Durango_Boy

I finally mounted the L88 hood to the car. I originally planned on some hinges that would lift and raise but they would not fit under the hood at the nose so I went back to stock hinges. No matter, as I have plenty of room for the trans cooler fan.

I still plan on using hydraulic struts to support the hood instead of the driver's side leg, and I am going to convert from the '77 style hood latches to the previous style where the latches are ON the hood itself. I feel it'll clean up the firewall a lot without that cable running across.

The hood is still primered from Vanacors and the paint on the car itself is in bad need of doing. Please ignore the bad paint job and yes the hood will get molded and massaged better when the body work is done and the new paint sprayed.

VetteThunder1

Wow, I really like that hood, Looks good, is it a 4" rise hood?

I am going to need something like that for my car at some point.

Durango_Boy

It's the standard long L88 that Vanacor sells. I do not know for sure if it's the 4" or not but it's right about that.

GD70

DB, it must feel great to see it all starting to come together. Looks great! Have you started it yet? How much longer before it's ready to drive? You must be dying to get it out on the road.
Glenn

rastadr

nice work matt, IMO, a modified C3 should conform to a historically correct look. with or without the flared wheel wells the L88 makes a vette look mean. the sidepipes confirm it especially if you keep em loud. have you switched the reverse lens's to run 4 lights, that is also a politically correct mod and adds to the look. id like you to let me know how the hydrolic struts work as opposed to the stock one. it seems to me that they would inhibit the famous gravity drop from 10 inches that locks both sides at the same time

Durango_Boy

I have actually been driving it a lot lately. It runs and drives great with a slight overheating problem due to the hood not being on forcing air through the radiator. It's so much fun to get in and drive.




I plan on doing a full writup on the struts and I'm doing it in a way that anyone can do it as a modification. I know that when I release the hood from inside it'll pop right up controlled by the struts.

I'm thinking up a secondry hood latch like most other cars have where it will catch before opening ll the way up and you have to manually release that latch.

It's going to be different for sure.

bmans vette

Hey Matt,

Looks real good.
How about some pics of the engine bay?
What is the final color going to be? Staying with the black?
Congratulations.

Peace
Bman

CODE BLUE

Those hoods are very cool. I need to get one for mine too. Looks great!

Eddie 70

I like those hoods. They are hard to beat in the looks department as far as I am concerned.

Durango_Boy

Here's the bay. I have a little bit more looming to do and some cleaning and painting when the new motor goes in. I will stay with black for sure on this Vette. It's fantastic looking when the paint is in good shape and polished up nice.

palamesa

Love the hood, side pipes and wheel combo...Nice job DB

VCuomo

Why do that? The "secondary latch" is a safety device to keep the hood from flying open on front opening hoods - the Corvette hood opens from the back. Just curious...

sperkins

Sweet DB.
How were you planning to use hood struts? I would love to add some stability to my hood. I'm scared to death it's going to crash down someday. It's very wobbly.

Tall Boy

Looks like a good fit. Your car is comming together very nicely.

Durango_Boy

The reason is because the struts will lift the hood when the latches release. Say I'm in the car and I reach under and pull the handle to release the hood. It'll just pop up right there. That's fine and all except is it's ever accidentally released like maybe my pant leg catches it or something and it flies up while I'm driving. Very bad. I figure it's just a safety feature.




I'm making brackets that bolt down with the hood hinges and support the lower ball joint of the struts. Then, I'll run a support bracket up along the ridge there on the side of the hood and add another small bracket for the upper ball joint of the strut.

The end game is a well supported structure that holds the hood up and can be pulled down and shut from either side and I feel it will support a lot better than the stock support.





Thanks so much.

Ak. Mal

Looks real good on your car. There was one local for sale for $100 bucks a few months back, but for some unknown reason I never pursued it.

I didn't realize your seats were in already. Did you use the front mounting tabs of the seat without modification? My drivers seat sits too low, I'm planning to correct that this week. My passenger seat should be mounted by the end of the week.

One other question, I can't tell in the engine pic, but how are you running the fuel line to the carb? I have an Edelbrock also and want a steel fuel line instead of the rubber hose that's on there. I bought the Edelbrock fuel line with the banjo fitting, but not the fuel filter that goes with it. Now I want that filter and to create a new hard line.

82MDVette

Matt,
The Vette looks great. I love the L88 style hood. One of the reasons I purchased one recently to replace the LT1 hood on my BB 71.

Durango_Boy

Thanks, I'm very happy with the way it turned out.

Yeah both seats are in, and all I did was cut some plates to cover the old seatbelt pockets for the rear tracks to rest on. I have not finished bolting down the rear tracks yet but I plan on just cutting the top off of the tracks and drilling a hole through the bottom to bolt to the floor.

That way the seat will never hit them and they are low profile.

The seats seem to sit perfectly for me.

The fuel line is a temporary rubber line with a metal inline fuel filter. I will have a totally different fuel line style when the LT1 manifold goes in so I saw no reason to go all out with S/S braided fuel lines.

redman76

DB, that's looking great. I love thoses hoods . . . it's on my project list too, but not until I have something more worthy than the L48 under the hood.

When are you painting it?

Durango_Boy

It's been so long since I actually just drove it that I want to enjoy it for a while before I tear it down and paint it.

I'm thinking next fall. I'll swap the motor out for the LT1-405 and paint it then.