Mr. G. Brettin's Slow Motion Leg Hump

gbrettin

Busted butt getting the engine primed yesterday. Honestly, it was a pivotal moment to the path of near term success. The engine was extremally tight, to the point I needed a breaker bar to get the engine to turn over. My suspicion was that the engine had either spun a rod bearing OR that the engine was dry. Thankfully, it was just dry and pressurizing the whole system with oil made it smooth as butter. The engine was triple checked at every step of the way during engine assembly so I would have been crushed if it was something I missed.

After the engine was primed the engine was rolled over by the starter. The push to start, brake press, and key fob all work together like OEM with the MS3Pro standalone after a bit of wiring, VERY cool that it's working like that. Unfortunately I found out that the Braille battery is flat so I need a new battery.

After pressurizing and rolling the system over we noticed some oil seeping from an oil return and a small pool under the car. I think that the small pool was from the oil filter because that wasn't even hand tight. As for the fitting.... I'm shocked that any of them would even leak because I put those on with beast strength... oh well. Guess I get to do it again. I REALLY hope that the oil cooler and accusump don't leak because that's under a rats nest.

MS3Pro came through with REALLY fast shipping for the coil bracket and plug and play coil wiring. The new coil bracket location drops the coils down away from the throttle body so wiring was able to be plugged in. Bummer that I paid for the Motion Raceworks brackets and powder coated them... but the new billet brackets look REALLY nice.

Last thought...
I spilled 1qt minimum on the floor trying to fill the pressurizing tool... the inlet was small and then it burped oil all over.

gbrettin

I think this is the post everyone has been waiting for... thank you for watching and being patient all these years.

I have a few small oil leaks and gas leaks..... Because I made the lines. It's running none the less.

We thinned out some of the OE wiring. There's a bit more to go; however, it's not barfing out over the fender anymore. I'd say about 40% was chopped out.

The twin cable has also been hooked up on the throttle bodies too.

geeteezee

Congratulations, Greg! Had a big grin on my face when I started the vid, but nowhere near as big as the grin you had I'm sure!!

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gbrettin

I was all over the place, but mainly over the moon happy. It's wild to have all those hand picked parts come together and work. The LS couldn't be any more Frankenstein.

Next up. Stop my ship from leaking, front brake lines, mount a gas pedal, finish wiring. And... I'm sure a ton of other stuff I forgot.

I'm at the point where I need to make a list that has all the remaining items and start crossing them off.

EDIT

I'm REALLY happy that everyone got to see the entire LS swap process. Literally all the highs and lows are posted here. Good news for anyone else is that there are plenty of kits available now which wasn't a thing when I started. lol

sirnixalot

The only reason I haven't converted my car back to stock and sold it is because of the bolt in, plug & play LS options now (most importantly A/C is functional!)

I appreciate you being so candid with your progress. Can't wait to see it fire up

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2010 Sport - LS3 swap loading
2012 Frontier - BTWTuning VK56DE swap

Rusty

Getting closer Greg.

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浪人 - 殺し屋
"The Difficult Anytime, The Impossible By Appointment Only"
http://www.the370z.com/members-370z-...o-journal.html

JARblue

So happy for you man! Can't wait to check it out in person next month hopefully!

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sirnixalot

I checked youtube. It sounds awesome

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2010 Sport - LS3 swap loading
2012 Frontier - BTWTuning VK56DE swap

gbrettin

Continuation with the push to get the car done post. I forgot to put a bung on the X pipe for the IAT sensor... Well... TBH I didn't know it needed one there. I had to take the X pipe off, which is a PITA because it needs to be broke in a bit. Also, I had people ask why would I go through the efforts of all the pies? I tell them (LSX facebook pages) that the space is really tight. Taking a measuring tape out really highlights that.

Working with Dave (Auto Dynamix shop owner) we decided to get a Leash Electronics relay module to keep everything simple. "Simple" ... heh. Since I'm burning cash, it seemed like a great time to order a Tilton pedal and assembly to pull the twin throttle linkage (shown a few posts back... but I'll post the Lokar twin cable since I am referencing it.)

I don't know if I have mentioned this or anyone asked... The drive by cable is a solution for MS3 because they don't have great support for drive by wire (I spoke to their engineer in 2018 at PRI) Things may have changed since? But this is where I'm at with it and it's not changing. I'm kind of bummed about removing the floor mount drive by wire because that's one of the things I liked the most about the car. Oh well. small sacrifice.

-Edit.. I did more wiring last night too. No pictures. Nothing picture worthy about putting ring terminals and such.

gbrettin

My ship has leaks! I ended up fixing three leaks on the fuel system and 4 oil system. Two of the oil leaks were super easy... Apparently the pan's NPT fitting needed a lot more pressure . AN line had to be taken apart and clipped with a hose cutter to make them flush, previously I used a angle grinder which accounts for those leaks. The PTFE lines... I just gave those Zeus's beast arm on the fittings to cinch them down.

