427 engine (part 2) - RHS block

[RevXtreme 1]

Doing both is the same first part of the description....and yes, don't let it intimidate you, it is not difficult. I have 2 like new out of a wreck but since you went this far get new. As you already saw, the brake lines and harness to the rear wheel sensors/parking brake cables need to be secured back where they belong. I have seen them even catch and get wrapped around the axle!! I'm impressed with what you accomplishing on your own. Wish you were closer, I would come up and help. DON'T forget about the way your using the vented can for crankcase......it will cause damage guaranteed over time.

[Rich Z]

Originally Posted by RevXtreme 1

Doing both is the same first part of the description....and yes, don't let it intimidate you, it is not difficult. I have 2 like new out of a wreck but since you went this far get new. As you already saw, the brake lines and harness to the rear wheel sensors/parking brake cables need to be secured back where they belong. I have seen them even catch and get wrapped around the axle!! I'm impressed with what you accomplishing on your own. Wish you were closer, I would come up and help. DON'T forget about the way your using the vented can for crankcase......it will cause damage guaranteed over time.

Yeah, I watched a bunch of videos on YouTube last night showing people replacing the half shafts on front wheel drive vehicles. It looks to be roughly the same procedure. The trick is just getting the wheel/hub assembly out of the way so that the shaft can be pulled out of the differential. I'm going to take a bunch of pics/video of that area of my car so at least I'll have something to refer back to if I forget how exactly it goes back together again.

In any event, I found a CorvetteForum member up in New York who has two brand new GM shaft assemblies in the box that he can sell to me at a reasonable price. So I just need to wait for them to get here. In the meantime there is some other stuff I can be doing on the car. I never did understand the philosophy that was evident with the two shops my car was in that once they hit a roadblock, to leave the car sitting till that roadblock cleared up instead of moving on to something else that needed to be done that COULD be done.

As for the crankcase ventilation, I'll keep my eye closely on the state of the oil. I want to see if it looks as dirty after just 400 miles or so of driving while I have it as it did after Aaron had the car and supposedly did three oil changes in that interim.

BTW, I found a big rubber hose disconnected at the front of the engine bay on the driver's side. I believe there is something called an "air pump" there, which apparently must be disconnected. What is that device there for? Any ideas why it would be disconnected?

Also, JEGS called me up about that problem I had with the melted convoluted tubing. They say it's only able to withstand 200 degrees. Ouch. Doesn't seem like this would work very well in an engine bay. They are sending me what they are calling higher temp tubing, but I cross checked the part numbers and they are only good to 257 degrees. I don't like the fact that the wiring harnesses for the fuel injectors and ignition coils are merely wrapped electrical tape, but what can I get that will cover them appropriately yet not melt all over the damned place? And it's got to be something slitted, as I'm not about to try to take those harnesses apart in order to fee wires through a tube of some sort. Aaron pointed out how he had cleaned up the engine wiring when I went out there to pick up the car last month, but I looked at it and was thinking "Electrical tape? That's the best you can do?" But what do I know?

[RevXtreme 1]

The air pump can be deleted and the DIC code disabled as well. Not needed.

[Rich Z]

Today I took video and pics of everything I could in the rear wheel well so if I forget how something goes together when I'm trying to put the new half shaft back in, I'll have something to reference.

Then I decided to tackle that peek-a-boo air inlet STS pipe that was sticking out of the front of the passenger side rear wheel well. Biggest issue was just getting to the pipe to figure out what was wrong. I had never taken out the inner panels for the wheel wells before, and I had to do that front and back to get to everything. Also needed to loosen up the front fender to get to the couplings up front there. This all went pretty smoothly, but I did find an attachment point for the front fender at top of the wheel well that apparently Aaron ripped out. I know he had been taking the PCM out and putting it back again quite often for Jim while there were working on the tuning, as they were putting the PCM on the bench to do the hookup to their PC. My guess is that Aaron did not remove that top attachment screw and eventually just ripped the darn thing out.



Not sure if there is any way for me to fix that chunk taken out so I can put an insert in there to attach a screw to.

Also found several screws and nuts missing here and there that I need to try to find replacements for. One of the nuts used to hold the brake cooling inlet bezel in front of the rear wheel opening was run out all the way to the end of the attachment screw and not even holding the bezel in place. Since the front one was missing completely (but it's nearly impossible to get to that with the STS pipe in place) there were only two out of four nuts holding it to the body panel.

And it certainly is impressive looking at a braided hose that was too long, and instead of shortening it to the correct length, just got wound in a loop around the tail pipe support.....



Anyway, the STS pipe was just too far back, so I had to loosen all of the clamps and move the pipe forward till it cleared the wheel opening. This sounds easy enough writing it, but I actually had to use a rubber mallet to coerce the tube forwards. It's jammed in pretty good and even the coupler clamp up front was a challenge to move, as it was pinned against the frame from the pressure of the tube against it. The coupler up there behind the fender panel doesn't look like a regular STS coupler, and seems to be thinner. It appears someone put an additional third hose clamp there, I guess to keep it from bulging in the gap between the two pipe ends under boost. That would be a real pain in the butt to get a thicker coupler in there, so I decided to just leave it and hope for the best. Maybe sometime I'll try to find a WIDE hose clamp to put in there instead of trying to pull that coupler out and replace it.

I had to slit a section of coupler so I could fit it around the top of the pipe going over the wheel well to act as a buffer between the pipe and the frame, and then jammed the pipe in there tight while tightening down all the coupler clamps. Doesn't rattle any longer and I think it looks MUCH better now...

