GTM roll cage modifications and race car build log

[kabacj]

You have some great looking linkage parts on your car! Even better than you made most of them yourself.

Thanks man. This was one of those rare occasions where everything just worked out and I had good looking parts fast.

For those looking for wheel options I got these from 0Z racing. They are very light and strong enough for the track




John

[mikespms]

Hey John,

The car is looking like a race car,are you planing on registering and using it on the street? Did you install the a/c unit in the car? I had a 74 vette w/o a/c back in the 70's when I live in Long Island and it was unbearable in the summer and the after market dry sump systems uses the a/c mounting spot for the scavenge pump. Have you looked into a stock LS7 set up with a Katech upgraded scavenge pump allowing you to keep the a/c if you want it.
On the rear camber cam adjusters I had the same problem under hard acceleration and it was dangerous to say the lease.

[kabacj]

Hey John,

The car is looking like a race car,are you planing on registering and using it on the street? Did you install the a/c unit in the car? I had a 74 vette w/o a/c back in the 70's when I live in Long Island and it was unbearable in the summer and the after market dry sump systems uses the a/c mounting spot for the scavenge pump. Have you looked into a stock LS7 set up with a Katech upgraded scavenge pump allowing you to keep the a/c if you want it.
On the rear camber cam adjusters I had the same problem under hard acceleration and it was dangerous to say the lease.

Hey Mike, I was thinking the same thing that the car is starting to really look like a race car.

I will register it on the street. It will be street legal mostly so I can drive it a bit in the late fall/ early spring when there are not any races. I can test out basic systems and the aero bits during the season, not at speed of course, but more for normal operation, and of course just so I can enjoy it when ever I want.

Back when I set the spec for the motor, I actually held off on the dry sump because I wanted to keep the AC. Since I have started racing the car, and I have my target on going as fast as possible. I am going to swap out the AC and put in the dry sump. Its possible to keep a full blown dry sump and the AC, but I want to shed the weight of the AC as I really can’t use it most of the time. My GTM is getting so extreme it will make a fun car to drive on the street, but its not going to be my first choice to take the wife out to a fancy dinner… or maybe it will .. ha ha. But a the car is drifting away from the capable GT car target to the hard core no holds barred race car.

What’s weird is on the camber adjusters I never had a problem until this past weekend. I think it matters a lot how you have the camber set. If the bolt is at 3 o'clock or 9 o'clock the A arm does not have as much leverage to twist the adjuster as if the bolt is at 12 or 6 o’clock. Needless to say once you get your camber set its a good idea to delete them. The GTM does not like when one wheel toes out or in 3/8 inch at a time.

[Presto51]

What’s weird is on the camber adjusters I never had a problem until this past weekend. I think it matters a lot how you have the camber set. If the bolt is at 3 o'clock or 9 o'clock the A arm does not have as much leverage to twist the adjuster as if the bolt is at 12 or 6 o’clock. Needless to say once you get your camber set its a good idea to delete them. The GTM does not like when one wheel toes out or in 3/8 inch at a time.

Hey John

Wondering over here, do you think that the modification that you did to the rear, influence\increased, the stress load placed on the camber adjusters, causing the Scotty effect of "I've giv'n her all she's got captain, an' I canna give her no more."

Or some call it ....

The mechanical domino effect, that occurs when a small change, causes a similar change nearby, which then causes another similar change, and so on, in linear sequence.

If you think that is the correct assumption, maybe study what other areas that might be affected when you change out the stock adjusters for the shims, making it possible to identify the next point of failure?

Of course it's easy to sit here and pontificate, but it looks to me that you are shooting for faster speeds and lap times, I'm just going along the lines of thought of keeping your race outings fun instead of frustrating.

Ron

[crash]

Hey John

Wondering over here, do you think that the modification that you did to the rear, influence\increased, the stress load placed on the camber adjusters, causing the Scotty effect of "I've giv'n her all she's got captain, an' I canna give her no more."

I was thinking maybe the slicks had something to do with it?

[johngeorge]

Thanks man. This was one of those rare occasions where everything just worked out and I had good looking parts fast.

For those looking for wheel options I got these from 0Z racing. They are very light and strong enough for the track




John

Now we are talkin!!! Finally some real rubber on this bad *** car when is the next track time with Hoosiers?

