Joel’s SL-C Build Thread

Great mod, did pretty much the same thing on my GTM. The OEM threaded rod and clevis from the master cylinder here will make the pedal height 'infinitely' adjustable (once you get everything in the ballpark).
Heat is a non-issue, those boosters are used to sitting right above the exhaust manifold...

beeman said:

Great mod, did pretty much the same thing on my GTM. The OEM threaded rod and clevis from the master cylinder here will make the pedal height 'infinitely' adjustable (once you get everything in the ballpark).
Heat is a non-issue, those boosters are used to sitting right above the exhaust manifold...

View attachment 100791

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Thanks Dave for the advice and confirming that heat is a non issue.

You could also use a hydra boost instead of the booster for engines that don't produce much vacuum. They are about 6" long and might save you a bit of room. Only down side is the fact you will need a PS pump.

KENS80V said:

You could also use a hydra boost instead of the booster for engines that don't produce much vacuum. They are about 6" long and might save you a bit of room. Only down side is the fact you will need a PS pump.

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Hi Ken, I did look at these solutions since they were mentioned either on the Wiki or SL-C build manual. I assume the 6” you are referring to is only for the Hydra booster and does not include the master cylinder. The 2010 Camaro brake booster is 4.75” deep so it should be smaller/shorter than the Hydra boost.

If you take into account the 2010 master cylinder which is 4.25” long so all together the vacuum booster plus the master cylinder is 9” in length.

Time for the next update. Slowly getting through the fabrication to get the LT4 in the chassis. So far I’ve fabricated front and rear engine mounts, an aluminum cobra head shaped supercharger intake elbow, top mount billet Sanden compressor bracket and now fabbing up a low mount billet alternator bracket. This is the last component I need to fabricate and then I can move on and start assembling the car.

Here is a video on the approach...

The task at hand is to mount the alternator and pulley tensioner on the lower passenger side of the LT4 where the factory compressor goes....


I decided to use the factory dry sump compressor/tensioner bracket and adapt it to hold the alternator.

Here is the bracket, tensioner, and alternator which need to be married together. I needed design a bracket which mounts the alternator as close as possible to the block since the lower frame center is only 15”....


Time for some arts and crafts with painters tape...


Top view......

Mocked the bracket up out of plywood, this is actually the third design.....


Another view...


Now with the alternator attached, outside edge of alternator is 14.5” from the center of the engine. I’ll need to move the charge post, but other than that if fits nice in the chassis...


Had to put the engine back in just to confirm there is enough room before I took the time to fabricate the bracket...


Next update will cover milling this part out of Billet..

Here is something that may interest you Joel. These are 12AN adapter fittings to convert the coolant lines on the supercharger manifold.

KENS80V said:

Here is something that may interest you Joel. These are 12AN adapter fittings to convert the coolant lines on the supercharger manifold.

-12an Quick Connect Adapter GM LSA, LS9, LT4, LT5

-12an Quick Connect Adapter GM LSA, LS9, LT4, LT5

www.dedicatedmotorsports.com

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Thanks Ken, these may come in handy.

Jkviper said:

Thanks Ken, these may come in handy.

Click to expand...

The 12AN size will be a better match to the 3/4' hose nipples on most intercooler coolant pumps.

Finally finished the low mount LT4 alternator bracket. I machined this on my light duty harbor freight mill and drill. It was a bit of a struggle to machine such a large piece, but it came out quite good. The following are two videos which show almost step by step the process of manually milling this bracket. All in all it was probably 30 hours of machine and think time to make the bracket. If I had a metal band saw probably would have taken half the time.

Beginning...

Completion...

Machined the bracket out of a 4” x 4” x 12” aluminum block....


1st thing I machined out the area where the alternator will sit....


Drilled the alternator holes and machined down the bottom part of the bracket...


Instead of a band saw I used the mill to cut out the perimeter shape of the bracket....


