I'm overdue posting some updates:

Here I'm measuring at the front for clearance for a bigger heat exchanger. For such a large vehicle there's surprisingly limited space in the grille area without relocating the tranny cooler and working some custom bracketry for the grille supports so this'll be a project for another day.



I got my intake tube back from the welder, and as I had feared, the welding was pretty rough, so I'm happy with my decision to put the MAF at the bottom of the tube. I may try to grind some of it down all the same:



Which leads to something I'm very happy with, and the reason I'm putting the holley LS covers up for sale:



Not so happy with external threading on the oil fill cap, but just means I'm gonna have to run a different clean-side PCV system.



Top side of the covers showing the threaded holes for the coil relocation bracket and PCV line:



Hardware that comes with each cover:



Underside. There's no OEM-like baffling, but you can see on the top left where the larger threaded hole is for the PCV that there is a system in place to deter oil getting out:







Coil relocation brackets:



Also picked up some Lingenfelter 100mm idler pulleys to experiment with increasing belt wrap to in the hope of reducing the chance of belt slippage:





Another benefit is these pulleys are made for an 8-11 rib belt, and one of my future upgrades with this engine or the next, will be an 8-rib setup.



Double bearings, which I wanted in an 8-rib pulley:



Here's a pic of the belt wrap with the Magnacharger supplied idlers and 109 3/8" belt. I'll take the same picture after the LPE pulleys and new belt are installed to compare:



Continuing the trend of nothing going off without a hitch, here's the mounting surface for the idler closest to the alternator on the tensioner bracket supplied by Magnacharger. The spacer is machined into the bracket and measures 0.075". The problem is if I mount the LPE pulley directly on it, the pulley hits the bracket and won't spin.



So if I take the 0.200" spacer provided with the pulleys, I gain enough clearance so the pulley spins freely:





But I'm left with a different dilemma; the pulley now sits too far forward:



Which led me to this picture, which shows a modified bracket from Lingenfelter that doesn't have the built in spacer:

 

So then I set to work grinding off the spacer. I began first by grinding off the base of the spacer to gain an incremental amount of clearance before removing the .075" spacer itself.





So I test fit the pulley this way (.275" from the bracket) and the belt now sits about 1/16-1/8" away from the rear of the pulley, which is acceptable but I'll probably grind the rest of the spacer off so it sits .200 away from the bracket to get the belt more towards the centre of the pulley.

The other pulley needs to reuse the .450" spacer, but LPE sends a 60mm long bolt, which isn't long enough, so some time this week I'm going to go get an 80mm bolt.

I also got some shorter (i.e., correct length) plug wires from MTI. Same wires I have now, just shorter since I bought them when I was still planning to put the Holley covers on. I'm getting an awful lot of parts kicking around that I'm either not going to use, or bought and replaced :facepalm:



So these wires may get sold, or I might just keep them for some future unknown project.

And lastly, I picked up this dual pass/dual fan heat exchanger for a GT500, all new hoses to re-route the intercooler lines.

 

dang your doing some work. any reason your wanting to go to a 8 rib setup before your trans croaks?

 

The 8-rib just makes more sense. All the current factory supercharged cars have an 8-rib (LSA, GT500) and the ZR-1 has a 10-rib. So instead of trying to get fractionally more belt wrap or overtightening the 6-rib (which just puts more stress on the accessory bearings) I should have gone straight to an 8-rib setup, right from the beginning if not now, but it's big money, and not an easy job (remove the crank pulley I already pinned and try to get the new one lined up with the same pin holes, removing the water pump means draining the fluid again, which is a pain in the ***, etc.)

So all this to say that I'm not going 100% to an 8-rib setup, just buying some of the parts now so the next engine can have the 8-rib right from the beginning. I also bought an anti-slip supercharger pulley, but keeping the 3.4" size, so I'm not putting any more stress on the driveline just yet, just trying to improve what I'm working with.

 

gotcha. i really commend your efforts and the detailed in depth thread you got going. makes it really easy for some guys to learn what to do.

 

Got the H/X fitted and came up with a way to mount it without fabricating a bracket so I'm pleased about that. It's sitting a bit lower than I was planning, but there's really a lack of space so I think that's where it'll stay.

I'll post some pics tomorrow, had to pick up some bolts and it was dark when I got back.



Thanks Geoff, appreciate what you said. I try to pass along anything that comes up as a surprise or a tip that might help someone else that goes the same route .

 

Here's what I've been working on:

In order to get the C&R heat exchanger made for a GT500 to fit the truck I needed to cut off the mounting brackets:



This bracket is for the heat shielding on the GT500 that directs airflow into the radiator and heat exchanger, but I found this bracket was about 1/4" away from the frame rails:



So I enlarged the hole to 5/16":



Some pics of the H/X compared to the one from Magnacharger. Dual pass compared to single pass design:



Dual 10" fans, so even at low speed I'm going to get maximum cooling:





Trying to get parts designed for one car to fit another is always a pain in the nuts, so the best mounting location I came up with was one of the bolt holes for the tow hooks, which is just below the frame horn bracket for the bumper:



Another Ford part



I like this mounting bracket from Ford way more than the one from Magnacharger, and I was never a big fan of where the Magnacharger instructions had their pump situated:



And The nice part about this bracket and the HX are they're made for each other and the pump gets bolted to the top of the HX:



Still plenty of ground clearance even at my speed bump scraping 2" front drop:



The HX needed to be tilted forward 15° so the pump wouldn't touch the bottom of the AC condenser bracket:





I wasn't satisfied with just two mounting points on the HX so I came up with the idea to weld two brackets onto the frame horn brackets at 15°, so it would be more securely attached and also be angled at the angle I wanted:



Mockup of the bracket:



Final piece:

 

Apologies for being way overdue on some updates:

Changed the header bolts to studs and one of the holes' threads didn't feel right so I ordered a thread chaser. Luckily it's one of the front holes and not near the back.

I wired up the harnesses for the puller fans and wrapped them in braided loom for the cleanest look:



This is why I decided to **** around for 2 days and counting changing all the header bolts to stainless studs; the rusted bolt heads flat out looked like ****. Unfortunate since they worked well but I'm much happier with studs, which in hindsight I should have just installed right from the beginning.



Another annoyance to deal with: the wiring for the two fans and IC pump comes off the fuse box positive post and now the fuse box cover won't close:





Got an idea that I'll wire up tomorrow.

Picked up my intake tube and very impressed with the coating, ceramic inside and out and finished with matte black:





And as a PSA, this is why you should install a catch can:



Tested the fans and pump today and the pump worked but not the fans, so after a little troubleshooting I found out the negative terminal on the fuse box isn't a decent ground, so in the pic above where I have the trigger wires for the fan relays (grey wires), I had to lengthen that connection and attached to a chassis ground on the firewall.

So everything works, just waiting on the new valve covers, a couple more things painted and possibly anodized then I can start it.

Here's the extension wire I made to move the bulk of the connections (Vin, IC, Fan1, Fan2) lower so I could reinstall the fuse box cover without cutting it or drilling any holes:



And my solution: since all the wires already had ring connectors, I just put a small bolt through them to relocated them lower:



Finished product:



Also torqued down the header studs, and this kit I got from Snap-on was really helpful on the #7 cylinder stud, you can see how much shallower it is compared to a 1/4" socket and 3mm hex bit I used elsewhere:



Pic of the h/x uncovered, shame I won't get to see it behind a grille but wasn't a lot I could do without a lot more cutting:

 

My latest acquisition:

Keeping the local economy strong



Why GM sells a V8 valve cover with 3 coils is completely beyond my level of comprehension:



Billet aluminum hose separators from Billet Specialties. These only come in polished, and while they look great as is, this really doesn't follow the theme I'm going for:



Was on the fence about doing this, but seeing it in person makes me really happy I did:





Here are the hose separators, now anodized black:

 

Also forgot to mention I picked these up to try and do something different:



Compared to stock:



Stock bulb shown first followed by Stealth bulb; first pic with ambient background lighting then with all lighting off: