cronsformula350

well on 11/14 I began the dissasembly of my '89 L98 out of my '89 formula 350. I removed and labled all wiring so I won't forget where anything goes, but even then the L98's ecm and wiring aren't all that difficult to understand. So I removed all of the intake and air intake ducting, removed all my accessories, ignition, and drained some coolant out of the motor prior to pulling the tpi induction. I had no problems at this stage of the dissassembly. Now 11/21 I removed the y-pipe and exhaust manifolds, valve covers, rockers, pushrods, and heads. The drivers side head was a little more difficult, b/c with 125,000 miles on my motor, the graphite impregnated in the head gaskets, enjoyed staying stuck to the block and head, so I used a putty knife to make the head and block seperate. The cylinders were nice and shiny as I expected, and there was very mild carbon on the piston faces. The only problem I ran into so far besides my mom, was a broken exhaust manifold bolt on the #8 cylinder as I was pulling them off. But my maching shop will take care of that when I bring the heads in. My only main problem now is whether or not I should pull my shortblock, and install some forged pistons and fresh wrist pins, rings, cam and main bearings, have the block, crank and rods magnafluxed, then have the block bored .020 or .030 over with torque plates, and have the rods shot peened, and have the block decked, and have the mains align honed. I'm trying to decide if I should do this or not, my shortblock was very well taken care of and I don't have to refresh it yet, as the fresh motor should be putting out 425 horses and then some. I'll guess it will come down to good old money, and what kind of deal I can get. I'll post some pictures as soon as I finish this next roll.

RP1987GTA

430 hp?...you gonna put a big block chey in it or tow it with a F16 LOL i'm just joking...but 430 out of a TPI 350 is asking for ALOT!

cronsformula350

Well yes I am going to be pushing 430 horses out of my L98. I didn't say what I was doing, but I'll give you a quick overview. As far as head work, I'm reworking my L98 heads, b/c they're killer for a street/track motor, when massaged right. I am having a bowl blend, mild milling to true up the heads, 5-angle valve job on manley race flo 1.94 in/1.5 exh valves, a port match to get the int/exh to flow the same on both heads on every cylinder, extrude hone job, they will flow enough to support about 500 horses, and be very efficient b/c of the smaller valves and excellent velocity. I am going to leave my short block the way it is for my build up, b/c its spotless inside, and there are no problems in any are of the motor. The bores are nice and shiny, and I was told my my shop, Borowski Race enterprises, that has been building motors since '68, said that for my two years of street and heavy track use, my motor will be fine; at a later date, I may offset grind the crank and bore the motor .030 over and be around 365 cubes. As far as the intake goes, I'm going to port match a holley stealth ram, and radius the inlets of the base to smoothen out airflow. I will run my stock 48 mm throttle body, with my tpis airfoil, as I don't need anything larger since I'm not running more cubes, and this is going to be a velocity motor that will rev very quickly. My roller cam will have a gross lift of .536int/.544exh lift, and around 230+ duration at .050 and some more on the exh side. I will also be running guide plates, and full non-self aligning roller rockers. to keep the valve train stable, along with killer springs, retainers, locks and seals to withstand my abuse. My oil pan will be 6-7 quarts with a windage tray, and my stock oil cooler will still be used. I am going to have super competition long tube hooker headers, along with a custom 3" exhaust with an x-pipe and bullet mufflers, I won't lose any horsepower due to the larger exhaust diameter. I will build up my trans and run a 3000 stall and get 3.70:1 rear gears next year, and tune the computer to take advantage of all this work, I should be running a high 11 or low 12 with a race ready weight of 3200 lbs.