The no budget build - manual, LSA, SS

Tell us about your new PPV, show us some pictures, let us know how you did what you did!
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fuzzkill
Posts: 152
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2017 4:19 pm

Re: The no budget build - manual, LSA, SS

Post by fuzzkill »

Thanks for the responses everyone.

I finished my layer of closed cell foam insulation overtop the dynamat earlier, and figured I would go ahead and lay out the body harness back in the cabin.

I thought I had figured another method than what Steve (smwalker) posted earlier but after reviewing his video again I realize the most sane thing to do is the exact same as what he did.

You can unloom things enough to get enough slack to get the main part of the harness behind the rear seat hump. But then the main SRS module connector won't reach. So that needs to either be lengthened (34 wires of 54 in the connector are used) OR unloom and depin the connector, and re-route those wires in front of the rear seat hump, gaining you back the 2" that it was short.

Also, Steve, I assume you must have used a 2015 or newer SS harness? That module in the trunk you point out is the suspension module for the Magride. Are you going to run those as well or no? I can't make my mind up between springs or coilovers.
fuzzkill
Posts: 152
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2017 4:19 pm

Re: The no budget build - manual, LSA, SS

Post by fuzzkill »

Small progress. I'm itching for the carpet I ordered but I know it's going to be a few more days at best. If my work ethic and free time continues I'm probably going to need to go ahead and remove the V6, rear cradle, etc to keep busy (while waiting for parts)

Haven't gotten to the doors yet, but got the trunk insulation done today. I was ready to pass the body harness into the trunk area but obviously I need the insulation done first. Once that was finished, I laid out the rear part of the body harness to see how things look - and it looks great. It seems that the only thing that will need to be lengthened is going to be the tail light connectors, and possibly the rear bumper harness. Rear bumper harness goes out the body, but not far enough to secure to the factory mounting clip. I will take a closer look at this later and see if there is a workaround or not. Tail light connections aren't a big deal because the connector is wrong anyway. So I can just cut my Caprice pigtail back with enough extra wire to make up the difference.

Factory Bose amplifier mounts in the Caprice no issue. As long as you don't have the auxiliary battery. I spent a few minutes scratching my head on the rear fuse box bracket, but then decided to compare it against the Caprice unit. Sure enough, the mounting bracket for the fuse box is *slightly* different. From the front they are identical but on the backside the bolt spacing is slightly different between the two. I thought this was a little odd since the battery bracket and amp bracket were the same, but oh well. Easy enough fix.

So with that most of the rear electrical is done. Body harness laid out in car, just waiting on swapping out the door harnesses to make the connections permanent. I don't want to cut my new carpet, so I will wait for it to show up before I reinstall the HVAC. But (to me at least) it already looks much better with just the body harness back in.

For those taking notes on SS body harness:
Had to unloom, re-route some wires and tie down locations on body harness
Will need to extend side curtain air bag connections, tail light connections, possibly rear bumper harness

Still unknown if any part of the headliner harness will need to be extended. I'm betting that with re-routing from factory I can gain the couple inch difference without having to break any wires.

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fuzzkill
Posts: 152
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2017 4:19 pm

Re: The no budget build - manual, LSA, SS

Post by fuzzkill »

Still wanting to work on the electrical and get that finalized, but I got to the point that I need to run the front body harness - and it goes behind the firewall insulation behind the motor and along the frame rail by the ABS module. So rather than trying to sneak that crap out I just went ahead and dropped the motor and trans out. Not sure where I am going to put it, I am fast running out of room.

I actually already have someone interested in the setup. They aren't super common but they are used for swaps. All aluminum DOHC V6, 300+hp, and still great mileage (even better in something lighter than a Caprice)

Anyway, next is to yank this off the subframe and start on the front body harness. Going to need to unloom a decent portion of it to add the 3 wires for the clutch switch circuit in.

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fuzzkill
Posts: 152
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2017 4:19 pm

Re: The no budget build - manual, LSA, SS

Post by fuzzkill »

Chipping away at it

Pulled the (V6) engine and trans off the cradle and onto a dolly out of the way. I literally have nowhere else to keep the empty subframe, so for now I went ahead and reattached it to the car.

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With the engine out, I removed the remaining bits of the HVAC box and firewall insulation to remove the front body harness.

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I de-pinned some spare connectors from the Caprice front body harness to add 3 circuits into the SS front body harness (all 3 for the clutch pedal position sensor). Once I added those to the connectors I fished the wire through the body grommet and wrapped it all up with the existing looming. I am probably going to add some extra wires over on the passenger side grommet as well to see if I can retain the headlight flashers.

Finally, got a few parts in. My Camaro SS 3.27 diff showed up, and I got an interesting package from Australia

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It's the missing piece for my shifter, they offer a gear position sensor and a small LCD display for current gear. Will be handy while getting used to the shifter and also when mindlessly rowing in traffic and forgetting what gear you're in. Can't just wiggle this one around in neutral to find out :lol:
fuzzkill
Posts: 152
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2017 4:19 pm

Re: The no budget build - manual, LSA, SS

Post by fuzzkill »

Got the front body harness finished and reinstalled into the body along with some of the HVAC box and firewall insulation. Also tossed back in the fuse box/ECM support to see how everything lays out.

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Been struggling a bit trying to figure out the best way to approach the front lamp harness. The Caprice front lamp harness will plug right into the SS fuse box and SS front body harness, but several things are different.

The SS uses direct feeds from individual fuses to the low beam headlights (HID)
The Caprice gets its low beam power from the BCM

Also, there is the flasher module. I really want to keep it, but it passes through the BCM as well. I can't confirm, but I'm pretty sure with an SS calibration in the BCM the BCM is going to
a) Ignore the circuit for the flasher
b) Probably not output voltage for the low beams

I can't test yet obviously. Going to need the dash back in for ignition power first. Also, the other issue is that if I'm programming everything for a 15 SS M/T, then the BCM/ECM is presumably going to be looking for the suspension module, ride height sensors, and mag ride actuators. I don't want any error messages on the dash.

Worst case, I can wire the Caprice harness like the SS harness and use the individual circuits for low beam feed. But I haven't decided how to proceed yet on that.
Pursuit
Administration Staff
Posts: 969
Joined: Tue Apr 23, 2013 3:39 pm
Location: Omaha, NE area

Re: The no budget build - manual, LSA, SS

Post by Pursuit »

On the flasher module, there can/should be a switched 12v source to activate the headlight flasher portion. The BCM circuit is a switched ground (from the flasher module) to activate the tail light/reverse light alternating flasher. DO NOT put 12v on the BCM circuit. Some agencies will intercept that BCM circuit to activate only the rear flashers by installing a switch-to-ground. That option and wiring diagram is shown in the GM technical manuals.

Maurice
Maurice Sheil

mhsheil@gmail.com

2011 Caprice Phantom Black 9C3
2012 Impala 9C1
1995 9C1 Caprice
1996 GMC Sierra C1500
1996 Chevrolet K2500 Extended Cab, long box, 454, 91,000 rust free miles
1974 SJ Grand Prix 455 well optioned with factory moon roof
fuzzkill
Posts: 152
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2017 4:19 pm

Re: The no budget build - manual, LSA, SS

Post by fuzzkill »

Pursuit wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 10:27 am On the flasher module, there can/should be a switched 12v source to activate the headlight flasher portion. The BCM circuit is a switched ground (from the flasher module) to activate the tail light/reverse light alternating flasher. DO NOT put 12v on the BCM circuit. Some agencies will intercept that BCM circuit to activate only the rear flashers by installing a switch-to-ground. That option and wiring diagram is shown in the GM technical manuals.

Maurice
Yeah, I was able to get it powered up and working, I need to add the circuit back into the fuse box that supplies power to the flasher. I would like to see if maybe I can get a custom BCM program that will keep the lighting config from the PPV, while everything else from the SS. I was trying to avoid custom modules but I have reached out to WAMS and I am waiting for a response. Worst case, I lose the tail flashers but everything else I can keep.

On that same note, with the headlight harness differences and the upfitter wiring for the strobes now missing, I ran some new wires for later use out from the cabin while everything is apart. The large grommets going through the firewall are extremely tedious to unloom, and honestly I'm not sure there is sufficient room to stretch the grommet for another bunch of wires. So I went out the base of the A pillar, through the factory grommet for the side markers (that we don't get). From there I can easily pass it through the inner fender structure, and out into the engine bay. This works out great because it is completely hidden in the engine bay as well, since it comes out behind the headlight on the driver side.

