Meissen's LT1 Build-up Thread

[sman]

Looked awesome last night B! Very clean, and it sounds great!

[meissen]

Thank you guys!


Craig came over and between him, my dad, and I we adjusted the shift cable so I don't have to put the shifter all the way up and then "bonk" the shifter towards the front of the car to get the detent in the transmission to click.

Then we tackled the transmission cooler finally. The big ass thing is so big that 1) it doesn't fit infront of the A/C condenser and 2) the "install kit" zip ties are too big to go between the fins of the condenser. So we came up with a really nicely done mounting spot on the passenger side splash guard. I don't have pics of how we cut it, but we cut about 1.5-2 inches in from the mounting location and made a big square where there's no plastic in the splash guard so that the air hits the air dam, goes up through the vents in the front of the splash guard, travels to the back of the splash guard, and then gets pushed down onto/over/through the transmission cooler. All in all it works pretty good - and I took some pics for reference sake.


OH - And I would DEFINITELY recommend people make those square 2x4 stands that we used to support the car during the build. If you have a jack that can get the car high enough, those stands work EXCELLENT under the k-frame to support the car while you work under there.

OH OH - Craig taught me what a bump stop was today. He was describing it and I was like "...My car has never had that..." He looks through the rims and sure enough my bump stops are gone and I'm 100% positive I've never removed them so apparently the rubber rotted away and they fell off on their own or something. So, one more thing to purchase...

Anyway, here's the pics:

[MP81]

Nice, that trans cooler might heat up whatever it's mounted to, since it'll blow all the heat upwards. I don't think it'll be an issue though.

[bigjon88]

very nice b!!!! cant wait for another ride!!

[s.reef]

looks good brian!

[c0ncEpT]

We refer to it as "Dope style" when you mount the cooler horizontal like that. Looks great Brian!

[meissen]

Nice, that trans cooler might heat up whatever it's mounted to, since it'll blow all the heat upwards. I don't think it'll be an issue though.

Yeah we've got it raised off the plastic splashguard with rubber spacers that they came with. I put my hand on it after it had been running for only a few minutes and it was already getting warm. We actually were talking about possibly getting a fan to mount to it just to help cool even more.

[Superman09]

Yeah we've got it raised off the plastic splashguard with rubber spacers that they came with. I put my hand on it after it had been running for only a few minutes and it was already getting warm. We actually were talking about possibly getting a fan to mount to it just to help cool even more.

Would be a good idea!

[9T8W66]

I'm sure you can get a 5-6" fan for that thing.

[MP81]

Yeah, you should. That'd be a good idea.

[78mali350]

just checked this today, great job brian and larry! has to be really rewarding to have the the car mostly done like you do now. this was an awesome build to watch and learn from. great work!

[meissen]

Thank you, Vince! The hardest part has been trying to remember to document what we can. I've got SO MUCH SHIT up in my head to compile online for references.

[meissen]

Well, today's progress was very productive. We FINALLY have the OBD port wired up.

BIG THANKS to Dan - mcssmostwanted - who gave me his AKM cable that he had. It was an OBDII and my '94 had an OBDI port. Well, since we had the whole vehicle wiring from the '95 vehicle, we cut the OBDII port off the '95 harness and after about an hour or so of metering wires and tracing diagrams, we finally figured it out and got it working.

After staring at Shoebox's PCM wiring pictures and then tracing the wires on the '95 harness, tracing the wires on my car, metering wires here and there checking for continuity, we finally figured out today that Shoebox's diagram is incorrect for the Data Serial cable wire. It shows the wire coming out of the PCM, through one of the passenger side kickpanel wires, and straight to the OBD port. This is 100% incorrect. The tan wire travels from the PCM, through the passenger side shock tower plug, across the front bumper, around the driver's side shock tower, through the driver's firewall, then to the OBD port. Somewhere around the OBD port, the tan wire splits and goes over to the air bag module and then it goes to the passenger kick plug, out the passenger firewall, and then goes somewhere else that I couldn't find but it does not return to the PCM and is not a full loop.

After I figured that out, I spliced a wire into the data serial cable wire coming out of the PCM (I didn't trust my understanding of the wiring schematic enough to just blatantly cut the wire yet) and ran it through the passenger grommet, across the dash, and right to the OBD port. Well once I had that wire in place, I chopped the OBD1 port off, stripped the wires on the OBD2 port from the '95 harness, and then used alligator clips to connect the wires together before I soldered it together... and thank god I did! It took a long time to figure out the wiring! I thought I only needed to worry about the data serial cable, the enable/mode select, and a power source. We kept fusing with everything and finally realized "Shit, we probably need a ground too!" Hooked the ground up and TADA FreeScan started reading the PCM.

After that big accomplishment, we decided to tackle the intake because we knew it was going to be a pain in the ass and we wanted to just get it done. We had to cut about half an inch off of the intake elbow because we just didn't have enough room for everything to line up. After that, it all went pretty smoothly.

So here's some pictures.




Rats nest of alligator clips - controlled chaos of wiring.



FreeScan Dashboard - IT WORKS!!!! Very cool! But I still don't get a speed reading. I'm starting to wonder if my VSS plug is damaged or the wiring isn't right...
FreeScan.JPG


BLING BLING!!!!!!!! Stainless steel polished radiator support, power steering cover (not sure if I like it), fuse box cover (LOVE IT!), and PCM cover.









Vortech (I think? I can't remember the brand name) black elbow and SLP cold air intake. I always wanted this cold air intake ever since I had the v6 and I'm SO happy I went with it for the LT1! I wanted the intake to kind of "blend in" and let the rest of the engine bay dressup be the bling and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

[c0ncEpT]

Looks great Brian. I like all the covers and that CAI turned out real good.

[kammi10]

looks killer B