We've been working on installing a 630-horsepower Lingenfelter LS7 in our 1973 Chevy Van
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00:00 [Music]
00:20 You just hit play on Hot Rod Garage presented by Lincoln Tech.
00:24 And we're back with part three of the MSD Atomic Fan.
00:27 And before it's all over, you're going to hear that 630 horsepower LS7 actually make noise.
00:33 But first, strap on the life jacket and brace yourself for the tsunami of knowledge with Clarence Barnes at Lincoln Tech.
00:41 [Music]
00:47 Bushings isolate road noise and vibration from the interior of your hot rod.
00:51 However, these can also be a performance fart if you're willing to sacrifice a little comfort.
00:56 Your car probably came with rubber bushings in the suspension pivot points and body mounts,
01:00 which are great because they don't squeak and they make your car ride really well.
01:04 But there's a bunch of deflection in that rubber, which causes a delayed road feel when you turn the wheel or when the suspension is doing its job.
01:12 Now, soft rubber bushings also allow a significant amount of body roll.
01:16 Polyurethane bushings are a great upgrade to counteract those issues, but they tend to squeak if not properly lubricated during installation.
01:23 As a bonus, large gains in handling will be found by replacing your rubber sway bar and link bushings with poly parts
01:29 because they retain their shape better and transfer the energy of the sway bar into the chassis instead of dampening it.
01:36 Same goes for four-link, panhard, and track bars.
01:39 Solid body mounts made of aluminum or Delrin plastic are also available.
01:43 These are great for transferring torque, but you can expect to feel a bit of noise and vibration for that awesome engine you've got under the hood of your hot rod.
01:50 Lincoln Tech can teach you how to have a career working with cars.
01:53 See LincolnTech.edu.
01:55 And we're back.
01:59 This time, I'm going to reveal the man behind the scenes, which is Lucky Costa right here.
02:03 He's done all the work on the van while I stand here and look pretty and present all the information.
02:08 [Lucky coughs]
02:09 Exactly.
02:10 So we thought we would actually give him some cred here.
02:12 In part one, we showed you all the work that he did just mounting the LS7 and the Gearstar 4L85 in the van.
02:19 In part two, we painted it, and this time, we're going to go through all the little details that it took to make it run.
02:24 Before we're done, we're actually going to fire this thing up, right?
02:26 Yes.
02:27 But we're not going to throw it in gear because we still have to get a drive shaft in the rear.
02:30 We'll put it in gear. It just has five neutrals in a park right now.
02:32 Okay, perfect.
02:33 So once you got the engine in the van, we had to deal with a bunch of stuff, including the nightmare that I gave you with trying to get an electric water pump on the boat.
02:41 Electric water pump. That was a good one.
02:43 Complete fiasco, right?
02:44 Oh, yeah, fiasco.
02:45 Turns out that it was cheaper and easier, which I didn't expect at all, to get this Chevrolet Performance kit that they sell for the DR525 drag race motor.
02:54 What's the part number?
02:55 The part number is. I have that right off the top of my head.
02:58 1932-9418 is the alternator drive kit that includes no power steering, no smog pump, even though these don't have one.
03:06 A bracket, an alternator, and a couple of pulleys, and a belt. But it comes with every bolt, every washer, everything you need.
03:11 And it's like 400 bucks.
03:12 Yeah, just over 400 bucks.
03:13 Right, so that's the power of Google. So you did that while I was trying to do the electric water pump.
03:18 Now, there's a bunch of other stuff, though. Once you put this on, you actually had to hack clearance in the firewall, right?
03:23 Yeah, I had to modify the firewall because the alternator hangs back over the bow curve a little bit.
03:28 Fortunately, the fans have the gas pedals way down, you know, far forward underneath the steering column, kind of driving with your tippy toe.
03:36 We just moved it back. It's a little bit more comfortable.
03:38 But this thing's not fly-by-wire. This thing's got an actual low-carb cable on it.
03:42 It has to have a cable on it.