[kabacj]

Hey John

Wondering over here, do you think that the modification that you did to the rear, influence\increased, the stress load placed on the camber adjusters, causing the Scotty effect of "I've giv'n her all she's got captain, an' I canna give her no more."

Or some call it ....

The mechanical domino effect, that occurs when a small change, causes a similar change nearby, which then causes another similar change, and so on, in linear sequence.

If you think that is the correct assumption, maybe study what other areas that might be affected when you change out the stock adjusters for the shims, making it possible to identify the next point of failure?

Of course it's easy to sit here and pontificate, but it looks to me that you are shooting for faster speeds and lap times, I'm just going along the lines of thought of keeping your race outings fun instead of frustrating.

Ron

Hey Ron,

Yes I think the mod may have increased the stress load on the adjusters, however I think I simply left the adjusters looser then I would normally becuase I planned on doing an alignment after the welding was finished.

As always life got in the way and I did not have enough time to do the alignment so I never fully tightened the passenger side cam adjuster.

The adjusters were left in their semi tight state and when to thompson. After three days I started to loosen them up and I attributed the instability I had under braking to the alignment I did not do. I consequently was making changes and testing. But I was never happy with the setup. Of course I didn't realize the adjuster was moving.


Before I went to limerock I did my alignment at home and triple checked it. That made me sure that everything was fine. Coincidentally, When I did the alignment the passenger side rear camber was exactly where I wanted it. I never touched the adjuster. Therefore the adjuster was still loose when I went to Limerock.

Its bad to be sure of anything becuase I over look things when I am sure they are not the problem.


yes its a good point to make sure that eliminating the cam adjusters will not cause some other issue. I will double check that when I do the install. Since its a common fix on the corvettes and the PDG team and others also have done it im reasonably sure its ok. But like you say I have lots of other mods and its important to watch out for other effects.

I was thinking maybe the slicks had something to do with it?

I agree with you the slicks could be a reason for the camber adjusters to move, but I had not put the slicks on yet. I wanted to make sure I had sorted the car out with the toyo 888 package before I added another variable. Turned out I only put the slicks on for a few laps after the races at the end of the day. They are AWESOME!

John

[kabacj]

Now we are talkin!!! Finally some real rubber on this bad *** car when is the next track time with Hoosiers?

Hey John. BTW GREAT job at limerock. Everybody should check out the videos of John on the track at limerock on this thread.

http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showt...e-at-Lime-Rock

You really cant get an apreciation from the video how well John is working the car to get around so quickly. Limerock does not have run off esp this weekend bc the grass was like ice. IF you leave the track you wreck as we saw when a Panoz in our race group went wide into turn one at about 80 and took out the tire barrier as if it was 5 feet from the track even though it was quite far way.

So next track visit for me will be either July 29th again at limerock with the SCDA, or August 13 open track with NASA. Unfortunately I cant make the next race July 19th at NJMP. I am looking forward to getting back to New Jersey motorsports park where I have a baseline for what the old GTM can do. It should be much faster.

I'd love to go to road Atlanta for the championships. Not sure if I can make that happen.

After that its watkins glen in August with the porsche guys and the NASA races in Sept and Oct. With a few track days thrown in. Boy the race season goes quickly.

We have three factory fives showing up at the races now. We need a few more.

John

[Plebeian]

How much does the AC weigh? I can't imagine having a GTM I was still going to drive on the street and not having AC.

[kabacj]

How much does the AC weigh? I can't imagine having a GTM I was still going to drive on the street and not having AC.

The whole AC system is about 35 lbs. I'll let you know exactly as the GTM goes on a diet this month. My goal is to take everything that does not make it faster out with exception to the heat / ac core. The AC compressor and condenser are easy enough to take out and re install later if I wanted to.

I agree for a street car AC is a nice thing to have and I also thought it was a requirement, but I think the fact that I am taking it out gives you an idea how much fun this car is on the track. Right out of the box the GTM is much closer to a race car then a production street car because you are adding things to make it street friendly instead of taking them away to make it track friendly. The AC also does not work well when you must keep the windows open. (In my case I leave them home)

When a car company builds a production car it's one giant compromise. Production cars try to be all things to all people. They do an amazing job of it, but lack the focus I wanted.
When I started the GTM I wanted to build a no compromise GT car that was as well suited to the street as a recreational track day. That's possible and reasonable. I was well on my way , but now my focus has changed.

