Another weekend and some more progress. I've been working a little bit at a time to get closer to installing the Dorman LS2 intake, and it got to the point where I was ready to pull my TBSS intake and do the first test fit. First up was to swap out the stock valley cover bolts for the low profile cap bolts to clear since the intake sits a little bit lower.
First test fit was happy at first because it looks way better than the truck intake, but soon was slightly disappointed because the water pump won't work with the throttlebody. I'm too far down the path now, so I have to move forward with my intake swap. I found a few good deal on eBay for a low mileage C6 water pump and balancer. More research was needed on what the best plan would be for the alternator bracket. I eventually wanted to swap to the Corvette accessories to gain 1.5" in front of the engine for turbo stuff, but this situation sort of forced my hand.
Since I need to swap the balancer and swap water pumps, it was much easier to just pull the radiator to get that out of the way. While I had that off, I might as well fix the driver's side frame horn! It was bent in and the top was twisted in as well. I could have used a porta-power I didn't feel like buying one for this project, so I used what I had. My press jack, my BFH, slide hammer, welder and leverage when I could.
Don't try this at home. It didn't work well at all and was quite sketchy.
Before:
After:
I wasn't striving for perfection, but rather a frame that measured straight and within specs for width. I tried to get it back as close as I reasonably could to the original look. I think it turned out pretty good considering the tools I had available.
Another little unexpected surprise was picking up a set of cool late 90's gauges from Custom Rod Gauges. The guy selling them said that all the gauges but the speedometer worked. I took a chance since he was selling them so cheap. The overall reviews for the company seem to be poor customer service, but a quality product. The gauges are all VDO internals.
After pulling off the back cover, I noticed that one of the leads had the solder broke off. I connected it to the right connection and the gauge fired right up! WIN. They came with all the sensors and just overall needs a little TLC. I haven't fully decided if I'm going to run them because I really do love the original gauges. But good to know that they all work.
I also found some electrical tape on the speed sensor wiring that came with it. Each lead was crudely wrapped with electrical tape. I wonder if that had any reason to do with why the Speedo wasn't working??
I placed my order for the Speedway 9" assembled third member with 3.25 gears and 35 spline Helical Posi unit. While I was on there, I also saw something pop up for a sway bar in the garage sale section. Comments said it appeared to be installed, but returned for one reason or another. It had a decent discount so I grabbed it too. The hardware was brand new so it had never been installed, but I think some paint was scuffed off in shipment. That's fine with me. Easy touch up. That's another reason why I needed to straighten out the frame because where the sway bar mounts to the frame didn't sit flat.
I ordered a bunch of parts to finish the install for my 9", catch can, fuel pump controller and other misc. things. Once it all gets here, I'll be able to button everything up fairly quickly and get some more road miles on the car this season. The weather rapidly changed and we're in full on spring here in central Virginia. Can't wait to get it back on the road!
Cheers,
Ryan
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