AiM Sports MXL Strada

Received my display yesterday… courtesy of Jeff & Jordan Innovations. Thanks again for the hookup! As most of you know I kind of build clusters from time-to-time, so I’m looking forward to building one for myself to house this bad-boy. It should actually be a bit more of a challenge than the clusters I have fabricated in the past, considering it doesn’t exactly fit into the confines of the OEM housing. But I prefer a challenge over easy… the reward is always greater!

I chose the MXL for a few reasons:

AiM Sports appears to be the leader in race displays

I like the clean look of the MXL

I like the fact that the display is completely customizable via a computer

The MXL supports CAN bus hook-up. Which means I can simply wire 4 wires and it will read every sensor off the LS3 ECU. Hookup consists of: IGN, GND, and two CAN wires.

TR6060 and Other Junk

Received the TR6060 this past week. Everything looks to be good-to-go on it. I can see that I’m gonna need to figure out lines for the slave cylinder as it uses a quick disconnect. I’m not sure if there are any options out there to convert it over to AN, but worst case scenario I can cut the line and weld on a -4 male end. Jeff over at Jordan Innovations is telling me that Tick Performance offer some conversion fittings… so I’ll check those out.

I also received my stage 3 (they have 6 stages) Monster clutch/flywheel combo. The stage 3 is good for 700hp/tq… so I think I’ll be good:) I have a couple of friends on Zilvia that run this clutch on their LS1’s and they have nothing but great things to say about it. I have also read a lot of positive feedback on the www so I went with Monster. I’m use to spending a gang of loot on a Blitz or Cusco for import engines… this thing was on sale for a measly $649.

Since I’m trying to source everything I can to get this trans in and not have to take it back out, I went ahead and also picked up a MGW short shifter. It’s fully adjustable and cures the issues the stock shifter is known to have. This kit is pretty badass:

With all the recent new parts bliss, I about forgot that I needed a little thing called a starter. So I quickly ordered up a MSD 5096. Also fully clockable to aid in any clearance issues.

Stumbled Across a Transmission

I originally was going to do a T56 transmission for my swap. It’s a good trans and it’s what my Sikky trans mount and driveshaft are designed for. However, they are going up in price lately. It’s hard to find one for less than $1500 and seem to average around $1700. Jeff Jordan from Zilvia opened my eyes to how cheap the TR6060’s are going for. They are even more bullet proof than the T56, not to mention that it will have FAR fewer miles since it’s out of a new Camaro. The only thing left was to find one.

I typically Google for TR6060’s every few nights with little luck. Either it’s a trans that was for sale 2 years ago or something that is overpriced… or just no results at all. Well, I came across a WTB thread on Camaro5.com. I figured I would check to see what luck, if any, the guy was having finding one. Very first reply a guy said he had one that he was selling along with the OEM clutch, hydraulics, OEM pedals, Hurst shifter etc. He wanted $2000 + shipping for everything. Basically he was switching over to an automatic 4L80E for the drag strip… he has a 850-ish whp 5th gen Camaro that was just built. So I promptly become a member on Camaro5 as fast as my man fingers could slap the keyboard. As I go to click on his username to send him a PM, I realize that the dude lives in the same damn town as me… Normal, IL. I thought to myself, you have to be shitting me! Bloomington/Normal is a little over 100,000 people… so it’s not that big. And it’s not like it’s a suburb of a large city… it’s really out in the middle of nowhere. So I end up talking to the guy and the trans is on the east coast where the car was built. But he said he could do everything for $2000 shipped. So I’ll have some extra parts that I can hopefully part out for a few bucks. Looks as though I need to order up that Monster clutch!

As far as pics, nothing major as I have been waiting to post them in a substantial update. But it would be very rude of me to make a new post without some pics. I finally found some black fuel rails. The Black Label ones that I planned on going with have seem to be discontinued. But lucky me Katech just released some a few months back. They are simply FAST rails made for Katech in a black color… and believe or it not the price isn’t jacked up just because it says Katech on them. I also finished all of my hoses including the power steering hoses. Note: the power steering hoses, heater hoses and oil filter hoses will get fastened to the block, frame rail etc to keep them where I want them. I just need to figure out what type of clamps I want to go with. I won’t do that until the hose ends are actually crimped on though. I also got my harness from Chase on there, but I don’t have the coil pack sub harness plugged in yet in these pics.