The fastest guys in super unlimited are running 900 hp track only race cars. I'm trying to get my 630 hp GTM in the same ball park. That means I need to optimize everything I can for racing. That also means I compromise street friendliness in the name of ultimate track performance.

Now I could always try to focus the GTM on a class with some rules but I like the sound of super unlimited. Don't you?

John

[RumRunner]

Now I could always try to focus the GTM on a class with some rules but I like the sound of super unlimited. Don't you?

John

John,

I think that sums it up nicely ! Super Unlimited does have a nice ring to it.

-Michael

[crash]

Just to let you know, we would likely NOT be running Super Unlimited with the PDG GTM except for the center steer modification. This was done to increase fuel capacity and to make the car a bit safer by moving the driver to the center where the roof is higher, but if we didn't have to do that we could have qualified for a few different classes that would have been much easier to compete in. For the endurance stuff, we probably still would have been in ES class though. You should be able to compete with everything but the fastest sports racers in Super Unlimited with 630 HP. We do, and we only have a bit over 500...but if a real Grand Am car or Trans Am car shows up, it's another story. There ARE some pretty fast purpose built race cars out there. We end up running frequently with NASCAR Cup cars and although they definitely have a HP advantage and a tire advantage, we run with them and beat many of them pretty easily depending upon the track. You might want to look into the other NASA classes available as it is really nice to run close to someone else in times and that doesn't usually happen in SU.

[kabacj]

You should be able to compete with everything but the fastest sports racers in Super Unlimited with 630 HP. We do, and we only have a bit over 500...but if a real Grand Am car or Trans Am car shows up, it's another story. There ARE some pretty fast purpose built race cars out there. We end up running frequently with NASCAR Cup cars and although they definitely have a HP advantage and a tire advantage, we run with them and beat many of them pretty easily depending upon the track. You might want to look into the other NASA classes available as it is really nice to run close to someone else in times and that doesn't usually happen in SU.

True good points. I'm going with SU for now. The only experience I have is racing my 125 GP bike. If you can carry corner speed you can overcome quite a large HP deficit. Add really good brakes and you have a package. I like impossible projects. It would be cool if I could run with any SU car out there. I'm going to try.

[johngeorge]

John, the good part of NASA-NE there seems to always be a good number of SU cars that show up to events, its almost the only region that has that many SU cars running all the time.

[crash]

John, the good part of NASA-NE there seems to always be a good number of SU cars that show up to events, its almost the only region that has that many SU cars running all the time.

That's great. Not like that out here. We are lucky to see five cars on a weekend and usually it is more like 2 or 3. Sucks for tire contingencies. Really this is our biggest issue with running slicks. Hoosiers will only be sticky for 3-4 hours of racing, even with having plenty of tread depth available, and at $2000 a set and us running 3 hour enduros, well, the tire costs add up quickly. Between tire, fuel, brake and driving to the track costs, it can easily cost $5000 to run the car every weekend. We have done as many as 33 races in one year. That adds up pretty quick and makes the DOT tires without a doubt the best bang for the buck. I think with the small brakes and DOTs we ended up more like $2k a weekend. There's a pretty big difference between $66,000 and $165,000 a year in costs to run a race car. Especially at the amateur level. Most people have no idea what it costs to run a racing program. We could literally all have a new GTM, or Coupe, or Roadster every year...everyone of us on the team!

[flickery8]

Hey Dave,

Sounds like fun. What track are you planning on visiting?

As you can see from the experts the GTM is very sensitive to alignment.

here is the setup I used last year that worked well.


Left Front Right front
caster -3 caster -3
camber -2.8 camber -2.7
toe -1/16 toe -1/16




Left Rear Right Rear
camber -1 camber -1
toe -1/16 toe -1/16


for this time I am going to try toe out as Ted suggests.

I will also try a little more rear toe as Mike suggested.

I will also remove .25 degrees of camber from the rear. I found that I was getting a little too much heat and wear on the insides of the rear tires.

