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After I fixed it, Dad and I threw on the new Holley carb that came off a 496 BBC Chevelle. We figured it would be filthy rich seeing the size difference of the engines. Fired it up and it ran perfect! No tuning and it ran noticeably better and had a crisper, more responsive feel than the old Demon.
Ever see a blind man wrenching on a car before? Now you have.
Decided to drive it to work the next day, and a co-worker asked if I wanted to do a quick run against his large turbo 2 rotor RX7, I can't say no, so we leave and I got two blocks out idling around a corner and it bangs and dies in a cloud of smoke. Tried to turn it over and heard an even bigger bang and now it's locked up. Boss towed me back to the shop where it sits now. I'm thinking a broken piston, broken wrist pin, or a rod let loose as all the smoke went out the tail pipes and didn't leave a trail of oil on the ground anywhere.
We just cleaned out the garage today and moved my dad's 1970 Chevelle out to storage to make some room.
If for some reason you're wondering which direction this car is heading, it's well on it's way there now. Luckily I had this disassembled LQ4 sitting around, and have a friend in Waverly, NE that owns LSx Automotive and Performance. The block is dropped off along with the crank and a set of LS2 rods and pistons to up the compression. Some 6K mile LS3 heads off a 2010 camaro that I purchased for $600 shipped will arrive in 2 days, just to get sent in to the machine shop for a 0.030" mill job. I'll be keeping the carb on it, with a Jr. Victor intake. It will also be receiving a custom grind cam from LSxAP and a set of stainless rings on the pistons to safely handle a 200 shot whenever I please. I need to get ahold of some 1 7/8" longtubes and the other basic swap parts.
How much power will it put out? We're looking forward to seeing 450 down to the ground on a mustang dyno, and in excess of 600 on some nitrous, just for whenever I need to embarrass one of those pesky mustang owners or import drivers a little more than normal.
When will it be done? We are hoping to have it ready to rock by Street Car Takeover in Kansas City in a few months to hurt some feelings. Lets face it, nobody wants to get beat by a thirdgen with paint flaking off and negative rake.
Unfortunately, all of this is leaving me pretty dry on funding for a while. That is forcing me to sell any SBC parts I have listed previously in this thread that I was going to install. Shoot me an offer on any of it and I'll let it go for a reasonable price if anyone is interested.
Glad to see you are going LSx. Have fun with the swap, its worth it
That's what I've been hearing. I've just gotta keep my promise to someone where I said if my engine doesn't last a full year I'll LSx swap it. It was 15 days from the one year mark.
So then I made the mistake of buying a dirt cheap mustang from a co-worker (I know, I know.)
He bought it for $1100, then had to have it towed with starter issues twice in 6 hours, so he sold it to me for that much. Found out the starter solenoid was wired backwards. Fixed that issue, so I took it out for a victory burnout.. and broke it.
That's all fixed now as well as some other not so unmentionables for that car on this forum, in short it's ready to sell to make some money for this car.
Man.. I gotta tell ya, You dont baby your car. Part of me loves it. Got all these guys here at this site who are afraid to burn off a set. Not you! Be nice to see other guys having fun.
On the other hand, the other side of me says, Now a days, you will get in serious shi@ and not drive for a while if the wrong person sees you.....and, Not to sound like a parent, Please be careful man. Put in a cage..... Great thread man. keep the pics coming!
I suppose I'll start this off by saying I sold the Mustang (just so I don't get too many people picketing me to leave the site). I ended up making a $1000 profit on the car. I paid off a couple things then got impatient with my lack of money for the LSx so immediately drove 60 miles and bought a 383 for $2000. It has a SCAT rotating assembly with Keith Black dome pistons, a big hydraulic flat tappet cam, and some AFR 205 heads with 75cc chambers. Threw that in over a week along with my longtubes, which was probably the biggest pain of a step in the whole installation. I don't know why someone would spend $1700 on new heads, and not get angle plugs.. He was even running the same Hooker 2210 headers as me, and had them bashed in to next to nothing. I had to bash the #7 primary to clear the plug, and put a wrap around the boot. The back 4 plugs are beyond a pain to access.
Anyway.. we finished it up early in the week, then took it over to the exhaust shop where I had them do 3" duals with 4" Magnaflow bullets.
I picked the car up thursday, and got some stuff together to head to Street Car Takeover that weekend.
The next morning I brought the car over to The Shop, Inc. here in Lincoln to have it dyno tuned. After some adjustments it made 326/315 to the tires on a mustang dyno.
