Been working on the motor - most of which is documented over on ls1tech.  Got the shortblock together, waiting for a few more things to get the valvetrain geometry set then I'll be able to button her up.

Also started up work on the chassis again.  Started fabbing up a sunroof patch panel that I'm in the process of welding in.

Started with fitting a piece of 18 ga to fill the opening the best I could

Then skinned the metal "backbone" from the sunroof and welded it to my patch panel to give it the contour I needed.

Then started welding her home.  Struggled with weld contamination for a while despite the fact that I wire-brushed the shit out of everything and wiped with alcohol prior to welding.  I thought that initially I was chasing a crappy ground so I tacked a grounding point on top of the skin.  I'm getting there slowly though.  Welding distorted the roof skin in one of the corners of the patch - so that's going to need some work once this is fully welded up.  Part of the risk I accepted when doing this, but welding was the only way to seal this up 100% from the elements - lots of guys bolt in fiberglass panels and RTV around the top, but that seemed like a pretty mediocre solution to me.  But hey - if I fuck it up too bad I can always order an OEM sunroof-less skin directly from Germany for $700! :)  At that point I'm shell swapping.

Also started working on the engine bay.  After looking at some other builds of guys that did really clean bays I decided I'm going to do my best effort at cleaning things up.  A "functional shave", if you will.  Not full on show car, but cleaner than stock.  I'll be fully welding all the seams to help strengthen the structure of the car.

Starting on the passenger side shock tower

Bottom seam of the shock tower to frame rail welded

Top seam in progress.  Fighting weld contamination in a few spots from the undercoating on the wheel well - going to have to get a knotted wire wheel to remove that before continuing.

I also welded in hardened washers where the strut hats / camber plates bolt up.  The sheet metal on top of the tower is fairly robust but I noticed that the shoulders of the nuts had started to dig into it.  Hopefully the hardened washers will help protect that from any potential failures, even though they're probably fully annealed by the time they're done being welded.  Oh well.  Welded in and ground flush:

At this point progress is progress on the chassis - I'm going to chip away at it however I can.  Long road ahead of me but I'm (kind of) enjoying it.  With the motor almost done I can start to focus my energies on this now.

I've been working on getting the engine in order...deburring, cleaning, checking.  Waiting on some additional sets of bearings to get my clearances right.  More pictures later.

But my intake came today - ported FAST 102 done by Tony Mamo of AFR.  His work is flawless.  Pics of the porting later.  I'm tired.

And here it is next to my valve cover.  The finishes don't match exactly but I'm not sure I care enough to alter it.  I think it'll look ok when the engine is all assembled.

Lost pretty much all this previous week and weekend to travel.  I was in Boston during the week for some work related training, then drove out to Philly for my sister's college graduation Sat/Sun.  Here's one leaving Boston.

Chassis work 

During the down time I got some abrasive discs for my angle grinder and a bunch of sheet metal for making my patch panels.  (3) 2'x4' sheets of 18 ga and (1) 2'x4' sheet of 16 ga.  We'll see how long that tides me over.  Now I have to look for forming tools, a bead roller would be nice to have.

A bit more progress on the chassis:  cut the rear outer seat mount for the drivers seat off of my replacement panel and tacked it in place to the inner layer of the rocker.  I scribed an outline of the original before removing it so I could line the new one up fairly easily and accurately.

Sprayed the new one in etching primer for now.

Tacked.  This will preserve the right location until I can get the floor patch in.  Once that happens I'll transfer the mount to it, break the tacks loose, then remove that layer of the rocker and continue with the repairs inside to out.

Also worked on the "A" pillar area of the car.  This fucker is where one of the tubes drained to from the sunroof.  I'm going to have to pull this and likely remake it out of 16 ga.  Needs  to be removed to get me access to the inner layer of the rocker so I can cut it out and replace it.

Engine build prep

Also started some work on engine stuff.  I started with removing a boss in the valley area to give the PCV system on my LS6 valley cover sufficient clearance.  Lowe's was closed so I had to cut this with a hack saw.  It was fun.

Guessed about right on the depth though:

I also took some time to start deburring / breaking edges everywhere on the block with a fine file.  Any sharp features are stress risers and provide possible initiation points for cracks to develop.  I did the valley cover, head mounting surfaces, rocker ports, and casting areas near the bottom of the cylinder sleeves. 

Casting flash removed:

Casting flash not removed, you can see how rough it is around the perimeter of the port.

This week I plan on continuing the prep / clean the block for building.  Still need to finish deburring, mask the block and paint the exterior surfaces, clean the internal passages again, and measure everything (again).

Made a bit more progress today on the driver's side.  Made patch pieces for the crossbrace / front driver's seat mount out of some scrap 18 ga sheet I had laying around.

Pretty simple, but more difficult only because I have almost no metal working tools.  The only thing I added were dimple features to stiffen up the large open area of the sheet while simultaneously reducing the weight.  The larger holes were cut with a 2" hole saw, the smaller ones were a 1" hole saw.  I pulled the edges of the hole with needlenose pliers.  Pretty crude but with some patience it worked pretty well.  With the flanges and dimples these panels are incredibly stiff for their weight.

Welded up.