Starting to take shape....


Fit the alternator into the top of the bracket....


Continuing to shape the bracket with sanding drums, and large bit....


Drilled the mounting hole, it’s a blind hole so it was tricky to locate where to drill, but I got it right. A very tight fit to the tensioner bracket.


Close up of the bracket and alternator installed on the LT4....


Picture of the LT4 dry sump with custom accessories to fit into the chassis. Swapped the alternator and compressor locations....


All in all I am verry happy with the results,. I have spent many hours fabricating these parts to make the LT4 fit in the chassis with out any chassis modifications. Through this process I have certainly improved my fabrication skills and ready to start assembling the car.

Next up is installing the front compartment, radiator, fans and fan shroud.

Joel. That was a lot of work. It is amazing what can be done with one of those drill mills. Well done.

roger reid said:

Joel. That was a lot of work. It is amazing what can be done with one of those drill mills. Well done.

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Thanks Roger, it certainly wasn’t the easiest approach, but I wanted to see if it was possible to make this out of a single block. I figured if it turned out to be too difficult, I could have cut some plate steel out with spacers and did an erector set type approach or weld some aluminum plate to the tensioner bracket which would have been simpler, but this turned out well. Time to actually put some components on the chassis!

Was able to assemble and mount the front radiator box this weekend. Felt good to start assembling the car instead of fabricating parts for the LT4!

Here is the video detailing the assembly process....

First thing was to assemble the floor and side panels...


The factory marked holes for the side panels were not level so wanted to double check if that was correct.

The passenger side...


The driver side...


It turns out the side panels are not symmetrical and the driver side holes need to be slightly lower.

The passenger side panel...


The driver side panel...


I adjusted the drivers side slightly to be 5mm lower than the passenger side and mounted the front box.


The whole box was level and looked great until I went to see how the radiator fit and it did not. The radiator was .5” wider than the front compartment. Turns out my radiator is 30.5” wide without the mounting tabs. I checked with Ken and Stephan and theirs are 29.75” and 30” wide respectively.

To widen the front compartment I slotted the side panels and added extra washers on the front splitter support bar. Eventually I’ll machine up some nice beveled spacers and replace the stack of washers.

Slotted side panels...


Widened assembled front box....


Now it is wide enough for the radiator.....



Next up is to install the radiator, condenser, and fan shroud. The real challenge will be to fit all that and still clear the power brake master cylinder.

Joel,

An interesting build, to be sure, but there one thing that I have not figured out. What are you planning to do about turn signals, hazard signals and horn, since you're not using the steering column that was originally intended for the kit? I'm sure it's probably something simple and likely what I would do my self, but I'm curious to know what your plan is.

bladestoyshop said:

Joel,

An interesting build, to be sure, but there one thing that I have not figured out. What are you planning to do about turn signals, hazard signals and horn, since you're not using the steering column that was originally intended for the kit? I'm sure it's probably something simple and likely what I would do my self, but I'm curious to know what your plan is.

Click to expand...

Thanks Matthew,

A few options for the turn signals, more than likely I’ll go push button but these are the different approaches I am thinking about...

1)Scavange the stalks from the GM column that came with the kit although I would lose auto cancellation of the blinkers.
2)Use a set of Renault blinker stalks made for this steering column, not sure if I could regain the auto cancellation of the blinkers and then would have to figure out the pin outs. The nice thing about these are that they are very short and would fit nicely in an SLC
3)Wireless push button setup, there are a couple companies that offer them.
4)Add my own push button setup and wire it into the system.

This is probably more than a year away so have plenty of time to think about it.

For my Cobra build, I used this. Works great!
https://www.partsgiant.com/p346706-signal-dynamics-self-canceling-turn-signal-module

Joel,

When I order one of these, I will go with option three and add steering wheel controls for the stereo as well. I'm spoiled by the ability to adjust the volume and tuning without touching the head unit. Still working out the exact options I would want in mine, among other things.

