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Messages - digitalsolo

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46
Build Threads / Re: Aston Martin V8 Vantage
« on: January 23, 2024, 09:54:10 AM »
Waiting on some parts, and ran out of welding gas (left my tank open and I have a very slow leak... whoops), so I'm working on wiring for a bit.

Have the main harness broken out, and about half cleaned up of extra circuits.   I created all of the spreadsheets for finishing the engine harness and I'm about 95% done sorting out how to integrate into the Aston chassis side.

I have a system I'm accustomed to, which you'll see in the spreadsheet screenshots below.   Just basic tables and color coding/connector labeling.   Trying to utilize stock wiring and connectors as much as possible, with just a few quick connects to the engine harness.   I'll also have quick connects on the heater hoses, fuel lines, etc, so that I can get the engine out quickly in the future if needed (hopefully, not needed often).








47
Build Threads / Re: Aston Martin V8 Vantage
« on: January 16, 2024, 11:15:11 AM »
It leaves very little room for error, for sure.   There is always enough time between my "Let's do AN fittings for the whole car" episodes for me to forget what a gigantic pain in the ass that is...

I am about 95% sorted on the rest of the cooling system now.  I'll be able to reuse the Aston Martin degas and overflow tanks, which is great news.   I'm going to pull the radiator back out this weekend and add some bungs for bleeding it and recirculating the degas tank (-4 up top for bleed, and -10 on the bottom for the recirc).   I'm switching to using ORB fittings on the radiator for these ports after I had some thread issues on the -20 male fitting on the radiator last week.  I was able to fix it, but it would have sucked to cut it off/reweld it.   From now on, I'll put ORBs in the radiator and just bolt fittings in for future servicability.

Once the ports are in the radiator, I'll get the lines built to connect to the factory degas tank and the LT4 "cylinder air bleed" port.   I also need to put in the fittings to finish the heater hoses and route the AC lines.   I'm going to get some adapter fittings to convert the OEM AC lines to universal fittings to bolt to the Sanden SD7, but that should be pretty easy.   The factory PS tank is also going to work fine.

Last for "this week's goals" is to final mount the dry sump tank.   I picked up some brackets for it and was able to add some foam tape and mock it in place yesterday.  It will fit in the same spot the stock tank did, which is nicely out of the way of the intake plumbing I was hoping to use.   Best of all, I can just add 4 rivnuts to the Aston front core support structure and bolt it right in place.  Easy-peasy.   It also lets me place my Radium air/oil separators in a convenient location, and keep the routing simple from both the dry sump tank and cylinder head breather ports.   I'm still planning to recirc the air back to the intake tract, post MAF.

Hoping to have all engine bay plumbing, minus the supercharger cooling system, done before end of January, and finish wiring/supercharger plumbing in February.   That will leave interior wiring, fuel system and trans mounts/half-shafts for March, with an early May "completion date" planned.   We'll see how that goes...

48
Build Threads / Re: Aston Martin V8 Vantage
« on: January 15, 2024, 05:06:24 PM »
Finished up the upper/lower radiator hoses.   -16/-20 AN hoses are a real pain.

Dropped off the torque tube at RPM to get it modified.   Should be back in 4-6 weeks.

In the meantime, working on mounting up the dry sump tank now, then finishing the rest of the coolant lines, breather lines, etc.   Basically everything but wiring.   Then... wiring.

49
Build Threads / Re: Dark Phoenix Trans Am: LSX Twin Turbo
« on: January 10, 2024, 10:46:33 AM »
That's a huge amount of work done.  Wow.

50
Build Threads / Re: Aston Martin V8 Vantage
« on: January 07, 2024, 09:26:29 PM »
So the mounts for the heat exchanger changed like 4x during the process, but it came out really well eventually.

I basically mirrored the design from the AC condenser, with machined blocks tapped and welded to the radiator, then brackets that run up to the heat exchanger.   Fitment worked out well and it's easy to service/change later if I ever need to.  The brackets also stay out of the way of airflow.   I don't have good photos, but I do have the power steering lines finished up.  Lower radiator hose is also completed.






51
Build Threads / Re: Spacevomit's FD33 Project: Behind the Candelabra
« on: January 04, 2024, 01:39:18 PM »
It seems like a reasonable idea.   I'm certainly down to give it a shot.

52
Build Threads / Re: Aston Martin V8 Vantage
« on: January 04, 2024, 08:55:06 AM »
Yeah, I've seen some SCCA guys make undertrays out of aluminum/plastic sign board materials.  It seems like a solid option.

On the "escalation" front, it turns out the later Vantage has a faster steering rack, which would be kinda nice.  I think I'll add that to the "Stage 2" list, along with new coilovers and poly bushings all around.

53
Build Threads / Re: Spacevomit's FD33 Project: Behind the Candelabra
« on: January 04, 2024, 08:52:31 AM »
Joe, you're nuts and I'm here for it.   Always interested in seeing what you're up to next on this thing.

54
Drivetrain / Re: Why no mopar swaps?
« on: January 03, 2024, 10:36:16 PM »
Yeah, the Gen III - V GM is a freak of an engine with regard to packaging size vs. power.    IMO the only other engine that comes close for packaging efficiency is a K series.

55
Drivetrain / Re: Why no mopar swaps?
« on: January 03, 2024, 03:11:17 PM »
They're huge.   Tall and wide.   Same reason there aren't very many Coyote swaps.

56
Build Threads / Re: Aston Martin V8 Vantage
« on: January 02, 2024, 05:37:25 PM »
I explained that badly.   Just foam tape for my uses, to fill some ~1” gaps.

I’ve never considered using foam board, though there are probably some kinds that would work well.

57
Build Threads / Re: Aston Martin V8 Vantage
« on: January 02, 2024, 03:34:31 PM »
The factory design makes the cooling system work easy, overall.  A lot of the car is built like a racecar or very fancy kit car, with lots of aluminum extrusions and rivnuts setup to re-purpose Jaguar/Ford parts.   Makes it easy to adapt to my will.

The front and rear 1/3 of the car have full ducting/bracing flat floor plates that bolt on/off.   Makes life easier for ducting it all.    The middle of the car is also flat-ish, it looks a lot like a late model Corvette, but with even more aluminum everywhere.

Engine bay has tons of room for everything but the engine. I had to pull some sound deadening off the firewall and trim the heat shielding.   I then put gold heat reflection foil on the whole firewall and transmission tunnel (err, torque tube tunnel) then reinstalled as much of the OEM heat shield as I could to help reject as much heat as possible.  Clearance for the engine is about 5/16" to the rack, 1/4" to the firewall, 5/16" to the crossmember and 3/8" to the cowl.   So the engine can basically go EXACTLY here, and nowhere else.   Headers have miles of clearance, other than some subframe modding in one area, and they're well clear of the steering, etc.

I'll end up with a BIG intake tube to make sure the LT4 can breathe, but I don't think it'll be too bad.   I'd like to add some brake cooling ducts up front at some point as well. 

Once the heat exchanger is mounted I'll sort out where hoses need to go, then probably order some high density foam to seal it all up around the edges and force the air to go exactly where I want it.  That's how Aston did it stock and makes sense overall.

I have a spot for the dry sump tank, and I think I can reuse the OEM power steering reservoir, along with about 90% of the OEM AC lines and the entire low pressure power steering setup (lines + cooler) so that saves a lot of work.   I -might- be able to make the OEM coolant reservoir work, which would really make my life easier.   If all that goes well I just need to stuff the Radium breather tanks somewhere and fit the intercooler pump and tank, both of which will probably go where the passenger side airbox was stock (OEM it had dual airboxes).

58
Build Threads / Re: Aston Martin V8 Vantage
« on: January 01, 2024, 06:10:17 PM »
Next up, cooling system.

I had quite a few ideas on how I wanted this to work, but here's the basic concept:

Ordered a radiator that roughly matched the stock unit, but was dual pass, passenger side inlet/outlet, to better fit the LT4 coolant layout.  Cut the barbs off and welded in -16 AN top and -20 AN bottom.   I still need to add a -6 ORB fitting for the expansion tank.   I bolted the Chevy Volt cooling fan up after a tiny bit of clearancing work.

I then machined small aluminum blocks, drilled/tapped them, bolted them to the OEM Aston AC condenser and then welded them to the radiator.







The stack is very close in overall size to the OEM setup, and fits roughly in the same place.  The OEM isolators won't work, but the bolt-in radiator "crossmember" that came on the car was close enough.   I cut up some hockey pucks, added rivnuts to the crossmember, and bolted the pucks in to isolate/locate the bottom of the radiator.  It's not stupid if it works.  ;)

Next up was the oil cooler.   The car had a stock one that wouldn't fit my needs well, so I picked up a basic aftermarket bar/plate unit that was similar in size to OEM.  The OEM until also had a duct that routed the hot air out the bottom of the front undertray, so I figured I'd copy that design as well.   The stock piece was plastic and a little fragile, so I made the new one out of aluminum, and bolted it to the radiator crossmember.   The upper mounts for the oil cooler mount to the crash bar (more rivnuts) and the lower mount is the fabricated crossbar you see in the pictures below.









The oil cooler hoses are also routed.   I'll add some heat protection and chafing protection/routing control later, but they're in the correct area at least.





This last remaining gap is where the heat exchanger for the supercharger will slot in.  Hopefully I'll have that finished up next week, then build the radiator hoses, finish the power steering lines, and start sorting out dry sump tank mounting and supercharger reservoir/hoses.


59
Build Threads / Re: Aston Martin V8 Vantage
« on: December 29, 2023, 01:36:42 PM »
LOL, you guys are cracking me up.  :D

This accessory drive, man, what a pain in the ass.  Clearance is TIGHT all over, but it fits.   New lid is on, and AN fittings are welded to the thermostat housing and water pump.   I like that the LT water pump is separate from the housing, so I don't have to worry about redoing mods, welding, etc. when the pump needs replaced.









Torque tube clearance mods.   It looks ugly in pictures, but actually looks okay in person.   Light reflecting weird or whatever.   This wasn't the most fun welding job ever.






60
Build Threads / Re: RX-7 FD: Project Kraken
« on: December 29, 2023, 01:29:39 PM »
Love all the pictures/description, thanks for sharing.   You've got a penchant for big projects!

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