1965 Valiant LS Build

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JGizmo said:
That looks like an awesome build! What have you done to it?
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That's not my car. I just have that hood on mine.
I'm doing the bumber delete just a little different.
And no chebby front spoiler
 
This be my car.

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Only picture I have in my phone. That's an old one. It has a hood tack now.
 
Vfn fiberglass out of Chicago.
That one's is a bolt on kind of pricey.
I lucked out and found a new in the box one on ebay cheap.
They have pin down lift off ones. Depends on your budget.
 
I like it. Your welding and fab work is probably better than more than 90% of the members here.
 
MidnightSwinger said:
Where in Cali are you? I’m building a 383 for my 74 swinger, should be similar HP. We should meet up when our cars are done.
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That's awesome, I'm actually pretty close to you. I'm about 15 mins south of Santa Rosa, so around an hour and a half drive. Starting college tomorrow so progress might be slow on my car but I think I can have it running relatively quick if I hammer it out.
 
JGizmo said:
That's awesome, I'm actually pretty close to you. I'm about 15 mins south of Santa Rosa, so around an hour and a half drive. Starting college tomorrow so progress might be slow on my car but I think I can have it running relatively quick if I hammer it out.
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Sounds like a Mopar meetup at Lagunitas is in order. Count me in!
 
It's your car do what cha like, LS makes more sense then when people use to swap a 350s into everything. I'm not a huge fan, to me the reason to build a mopar is to do a mopar engine, to me your car is just another Chevy now :) Still be a cool car when done.
 
All that custom work for the same HP or less than a 360. Cutting, Welding, Custom parts, Crap Chevy drive train. What a waste.
 
JGizmo said:
Hey all, I've got a 1965 Valiant, and I planned on putting a 5.3 LS in it. Well that didn't work out, so I bought a junkyard 6.0 LQ9 Vortec out of a Cadillac Escalade. While technically not an LS the Vortec only has minor differences, and I think it was a better choice budget-wise. Over the last few days, I've completed fabricating engine mounts and a transmission mount, and I have everything set in the car. In order to keep costs down this build is very much an amalgamation of parts left over from my coworkers' other projects, though as the car progresses I'm sure I'll upgrade a lot of the parts. Since I just made it over the first major hurdle of this project I figured I'd make a post. I understand this isn't for everyone, but for anyone who is interested I'll attach some photos of my progress from the last couple of days, and I'll try to be detailed about the setup.

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As I mentioned, this is an LQ9 out of a 2004 Cadillac Escalade. I chose this over the LQ4 as it has flat-topped pistons giving it a higher compression ratio. I've got an LS9 camshaft in the engine with upgraded pushrods, rocker arm bearings, and valve springs. I used a center-sump oil pan from Sikky (needed an LS1 windage tray to fit the pickup tube). Using this pan I was able to clear the steering center link. As for K member clearance, I only had to beat the frame with a sledgehammer for an hour.
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Here is one of the motor mounts I built. This was my first time welding so go easy.
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As you can see I've used the factory transmission mount. I cut out the center section to give room for my new transmission and welded some reinforcements.
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I went with a Tremec TR3550 transmission and a 621 SBC bell housing, and the mounting holes only had to move a few inches forward.
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In order to get the 3-4 degree driveline angle I needed, cutting up the floor (and chopping a few ears off the transmission) was necessary.

I've still got plenty of learning and work ahead of me which I'll continue to post about in the future.
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Nice fab work! You probably are already planning it, but you should tie the torsion bar/transmission crossmember back together over the top once you get your transmission angle where you want it. A piece of flat bar over the top of the tail housing on the trans, welded to the cut ends of the original, then new floor pan spot welded to that should be enough.

:thumbsup:
 
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