Operation X

Yesterday, I got started on my amp relocation to the glove box. It’s a tight fit.

Chopped the glove box I scored from the junkyard.

I fitted it some.

I got the amp and crossover mounted onto it. Now I just have to re run the wires

You can also see the edge of the double din mod I’m working on. It’s not completely finished yet.

I also broke the lids some more when I was taking out the console. I decided to try and fix it.

I got material from WLS headliners to reupholster my headliner.

I don’t know if I mentioned it but I’m looking at a new design for my sub box to make it multi-position. I essentially want to make a sub box that will fit in the trunk yet be able to move up behind the back seat when I want to take the tops off.

This is hopefully one component that will fit into my design.

Very productive weekend except for the shitty weather which made half of saturday and most of sunday a bust. the rest of the week looks pretty crappy as well. Hopefully it’s not going to prevent me from doing the rest of my list.

Where I left off was the console lid. After the epoxy had cured it was pretty solid. I’m curious to see how long this holds.

I began the time consuming process of wiring.

Hiding this turns out to be a little difficult.

I haven’t wired the fuses panel in with it yet

I took a swing in the dark as to my fuel pressure problem. The pump that Matt and I installed, whilst I was stranded in AL, came with a factory like hose.

I didn’t start to leak down until a month or so after I got back and drove it daily.

I decided to swap back to a rubber hose instead. Oddly enough we swapped it and it still wouldn’t hold pressure. That is until I marked it off the list. Then it magically held. It was quite annoying. In any case the pressure holds now when the car is off. Which means my push button start doesn’t require me to cycle the button to prime the fuel lines anymore.

This is an unusual problem that some people with cams and a low idle might be interested in.

(Edit: the following information is related to amp draw. The alternator actual cuts the charging off when The idle dips below 500 or so. I’ve got more information about that in a later post)

I have a problem where my ac is going and my blower is full blast and my voltage, when I come to a stop, drops due to all the power draw. My idle is set at 700 which is 50 below factory. So as my cam lopes it can hit anything from 650 to 750 rpm. Factory alternators are designed for 750 rpm. Which if rev the throttle slightly the voltage will go normal.

My solution or attempt at a solution is a new pulley for the alt. I got one that is slightly smaller diameter.

The gold pulley is a factory diameter

Factory circumference = 7.54
New Circumference = 7.00

New rev ratio vs factory = 108%

(Edit: This isn’t exactly the way you should calculate the RPM of the alternator. Pro tip: do it the right way)

So at 650 rpm the new pulley will simulate the engine running at 700 rpm. This may not be enough but it will help for sure. And I lower the idle to 675 hopefully as well.

I swapped the phone dock charger from a chopped up plug in charger to a better 1.2A wired charger made for bikes and such. Hopefully my phone will charge and run nav at the same time. The nav seems to drain a lot of juice and the old charger barely keeps up.

it fits nicely.

The following is probably the best cosmetic improvement.

Headliner:

I managed to find a decent headliner at the pull a part with Laura and Jeff. It needed to be recovered but the headliner itself was in good enough condition to use.

Scrubbed off the old foam:

The rain started to pour so I threw it into the hatch for safe keeping.

I managed to install it after the rain stopped. it’s been a very long time since I had a headliner. The material came from WLS headliners. The graphite color is pretty dead on for the graphite interiors.

Getting all this wire sorted out is about as crazy as it looks.

I’ve got the components sorta mounted together.

The wires in the back are organized.

I spent hours taking all the rest of the car and sorting that wire. There isn’t a whole lot of space in a Camaro.

I’ve only got today and tomorrow to really hammer out these mods. Then, I have to spend time really cleaning it out. The gathering is getting closer quicker than I would like.

The wiring really took up all the time I had to work. Not to mention the weather was shit too. I skipped a few not required mods like a new sub box, which is probably a good thing. I need more time to think about it.

But I did managed to get my door panels on which makes the interior look really good now. I’m finally completely swapped to graphite. I also installed, but not pictured, my graphite sun visors. They aren’t great but they were better shape than mine and the right color.

I also didn’t get to spend any time on putting the radio bezel back together. so I had to settle with some adhesive stuff I had laying around. I’ll likely get more fiberglass resin and put it together with that.

This is how I’ll be rolling to G19. She’s clean and polished

 

Well, I’ve finally recuperated from G19 and decided to keep working on the car, unlike last year when I completely stopped working on it until Jan. At least I’ll have a headstart on G20 or when we decide to attempt a cruise.

The car looks great now. all of the interior is done apart from some nit picky things here and there.

One of the last things I did was working on the Alternator. I’m trying to raise the rpm of the alt vs the engine rpm so I can lower idle. I ran it at 675 with the first pulley swap, but I wanted to go lower. I dropped it to 625 with no issues apart from some pretty consistent voltage drop at idle.

I got a new smaller pulley to install. I also noticed that this setup on my car likes the 650rpm. It lopes very nice there. So I’ve set the idle at 650 and running this new pulley. There is still voltage drop but only when the AC is on and the blower is running at full output. I think the blower just sucks too much juice. but this will suffice for now.

Oh and good news!

My fuel system still holds pressure. That stupid stock-like flexible hose didn’t seal. I’ll probably never use one again. Rubber fuel system hose works great.

Here is a video of the idle at 650. Again, with all my idle videos the pitch is so low that it sounds very quiet unless you have a subwoofer or good lows.

