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

[c.schulz]

I stand corrected.........

Chris

[Royalworks]

It did look like from that angle it had one tube holding on the lower arm. Wider picture, its stout.

[carbuff]

It's been a couple of weeks since I've gotten pictures and an update, but progress continues. I've been out of commission due to other life events, but Eric is plugging along.

Eric picked up a load of parts from the powder coater, so final assembly is on-going. And just when you think it's all going to come together, you run into more issues...

But before that, some good stuff. The engine is in for the last time, and the cooling setup is in place too. Radiator, oil cooler, and PS cooler. The hard and flex-lines are mostly made now for those as well. We have also put the Holley EFI wiring harness in place and worked out a few little kinks with that. Eric has run the power cables through the car, using bulkheads are the firewall and rear passenger quarter panel, so the install will be pretty clean. He also started building the exhaust this week, and if not for needing a couple more bends, it would be done. That should happen Tuesday or so when parts arrive.

For my part, I've been working on some wiring as time allows. I stripped out several pieces of the AAW harness which I didn't need, and we've been working on how to integrate the EFI harness, Fan Controller, AC, Fuel Pump shutoff, and AAW all together. I think we have all of our answers now, so it's up to me to cut/splice/shrinkwrap a bunch of connection now. We also found a nice mounting spot for the EFI controller up on the metal cowl area behind the dash.

I also finished the Dynamat on the doors, and installed the package tray with the 6x9 speakers back there. That turned into a half day project, something I expected to be simple. I should know better... I made some wood mounts to lower the speaker since it would have hit the metal of the rear shelf if installed flush (I didn't cut out the factory openings). No pictures, but trust me, they are there...

Now for the biggest recent problem... The JRS Tri-Y headers tucked too closely to the block down at the oil filter area, preventing us from using the Mocal thermostat. That's not really Jake's fault, he built them for max clearance to the frame/steering areas I'm sure. But it would have been easy to shape them slightly differently to deal with it. After much deliberation and consideration of our options, Eric and I decided to cut the headers and rebuild the pipe that was hitting. I didn't like the other thermostat options, so this was the best path. Eric finished that up last night, but I haven't seen the final product yet. We will have to recoat the headers, but since we're coating the exhaust anyway, we'll do it all to match.

A few other odds and ends... The brakelines are made, we installed the PCV catch can, we're trying to determine how to connect the gas pedal to the TB linkage (the air cleaner base is going to interfere with out planned method, so that's still an issue), and I still love my wheel selection!

Here are some pictures...

Powder coated core support and parts mounted:



Closeup:



Front clearance, overflow can, and PS/Oil lines:



Things will be busy at the rear of the intake:



Dynamat on the doors:





Power Cables:





Driver's side exhaust run:



I didn't believe Eric when he first told me he could route 3" pipes through the JRS Watt's link maze in the back, but sure enough he did:



And this is where he ran out of pipe. No, I'm not leaving a dump there!



Norris catch can mounted:

[carbuff]

Here are some pictures from Eric of the header rework. I haven't seen it in person, but he says there is plenty of room to that steering shaft...



And from the bottom. You can see the Mocal and the clearance we have now:



The 'new' pipe which is further forward originally tucked right up to the block, which was a nice and tight fit, but interfered with the Mocal. If you were running a remote filter/thermostat, it wouldn't have been a problem. I like the simple installation of the Mocal and wanted to keep it though.

You can see all of the splices he had to do in order to keep a nice radius on the tubes...

[carbuff]

Here are some more pictures of the exhaust. You can see all of the extra 'kinks' which Eric did in the exhaust to get the bends/angles just right. And he got a lot of Tig practice this week.











I also like how he set up the band flanges to create a 'positive' locating flange at each joint. But having the 1 pipe stick out about 1/8" and the other pipe recessed about 1/8", when you install the band clamps, everything will stay nicely aligned.



In the meantime, I wired up the trunk of the car the other night. Took me about 4 hours to get everything right, but I made all of the connections to the AAW wiring kit, and I also installed a fuel pump cutoff switch to stop the pump in case of an impact. I got my butt-splicing and shrink-wrapping practice in. Tomorrow I'll get back to the interior wiring...

[Che70velle]

Exhaust looks great! Nice job.

[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?