I put the radiator install on hold and started working on the evaporator install. Here are the modifications I felt necessary to get the evaporator to fit in the chassis.

Here is a link to a video discussing the Vintage Air System that comes with the kit and the planned evaporator modifications...

Here is a link to a video straightening the heater core tubes, re-clocking the AC fitting, and modifying the evaporator case in order to flip the heater/AC core....

Here is the current version of the Vintage Air Mini Slimline unit with the heater core tubes and AC fittings all on the right side of the case...


My approach is to do what Stephan and Grant did and rotate the heater/AC core 180 degrees and move the fittings and tubes to the left side of the case. Thus, having the tubes and fittings toward the center of the car vs. butting up against the foot-box wall.

Even with rotating the heater/AC core it is still necessary to straighten the heater core tubes and re-clock the AC fitting...


First step was to remove the heater core and I made a press with some wood and a piece of Delrin plastic. The press was created with a 5/8th inch drill and the idea is to sandwich the tube in the press and tighten it with a clamp and it will straighten the tube out.....


Tightened it up with two clamps..,,


Came out pretty good and straight....


Now to re-clock the AC fitting. First had to remove the black goo on the fittings and expose the nut. You have to be careful not to kink or damage the small capillary tube....


I used a 22mm and 14mm wrench to loosen the AC fitting. The fitting was on very tight and had to apply a lot of force to free It up and re-clock it....


Next up was to patch the rear of the case where the fittings used to exit and also cut out a new area on the opposite side. I used some ABS plastic, fiberglass Sheetrock tape, and Shoe Goo adhesive to patch up the area....




The case looks great and ready to accept the heater/AC core on the opposite side....


Next step is to install the evaporator in the chassis.

Had a chance to finish the evaporator mod to swap the AC/Heater core and here are some detailed pics. Thanks to Stephan for posting his approach and I used that as the basis for what I did.

I used 1/4” foam to re-seal the blower motor to the case, manipulated the tar goo to seal the pipes to the case and applied black silicone on the heater pipes like the way the kit was delivered....



Used a 1.25” hole saw while the evaporator was mounted in the chassis. It has to be perfectly centered otherwise you run out of real estate for all 6 holes. Also moved the top screws from the corners to between a few of the holes...


Side view showing the tar goo and silicone and orientation of the pipes...


Another side view....


Next post will show how I approached mounting it. I wound up having to make custom brackets since I mounted the box a half inch too far back with the supplied brackets. Here are the final brackets mounted on the evaporator. As you can see, the markings for the holes are further forward than where they wound up....

Here is some more detail on mounting the modified evaporator in the chassis. I plan on mounting all the items less plumbing on the car including AC/heat, radiator, condenser, Intercoolers, and Ramlifpro. Once they are all mounted I’ll route all the tubing and add sound deadening and heat shielding for final assembly.

Here is a video documenting the approach including a fist pass where I mounted the evaporator too far into the foot-box......

Had to fab up 4 brackets since I originally mounted the evaporator too far into the foot-box. I used the stock Vintage Air brackets and mounted the evaporator without the blower motor not realizing how close the corner of the motor will be to the side of the chassis. Live and learn....


Brackets located in the frame. Notice the rear brackets are open on the bottom so I can attach the evaporator to the front brackets then swing it onto the rear brackets. The rear bracket on the left side is very hard to tighten up with a wrench. I may use a socket head bolt there and can tighten it from the driver’s side with a ong Allen wrench....


Have just enough room for the re-clocked AC fitting and capillary tube. I’ll probably move it over an 1/8 of an inch for final assembly...


Have a little more room by the edge of the blower motor....


All in all I am happy with the results and hopefully all this detail is useful for other SL-C builders....


Next up is starting on the front suspension....

A bunch of us increased the air flow by opening the holes as shown in the picture Joel. Good time to consider it before mounting it for the last time.