Looks awesome Eric! How do you like the seats? I see some SLC guys are using Tillet seats. Have you looked into them?

I have looked into them and even sat in one, they are really really nice, but for the price... yeeeeeeeshhh... My butt will just have to be in the stockers :(

I've added a couple videos:

Car overview:
http://gearheaddaily.com/gearhead-da...alled-grifter/

Clutch explanation:
http://gearheaddaily.com/rcr-superli...che-transaxle/

I love the SLC! I have often thought of trading out projects for one of these. Thanks for sharing.

More updates can be found on www.gearheaddaily.com too if I don't always post on the build threads. Just throwing it out there :)

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Well folks, fall is officially here in Minnesota and it’s starting to get colder. I hope you enjoyed summer because completely over with. Kaput.

I’ve been working a couple hours per night on the car whenever I get a chance. I’m not that confident with fiberglass so this has been a decent learning experience. Let’s get down to it.

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I was able to finish installing the lights and lens cover on the passenger side of the from clam. This is a bit of work to get everything just right. I know it looks a bit chaotic from some of the previous pics, but if you take it slow and take it in small chunks, it makes life a lot easier.

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The tail lights provided their own challenge as there isn’t a clear way to attach the lenses (borrowed from a Dodge Dakota, seriously, take a look at one some time!). I took the better part of an afternoon to make sure these fit tight and as close as possible. I will have to back fill them with fiberglass at some point, but that point isn’t now.

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Now, as parts get put on the car, so does my list of custom tools. This is the first “fun car” that I have owned that will have AC so I’ve had no need for an AC hose crimper.

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I decided that since the name “Stormtrooper” came up a bunch lately, it made sense to add a few black accents to the body. When the doors are closed you won’t be able to see much of the black, but when you open that and the front and rear clam you’ll see the accents to the color. I had some issues with tape sticking to the body after using some “Goof-Off” sticker remover so that’s why I have all the over spray issues. I tried several kinds of tape and had come to the conclusion that there was some residue on the body keeping it from sticking. I tried a couple solvents with no avail. I reinstalled the doors and will attack the overspray soon. I’ve found that brake cleaner eats right through this type of paint! Easy and cheap fix!

I think I may have figured out the engine situation for “Griftrooper”, here’s a small hint…. Giggity.

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I've been making some videos that I've uploaded to my channel if people are interested :)

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCac...uEfISr3ktwQW-A

Erik, for the tape not sticking, it's most likely the release agent for the fiberglass body and the molds. if you go to your local paint supply store they will have an anti-staic cleaner that will remove the mold release agent.

Great progress on the car, it's just sooooo bad azz!!!

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Hey hey say hey sports fans! We’re back with some progress on some of our projects on Grifter.

Pictured above is what the car looks like right at this current moment. I was able to finish the passenger side head lights and light cover. I finished off the masking the body for the black accent pieces. It should look pretty good when I finally get around to taking care of the overspray (don’t ask). Ugh.

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I also added a battery box I made with some left over aluminum pieces I had laying around (you can see going here to YouTube!)

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The seats needed seat belts so I made sure to get some stout ones and mount them to the frame with grade 8 bolts and 1/4 thick plates holding the belts in place.

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The shifter needs a bracket made and installed. It’s ugly, but it works. Shrug.

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I had to pull the transmission out to get at some of the points in the chassis to do some minor work. It had to come out regardless to fit the engine so I just went ahead and did it.

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I’m no good at wiring but this ISIS system makes this fairly straight forward. Pigtails for the lights already built in and minimal connection points makes this one of the most straight forward systems I’ve used.

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Finally, I picked up a STACK 8130-B unit with the GPS Speedo, it’s a bit of a tight fit into the dash, but holy macaroni is it going to be Awwwwesssoomme!

http://gearheaddaily.com/wp-content/...22760031_n.jpg

Looks great Eric, can't wait to see this thing done.

Lots of cool lightweight parts. :beavis:

:superhack: Super hack to the rescue! LOL

Been following this, looking good! Would love to see it when you finish. I'm in Stillwater so not too far from ya.

Feel free to stop on over ;)

Too tired to repost all this into forum format. Sorry fella's.

