Wheels & Tyres - Part 1.

Wheel spec for the CR is a difficult choice if you want to go the traditional look with the Halibrand style and Knock Off Spinners.
The track of the hub faces is very wide both front and rear and so a small Front Space (Distance from rim outer edge to the wheel mounting face) is required for the wheels to fit under the guards.

All the usual after market wheel manufactures cant get to this offset without the centres sticking out past the JJ rim profile inner step, and the spinners stick out past the wheel & tyre which is illegal.

Don't like this look :(









When I bought the chassis and body kit, there was an Australian Manufacturer that did make a custom wheel for this spec, but they had ceased to make them and wouldn't consider to do a run even for a group buy.

The CR spec is 3" Front Space for the Front Wheels and 4.5" on the Rear Wheel.

Both Team 3 and Vintage Wheels in the US were great to deal with, and have great looking wheels, but unfortunately couldn't get the required spec,
Team 3s best effort was still a 1/2" off the front space requirement, mainly due to the cast center profile and my need to clear the calipers which stick out past the mounting face by 7mm.
The design of their cast centre prohibited further machining of the back face to clear the caliper and achieve the required offset.



A chance encounter with Racecraft Industries in Melbourne revealed a customers "Eleanor Mustang" Replica build, and while having a look over the car, I discovered some Halibrand Style rims that had a different profile.




While this was a 20" rim and I want 17", the rim design might give some option for the front space problem.

The fact that they are from a solid billet gave design options not available on other wheel centers.






These Wheels had a neat little cap that covers the 5 wheel studs replicating the Knock Off Spinner Style Wheels I was looking for.

Other brands have covers that do this but the key point of interest was the Rim Profile.

Contacting the owner established the wheels where custom CNC made for him by Dragway Wheels in King Lake Melbourne using billet aluminium for the centres and welded into a "Smooth Look" Rim from Specialty Rim Supply (SRS) in the US.


I contacted Dragway and organised a group visit with 3 other CR builders.
We spent several hours with Dragway's designer reviewing the possibilities and touring the facility and left confident we could meet the CR requirements.
Further direct contact as we neared purchase time developed a solution that maximized the visible rim and met the caliper clearance, front space requirements.
The aesthetics and legal requirements would be met with a redesigned flatter profiled billet spinner all within the rim.

First to order was Ben, you can catch Ben's build blog here. - Ben's CR Cobra Build

Here is the start of my wheel progress to date.
I finally decided on 17"x 8" rims for the front, and 17" x 10" rims for the rear.

Margie (Owner of Dragway) kindly sent me some progress pics this week of the wheel center machining so far.

Aluminium billet centre.









Rear of the centres have been profiled.
The left billet is a front wheel center with 9mm boss to clear the calipers, the middle billet is a rear with 27mm boss.

Machining a centre with the Halibrand style look.








The tyres I have purchased are Kumho Ecsta XS.
245/45ZR17 for the front and 285/40ZR17 for the rear.

More pics to follow.

Header Tank, Coolant Hoses, Tanks and Horns

Continuing the theme of trying to create an "Old Skool"  look, but with new technology and materials I wanted to create a similar look to the original 427 layout.

This pic from the web shows an authentic layout.

The header tank in this pic is painted black located just forward of the distributor on this FE 427ci engine.










I designed my own header tank to sit in a similar place as the original FE engines.



This is my Header Tank design.
It incorporates -AN fittings for LS Engine Head Steam Vent, Radiator Bleed, Expansion Overflow Bottle and of course the Radiator flow.

Its designed to fit my LS3 fitted with a Meziere Corvette Electric Water Pump.

Meziere Pump part number WP330N.
The Pump has a -20 ORB  outlet, so is suitable for a number of hose style fittings.
I fitted the -20AN male adapter supplied with the pump.









The tank was made by Shaun's Custom Alloy.

The black -20AN 90deg elbow fitting is a cut down Aeroflow part AF583-20BLK TIG welded to a bung in the bottom of the Header Tank.

The Aeroflow bend screws on to the Meziere pump and a bracket mounts from the pump housing to the tank to lock it in place.

Trial Fitted up with Top Radiator Hose, Radiator Bleed Vent Hose, Head Steam vent Hose, and Expansion Tank Hose.









Cooling System Hoses,
Expansion Tank, Wiper Water tank, Horns all mount to a cross brace made to fit between the Chassis Suspension Mounts.

I'll send the brackets for powder coating to finish them off.







Welding up the Cross Brace from some tube and sheet metal.
Machined up some bushes for the mount to the chassis.










This is about as retro as I can make the LS look and keeping with my theme of Silver, Black and modern materials

Time to move on to finishing the headers.

Anniversary 4 Pictures, How Time Flys

A Little Progress, Bonnet Struts, Overflow Bottle, Washer Bottle

Not much to report of late, busy with work and family.
Fitted the Overflow Bottle, Washer Bottle and ordered some fittings to plum it all up.
Also fitted the Bonnet Hinge Cross Member and Bonnet so I could test fit the Struts and check clearance to the engine.

Here you can see the strut mounted from the chassis to the hinge.
A strut is fitted to each hinge.
Also the Bottles fitted to a cross brace between the suspension mounts.







Drilled a new 8mm hole in the hinge, the existing holes are only 6mm and too close to the edge.










Works well, with minimal effort to open and close.

Didn't take a pic yet of the passenger side Header, but you can see in this pic its progressing.






Needs Stripes.












Clearance is hard to see in this pic, but there is plenty, and if it ends up being too close, I'll open up the opening a bit more.

Headers Part 1.

The space for headers, particularly the rear 2 cylinders, is very tight on clearance to the foot wells, and steering rod between the column and rack on the CR,  This necessitates a custom made header design,
Other criteria for me was to also utilize as much OE emissions controls  as possible to get me through the certification engineering and registration process.
The emissions need to meet IM240 requirements, and noise db, so my header design needs to be able to adapt from OE Catalytic converters and under-body muffled rear exit design to the 4 into 1 of the iconic cobra side pipes in the future if I want to go this way.
At the moment, I'm thinking under-body but exiting to the side behind the doors.

 A while back, I procured the Cats from another CR builder friend, they were to be discarded from the donor wreck he got his Engine and Trans, Diff and several other components from, (thanks Phil).

After figuring out if I could make them fit in the space, which entailed finding short merge collectors, and some tube routing concepts, i made up a stand to hold the cats in place while i played with different tube locations.

Firstly, I decided on 1.75" tubes, a little research suggested this was the ideal tube size for a mild almost stock LS3.
Drivability is all I'm after with this combination and 434HP in stock form in a 1000kg car will be plenty for me.

I bought some exhaust modelling blocks from "Icengineworks" via Summit in 2", 3" and 4" CLR and some straight blocks, enough to do 1 side at a time.

The blocks come in kits as well with all sorts of other bits and pieces, but I didn't need to obtain these and I'm glad I didn't buy the full kit.

After playing with the blocks, and different options of over and under the steering rod, i finally settled on the above.
This design has all the pipes over the top of the
steering rod which will make for easy removal if required.






The blocks are very quick to adjust to make fit and too maximize the use of bends with minimal cuts and welds.
In this design, the 1st 2 pipes have only 1 join each, and the 3rd has 2 joins and the rear pipe has 3 joins.


In this pic you can see the merge collector, I bought these from SPD Exhausts in the US.
Get yourself a catalogue, great bits and pieces.

The ring above it is a flange I had laser cut. Actually i had six cut, 1 each for the headers, 1 for each collector, and 1 for each of the 4 into 1 side pipe assembles.
This is so I can split the collector off the header and mount the side pipes to at a later date.



The 2 flanges will have V-band clamp rings welded to them for connecting together.

So basically, as you can see in the first pic, the blocks have alignment arrows.
Where the arrows align, the blocks are curved in 1 continuous arc plane, Where they don't align is the point of a change in the arc plane, so I marked this point with a marker pen. on the changed plane then separate at the mark and cut the component from the matching radius mandrel bent pipe.



Voilà !

Here you can see the 2 bends tacked together in the same orientation as the model.

You can also see the marker pen on the join at the change in arc plane.







Eventually, you end up with this.

I have never done this before, and I'm really happy with the result.

Next step was too remove the pipes and weld the joins, before reassembling to the flanges again for final welding.

After tacking it all up, remove the header and mounted to a spare LS1 head to keep it from warping when I welded it all up.

In this pic, you can see I've flapped and filed out the MIG welds on the tubes for a smooth flowing look.





Test fitting the collector again before final welding.

Mig welded up all the flanges while clamped to the spare head.










All done except for O2 bungs and V-band clamp flange on the CAT outlet.

A view from underneath.

Next is to model up the left bank and do it all again.

Engine Mount Spacer and Chassis Wiring

Started and completed the chassis wiring up to where it will go through the firewall.
I am going to run 3 looms in the car.
One for the parts on the Chassis such as Fans, Horns, ABS sensors, Fuel Pump, Windscreen Pump,  and some water and diff oil temp sender, and another for Engine and Transmission, and a 3rd for body mounted components like Lights, Dash Wipers etc.. etc..

I'm not intending to put ABS on the car, but put the wires in the loom as a "just in case" I ever decide too, or maybe traction control.

Also after reading about sumps protruding below the frame rails, I laid a straight edge across the rails below the sump, dead level just scrapping the sump surface, so I decided to lift the engine slightly for clearance.

10mm Spacer added under engine mount.












I cut the spacer on my mini CNC mill from some aluminium stock, then put in the tumbler overnight to smooth all the edges.










In this pic, you can see how level the sump to frame rails was.










ABS wire from the upper control arm to the sensor in the side of the knuckle.
The sensors are factory VE Commodore/
The plugs are off the shelf Narva AMP 2 pin plugs.
The clips holding the loom to the upper arms are bike cable clamps suggested by another CR builder.
These ones came from ebay in a, stainless steel, 6 pack and are 28mm diameter.



Fuel pump and float sensor is wired.
I also tested to make sure it works...all good.