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HomeNotesDiary 2026
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Total from 2025  
1943.  hr

A brand new year and hope fully will be productive one. 2025 was the year of big money on the engine and mounts. This year though not as expensive still will need big investment into adapter and electronics to get the engine running and hopefully have the car drivable and all the other hundreds of things that need to be finalized.


Jan 6    7hr   (accumulated)
Had been looking at engine wiring for last couple of weeks.  The harness poses couple issues, firstly the fuse box and ECM connectors are at front of the engine in the donor making it very tight to locate both the fuse box and ECM. Might be able to make indentation and recess them into the wall but regardless it will be very tight.  Ideally it would be best to have engine rewired with the ECM and fuse box located somewhere behind around transmission area. Then again would like to stay away from that as might put turbos and will need to keep the ECM and fuse box from any heat source which again leaving them in front of the engine on firewall or just about. Secondly the way GM designed starter and entire security around the electronics is around BCM  in place to controll the ECm and fuse box.  There are ways around it will involve rewiring both the fuse box and ECM slightly.
Looking and sudo solution and make an BCM emulator to trigger power relay in the fuse box and ECM.  One thing for sure is that VATS will needs to be deleted and ECM in general reprogrammed for the purpose



Jan 17   1.5hr
With winter at its peak, garage is cold and not very inviting to work in. However went out to have bit of a sanity check on mounting and overall clearances of the engine.
So as it looks engine lid sits way above of what was expected and observed when working with LS1 from 02 Camaro. However with the LS3 is rather taller and what it looks like is contributed mainly from the intake and possibly from the taller oil pan. will have to look into Corvette intake plenum to see how much lower it is. Its possible to replace oil pan and dropping entire setup downwards bt not sure how much of a benefit that would be as most likely axels would be hitting lower frame rails and CV joints would not be at optimum angle. As it sits with the OE camaro mounts and isolators, oil pan has 18mm clearance to bottom of frame and as the car will be at about 12cm ride height would like to avoid any possibility in having it damaged.
On a good side with the way the engine sits, it has enough space to fit oil cooler for the engine and possibly transaxle. Also it has space for cross fit of coolant hoses and shifter cables.


Feb 2  4hr
Spent few hours with CAD and drew up drawing of adapter plate after searching for few more hours before hand (not counted) for proper dimensional drawing of the GM SBC / LS transmission face mounting surface and Audi G86 transaxle mounting face. Biggest issue is with the 2 lower bolts on the LS face with in the oil pan.
Sent out couple quote requests to have the plate machined. Hopefully it will be much less then getting it from 3rd party manufacturers.

Feb 7  2.5hr
Can not leave the adapter alone and tweaked some more

Feb 12  1.5hr
more tweaking on the adapter file. Realized that source for making PCBs has CNC subsidiary and can machine the part at fairly inexpensive amount.

Feb 19  1hr
Tried drawing flywheel, somehow with out the dimensions its mute point doing it other then CAD practice

Mar 1  2hr
Found Audi pressure plate bolt pattern/dimensions the other day and made up rough drawing of the flywheel. Deciding on material to make it from though. Going back to JLCCNC aluminum 6061 will be bit less then the adapter, 7075 aluminum is premium but shipping will be same coming in at 7kg. Going to #45 steel which would be ideal for friction durability, weight goes up and so does the cost of the material and shipping way up. On the other hand with aluminum can add option for replaceable friction disk and total cost still would be lower then steel. So win and win

Mar 5  3hr
Couple more hours on the adapter CAD file. Re-adjusted some of the outline and created LS mounting bolts recesses. Tried doing contouring so that the Audi box flange would contour down to LS flange organically but never really liked how it was going so just left it squared. May grind down manually by hand.

Mar 8  4hr
Did some real work on the car aside from CAD work. Decided to split inner fender returns and had it trimmed. Left one came out OK but the right one had some sort of reaction so it will need to be redone. Could be saved but not sure if its worth the effort. Regardless it will serve as test part for fitting.
Got the HVAC fan box sanded down and filled once and had to refilled to cover some of the missed air packets. Needles to say it will not be visible but gong that far with the car may as well make all parts as best as possible. Also ground out vent holes for motor cooling as it never was made properly and drilled last mounting screw hole.
Should had removed flex plate but checking on the pattern the lower holes are bit off. Then again the template ripped so will have to try it again to make sure everything fits as it should be. However it looks like the lower bolts are bit to narrow. Was going to order the adapter as it is but now will need to re-verify and make sure all is as close as it can be. Dont want to spend $500 on part that has some measurements off.

Mar 10  0.5hr
sanded down HVAC blower box. Now its the mixer box and flap control plus evaporators for heat and air

Mar 11  0.5hr
final adjustments to the oil pan bolts and verification to the adapter plate before sending out for machining.








 


 Total   1970.  hr
 

 
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