Video of the dyno run above, click on it to see the video.
Packed some stuff up, and started my 1000+ mile journey with my girlfriend and best friend in his cammed 4.8L sonoma. The first day was a breeze, made it down to Independence, MO just outside of KC and went over to Justune for the Dyno Day. My friend decided why not, so he put his sonoma on the rollers and made 306/286 to the ground on a dynojet, and headed back to the hotel.
The next day we went over to Blue Springs, MO for the massive car show. 1200 cars, maybe around 5000 people in the lot. It was ridiculously overpacked with almost any car you could imagine. Upon entering the lot I immediately felt outclassed..
Twin Turbo Gallardo Superlegera. Ran a high 9 second quarter at 167mph.
CLEAN
This cavalier had a nasty sounding misfire.
We failed to find any street action going on that wasn't busted up already, so we headed back to the hotel for another long day of driving for sunday.
Sunday was probably the biggest mess of a day for the whole weekend, which wasn't bad at all. We woke up late (missed my waffle again, that pissed me off), rushed to get things together and wound up at MoKan dragway about 3 hours after we were planning. I equipped my ******, threw some 110 in the tank and headed down the track. Made it all of 60 feet before it started spitting, so I idled it down the track. Made another pass afterwards with more 110 and the same results. I blew my fuel filter out, lowered the float bowls in the carb, but I'm pretty sure now that the 105 temps and my unbelievably hot underhood temps were boiling the fuel before it reached the carb. I decided to make one last pass, which turned out the best, but still with issues. It spit coming off the line, then ran fine for about 600 feet before spitting again. I lifted around 750 feet and coasted the rest of the way and still managed a 13.63 @ 85 on street tires lifting mid track, and was greeted on exit with a pegged temp gauge. Popped the hood and found my alternator belt laying on the intake. Tossed it back on and 94Nissan and I drove home, problem free.
Not a bad weekend for two cars travelling over 1000 miles, beat on occasionally and taken over 140mph on a couple occasions that were put together by teenagers in their parents garages with small amounts of cash.
Couple more videos, click on them to be linked over to the video. (I'll try to get them on youtube before long, just don't have a ton of time to update this).
I love the picture of your car in front of the "Low-emitting fuel efficient" sign. I had to save a copy of that one.
Hey now it's fuel efficient! ..for what it is..
It's got a lot more in it than that 13.63, but I don't know if the air up here in Nebraska is good enough for me to cut a good time. Friday I took it to the local 1/8th mile and bolted the slicks on. I killed the tree, but the air was so dense that I LOST 8mph and a half second in the 1/8th mile. Hell, even my 60' times were down .2 from street tires to slicks. Down by Joplin, MO the car ran an 8.5 @84 in the 1/8, up here at Pacific Junction, IA I couldn't do better than a 9.0 @76 with the car running smoother, and not boiling fuel. Everyone seemed to be at least a half second off their usual times.
To make up for that difference, I may be throwing a small shot of juice at the car. I'd like it to run high 7s in the 1/8th with decent air. Luckily I just received a promotion, so either the car will find upgrades a little faster, or I'll waste it on something stupid like everyone else my age does..
Let's see where we left off.. I guess for starters I've been fighting my alternator alignment to keep the belt on after making a pull (and overheating everytime).
Brought the car to NO PREP at I29 Dragway to enter the street tire class. I wasn't scared of anybody there.. Except for the one guy who generally runs 7.0s in the 1/8th. Guess who I draw first round? Yep, the only one I'm scared of. Guess who wins? Yep, him.. By a car and a fender. Guess who goes on to win the whole class? You're getting good at guessing aren't you? Atleast I was the closest to beating him.
Brought the car back over there for some testing on different tires, best I managed was an 8.28@84, need to figure out some traction issues and I may be in the 7s naturally aspirated. Here's a video, I taught that Fiat Dart not to mess with a Third Gen.
Tried some drag radials, they just ignited. But the ZR1 wheels looked killer.
Got Larry Larson to sign my dash when he was in town. If you've never heard of him.. you've probably been in complete hiding of the racing scene. 5x Drag week champion. First above 200mph on drag week, first in the 6s in drag week, first street legal vehicle to run a 5 second quarter mile. He dropped everything working on his truck just to sit and talk to me for a few minutes, if that doesn't say something about somebodies character, I don't know what does. He unfortunately got knocked out in the big tire class, but my dream of seeing him make a pass down the strip has been completed.
