I’d chopped the door into lots of bits to stretch it out to fill the frame better. It was all over the place, and nothing like the shape of the frame originally, but didn’t look much better as loads of tack welded bits. I clamped the door onto trestles and it was now my test for my new TIG welder. I found it a lot easier to get a nice flat weld, but also way too easy to get carried away and distort it by doing too much at a time. Ah well, I need the hammer and dollie practice. A quick buzz with a flap disk and it was done for now.

I also spent some time with the oxy/acetylene torch doing some shrinking on the back of the cab. Nothing exciting to look at, but at least it wasn’t oil canned anymore. I also found some CAD drawings for LS1 header flanges on the net, so got them cut out of cardboard on the plotter at work. They fit like a glove, just need to get them lasered out of stainless at some point. May even have a go at making my own headers if I feel brave. Or not.

I needed to get at the other side of the cab and do some work, and I was really fed up of whacking my legs on the frame trying to get to my workbench or move around the garage. I decided that the answer would be to pull the cab off completely, take all the suspension off the frame and shove it on it’s side against the wall. When you type it out like that, it doesn’t seem like that much work does it? I don’t think a lot of the front suspension has been off in a long time, if at all. I ended up finally gettint it all apart at about 10 pm.

The cab is now sat on wooden blocks and those red trolleys you can see underneath in the picture. The frame was just the wrong height to tcuk under the workbench, so it’s overhanging a few inches on the one side. It’s still a lot easier to work in there as I can now get at the bench, and both sides of the truck. Not exactly neat tho!

I’ve been slowly plodding on with the mountain of metalwork on the truck, and wanted to get the front end back on out of the way. I decided to get the firewall partially welded in while I could get at it easily so stripped the intake manfold off and taped it all up ready to work on it. After a bit of hammering I tacked it in then went back over it and filled in the gaps.I really need to get some cleco fasteners it would have been a million times easier and a lot better.

I won a Corvette intake manifold on ebay to replace the truck manifold and make the turbo install a bit easier with the lack of EGR to block up. It’s also better at high revs which is where the turbos will be happy, and a lot better to look at. I couldn’t resist getting the turbos out and mocking it up to get an idea of how it will look. They’ll sit a lot further forward than in the pic, and the left hand one will be clocked round to face the intake. Plenty of space at the moment but I’m sure it’ll end up a lot more cramped by the time it’s on the road.

With the garage cleaned out to make space for it to live in, I got the truck dropped back home. I had the new engine sat on a stand so needed to sit it between the rails temporarily on some wooden blocks to make space for the truck. With the motor being a truck motor it has a very deep pan which I wanted to keep if possible. It also made it a pain to get over the rail and into the firewall recess, but after a lot of messing about in the rain it dropped in. The adapter plates were miles away from the Camaro mounts so I decided to dump them and make new mounts to go onto the plates. After a lot of messing about trying to get the old mounts off I got the grinder out and chopped the bolts off and shoved some wood blocks in to hold it still for now.

It needs to come back a few inches as you can see in the pic, but I plan to take the manifold off, get a box on there and set the angle before I worry too much about the firewall recess. The truck manifold is ugly as sin, but a swap to a LS1/LS6 manifold means new accessories which I’d like to avoid. I did think of using an Edelbrock Victor Jr manifold with an elbow for the throttle body but I’d rather spend the money on forged pistons and rods than a manifold that wont gain me anything over what I have. I’m hoping to make a start on cutting the factory loom down in the evenings so I’m ready to go with that when I’m out of things to do on the ’55. Sadly that’s got to the point where it needs lots of things bought for it rather than lots of work so it’s slowed down a bit. It’ll be out and about soon tho, can’t wait.

I’ve been keeping an eye out for the various bits I need for the F100 and with the engine plans one of those is a decent strong axle. I found a 12 bolt axle with hardened shafts and C clip eliminators that was a few inches narrower than the one under there which suited me perfectly. I’d bought a 12 bolt posi to replace the one in the Camaro only to find it was a 10 bolt under there so it’s sat in the box ever since. I also had a bearing and seal kit spare so just a few more bits and I should have a nice strong axle.

I’d also been looking for a pair of turbos for the motor. My plan was to get a cheap pair initially and step up to some decent ones once it was all up and running. Well that was the plan anyway. I spotted a pair of brand new water and oil cooled Garretts for sale on eurodragster from the same guy I’d bought the 144 supercharged engine for the ’55 from. I gave him a ring and they turned out to be hige, way bigger than I’d planned to use, but after a bit of bartering we came up with a price I couldn’t say no to. The majority of the boost will end up going to waste initially but I will have massive potential with this setup and some serious bottom end work on the motor. There goes the idea of doing it all sensibly.