Part 1: Tentative Steps and Preliminary Inquiries.
September 16, 2012
Having made the decision to commit to this process, I have started gather information and ordering a few parts.
I spent some time last week talking to Ted Brown regarding his fuel injection system. Right now, the system he has requires blocking off the secondary pads on my heads. He's working on a setup more specifically adapted to 140s, but it sounds like that is something a few years in the offing yet. It sounds like that would be a possible upgrade option if I want to go with the current system. Another option is to just wait. I haven't made up my mind how I want to play that one yet.
I also talked to Ted about his cruise control system and I hope to be moving forward on that.
Friday I stopped at an upholstery shop I want to check out. They closed at noon so that time was pretty much wasted.
I have been working with Mark Corbin regarding the A/C conversion. The system that is going to be installed in the car will have the factory vents, controls and evaporator case, a Sanden compressor, and the condensor in the trunk. To get some of the core parts I bought a group of items on eBay and had them shipped to Mark. They look lovely:
A number of these items I won't need and will end up in Mark's parts collection, but this gives me a number of the hard to find parts, or at least cores for them.
Another item on the shopping list that got purchased was a set of speaker grilles for the package shelf 6x9 speakers. I found these on eBay as well, and they were listed to fit 1971-2 Chevelle, Nova, Camaro and Monte Carlo. They have the right look as far as I am concerned and should work just fine:
I ordered two rolls of B-Quiet Ultimate as well. I used it on my convertible (some pictures here) and I think it's a good cost alternative to Dynamat. Click here for a link to their web page. They give data to support their comparison to their higher-priced competitor and I found it to be a quality product that is easy to use.
I have been spending lots of time looking at speakers. It looks like it's going to be mostly Polk, with 1" tweeters on the windshield in the top corners, dual 4" speakers in place of the factory dash speaker, and a pair of 6x9s in the package shelf, supplemented by a Kicker 8" compact sub under one of the seats. The sub has a volume control that will mount inside the console. I have decided that I'm going to go with an upgrade of my stock AM radio to keep the look more on the stock end. I will have an iPod connection in the console as well. No sense in dangling wires all over the place.
Finally, I spent some time setting up a spreadsheet for tracking the costs of this project. Maybe I am better off not knowing.... I Hopefully, it will all be worth it in the end.
Based upon how fast things are coming together on the A/C end, I probably need to get the interior out of the car this week and get going on speaker installation ASAP. I would rather have the sound deadening and stereo work done before a bunch of A/C gear gets in the way. Maybe the seats can be out for upholstery while the interior, stereo and A/C upgrades are taking place. Since the turbo car is currently sidelined with mechanical issues, I will probably just steal the passenger seat out of that if I need to have the car drivable.
