testing

[Mike Mercury]

Winter mods (apparently I'm not the only one installing holiday mods). No more plastic!!! at least for the fuel rail covers. I've always known my 2002 LS1 was a "small block Chevy" - but you couldn't see the "small block Chevy" engine after opening the hood on a C5 (it's mostly covered up !!! ). So I decided to remove the plastic fuel rail covers permanently. Sadly, that didn't help much since the ignition coils are bolted to the face of the factory valve covers. No wonder that GM put the covers there in the first place !!!!!!!! Like many others, I had painted and decaled my covers - which did dress it it nicely; but I still yearned for that classic small block Chevy look. I've read where others have relocated the coil packs and installed fancy valve covers. Finding these in the GM Racing Parts catalog - and at $220 shipped for the pair - started the thought process. Since my 2002 LS1 is stock, I needed to accomidate the polution devices that are a part fo the factory covers. On the drivers side the hole lined up almost perfectly with the crankcase ventilation hole in the factory valve covers (see red circle in first pic). and on the passenger side the hole was exactly in the same location as the factory oil fill neck. So I ordered two of the "breather hole" cover (GM part #25534398). When I removed the drivers side factory valve cover, I discovered a seperator plate on the inside; apparently placed there to keep oil from splashing directly in to (and swallowed-up by) the crankcase ventilation tube. I was able to remove this thin plate and mount it on the inside of the new valve cover. . The passenger side factory cover has two crankcase ventilation ports. I duplicated these with right-angle fittings - that mated up to the braided lines I already had on hand. But on the underneath side of the passenger factory cover were two thin "boxes" that are meant to keep oil from gettign directly to these crankcase ventilation ports. They are 3 sided plastic boxes; the forth side is aluminum and a part of the factory cover. Since I couldn't transfer these over to the new cover, I made a seperator our of sheet aluminum stock. It doesn't look pretty, but being totally hidden (obviously) it didn't matter. (not visable in this pic are are vapor holes on the ends as well) I also decided to chrome the factory fuel rail assembly. At first I thought to buy an anodized aftermarket fuel rails, but I got my original one chromed for $40 (and all of you know how much a cheap bastich I am ) (someone please instruct me on how to get good pics of chrome ) I moved the drivers side coil packs to a cavity directly below the drivers side hood-latch mechanism. I was able to bow the existing coil pack bracket and it followed the contour of th ewheelo-well nicely. (2001 and newer LS1's have the coil packs mounted on a bracket first - that then is bolted on to the valve covers. 1997 thru 2000 C5's had the coils individually bolted to the valve cover - no overall bracket). In this pic, the windshield washer fluid reservoir was removed; and you're looking downwards; the power brake booster is just in the left edge of the picture. one attachment point was a fabricated bracket attached to an unused hole in the hood latch mechanism; the second mounting point is through the wheel-well. I extended the factory wire harness that originally fed the coil pack - to the new location. Obviously I purchased a set of MSD 8.5mm universal plug wires, cut and crimped each one to the new coil pack location. I went to relocate the passengers coil packs to the same spot as XXXX did, but there were so many wire bundles and hoses there, that I couldn't figure it out how he accomplished this task. So I used the cavity between the battery and the compartment seperator (battery removed for this pic) And since length was limited, I removed the coil packs from the factory bracket,. And made brackets that allowed the coils to be closer together. Also had to extend the power/signal wire harness to the coils new spot. I painted it all semi-gloss black to blend in. here's a few pics of the finished project, some have the polished intake cover installed, some don't: I did this work on the drivers side first. Then drove the car to be sure all was working fine. Then I did the passengers side. I figured it would be a lot easier to troubleshoot if something was wrong - by doing it in sections instead of all at once. It's all working perfectly (just knocked on wood to be safe )