Kurt H (hoffkm) SL-C build thread

Hello Kurt - Another fellow Mechanical Engineer here. I'm working on the build of a GT40 powered by an LS3 and G96.01 like your SL-C. I know people have fit them in the GT40 before but I since I'm doing a scratch build; I'm going to attempt to re-locate the gas tanks to a more centralized and safer location (if it's even possible). Would you please be so kind to provide the total length of the LS3, G96.01 trans and adapter plate mounted together per the attached picture. It would be great if you have the lengths of each of the three components but if not, the total length would be sufficient. It would greatly help me on my build before I buy everything. Thank you!!! I'm half way reading your build and its looking great... Taking alot of notes as I read :)

Adrian,

As soon as I have a free moment I will get out to my shop and get you the requested measurements. I have been very busy lately so it may take a few days to a week to get back with you (I have not touched my SL-C since June).
 
Adrian,

As soon as I have a free moment I will get out to my shop and get you the requested measurements. I have been very busy lately so it may take a few days to a week to get back with you (I have not touched my SL-C since June).
Much much appreciated! Hope you get time to get back on your build.
 
Much much appreciated! Hope you get time to get back on your build.

OK, took free time today (that has been in very limited supply lately) to at least drool over my SLC a little and take some measurements. I will hopefully be back to working on it in a much smaller schedule that before starting later next month. I will follow up to everyone on here with a build update after that.

Adrian,

Measurements I took off of my LS/G96.01 combo are as follows:

54" = overall length of combination
27 1/2" = overall length of G96.01 with the rear (in our case, front on a Porsche) mount cut off as can be seen earlier in my build log
1 3/4" = thickness of adapter plate between the G96.01 and the LS
24 3/4" = overall length of the LS with the LS7 balancer, water pump, and pulley setup.

All measurements I only guarantee to about +/- 1/4" since I was eyeballing some things. I did not pull strings and plumb bobs to get precise measurements. If you are running close on clearance I can take the time for some more accurate measurements.

My base LS engine is an LH6 (5.3L aluminum block truck motor) with A LOT of modifications.
 
OK, took free time today (that has been in very limited supply lately) to at least drool over my SLC a little and take some measurements. I will hopefully be back to working on it in a much smaller schedule that before starting later next month. I will follow up to everyone on here with a build update after that.

Adrian,

Measurements I took off of my LS/G96.01 combo are as follows:

54" = overall length of combination
27 1/2" = overall length of G96.01 with the rear (in our case, front on a Porsche) mount cut off as can be seen earlier in my build log
1 3/4" = thickness of adapter plate between the G96.01 and the LS
24 3/4" = overall length of the LS with the LS7 balancer, water pump, and pulley setup.

All measurements I only guarantee to about +/- 1/4" since I was eyeballing some things. I did not pull strings and plumb bobs to get precise measurements. If you are running close on clearance I can take the time for some more accurate measurements.

My base LS engine is an LH6 (5.3L aluminum block truck motor) with A LOT of modifications.

Kurt - You are a life saver. +/- 1/4" is precise enough for what I'm working on right now. Thank you for making time to specifically answer my question. I'll try to return the favor to you or someone else in this website when possible.
 
Wow, where has the time gone?

Last time I worked on my SL-C to any significant degree was back in June this past summer. From that point the summer got very busy for us and I did not spend any time out in my shop. In August my wife after substitute teaching for the past 15 years accepted a full time teaching position at a local Catholic school teaching 5-8 science, 8th math, and 8th religion. She is doing great and enjoying the career move a lot but it has been a joint effort between the two of us. I have been helping and supporting her whenever I can in this job. She accepted the position three days after classes started for the year so she had no lessons prepared or anything to start. It has been week to week, day to day since then. Needless to say, time in my shop has been non-existent, until tonight.

I finally touched my SL-C again this evening and decided to work on something that would give me some great visual progress gratification. First I will update progress from this past summer. After getting my mill in place I managed to get the rear clam hinge setup installed. There are not a lot of pictures in the build logs on here of the street tail hinge installation so I am going to post numerous of my setup.

Photo Jun 16, 8 42 17 PM.jpg

Photo Jun 16, 8 42 41 PM.jpg


I had to cut away of lot of the rear clam to get the hinge bar installed. There is really only one position that the hinge bar fits to the rear clam and it is a very, very tight fit.

Photo Jun 16, 8 42 49 PM.jpg


I ended up removing the rearward mounting tab from the outboard end of the hinge bar in order to get the clam mounted forward far enough.

Photo Jun 16, 8 42 53 PM.jpg

Photo Jun 16, 8 43 03 PM.jpg


I removed the nuts welded onto the hinge bar and went with female threaded rod ends instead of the male rod ends supplied with the kit. I will replace the threaded rods and nuts with bolts at a later date.

Photo Jun 16, 8 43 08 PM.jpg

Photo Jun 16, 8 43 12 PM.jpg


I still need to clearance a rib on the bottom of my transaxle that is rubbing on the hinge bar, other than that everything fit up very well except the rear wheel spacing in the wheel wells.
 
On to tonight's progress. I decided that since the rear clam is now installed I wanted to install my rear window vents to see how that is going to look. I have the fiberglass vents (not the carbon versions) and plan to graft them into the rear clam so they appear to be a part of the original clam design. I have seen one car that Alan has done this way so I cannot claim this as an original mod of mine, just a copy of the master.

Cut a BIG hole in the rear clam and fit the vents.

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Some "fancy" notching is required to clear the vents.

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I LOVE being able to see the FAST intake thru the rear window as well as my body color matching roll bars. Seeing this has really re-energized me to work on the car after my long hiatus.

