Prepping and Installing Engine

Got the old block and trans bolted together and moved to the shop.

LOVE my Caddy Crane ! This sort of stuff is hard to do when you are all by yourself. Note the straps to pull it to where it needs to be when I let it down.

Set in place. That dang transmission mount has a stinking metric bolt thread on the stud. Grrrrr. Kind of surprisingly, Winkley's had them. (They have a huge stock of nuts and bolts).

Set in place with new multi-mount engine mounts. Looks WAAY too high.

Looking straight down the crankshaft centerline. STILL looks rather high relative to the front crossmember.

There is actually 6 inches from the bottom of the block/oilpan gasket surface to the front crossmember. The pan on the engine is about 4 inches deep at that point. Leaves about 2 inches clearance.

One side of one of the engine mounts cut off to lower the front of the engine.

Both sides cut off, sandblasted, and painted.

New drilled and slotted disks and calipers and pads. Literature said not to clean the black finish off. I got some cleaner on it by accident, and it turned green. Lug nuts are Metric. Crap.

The optional mount height for engine mount requires that the lower hole/slot be cut off so the mount can drop down (only) one inch and use the second hole.

Driver's side boxing in of the frame. Made with two pieces of 18 guage paintgrip .

Another view of driver's side. The angle iron welded on is for the radiator mount. Kinda close to that steering box but it fits.

When I cut the front of the S-10 frame off to fit the Ford, it looked kinda ugly with an open ended frame. Decided to "box" it in with 18 gage. That angle iron is for the radiator mount. Will be sandblasted, drilled and painted.

Boxed in, blasted, and painted. Not toooo bad. As I have mentioned before, though, "I ain't no Chip Foose". Ha.

Engine mount/adapter reinstalled after cutting off the high mount hole. This is crazy. It looks like I'm going to have a little problem with the fuel pump and the engine mount. hmmm..

Old Camaro transmission mount cross member (workin' the position for driveshaft angle). She is presently resting at a 4-1/2 degree angle. Jag center section is slopped down by 2-3 degrees. Will have to shim it up to raise the nose a few degrees. Ideally the angles should be equal, opposite directions, and no more than 3 degrees. Will have to work on this one...

Longshot of the chassis...WOO HOOO ! ! !

Electric motor driven cutouts. COOL or WHAT? The problem WAS, that I didn't do this right. They ended up toooo close to the ground, so after the car was done, I had to come back and make some piping corrections. SEE THE GALLERY NAMED "FIXING EXHAUST CUTOUTS".... all is fine now.. I had to rotate and move the cutouts to behind the muffler....

The exhaust pipe hangers will come off for sandblasting and painting, then bolted back in.

THIS is machinery !

LOVE those clamps. They don't distort the pipe so IF I ever have to disassemble, it all will come apart fairly easily. Just hope they don't leak... ahaha . By the way, this is all after I cut out the entire Jag mounting configuration, and rotated it.

LOVE those clamps. They don't distort the pipe so IF I ever have to disassemble, it all will come apart fairly easily. Just hope they don't leak... ahaha . By the way, this is all after I cut out the entire Jag mounting configuration, rotated it up about 2 degrees and rewelded it back in. Grrrr

Headers in place. Awaiting two more stainless steel clamps for final hookup.

Getting Exhaust and drive shaft in place. The input flange of the Jag center section is about 2" off center to the right. The "z'ed" frame causes the running gear to be a bit high. Note the notch in the center crossmember. It's not "structural".

The Cutouts have a harness that wires to a switch on the dash that I can flip and go to straight pipes whenever I choose ! And yes, the little motors clear the floor by about an inch.

Double Cardan constant velocity Universal Joint (custom specified to the drive shaft fabricator for "perfect balance" of the drive shaft) and electric drive cutout !

DynoMax mufflers are pretty cool. That spring loaded baffle will open up under full throttle. Otherwise, it diverts the exhaust more through the packing. They call it DRONE FREE, as some systems tend to do at certain speeds.

UPDATE: That tire right there blew out while on a trip to North Texas in Waco in April, 2021. ------Front tires just put on this afternoon - 4/5/2013

Spare LT-1 heads were used to finalize the position of the exhaust at the same time so that crossover pipe is correct.

After installing the entire exhaust system, except for the crossover, measurements were taken and crossover pipe cut and installed, it all had to come apart again to weld the bottom sides of connectors.

All the hangers were removed, sandblasted, and painted after getting all clearances and spacing worked out. Beat the hell out of the rivets that grasp the rubber portion of the hangers so that they will not rotate in their mounts.

Half inch clearance on driveshaft from intermediate crossmember.

BOY this is gonna sound good ! BUT they are tooooo low to the ground.. see the gallery "FIXING EXHAUST CUTOUTS"..

Long shot of chassis. Just got the front tires. Had them mounted and balanced at Discount Tire.

Underside of exhaust to offset under the intermediate crossmember.

Driver's side exhaust routing. All the hangers were modified so that they will not rotate in the hanger assembly. Beat the hell out of the rivets so that they firmly stay in position with the rubber segments.

Brake line to rear end routed on outside of driver's side frame.

Brake line bending..pretty fun stuff. 4/5/2013

Jag brake line connector is 10mm metric. Took four hours and three different auto parts stores to find the correct TWO fittings to get to the quarter inch brake line fitting. YEAY for Advance Auto Parts !

This took some bending to get it right. Right end will hook to final connection to gas tank. Left end is where fuel filter will connect. Whew...

Brake line routed inside frame rail and then crossed just behind the secondary crossmember support. Well protected there, as is the fuel line on the other side.

First section of fuel line in place.

Another view to route the fuel line inside the frame to avoid any chance of damage ...just in case. Don't worry, it's not touching anywhere except in the bushed mounts.

Fuel line routed under main rear crossmember toward front, then under the frame to the outside of frame.

Fuel filter on outside of frame connected to second section of fuel line.

Second section of fuel line routed along outside of left frame rail.

Second section of fuel line is temporarily terminated at the front behind tire. When steering turned to far right, the tire is about 2 inches from the frame. It's ok.