Got a heart

Picked up the donk today. 2014 LS2 6.0L with only 16,000kms. Manual six speed gearbox.

Also got the diff (3.45 LSD), ECU and loom.

Should be good for a few horsepower!

Heat shields and front suspension

Polished stainless heat shields now line the engine bay, although I've left the protective grey film on them until I stop mucking about in there so I don't scratch them!

And the front suspension has been assembled. How's that bling of the bell crank! I polished up the aluminium crank itself - that alone took the best part of an hour each side!

(The polishing I did with a modified 1HP bench grinder, buffing equipment and compounds I've researched on the web while waiting for the kit to arrive.)

Heat cloth and pedal box installed

A few jobs completed this weekend. Finished installing the aluminised glass fibre heat insulation in the engine bay and transmission tunnel.

Assembled the pedal box, and cut an opening in the front of the drivers footbox to accomodate it.

And received my tyres yesterday too. Sweet!

First, some dismantling

Happy New Year! 2015 - the year of my cobra :-)

It is much easier to work on the car with the body removed. In fact for some jobs it is really essential. Fortunately, AP ship the body mounted and aligned with side bolted (and not loctited) but only temporarily fixed front and rear, so it is a fairly straight forward task to remove.

I built a wooden frame with the same width as the chassis so the sides bolted straight on. Then a couple of pieces of timber to spread the load from and rear. The body is mainly carbon fibre so is quite rigid and light, plus there is framing pieces bonded inside where the front and rear firewalls are that actually keep the curve across the body in shape.

I don't have much space, so this frame and body contraption is now lifted into my carport roof, and my daily drivers can slide underneath just nicely.

The working garage is now much roomier without the body; I've turned the chassis around so I can begin work on the engine bay heat shields and pedal box next.

Thanks very much to Pete and Ben who dropped by in Pete's 'Stang for a look-see and ended up working for a few hours! Here's a gratuitous pic of his car!