LS197. A build thread.

DILYSI Dave said:

In other news, I went to the "Old dude who sells used NASCAR stuff out of a storage locker" place this morning to pick up a scavenge filter that he posted on FBM last week. Ended up scrounging through his AN line totes and found nearly everything I need for a flat $10/line. After I had done all of that I said "I don't know what tank I actually need, but I could use one for mockup and would rather not throw nice-tank money at the mockup part. Do you have any tanks that are just this side of garbage?" He said "I have exactly that!" and dug through his tank section until he pulled out maybe the first dry sump tank ever made, which has also definitely been in a wreck. But it was $10 instead of $300, so it is exactly what I was asking for. Walked out of there with the tank, scavenge filter, five -12 lines, two -16 lines, and a handful of random fittings for $150.

Can you get parts for me from the same dude?

" just this side of garbage" is my middle name!

tuna55 said:

DILYSI Dave said:

In other news, I went to the "Old dude who sells used NASCAR stuff out of a storage locker" place this morning to pick up a scavenge filter that he posted on FBM last week. Ended up scrounging through his AN line totes and found nearly everything I need for a flat $10/line. After I had done all of that I said "I don't know what tank I actually need, but I could use one for mockup and would rather not throw nice-tank money at the mockup part. Do you have any tanks that are just this side of garbage?" He said "I have exactly that!" and dug through his tank section until he pulled out maybe the first dry sump tank ever made, which has also definitely been in a wreck. But it was $10 instead of $300, so it is exactly what I was asking for. Walked out of there with the tank, scavenge filter, five -12 lines, two -16 lines, and a handful of random fittings for $150.

Can you get parts for me from the same dude?

Whatcha looking for?  This is the dude - https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/954062832971509  He also sells on ebay, though I'm not sure his ID there.

DILYSI Dave said:

tuna55 said:

DILYSI Dave said:

In other news, I went to the "Old dude who sells used NASCAR stuff out of a storage locker" place this morning to pick up a scavenge filter that he posted on FBM last week. Ended up scrounging through his AN line totes and found nearly everything I need for a flat $10/line. After I had done all of that I said "I don't know what tank I actually need, but I could use one for mockup and would rather not throw nice-tank money at the mockup part. Do you have any tanks that are just this side of garbage?" He said "I have exactly that!" and dug through his tank section until he pulled out maybe the first dry sump tank ever made, which has also definitely been in a wreck. But it was $10 instead of $300, so it is exactly what I was asking for. Walked out of there with the tank, scavenge filter, five -12 lines, two -16 lines, and a handful of random fittings for $150.

Can you get parts for me from the same dude?

Whatcha looking for?  This is the dude - https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/954062832971509  He also sells on ebay, though I'm not sure his ID there.

Nothing today, but I'll let you know!

A few months of some fruitful side work and a month of vacation later, and we're back on racecar! If you look back 6 months you can see where I had a direction I liked for the serpentine, but I ran into a wall of the models I could download being different enough from my specifics that it was hanging me up. I could have gotten around it with old fashioned beating my head against the wall, but instead I used it as the excuse to get a 3D scanner. I went with the Einstar that several of the YouTuber car guys seem to like, and I do as well.  A few hours of learning curve and I was able to scan my truck water pump and lay it into my SolidWorks and tweak the serpentine details a bit to come up with this update -

With a fair amount of confidence in the geometry I told the 3D printer to do it's thing and was able to put everything together this evening -

I'm pleased with the way it all came together, so with that, it's time to start making chips.

Nice! I was wondering about this build the other day. Looking forward to seeing the progress 

Turned a few pieces into aluminum in the last few days. Also realized how ugly the water pump pulley was, so I gave it a makeover.



Spent a few minutes putting a brushed finish on the spacers. Also ordered fresh hardware, just cause.



Finally, spent a few minutes prettying up / saving ounces on the turnbuckle / belt tensioner.



