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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.
Mar 21 00
Finally took the big leap on the adapter layout and ordered it. Should
be in mid April
Apr 3 1.0
Cleaned up and prepared right inner fender return. Will try to gel
coated next sunny day as its still cold provided gel coat is still
usable Apr 5 0hr
ordered right door lock from C6 Ccorvette as experiment to see how it
will work with out modifying inner door panel too much
Apr 22 3.5hr
Some good news and some bad news.
Good news is that received engine adapter and right C6 door latch. good
part is that it looks smaller then the Legacy latch. Kind of bad news is
that it may fit but the frame and quarter panels will need to be
modified as striker clearance was missed during design.
With regards to engine adapter, great news is that all holes are lining
up perfectly, still bit in air as to if all is centered properly.
However as thou bolt holes are lining up it should be centered.
Now the bad news. Really messed up on diameter of flywheel, it will need
to be re-enlarged. Will take it to local shop to see if they can enlarge
it. As side note it slides onto engine dowl pins perfectly and though it
only one dowl pin on transmission it lines up good as well. will
just need to thread holes for transmission bolts.
Adjusted CAD drawing of adapter plate and flywheel hub dimmensions. Will
have to check on crank bolt lengths to adjust packets. To complete the
flywheel adapter will also need to get pressure and friction plate along
with throwout and pilot bearings. Will also need to get friction plate
if making the flywheel out of aluminum
Apr 24 0hr
dropped off the adapter at local machine shop to clearance the flex
plate. Also ordered some M10x1.5x55 bolts to fasten it to the block.
Apr 27 3hr
Drew up VSS multiplier board required to bring up Audi 4 pulses per
revolution to GM ECM 40 pulses per revolution
May 2 4.5hr
Picked up the adapter friday from the shop, ring gear fits perfectly
with 3mm clearance. Drilled out and taped transmission bolt holes.
Unfortunately there are only M10 holes at 4:30 and 7;30 with nothing on
the very bottom. As it was working on Porsche it should work in this
configuration. Everything seem to be centered but not quite sure of the
outer engine block holes at 3 and 9 locations, may need to enlarge
socket holes for future adapters.
Needless to say trans is mounted to the engine, it does not go as far
back as originally calculated with about 8cm clearance to rear grill.
One very positive thing is that the axels are at 90' up/down and
front/back. Ordered some bolts early in the week to fasten to the block.
Was not sure on thread pitch and hopefully they are 1.5mm and if so will
order rest for transmission mount
June 4 0.5hr
Put second coat of PVA on the right fender wheel arch return. Need to
have it re-fabricated as the one from last year had some reactions
between gel / resin and prep work
June 12 0.5hr
Tried de pinning reverse and speedo connectors of original crimp
terminals and thought of possibly salvaging it as its just 5 wires
however in reality the crimp terminals got damaged. So decided to get
some replacements and they had finally came in last week but never got
the chance to do anything with them.
So today crimped new wires but thinking about it now one positive wire
that Audi decided to use Black with blue stripe kind of resembles as
ground so will most likely will have it replaced with something else
thats more of normal switched positive lead
June 15 1hr
Bought some fresh gel coat and resin last week, did not had time till
today. So while out in garage got the right fender return coated. Not
crazy about it as its rather thin and may have to put a second coat of
it tomorrow. Need to get that done and remove some of the molds from
around garage not just of the car but other parts and get on with the
car. Also got the front speaker grill frames sanded down and primed.
Will most likely have to fill in some holes after thinning down on back
side. Thinking about it probably should had left the thickness, oh well
Really need to get on with the engine and any supporting stuff also
finishing up of the body mounts
June 16 0.5hr
the new gel coat is not like the other thats thicker and shiny but thin
and flat not relly liking it at the moment. Will most likely have better
opinion when sanding it. Never the less cause yesterday layer was thin
put on a second coat on the wheel well return. sometimes before the
weekend will try putting on couple of layer of mat on it and see how it
will come out.
June 20 1hr
Laid up 2 layers of fiber. Will be interesting to see how the final product
be like after its cured in a week.
June 24 0.5hr
Could no longer wait and figured it should be long enough for the inner
fender to cure. So split it away from the mold. Not sure what happened as it
had 2 coats of wax and 2 coats of PVA but for some reason it had good
adhision and gave a bit of workout to have it separated.
Anyway it came out very nice and clean, Did put bit more mat around the bolt
holes but it should had not been enought to make that much of weight
differene.
Happy over all it came out good
July 5 0.5hr
Did some engineering work on the rear lights. Thinking of redesigning entire
system, thinking of using sk6812 chips rather then matrix of individual leds.
It would simplify dramatically programming and hardware design.