03:43 So once we got through that, we had to deal with the oil tank.
03:46 The LS7 has dry-sump oiling, which on the Corvette that it came out of, is a deal sort of for handling and performance,
03:51 so that you're not sloshing oil away from the pickup in the pan.
03:55 On the van, we're not really worrying about that, but because it's an LS7, we had no choice.
03:59 On most vans, you're not really worried about that.
04:01 Except this one.
04:02 Yeah, this thing is definitely going to get tested, I'm sure.
04:05 It's funny when you order parts for this thing, you're like, you ordered the driveshaft earlier.
04:09 What kind of power is that van making?
04:10 Yeah, yeah.
04:11 It's 650.
04:12 This is actually a 630-horse motor.
04:14 It's a Lingenfelter 427 crate motor, which is why it's got trick stuff like the dry-sump oiling on it.
04:20 You also had to re-finagle the coil mounting brackets.
04:24 I actually, yes, I did.
04:25 Usually, the coils are mounted above the valve covers, because in a car, there's so much room.
04:30 On the valve cover, yeah.
04:31 Unfortunately, there's a van on top of the valve covers in this vehicle,
04:34 so I just moved them up and in a little bit, and it worked out pretty good.
04:37 Okay.
04:38 So that's some of the little nitty-gritty.
04:39 Now we're going to get into getting a radiator and polishing up the whole front end of this thing.
04:44 Then we're going to put the transmission in it and show you exactly how those MSD controllers work.
04:48 We are famous for overheating junk, and that can't happen this time,
05:02 and that's why we went with this B-Cool cooling module.
05:05 The first time I experienced these things is when we put one of them in the Crusher Camaro
05:09 when we did that LS7 swap live at the PRI show, and that thing has proven to be flawless.
05:15 And so we got the same type of radiator here.
05:17 It's a B-Cool module.
05:19 It's got two big rows in it, all aluminum construction.
05:22 It's American-made, not like the imported stuff that we've had fall apart in some of our other cars.
05:27 We also had this made to fit the maximum opening in the core support of the van
05:31 so we can get as much cooling as possible.
05:33 Now this whole kit is custom-made for us, but you can get them direct-fit replacements for all kinds of cars.
05:38 They make different series.
05:40 There's the Extreme, the Show & Go, and the Classic.
05:42 That basically determines how polished you want it to be.
05:45 But they also have different horsepower ratings.
05:47 There's 300, 400, 700, or 1,000.
05:49 And basically that comes down to the fans that are involved.
05:52 This is the 700-horsepower unit, and so the fans are two 11-inch spalls
06:00 with their own shroud, with a little bypass flap.
06:03 It's a nice setup.
06:04 The 1,000-horsepower unit has two 13-inches on it,
06:07 which is going to draw even more amps, which is the only downside, but cool more.
06:11 But anyway, this is a nice package that's going to work for this engine swap.
06:15 And it comes with the ports here. Let me tell you about that.
06:18 There's a little puke hose that comes out of the top of the cylinder heads on an LS motor.
06:23 A lot of people don't hook that up.
06:24 What it is is an air bleed to get bubbles out of the cooling system,
06:28 and it needs to spit back into the radiator, and that's what those holes are for.
06:32 It's transmission time.
06:49 This is our Gearstar 4L80E, which is a transmission that we've used
06:53 in a whole bunch of our project cars here.
06:55 They beef these things up to any level of performance that you need.
06:58 If you saw the OPG Chevelle that we're also building on Hot Rod Garage,
07:02 that thing has a Gearstar unit that is built up to a stage 2 spec.
07:06 This is stage 3, which will handle 600 horsepower.
07:09 They also have a 700-horsepower stage 4, or you can get into the 4L80E5,
07:14 which will take 1,200 horsepower.
07:16 Now, this transmission is basically what General Motors put in heavy-duty trucks
07:21 behind the Gen 3 small blocks, and they're completely beefed by Gearstar
07:24 with extra-capacity drums and hardened shafts and things like that
07:28 so they can handle the power.
