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  #241  
Old 03-26-2019, 03:31 AM
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Gojeep Gojeep is offline
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Looking good there Joel.
I just changed my Jeep over to H4 LED bulbs for the headlights too. Did some research on it first as the same housing with different LED bulbs can make completely different light patterns. One that places the LED in the exact same spot as the filament works the best. Some good youtube testing videos out there.
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  #242  
Old 04-13-2019, 12:28 PM
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Post GTO Hood Stays and Seats

Progress on the GTO assembly is plodding on. I can say this, I love the look of polished metal but I’m really starting to dread the process. It’s very time consuming and detail oriented. All it takes is one little slip while buffing and you’ve made another scratch to polish out.

The hood stays/catches on the GTO are very … well Italian looking. Unlike most cars where the hood catches are underneath and not visible, the Ferrari cars of early vintage used external stays.





I made these using 304 SS and yes, there’s few hours of polishing involved for each one For the nooks and crannies on these, I had to break out the Dremel for polishing. The original GTO also used leather belts as hood fasteners but I decided to forgo those.

For seats, I had originally purchased a set of high back Monaco brand seats. This seemed logical as they offered great side bolster and head support for performance driving and all the right slots for a 5 point racing belts.



After getting the car painted, they just didn’t look right though. It took me some time to figure out why, but then Frank Zucchi the painter one day commented that the seats didn’t have the right period correct look. That was it, the Monaco seats would look great in a car from 80’s or 90’s but not the 60’s. I don’t like the blue cloth racing seats originally used in the GTO so I decided to go with a simple, period correct looking low back seat made by Cobra.



For installation, I had to custom fabricate a seat bracket to connect the seat adjustment tracks to the car frame. Wanting to keep the seats as low as possible, I used a combination of 5/8” and ½” square tube to make the brackets.



A great side benefit to the new seats, is more leg room and easier entry/exit from the car. The seat backs are thinner so the seats can be positioned further back. They also don’t have the large side bolsters so it’s easier to get in and out of them.
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  #243  
Old 04-19-2019, 11:24 AM
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Post More GTO eye candy

I’ve added more eye candy … ah, important exterior items to the GTO. On the original GTO, these small plexiglass hood scoops helped bring fresh air into the car’s interior. I decided to have them blow fresh air over the headers to help dissipate heat from entering the footboxes.





To make these, I metal shaped an aluminum form and had the plexiglass vacuum formed over it.

The original GTO’s had Marchal driving lights frenched on both sides of the grill opening. Given Marchal lights are rare and thus way overpriced, here’s my replication using cheap aftermarket halogen lights.





The nice cast aluminum rings were obtained from a good friend, John Washington Velo Rossa driving lights . I had to fabricate some spacers from ¼” aluminum for the backsides to mount the lights and hopefully keep them water tight.
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  #244  
Old 05-28-2019, 11:05 AM
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Post Coolant Overflow Tank

There are two separate coolant systems on the GTO that need a catch can for overflow: engine radiator and supercharger intercooler. I decided to use a shared overflow tank for both. To do that, it requires the tank have multiple openings for plumbing connections. I found this Chinese made tank for a reasonable price.



I usually don’t like using Chinese parts but it’s just an overflow tank so hopefully will be fine. It did have some scuffing on the sides so I did have to re-polish it to clean that up.

I located an open area on the engine compartment side between the two coolant systems. I made sure to position the tank low enough for hood clearance prior to drilling mounting holes.



Here it is in place and connected up.



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  #245  
Old 05-31-2019, 12:48 PM
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Post Fresh air intake/air filter box

During the GTO build and painting process, I had clamped an air filter to the mass air meter mostly as a way to keep dust out of the engine. I am now preparing the car to be dyno tuned so the computer can be properly programmed for peak engine performance. All the air intake plumbing and air filtration needs to be in place prior to the dyno tune so that the air fuel ratios, etc. can be properly dialed in. I’ve seen it said that there’s about a 10% swing in engine output between a fresh/cold air intake versus a hot air intake so fresh air intake it is.

Firstly, I’ve got to say that designing the fresh air intake ducting for this car has been very challenging and time consuming. There’s a 1 ½ inch gap between the radiator top and the car body and it appears to be the best routing for getting fresh air to the engine. The challenge comes from this area being located about 10 inches in front of the hood opening so there’s many angles, elevation changes, and obstacles to work around. I knew cardboard templates would be the only way to complete the ductwork design.

I started by buying the biggest air filter I could find for this application, working out where to locate it, and plumbing it up to the engine with 4 inch silicone hose. I could now design the fresh air ducting to go from the radiator top and connect to a box I’d fabricate around the air filter.



I at first thought to put the Mass Air Meter in the middle of the hose but later decided to locate it next to the air filter such that it could be fastened to the air box and serve as the interface between air box and intake hose. I now broke out the cardboard and started mocking up the fresh air ductwork. The ducting had to be done in multiple pieces in order to be installed around the chassis tubes. It also needed to angle sharply in order to provide space for the hood hinges to swing.





