1971 Firebird Build ("The Other Woman", a.k.a. Project "T.O.W.")

[carbuff]

It's been a little while since I've updated, but I have new pictures.

I picked up the exhaust from the ceramic coater's yesterday. It came out great! Because we had to cut/weld on the header, I had them both recoated as well. The header tubes and tail pipes were coated inside and out. I had the flanges and header bolts done as well. Took about 10 days, and I'm happy with the results! The pieces will go on this week...

In the meantime, I've been working on the interior. It took me a ridiculous amount of time to get the door panels installed on the car. I purchased a set of reproduction panels, and as with many reproduction parts, they don't just pop into place as easily as we would like. But after some fitting, they turned out well. I applied the 1/8" Dynaliner to the back, and between that and the Extreme on the door itself, these doors close with a thud now. Should make for a much more pleasant driving experience!

I've also been working on wiring. Again, I've spent way too much time on this, but I wanted it as clean as I could get it. I've wired in the Holley HP EFI, the PRC fan relays, and the Vintage Air control relays. I had to do some research to get the Holley wiring the way I wanted, allowing it to control the fans (specifically when the AC compressor is running). I'm also sending a warning light to the dash from the ECU, which again took some research.

The passengers side of the cabin is wired now, and we are working on the dash side. Eric cut out the new dash panel yesterday and is working on the holes for the gauges. If not for missing 1 hole saw, it would be mostly done. That will wrap up in the next few days...

The plumbing is mostly done now except for 1 oil cooler line. It's proven to be a tight fit up front, and we ran out of line to finish it, so more is on the way.

The engine wiring is in place and mostly hidden, so we're pretty happy with that.

The brake lines and clutch line have fluid in them with no leaks.

I powered up the ECU yesterday and ensure that I could communicate to it from my laptop, and that looks like it's working. I'm not sure the maps in it are very well done though, I have a feeling they were only set for full throttle (ie: dyno) runs. I need to tweak on those and update the firmware in the box to the latest 2.0 version from Holley.

So we're making progress, and getting closer. I suspect we will be close to trying to fire the engine for the first time within 2 weeks. Then we can through the front end together and give it a test drive.

Pictures...

The exhaust after the ceramic coating. The coating has flakes of stainless steel in it, adding hardness (as I'm told) and the ability to polish it:





Door panels:

[RussMurco]

Looks GREAT! Keep it up!!!

[srh3trinity]

This is really coming out nicely!

[gerno]

Looks good, can't wait to hear that beast roar. Have you figured anything out with the throttle interference issue with the air cleaner?

[carbuff]

Originally Posted by gerno

Have you figured anything out with the throttle interference issue with the air cleaner?

Eric cut down the bracket that came with the Lokar cable and welded it back together, moving the cable to the bottom instead of the top. We are both a little concerned with how the gas pedal feel is going to work out, and it's also still going to be close on the air cleaner base, but we can cut that a little if needbe...

Here are a couple of pictures:

[carbuff]

Midweek update...

I spent last night wiring. 2.5 hours, I think I connected 5 wires. Sheesh! Good thing I'm not trying to make a living wiring cars!

Eric trimmed and covered the kick panels. These turned out great!





Exhaust is going on today, dash panel is cut, and we're going to temporarily wire in the gauges and wrap up the electrical system this week. Fingers crossed, we MAY try to fire her up this weekend!

[carbuff]

The kick panels went in today, so I snapped a couple of pictures before they were wrapped up:





Instead of attaching the speakers to the kick panel, Eric made an aluminum plate and attached that to the metal structure, then attached the speak to that. So the kick panel is just housing the grill...