Volvo P1800ES...kinda

I'm so happy builds like this exist, wow!

I wish there was a GRM forum member project close by that I could visit in an hour or so .....

TurboFource said:

I wish there was a GRM forum member project close by that I could visit in an hour or so .....

Maybe there is. Where are you? General geography OK, not asking you to post your street address. If your travels ever bring you through the Detroit area, you're welcome to hang out in the AngryGarage.

In reply to TurboFource :

Dunno where you are, but London Ontario is close to Detroit and Port Huron. I hear the border guys bark more than they bite!

In reply to TurboFource :

Charlotte nc area here.

I am on the Delmarva Peninsula.

In reply to TurboFource :

Have family in that part of the world. Nice place from what I have seen in my visits. What is the car-culture like?

Pete

We have a pretty good Cruisin' twice a year in a Ocean City where most every parking lot is a car show in it self, there's a drag strip etc in Delmar.

TurboFource said:

We have a pretty good Cruisin' twice a year in a Ocean City where most every parking lot is a car show in it self, there's a drag strip etc in Delmar.

I've got a gearhead buddy in Bethany. I'll ask him if he knows of anyone building anything cool.

TurboFource said:

We have a pretty good Cruisin' twice a year in a Ocean City where most every parking lot is a car show in it self, there's a drag strip etc in Delmar.

I've got a gearhead buddy in Bethany. I'll ask him if he knows of anyone building anything cool.

In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) : Thanx!

Still picking away at this elephant.

The current fab challenge is to finish nailing the lump in place. It is currently located where I think I want it in 3D space. I have one engine mount tacked in place, committing me to the location. The goal is now to fabricate the PS mount and weld it in before re-visiting the DS with whatever the final design is going to be.

Making this more fun that it needs to be, I am using the C5 Corvette mount system. A more rational person would have just used the universal hot rod engine mounts. But where is the fun of that.

Here is where we are at. The bar in the foreground used to house the engine mounts for the 302. It had to be cut to make way for the LS oil-pan. The nice big C5 engine mounts are in front of that looking for a place to land. There is nothing below and none of the available bars are in the same plane, so its been fun.

I am back to hell-bent to have AC in this thing.  To that end I have found these interesting fittings that deal with the lack of clearance I have between the compressor mounted in the truck location and the chassis rails. ( NOT the Molvo in pic)

And of course, since nothing can ever be easy, I did a wideopen throttle check to see if that was a thing. 

I think you need more cable pull at the pedal

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

I think you need more cable pull at the pedal

Yeah, sadly.  How inconsiderate of the Mazda engineers. Trick is to do it without mucking up the pedal itself. 

Due to medical thing, wont be standing on my head to work under dash or much else on the car for about 6 weeks. The goal was to have the engine secured enough so the car can be rolled around when the E-type arrives.

Pete

Since I am sidelined for a few weeks and bored, I found this pic that helps explain where I am at with the LS swap.

The rear cross-member was where the 302 mounts used to reside. It was in the way of the LS oilpan so it had to go. Cut at the red lines

The yellow circles are the rubber mount/pads for the C5 engine mount system. The good news is that they fit in front of the stubs left over from the 302 cross-member mount.

The challenge is to build the landing pad defined by the stubs and the front cross-member. The fun bit is that none of the tubes I have to work with are in the same plane .Of course I want  the landing pad to be simple, so that complicates things. The DS mount is tacked in place, using the 4th attempt to make a mount ( it wont stay cause I don't like it)  so the position of the engine/transmission is defined. I think I have the final shape of the PS mount fabed up, but ran out of time to tack that one in.

EDIT  WTF had to re-install pic?

My AC parts arrived and I had to know if they were going to work. So with Mrs NOHOME out of the house I snuck into the shop to make sure.  These $tupid little $tubs are going to make the impossible AC hose routing possible. Sometimes it pays to pay for a solution.

The remaining challenge is to connect to the Miata evaporator fittings at the firewall since they are a different thread than the rest of the GM truck lines. I seem to have run into a dead end last time I tried to find the fittings. Might have to fab an adapter of some sort from the factory aluminum tubes that attached to the firewall fittings.

Hell yeah, good find!