My LSx Coupe Build

[dville_gt]

Ya, I heard similar from another board member who gave me a little info on the car when I first posted it up. I am sure there are two sides to every story, he was nice enough to notice the car and provide me the pictures. He also gave me a heads up that his shops name got drug through the mud after he shut it down when a ton of parts/equipment came up missing and he fired everyone. I really don't care one way or the other, the car is very clean, insanely straight, and now I've got the build history/pics. I don't use any shops (not that it matters since Texas HotRods doesn't exist anymore) for work (sans very few jobs that I would rather pay for like gears/trans rebuilds/machine work), and for those jobs I get references from folks that do a ton of this stuff so it's usually little to no risk of getting burned.

[stangstew]

http://www.southwestdrags.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8370

here is a tread that talks alot about that guy

[stangstew]

Brian Metzger is the biggest piece of shit crook in in el paso. He puts on a great nice guy front, but will screw you over at every turn. I knew alot of his mechanics and spent alot of time at his shop. He runs a rob from peter to give to paul kinda place. He is over priced and takes way to long to get cars done. He took 6 months for him to get my heads and long block back from the machine shop. I paid him up front for the job. I watched more people get screwed from him.

[dville_gt]

Undercoating:


Rear end:



Front end:


Completed (at Fun Ford Weekend where it was sold as a roller)

[dville_gt]

Not sure if anyone cares other then me, but today I get a YouTube message from a guy saying that he built my roller. His name is Brian from Texas HotRods. He sent me a ton of pictures of the build and we talked on the phone for a few minutes. Real cool guy and remembered the car very well (I am sure the paint job helped jog his memory!). Might not seem important, but since the only history I had on the car was very vague to get that email and pictures, etc. was really cool. Interesting side note: he got the car in trade for an aluminum driveshaft!

Started life as a white 1979 5.0 coupe.


Missing a few parts!


Building the cage:




Getting painted:




Interior going in:

[dville_gt]

I am doing it using a Hobart 250 TIG.

[Matt]

Who's doing the fab work?

[dville_gt]

on the way to start fabbing up the kit, hot side pipes should be here tomorrow from racepartssolutions, cold stuff hopefully by the end of the week/early next week.

[dville_gt]

got the intercooler mounted in today (need to build some brackets, but modified the bumper and got it in there). whew, so i've now got a 1in trans cooler, 4in intercooler, 1.5in condenser, and a 3in radiator...

also did a ton of re-wiring and some little odd stuff here and there. getting it ready to start on the hot side stuff hopefully next weekend.

[VaderTT]

cool, lemme know about the 2 bar map, no worries if you don't want it, i'll just put it up on tech.

I may want it as it'll be around 1bar most that I'll be running.

[dville_gt]

Nice, thanks man. Looks like I'll be doing this soon.

cool, lemme know about the 2 bar map, no worries if you don't want it, i'll just put it up on tech.

[VaderTT]

Nice, thanks man. Looks like I'll be doing this soon.

[dville_gt]

Cool, I'm maf now and just started to get the turbo itch again. I know a shit load about turbos but not much on maf to map conversions on LSx based motors as this is my 2nd and will be my first boosted ls vehicle.

I'll propably be street tuning soley BTW.

maf to map conversion = unplug maf, error it out in hp tuners (insert 0hz in the maf fail high and low), tell pcm not to illuminate check engine (do not chose no error reported, just no MIL) for failed maf, now you are in speed density. to enable open loop you want to insert max temp for dfco, set you eq ratio, and set the ltft's min temp to a maximum number (like 400*) and the max temp the minimum number (like -30*) then set all the close loop enable and o2 read tables to a max number, now you are in open loop speed density and can tune the ve table with out any interference from modifiers using the afr error histogram and a wideband.

or just buy the 2 or 3 bar os for 2 credits and i believe it automatically enables speed density.

[VaderTT]

Cool, I'm maf now and just started to get the turbo itch again. I know a shit load about turbos but not much on maf to map conversions on LSx based motors as this is my 2nd and will be my first boosted ls vehicle.

I'll propably be street tuning soley BTW.

[dville_gt]

What map sensor did you get? and I didn't read back, but are you tuning with hptuners?
What is the map sensor setup you would need? I'm currently compiling parts for my turbo lsx truck build, just a little confused as to which route I want to take on tuning.
Map tune and be done or blow through maf and upgrade later if I want to go faster.

it's a 2 bar map sensor. brooks strongly suggested i go with a 3 bar so i might end up selling this one off. reason being the 2 bar reads 1 bar of vacuum and 1 bar of boost (hense 2 bar) so it's only good up to roughly 15psi, the 3 bar reads 1 bar vacuum and 2 bar boost (about 28psi). i don't plan to ever boost more then 15psi but the point has been made that with turbo's sometimes shit happens and you don't want it to be boosting 20+psi and the map pegged at 14.7 (thus only providing enough fuel for 14.7psi and making your motor dangerously lean). if you are interested in buying the 2 bar sensor i'll sell it to you for what i paid ($35) its a factory gm sensor and they retail for about 80 bucks online.

i am already speed density so no maf, just doing the 2 (or 3 bar) sd operating system via hp tuners. i've did the n/a tuning on it and shaved off .7 seconds from the previous "tune", i'm not an expert by any means, but i have a decent basic grasp on the ve tuning and sam has been a pimp and help me out with the spark tuning. i'll be renting some dyno time and dialing in the wot stuff there then doing all the low end ve stuff on the street.