September – October 2018

September and October has been quite a busy time with work trips and holidays getting in the way of working on the Ultima.

Similar to all my other interior panels, I had to put in hard work to do the sill covers in CF.

I also decided that I would cover the inside of the front and rear canopy in CF.

I purchased a power cutoff switch from ATS motorsport. I decided to mount the cutoff on the inside passenger panel.

With the last order from Ultima, I also included the additional break light switch that fits on the brake pedal so that the rear pressure switch can be used solely for the Chevy ECU.

I covered the cockpit floor panel with carpet after measuring out and drilling the mounting holes for the 6-point harness. I also installed the rubber grommets for the handbrake and gear linkage cables in the rear bulkhead.

I installed the 6-point harness and tested the fitment with the bucket seats.

Due to the Ultima not having a rear windows, I decided to order an Android-based read-view mirror-camera. I order a Junsun PVR-camera with a built-in GPS, 3G modem and front/rear camera with SD-Card recording. I had to design a mounting bracket in order to fit the mirror, and used the 3-D printer to print a prototype bracket for testing.

Before mounting the engine for the 1st time, I tidied up the handbrake cables and gear selector cables and secured them with P-Clips along the side of the frame braces as per the Ultima build manual.

The next job was to start securing, testing and extending the body as well as engine wiring harness. I purchased the standard wiring harness from GM Performance for the motor, so was not sure how this would work on the Ultima, so decided to fit the engine in its location so I could do a test fit of the engine wiring harness.

As long as you have a proper engine hoist, fitting the engine is a one person job. The standard engine mountings from the factory is designed for an old-style steel Chevy block, so I had to order a separate mounting plate to adapt this for the LS3 motor. I order this mount, together with the CTS-V front drive kit which includes the alternator, pulleys, air conditioning compressor and power steering pump. The power steering pump won’t be used, however the CTS-V kit was more cost effective than ordering all the mounting brackets, pulleys, bolts and components separately.