This is one of the underside.  I didn't cut the patch on the right large enough to incorporate the flange into it to join into the inner panel, so at a later time I cut a piece and welded it on for that purpose.  No pics of that though yet.

In etching primer.

Oh and what's this?  Hello there sweet thing, come around here often?

Block is back from the second shop.  He made the cylinder more round and gave me a bit more clearance, as the original hone job was on the tight side.  He also line honed the main journals and measured my clearances.  I ended up having to go with a Clevite-H 0.001" undersize main bearing to make my clearances tighter...cold they were at 0.0025-0.003" with the P's.  In an aluminum block those will grow to beyond 0.004" when it's up to temperature, which is terrible for oil pressure.  Right now I'm sitting at ~0.001-0.0015" cold with the -H's, so should be in the mid 0.002"s when hot.  Cherry.

Still lots of work to do, still lots of parts to buy.  Trying my best to take it a day at a time.

A few new tools...general purpose body hammer and dolly, plug weld pliers, and mig pliers.  Also got a spare spot weld cutter.

Spent most of the time I had this weekend working on the rear seat area.  Cut out a big chunk and started cleaning it up.

This piece reinforces the end of the transmission tunnel and is spot welded to the floor pan along that flange.  I bumped the flange back into shape and used my plug weld pliers as backing to shave the holes I created when drilling out the welds.  The copper works really well to remove heat from the steel and prevent blow throughs.  I think I would have really struggled to fill them without something like this.  I also stitch welded the seam of the trans tunnel / reinforcement layer to help add some additional reinforcement to the joint.

Also stitch welded the seams of the "b" pillar cross member.  I was fighting weld contamination on the right hand side, I got under it the best I could with the wire wheel but the seam sealer was catching on fire and outgassing before the weld could solidify, causing porous welds at first.

 
The left side I did much better....I suppose better cleaning but I was also experimenting with holding the torch differently and seemed to be able to get better consistency.  I've found that being comfortable and also being able to see well help with that.  Still not the best but I did have a couple good welds.

For the most part I got them to lay pretty flat, which suggests to me that I at least had it on the proper heat setting.

I'll be ordering sheet metal this week and will start laying out the patch panels.

A bit more progress tonight on the driver's side floor

Some more wire wheeling on the rear section of the floor to reveal the good and bad.

Damage along the seam where the seat bench meets the floor.  Looks like moisture crept in here over time through the rocker and ate it up.  All of this will need to be cut out and replaced.

Rear section cut out.  I left the mounting boss for the seat attached to give me a chance to figure out how I'm going to preserve those dimensions.

Thinking my seat bench patch is going to look like this.

Almost to the point where I can start replacing metal.  I'll start to feel better when I get to the point that I'm adding solidarity to the structure rather than cutting out rot.  One day at a time I suppose.

Some more progress this weekend. 

Took the dash out

Which revealed this mess

Harness disconnected and (kind of) organized

Heater core and rest of the dash / wiring harness removed.

Also stripped all of the sound deadening from the front floor pans / trans tunnel / and area below the windshield behind the dash.

After removing the ABS pump and unbolting other various things like the brake booster, pedal assembly, clutch master slave cylinder, etc. etc. I had enough room to move the fusebox around and was able to pull the entire harness out through the firewall without cutting anything thusly:

Hoping I remember where everything goes when it comes time to put it back in.  I took some time to label everything and wrap it up....it really isn't that bad.  It's really logical, makes sense because it was designed by Germans.  I plan on reworking it a bit, especially the engine side, to make it a little more organized and a look a little less like shit.  Though I will say that this 20 year old harness was better than the one that came on the LS1, so at least it has that going for it.  Officially nothing left to bolt from the car....ok well except for the trunk lid and wiper assembly.

Washed the engine bay

 Then decided to get to work on some rust repair on the drivers side floor area.  Yep, it's rusty

Wire wheeled to bare metal to determine where the solid stuff starts.  Noting where nearby seams and spot welds already were, I decided to cut much more than I needed to in order to make aligning my patch panel easier (as well as look more professional).

Coated the bare metal in etching primer for now to keep corrosion at bay.

The area of the raised "plateau" there is a heavy structural member of the car which looks to be rock solid peaking through the access ports there.  I drilled out the spot welds along this flange and cut through a single layer of sheet metal (2 are present here).  I then separated it at the seam in the kick pan (running towards the rocker in this image).

 The whole idea of starting on the inside and working out was to give me something solid to weld to by the time I get to the inner most layer of the rocker panels.  Additionally, I figured I'd have a harder time maintaining a reference if I were to cut out the rocker, then cut out the floor, and work backwards trying to figure out what size my patch panels needed to be. 

Planning my next move, I started looking at this structural member that the drivers seat mounts to.  It is basically a rectangular tube that is flanged on all edges and spot welded to the trans tunnel, floor, and inner rocker layer.  Looking in at the cross section from the outside, the tube is rusted near its contact points with the floor up to about where I had removed the floor at the seam.  Once you get about an inch off the floor it is clean as hell though, so my plan is to make a patch for the section on either side that I drew with sharpie.  Again, much more than I need to cut but it will make patch panel alignment much easier.  Easier alignment = better fit-up = better welds. 

More to come.