolls. Thankfully a seller on eBay sells it in 2" cuts. I think this stuff is literally something used by NASA. If it's good enough for things being
shot into space, it's good enough for me!
Mike wanted to create a second bracket that would also wrap down to give the A/C Compressor some additional rigidity. This bracket means he has to rework one of the arms on the cradle a little, you can see where he cut through the spot weld, and the arm is kind of dangling there. Yes, the cradle has held the drivetrain for well over a year with just spot welds. Including while the car was bouncing along on a trailer to PA, and us lowering lifting it, rocking and rolling it. Crazy!
He also trimmed a bit of the 'lip' off the belt tensioner pulley. It wasn't coming into contact with the crank pulley, but it was so close that you'd be lucky if a piece of paper could slip between the space. Mike felt trimming of a bit of the lip was better than worrying about the lip scraping the pulley during movement with vibration.
He also rigged up some extra brackets for the back of the alternator and the compressor. On the compressor there is this little 'U'. So you can see that tab in a mock up position that will weld to the upright support on the cradle, and the bolt will fit snugly into that U. There is also more clearance between the alternator and the manifold that that angle would make you think.
So I had to buy a bunch of proper length bolts to put all this together, along with some sensors and other adapters for the transmission (ICT Billet makes coolant fittings for this transmission that go directly to AN, versus whatever the factory connection is, eliminating a potential leak point).
I scored a pristine, no cracks, center console skeleton from the junkyard. Mike got the tail lights (notchie), we picked up some other odds and ends. But I won't be using that. Instead, I'll be using one of the fantastic 3D printed units from a member on Pennock's.
It showed up in a very compact box, very well packaged (each piece was wrapped in bubble wrap). Looks pretty spiffy!!
I also took advantage of the Discount Tire black Friday sale and bought new tires for the stock coupe Corvette wheels I have on there, so those will go on this Saturday. The tires that are on there now are pretty well cracked, and these have the same ratio number, so the car will have a very slight rake and the rear tire will fill up the wheel well a little better. I'll post up pictures of those once the wheels are back on the car. Fronts are 255/40 R17, and the back are 275/40 R18. With the discounts, I effectively got a free tire.
I bought my Michelin's for the daily-driver wheels and got those mounted and balanced. One of the wheels required a fair amount of balancing weights. Sadly with the big spaces between spokes, it's easy to spot if the wheel is in the 4ish-to-8ish position.
I also made sure these tires had the same ratio for the front and back, making the outside diameter of the back wheels a little bigger, helps give the car a tiny bit of rake, which I like.
When I go to put tires on the z06 wheels, the backs will get DOT slicks, since those will be for the track, but still stand up to being (carefully) driven on roads so I don't need to trailer the car there or back.
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I had gotten some fittings to replace the stock coolant fittings on the 4T80 with ones that had AN connections, discovered one of them had this weird little tube on it. ICT made ones for the 4L80. We hoped they would be the same... they are a touch different. Thankfully we know someone with a lathe! So it'll be turned down a little.
Once all the remaining hoses are made, and rear sway bar mock up is done, drivetrain will go back into the car for a test fit. If there are no issues, it'll come back out, drivetrain comes off, final welding, and off it goes for powder coating!
Excluding A/C hose, that'll be almost last - I need to get another Fiero A/C hose and a GXP LS4 hose and take them to the hydraulic hose shop that has done other things for me, ask them to work their magic on those once we know the hose length.
Once it's back, we need to take measurements for axles and get those ordered. All the new rear suspension components will go on then. Then it's wiring! So. Much. Wiring.
Sadly, the delays in getting things done are making me worried about having the car ready to go to Pisa in time for all of the body mods and paint. I really wanted that to be done in 2022, so the car would be "Show & Go" ready for the 40th. Right now, it looks like it'll be more that SNL skit from the 80s, where it showed a car that was just totally terrible on the outside to deter thieves, but had awesome performance and interior. ... I probably won't put the awesome interior in until the body is done. Just doesn't seem right.
Speaking of interior parts. I had a facepalm moment. Three trips to the junkyard to get things off the Fieros, and I never considered the big seals that go around the door opening to seal around the door/door-glass. So that is on my go back and check out, see if it's still in good shape and get that off the cars. If anyone has ever removed that seal and can give any tips on how to do it without tearing it, I would appreciate it. Is it just glued in? Do I just use body panel tools and a lot of patience?
And lastly, I got stuff from Rodney to rebuild a few sets of the 87-88 headlight motors! Though the gears looked good in the two I took apart, I went ahead and got a set of Rodney's metal gears, along with a few sets of the delrin pins and gaskets and ball bearings. Better to have extras, right?
