Enjoying the thread. Looking good. Funny how the work gets in the way right when everything starts coming together! Same happened to me after we found an engine. Was gone for 2 1/2 weeks working out of town. Couldn't wait to get back home to get the engine in but hey, gotta have the work to pay the bills. Did you powder coat the plenium too?

 

Why haven't I seen this? Looks good really good from what I can see.

If you ever get ambitious, those valve covers can be smoothed out and polished. Thank you GM for not cursing us with the plastic covers the fwd 3800's got.

 

That sounds like work. Powder coating is quick. Now the motor is in you can see very little of what I did.

Small update this weekend. I had to drive back to where I got the calipurs to get the spindles (1-1/2 hours each way) He let me have them for free as long as I pulled them. I got the torgue arm, drive shaft,cross brace in and I start on the fab for the exhaust.

 

Your going to have a practically new camaro. Very few people would go the lengths to get everything right like you have. Your powdercoating looks awesome. I'm sure you'll be able to enjoy that car for years, cant wait until you get it done. Maybe you could video driving it. Good looking car and very nice work.

 

It would not fit in my oven and the local powder coater wanted $100 just to cook it for me. i am running into the same issue with the spindles. So i guess i will just paint them. They are about a 1/2 inch to long.

 

$100 bucks just to cook? Sheesh, I would definantly look around for another coater... go to craigslist and buy a large range oven for a few bucks. Check in the appliances/free/household sections and you'll find a deal. Might not be today that you find it but there's a lot of free to 30 buck deals for full size ranges on there. I know you might be limited on space but I'm sure you could find somewhere to put it, ha ha.


Great build btw, really jealous. What job do you have that makes you work 60+ hours a week?

 

My shop only has 110v. To add a 220 line I need to upgrade my service. Its pretty much maxed out. So no 220 oven for me for now. I have been thinking about the HF powder coating oven. Its 18" x 18" x 18" and 110V.

I am a manufacturing engineer. I design fixtures and write CNC programs for machining centers. My Company is trying to capture more market share in the aerospace community. More market means more parts, many are just samples.

 

I work for Lockheed Martin and have thought about going to get my masters in mechanical engineering or industrial design since they pay for my schooling. Hit me up and we'll talk and maybe I can give you some contacts in LM Aero if you don't have them already. I don't want to hijack the thread so hit me up if you're interested. I'd like to talk to you about engineering degrees also.

 

Installing the old Cat with the new Y-pipe was more work then I expected. First where I cut the cat is not round. It was almost a D shape. I am not sure if this is normal or not


So I hammered and dollied it into shape and put an ID chamfer on the tube. In that process I think I streched the metal cause the tubes are now about the same size. So I go may torches out and shrank the Cat tube. I then had to heated up the Y-pipe with some propane and drove it on. I will put a clamp on just to be sure but that will not be fun to get back apart.

 

Any reason on using the stock cat? Budget I assume? I would be worried about the catalyst with all that hammering and heating to get it to fit, might have warped the casing, honey comb might break free.