So my AC went out last week. It sat until I could get it fixed.

My compressor for whatever reason blew out its seals internally. I guess it’s the equal to piston rings. I can freely turn the pulley by hand.

The shitty news is that the compressor had a 2 year warranty…. and its now 2 years and 2 month from when I bought it. :-\

Its a Delphi Compressor, which I thought would be better than the crappy parts house brands, but apparently not.

So, I found an ACDELCO for pretty cheap on amazon, $160 vs $300 from most. I thought it was a good deal anyway.

Since I had to break the system open I had to get everything else too, accumulator, orifice tube, etc.

FYI the accumulator if you get it from Oreilly’s or any other parts house, needs to have the check valve built in. For whatever reason the one they stock doesn’t which is a WTF moment for me. I had them order the correct one. Nobody in town had one.

I also went to harbor freight to get a set of gauges and a nice Pneumatic vacuum pump for 20 bucks. It pulls a strong vacuum in seconds. You could probably operate this on a medium size air bomb.

Here is all the junk I had to get.

For those of you who say just delete the AC. You don’t have a clue what it’s like in the south. You can have a heat stroke at midnight at 72 deg 99% humidity without a fan. I was sweating like a MoFo. Humidity kills!

I’ve pulled a nice vacuum and it held there for several minutes.

Below is the new pressure and we have cold air. We will see if the heat today is any match for this new system.

Well this past weekend I made the decision to ditch the aftermarket seats and go back to factory. And so far I hate them mainly because their Cloth. Sliding in the seat is much more comfortable than having to scoot into the cloth seat. So atm the cloth is going to stay until I mess around with the aftermarket seats to make them more comfortable. The main problem is the bottom bolsters on the exit side of the car is just way too tall. i’m going to try and modify the seat to reduce that and mount them to the stock rails because they mount to the car so much better than metal plates.

Car seats make nice chairs.

I had to make some repairs on the factory seats

The extra cushion that I added to try and fix the foam. but the wire basket that holds the foam is tearing away.

I added supporting wire.

I added vinyl to try and keep the foam from tearing more

And now to recover the seats.

Maybe I can find some graphite covers for the factory seats instead of the cloth.

This weekend I had a mishaps.

I went down a road that I said I would never go down again in my camaro because I bottomed out the car the last time I came down it. They had fixed the sink in the road. So since I was close, I wanted to stop by a friends house. I had to creep along and dodge all kinds of stuff. I wasn’t successful. I nailed a hole with a super large lip and It pretty much destroyed my shock assembly.

So the work begins.

It turns out that my shock pulled right out of the mount.

It makes it a challenge to get the shock out because It under tension because the shock isn’t holding the spring any more.

The damage:

It damaged the end but the nut came off without destroying it.

I then found the problem. My insulator was trashed. you are supposed to tighten this down with the shock nut. But as you can see, the hole is now larger than the nut.

I will hopefully get it back together tonight. I’ve got 2 replacement agx shocks for the front just in case there was damage beyond repair. So I’ll probably replace them both. I’ll make sure the driver side doesn’t have the same problem. I was lucky and the shock mount was under warranty on that side. The other side is still stock. Having to buy new mounts is expensive. They’re 80 buck each, for rubber. :-\

Its back together. I had to wait a day for the part to arrive. I’ll be doing the same thing to the other side just in case that plate is beginning to rust as well. Not to mention I got another brand new shock to put in.

Fresh! It may be placebo but it feels like its a better ride.

Well yesterday my car was sick. I left work and my gauge never registered above 12v. I was pretty sure I was running on only battery.

But since my alternator has a lifetime warranty with Autozone no big deal. it’s the second one I’ve replaced since I bought the first several years ago.

Now, I have to rant a little bit. This is why I don’t want to deal with Autozone much.

First they didn’t have this one in stock. Its their duralast gold New (not reman) alt. Not a big deal and not uncommon really for parts houses but they should stock their top tier stuff IMO. I could have waited a day for it to come in I suppose. However I realized heading to autozone that my truck has a broken belt in the rear tire. I don’t want to put many miles on that until it’s replaced.

I asked them what were my other options. They decided that they would replace it with their reman version which is about 20 bucks less. I thought about it for a second. Since I don’t get but 3-4 year out of them anyway I’m not losing anything. It still has a lifetime warranty. They even mentioned that I get the 20 bucks. So, I’m like, why not.

So while I’m thinking about it I walk through the store just to let me think without them waiting on an answer. I walk back and say ok let’s do the reman. They at least have it in stock (and probably will in the future as well)

They have to do several overrides to get it replaced. One of the things they did was charge me for a core even though I brought my core. I noticed this while they were doing it. They talk back and forth and Saying”we have to charge the core”, “that will make it the same price as the one he bought”

So I don’t bother arguing even though they said I get that back. I didn’t come there to get cash but just to get an alternator. I ended up getting the 4 bucks that the core didn’t eat up.

Bottom line they shouldn’t charge a core just to keep their money. I should have asked for the old one back since I paid for a core charge. Something about they had to charge one but they should have refunded the core since I brought one. IDK and frankly IDC either.

They next time it fails I hope to have the money to take it and have it rebuilt locally with HD parts and maybe they can build it where it operates at lower rpms.

I got home and its back together and everything is good.