Many Thanks

[James OLC]

I wanted to take a quick minute to publicly thank David Pozzi for his incredible help and effort over the last couple of weeks (or months).

Sometimes simple projects snowball and what should be easy turns out to be far more complicated and involved. As pretty much everybody knows, David and Mary have been helping me with the ’67 since spring and the last couple of steps we’ve taken haven’t gone exactly as planned. Not to say that they did not go right – far from it, they have turned out better than I think we hoped – but they took the long route. A couple of times, when we thought we were going to make things easier, they wound up being harder… a couple of other times, one thing turned into another, and then another. Ultimately everything came together but nothing seems to have been easy lately. Through it all, David was there – seeing that it was done, done right, and ensuring that it came together.

To give you some idea how much work has gone into the OLC lately, we’ve got a revamped rear sway bar on the car now with a custom bar coming down the pipe, the entire front steering assembly has been modified; from steering arms to center link to tie rods – nothing has gone untouched. The car has been on a chassis dyno three different times. We have a new T-56 Magnum transmission in the car which required a new shifter and driveshaft. The charging system has gone from barely adequate to better than you could hope for. Every step of the way, David was there and made it happen.

I’ve said many times that projects like ours would not be possible with the help of great people and great companies and I have been very fortunate over the last while to have benefitted from both – Steve Rupp, D*ck, Jon, and Chris at Best of Show Coachworks, Kory and Turn Key Engine Supply, Inland Empire Driveshaft, Classic Chevy 5-speed and Tremec, Jay Harris and Mike at ISIS, David at Hellwig – have all played a part in this and I have to thank them as well.

David (and Mary and Ruby) thank you so much. I hope that one day I have the opportunity to pay this forward.

[Theresa]

Who doesn't love the Pozzi's??
Nice story.

[awr68]

Originally Posted by Theresa

Who doesn't love the Pozzi's??
Nice story.

X2!!

[Matt@BOS]

Glad to hear that it sounds like your car's problems have finally been sorted out by, a great group of people. Every time I went over to Best of Show it seemed like some terrible problem had developed.

Matt

[David Pozzi]

Thanks James. There were a few times I was ready to throw in the towel and make a break for home! The guys at Best of Show did all they could to get us ready for the dyno and I had to make and break several appointments with Kory at Turn Key Engines for dyno sessions. I hate bringing a car to a dyno that has "issues" we thought they were all put to bed but a short pull showed up some flaws in the electrical system. After upsizing power wires and figuring out anodized alternator brackets don't conduct electricity well at all, we uncovered even more small issues that held us back.
The engine now runs like a dream, just reach in the window and hit the start button and OLC fires right up and idles!!! What a difference from the way it started and ran before! It would quit repeatedly when hot, and "idled" at 1500 rpm's! Now it purrs at 800.

Kory is a true wizard with EFI and really knows the MEFI system inside and out, he didn't give up when we ran into a problem and finally solved it. Their facility in Oceanside is fantastic, with a huge stock of engines and engine parts, machinery and engine dyno in addition to a chassis dyno, I was wishing I could take one home with me.

We would have been lost without the ability to get knowledgeable people on the phone for advice. Inland Driveline Service in Ontario did a quick driveshaft job that helped get the trans finished. Best Of Show does great mechanical, Fabrication & electrical work in addition to their great paint. After hanging around their shop for almost a week, including Saturday and Sunday, I felt right at home. I ran out of clean clothes and had to bum some silkscreened T shirts from them, and Steve Rupp dropped by and donated a couple of GM performance parts shirts to get me by. Steve has always been willing to help out any way he can, (more than just shirts) - I can't thank him enough.

Still more to be done before leaving for Silver State...
David

Matt,
Great meeting you, and your car is going to be Awesome! It's going to be a lot of work to make SEMA with your 69, good luck!

[Steve1968LS2]

David was down here so long I was going to help him start shopping for a house.. lol

People don't realize how much is involved in shaking down a complicated build when it's done. I know David fixed a TON of stuff that should make the OLC a truly great car. Hell, the work he did fabricating the center link for extra clearance was a work of art. A lot of work tracking down that electrical gremlin too (note: annodizing doesn't conduct).

Anyways, it was great to see the car again. I hope you don't mind that I borrowed your rear spoiler..

[Steve1968LS2]

I think the funniest story was when they first plugged into the car's computer and found out the previous company had ZERO/NADA/NO programing data in the computer for below 1,500 RPM.. lol

No wonder it idled and ran like crud..

Anyways, I told Dave he should start a business helping guys sort out thier "done" cars. He's very maticulous and is one of the best problem solvers I've ran across.

[XLexusTech]

James/David. Many members are going a similiar path with thier front suspension. Stock sub ect. Can you give an overview of the changes you had to make?

[James OLC]

Yeah... the ECM was a really trying and unexpectedly difficult part of this adventure. After our experiences at the NORC in May I spoke to Katech about the tune and eventually got the answer that their dyno tuning and calibration was limited to the power curve as idle and intermediate tuning can vary depending on the application. Fair enough. The problem that we encountered after that was finding someone who understood and was willing to tune the MSD MEFI4B stuff; there just were not that many people who were knowledgable and willing - enter Turn Key Engines and their tunig wiz Kory.

Once we were on the dyno we found that we really had two major 'system related' issues with ECM that was hindering any tuning - one was low voltage (especially under load) and the other was an erratic TPS signal that was hampering the idle calibration. The low voltage issue was blamed for the engine shut down on our mile passes at the NORC in May and was resolved by upsizing the alternator power wire, adding a ground on the alternator, and adding a relay for the ECM power circuit (seems simple now). The erratic TPS signal was eventually tracked down to 'noise' from the wideband O2 sensors - we'll need to do some rewiring before we can run closed loop but nothing major. When I talked to MSD after the fact about the O2 issue their response was "yeah, maybe we should put that on the FAQ - I run into that problem alot" - thanks...

Going in to this year I knew that there were going to be teething pains - that's why I chose to run the One Lap of America next year and not this year. Sometimes it's difficult to chase down the last little bit here and there - especially when you are finally "done" after a long build - but it has to be done. I'm just glad that David, Mary, and everybody else has been so helpful in the process!

[James OLC]

Originally Posted by XLexusTech

James/David. Many members are going a similiar path with thier front suspension. Stock sub ect. Can you give an overview of the changes you had to make?

Not trying to be evasive on this one (not my intention at all) but we need to do some more testing and be 100% sure that we've gone the right way before we say too much about it. I would hate for someone to follow in my footsteps only to found out that I was wondering down the wrong path. I will say that I am probably the only first gen running second gen inner tie rod ends... but now I've siad too much...