This'll have to do.

http://gearheaddaily.com/grifter-dec...-ye-gearheads/

You're right E. Copy and paste is really taxing... :D

NOT TRUE!! My pinky and index finger are BURNING! LOL

:lol: :cheers:

Eric the car is looking awesome! making good progress! you should be locked in your shop for about 6 more months for winter lockdown so work should progress on a reg. basis now.let me know if you need anything I might have some tires and wheels you could try for mock up off the Chevelle. i would love to come and check it out one of these days. keep up the great work and keep the kids involved there is NOTHING BETTER THAN THAT!:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Come on over man, I have some wheels that came with it. 19's in back and 18's in front. Satin black Forgestar wheels :)

I just wish my garage was heated, that slows things down quite a bit :(

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Straight up for reals player, it's damn cold in our home state of Minnesota. We've seen temps well below zero and not having a garage heater has frankly gotten in the way of making decent progress on the car.

I've resorted to finding things to bring into the basement and shuttling tools one at a time from the garage. It's not all that efficient and frankly, slow work. Regardless, I've been trying my best with a small space heater and finding other projects to do. My motto through this whole build is:

It's all gotta get done, so any work, even not %100 on task gets us closer to a finished product

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This is of Jim Hall who works at TPIS in Chaska. He helped us get the motor to and from his shop.

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The dyno went pretty well all things considered. If you missed our dyno video, it can be seen below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVFA8TUqvmM

Our motor made the "as advertised" 525hp on the dot and 461 ft-lbs of torque. No fiddling, no adjustments, no "corrections" to the tune or anything. It was spot on. No complaints from us! We will dyno the motor again once it's in the car and running so we can make some tuning adjustments with a load on the tires.

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Next up, I started to attack the interior. We mocked up the dash board to see what needed trimming and what needed to be done. The more stuff we put on the better it gets! I then opted and purchased a new steering wheel and adapter. Planning ahead, I noticed that we would have to weld the stock shaft onto the steering column which didn't allow much wiggle room down the road.

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I finished up some little piddly bits such as the door latches and a couple turnbuckles for the front splitter. I installed the inner door latches too, but still have to figure out how to attach them all together. That said, I'm are going to wait to see how the body lines up before installing the door strikers.

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This could be called "before and after". This is a job we were able to do while it was -35* outside. Think I'm joking? I sadly am not.We trimmed the vents and cut out the holes, it's an odd shape so it took some doing to get it just right. We opted to pop-rivet them in place rather than graft them in because it's quite possible that they will break from a rock or something stupid, we do want to be able to fix them easily in the future.

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http://www.impermanence.kungphu.com/...436_n_copy.jpg

If the padding on the seat pictured above looks familiar, it's probably because we stole our wife's yoga mat and cut it up to make some padding for our seats. It made a world of difference.

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We'll see if that's enough belt wrap for the alternator, we will ad a pulley later if it's not sufficient. The alternator is a stock GM 105amp unit with the stock number of 8247. These come on Tahoe's, Silverado's and GM trucks with the 5.3L engine in the mid 2000's. You'll need a couple 1/2" spacers and 2 - 90mm 10x1.50 bolts to finish it up.

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The motor was put into place, despite the cold weather we soldered on.

Catch'ya on the flip side!

Nice work soldiering on with the solder.... What exactly did you solder on a fiberglass car?? LOL

Had to yank your chain for the typo. This car is going to be so kool!!

LOL

Let it never be said that Greg doesn't thoroughly read through every post! :)

NO HEAT? You are one tough hombre. Hat's off for that type of dedication. You (we) should have a break in the weather coming up (let's hope). At least there hasn't been much snow to contend with. Can't wait to see this car at some local events!

Well, the weather broke and man it's like summer! WHOOOWEEE!!

I took the chance to put the transmission in :)

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No real update, just liked this view.... Mmmm... Dat ass.

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Here's the latest video... Nothing fancy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pbt...ature=youtu.be

Well, the cold weather continues and work on the SLC has been in a word: Slow.

We were able to get some work done and here's where she stands.

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Who doesn't love finely welded aluminum custom pieces? A while back one of the members on the SLC specific forum made a very limited run of these coolant overflow tanks. I completely missed that by a good year or more, but thankfully one of the lucky recipients decided to sell me his because he was going another direction. This is a killer piece and totally worth the extra bucks. This one is sooooo nice, dontcha think?