Also note that i did not see any ill handling until I started to really carry some G load. On my best lap last year I pulled 1.6 Gs.This past weekend I was pulling 2Gs

Im not saying that you are not having the same problem, just saying that I would first make sure the alignment is good then start chasing other things. Like I said I had a very stable car going faster then all or most all of the guys at the track last year. It was only going up against full on race cars that brought out my current issue.

You are also running a big torquey turbo motor so maybe you are showing the same toe link flex. No sure. I would go with the alignment as the first thing to concentrate on however.

You should try to get some rear suspension video if you can. Im going to rig up several camera angles before I go to the track in case I dont solve the problem.

John

I have spent the past couple days reading this whole thread. Wish I had found it a year ago. I do recall reading some of the early tube modifications, but the thread needs a new title. This is so much more now.

Anyway, I am very curious to hear your impressions of the toe out on the front.

Also, are still running 450# springs in the front and #750 in the rear http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showt...ghlight=spring ?

Thanks for the info!

[kabacj]

I have spent the past couple days reading this whole thread. Wish I had found it a year ago. I do recall reading some of the early tube modifications, but the thread needs a new title. This is so much more now.

Anyway, I am very curious to hear your impressions of the toe out on the front.

Also, are still running 450# springs in the front and #750 in the rear http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showt...ghlight=spring ?

Thanks for the info!

Yes I am still running 450# front and 750# rear.

The only thing I need to change with the shocks is the damping rate. Performance shock setup the front and rear perfectly for the street/ track but now that I am more focused on racing I could use more damping. At least at Thompson where there are some rough transitions from the old oval to the new road course.

I should see about changing the thread name. I agree now it's more a log of my mistakes and successes setting up the GTM for the track.

Glad you found it helpful.

John

[kabacj]

The first step to install the dry sump is to remove the A/C compressor. I was really dreading the dry sump install because I figured it was going to require pulling the motor to get everything apart. I was pleasantly surprised. It's actually not that bad to pull the compressor.

First remove the aluminum sheet that covers the tunnel and accessories under the motor. It's was good to use silicone (instead of something more adhesive) as a vibration damper between the panel and frame because the panel comes right off. Of course there are 50 rivets to drill.

Next remove the header. In order to remove the bolt the attaches the A/C lines to the compressor the headers need to be moved.

Next it's just a matter of unbolting the A/c bracket from the block. The two bottom bracket bolts take a while unless you have a high quality 15mm ratcheting box end wrench. I don't. With a normal open end wrench you need to turn bolt flip the wrench turn the bolt a few hundred times backing out the bolt a degree at a time.

There is not a lot of room in this area, but it was reasonably easy to drop the compressor and bracket out from under the car.

Next was the harmonic balancer. I did not want to remove all of the plumbing in front of the motor. Mostly to save time and avoid the cooling system refilling procedure. I just moved the cooling tubes out of the way and installed the puller. A few min later the balancer was out. Again the balancer drops out from under the car without issue.

The dry sump arrives this week. I went with the 4 stage ARE. Lots of plumbing ahead of me.

John

[kabacj]

I got the parts to install my dry sump. Boy are they nice. The welds are exceptional. The machine work and finishing are done just like I would if I made every part myself. Everything is made as if money and time were no object. It's so rare to see parts this well made. What's even better ARE is an American, family owned small business.

Did I mention welds on the oil tank are AWESOME!



I went with the three gallon tank because more oil is better to guarantee a good supply of de aerated oil to the motor.

Also went with the 4 stage scavenge pump. This will ensure good evacuation of oil from the pan as well as adjustable oil pressure.



The roots type scavenge pump will also pull a bit of vacuum in the crank case lowering crank case pressure and blow by at high RPM

Even the oil filter relocation plate is an impressive piece of manufacturing.





I'll get everything mounted then I'll make up the lines to connect it all up. It sure will be nice to know that I'll always have oil pressure. Any time I was pulling lots of Gs I would worry that I was pushing the Mast wet sump setup a bit too far.

Now I am free to make as much grip as possible. Grip is like HP . You never have enough

John

[LCD Gauges]

Wow, nice stuff. The welds around the circumference of the reservoir look like artwork!

