86 s15 v8 corner carver

Nice. Wish I had a lathe & end mill.. can't have everything. haha. Looks good.

Machining I can handle. If I can't do it on my drill press, lathe or end mill at home, I've got access to one of the biggest machine shops I've ever seen. Welding is all that I really lack access to. When I get it that far, I'll get in touch with you to make arrangements to do some welding on my blazer body, it's got a few boo-boos and some holes that need filled.

cool, just so you know, im only setup for flux core wire feed. i have the attachments for a bottle, so im just a bottle away from being mig capable. i have an ancienct beast of a stick welder that takes 240v, which i dont have in the garage.


im anxious to start putting the frame back together, but there's a track day at firebird today, im running the miata.

I drive by there all the time, I remember both a white and a medium blue miata running in the past, is one of those you?

I don't know much about welding except the little bit of tig I've gotten to do, flux core should be fine for 1/4" holes and for running a bead around a 6" square plate, no?

I don't know much about welding except the little bit of tig I've gotten to do, flux core should be fine for 1/4" holes and for running a bead around a 6" square plate, no?

All I use is flux core up to 3/8" on a welder that "only" does 1/4". Save the gas for tube and body panels.

flux core weld after slag removal. Speed was fast but it was still 90+ percent penetration (I run test pieces every time and cut across the weld and then measure)




/hijack

its a plain white 90, top always down with a roll bar. today was only my 3rd run, i just bought the car in march ish.

flux isnt the best for joining sheet metal and body work, but i dont see why it wouldnt fill some body holes. welding plate, no problem, mine is rated for 3/8", 140A. depending on the type of joint, you can go thicker with multiple passes.

can you get your hand behind these holes artos?

Easy access to both sides, I'm removing the little brackets from the interior of the fender well because I won't be running any interior pannels and the stupid little brackets are spot welded in place. And I shouldn't have called it a plate, thick sheet at best, just need to cover where my floor has cracked out around the seat mounts.

Very nice project and write up so far.  Great attention to detail too.  I'm really liking all of the machine work.  We've got a mill out at the shop, but I'm still very much an amateur with it.  Would love a lathe for all those round projects we always seem to come up with.

I'll probably sound pretentious, but I avoid Fram filters.  Hard to find good filters anymore, but Fram's are definitely on the bottom end with their cardboard/paper design.

Where'd you find the ZQ8 bumpstops?

I've pulled my bed like that a couple times.  Works real well.

Nice find on the 8.5 even if it wasn't as fresh as claimed.  They can be hard to find.  That is definitely a hop shock mount if you haven't found out already.  The G80 locker is known to go out with any amount of abuse, but the True Trac will be a nice install.  It has been on my list of to buys for a few years.

holy crap one hell of a first post.
but i likey

 artos- good that will allow me to put an aluminum "dolly" on the backside, makes filling holes much much easier and nicer and you can get away with using more heat.

harley- im not a fram guy either, i think i had that filter laying around or something and figured it would suffice for break in. i dont run fram anything on my vehicles. and i agree its very hard to find good filters, and lately the cheap puralators seem to be the best based on people actually cutting them open on bobistheoilguy.com.  i got the bumpstops off either ebay or amazon or both. i have a pair of each style and dont recall which came from who but i have it written down at home. i searched the gm part number on google, i have that written down somehwere too, ill post up when i find it later this afternoon maybe.

thanks for the kind words guys.

I've started using AC Delco on the 2.8, but haven't cut one open yet. They used to be reccomended, but that was several years ago. For my Audi I order the factory Mahle filter, but haven't cut any of those open either. 

Every engine I build or own gets nothing but Wix.

Nice build!  I get distracted easily but I did catch one thing I can provide some educated feed back on.  The KYB GR2's that came with your pile of suspension are decent but they're just stock replacements.  I ran them on the rear of my truck for about a year - I wanted something that was not gas-charged so it wouldn't add to the already stiff spring rate and they were super cheap at rockauto.  They worked fine and did the job - no complaints at all.

i use wix exclusively for my jetta because thats all i can get. tokyo roki for the subi and the mazda when possible, if not mobil 1, and mobil 1 on my s10 ss.

i figured out what the gr2s were a while back, no one had ever answered the question lol. while were are on the subject, i need some recommendations on shocks, especially for the rear with the bump stops raised. in case you missed it, the front will just be 2" spindles and zq8 springs on zq8 stops, so stock replacement lengths will be fine. but the rear has the 3rd leaf removed and im going to block it until its level with the front. not that any of that affects shock length, but the raised stop does, so im clueless on what shock to run. ride comfort is of no concern to me, just handling, but $$ is an issue so no coil overs or anything like that.

harley- i got one pair of bump stops from summit and the other from ebay, so says my book. gm redesigned them and i wanted to try one of each style to see if they were different. the old triangle style are becoming very hard to get- gm # 15989674. the newer version is a round cone gm #15956547

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/rnb-31064/overview/make/chevrolet/model/s10

ZQ8 bilsteins for the rear, 14.5" fully compressed length.

And make sure you get the ZQ8 bilsteins on the front too, the standard doetsch shocks are not as good, or as short as the bilsteins off the ZQ8.

I'll second the bilsteins.  The rear Z87 blisteins for the Blazer were less than $120 for the pair from Amazon.

I've got the ZQ8 bilsteins up front, love em to death

the pictures dont show it, but i installed bilsteins on it 8 years ago and pulled them off to put them on the ss just recently. ill have to buy more. im having trouble finding zq8 specific bilsteins, only standard and zr2. links?

Here are the part numbers from a 2000 xtreme pickup for the shocks.  The parts catalog confirmed they are for the ZQ8 rpo.

Front: 12477892 or AC Delco 540-66 (2 remeaining at RockAuto @$80 each +shipping wholesaler closeout, $130 each elsewhere)
Rear: 12477894 or AC Delco 540-44 (Amazon for $70 shipped each)

That is what I found real quick using the parts catalog and google.  I'd search google some more and ebay with both the GM and Delco part numbers to find the best price, but often end up back at Amazon with their free shipping for parts like this.

awesome job so far man!   truck looks great!

Here are the part numbers from a 2000 xtreme pickup for the shocks.  The parts catalog confirmed they are for the ZQ8 rpo.

Front: 12477892 or AC Delco 540-66 (2 remeaining at RockAuto @$80 each +shipping wholesaler closeout, $130 each elsewhere)
Rear: 12477894 or AC Delco 540-44 (Amazon for $70 shipped each)

That is what I found real quick using the parts catalog and google.  I'd search google some more and ebay with both the GM and Delco part numbers to find the best price, but often end up back at Amazon with their free shipping for parts like this.

sweet, i got it from here, thanks harley

thanks s10driver