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The Mast Motorsports oil pan that we reviewed recently comes with two plugged ports on the pan for an oil cooler (which we will add at a later date). These are perfect for an oil pressure sending unit (left) and an oil temp sending unit (right) that are specific to our STACK gauge cluster. For those who know how the LS oil pan is routed, this one is slightly different. The oil in the stock pan recirculates via the external piece, this one recirculates the oil internally, so no worries about oil starvation.

http://gearheaddaily.com/wp-content/...178_n-copy.jpg

We got our air inlet tube from Nate at One Guy's Garage (http://www.one-guys-garage.com/). He made it a tad long in case it needs to be trimmed when the rear clam is installed. More custom aluminum pieces! Baller status has been achieved!

http://gearheaddaily.com/wp-content/...383_n-copy.jpg

Moving to the exhaust side of things. We decided a long time ago that the exhaust had to exit out the side. We found our exit location first and worked backwards towards the LS7 exhaust manifolds bolted to the engine. We promised a friend that we would do our damnedest to get some pics of the car shooting flames.

http://gearheaddaily.com/wp-content/...942_n-copy.jpg

Here's what we eventually came up with this for both sides of the car. It's two pieces and slips on with a thick band clamp. A one piece system wasn't going to fit, so that kinda sucked.

http://gearheaddaily.com/wp-content/...766_n-copy.jpg

We added some VHT high temp exhaust paint to the whole tube and manifold. It should look decent after a few heat cycles for the paint to cure.

http://gearheaddaily.com/wp-content/...092_n-copy.jpg

Our neighbor came by to help remove the body. There's really only a few ticky-tack things left like wiring up the gauge cluster, adding fluids and doing the finish wiring. Hopefully we'll be posted a first start video soon!

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My god this thing looks so badass. Dat'ass y0!

Some updates:

http://gearheaddaily.com/wp-content/...59327341_n.jpg

We have power!

http://gearheaddaily.com/wp-content/...31626121_n.jpg

Interior sound deadening materials done!
http://gearheaddaily.com/wp-content/...61196347_n.jpg

Tight tolerances!

http://gearheaddaily.com/wp-content/...83915083_n.jpg

New back up camera and LCD

http://gearheaddaily.com/wp-content/...60681167_n.jpg

Fluids are going in!
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http://gearheaddaily.com/wp-content/...46931720_n.jpg

The engine cranks, the fuel pumps work... Now it's time for fuel!

Time for fuel? Oh good. This is so rad. Nothing against 1969 Camaros, as I love the '67-'69 Camaro, but it is really nice to see something different.

Hey, I hear you... I'm over here thinking like Ricky Bobby, "I just wanna go fast". :D

Love this build -- and please don't take either of my comments as negative...


#1 -- you wouldn't be allowed to run on some tracks using antifreeze... many techs check for colored coolant. It's so slick and doesn't evaporate if there's a spill....


#2 -- Is the motor mounted with a plate? Or is it allow some movement? That exhaust solution looks good... but with such a short run and the tight fitment of the body and the fairly rigid mount.... I see breakage issues in your future. You might want to look at the OEM factory style rubber mounts for that chassis to muffler hanger if that motor is allowed to torque around.

No worries Greg, I don't take it as criticisms, especially if it makes sense :)


#1 - I wasn't aware of that. I'll look into that. Minnesota is kinda tough because if I straight water it will freeze and blow out freeze plugs... That happened to my very first car I tried to mod and added only water.. :(

#2. The motor is solidly mounted with a plate to the frame and transmission. You can see it at the bottom of post #59. I thought about it being too rigid, so I put some rubber spacers between the muffler and the bracket (see post #66 mid way down). I think that should suffice in allowing some movement... at least enough to not rattle crap around to the point of breaking.

*shrug*

Does that help? Think it will work?

I thought you had a motor plate -- so that will stabilize the motor movement... and thus the exhaust.


I totally get the environment the car is in.... COLD is an understatement! And many events allow street car stuff such as antifreeze.... it was more of a heads up to beware - thus perhaps check tech rules - before being caught unaware.

The motor plate was kind of the deciding factor for such a short exhaust run and the small isolators to the brackets.

I will check into the local track stuff. I have yet to be hassled about it, but you never know :)

GET SOME!
Happy Easter!

Great news Congratulation's well Done !

Thanks Wayne!

Going to bleed brakes and clutch tomorrow and see if I can get it out of the drive way :D

sounds like a beast!!!!

It moves!!!!

For real.

Clutch was giving me fits and i was finally able to get it to release but I have to pump the pedal which means more time bleeding. Oh goody.

http://www.impermanence.kungphu.com/...46757264_n.jpg

No foolin', I made it EXACTLY one mile and it puked the upper radiator hose at a million miles an hour. I even got a bath in some of it too. Made for good fodder by the neighbors!

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Me and the next door neighbor Adam who helped me today and on occasion provided muscle for projects.

http://www.impermanence.kungphu.com/...02799932_n.jpg

Diagnosis?
FRIGGIN ROCKET SHIP!
1st gear is completely worthless.
2nd gear... I'm not joking... BLOWS the tires off at almost idle.
3rd gear? HOLY HELL WARP DRIVE.

What the hell did I just build?!?!

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Cooooool!!!!!