Had my valve covers and acoustic covers painted earlier this year as well. Valve covers are a flaky copper while the acoustic covers are black with a goldish copper flake to them. Will flow really well with the car once everything is put together. Had to do some minor paint shaving as I forgot to tell the guys to tape off some parts. So I had to scrape the paint off the mounting surfaces and also had to pull all the studs that hold the coils packs. You can see the flake a bit better in this pic.
And here is how the finished product looks like. Havent put the acoustic covers on yet as I don’t want to risk scratching them on install. Couldn’t really avoid that risk with the valve covers so I’m hoping for the best.
Car also went into the shop to get the removable rad support done. Since I don't have the fab skills to have done this myself, I opted to have it outsourced and done clean. After searching around for a bit, I found a shop that specialized in custom fab work for hot rods and the like. These guys did an awesome job and I couldn't be happier. Will make putting the engine and transmission in much simpler!
Original Rad Support
Rad support removed
So since the car came back from the shop, I’ve been trying to tackle little things here and there everyday. First on the list was to clean up the engine bay and some of the wiring. I scrubbed the engine bay clean and got rid of the ABS wiring. Since I wont be running ABS, I didn’t see a point of having the extra wiring in there.
Also pulled the carpet on the interior. Once the nice weather hits (possibly this weekend depending on how much time I have), I’m going to be dying the carpet black. This is to go with my new 1M Floor mats that I have and my recaro seats once I get them reupholstered, which will most likely be next year due to budget reasons.
And finally today I finished installing my Wilwood pedal assembly. Most guys remove the steering column to do this, but I heard it was doable without so I gave it a shot. Well it works, but my god what a pain in the ass that was. I didn’t want to pull my steering column because to do that I would have to remove my whole dash and I didn't want to risk cracking it. So the first test fit of the pedal box went in and I bolted it down temporarily.
The tricky part to this was that I needed to drill 3 holes through the firewall to bolt the back of the pedal box down to the car. This was tricky since I didn’t really have a good angle to get into from the inside, so I had to guess from the outside. I drilled a very small hole to ensure I was at least in line with the pedal box, then drilled and dremmeled out a larger whole until the bolt fit. This is what it looks like from the engine bay side
Sandwich mount
This is what I had to work with from the inside
Back of pedal box
So with that all done, the next steps are dyeing the carpet, putting it back in, running the brake lines, fabricating a small plate that will act as a seal between the engine bay and the cockpit while holding the brake lines that go to the pedal box, fabricating a small plate that will hold all the master cylinders, and figuring out the wiring. Most of the wiring I already have figured out, just have a few things I need to research further. I’m hoping to do a testfit of the engine shortly after returning from Leavenworth Drive next weekend. I feel I might need to do some grinding in the engine bay to make sure everything fits. I also still need to pound back the firewall & transmission tunnel. Also need to install my clutch and flywheel and mate the transmission up to the engine. Slowly but surely its all coming along nicely!
Leave a comment: