LQ4 into a 3rd Gen/1972 Nova by frojoe

4 minute(s) of a 891 minute read

Clint, I was also throwing around that same idea. I was previously planning on routing 2X oil cooler soft lines between the motor mount pedestal and the block, including a heat protective sheath around them, but room for that is looking slim. I really liked the block-hugging design of the stock truck oil cooler hard lines, but the ID of them was just too small in my opinion. Jamming an extra 5/8" hard line line in there might be tight. I would prefer stainless over aluminum just for vibration resistance, however either material hard line would need to be supported to the block in at least 1 other spot, so vibration fatigue might not be a problem with aluminum.

Last night I made the passenger side block-mounted adapter plate pushing the passenger engine mount forward 1.75".. but I haven't started modifying the subframe mount pedestal yet. Before I do that work... this has me thinking about the idea of remaking the driver side motor mount pedestal out of 100% fabricated thick-wall tube for the horizontal bolt, and reinforced rectangular tube as the vertical support, to open up room on the inboard side of the pedestal (between it an block) as well as on the outboard side (near downpipe).

Only unknown headache would be.. how to attach hard line to AN 90* fitting? Only options I can think of are:

1) find an industrial shop to flare the 5/8" tube to a 37* JIC flare

2) buy a -10AN steel male bung and weld it to the end of a stainless tube, use a 90* female -10AN to 1/2" NPT

Red is the 100%-fabricated motor mount pedestal, blue is a 90* -10AN male to 1/2" NPT, purple is 5/8" tube with bend and flared for a -10AN tube nut....

4-26-2018

Since I had already alotted some time after work today to modify the passenger side motor mount pedestal, and after the chat today, I just couldn't bring myself to waste time on hacking up the original pedestal, so I just went ahead and rough tacked-together a 100%-fabricated pedestal for the passenger side...... and then for the driver side too haha.  

I'll test fit this weekend, and if it all fits well, will reinforce with gussets and stuff. My thinking is, it's new steel, thicker than original, and will allow plentiful room for hard/soft line routing... so no reason not to go down this route instead..