Sorry for an unorganized update, some things will be changing on the car soon. Nitrous will be added (waiting on jets, and some odds and ends), maybe some new slicks, shocks, etc. I need the car to leave harder, there's a subaru owner that needs a mouth quieted down a few notches around here.
Couple small things to update, the car now has a serpentine setup for the alternator, it blew out the water pump gaskets, which I replaced two days ago, to blow out again yesterday.
The new tires showed up. (Hoosier 295/50/16 drag radials)
And someone took a sweet picture of me drooling over that C7Z06 next to me.
Spraying out of the hole will definitely result in some interesting launches, or it would.. but on my way home from my nitrous dealer the car started missing, then the idle dropped from 800rpm to 450, and oil pressure dropped to 10psi and the car started knocking bad. I noticed the crank pulley and harmonic balancer shaking pretty bad. Pulled the oil filter and found this..
All bearing material. I'm just guessing the balancer went bad and took out a main bearing. Little frustrating that the motor is coming out a couple months after it's been put in.. but oh well. (that makes it more times the motor has been out than it's been washed recently).
Pulled it in the driveway at 4, started working on it at 6 and had the motor out by 10.
Tore the motor down after work today, doesn't look good. The front main bearing was broken, cracked, spun, gouged, everything but decent. Spun the #6 rod bearing pretty bad, took a few thousanths off the crank just from spinning. Found out the idiot that built the engine threw all this money into the rotating assembly and AFR heads, but skimped out BIG by putting an old stock GM oil pump back in.
All in all, the block will need cleaned, honed, maybe a new crank if it can't be turned, maybe a rod if it's non salvageable, oil pump, timing chain set, and other odds and ends.
I'm not too irritated, I still have a fairly new set of AFR heads I got out of the motor, and a block that's been cleared for the extra stroke. Those alone are worth what I paid for it.
With the last No Prep of the year fast approaching 2 saturdays from now, and me already being pre-registered for the street tire class, we are going to rush to get it back together. Not with this engine however, thankfully I have friends that line me up with others on parts. Working on a deal for a fully forged 327 shortblock and a solid roller camshaft that would be perfect for that size of engine in my opinion. I'll release more details on that engine if everything lines up right, but I'll be needing a bigger tach for sure.
Here's some pictures of the main bearing that went bad.
Most people are when they hear how often I go through engines.
UPDATE: I haven't touched the car since I pulled the engine, but I sold the drag radials that I had just installed for what I paid for them, and bought this 1977 GMC Sierra Grande for $1200. 350/th350/Dana 44 front 12 bolt rear/3.73s/33x12.50s. I'm very happy with how well it drives, just needs a radio and some rust repair.
Aand maybe a 5.3 after filling the two tanks (both work by the way).
Man.. I gotta tell ya, You dont baby your car. Part of me loves it. Got all these guys here at this site who are afraid to burn off a set. Not you! Be nice to see other guys having fun.
On the other hand, the other side of me says, Now a days, you will get in serious shi@ and not drive for a while if the wrong person sees you.....and, Not to sound like a parent, Please be careful man. Put in a cage..... Great thread man. keep the pics coming!
Amen brother! What's the point of having a car if you're not going to drive it. For instance the guy with the 5 mile iroc or whatever the mileage is. What did he say when someone asked if he was going to drive it? Hah. Not even worth commenting on. Its like having a drop dead gorgeous wife and leaving her in the closet. Cars were meant to be driven. Period. All these garage queens kind of make me laugh. When they drop dead maybe the epitaph will read "he did have a low mileage car" LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
Man, love those trucks, they're no frills, solid, trucks. If you can find a 4-speed with granny gear that might help your fuel guzzling. Does it have lockout hubs up front or is it full-time 4wd?
Man, love those trucks, they're no frills, solid, trucks. If you can find a 4-speed with granny gear that might help your fuel guzzling. Does it have lockout hubs up front or is it full-time 4wd?
I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE THAT THIS UPDATE IS ALL OVER THE PLACE, AND ABOUT MORE THAN JUST THE THIRDGEN
If you don't feel like reading all the nonsense, scroll to the bottom to get the summary about JUST the Trans Am. There isn't a whole lot new.
It had lockout hubs, 4wd worked great! I loved the truck but I moved out of my parents house to a small town about 30 miles out, so it had to go. Sold it for $1700, so I made about $300. In it's place, I bought this fresh new daily for a grand!
37mpg>7mpg
Then used it immediately to bring some new prostars back for the trans am since my s10 was locked in the back lot at work.
