H Craft GT-R, Jared's build.

[Andy H Smith]

Jared's GT-R, build by H Craft Customs. GM LT4 power Graziano transaxle.

Options coming, Trunk, Power steering, Carbon fog lights, Tail lights, Hinged trunk and Engine cover, Tuck roll hoop into A pillars, Wheel arches, Rear bumper, and Carbon Head light buckets.

First task is to try and fit the LT4 in place. With the supper charger intake up front and no possibility of it being turned around its not going to go in without a fight.
With the throttle body hard up against the bulkhead we still needed to come forward an inch or so to get the adapter plate to meet the mounts, so some cutting was the order of the day, with the throttle removed and a 180 bend to point the intake towards the rear I still think Ill need 3 to 4 more inches of space.

Almost there on the heavy cutting, Ill add structure back once Ive fabricated up the 180 intake bend, and got the engine bolted in.
There should be just enough room to be able to change a belt if ever needed. I think that ill try to leave an access panel in the bulkhead when I restructure too.

Lots more to come.

 

[John Runyan]

Very nice Milton Ga CAV #82

 

[Dave]

Awesome another H Craft build....keep the updates coming.

 

[Andy H Smith]

Friday saw the engine fitted into the chassis with all its accessories bolted on, we were not able to fit the LT4 AC compressor as the AC system we are using is not able to control it, I instead went with the Vintage Air compressor, A slight modification to the GM bracket was all it took.

Onto the Splitter, In order to get the front wheel to fill the wheel arch the splitter ends up an inch or so of off the ground, the arches were created for 18" slick tires which have a tall side wall so its difficult to get street tires to fill the arches, even at 19" diameter fronts and 20"rears.
As I did with my own build, albeit a different splitter, was to take the splitter from bolted under the flat bottom of the floor to on top of the front lip of the floor. Yes you have to create a pocket to get the water pipe bends out of the tunnel but the benefits outweigh the effort.
So we tape up the front lip with parcel tape mix up a quart of hair bondo and squeeze the splitter on to the goop, with a couple of bolts through the holes to line it up. After it sets up we turn it upside down, lay a strip of aluminum the thickness of the floor across where you have squeezed and feather more bondo into the floor to create a joggle.
Eventually you are looking to have the splitter perpendicular to the ground when the floor of the car has rake in it. Rule of thumb for me, run as long a straight edge as you have on the bottom of the car and put a 3/4" shim in-between the straight edge and splitter at the leading edge of the splitter.
The bottom edge of the rad supports will need to be shortened and the lower edge of the front valance trimmed too as you don't want to push the whole nose up just the splitter.
All of this detail is similar to how the race car parts fit together.

 

[Ron McCall]

Not shy about cutting into the chassis are you ??
Is it an optical illusion or is the rear wheel located REALLY far forward in the second pic?? Aren't these bodies located onto the chassis and aligned with a jig at the factory?? How could it be THAT far off???

Ron

 

[Andy H Smith]

Not shy!!
When the man paying the bills says make it fit, then Ill make it fit. I've never been shy of a challenge. Ill re structure once the intake is sorted out.
Yes the wheels were forward in the wheel openings luckily it was obvious enough that we've already moved the splitter forward 7/8" so as we go back on with the body we will pull all the other pieces forward to match, all will be fine in the end.

 

[Dave]

Great work Andy, Im keen to build one myself

 

[Chris Kouba]

Does everyone get to see his photos? My computer doesn't seem to display them no matter what browser I use. This includes the other build thread too.

Please help, the builds are masterpieces and I would really like to see what's going on.

Thanks,
Chris

PS - Apologies for the thread drift

 

[Ian Anderson]

Hi Chris

Yes images seen, both on I Pad at home(Safari) and PC at work (Google Browser)

Probably time to clear cache and cookies on your machine

Ian

 

[Lee Patterson]

I can not see his pics

 

[Rick Merz]

Lee and Chris, I see all pics just fine. I am using Firefox.

 

[Andy H Smith]

Radiator support plates cut down and ready for re instal

Trunk hole cut out in the tub

Starting to mark out for the rack lowering.

Then onto the steering column weld on the hub spacer once I've milled and drilled for the horn wire

Then on with the spline and welded up, the wire feeds down the hub and will solder onto the
brass tabs in the plastic ring.

The column is angled down at 20 deg and moved 2" to the left to help with space for the trunk.

 

[Andy H Smith]

Onto the power steering unit, Chevy Equinox/ Saturn View donated the unit, first to convert there input shaft to DD so as to be able to attach to the column.

Boring the universal joint to fit the shaft.

 

[Will Campbell]

Lee and Chris, I see all pics just fine. I am using Firefox.

Pics are present with both MS Edge and Chrome.

If you can't see the pics, try clearing your cache, as others have suggested.

 

[Andy H Smith]

I got the final piece for the column today, the lower column part from the chevy equinox, all I needed was the half with the spline, I carefully split apart the universal joints for the power steering side and the rack side and then mated those two halves together into one UJ.

Now just some brackets need to be made to hold the power unit.

 

[Andy H Smith]

Fuel tank modifications, We wanted to run an in tank system, its just so much neater, more work for sure but neater. So Jared sent me a Aeromotive Phantom 340 kit for the LT4 to instal.
First job was to create a position for it to sit on/within the tank, I want to be able to have the whole tank assembled and instal it as a unit. There will be an access hole in the chassis to facilitate an pump change if required, much the same as I did for my car.

I also wanted to create a sump to for the pump to sit in, Not strictly necessary but it will allow for all the fuel to be used for those that like to run all the way to Empty.

The water pipes got a little treatment too.

I added the two straps to hold the water pipes in place as the tank is slid into place and for a place to bolt it to the car, Ill drill a couple of flatheads up from the underside of the floor into some rivnuts.

Oh and it did hold fuel.

 

[Andy H Smith]

Jared came up with a stock shift lever, but not a bracket as they are crazy money new, better for me to make up some mounting brackets and ill add the cable brackets later.

I worked on the intake this morning too, it tucks in fairly well, now ill be able to re-structure the bulkhead.

Now to weld in the extra bulkhead to form the trunk, its so much easier to stand the chassis on end and not have to weld on your back.

 

[Jared V]

The precise execution blows me away! Relocating the throttle body to shorten things up. Awesome work!

 

[Andy H Smith]

Got the fuel tank bolted in and the splitter re mounted in its upper location.

Mounted the dry sump tank to the passenger side of the chassis just ahead of the rear wheel, it was the only place that it could go.

The expansion tank part of the oil tank will need a little more work to make it fit, with the tank being so tall it would only fit in one place, the attached expansion tank had to be removed and with a little work to the connection pipe it will fit.

 

[Andy H Smith]

Finished up the oil tank instal, just plumbing to do on this now.

We got the spider back on, and re hung the doors to take out the droop when they were open and moved all the body panels forward by 7/8" to make the wheels center up in the arches.

The wheel now sits nicely within the arch with 3" of ground clearance.