07:30 This is basically like a turbo 400, but with a 25% overdrive 4th gear
07:36 and with electronic controls that we'll talk to you about in a bit.
07:40 The converter that they supplied here is a billet unit from Yank,
07:43 and you can see that it's drilled for multiple flex plate patterns.
07:46 This will bolt right up to the LS motor without an adapter.
07:49 It's a 2400 stall, and it is a lock-up converter,
07:53 so with the 25% overdrive, 373 gears, and 27-inch tall rear tires,
07:58 we're going to be able to buzz this thing 75 miles an hour on the freeway
08:01 at only 2,600 RPM.
08:03 That's just one of the things that makes this super cool.
08:06 We're also going to get into the MSD atomic transmission controller
08:09 that you have to have for these electronically shifted transmissions.
08:12 The wiring for that is really easy.
08:14 You've got one big plug that's going to go right here,
08:17 and then you have a speed sensor plug, which is going to go on the rear
08:20 speed center in this application.
08:22 The controllers also use the front one, the MSD just working off the rear.
08:25 So we're going to bolt this up, hook up the cooler, pour in the fluid,
08:28 all of which is supplied by GearStar when you order the whole package,
08:31 and then we'll get into programming this thing.
08:33 [music]
08:37 Okay, let's go.
08:39 Lucky has slammed the tranny in the van so many times,
08:42 he knows exactly what to do at this point.
08:44 I just don't like the way that whole deal went.
08:46 So we've got the flex plate on here.
08:48 One of the things you've got to, got to, got to do is red Loctite
08:52 on flex plate bolts in the back of the crankshaft right here.
08:55 I've had those come out and actually shoot through the header
08:58 on my Hemi Super Bee.
08:59 It was a nightmare.
09:00 The other thing is on these 4L80s, it's physically bigger than a Turbo 400,
09:05 and when you're putting it in a muscle car, I've often found that
09:07 these cooler lines, they come really close to the floor,
09:10 and you have to get a 90 degree on there or even a banjo fitting,
09:14 and they take a special thread.
09:15 Sweet Performance is one of the places I know of that makes that special fitting.
09:19 Who makes the banjo, do you know?
09:21 I do not. I got mine from a shop in Long Beach.
09:23 You're useless to me.
09:25 So sometimes you do have to put those on a muscle car
09:27 and tap the floor a little bit with a hammer,
09:29 but on the van, it's actually pretty good.
09:32 We didn't want to cut the floor, but we did have to trim this crossmember
09:36 right here, and by "we" I mean Lucky.
09:38 And by "trim" he means "hat."
09:40 That's right.
09:43 And yeah, someday we'll come back and plate that in nice with sheet metal,
09:47 clean it all up.
09:49 No.
09:51 Another thing you've got to watch for always when you're installing
09:54 one of these transmissions is make sure that the torque converter
09:56 is fully seated in the trans, which means the wiggle and shake
10:00 and triple click and, you know.
10:03 All right, so we're going to put the converter in,
10:06 and you want to make sure this thing is all the way seated into the pump.
10:10 Otherwise, it will blow.
10:12 And you're going to hear several clunks--three, right?
10:15 Yeah, you want to do the spin and wiggle while you're pushing it in
10:18 to make sure it's well back from the bellhousing flange.
10:21 Can you hold that? There you go.
10:23 That's one, two, three.
10:25 But you'll also hear the pump click when it turns.
10:29 So that's a good tip when installing any automatic transmission.
10:33 Are you done yet?
10:35 Almost.
10:36 I like the way the show is going now. I watch him work.
10:39 It's the first time you've gotten to watch him work.
10:41 You watch me pretend like I did the work.
10:43 This side goes in first.
10:46 And then this side.
10:48 Let me go over to the high here.
10:51 The van's actually really easy to work on.
10:54 There you go, right there.
