I got a new (very old) Blazer back on July 4th of this year, and after messing with the small-block chevy for a few months now – trying to get a little more mileage out of it, a little better performance, a little better reliability, I’m through. I had forgotten why I like fuel-injected engines and why I work with primarily LS1 engines. So, as a result, I’m now trying to track down an LS or LQ family engine to install in the Blazer. My current small-block gets about 7 MPG (if I spend most of the time going on flat ground). With the fuel-injected engine, I should be able to at a minimum double the economy, and maybe a little better. Of course, adding an overdrive transmission will help this immensely. As soon as I get the engine (and hopefully some help from kickstarter.com), I can start this project and begin the process of documenting what I’ve made, and keep everyone updated. It would be great if I could help other people also get their older trucks up and running with newer engines, and maybe shake some of the fear that older car enthusiasts have about electronically controlled engines. They aren’t really as scary as you might think.
Well, it appears if I keep my pace, I’ll be doing semi-annual posts. That’s fine because it gives me a chance to make a lot of progress on a project and then wrap it all up in one post.
OK, it’s not really fine, but it sure sounds better than admitting I’ve been lazy on keeping this place up-to-date.
So, progress, here goes:
- Ditched the Corvette C4 rear-end and chassis for a custom chassis
- Picked up an 80′s Jaguar IRS, narrowed each side by 5 inches (turns out this was probably an inch or two too much. Brakes are inboard.
- Created a “4-bar” link for the IRS. It’s actually a 2-bar with large urethane-style bushings and gromets attached via 1″ DOM tubing to a 5/8″ heim-joint. More later.
- Picked up an LS1 from a guy in Santee, CA for $1500. It runs perfectly
- Picked up a C5 Corvette oil pan for said LS1 for $60 from the Pamona Fair Grounds Father’s Day swap meet
- Picked up a T-56 (F-Body style) 6-speed manual trans for $1300, fully rebuilt, in the San Fernando Valley
- Created modest engine mounts, though I’m not entirely pleased with them and will probably need to address this differently in the coming months. More later.
- Learned how to tear-down, shorten and rebuild a GM steering column. I’m offering this service now for $150 per column if it is not a column shift. $250 for column shift style. Parts are extra. No shortening. Too much liability. Thanks attorneys.
- Found cool bolt-on roll-bar brackets from Fiber Tech in Santee, CA. Welded the steering column bracket to it for the front mount
- Mounted the brake/clutch pedal assembly inverted (swing pedal style, rather than floor mount) on the left side of the column.
- Gas pedal will probably be swing type to get the proper pull motion for the throttle cable. This car will not be DBW (drive by wire). After having driven a handful of cars with it, I’m thoroughly fed up with it. The pedal lag is stupid.
- Firewall support is now in place.
So, over the next few weeks, I’ll be detailing out the process of doing each of these, to hopefully make life a little easier for those trying to build your own chassis.
A rule of thumb I ignored, even after hearing it, I recommend you heed:
Start with the wheels and tires you want with the wheelbase and track you want. Build the rest of the car around it and everything will turn out fine.
Had I done that to start I would not have had to go back to the frame and “Z” it up 4 1/2 inches in the front to accommodate the cross-member.
I have pics of most everything listed here, and those that I don’t have listed, I can snap photos of.
So it’s been a while since my last update, but this one should be good.
We scrapped the narrowed C4 idea because… well, it just wasn’t working out that well. It was going to cost us about $500 to get the thing narrowed, which was unacceptable. Instead, we went out and found an XJ6 Jaguar rear-end. We removed the cage, narrowed the drive shafts and the lower control arms, by 5″ on each side, and what do you know? $200 later, the issue was solved. We have the IRS in place, and are now working on the front end.
To do this, we’ve gone back and Zee’d the front frame rails upwards by about 4 1/2″ at a point around 20″ forward from the middle x-member. The front x-member now has a 4″ drop on a 60 degree angle towards the middle, and crosses at the centerline of the front wheels. The center line of the spindle is supposed to sit 3/8″ up from the bottom of the frame rail. This will give up the appropriate ride height and lower control arm clearance during upward wheel motion.
By the way, thank you Welder Series for posting your instructions up to the web, it would have really been difficult to figure this out without those instructions.
NOW, we have a new problem. It appears as though the LS1 is a 27″ tall motor. That’s fine for most cars, but the Devin only has 20 inches of vertical room, accommodating 7″ of ground clearance. In all reality, that means we have zero clearance with the engine in. WTF!?
We’re going to try to find an engine cheap that we can prototype around, cause this may require a lot of custom fiberglass work in order to get it to fit, which doesn’t thrill me. I’ll post back with more details as we are able to figure this out, but it has suddenly become the new 800 lb. gorilla in the garage.