July 7 1hr
The spring TO DO list is virtually finished so time to do some work on the
car. Cleared off some parts and molds from the car as it was used as storage
bin and first thing was to focus on interior panel mounts. As the later
panels have all recesses for mounting bolts. The one that was skipped on was
foot well kick panels. Starting with outer ones, they do have already
locator tabs and bolt holes. One thing they are missing are recesses to
hide the heads of the bolts. After some debating it was decided to make a
larger round hole with hole saw. insert a pin to fill it and protect it from
resin to seep around it. Next time they will be back filled thus having
created a recessed packet
July 8 1hr
cleaned up storage bins doors and covered with first layer of F-26 filler.
its harder then bondo and as light as light weight bondo filler and is meant
for thicker fillings. So since the panels are kind of molds of a buck the
visible surface is uneven.
Will sand it down and see how much more it needs to be filled
July 11 1hr
Did another fill on the storage bin covers
July 12 4hr
Finished storage covers on B firewall, They will need further trimming
but for now they are good enough to call it done. Will have them do final
trim and any surface finish while appolstering.
Mounted right rear light housing will need to come up with some sort of
support for the inner shell to make them identical to the left one
July 12 2.5 hr
Did some work around the rear controller and lights in general. Dont want to
waste previous work into the project however it will be best to have it
redesign as it will be much better system.
The next thing is to decide to use single controller board or dual. Single
board would control both left and right sides reducing cost and complexity
but introduced no independance. Though the code would not care which side
the controller is mounted into. Only thing that would need to be made is to
plug the LED panel into proper connector. Negative thing of the design is
that it would require more current draw of up to 5 amps. As the LEDS run on
5v logic, fairly large buck converter will be required and with dual
channels it will mean that up to 10 amps will need to be pushed through the
regulator and most likely forcing to have 2 independant regulators. So the
question comes to having the control board with in the light housing
assembly as though of doing it in the matrix scan design. OR, having the
controller external to the housings and just using sub harness plugging into
controller module. With this configuration it would be possible for
expansion as marker light for example
July 19 2hr
made a retension plate aka sudo led panel for right tail lights making sure
that the insert will expand all around to all edges of the outer shell.
Bonded the 2 parts filling upthe outer edges with the short fill poxy. Once
done will have it sanded and moved on to the left side
July 20 2hr
drew up schematic of rear LED panel. next will need to have it converted
into PCB layout
July 21 3hr
made re leave cut outs for bolt heads in outer kick panels and mounted in
forms. Will have to glass over and body work once completed for nice finish
Drew up rear light controller schematic based on primary testing
July 25 0.5hr
Glassed over the kick panels bolt holes
July 29 0.5hr
Started converting rear led panel. Used older PCB outline and overlayed new
LED chips
July 30 0.5hr
made return forms on fenders around latches
Aug 3 0.5hr
Glassed in fenders extensions around latches
Aug 5 1hr
trimmed off outer kick panels and fenders of the fiberglass needles. Will
need to surface finish both and have to make new molds for the fenders and
actual parts now. Kick panels will need to have extra mounts made by
firewall to hold speekers
Aug 6 2hr
continued with rear LED panel layout. Cleared out all old LEDs and overlayed
new chips into their places. Thinking of making double sided board so that
it could be used for left or right side depending which side the led chips
will be mounted on. It would eliminate of making a mirror copy of the board.
Aug 9 3hr
finished off bolt head recess on the front outer kick panels. Was going to
just sand down rear speaker boxes but after sanding them down it was evident
they needed some filling. So got first rough filler down and sanded down.
Also filled in fender extensions but after sanding down the rear speaker
boxes it was getting late and started to get some pain in neck and shoulders
so called it a day. Will try to finish them next time out. Need to get all
the small panels done get all the mounts done and have them stored so can
move on to other items.
Aug 10 1hr
Cut out back side of rear speaker boxes, may need to do some further
finishing of them and possibly extending one of the sides on left box.
Re skimmed some surfaces on the boxes and filled couple small spots onthe
front outer kick panels.
Aug 12 2.5hr
Assembled 3 8x8 Sk6812 test matrices, casketed them into 8x24 matrix as per
what is scheduled for tail lights. Used ATmega328 controller and run some
tests to simulate some of the animations. From the initial tests it will be
much easier to use smart LEDS rather then running RGB matrix in X-Y
configuration. However might use one of the low end STM32f processors as it
will need to monitor some pins and also listen to CAN bus.
One thing that the dedicated white segment looks yellowish rather than pure
white. Might use simulated white using the RGB segments or combination in
final product.
Next will need to expand on controller as per production.
Total
2014.5 hr
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