Well progress has been pretty slow lately, cause frankly I'm almost done with it, its driveable, so haven't worked much on it. I took it to 2 car shows, had a bunch of people stare at it, ask a lot of questions, but no awards (of course I'm not completly done with it either, so maybe that's what....plus one of the show's was the GoodGuys show and there were TONS of nice rides there)
Anyway, I was having a high RPM miss. After asking some questions and doing some data logging, I determined that it was the number 3 spark plug wire that the header had partially melted. So I removed the coil packs from the valve covers, relocated them, made custom spark plug wires (you have to use LT1 spark plug boots BTW) and that took care of that problem. I then installed my cool cast aluminum "CHEVROLET" valve covers that my wife got for me last christmas.
Then I got my butt in gear and finally installed my LS6 intake manifold that I've had sitting on the shelf ever since I sold my corvette a year and a half ago. I got a used set of fuel rails and 28lb injectors (stock truck injectors are 24). I already had the corvette front drive accessories, so that wasn't too much of an issue. But, my temperature sensor for my gauge was in the top of the water pump and the throttle body was hitting it, so I removed the temp sensor and plugged the hole. I got an adapter to put the temp sending unit in the pass. side head, but haven't done it yet. I also had to cut the coolant passage off the bottom of the truck throttle body as well as notch it for a bolt that protrudes up from the corvette water pump. No biggies there. I then broke out my laptop, reprogrammed for the larger injectors, and it's running great.
Here's what the engine is looking like now:
Tonight I got the A/C system charged and working. A buddy was helping me. The first thing we had to do was draw a vacuum on the system and checked for leaks. None found, so then we hooked up the heater hoses to the water pump. For a long time I wasn't getting any heat until I checked on stuff. Basically some where along the line the cable that controls the water valve slipped off the controller in the cab, so not hot water was circulating through the heater core (this is an Old Air setup BTW). After we got that figured out, we charged the system. The Old air instructions called for 28-32 ounces of refrigerant. Well I used refrigerant that also included the compressor oil with 11 oz of refrigerant per can. We used 3 cans, but my buddy disconnected the first one before it was completely empty, so I probably have ~30 oz of refrigerant in the system and it seems to be working great.
Then we took the truck for a test drive since my buddy hadn't ridden in it, and we wanted to see how the A/C was working out on the road. The truck ran good, A/C was cool.
While on the test drive I also tried out my line lock that I had wired up a few days ago. Basically it confirmed that my brakes aren't really working all that great. I could push down on the brakes, turn the line lock solenoid on and could still roll forward pretty easily. I could tell the actual solenoid was working, the brakes basically just suck.
The truck stops pretty decently, but not like it really should (I can't even lock up the rear brakes with rear disks). So.....I"m going to go back over the entire system and check for leaks and re-bleed it. I don't really think that is the problem though. The whole braking system is brand new except the brake booster, so I'm probably going to get a new brake booster and see if that fixed my "under powered" brakes.
The truck is still safe to drive, but it should be able to stop quicker than it does now. I'd say it's probably on par with a stock drum/drum truck as far as stopping distance.