I had a chance to get some work done on the car today and last Friday. My girl was in town all week and I spent most of my time playing with her...

As stated in the last installment, I had to order a special tool to mill an area flat on the front of the head for the sensor pickup. My buddy runs a CNC machine shop that produces parts for the F22 Raptor and for other military contracts. I gave him a call asking about the tool and he new exactly what I needed and ordered it for me. It is a 1" counter bore that has a pilot arbor adapter to use in a cordless drill/press/what have you. This allowed me to get it milled, tapped, and the sensor taped with teflon so there weren't any oil leaks and installed.








Once I finished with the sensor, I went on to making an aluminum bracket to mount my VVL solenoid block to the passenger strut tower. I wanted to hide the block as much as possible, so this was the final mounting location. I actually had to flip the bracket 180 because once the IACV was mounted on the underside of the manifold, it wouldn't allow the manifold to bolt up to the head. I ended up with an 1/8 gap between the IACV and the solenoid block when the IM is bolted into place. Then I ran the feed/purge lines to their respective ports.






We all know that when you remove the condenser from an s-chassis it leaves a huge void on the sides of the radiator. So, with the little time I did have available I made some airdams for the sides of the radiator. It's 1/8 aluminum, we have an abundance of it at work, so I cut what I needed. Air obviously travels in the path of least resistance, so leaving those holes unattended would've lowered my cooling efficieny. SR's have a tendancy to run hot, so this was a little bit of insurance. I will be sealing the tighter areas with some weather stripping, but this is a cheap and effective mod and will serve it's purpose. Dont mind the bent fins, I'll be straightening the majority of them out. I've had this radiator since 06' and it's treated me well.






I'm hoping to finish up my catch can lines sometime this week. I'm making some new pieces because of heat damage next to the turbo. I also converted my open atmosphere can to a closed system and will be pulling vacuum on it from an exhaust venturi. I'll also be working on my oil cooler/relocation lines and getting my oil cooler mounted up. Stay tuned...