You should pick up a few HP with that system.

[kabacj]

You should pick up a few HP with that system.

That's true. The claim is +10hp on the dyno.

I see that as gravy. I have been gambling re oil supply under G load for a while now.

If I burn up the bearings I would be down 632 hp

[Fraser D]

John,

I am very keen to see how your dry sump system comes together.
From what I have researched so far ARE seems to be the best fit for the GTM without taking out a 2nd mortgage on the house.
Why did you choose the 4 stage over the 3 stage?
I am very reluctant to loose the AC so I am looking into creative ways to mount the pump.
Are you still looking to mount the tank in your empty fuel tank cavity?

[kabacj]

John,

I am very keen to see how your dry sump system comes together.
From what I have researched so far ARE seems to be the best fit for the GTM without taking out a 2nd mortgage on the house.
Why did you choose the 4 stage over the 3 stage?
I am very reluctant to loose the AC so I am looking into creative ways to mount the pump.
Are you still looking to mount the tank in your empty fuel tank cavity?

Hey Dave,

Yes I plan to put the oil tank in the cavity behind the drivers seat that would have held one of the corvette fuel tanks. When I relocated the tank to the passenger side my plan was to place all of the dry sump gear in that vacated space. I had gone back and forth with building an LS7 vs the LS3 and that space was always designed to accept the oil control plumbing. Its still not an easy fit Actually might have been easier if I went with one of the tall and thin corvette tanks , but the larger volume 3 gal tank allows some time for the oil to de aerate before it goes back into the motor.

Regarding the AC. I had held on to the Since most of my street driving will be done in the spring fall and winter I think I can get away with no AC.

Track driving of course the windows are always open (actually I don’t even have them installed in the door on the track) so AC really does not help.

I’m not going to get rid of any of the AC kit because some day I may want to install it.

It seems like its easier to relocate the scavenge pump then then AC. The scavenge pump is much lighter and the ATI damper can be configured with belt drive for the AC and a toothed drive for the scavenge pump on the front. That whole thing is a serious project that I don’t have time for currently. I just want to quickly get the dry sump installed and finish the racing season. Over the winter I can worry about how I would install the dry sump pump in another location to keep the option of running AC.

I went with the 4 stage as it offers the ability to control the oil pressure. That’s the main benefit of the pressure stage as part of the pump. Adjustable oil pressure allows me to optimize for the clearances in the motor and again save a little HP as I am not pumping oil at too high a pressure.

The 4 stage still has 3 scavenge stages which are important to both clear the pan of oil and also to develop vacuum. Ill get a bit more HP with the vacuum in the crank case and I went with an oil pan that has sumps that gather the oil and keep the scavenge pump primed. According to Gary Armstrong just having the three small sumps in front of each scavenge pickup in the pan is worth 10hp in itself.

John

[kabacj]

John,

I am very keen to see how your dry sump system comes together.
From what I have researched so far ARE seems to be the best fit for the GTM without taking out a 2nd mortgage on the house.
Why did you choose the 4 stage over the 3 stage?
I am very reluctant to loose the AC so I am looking into creative ways to mount the pump.
Are you still looking to mount the tank in your empty fuel tank cavity?

Hey Dave,

Yes I plan to put the oil tank in the cavity behind the drivers seat that would have held one of the corvette fuel tanks. When I relocated the tank to the passenger side my plan was to place all of the dry sump gear in that vacated space. I had gone back and forth with building an LS7 vs the LS3 and that space was always designed to accept the oil control plumbing. Its still not an easy fit Actually might have been easier if I went with one of the tall and thin corvette tanks , but the larger volume 3 gal tank allows some time for the oil to de aerate before it goes back into the motor.

Regarding the AC. Since most of my street driving will be done in the spring fall and winter I think I can get away with no AC.

Track driving of course the windows are always open (actually I don’t even have them installed in the door on the track) so AC really does not help.

I’m not going to get rid of any of the AC kit because some day I may want to install it.

It seems like its easier to relocate the scavenge pump then then AC. The scavenge pump is much lighter and the ATI damper can be configured with belt drive for the AC and a toothed drive for the scavenge pump on the front. That whole thing is a serious project that I don’t have time for currently. I just want to quickly get the dry sump installed and finish the racing season. Over the winter I can worry about how I would install the dry sump pump in another location to keep the option of running AC.