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So we are getting to some of the smaller and time consuming stuff, where we realize we need a particular fitting after figuring out the best way to route something.
The oil hoses is now all buttoned up.
The steamvent kit I got from TrickFlow is nice, and modular (it uses AN fittings), which is great because Mike wasn't completely happy with it (and the fittings let others adjust things to deal with clearance issues). It's mostly done but I have a few more fittings on the way.
Mike has the MAC Turbo solenoid mounted and made a neat shield for it to help protect it from heat. This will be in addition to getting the turbo housing coated and slapping a turbo blanket on it.
He also made a shield that will protect the fuel line from the belt, in both unexpected movement/contact abbrassion, or catastrophic belt failure (though with that greenstripe belt, it's not supposed to do that). I thought I took a picture of that mounted, but... I didn't? So I'll have to add that one later.
The fueling hoses are 99% routed and buttoned up. Fuel pressure regulator mounting bracket is done!
Smaller bit of flair, the ECU mounting bracket was powdercoated
Transmission note: Brandon Furches told me that I should make sure the piston was flipped around on the 2-3 shift. I emailed Dave at Triple Edge Performance. He couldn't remember if he had done this on my transmission. Brandon said it was the only thing that failed on his first 4T80E transmission, and he hasn't any any issues since doing that mode on bone-stock transmissions, so Mike and I will be opening the transmission up to get to that. I've bought the J-Kent parts to put the 4T80E in an tramission stand. Which requires two parts.
More fittings and sensors have been ordered. Mike wants to start mocking up the engine harness, starting by using the stock engine harness. Then once all the lengths and modifications are figured out, he'll use the new wiring to make a spiffy new harness.
Pretty soon the drivetrain will come off the cradle, final welds will be done on it, and then it'll go off for powdercoating.
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We got a few more fittings for hoses and finished buttoning up the fuel system, including getting the fuel pressure transducer in the circuit. All of the steam vents are setup, and the port for it's tank is ready to go. The tank needs to be fabricated, we are running out of real estate, Mike has an idea of where he'll put it and how it'll be shaped.
He started doing the mock-up spot welds for the chargepipe and getting other elements of the exhaust.
A bunch of the stuff that was done is off for powdercoating now, including the valve covers. We were also going to measure for the pushrods, but we misplaced the tool I got to do it. The one Mike has doesn't have the right range. So that'll be on my task list to find next time. I checked the rolling tool cart that I saw it on a few months ago, no luck.
So here is mock-up progress.
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When temperatures have cooperated, Mike has been busy with mocking up, measuring, and (re)modifying the exhaust plans. Still a lot left to weld, but he is happy with the progress so far, and is trying to take into account spacing, serviceability, hoses, wiring, and of course thermal control.
He's very focused on the details. At one point he had another piece welded into place, and it was not
quite parallel to the cross member of the cradle. And I mean, I didn't see it until he busted out a measuring tape, but he saw it without that. So I asked:
"Is that going to cause a problem?"
"Yeah." he replied
"What?"
"It's going to annoy me." was his answer. So he then went about fixing it.
He had been sending me pictures of his different mock-ups, but I wanted to wait because I knew things would change. You can see in one of the pictures all of the magic marker "line-up" marks from the current and previous fits.
So some of the exhaust materials that Mike needed were coming from a place in Washington state, so unfortunately it didn't reach him by the weekend. Other parts were coming from Summit and one piece of 0.064" t-6061 aluminum from Amazon. With the stuff that did show up, he was able to mock up one more part of the exhaust. The downpipe and the rest needs to wait until the rest shows up this week.
I'll hold off on talking more about the plans for the exhaust until they come to fruition. That way I have something to go with the pictures.
The next wave of things came back from powdercoating!
That is all of the current brackets to fit the accessories and such to the engine, plus the valve covers, of course. I wanted a few of them done in silver as accent pieces, but the powdercoating guy was being a bit of a jerk to Mike over the pricing (almost doubling the price, even though everything would go in the oven at the same time). Mike made an executive decision to just do it all in black.
I also had a heck of a time getting the Taylor wires I wanted. TWO orders from two different vendors who said they had them in stock cancelled the order because "Oops, by in stock, we really meant they'll ship from the manufacturer, and they don't have any...."
So after much Googling and reading up on wires used by other guys putting down big enough power that they were having spark issues with OEM wires, I found Scott Performance wires, right here in N.C. Apparently they also make wiring sets for stock car teams?
I called and spoke to them, explained what I wanted, and they were really great about it. Gave me a quote, and I received the wires on time. Mike said that visually they look good, they have a double sleeve, plus I got the thermal socks for them.