And they say you're supposed to sign your work....



Still having fun.

I'm gonna have a moment alone

Glad to see you back at it!

Incredible work... 

This thread is just adding fuel to my want for an Einstar. 

RacetruckRon said:

This thread is just adding fuel to my want for an Einstar. 

It's pretty awesome.  We're still not at the point of "Scan the thing, seamlessly import into useful CAD."  But as long as you go into it expecting a level of iterative bullE36 M3, you can get some useful stuff on the other side.  

Also, keep in mind the cost of the computer if you don't already have something pretty stout.  I have a Dell Precision 5570 with an NVidia CAD card with 4GB of VRAM, an i7-12xxx processor, and 32GB of RAM. It was good but not great. Handled the scanning fine. Processing the cloud / forming the mesh took long enough that the first couple of times I thought it was locked up. Third time I started it, went and ate dinner, and when I came back it was done.

Machined the rear alternator mount and the idler spacers -

Then got them installed along with the alternator finally installed "for good".

DILYSI Dave said:

RacetruckRon said:

This thread is just adding fuel to my want for an Einstar. 

It's pretty awesome.  We're still not at the point of "Scan the thing, seamlessly import into useful CAD."  But as long as you go into it expecting a level of iterative bullE36 M3, you can get some useful stuff on the other side.  

Also, keep in mind the cost of the computer if you don't already have something pretty stout.  I have a Dell Precision 5570 with an NVidia CAD card with 4GB of VRAM, an i7-12xxx processor, and 32GB of RAM. It was good but not great. Handled the scanning fine. Processing the cloud / forming the mesh took long enough that the first couple of times I thought it was locked up. Third time I started it, went and ate dinner, and when I came back it was done.

I just future proofed myself with a Lenovo Thinkpad P53 with an 8gb Quadro card and Core i9 for that exact reason. I know the einstar is hungry for graphics card and the point clouds take a ton of processing power. 

Just saw that Einstar is 20% off for Prime Day - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BJZQWSBG

When we last left off, I had one part to still turn into metal to complete the serpentine system. After a few hours of machining I turned a 9# block of aluminum that started as 3" x 5" x 6" into this 1.4# goofiness -



While all of the geometry was as it needed to be, I wasn't thrilled with the surface finish. The only tool I had on hand that would reach that deep also wasn't real happy doing so, and there were some obnoxious chatter marks as a result. Add to that the scalloping from using a ball end mill to cut the sloped surface, and it was functional, but kinda ugly. So, I set about making it prettier. An hour or so working through the grits from 100 up to 400 got us here -

I can live with that. 

With that, time to assemble...



Serpentine system is now officially done. Next we move on to finalizing the oil plumbing.

This CNC stuff is causing a Pavlovian response here. Very nice work!

Same here, beautiful work!

Thanks guys.  <blushing>

In reply to DILYSI Dave :

That is hot like fire.

Little more progress.

First off, in the virtual world, I did my second scanning session. If you've read my post in Tom's 3d scanning thread, this is a recap.  This time the front subframe. Longer term I'm going to use the scan to nail down engine mounts, but that will probably come after I've pulled the old motor and scanned the bay and have more info to work with on exactly where it's going to land. But for now I know I want to lose the bigass mounts that are used for the bigass OE style bushings, to create space as well as get the LCA riding in a spherical. Second session was a way more complicated scan, but it went easier none the less with just a bit more experience.

Here's the scan, sitting in the Einstar software -



And here it is, pulled into SolidWorks and manipulated enough to be useful -

With that I planned out the LCA sphericals and their mounting details and ordered the parts from Send Cut Send cut out of 1/4" plate. The big ears for the OEM bushing mounts will be cut off in the real world, but that was proving to be more squeeze than juice to do in SolidWorks.
 