I went with the 4 stage as it offers the ability to control the oil pressure. That’s the main benefit of the pressure stage as part of the pump. Adjustable oil pressure allows me to optimize for the clearances in the motor and again save a little HP as I am not pumping oil at too high a pressure.

The 4 stage still has 3 scavenge stages which are important to both clear the pan of oil and also to develop vacuum. Ill get a bit more HP with the vacuum in the crank case and I went with an oil pan that has sumps that gather the oil and keep the scavenge pump primed. According to Gary Armstrong just having the three small sumps in front of each scavenge pickup in the pan is worth 10hp in itself.

John

[kabacj]

Started the dry sump install today. The goal was to quickly install the sump without removing the motor.

I spent some time planning where all the plumbing/ oil tanks/ oil filter would go. When I was satisfied I had a shot at making this happen I pulled the pan.. Well I attempted to pull the pan. Unfortunately it was impossible to get the pan out. The pan was hanging up on the oil pickup tube. I could not drop the pan low enough to clear the pickup tube since the pan was trapped between the frame cross tube and the motor.



After laying on my back under the car for 5 min I decided I can just jack up the motor a bit. I also don't have much clearance above the motor as I built the roll cage to wrap around the front and top of the heads and intake and fuel rails.



I put a bottle jack under the motor mount studs with the nut installed a few turns and was able to raise the motor just enough to get the pan out. Whew.

Here is a shot of the MAST motorsports pan. It does a great job of keeping the motor supplied with oil for track days but i don't know if its up to the task of maintaining oil pressure with slicks under racing conditions. Better be safe then sorry.



Here you can see the baffles cast into the pan that keep the oil from sloshing around.



So all was going well until I tried to install the dry sump pump.

The fourth stage of the pump (that provides pressure) hits the LS1 motor mount. It hits the thin web piece you can see in this photo.



I still have some fabrication to do in order to mount the tanks and oil filter but while I do that I need to decide if I do some surgery followed by reinforcement on the motor mount or if I just send the 4 stage back and get a 3 stage setup that will bolt up. I knew the 4 stage would be close... I just hoped it was going to work out.

I'm open to ideas if anyone has them.

John

[kabacj]

I was ready to give up on the 4 stage ARE dry sump setup, but the benefit of controlling the oil pressure and the delay / potential issues with swapping the stage 4 with the stage 3 have convinced me to just suck it up and fix the ls1 motor mount I have. The stage 4 does work with some ls3 corvette mounts, but as far as I can tell all GTM builders end up using ls1 mounts on what ever motor they install. It's necessary to grind a tiny bit of the ls1 mount to bolt it to an ls3 block abut that takes all of 5 min.

Before I re invent something that somebody has already built I wanted to check if anyone knows of a company producing after market ls1 motor mounting brackets.

The key feature would be the elimination of the thin webbing shown in this picture but still installing using the stock LS1 bracket pickup points.




Thanks
John

[Fraser D]

John,

Can you space out the pump mount to gain enough room?
Does your pump mounting bracket bolt straight to the block or to the AC adaptor plate?

[kabacj]

John,

Can you space out the pump mount to gain enough room?
Does your pump mounting bracket bolt straight to the block or to the AC adaptor plate?

Hey Dave.

The 4 stage mounts directly to the block.

The two posts on the pump mount to the same holes used by the AC compressor with the supplied small bracket. The pump needs to fit into the L shape of the bracket. If its lower or farther away from the block it hits the lower pad of the motor mount.








I have scoured the internet for pre made motor mounts that will fit but it looks like fabricated steel mounts are what most people use .


Interestingly you had asked about the advantages of the pressure stage. I checked my telemetry and my oil pressure drops 15 psi from cold to hot.

I start at 60 cold so that's not too bad. I have an oil pump that was modified by Mast Motorsports to deal with track conditions.
If you start lower you might have issues. It definitely gives you less lee way regarding oil pressure under high G conditions if you keep the GM design or even if you use a modified pump.