I expected some leaks, so this really wasn't bad. The PTFE lines and fittings from Hot Rod fuel hose are awesome. The aluminum used on the fittings are soft so if you mess up, use a new fitting... but they are cheap enough just to have extra on hand. I've seen a few shop builds use those PTFE fittings so I can recommend them if anyone is thinking about using them. Down the road, I might have all hydraulic clamped lines. we'll see.

Brake pedal came in, Hopefully I can get it installed Saturday. Tonight I need to fix the belt wrap on my accessories... It's too close for comfort to the water pump and it will rub or throw belts (which will be a PITA to get back on).

gbrettin

Added a idler pully on the Dirty Dingo mount near the bottom and re routed the belt, which only took four trips to NAPA. The belt system clears the electric pump and there's plenty of belt wrap now. Cinching the manual tension is also MUCH easier because when I apply ape strength to tension the belt I am ratcheting downward. That downward momentum applies pressure on the belt system. I want to point out that there's no off the shelf solution for an electric pump and f-body steering pump so this is a bespoke piece (free to copy for anyone that comes across this).

The X pipe had a bung welded in so I re-installed the X pipe with the RIFE IAT sensor. It seemed a little easier putting on this time.

I looked over the shifter linkage and decided not to use the OEM transmission shifter with the 4L80e because I would have to make a reverse pivot to change the direction of the lever action. It was decided to make an Outlaw shifter work, which would require some customization inside the car to mount that. I made an aluminum plate that would use the OEM rubber boot (for the old shift linkage). I have to add the HVAC controls back into the car so I can see how close the shifter comes to that. A bit of modification will be required on the trim ring, which is fine. I'll likely get a nice micro suede boot for the area that has a hole after everything is said and done. That's my half baked plan anyway.

At the end of the day, I filled the radiator with water. I forgot to add a block off on the head and it pissed water all over the floor. Block off was added to the head and then the system appeared to work awesome with the swirl pot! I had my hand over the fill and I could feel the system purge air and then it made suction. What a wild thing to see everything start to work!

After the start-up I found oil leaks on the fittings for the sending line from the oil pan after an inspections. If anyone is thinking about a Clearview filter, do it. I can see line debris and metal bits on the screen from the engine starting to break in.

I probably need to do 2-3 more heat cycles before I change the oil (about 30min of total run time). Then I'll change the oil and do fresh break-in oil for about 500mi.

gbrettin

I did a test fit of the Outlaw shifter, full back and forward, and it's really close... but it fits! I'll probably need to cut the trim ring later and then add some suede to cover up the base. Also, I'm going to stand the shifter up on some inserts about 1/4 -1/2" so that there will be better clearance yet and so that I can pull the red leaver on the shifter.

Yeah, so one of my threaded inserts were put on backwards because I was in a hurry.... I was scheduled to watch Dr. Strange that night. lol.

Next steps.. drill a hole and run a cable for the shifter and run some cables for the electronics of the transmission.

gbrettin

I ran the transmission cable through the OEM boot and a hole that I drilled out (picture below). No other pictures, but there's a reason... On a scale of 1-10, I was at about a 2 last night. The main effort was just getting there. Basically I want to show that not every night is a good night... but something is better than nothing.

gbrettin

OIL LINES... All the Fragola 45 degree fittings have a tendency to leak for some reason (with the exception of 2 or so). I decided to bite the bullet and buy XRP crimped lines. They are pretty much the flag ship when it comes to pressure lines. I had 4 lines that I wanted replaced which came out to be 520 dollars... yup, 4 lines. Two lines are 22", one 52" and one 60".

Leash electronics came in. This should be the last component for my electrical. One step forward, here is the two step back: The Tilton pedal doesnt work because it requires a whole assembly to hang the unit. I'm going to use a simple metal pedal at this point. Maybe down the road I will switch to an entire floor mount Tilton assembly.

Bought a finger sander to speed up the process of sanding for my cubby mold, boy did that get down! Wish I started with that a long time ago. 40bucks on Amazon, well worth it. I can also hook my vacuum to the sander so I'm not blowing dust ALL over the garage.

I had to revisit my shifter because it was too low, see the last post. So close... but not quite done. The linkage pushes up on the center console. Let me backup. I had to raise the unit to give it more clearance, both front and rear. Raised it with nylon collars which fixed one issue and made another This is why custom stuff sucks. �� Good news, I have a functional transmission.... Well.... I need to plug in the cable, which is next to the frame.... That's a different issue for a different day. I forgot to mention that I cleaned the wire hole up and hit it with a dimple die.

Also... Forgot to put the grommet in... Or did I... Since I need the wiring through that hole. I will say that the height appears to be perfect. The red lever is now higher than the console slightly (perfect). I also have few hours into making the aluminum plate which works with the OEM rubber boot. Custom stuff... Gesh

gbrettin

Waiting on a few parts so I did some sanding... I had to smooth the brain out with some IPA's to do this work. Finally have one corner flowing the way I like.: