Corvette Forum : DigitalCorvettes.com Corvette Forums banner

76 project

327K views 1K replies 73 participants last post by  brent319 
#1 · (Edited)
hi all. I got my first (and last) corvette last week and am pretty excited. It is a '76 that once belonged to Bob Wallace at 'vette magazine many years ago as a project car. I think it was probably one of the first LS1 swaps at the time. The car got a crate LS1 and 4L60E and Bowtie Overdrives did a lot of the work on making it fit, but the project was never finished and the car was passed around until it wound up at Custom Image Corvettes and eventually with me.
How this all came about was really strange story. I will TRY to keep it short.. but here goes.
About a year ago my wife said we should get a "fun" car in a couple of years. I have always admired the lines of C3 'Vettes since I was a kid, but did not (and compared to most of you.. still don't) know that much about them so I hit the internet each day reading all I could. I became interested in a LS swap so I hit the forums to gather info. I noticed that this one guy kept answering everyone's questions and really knew this stuff. He even had parts. I wished I could find somebody like that in Iowa. Yea, right. Iowa. Then one day I clicked on that guy's profile and found that he not only lived in iowa, but he lived around the corner from me. "it's a small world after all...."
So I walked over to his house and introduced myself. There was Kaos in his garage. Man, I was blown away by that car. I had seen it on the internet all the time and even mailed Chris McDonald to tell him how much I loved that thing. Then a few weeks later when I figured out who Josh was I realized that exact car was around the corner from me. "It's a small, small world"
Josh and I talked and I was impressed with not only his knowledge of cars, but how happy he was to stop what he was doing and talk to me. We kept in touch and then a few months ago I started my "internship" with him. I went over there with the intention of sweeping floors and fetching wrenches, but Josh is a great teacher and has given me years of insight in a few short months. It started with "fiberglass 101" and has continued from there.
Somewhere along the line I got sucked up by all of the fun and wound up buying the '76.
We are working on getting it on the road and will be able to hit it a lot harder soon. Right now priority 1 is to get Kaos back to Rob, and getting flares out to folks.
*****
On to the build so far...
I got the vacuum parts stripped off of the lights. Being from Iowa I can't believe how little rust there is on this car! We will do an electric conversion on the lights down the road.
frontstripped by brent hagist, on Flickr
Josh and Adam got the wires all hooked back up and I replaced some of the sensors. After working through the night, it was almost ready to run, but the sun was about to rise and I had to rush out and go to work. I stopped by after work and got to start it up. There are no seats or carpet inside the car, so sitting on the floor with open headers was a pretty rumbly experience for me.:laughing: Here's video of my first running of the LS1:

I brought home the interior parts and cleaned them up. They were pretty ugly looking when I got them there, but once 10 years of dirt was washed off they looked pretty good.
88470aa8 by brent hagist, on Flickr
Josh is working on modifying my water pump and when he can get that done, the radiator will go in and we can run it a bit more before we tear it all out, clean things up, and stuff some new goodies on this old shark.
So far it has been a LOT of work. I am glad I did the "internship" so I had some idea of what I was in for. It ain't like Overhaulin where it gets done in an hour. But it has also been a lot of fun along the way. Here is a video my wife is not so proud of:

Hopefully more to come soon
*****
EDIT: Fixed broken links.
 
See less See more
4
#1,077 · (Edited)
Years back I had something worked on with my car. The kid who was doing the work looked like a real goober, but I felt bad for passing judgement upon him. I had not driven the car long when I knew it was not right. I pulled over and three of the lug nuts were missing and the others were not tight. Yikes. I was standing beside the car and the kid pulled up behind me yelling "stop!" Well, duh... I am standing beside the car. He goes on to inform me the lug nuts ain't tight. Double duh. He did tell me they would get me some new ones for free! Okay. After three consecutive "duh" moments I realized that sometimes people look like goobers because they are, in fact, goobers.
Back to corvette stuff. I sent a photo to the guy who did the work on the front end and he said that it was not right and to bring it over and he would fix it. That is what I wanted to hear from him and that's cool. In the meantime I went to Midwest frame and axle here in town. They have a very solid reputation, and have always treated me well. I stopped over and they said they would fix it up for 45 bucks. By the time I drove clear back to the first place again, I would have burned up 20 bucks in gas so I just figured spend the money and be done with it.
I took the car over there today and all the specs were right on, just a funky ass shim job going on. They fixed it up and when I checked out they said "how about 20 bucks"
Hell yea!
I am not sure what the first guy was doing, but I have no hard feelings toward him since he did not try to bs his way out of it and offerd to make it right, so it's all good.
Meanwhile I was about done with the radiator cover when I saw patro's thread and realized I should have extended the bracket to hold the top of the fans too, which changes everything about the cover. So I slapped done on it and put it on for now. The finish is not as good as I would like, but it will work until I hack it up and start over. I had planned on having a couple of nice bolts holding it on, but it snaps in place and is very solid without it. :thumbsup:


The left side of the cover is catching a weird reflection, but does not really look that gorfed up.

There are a few local shows coming up over the next couple of weekends and I hope to hit a couple of them. The driving season is winding down quickly here in Iowa. Remaking the radiator bracket/ fan bracket and the cover will go on the ever growing "wait for winter" list.
I should probably go drive around now or something.

Edit: forgot to mention that it is my vettes birthday. It was born on 9/11. Where's the cake?
 
#1,080 ·
Denpo; Thanks for that. It means a lot after seeing your work on your car.
Richard; Fiberglass dust really does not bother me. I have been covered in the stuff (as you know) and never really had any reaction to it. I have to remember to put on a mask at times because I don't really think about how nasty it is.
As far as updates, Well now the vette is known as "Queen Larry" around the house. The CFO noted that we have a three car garage, and three cars sitting outside, as well as one 'vette inside. Hence the name.
I made a shelf for the T Tops a while back. It is nice to take them off and just hang them there without having to find a place to store them where they won't get scratched up.



The divider at top keeps them from touching.

I made some DTRL's. They are COB LED's and are quite bright. They fit in a bracket below the stock light housing and have a lens in front that I made with some clear casting resin. I may wire them up when I pull the dash over the winter so that they dim, but stay on when the headlights are on just because it would look kind of cool.






A while back I was in working on the 'vette in the garage because I was not at work or asleep. A guy walks in and tells me he lives down the street from me and has a 76 'Vette, and introduces himself as Larry. I kind of laughed. Last weekend we took the two 76 'vettes out for a spin. That was really fun to look up in the mirror and see him chasing me. Damn, these cars look cool going down the road.





In one of the photos you can see a bit of bare fiberglass below the car. When we were cranking on the car to get it into paint, we realized there was no flange for the front valance to bolt to. I worked through the night to make the flange, but I knew it would need some work to make the piece fit flush. I was in a hurry and thought, "I will worry about that later". Well it is later, so I have been sanding and forming the flange so the valance will fit right.
I have a list of projects for the winter so there should be more updates once it quits being so damn nice here.
 
#1,081 ·
I have had to put the vette away for the winter. Larry is resting on wheel blocks now so I can take care of a lot of things I have been putting off. I think my insurance covers 3,000 miles a year. I got my money's worth I guess.



I have gutted the interior again and cut all the wires loose from their looms. Damn what a mess. I am going to finish some stuff, add some stuff, and clean up some other stuff.



I hope to get a front spoiler made for the car, get the stereo in, and make some kind of cold air induction setup. I also need to figure out why my 98 ecu won't hook up to HP tuners. I am not sure if it is because it is an oddball year ecu or if there is something else going on. I can read engine temp, etc on the iPod from the obd dongle, so it has me stumped.
It is really cold in the garage and summer seems like a long ways away, but I need to get pushing on this stuff.
PTOB
 
#1,082 ·
i started mocking a cai up today to go over the radiator. I would love to give carbon fibre a go.
It looks even easier than glass. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeeSsmsm9h0

K&N have calculations on their site to work out required filter surface area - http://www.knfilters.com/filter_facts.htm

Can't wait to see your ideas.


my wife's friend's last 2 dogs & cow were all named Larry. Now she gets a bit upset when we shorten her one year old's name Lawrence to Larry...:smack
 
#1,083 ·
I have done a little work with carbon fiber and it is neat stuff. I personally think fiberglass is a lot easier but less cool and also expensive because that is how it goes. I think glass is easier since you can grind off and add to anything you build. We always have a hard time getting th vacuum to hold on the mold and are still trying to get that part right.
I will be looking forward to seeing what you come up with for a cold air setup. I was just in the garage looking at mine and contemplating drawing air over and under the core support but collecting it from one end so there is a nice straight run for the MAF.
 
#1,084 ·
Your up grades will be cool to see come to life.

The front spoiler will give the car a much stronger appearance when veiwing the car from the front.

As far as the ECU not being read with HP tuners, have you tried several other HP data cords to see if its not just in the cord it's self? Just a thought.

Terry
 
#1,086 ·
Brent, I would do a search about the ECU type that you have and see if its a known problem, it could be a matter of just needing to swap out the ecu for a new one of the same type. Or the next possibility may be in the data link connector or circuit to the Ecu. You might check the pin out on the connector and verify that its right. I don't have a source for the pin out diagram for that data link connector, but its shouldnt be hard to find on the web.
You may have already thought of this, i just figured I'd mention it.

Terry
 
#1,088 ·
Looking at getting a new truck so larry is on hold for a couple of days.
Airborn: I have insurance through national corvette museum. I went through adam bocca and he is a vette guy so he understood what I have done to the car and helped me come up with agreed value. I can't really say how good they are since all they have done so far is take my money and never had to pay out. Hopefully I never find out.:thumbsup:
 
#1,091 ·
The speedo is running off a VSS on the trans. I actually did not know about GPS sender. Hmmm
I got my truck ordered and am back on the vette. I have to finish up wiring inside and the headlight motors are getting modified (more on that later ) and then I can get back to the ecu and VSS problems.
 
#1,093 ·
Ouch. I did not expect that to be so much.
I had no problems at all getting the speedo to read. I calibrated it and it is spot on with my GPS speed on my phone. My tach was reading 2X rpm when I first hooked it up, but I found the dip switches to set it to 4 cyl and it worked fine. Then it started to read double again later. After I had the dash back in. I am guessing the dip switches are not quite set as they are inside the gauge, and I should be able to get that working now that the dash is out anyway.
 
#1,094 ·
Brent I bet you bought Christmas presents for the kids a year in advance just so you could keep them wandering what the hell was in the package. I've never known anyone to keep us in suspense as you do :smack It does make your mods that more intriguing. OK ill bite, what more can you do to the headlight motors? :WTF



:cheers:
Mark
 
#1,095 ·
I am still at it. I fought with the 98 PCM forever and never did get it to communicate with HP Tuners. It would see it, but never verify and time out. After wasting way too much time on that I got a 2001 PCM and repinned the whole harness to work with that one. We stuck a tune in it and it ran like a harley. Two cylinders. Ouch. Grabbed another tune that should be close and put it in. It runs but very poorly. The good news is that it seems all of the sensors are reporting in. The bad news is that the guy who has the laptop is WAY busy with his own stuff that he needs to get taken care of before he can come back over and try to dial it in.
I got a lot of things finished up this winter and fixed some stuff I didn't like, but really I don't know where all the time went.
I got a harness from Richard and re-did the wiring to the headlight motors. Much cleaner. I mounted an over ride switch under the dash to bring them up if I want to service them or wax, or whatever.
I mounted the pot for the PWM box that controls the dash LEDs behind the plunger that controls the driver's side A/C ball vent. I had an empty hole there since the Vintage AC does not use them. The plunger fits over the pot (with a little drilling out) and I can turn it now to dim the lights.

I am mostly focused on things that get the car on the road now, but I have one SSM that I would really like to incorporate if time allows.
I think I have the VSS situation figured out. From all I have read and seen on schematics, the PCM wants a two wire sine wave from the VSS and the one I had is a three wire hall effect that generates a square wave. I need to order up a 2 wire and see if that fixes things.
I am working on finishing up modifying a spoiler for the front of the car. Photos to follow. It is a modified super spoiler and I think it will make the front look complete.
I have a set of fiberglass bumpers that Josh sent me. I have kind of mocked them up but that is about as far as I got since this other stuff took me so much time.
I had a hell of a time figuring out why my fans were not kicking in. No matter what I tested it seemed like they should work. They were wired through one relay, and it turned out it was bad. it was good enough to signal continuity but not good enough to spin the fans. Richard sent me some relays (THANKS!) and I wound up going with a 2 relay setup. I was going to use three and go parallel/series but in the end decided to just run one fan on low and 2 on high. I may eventually change that, but my reasoning was that I liked spreading the load across two relays (since I scorched one already) and also having them on different relays should leave me with at least one running if things go bad. Also: I knew I had two good relays.
I will finish up some stuff and take some photos as soon as I can. I have a three day weekend and hope to get some stuff knocked out.
PTOB:thumbsup:
 
#1,096 ·
You are making progress on an epic build. I feel very connected to it each time I see pics of the car with the into wheels and I am reminded of the ROD 6 between the seats.