So I was obsessing about how I was going to over come this problem and I decided that I should just cut the stock mount and see how it fits. It hurts me to cut such a nice part.



but GREAT news. The 4 stage will fit just fine. The tail section of the pump fits right inside the L shape of the mount. I will clean up the rough cuts and figure out where I will add the structure back into the mount where it will not collide with the pump. What a relief. I did not want to spend a day or two fabricating parts. This fix should only take an hour or so.

John

[kabacj]

I decided to go with the four stage and that means I needed to modify the passenger side motor mount. The ARE 4 stage is designed to fit without modification to an ls3 running ls3 motor mounts. Well I have half of that setup so I just need to make the LS1 part of the setup work.

While I was modifying my ls1 mounts that already line up with the fame I realized I probably could use a stock ls3 mount and simply move the mounting point on the frame.
Too late for that now. I have an ls1 mount and I am going to make it work because that is the fastest solution.


There are two things blocking the 4 stage dry sump pump.

First the web support in the stock ls1 mount




The ls3 mount is slightly more rearward then the ls1 so the forward edge of the mount hits the pump. Because I am a wood worker and used to working with an irreplaceable raw material. (The perfect grain board) I am used to slowly cutting away until something fits exactly. One over zealous cut into the perfect board and it's firewood.

I used the same approach with the mount. First removing a bit. I cut off the section right of the line.



Then a bit more I cut up to the edge of the pfadt mount where the line is marked.



Now the mount and pump fit perfectly tucked right up close to the motor in the spot the A/C compressor once occupied

Next step was to add structure back into the mount. It actually looked strong enough as it was, but some engineer who has far better tools then I to estimate the strength required built in the support I cut out.



So I welded in some more structure.





And here is it all ready to mount back in the car.


My gut says it's plenty strong now.

On to the next challenge. Plumbing the system and mounting the oil filter and vent tank. I have a ton of AN fittings and hoses on their way. Hopefully they arrive before the weekend.

John

[kabacj]

Since I am going with the 4 stage dry sump, three scavenge and 1 pressure, that means I need to remove the oil pump. Since I have the whole front of the motor apart anyway this step was pretty easy even though the motor is still in the car.

The only issue is that the hole in the block that is normally the high pressure side of the pump is open. With my configuration I actually dont think I need to block this hole but maybe some day i will want to change the oil flow and blocking this port would be required. So just for a bit of insurance I decided to block the hole. Of course there is a cheap part you can buy that will block this hole, or you can simply tap the hole and install a plug. Tapping the hole would make a mess, so I decided to go with a bolt in plug.

Since I would need to wait for anything I would buy to be delivered and that would halt my progress on this part of the setup so I decided to make the plug. Here is what I came up with. First i cut and drilled a scrap of 1/4 inch plate then turned a bit of rod to act as the plug.



I turned a groove to hold an O ring that fits snugly in the hole in the block.




I welded the plug in and installed the o ring. Now its ready to install.




and here it is installed in the block.



That did'nt take very long and now I am sure I wont have any issues with oil flowing backwards out of what was the input hole for the oil pump.

John

[LCD Gauges]

Those welds are like tiny bits of heaven raining down on the aluminum...

Nice job on the oil plug; that's a low pressure area so you should have no issue with leaking using your method.

[kabacj]

Those welds are like tiny bits of heaven raining down on the aluminum...

HA ha. Thanks.

[kabacj]

The next step of the dry sump install is the plumbing. I plan on using the 14mm input in the block as my oil pressure feed. In this case I remove the oil pump from the front of the motor and the oil circuit from the oil pump through the filter gets blocked off.



The new input is where the arrow is.

I needed to port the block and the oil pan a little to make clearance for the fitting.



The path the oil will take looks like this.




So I counted out the fittings and placed my order. HOLY COW! When each fitting costs an average of 20 bucks and you need quite a few feet of -10 and -12 hose the parts bill adds up quickly!



IF im lucky ill get everything installed this weekend and ill be able to fire her back up. Im sure I will be missing at least one fitting.


