High temp, 8* today. -8* on my way to work, -20* wind chill. Stop by and i'll through a glass of water in the air so you can see it freeze before it hits the ground. Better yet, I'll let you shovel my driveway.

 

Dont get me wrong i love the snow and i love the winter time, just a little pissed that i had to delay moving my car as i wanted a couple days to work on it before i goto siberia for the next 33 days.

Anyway, the car is now inside of my buddies shop. I am sitting inside of the lounge in the airport so needless to say i personally didnt get anything done on the car. We did set the new BECOOL rad in place and we are a little worried that it is not going to clear the hood. This rad was supposed to be a direct drop in for my year of camaro and im worried it doesnt work. Another thing that i noticed today is that it has a transmission cooler in the rad, i ordered it without so am worried that they sent me the wrong rad. A little frustrating because i paid over 2k for the stupid thing.

So my buddy whos shop it is at is going to try to have it ready to run and drive (minus the driveline) before i get home on February 10th. I have my doubts but i am going to let him run with it when he gets time from the day to day operations he deals with. My old man bought me 25 labour hours at the shop which will be a good start to the project.

I also spoke with the guy that is going to my carpet and the headliner once i have my cage in. He gave me some pointers on what will need to be done with the bars in order for him to make it look nice.

So here is what i would consider my wish list timeline.

April - Send my car to the cage shop
May - have entire interior done
June - Be road worthly

Givin the state that the car is in now i dont think this is un reachable but time will tell.

I will be asking my buddy to send me pictures of the progress he makes, they will be terrible quality off of his Iphone as ive seen the pictures before but it will be better then nothing.

Stay tuned

Oh yeah, im going to install the nitrous too! Everyone needs 770HP on tap.

 

Having a cooler or not is no biggie. Simply don't use it, and leave the holes or plug them; it's the same either way. I had the same problem with my radiator being too tall. I simply cut the lower support off and welded it back on lower, and it worked great.

 

I really didnt wanna cut off that lower plate as theres not really anything below to weld it back on to. My buddy is going to pick up the stock hood and get some measurements. I should know soon enough.

 

Sorry, it is a known fact the drop in rads are too tall. Most are just due to the cap being straight up and not on a 45* angle like stock. As Val said most of us cut the lower support. You basically have to cut the bottom out and then weld in filler panels to box it back in. It happens on everything from cheap to 2k rads. You could also lean it forward or back to drop the top down. I have a brace between my frame rails under mine so my plane was to drop it down to there. He is a pic of one like mine. The silver bar isnt stock but makes a nice ledge to set the rad on.

Please post up the tips your interior guy gave you. Never know, it may be something none of us have ever heard of or seen but is completely logical.

 

Yes, I just cut the bottom off, added material to it, then tacked it back in place. It's really an easy mod. Even without a welder the bottom can be cut of and plates made to bolt in with lower mounting point. Mine was just like Damon said, the wrong cap angle and the cap hit the hood.

 

Hi, so this modification to the lower radiator support is required with every after market radiator?

 

No. Only some.

 

Including the Be Cool rad i bought, it even has a 45degree cap on it.

Dont have anything to update as i dont wanna pester my buddy about working on the car. I will probably wait till next friday to ask him how its going.

As for the interior he just showed me where the roll cage needs to be in order to do a headliner after with those side clips and we talked about what i was looking for with carpet an such.

 

My Griffin also had the 45 degree cap, but was keeping my hood from closing by about 1.5"-2".
Rollcages and interior are always tricky to get things done in the right order, and not end up with weld spatter or paint damaging the new interior, or not being able to properly finish the interior.