RS Blog 16 - Little More Fitting Before Wiring
Continued progress on Radiator
Nothing new on the process for installing panels. Just making a few small notes about sealing the lower radiator mount along with side panel fitment to prevent installation headaches. Scuff, apply coating, seal things, etc.
Determining Wheel Speeds
Next random topic my mind jumped to is wheel speed. Yes I am not anywhere close to mounting wheels, but I am planning wiring and thus thought it would be good to figure out any wiring to get rotational speeds. From web research I found that Porsche 996 do not have a gearbox VSS and just use individual corner wheel speed sensors aka ABS sensors. Making it difficult for me to use because well the rotors and hubs on Ultima are not Porsche…
Diving down a rabbit hole of searching to find anything aftermarket. I found two options:
Adapter for monitoring the output axle of 996 gearbox, not sure if this would adapt to a G96.50 (turbo box). This only will provide a single source for axle speed and thus doesn’t enable traction control functionality. For someone this could be useful, thus posting.
Plus it might make your Ultima travel back in time?
https://www.deloreanmidwest.com/product/vehicle-speed-sensor-kit/
Rotor trigger discs - only found a single company making this type of product. Seems like a legitimate method to add a trigger ring to hub/rotors that are two piece design. They are a bit pricey and unfortunately don’t clear the Ultima hub.
https://www.trigger-wheels.com/store/contents/en-uk/p158.html
A bit of time in SolidWorks plus sendcutsend.com means I will have a pair custom made for my Ultima. Once the parts arrive I’ll test fit and confirm viability. Main concern is how they will handle top speed, essentially will they have enough structure for any possible side loading.
Detmers Design - prototype ABS Ring
LS Accessory Drives
Holy shit there are way too many variations of accessory drives for such a common engine design. There are at least 3 factory variations depending on the chassis your engine might have existed within originally. Plus the aftermarket adds a massive combination of variants. This essentially blew my mind. I’ve gathered the 3 factory ones are (1) truck, (2) camaro and (3) corvette which mostly just moves in/out the belt spacing from front of block.
Considering I’ll be running a Dailey Engineering dry sump setup it means I have to sort out how to keep A/C and alternator in a not quite stock location. The dry sump requires using the standard belt spot for A/C on a Corvette, essentially close to block behind the serpentine belt. I want to keep A/C low mounted to keep factory Ultima lines in tack. After tons of searching there are literally no setups with this as a possibility to low mount A/C compressor and drive via serpentine. A quick email to ATI and they have a solution for this situation, something they had developed in the past for COPO (Chevy performance). They can modify their standard damper to have a 4 rib belt mounted to front of damper, thus allowing me to move forward compressor while mostly keeping in correct spot. All this will make more sense once the engine is installed. For now it also meant I will mount alternator above A/C compressor on passenger side. Future pictures will pull it together and of course I’ll document the part numbers used on main build bio page.
Both brackets are from ICT Billet. They make very nice parts and their instructions are amazingly clear. So far I highly recommend their kit.
Last Teaser Before Diving into Wiring Chaos
Mounted the headers to mock block for perspective and guidance when routing wires. The more parts you can temporarily mount the better you’ll route electrons around the chassis, keeping them safe from harm (heat/oil/water/cuts) and optimizing.