And since we are now waiting on more material to come in to do the exhaust, Mike switched gears to wiring for the moment. He started breaking down the stock harness and fitting it, taking out things we don't need. This will become our prototype wiring harness to run and do testing with. And then it will go in a box as an emergency backup.
Once that is done and all is working, the prototype harness will come out and we'll be using all that wire I bought to make a new engine harness, along with all the spiffy various-degrees-of-shielding loom. I learned about
https://lswiring.com/ from reaching out to EFIConnection (they own LSwiring.com as well?). I wanted to find an easy source to get bare connectors. They have a nice system were you can search by engine and it'll give a list of all the connectors they have for it.
EDIT: We did find the pushrod length measuring tool. We marked the top (nose?) of the valves, and he put a breaker bar on the crankshaft to rotate the engine assembly a few times to see where the marking would be rubbed off by the tappets. Stock LS4 pushrods are 7.4", the ones I have arriving are 7.475".
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We were able to make the single piece shims. Mike cut them to fit the rocker stand. The holes were chamfered. When those were installed and pushrods put in, he marked the nose of the valve and rotated the engine to make sure all the geometry landed where he wanted it, and it did.
You can see the powdercoated parts were also on. The big bolts for all of the accessories were figured out a while back, with washers so the powdercoating can't be dug/twisted when we torqued down the bolts.
The local Ace Hardware did not have the stainless hardware we wanted for all the p-clamps for the hose and other things, so McMaster-Carr has an order from me for screws, nuts, and washers.
Here is a shot of under the intake where we started plumbing in hardware. The vacuum tube will be using a length of hard tube that will extend out just a little past the intake, and the hose will fit to it there.
Mike really wants to get the exhaust done by the end of next weekend, so I can take that to Jet Hot, and he can take the drivetrain off the cradle to finish the welding on that, and then it goes off for powdercoating.
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Yesterday was 99% watching Mike measure, cut, spot weld, repeat!
I did a little work, replacing some of the p-clamp fasteners with 316 stainless ones, but that's boring stuff, and you guys are here for the cool stuff!
One of the things I failed to find was a smooth transition 90 degree Y-pipe, that was 3" and dual 2.5" out. I could find them in aluminum all day long, but since the exhaust, save for the manifolds, is all stainless, I wanted tobe consistent.
Magnaflow made one, but it's in 409 stainless, which is apparently lousy. So Mike had me get him two 2.5" tight radius 90s in 304, and he made the Y pipe that he wanted.
He said it was a little tricky, since stainless doesn't have the ductability that aluminum does, so you need to be careful about how much you bend it and where, or else it'll either fail right then, or fail in the future (especially with exhaust stuff, if it's close to the manifolds, or is the manifolds!)
Here are some shots as Mike made the Y-pipe, clamping, squishing, checking, etc. I only took a few pics, but this was a time consuming project.
Then once the Y was spot welded, we did some test fits and measurements. We found with the muffler I picked, we had to extend the downpipe out a little more.
After the downpipe was modified again, we put the v-band on the Y and test fit the mufflers
The mufflers will also be modified for V bands as well. This way it'll be easy in the future to make adjustments, I can pop off the mufflers easily, either for the track or for other mufflers. And the downpipe can be lengthened/shortened now too (if future muffler selection demands it), only requring another v band to be welded on.
This way I can try to find mufflers that will keep the car quiet enough for me to enjoy, but not strangle the engine, and hopefully not anger my neighbors.
Everything will be hung/mounted from the cradle, making it an easy package to drop out once all hoses/wiring is disconnected.
Mike estimated another 10 hours to do the finish welding on all of the exhaust now. Once that's done, that'll be off to Jet Hot, engine and transmission will be put on stands, cradle will be finished welding and off to powdercoating.
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Currently all the pieces are on their way to the Colorado facility for their 2500 coating. They couldn't do it in their local facility because the application method is different. (Update, Jet Hot has shipped it back as of late April. It should be to me the first week of May).
Mike has gotten back to the engine harness. He is still working on the prototype one, using the original harness as much as possible.
He is still putting all of the many...
many feet of high temp wire loom to work, to make things look as slick as possible, since this will likely be the one in the car for Carlisle.
That last pic is of a mounting bracket he made for the P-clamps to keep the wiring neat.
We talked about doing the wiring in the hyper-hidden slick way that FieroGuru does (and got me top marks when I had that setup at AutoFair in a car judgement stuff).
Mike doesn't want to go that route, so in case anything needs to be fixed or replaced, it'll be easier to troubleshoot and, well, fix or replace it!
There's still a lot to do. This weekend we plan on using the plasma cutter to finish cleaning up the cuts from when we took out the strut towers, take out the dog bone bracket, and start cleaning up the bulkhead.
That's it for todays MEGA POST!