I like your style and courage to do something unique. It will always take longer and have more setbacks, but in the end be a one of a kind. And you will m is why from the been there done that files that somethings work and others don't.
 
#1,097 ·
Glad to hear of some success!!!

I have the same spal fans as you. I thought long and hard- I could do the two speed-series /parallel- breaking them out w/ their own relay but them I'd be up to four relays- and already have twenty+ wired on my car!!

And would it really make that big of a difference? Really fewer connections would be better.


What I did do - was eliminate the connectors to the fans- I just soldered four 10gu pieces - power and ground. I figuring if ever had to service them- cutting the wires would be no big deal.
I also soldered the power wires directly to the relays- and put the relays in a sealed box- concealed as a voltage regulator.


Yea- you owe me a few bucks but I like having people owe me money than the other way around.

BTW- I have trademarked SSM™ -so each time you use it - you need to send me $5!!!:laughing:

DSCN5192 by Richard Hayes, on Flickr

DSCN5180 by Richard Hayes, on Flickr
 
#1,100 ·
Chris, I am glad you picked out those wheels. When I was polishing them up back in the early CIC days, I had no idea I would wind up owning them or I would have done a much better job :laughing: I would have had a hard time choosing wheels since there are a lot of really good choices now but I could not be happier with how they look. The Richmond is bad-ass too:thumbsup:
I tried twice to go through State Farm. The first time I talked to the guy on the phone about agreed value and he understood (so I thought) I got over there and he had a policy printed up. I asked him how much it would pay out if something catastrophic happened. He looked up in his book and gave me a number that was less than the paint and body work on my car. He said if something happened they could look at any modifications I made and pay me more for that. That was BS. They are not going to pay me to replace something that I was not paying to insure. And also, I am not going to leave it up to them to decide what my car is worth. The second time I had a different agent and she said she understood agreed value, but only "agreed" that my car was worth 1/2 as much as NCM insurance agreed my car is worth. So.. I tried. I guess it just depends on which agent you have.
The Vette is back on the ground and looking like a barn find.

My son came over to visit and I found this.

Funny guy.
I got a front spoiler made. I had one from a different year and my wheel arches are a bit different so I had to cut it in half and work it a bit. I think it finishes off the front well. I was going to paint it when I get the hood painted but Side Pipes really likes the black. She wants to paint the rocker panels black also. She is always right so we will see. (that, my friends, is why we celebrated out 27 anniversary a few days ago)

I also made a piece that goes from the back of the spoiler to the bottom of the radiator to keep the pressure in front of the rad. instead of leaking out. I think there may have been a factory piece there, but I am not sure. Either way I did not have one so I made one out of fiberglass because: Corvette. Also: it is what I had.
I got Larry out today and washed all the dust off and got some wax on. Looks really low next to the truck.

Now for the bad news. As I mentioned in the PT thread, I am not sure if I will make power tour or not. I got a 411 ECU to replace the 98 that I could not get to program. I had to repin the whole harness to match it up. That all went well except for getting the PCM forget about drive by wire and run the IAC and stuff. We got that figured out and it runs, but not well enough to really drive. The buddy that I need to help me tune it is tied up with family stuff that more than trumps any car so things are on hold for a bit.
I fell way behind on all of this when I wasted months trying to figure out why the 98 PCM would not program and so I did not get to many of the projects that I thought I would have done by now. The stereo, some engine bay cleanup, and one SSM (tm) will have to wait until the driving season is over.
 
#1,105 ·
Beautiful C3! You should look into getting the holley efi hp with the LS harness. It has an autotune feature that will tune the engine in a few minutes then you can tweak it as little or as much as you want in the user friendly interface.

Thanks for posting the build thread we are starting to shop for our first C3 and its nice to see what you can do to them!!
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top