I also talked to Justin at Sikky today and they have a mount in the works for the TR6060. He informed me that they will be going into production hopefully in a few weeks. They can then just custom make a driveshaft that will work with the TR6060 and my S15 rear-end. Justin(Sikky) has been very pleasant to work with. They have always answered their email within 24 hours and have always been accommodating to me. Thanks again to Sikky!

Surge Tank

I designed a surge tank last week and had my local machine shop fab it up for me. It consists of a billet upper neck with a 1/8″ NPT port for a -4 overflow line. On the upper front a -8 weld-on XRP double o-ring port that leads to the top side of the radiator. A weld-on -4 AN nipple at the top side for the steam ports. Then at the bottom left two -8 weld-on XRP double o-ring ports for a pass-thru from the heater core to the front inlet port on the water pump:

All of the lines mocked up:

Repaint

Not really many updates on the car… I have been busy figuring out all of the AN stuff that I need to run. Going with some pretty baller fittings and hose from XRP. I will post more on that once I start getting the stuff in. I am in the process of becoming a dealer for XRP because I certainly do not want to pay full price for them… the stuff is very expensive.

I also need to repaint the bay at some point because the white is a tad too white. It needs to be perfect and I have gone through too much work to have it a be a little off compared to the exterior of the car. Not really a big deal though at this point. All of the stuff in the bay was only being test fitted anyway. And it’s a simple scuff the bay then just trailer it over to the body shop again. No rush on it at this point though… it will probably happen next month or so.

I will leave you with a little teaser pic of the AN fittings. I will be going with their Kevlar line most likely… definitely not stainless as pictured:

… And It’s Painted

I got the car back on Sunday from Dave’s shop.

I didn’t really get a chance to work on it much on Sunday though as I had my youngest daughter’s 1 year B-day party at our house. I did get it on the jack stands so I could get the dollies back to Dave’s body shop and cleaned up some rubber grommets. It’s gonna be go time now though on getting it back together!

I went ahead and had the cross member, Nismo Power Brace and steering rack brackets powder coated a gloss black. I fought for a little while on the color, but came to the conclusion that black is the only color that fits my style for that type of part:

Cleaned up the wiper motor and mounted up the new Chase Bays master cylinder setup:

My steering rack needed some serious cleaning and help. Even though you won’t really be able to see it under the motor, I needed to address it:

I cleaned all the cast aluminum up with some Maxx Solv and painted the rods and body with some gloss black epoxy paint.

At this point I couldn’t really think of anything better than dropping the motor in for a test fit. I want to give a huge thanks to my boys Kyle and Jeff for giving me a hand with this:

Me struggling putting the driver’s side header in. I actually had to have the motor mounts up and out of the cross member, then drop each header into the car. Then lower the motor into place and bolt the headers up:

It’s officially in… well, temporarily:

The nice thing is that there isn’t going to be much else in the bay that isn’t in there now. I will be tucking the radiator, battery in the trunk, tucked coolant overflow etc. So really the only other things that will be seen in the bay are just a custom intake setup, black braided AN radiator hoses with all black fittings, AN heater hoses also with the all black setup, custom oil filter relocate setup… again with the same all black AN stuff.

Sikky Product Arrival

I finally received all of my Sikky product Thursday. As mentioned earlier in this blog, Sikky was nice enough to give me a sponsorship. In trade for the hook up, I agreed to give my honest opinion on the product and dole out several write-ups on installation, performance and so on. I will start off by saying that they have been nothing short of perfection in the customer service area. I have been dealing with Justin over there and have had zero complaints!

Onto the product… I want to post a couple of pictures of each product to start off with. I’m sure some of you have seen this stuff several times, but this will be a good place to see multiple pictures of the product, on and off the vehicle/motor.

Sikky Headers: I went with the 1-7/8″ primaries since I plan on over 500whp and eventually more down the road. I opted for the coated ones. I went ahead and mounted one up because I wanted to check for fitment and clearance issues… all is good!

I knew it would be VERY tight at the bottom back of the motor where the bell housing bolts up. I just assumed I would have to shave that corner of the block just to get them to fit, but they actually fit. There is about 2mm of clearance… which I will be shaving that corner off just to make sure there is no rubbing issues at any point.

Sikky Oil Pan Kit: Very nice craftsmanship! The kit includes a new oil pickup, new oil dip stick, tube and bung, new OEM gasket and new oil filter relocation setup. Everything seems to be really well thought out. The new location for the oil dip stick is also baffled on the inside… little things like that were not overlooked.

