haha, like i said its the best of both worlds for me. lots of torque, room for a ton of mods, i have a mountain of experience with these engines, parts are cheap and readily available off of any shelf in any parts store, and the car is going to handle a lot more like ive always wanted it to.

i wouldve liked to have kept the V12 but theres no parts cars around here. i looked for months for a running V12 and couldnt find one.

 

with a few mods to the oil pan, this engine is actually going to sit behind the front axle, making it mid engined. lol

future bragging rights FTW!

 

in the process of modifying an old W body oil pickup to draw oil from the very back of the pan, to make room for oil pan modifications. still have some bending and brazing to do.

 

Is that copper? I dunno, maybe it's just me, but I wouldn't use copper for something like that unless the pickup end was anchored to something.

 

why? i wouldnt use copper for exhaust pipe, but for oil that will never get hotter than boiling temp? i mean, thats the kind of temperatures these things are made for anyways.

 

I think he is concerned about stress fractures in the copper unless it is supported.

 

Yes, that's what I'm talking about. I should have mentioned it in my initial post. The function of the pickup tube is so critical that I wouldn't want to risk the copper breaking over time. It's not really a good structural material at all.

With that being said, it'll probably be fine, but I wouldn't do it on my car! I'd bend a piece of steel tube and have a good welder weld it in for a couple bucks (or a case of beer!)

 

I have to agree, it's not the heat, it's the vibrations and slight movements from the suction will cause copper and aluminum to crack. I'd seriously consider switching to steel.

 

i think itlll be fine for now. its not like it has a ton of weight on the end, its a balanced 6 with offset timing so it doesnt vibrate. plus i always run a mechanical pressure gauge.

ill probably switch eventually but this stuff is just so easy to work with for the time being.

 

M90

How does the clearance for the steering colum look with the engine in place?

Greg

 

The steering column is the bit inside the car.

the headers wont clear the steering shaft, but other than that the clearance is fine. im going to do a little bending on the headers and see if i cant get around it.

 

well the F body pan turned out to be a total flunk. ended up cutting an old W body pan and im really happy with it. now it just needs to be welded. not sure what im gonna do since its so thin and i dont have a tig.

 

Got started making the motor mounts.

 

Got the transmission crossover fabbed up. cut, bent, and then rewelded.




also bent some 22gauge sheet metal to patch the oil pan with. anyone think thats too thin?

 

quick update. the weather turned to ****, and i spent a good while trying to find a conduit bender for the oil pickup. found the hard way that mcmasters uses a different tape measure than my local tubing retailer, so i finally got the oil pickup done. it just needs brazed, and the oil pan needs welded up.

got the bonneville coil pack bracket on as well but need some buick coil pack bolts.

 

well after 19289239842 trips to the hardware store, 2 benders from a going out of business sale, and some crazy copper pipe, i finally managed to hobble together the pieces to make my oil pickup. brazed on both ends and soldered in the middle.
so pumped. just need to get the oil pan welded back together.
anyone know of a cheap supplier for 20g sheetmetal? also i still need to make a drain plug in the pan.

 

Are you sure that the pickup will not suction itself to the bottom of the pan? I have never made a pickup before, so I don't know how much space you need to leave between the pickup and pan, etc.

Are you going to put any baffles in the pan? Where there any there in the first place?

 

i was sort of afraid of the same thing. i was looking at the old pan and there was very little clearance between the pan and the screen. i was less worried about it suctioning itself to the bottom, and more worried about it creating a bubble and running dry. since the copper is a little more flexible than stock, i left the screen at a bit of an angle just incase it would decide to make out with the oil pan.

there were no baffles in it to begine with. this pan isnt gonna have much more than about 3qt capacity. stock is 4.5qt

 

Maybe you could put in a support beam to make sure that it does not move around and break. It doesn't take much to give it a lot of support. My engine has a piece of sheet metal that goes between the pickup and the windage tray to stabilize and strengthen the pickup itself.

 

do you have a larger picture of that? im sure it couldnt hurt to throw in a support beam.