I've been kicking around what to start on next, as my carpet has been delayed a couple days. I want to drop the rear cradle, to add the electronic parking brake, but I don't have the floor space for that yet. I also want to start tearing in the LS3, but same issue. So I decided to tackle the doors, which I've been putting off.

While examining wiring diagrams, I noticed that the SS has an actuator motor for the child lock function. So when you press the window lockout button, it automatically activates the child lock on the handle so the doors won't open from the inside. I decided I wanted to keep this as well if possible. I have to swap the door harnesses anyway, to get the wiring for the passive entry button.

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I gutted the driver rear SS door, including the door latch. The lock rod and door pull cable come attached to it. Laying it out next to the PPV latch you can see that both the lock rod is a different shape, and the door pull cable is much longer.

I was not excited about the proposition of taking apart the latches - but it turns out this part was very simple. The lock rod isn't even held in with a clip, it is just rotated into place to lock it. And the whole plastic cover doesn't have to come off for the door cable, there is a small hatch that opens up for cable removal. I'm assuming they do this to either use the same latch in many applications, or because when you buy a replacement latch it doesn't come with these parts. Either way, it made the SS -> PPV latch swap very simple.

Before reinstalling anything into the PPV door, I installed my sound deadening into the door shell. Hopefully it makes a nice difference.

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With the PPV components installed on the SS latch, I reinstalled it and the door harness. I compared length beforehand and they were nearly identical. Of course, due to the differences in how it is routed internally in the door, the SS harness came up a little short to the speaker, and the window motor. Everything else reached fine and about 2/3 of the clips were able to be re-secured. I changed the routing of the harness slightly, and I was able to make everything reach without having to lengthen any wires. I will need to add some additional loom on the window motor wire to make sure it doesn't chafe and I will secure the rest of the harness up to the missing clip locations.

Now that the process is down, the passenger rear door should be much faster. I'm not sure I can do the fronts yet as I can't open the front doors all the way on the lift. Oops. This will be a little more complicated as well as I think there are some modules in the door as well as the mirrors that will be needed.

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Lastly, I also threw on the SS trunk carpet. Slight modification needed but the major components line up and it came with the car so I'm going to use it! Planning on doing something similar with the underhood liner when the time comes.

Until next time ...
fuzzkill
Posts: 152
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2017 4:19 pm

Re: The no budget build - manual, LSA, SS

Post by fuzzkill »

I repeated the latch and harness swap on the passenger side rear, everything went smoothly there.

Afterwards, I did some cleanup in the shop. I took most of the PPV bits I won't need and put them in my shed for now. This cleared up a bit of room so I can work on the rear subframe.

As previously discussed, the only difference between the PPV cradle and the SS cradle is the provisions for the electronic parking brake. My SS cradle was no good, so I cut the brackets off of it to attach to my PPV subframe.

Dropped out the subframe, and the whole process was pretty simple. Cleaned up the parts, exposed some fresh metal, and referenced my pictures from the SS cradle for placement.

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I will be swapping the diff, but I think I've forgotten to order the diff bushings. I'm not sure it's really any easier to do on the ground anyway so I'll probably toss it back in the car so I can move onto the next thing. We'll see how it goes ...
fuzzkill
Posts: 152
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2017 4:19 pm

Re: The no budget build - manual, LSA, SS

Post by fuzzkill »

I wired up the rear axle harness, and reinstalled the cradle into the car. About 5 minutes later I find not only the diff bushings that I forgot I had, but I also found cradle bushing inserts. Oops. I guess if that is the biggest issue it's not that bad. I blame the fact that I've been collecting parts for 7 months ...

If anything, at least I can go ahead and swap the diff anytime I like now. I left the struts off the rear, trying to secure a set of coilovers before the car is done.

Probably no update tomorrow, I have to do my taxes. Can you tell I was looking forward to it? If I can get that done without jumping off a bridge or a boating accident, we can keep moving.

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lastcall190
Posts: 604
Joined: Mon Sep 11, 2017 5:17 am
Location: North Jersey

Re: The no budget build - manual, LSA, SS

Post by lastcall190 »

Ah a fellow wait to the last minute-er! All the extension means for me is time to put it off :lol:

Nice progress on the car!

-J
2012 Caprice
2008 CVPI

Both gone but not forgotten...
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