I probably won’t be utilizing the Sikky oil filter relocation. While I’m sure it will work just fine, I will want something a little more “baller” for this setup… something similar to what I had on my SR. Everything in the bay will be braided nylon AN lines anyway, so I would hate to have some stainless lines just chill’n in the bay all by themselves. You never know though, I may use it temporarily just to get it fired up.

Sikky LS Motor Mounts: Not much to say, they are a solid hunk of metal that looks tits. As long as they line up and don’t break down the road then I guess they’ll work just fine. They also make a solid mount option, which I obviously opted not to go with.

Sikky Master Cylinder Conversion Kit: Utilizes a Wilwood master cylinder(which I’ll be coating black to match my Wilwood brake master cylinder) and Sikky’s CNC’d mount for an effortless install onto the firewall. Lines are also included.

Sikky Driveshaft: I went with the aluminum option… they also make a steal version. They have them for S13, S14, with or without ABS.

Sikky Subframe Bushings:

The transmission subframe is also included in this kit, but it is on back-order… should have that sooner than later. With the extended weekend, I’m hoping to get the pan on and work on the bay a little more. I promised a lot of my time to the family though, so we’ll see how it goes. It is a 2-day weekend for me though, so I should have enough time to please everyone:D

LS3 Dress-Up

Roughly 2 days after I decided to do a LS3 swap, I came to the conclusion that I just had to have the Katech valve covers and Katech coil pack relocation kit. COOL LOOKING.. check!, PRICEY… unfortunately check! AVAILABLE… nope! These damn things are impossible to come by. Several weeks ago, after I sold several of my SR parts, I decided to bite the bullet and buy the Katech stuff from their site. Unfortunately I could only get on an email waiting list for when they become available. I waited a few weeks and they were still on back order from Katech. I started looking around on the forums for used sets and people were either selling them for even more than the already outrageous retail price for new ones or they were not the version with the inlay… which is what I wanted. Even ones that were going for a very steep price sold in as little as a couple of days. So it was very much to my surprise when I stumbled across a set a couple of weeks ago on the Corvette forum that was far cheaper than retail and was even brand new in the boxes… with the inlay to boot!

I just got them this past week and bolted everything on the other night. The quality is perfect. Much better than most of the JDM stuff I dealt with for my SR. With the SR parts, it always seemed like I was modifying a brand new part to get it to fit to my standards or in some cases just to get it to fit at all. So I have to give Katech props for this!

Parts laid out:

Bolting on and assembling the coil pack relocate kit:

Before and after:

A new set of MSD plug wires were also was a must since the OEM plug wires were now too short:

Still undecided what color I want to paint the valve covers and manifold. Although I must admit that with the red valve covers on there, I don’t mind the OEM black of the LS3 manifold near as much as I did. I’m sure Kyle is rolling his eyes at me right about now : )

The LS3 Has Landed

I sold my SR motor last Wednesday night, then ordered up the LS3 Thursday. A few days later and it’s in my possession. I bought the LS3/480 which is the standard LS3 with the addition of a pre-installed “hot” cam. This bumps power from the standard 430hp up to 480hp. Pretty logical purchase for only another $340.

Long Block and Trans Ready For Removal

I officially have nothing left but to yank the motor/trans. Damon and Kyle are coming over tomorrow to help with the extraction. Damon had informed Kyle and I a couple of weeks ago that he would be coming down this weekend. So I tried to time it so everything would be ready for the motor to come out while he was here. I figured he would appreciate getting to help and I could always use an extra hand.

Except for the motor, everything is out of the bay. Once the motor is out, I can start prepping it for some TIG action. I’m picking up a Miller TIG very soon… most likely next week. I have always wanted one and this gives me a really good excuse to finally pick one up. I will be welding up all the holes and whatnot to give the bay a tidied look. I will also be shaving some of the mounts, tabs and battery tray.

In order to weld on the firewall, the entire dash-board also had to come and everything behind there. Which meant I had to remove the cage along with everything else up front.

It has also become apparent that I will be doing an all new chassis harness since everything is out on the floor. I am trying to work with Chase from Chase Bays to try out his new chassis harness. If not, I will make my own. The engine harness is also sitting in this mess, but I will obviously be ditching that for the new LS3 harness.

My basement is where I store all the important parts.

I also snapped a couple quick pics as I was coming up from my basement. One of my dogs was laying down watching me organize stuff…. and he never sits still. He’s a wild man! His name is Wilson and he has a killer goatee.