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My '78 242 L33 turbo build

You are braver than I am. The coldest I'm ever willing to run one is ~45 degrees. Anything colder is inside under a comfy blanket time.

you'da hated my old job at the marina. End of season meant hauling and washing boats, used to run a power washer for 8-10hrs a day in 30deg temps, soaked head to toe.
 
That sounds awful.

I have the carb soaking, we'll see if it fires up, or if I have to find another one.
 
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So I got the pressure washer working, it was 45 degrees today, but lightly raining. Screw it, I started anyway. Fired it up and water shot out of every possible place on the hose and nozzle that it could possibly come out of...I was completely soaked head to toe in a couple seconds lol, dammit! I tried to use it anyway but there wasn't enough pressure left after all the leaks to get anything done...
At least everyone at the shop got a good laugh.
Off to find another hose and gun assembly...
 
Got a warmer day, 45 degrees F, and a new hose and gun assembly. Round 1 of engine bay cleaning complete. The pressure washer just need a zip tie to hold it at full throttle, now it works great!

Getting pushed a bit to paint the engine bay. I kinda like the brown with green but what do you guys think? If it gets painted, black is what it would be.

Who knew the power steering rack had so much nice aluminum under all that grime?

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Spent the first half of the day cleaning the engine bay so more, then got bored with that, so got the new oil pan out. Installed the hinged baffled tray, removed and cleaned the windage tray, installed the new oil pickup tube, and installed the new pan. Fingers crossed, I will assemble the engine and trans tomorrow and drop it in the car. Finally!!

Looking good in there.
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Thanks guys, I appreciate the comments!

Reached a milestone moment today! The engine and transmission are in the car. Next time I will not try to put them in while assembled haha, that really made it more difficult. The hydraulic throw out bearing took a while to figure out properly. A couple unexpected problems arose though...

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Problem 1: So I really thought it would fit better in the engine bay, there is absolutely no way to shut the hood. It's not shocking the truck intake doesn't fit under the flat hood, I obviously need a new lower profile intake.

Problem 1.5: The alternator is the next item that prevents the hood from closing. That one was a bit of a surprise, so I need to relocate the accessories.

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Problem 2: The transmission hits the trans cross member. The shifter is not coming out through the hole correctly, it is pretty far forward. To get mount to bolt in, the crossmember needs to move back an inch, but it is out of adjustment. I guess I need to open the slots on the crossmember and notch the trans tunnel a bit for the shifter. I don't know what to do about the trans hitting the crossmember yet, shave a bit off the bottom of the trans case and a little off the crossmember?

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Despite the issues, I am very happy to have them sitting in the car, it's about time hahaha
 
And in the wrong set of holes haha, figured it out today. That loop touches the floor though, but I guess that is fine. The shifter is pretty off, it is in 2nd gear and is touching the edge of the hole. Guess that will be getting cut out.
 
Worked out a few fitment issues today, ordered a new intake manifold also, still need to do something to the trans tunnel because the shifter is touching the lip and in second gear.

Correctly installed crossmember haha
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You have to use the two rearmost holes for the crossmember. Not sure why there is so many holes down there but whatever.
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Trans mount height is one 2x4 + random trans mount + 1/8" thick strip of metal = 3.5"
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This is going to require a little love from a BFH
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You can now slip 3 or 4 pieces of paper between the swaybar and oil pan. The vent tube on the drivers side top of the power steering rack needed to be rotated so it didn't get crushed.
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Haha, thanks guys! The car is super clean, I haven't found any major rust or damage issues, just a bunch of minor dents in the body panels.

So I figured out most of my problems, I won't need that coffin hood after all.
Intake height: Ordered a Holley Lo-Ram manifold, working on picking a throttle body out. It's a little difficult because 105mm is a fairly large throttle body at just over 4", and I need a drive by wire throttle body. Sorting through the options still.

https://www.holley.com/products/intakes/efi_manifolds/parts/300-621

Alternator height: After looking through ICT Billets huge list of accessory relocation brackets, I thought I found what I wanted, but it showed a truck style water pump, which exits out the top of the pump, interfering with where my new throttle body goes. Rather than buy the wrong brackets (again...:roll:) I contacted them and told them what I need. They have excellent customer service and told me exactly what I need. No pic of that yet, so here is one of the engine prepped for the new manifold and accessories.

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Another thing I did today...I removed the valve covers because they have a horrible paint job. After bead blasting one, it didn't look a whole lot better. So I did a silly thing and ordered a new set of covers. They were bothering me though, looking all crappy right on top. Speaking of crappy, here's a bad pic of them, the top one is bead blasted.

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One thing I forgot, hoping the new manifold allows me to scoot the engine back another inch, there is room with the motor mounts. That would reduce the amount of cutting needed to be able to shift gears.
 
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Haha, thanks guys! The car is super clean, I haven't found any major rust or damage issues, just a bunch of minor dents in the body panels.

Alternator height: After looking through ICT Billets huge list of accessory relocation brackets, I thought I found what I wanted, but it showed a truck style water pump, which exits out the top of the pump, interfering with where my new throttle body goes. Rather than buy the wrong brackets (again...:roll:) I contacted them and told them what I need. They have excellent customer service and told me exactly what I need. No pic of that yet, so here is one of the engine prepped for the new manifold and accessories.

2015 camaro water pump uses truck offset accessories. You need to buy the tensioner and the outlet is in a lower position.
 
Thanks, that is basically what I got with the addition of a bracket to lower the alternator, which also relocates the power steering. That is now a Corvette ps pump.

So while waiting for parts, I decided to take advantage of the car being inside. And started this nightmare hahaha. The wiring is a huge mess, missing a few things like the plug for the dash dimmer, and a bunch of mystery crap has been added. And of course the heater core leaks, which is why it is ripped apart so far.

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So today was mostly fun, my intake manifold showed up early and I promptly forgot about the heater core. It was a lot more work to install than I thought, due to it coming in multiple parts, making your own o-rings :-)wtf:) and a couple minor problems along the way. It attaches to the engine using studs, which I installed after an initial test fit of the lower manifold. The studs led to it being in a slightly different position, on top of the steam pipe in the rear. A bit of bending the pipe slightly with a BFS, it fit.

I torqued it to 50 inlbs, then on the second torque to 106 inlbs, the top of the stud stripped. Hoping it was a problem with the hardware, I promptly stripped the top off a second stud. :oops: After running around town trying to find new studs or long enough bolts I scored long enough bolts. It turns out the stud goes into the head so far that if you use the supplied washers the nut is only 1/2 way on the stud. Removed the washers, and all was well.

Ran out of time so the install is not done, but I really like the way it looks, and the hood will now close.

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This rig is so I can use the stock MAP. The hole is for an LS3 MAP but that requires tuning and I am still looking for a local guy to help me out with that. I can barely use Tunerstudio, HP Tuners is beyond me at the moment.

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Current status:

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Making your own o-rings? That's insane for such an expensive manifold.

Looks great though, so much better than all of the stock GM manifolds I've seen.
 
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