10:57 Now that we've got the transmission in,
10:59 we're going to plug some of these lines off in the cooler and everything,
11:02 and we're going to get this thing to run with the EFI
11:05 and show you a little bit about the transcontroller.
11:07 Anytime you're swapping a four-speed automatic overdrive
11:10 on an older car that had a three-speed automatic transmission from the factory,
11:13 you have to deal with the shifter.
11:15 We didn't want to put a ratchet shifter in this thing on the floor
11:17 sort of behind the engine doghouse.
11:19 That would have been weird.
11:20 So we're keeping the column shifter,
11:22 and there's a trick part that you can get from a low car
11:25 that clamps around the bottom of the column
11:27 and shifts and activates this cable shifter,
11:30 which is really cool because you can get rid of all of this factory rigmarole.
11:35 They make these for a bunch of different automatic transmissions.
11:37 They also make one that's solid linkage, really good for engine swaps.
11:41 So look into that.
11:42 Lokar, L-O-K-A-R is the company name.
11:45 We're getting warm.
11:46 We're going to feed fuel to this thing now.
11:48 The MSD Atomic EFI can be run either with a return style
11:52 or a returnless fuel system.
11:54 With the returnless setup, the computer on the EFI
11:57 actually pulse width modulates the fuel pump in the tank
12:00 or the electric fuel pump outside the tank to adjust fuel pressure.
12:03 That can heat up the pump.
12:05 Deadheading the fuel up to the engine could actually heat the fuel
12:08 and give you some problems, so we always like to run a return style when we can,
12:12 meaning the fuel goes up to the engine, gets regulated,
12:15 and the rest of the fuel that's not used comes on back.
12:18 Now, how we did that this time is with this Holley pump.
12:21 It's an 80-gallon-per-hour deal.
12:22 It's going to do 800 horsepower, which is way more than we need.
12:26 Now, when you're dealing with electric fuel pump,
12:28 you always want to do inlet and outlet filters.
12:31 This can get a little bit confusing.
12:33 They're rated by microns.
12:35 I have no idea what a micron is.
12:37 It's like subatomic tiny little particle.
12:39 But you'll see a 10-micron filter and a 100-micron filter.
12:43 That means one filter will let 10 microns worth of crud go through it,
12:48 and the other one will let a 100-micron piece of crud through it.
12:51 You want to take the 100 micron and make sure that that is on the inlet side of the pump
12:56 so that the pump can easily draw through it,
12:58 and the 10 micron goes on the outlet side
13:01 because it's easier for the pump to push through the finer filter than it is to draw through it.
13:05 And if you get those backwards, you're going to kill the pump.
13:08 The other thing that's going to kill the pump is mounting it like we did above the fuel tank.
13:13 Holley is really adamant that they want to see this pump below the level of the gasoline in the tank
13:18 so that it is fed by the weight of a column of the fuel in the tank.
13:21 So we'll see how long that lasts.
13:23 The other thing you might be looking at here is this little tiny line right here,
13:27 this little A-end line going, "How can they feed 630 horsepower with that?"
13:30 That's actually a -6 line.
13:32 It's small because it's Teflon lined, which is a new deal from Earl's.
13:36 They've got this new affordable Earl's Teflon A-end fuel line,
13:40 which won't rot and disintegrate like the old rubber stuff will
13:45 because of the new ethanol and the gasoline.
13:47 And so this is pretty trick.
13:48 I'm going to have Lucky show you how the A-end lines go together with this new Teflon setup.
13:57 Okay, here's the breakdown on how you install the Ferrell style fittings on the new Teflon lines.
14:03 Pretty simple.
14:04 You wrap the lines in blue tape.
14:06 You take your cut-off wheel.
14:07 You cut it nice and clean.
14:09 Extract the red coupler.
14:11 Force it over before you remove the tape.
14:13 Otherwise, you end up with bleeding thumbs.
14:16 After you do that, you can take the Ferrell, install it right over the Teflon fitting.
14:22 This is the part.