John

[crash]

I don't know which pan you have, but, again, using that oil feed location on my engines made for the oil line fitting being the lowest point on the engine. If this is the case, it is not something I would recommend. Try placing a 90 fitting on there and seeing how low it gets. Mine was unacceptable to me, so I modified the pan to accept a straight AN fitting. Yeah the oil pressure port is still low, but it is a strongly welded in block of aluminum as opposed to a thin walled AN fitting that is now low on the engine. That fitting looks shorter than the one I had from Katech so maybe this won't be an issue for you, or maybe your pan is deeper. I am running the ultra shallow ARE pans.

FYI- I estimate that we have almost $10,000 worth of AN lines and fittings on each one of our race cars. It DOES add up quick.

[kabacj]

I don't know which pan you have, but, again, using that oil feed location on my engines made for the oil line fitting being the lowest point on the engine. If this is the case, it is not something I would recommend. Try placing a 90 fitting on there and seeing how low it gets. Mine was unacceptable to me, so I modified the pan to accept a straight AN fitting. Yeah the oil pressure port is still low, but it is a strongly welded in block of aluminum as opposed to a thin walled AN fitting that is now low on the engine. That fitting looks shorter than the one I had from Katech so maybe this won't be an issue for you, or maybe your pan is deeper. I am running the ultra shallow ARE pans.

I went with the port in the side of the block as the way to get the highest connection for oil input. I am using the ARE fitting. Its short ill measure it for you. The short fitting actually required me to clear out some aluminum from the pan and block in order to allow the fitting to thread properly as the shoulders of the hex nut on the fitting hit the block. I would imagine that’s why most fittings are longer. It would avoid this problem.

I will run a straight AN fitting out off the block fitting and even that will be higher than the top of the frame rails. If I needed more clearance I could just put a 45 degree AN fitting and I would not drop the full -10 hose diameter below the oil pan seal.

I went with the 1004M pan instead of the low profile pan as in my case at maximum I would only gain about an inch lower motor height compared to the low profile pan. But to get that much lower I would need to shave the bottom of the bell housing off as the 1004M pan is only ½ inch below the bell housing on the sequential mendiola. If you use the GM flywheel the bell housing is even larger. I would need to extend the exhaust and lower the transaxle. A bit too much work for me to do at this point.

The other nice thing about the 1004M pan is according to ARE you pickup 8-10 hp due to better oil scavenging over the shallow pan. Since I dont need the clearance I went with it.

On your low profile pan are you feeding into the pan then piping the oil up to the crank driven pump?

[crash]

On your low profile pan are you feeding into the pan then piping the oil up to the crank driven pump?

No. All oiling pressure and scavenge functions go through the Auto Verde dry sump pumps.

Adding a good set of windage scrappers and a very strong scavenge pump should deal with the low profile pan issues. Yes the transaxle is the limiting factor on how low I can go with the engine/transaxle.

[kabacj]

I am getting close to wrapping up the dry sump install. I just needed to address a few little items. One was mounting of the oil vapor catch can. This part attaches to the dry sump tank and allows the oil vapor to condense and then is held to be drained periodically. Keep in mind that the dry sump pump is both pumping air and oil so this is a key part of a working system.

ARE makes the catch can so it can be mounted in a typical engine compartment. Unfortunately the GTM does not have a typical engine compartment and I am just very particular where stuff goes. I found a nice spot to tuck the catch can but the mount was in the wrong spot.



No worries. I can fix that. I carefully cut off the mounting bracket.



I ground down the welds left behind then welded the bracket back on where its more ideal for my mounting position.



I was pretty happy that I could polish out the original mounting spot so that its very hard to tell where it was originally attached.



I am sure ARE would have sent me a catch can with the mount in the position I needed, but this was faster and more fun. After the final AN fitting arrives tomorrow I will be able to fire the motor back up and check for leaks.

John

[RumRunner]

John,

Once again you're a shining example of ingenuity and skill and drive wrapped into one person. Really nice work. What welder do you use?

-Michael

[kabacj]

John,

Really nice work. What welder do you use?

-Michael

Michael you are too kind. I am just having fun while I wait for the AN fitting I knew I would forget. I have all these fittings I did not use but I'm missing the one I need. Oh well.

I use a Lincoln precision tig 225.

[Presto51]

Hey John,

Not sure if you have seen this company, Koul Tools http://www.koultools.com/products.html

Since your dancing with the AN lines and fittings I thought this might make your build life a little easier

Ron