Towed a cummins with it (my coworkers wrote all over it with tire marker)
Then blew a headgasket, fixed it, and broke the camshaft about 12 hours later. That's where the del sol sits as of now. Hopefully picking up a cam this weekend so I can get back to saving money for the Trans Am.
SO! Since that broke I bought this 1988 Suburban that had 33s and a 5" lift for $600. Drove it 15 miles home and sold it 6 days later for a grand.
That quick cash landed me up with a $400 406 shortblock that supposedly had just startup time on it. Upon inspection, the cam bearings were chewed up and one main bearing was installed top-bottom rotated (if that makes sense), so it blocked oil flow and wiped out the bearings. New bearings are here waiting on me to wash the block and polish the crank, then my Iron Eagles and a Solid Flat tappet cam (still under decision) will find it's way in, and be finished off with leftover parts from the 383. With my move and switching jobs though, it still may be a little while before I can do anything with the car, which has me discouraged, especially when I have the car home now looking at it. I even swapped the Iroc wheels from my S10 to the trans am, and the Racestars to the S10.
Rears surprisingly don't stick out too far with the 4th gen rear.
But the S10 looks decent!
If there's any real bonus at this point of the update, I have a garage now!
(featuring my roommate)
For some reason, garages I'm in always end up like this.
TL;DRMoved out, ran out of money.
Moved Trans Am to new home to get out of parents'.
Made $400 by buying and selling a suburban
Spent $400 on a 406 that I'm freshening up
Currently waiting on money situation to straighten out to get everything together.
A little bit! Anymore I've ran out of things to do, so I'm a little discouraged about my car.
Roommate 1: Tearing down and re-doing parts he doesn't like about his 4.8 LSx sonoma.
Roommate 2: Just picked up a 6.0LS and 4L80E for nothing and is gonna shove that in a $300 83 S10 he bought.
Me: Looking at my $1800 machine bill I owe on my 6.0 I've been building. Bottom line about that is, I can't afford it. So my dad might be taking it off my hands.
I sold a set of rims to the owner in Seward around 2005. Then I met up with the Lincoln owner some night around 2008 during some street races outside of Lincoln. Craziness. Good luck with the car!
I sold a set of rims to the owner in Seward around 2005. Then I met up with the Lincoln owner some night around 2008 during some street races outside of Lincoln. Craziness. Good luck with the car!
You probably met Justin in 08. It's crazy seeing the history on the car and people telling me stories about it. One guy came up to me at a car show and said "the first time I was legally drunk was in the back of this car".
Small update: The 406 I bought to toss in the car was no good. Line bore was too far out of whack, block is not salvageable.
Also traded my nitrous kit for some tires.
Lastly, my priorities have shifted yet again, to a car that's been on my wall since I was 5 years old. Bought myself a present for my 20th birthday.
My new 2002 Z06
Dad's on the left, mine on the right.
Car obviously needs some help, been fighting clutch issues since i bought it. At this point who knows when I'll get the Thirdgen back together. Hopefully soon, but with my busy schedule and expensive lifestyle (nobodies fault but my own), it may be quite some time.
Bump. Spoiled this car by loading it up on my old work trailer and giving it a garage.
Also ordered a $600 Eagle 385ci rotating assembly from summit. My old block from the last engine was fine after being line honed. I also have a set of heavily ported Iron Eagles setup for a large solid roller, as well as a set of solid roller lifters I bought from Jesse a while back. Currently rebuilding my bank account, but shouldn't take much more than what I've got sitting around to put something together.
Upon recent inspection of the car after sitting for the last year, the driver's side engine mount is cracked, coolant overflow is busted, and the shifter mount broke off the floor (convinced one of my old roommates should be thanked for that). One of these weekends I'll get my welder pulled out and make a new bracket out of some flat steel I've got sitting here, and fix the crack in the engine mount.
Oh, and since I never posted, some puzzling info on the last 383 that made it's way into the car.
The rotating assembly wasn't properly torqued, as some of the main and rod bolts backed right out, others needed a 3 ft breaker bar.
The heads were smaller intake runners than I was told.
The biggest surprise was the cam. I was told it was a 280x/290x advertised duration hydraulic flat tappet comp cam. After running the part number (and finding the ends of the lobes chewed off after pulling it out), I found out the cam was a hydraulic roller made for a factory roller SBC, MATCHED WITH A FLAT TAPPET LIFTER. It's surprising that this engine even made it to the dyno, let alone the 1000 mile road trip, and countless wide open throttle pulls.