14:24 They actually make a tool that makes this super easy to do.
14:28 But if you're good, you can do that right there.
14:37 So once a Ferrell is inserted over the Teflon line, you pull the lower component up.
14:43 You take this piece, you slide it right in there.
14:46 You'll feel it slide in all the way and collapse.
14:49 It'll look like that.
14:52 And then you just tighten this piece down, pulls it all together.
15:03 You're set.
15:09 We're like 80% done messing with all the little things we need to do.
15:12 And so, of course, we got anxious and we're ready to make this thing run.
15:15 So now's the time when I'm going to show you the Atomic EFI,
15:18 which is the reason why MSD bankrolled this entire fiasco.
15:22 Atomic EFI is self-learning fuel injection.
15:25 The whole concept is with minimal wires, you plug into sensors that should already be on the engine
15:30 if you pick one up for a junkyard or your engine builder or whatever.
15:33 And the thing runs and drives without having to deal with a laptop computer at all.
15:37 All you have to do is work this little screen.
15:40 So this handheld lives inside the car with you.
15:43 And the first thing that you need to do is go through the initial setup screen.
15:46 This is as complicated as it gets.
15:48 So if this baffles you, stay away.
15:50 But I think even you can handle it.
15:52 All you have to do is answer questions like your engine type.
15:54 This is an LS7.
15:56 Your engine size, that's just displacement.
15:58 Cam type, real simple.
16:00 Performance, mild, or street stock.
16:02 Coils, injectors, those are part numbers that you put in.
16:05 You have to answer a few questions about fuel pump type is a biggie.
16:09 I had explained earlier that we had a return type fuel system.
16:12 Here's where you set it for either returnless or return style.
16:15 So it's just very simple questions like that.
16:18 You can set your idle RPM target, how fast you want the thing to idle.
16:22 Once you have gone through all of that, you should be able to turn the key and fire the thing up.
16:27 Now I'm not going to tell you that when we try and start this thing, it will be the first time we've ever done it.
16:31 Yep, we screwed some stuff up.
16:33 We had to go through and change the part number that we plugged in for our map sensor.
16:36 And the big deal, and the one that I've seen a bunch with these systems,
16:39 is the engine was cranking over really fast, but it wouldn't start.
16:43 And that was just because the battery voltage was dropping down to 9 volts under cranking.
16:47 And these things really don't like less than 10.
16:50 In fact, they really don't like less than 12.
16:52 So you need to make sure that your charging system is good.
16:55 But then you turn the key and the thing should fire right up.
16:58 Right, Lucky?
16:59 Yes.
17:00 Make it happen.
17:01 What's our voltage? Is it dropping below 12 volts?
17:09 Yes, I'm sure it is. Hold on.
17:11 Let me go to the dash.
17:13 Crank it.
17:15 9 volts. Once again, bitten by the fickle finger of voltage.
17:21 So we're going to charge that up and once again fire it right back up.
17:24 Right?
17:25 Cut.
17:26 Okay, Lucky. Make magic, dude.
17:30 Fuel pump.
17:33 Yeah!
17:34 All right, good violence.
17:46 Huh?
17:47 Yeah, really.
17:48 Hello, Lincoln Filter? Can't hear you.
17:51 All right, so we made that thing run.
17:53 We're going to polish up the rest of this stuff so it looks all nice and fancy
17:56 when you come back to the next episode of Hot Rod Garage.
17:58 Presented by Lincoln Tech with the MSD Atomic Van.
18:01 And when we do come back, we're going to slam the rear end into this thing,
18:04 do the exhaust, and a bunch of really violent burnouts.
18:08 [Music]
18:32 First thing, I'm going to introduce you to Lucky,
18:34 who's been doing all the work on this thing.
18:36 Is that your porn name?
18:37 That's my stunt name is what that is.
18:40 That's your God-given name.
18:41 It's actually my middle name. My name is Raymond "Lucky" Costa.
18:44 Bam!
18:45 [BLANK_AUDIO]