ddeennis

i picked up a 1993 L05 factory roller cam engine from the salvage yard. it is stamped V0315SAF i need help to decode this. passenger bank machined pad this came off of. i bought a factory stock LT1 cam "779" 191/196 @ .050" .418"/.430" lift. im using this to replace the even weaker roller cam in the L05 above. Must i buy a melonized dist. gear or can i use the dist. gear that came with the L05? i want to make sure i do that part right i dont want my cam and dist. chewed up because the metals are not compatiable. i have 193 heads and will they support a .430" lift or do i need to machine the guides down? How much lift can a set of factory 193 heads take before bind? some reading i have seen said no more then .450 and others have said .480 this year of engine did they have metric rings? if so what size are they stock? or are they still 5/64"? what about bearings are they the same as say a 70's model 350 or are they different too? sorry for all the questions i have been searching for days on the internet to fill my brain with gen 1 knowledge or really anything that has to do with mid 80's and up small blocks. just so you know im not new to engines just this newer style for which i have ignored long enough. my knowledge needs to expand farther then the 60's and 70's big/small block chevy. thanks for your time dennis

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five7kid

Welcome aboard thirdgen.org.

Decoding the pad won't really buy you anything. If it's roller lifters, it came out of a passenger car.

What are your plans for the engine? Apparently you are looking to freshen it up, but what induction are you going to use on it? What will the car be used for? It may make more sense to get different heads than to worry about how much lift those swirl ports can handle. FWIW, those who have tried every trick in the book don't get any benefit above .450" lift with those heads; so stock, it won't do you any good to go even that high. Therefore, the LT1 cam will be fine. But, plan on all new valve springs (and retainers to eliminate those stupid factory exhaust rotators).

The factory distributor gear is melonized. It works fine with factory-style roller lifter or flat tappet cams.

I believe they went to metric rings in the late 3rd gen era, so yours should also be metric. If you get stock replacement '93 rings, there won't be a problem. Bearings didn't change from 1968 to 1999.

ddeennis

just knowing what car it came from for a piece of mind. kinda like owning a treasure chest and never opening it up. you will always wonder what was in there. as soon as you open it and see nothing then you are no longer curious.

anyway, engine is stock rebuild idle to 4000 rpms. its to haul the six kids and wife around anytime of the week, it's the family bus (1993 suburban 4x4 287,000 miles) the burb has a rod knocking and im still driving it very short distance til i get this salvage yard engine rebuilt. i bought it just to put it straight in, it was a good running engine with 114,000 miles on it.

being a performance kinda guy i cant leave well enough alone and just wanted to make a few extra ponies before i put the engine back in. so instead of just painting the darn engine and putting it in i tore the heads of and pulled the cam out. i figure im this far so i might as well run a hone down the cylinders and put new rings and bearings in it.

its going to have the factory tbi set up from the burb and i had already bought some new springs.

since my dist. is in a 93 truck block with flat tappet cam i didnt know if it would work with that LT1 cam. so i was going to use the gear off the roller cam motor.

i called summit the sales person didnt know what rings to sell me. he needed an engine number off the vin. he said 8 needs 5/64" and 7 needs metric and k needs this and that each number or letter had a different price. the k code engine for my truck i was quoted 97 bucks for those stock rings??????? holy crap, the code 8 was 60 bucks and he said they had shallow oil ring grooves. metric was like 80 bucks i said are you serious this is a small block chevy i pay those prices for bbc race rings. this is a stock std bore hone job wheres the 30 dollar ring sets at?

good to know i still can get low cost bearings then. i tried geting stock rings for a 93 engine it turned into a 30 minute phone call and no order good thing it was on there dime and not mine.

five7kid

As to the distributor gear, they used the same gear whether flat or roller, so it doesn't matter which distributor you use.

I'm afraid I'm not all that familiar with TBI specifics like ring size. Again, though, if it was roller lifter and TBI, it came from a passenger car, that much I do know. That should be VIN code 7. 8 doesn't make sense, because that was L98, and the last year and application for L98 was the 1992 f-body. partsamerica.com shows rings Caprice 350 VIN code 7 as inch rather than metric. Weird.

Better make sure the engine hasn't been rebuilt before, anyway.

Not surprising '93 was a year of mixed sizes. A lot of that kind of stuff went on in those days.

Fast355

That is not true. 3/4 and 1 ton vans and trucks came with roller cam engines from about 92 on. They still had swirl ports and ran the Peanut Roller cam. The passenger car engines had flattop pistons with 4 valve reliefs and the truck version had 18cc dished pistons.

ddeennis

well i looked on my receipt and it had a reference number that looked like a vin number so i ran it and it was a good vin number on my receipt. it was a vin number for a 1993 roadmaster limited edition and it is showing a 7 for engine code .

i have the heads tore off and getting ready to take stock cam out, it is a stock engine std bore pistons from the factory, stock 193 heads and roller cam.

ok i will use the dist. out of the gmc suburban when i stabbed the engine in.

i need to get it done soon parts have been coming for the last several days and the rod knocking is turning into a grinding metal to metal contact. im sure a bearing has moved oh how fun it is to hear an engine come apart from inside out .

Fast355

Make sure the distributer you use matches the engine the intake came off of. The TBI B-Bodies have a different diameter opening than ANY other GM distributer. The hole in the Caprice intake is larger than other GM products due to the firewall/cowl on the bubble body caprices.

The Vortec cam will drop right in on the stock valve train and in my experience run very well in a TBI 350. More low-mid range torque, added HP, and better fuel mileage. Expect a good 15 HP and 30ft/lbs more than the original 200 HP/300 TQ of your 1993 suburban due to the cam and the higher compression ratio. The TBI Roadmaster should have flattop pistons with 4 valve reliefs giving a 9.6:1 compression ratio. I would use rubber embrossed steel shim head gaskets .016" nominal thick, they seal very well with the rubber coating, will give you a detonation reducing .041" (assuming ideal deck height and piston compression height) quench distance, while boosting your compression ratio to around 10:1. A typical rebuilder .038" compressed head gasket will give you a quench distance of over .060" which will encourage detonation even at the lower compression ratio of around 9.2:1. I would probably port the exhaust side of the 193s and rework the end of the swirl vane to enhance flow. It won't take much to do it now, but it will be very helpful over time by increasing your fuel efficiency and power. I would expect a good running Vortec cammed L05 running efficiently at 10:1 compression ratio with some port re-work on the heads to make about 240-250 HP @ 4,500 and 350 ft/lbs of torque @ 3,000 and get 18-20 mpg on the highway in the Suburban.

ddeennis

thank you for the good information, i was planning on using the tbi intake off the suburban and it's distributor. to make ease of reinstalling the engine.

i was going to use the oil pan off the burb and the valve covers since the two had the oil fill hole located different.

i had thought about touching up on the heads maybe a few hours just to do alittle bowl work on each side nothing to fancy just hit the main points and be done.