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After fitting everything up I bonded the vents in using 3M Panel Bonding adhesive. After this dries I will layup some layers of fiberglass matt and resin to further adhere everything and stiffen things up.

2021-12-15 20.10.18.jpg


Then it will be on to filling the gaps with fiberglass chop and resin followed by some Evercoat Tigerhair body filler and finished off with standard Evercoat body filler to smooth and block things out.
 
Since I have not posted recently:

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone. I hope Santa brought you everything your project needs.

I am getting shop time again in my life, that makes for a much happier me.

Recently I applied two layers of fiberglass matt and polyester resin to the underside of my rear clam vents to reinforce them. Next I will be applying a sheetmetal brace to the upper side of the window.

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I am quite surprised by how much I enjoy working with fiberglass and resin. Maybe it's due to the "happy fumes" or the ease with which you can do things.

I also modified my rear clam hinge crossbrace to clear the lower side of my transaxle. After welding an additional 1 x 1 box iron bar onto it I had a good chance to use my new mill in clearing out the brace.

2022-01-03 14.54.37.jpg

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The paint is temporary as I will be undercoating the underside of the clam and this bar as well.

I also finished up my rear suspension relocation brackets in my mill. I do not know how I ever got along without having this tool in my shop. Now I need to resist the urge to come up with 100 new reasons to use it.......

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Side tracked on another project again. Sometimes I hate being handy, I get asked to help with so many things outside of my own. I am painting grill surround off of my nephews truck (Santa brought him a fancier front end) that my brother is building into a stereo cabinet to hang on his living room wall. Will probably be painting the entire truck this summer. The nephew will be doing most of the prep work on that project. Time for me to supervise.

Gathered up some left over supplies and paint I have lying around for the project. This photo is a good representation of why paint jobs cost so much. This is all the product I need just to do a simple squirt of PPG reef turquoise on the grill surround.

2022-01-19 19.19.51.jpg


(WOW, this picture really shows just how much of a huge mess my shop is!! Embarrassing, trash is full, dirty rag pile, steel scraps tossed all around)

body filler-fiberglass filled with hardener
primer/sealer with reducer
paint with reducer
clear coat with reducer and hardener
spot putty with hardener
standard body filler with hardener
polyester primer for block sanding
not shown is all the sandpaper used from 120 grit thru 400 or 600 grit (depends on when I get tired of sanding)

if you are not a perfectionist you can get away with a little less materials.

Let the fun begin........

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Happy New Year Kurt. Glad to see you are back on the build. Man, that Mill is heavy duty, very nice purchase.
Seriously, I have mill envy. No way I could have gotten a full sized one into my shop.

I am going to have to do something similar to my street clam if I keep it, just not enough room to clear my drive mount. Why do you think you are not aligning right in the rear wells?
 
Seriously, I have mill envy. No way I could have gotten a full sized one into my shop.

I am going to have to do something similar to my street clam if I keep it, just not enough room to clear my drive mount. Why do you think you are not aligning right in the rear wells?

The only reasons I can think as to why my rear wheels are not centered is two fold:

1) I am keeping my controls arms centered as much as possible on there mounts. My rod ends are extended equally on each side.
2) I set my clam as far forward as possible to line the wheel wells up with the front wheels and that is where my tub fit best with the dash, windshield, etc. all fit in.

I will hopefully get an update posted in the next few weeks once I finish mounting the adapters on my rear suspension and get the rear clam re-installed. As with many projects, the adapters turned into more work than anticipated. I had to completely remove my exhaust to acces the bolts.
 
Quick updates on progress:

1) rear wheel alignment in the wheel wells has been addressed via plan "B" The adapters I made moved the wheels to far outboard and they were going to interfere with the bodywork during extreme suspension travel. Plan "B" was to install spacers in place of all the washers on the control arm pivot points to move everything 1/2" forward.
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Also installed my rear tow hooks. Hopefully these will never be utilized!!
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Now I just need to trim out the wheel well opening front and rear for maximum tire clearance.

2) I also installed and tested my new Mishimoto MMFAN-HD11 fans and compared them to the stock fans. In addition to the fans I purchased an anemometer to measure the airflow of the old versus the new. My results were are as follows:

Stock fans---1500 cfm stand alone, 900 cfm mounted to radiator fan shroud
Mishimoto---2000 cfm stand alone, 1,800 cfm mounted to radiator fan shroud

The stand alone numbers for both are basically what they are rated at. The big difference that jumps out at me is the mounted numbers. The Mishimoto do not see nearly the drop off that the stock fans due. I believe this is due to motor sizing. You can audibly tell that the stock fans are not spinning as fast mounted as they do stand alone whereas the Mishimoto fans appear to spin the same RPM in either condition (no audible change, wish I had a tachometer to verify).

As others have noted, they are very loud!! I can accept that for a 100% increase in airflow across my radiator!

2022-03-23 21.16.10.jpg


Rolling right along, slowly but surely. My timeline is so far out the window I am not updating it and taking life as it comes. Really cannot wait to drive this thing though...............
 

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Mark B.

Supporter
Very nice work, Kurt! I'm very curious on your rear tow eyes -- did you buy those or fab them? I was going to fab tow brackets out of 1/4" steel, but your solution is much cleaner. Nice for tie-downs while trailering too, not just towing.
 
Very nice work, Kurt! I'm very curious on your rear tow eyes -- did you buy those or fab them? I was going to fab tow brackets out of 1/4" steel, but your solution is much cleaner. Nice for tie-downs while trailering too, not just towing.

Mark,

I purchased my rear tow eyes from McMaster Carr. They are female threaded lifting eyes that I painted red. They are only available in course threads so I had to change out the pivot fasteners. And yes, tie down points for trailering are what I “plan” to use them for, hopefully nothing else.
 
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