And here's the planned fixturing for the weld up to make sure that they land in the right place in space -

I also got a little bit dirty in the real world, as I nailed down the plumbing, at least enough for bench start, for the oil system. I had to modify a couple of the BMRS scavenge hoses, including some new fittings, so I ordered the fittings, mocked everything up, and sent it to BMRS to get them to crimp it. Should get those back next week. But the mockup made for a pretty bundle of snakes -



Also ahead of the wiring session was a bit of final prep on sensors. I'm going with a Bosch TMAP that is used on various VW and BMW products. I like consolidating both MAP and IAT into a single sensor, so that's what we've got here. But it didn't fit where the OEM one did.

Before -



After -
 

Had to drill out the original hole to a slightly larger size and then also drilled a small hole that I could use a self-tapper from the bolt bin as a hold down.

Once I get the hoses back from BMRS I'm going to install them and do a final nut and bolt on the full oil system before filling it and spinning the pump with a drill. Assuming all looks good at that point, then I'm almost ready to call my wiring guru over for a wiring session. I'm cautiously optimistic that if I get him to the house on a Saturday morning, we could have a bench start by Sunday evening. Not going to bother with a cooling system for bench start, but I do need to cobble at least a rudimentary fuel system as well before then. I've got a small fuel cell on my random race parts shelf, but I do need to figure out a fuel pump.

More wiring / bench start prep.

Made me a bench start fuel system with a fuel cell from my junk pile and an amazon fuel pump. And a 2 x 4, because all good fuel systems should involve lumber.



Got my lines back from BMRS. So sexy. They are one of those "I won't tell people when I win the lottery, but there will be signs" kind of things. You see my full car plumbed with this stuff, start asking questions.



With those back, I had everything I needed to full close up the oil system. So I plumbed it all up and spun the oil pump with a drill. First surprise - On an LS, the flywheel bolt holes leak oil if you don't have bolts in them. Interesting. Add bolts to solve the biggest leak. Found one fitting that was leaking, where a line that I made interfaces with the block inlet. Tightening it yielded no improvement, so I took it apart and figured out that the hexes were hitting before the sealing surfaces hit one another. Irritating since this stuff is supposed to be made to standards. Oh well. I pulled the line, grabbed the nut in the mill vice, and milled about .075" off of it. That was enough, as now it tightens down with about .025" of gap between the parts that were hitting. And that's it for oil leaks.

Also - Wow dry sump systems use a lot of oil. 9 quarts before it would cycle without starving. That's with no G loading - just enough to keep the bottom of the tank covered. I'm guessing this system would be another 5-7 before the tank stays half full. That said, this is with my temporary tank and random used NASCAR lines, so the real numbers will vary. Still a little shocking though to be 8 quarts in and still see the bottom of the tank and hear the pump slurping. But hey - signs of life are signs of life.

Finally, we want to keep the hoses from eating each other, so I printed a spreader to keep the worst offenders playing nice. Worked pretty well.

Finally - it's not motor, but still part of the project - I cut off the bigass LCA mounts for the OEM mounting scheme. From the factory the rear LCA mount is a big hydraulic bushing. I have replaced those with poly, but it's still a lot of real estate. So while I've got a subframe out and being played with I'm converting that suspension point to a spherical. Going to run the OEM 1.25" stub on the LCA through this spherical. I had SendCutSend cut out these mounts to my design, and then mocked the bearing up in the OEM location. I'm making one more change to the parts, so no sparks yet, but close.

Speaking of sparks, this dude REALLY wants to be part of the subframe welding, so he's been practicing....



I'll probably burn the suspension mounts in myself, but there's a LOT of seam welding to do on this subframe that will be good practice for him.

In reply to DILYSI Dave :

Nice.

Good to see the pit crew getting involved in the build.

In reply to DILYSI Dave :

Get the boy (and yourself) a compact breather mask that fits behind the welding shield. 

DILYSI Dave said:

Then got them installed along with the alternator finally installed "for eVil".

Corrected.