Before:


After:


Oh yeah, I checked and I don't have a 34mm socket for that nut on the end of the half shaft holding the hub to it. So I need to get one before those half shafts come in.

At least I felt like I got SOMETHING accomplished today...

[CorvetteJohn]

You might try this for the broken attachment. Put a piece of aluminum behind the hole and pop rivet it in place. Now drill a couple of holes in the aluminum.

Then use some epoxy putty to fill the cavity. Push the epoxy into the holes you drilled to help it hold the epoxy patch

When it is dry you should be able to drill it for the screw that holds the fender.

[Rich Z]

Originally Posted by CorvetteJohn

You might try this for the broken attachment. Put a piece of aluminum behind the hole and pop rivet it in place. Now drill a couple of holes in the aluminum.

Then use some epoxy putty to fill the cavity. Push the epoxy into the holes you drilled to help it hold the epoxy patch

When it is dry you should be able to drill it for the screw that holds the fender.

Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. I was thinking along the lines of JB Weld, since that stuff can fix just about anything. I found a site selling assortments of body panel screws, bolts, nuts, and clips, so I ordered some. That way I can see what I have to work with before starting on a fix.

I do have to admit that this is rather aggravating having to spend all this time and money fixing stuff that others broke on my car. And I don't EVEN want to get into all of the scratches on the paint that happened between the time that the body shop in Blountstown sanded and buffed them all out, and the day I drove the car back home from Thomasville. And yeah, the cracked paint on the hood REALLY sets my teeth on edge... Connie says I grind my teeth something awful while I'm asleep. Well no damned wonder...

[RevXtreme 1]

Dang Rich.....don't know what to say.

[Rich Z]

Originally Posted by Rich Z

I had a LONG phone conversation with Aaron today, and it didn't get as heated as I really thought it would. We both kept our cool and had a conversation that we will likely both look back on as being the best that could be hoped for, all things considered. I simply laid out all the cards on the table as I see them, and Aaron laid his own out as he saw them. Obviously there are some disagreements in interpretation of some of the points.

But point of the matter is that I had expected to be driving a car home from his shop that I could DRIVE afterwards. It's been in my garage ever since, nearly a month later, except for a brief trip to my front porch so Bret could look at the tuning remotely for me. There are problems that need to be resolved that I thought I had already paid him for, that I will either need to resolve myself, or pay someone else to resolve them for me before my car is driveable. Aaron said I could bring the car to his shop and he would fix the problems, and even offered to have Jim Smith come to my house to work on the tune. My response was simply that I couldn't see any reason in doing it that way, as they had already had 14 months to do this, and I couldn't see any reason why I should consider giving them more time at this point.

With that in mind, I asked Aaron if he would consider refunding a small amount of the money I paid him, and he agreed, saying he would send me a check in two weeks. I sent him a followup email detailing the conversation and asked him to reply with an acknowledgement of our verbal agreement.

I really hate burning bridges, even when there appears to be no choice in the matter. But it is what it is.....

Well, so much for that. On 12/13/11 Aaron told me he was going to post a refund of $2,000 via my credit card account number by Friday (12/16) because he was expecting a payment from a customer at that time. That didn't happen. Nor have I received the check for the refund that he promised me ("I'm a man of my word", he said). The email I sent to him as a followup to our conversation indicating I would expect the check by 12/31/11 was never replied to nor ackowledged, neither. I guess I can figure out how this is going to go...

Still finding screws missing and other crap. Decided to pull all the wheels off to check the brake lines since that problem with the half shaft, and had to wind up bending a couple of lines up front away from the frame or other metal parts they were hitting against.

[Rich Z]

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself a bit here, but I am thinking about what I need to do with the fuel system to get rid of that external Aeromotive pump. One problem I'm having trouble getting my brain around is figuring how much of the stock wiring has been butchered between the two shops that my car has been in. I took off the back inspection panel on the driver's side tank and it appears that my stock pump is still in place. Of course the stock plumbing is disconnected with the new plumbing going to the Aeromotive pump. I don't have any idea what to look for as far as a wiring harness is concerned, either at the pump end, or up in the engine compartment. Certainly I don't want to use that direct 12 volt wire running directly to the fuse block.

So, what do I need to look for to see what I have to work with and what I have to fix that has been butchered?

Secondly, what options do I have available for adequate fuel flow to an engine that has dynoed at 692 rwhp? Will a Kenne Bell Boost-A-Pump coupled with the stock fuel pump be adequate, or do I need a stronger pump in the tank to replace the stock one? I believe Lingenfelter sells a replacement pump, and looking over their install instructions, it doesn't look too tough to tackle. But honestly, the Kenne Bell install instructions left me scratching my head.....

If I can get this fuel delivery issue straightened out, honestly, that will be a BIG load off of my mind about this car.

After reading about this stuff, I can't help but wonder why in the Hell Harwood went with that funky Aeromotive pump. There appears to be a lot more elegant methods to get higher fuel flow than what he chose to do. I sure do wish I knew more about it back then so I could have stopped him in his tracks with his plan. But I thought the guy knew what he was doing...

[RevXtreme 1]

http://www.corvettegarage.com/produc...5-and-z06.html

You will have to use a volt/ohm meter to determine if you still have power to the stock harness connector but this and other intank replacement pumps work well. The A-1000 is a monster and we have used it to supply 1000 rwhp twin turbo builds but it is noisy.

Check out Lonnies Performance as well....he has a drop in complete assy that is top notch.