I went through a few iterations of templates before working out the final shape. From there, it was transferring the outline to some .040” 3003 aluminum sheet and tipping in all the angles. I also had to cut a hole and ensure the coolant overflow tube could be routed to the overflow tank.



I then mocked up the air filter box in cardboard. The notches on the top sides are needed to provide clearance for a stiffening rib on the bottom side of hood. There's very little extra clearance anywhere in this car as everything is packed in there.



My first thought was to just make a rectangular box by bending up aluminum sheet with a break. But after seeing the square edges in the cardboard mockup, it just didn’t look right. I decided it needed rounded edges like I had done for the engine covers. I think I’ll also add some beads on the air box top in the same theme as on engine covers.



It seems there’s great opportunities for scope creep on most every part of the GTO project. Oh well, I think it’s worth the extra time to make it look the best. It also feels good to get back to doing some metal shaping. More to come as the air filter box gets fabricated…
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  #246  
Old 05-31-2019, 01:30 PM
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Isn't it fun working around freshly painted bodywork and making fabricated parts to fit carefully within? Keep making progress!
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  #247  
Old 06-01-2019, 06:51 AM
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I'm glad you are going to round the corners to match the engine covers. Will help smooth the air flow as well.
Also check to make sure there isn't a minimum distance the the air mass sensor has to be from the throttle body or even a straight length like on some engines.
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  #248  
Old 06-06-2019, 11:43 AM
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Post Fresh air intake/air filter box (cont.)

I’ve made some good progress on the air filter box but it’s been a complicated process. Making the box portion was fairly straight forward, the lid is the more complicated part. Of course, the lid is the most visible so I don’t want any visual flaws in it.

I made the box portion in 2 pieces. The rear side needs to be removable for assembly/disassembly purposes. There isn’t enough flexibility in the 4” intake hose to fit it up if the flanges on both ends are fixed in place. So by making the rear side of the air box removable, the flange on the MAF could be fitted into the intake hose during assembly. I rounded the rear corners of the box but not the bottom edges because they’re not very visible.





The air box lid needs rounded corners on sides and back but not on front as it goes underneath the body and cannot be seen. I decided to round the edges prior to adding some beads.



In hindsight, I should have added beads first and then rounded the edges. The reason is that the bead rolling process unevenly stretches the metal. With the rounded edges already in place, the extra surface area is captured. I got away with it because there wasn’t that much extra surface area created with these 3 smallish beads and I was able to take care of it with some later stretching procedures.



Now comes the complicated part. The GTO hood has a channel the runs between the hinge mounts for lateral stiffening. The air box sits right under this channel, it’s a tight fit and I needed to provide clearance for it. I thought about cutting the lid and welding in a piece but that would then require a lot of metal finishing for all the weld beads. So I decided to stretch in the needed clearance with a hammer form.

My goal was to achieve a 3/8” deep evenly rounded depression across the lid. I found a piece of 1 ½” schedule 40 PVC pipe had the shape I was looking for. I didn’t know if it would be strong enough but the lid is only .050 3003 aluminum so I thought I’d give it a go. The hammer form needs to fit exactly under the lids rounded edges so it needed very good precision. I split the PVC pipe on a bandsaw, cut a length of 4x4 and some 5/8” thick wood slats. To provide support between the PVC pipe and wood slats, I used plastic body filler. After sanding and shaping the edges, here’s the resulting hammer form.





After clamping the lid to the form, I used a piece of thick walled 1 ½” round metal tubing and a very large rubber mallet to hammer in the shape. As a lesson learned, clamp the workpiece in every way possible prior to the hammering. In other words, lock the metal to the form. I had to add more clamps because the lid sides were stretching when I didn’t want them to. I was able to re-shrink the sides but should have prevented the stretch in the first place.

Here’s the result after the hammer forming and cleaning up the welds on the rear corners.





Now on to making provision for all the fasteners and a bunch of metal polishing.
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  #249  
Old 06-06-2019, 11:51 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Superleggera View Post
Isn't it fun working around freshly painted bodywork and making fabricated parts to fit carefully within? Keep making progress!
Working over fresh paint does raise the level of difficulty Several times i leaned over the fender only to have small file shavings fall off my shirt. Slows things down when you need to continually clean off anything that might scratch the paint.
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  #250  
Old 06-06-2019, 11:58 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gojeep View Post
I'm glad you are going to round the corners to match the engine covers. Will help smooth the air flow as well.
Also check to make sure there isn't a minimum distance the the air mass sensor has to be from the throttle body or even a straight length like on some engines.
Thanks for the reminder. The MAF on C5 Corvettes is about this same distance from the engine. I've been told the key thing is to keep enough distance such that reversion air flows don't cause air to pulsate around the internal MAF wires at idle engine speeds. This causes an inaccurate reading that results in rich idle mixtures. My plan is to have the engine dyno tuned after completing the air box. This will tell me the A/F mixtures and alert if there's any issues.
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