The rotating assembly wasn't properly torqued, as some of the main and rod bolts backed right out, others needed a 3 ft breaker bar.
The heads were smaller intake runners than I was told.
The biggest surprise was the cam. I was told it was a 280x/290x advertised duration hydraulic flat tappet comp cam. After running the part number (and finding the ends of the lobes chewed off after pulling it out), I found out the cam was a hydraulic roller made for a factory roller SBC, MATCHED WITH A FLAT TAPPET LIFTER. It's surprising that this engine even made it to the dyno, let alone the 1000 mile road trip, and countless wide open throttle pulls.
that sounds ugly... that's why I'm hesitant to buy an engine off someone I don't know
I am too, atleast now.
Also, that 406 I bought above a while back ended up having next to no run time like they told me, but due to an oiling issue (bearing installed wrong) the crank and block are both trash, and are currently being used as winter weight in my s10.
Update: Block, rotating assembly and heads are dropped off at the shop. I'll be working with the shop owner in any spare time to get this thing together. I will attempt to go into detail with this build as well as keep track of cost.
The idea here is the low buck saturday night sleeper. Lure in unsuspecting races in parking lots with my "305 with a circle track cam and headers", and maybe take some cash home. The engine will be painted cast grey for more "meh". Get rid of any dress up that was on it to take away suspicions of someone actually spending money on an old thirdgen with paint falling off. If you like the purist style, I'd stray away from the thread from here on out. It may not look pretty.
Parts list: Stock 4 bolt main 350 block. Previously obtained.
-Clearanced for additional stroke, will be opening up oil passages and returns.
Update: Believe it or not, I have actually put some work into this mess. I'm pretty well finished working over the block. Sorry in advance for lack of pictures.
Started out by opening up my front and rear oil returns, as well as tapping the center returns for plugs to make all the oil run to either the front or back of the engine. They will be getting screens for when I break top end components. We also opened up the distributor bore to fit it for O rings, as well as cut and drilled my distributor.
Next we opened up the oil passages on the rear main cap. The first image shows nearly half of the passage blocked from the factory.
Factory compared to finished.
No more restrictions.
The cap to block passage was also off.
A little more grinding to clearance the block after test fitting the rotating assembly and cam was done, and I should be done with the block.
Next I'll be matching my already "ported" heads to a felpro 1206 gasket, which was supposedly already done until I laid the gasket down. The intake will be matched as well.
There may be a few details I'm forgetting, but that's a basic grouping of the work that is done.
Progress has been even slower than normal lately. My daily driver s10 started knocking so I've been in more of a rush to finish my 4th gen.
One thing I DID manage to do, is finish off the port work on the heads.
Before:
After:
My slicks also showed up. 28x10.5x15 Hoosiers. I will be switching these back and forth between the third and fourth gen. The reason I went with a Bias-Ply tire is that the Camaro is a 6 speed with a 9" and 4.20 gears with a large cam/spray 5.3 going in.
Might be able to make more progress next week, but it's still looking like a couple months before the car starts.
Unfortunately for me, my fourth gen has taken most of my attention being that the drivetrain is out and sitting on someone's shop floor once again while I'm working two jobs. I have since caved in and decided it'll be another two years before this thing hits the road if I keep working on it an hour or two a week (all the time I have to spare), and told the individual that owns the shop that I do my work at to finish up the engine build for me. Not something I like to do, but it's MUCH more worth my time to get the extra 4 hours a day in at the second job than to work on the f bodies an hour a day.
THEREFORE, progress updates to come soon, rather than another 4 months down the road. (hopefully)
My slicks also showed up. 28x10.5x15 Hoosiers. I will be switching these back and forth between the third and fourth gen. The reason I went with a Bias-Ply tire is that the Camaro is a 6 speed with a 9" and 4.20 gears with a large cam/spray 5.3 going in. Attachment 315279
Might be able to make more progress next week, but it's still looking like a couple months before the car starts.
just read entire thread, did i miss when you went from z06 to 4th gen camaro?
just read entire thread, did i miss when you went from z06 to 4th gen camaro?
You didn't miss something if I didn't include it. I've been trying to stay more on topic with the thirdgen.
But, unfortunately the Z06 was totaled when a college student ran into it on a gravel road. The camaro was supposed to be it's replacement, however, being that I've only been able to drive it a total of 10 days in my 10 month ownership of the car, I don't think anything will keep me from selling it when it's back together, for the third time.
04-05-2015, 03:57 PM
A little bit! Anymore I've ran out of things to do, so I'm a little discouraged about my car. 
