Well look what followed me home today! My short block is back... Would have been done last week but we changed cams at the last minute so I had to wait for the new one to come in. It took a while but so far I'm pretty happy. I know the work from them is very high quality so I don't mind that it took a while. And they took care of me and had very fair pricing. Assembled with clevite h bearings.

Come Saturday we are going to put the rest of the motor together and hopefully sunday get it and the trans stabbed in the car. Lots of pictures to come sunday night or Monday.....

 

Well a little more progress though not as much as I had hoped. Things went slow sat and sunday. We did manage to get the PTV clearance checked, and the pushrod length measured. I have to order the pushrods tomorrow. Going with Manton 11/32'' units. Measured out that I need stock length 7.4'' pushrods so I installed some of my buddies units and checked the wipe pattern on the valve stem as well. Looks pretty good I think. Got my intake back, I decided not to have it dipped at this time. I think the gloss black looks good. No racing this weekend and my GF is working so the plan is to install the motor and get to plumbing the fuel and coolant lines. I have AN lines now for fuel, the steam lines and trans cooler lines...I'm about to be sick of assembling hoses I know....

Block was drilled for a chain dampener so I picked one up and installed it real quick.


A couple coats of Chevy Orange followed by some clear. A painted motor is a happy motor.


Studs!!!!


Starting to look like an engine


Think FAST




And the wipe pattern left by my rockers

 

Well, I'm still alive. No real progress on the car other then spending more money! I have changed a few plans with the car and If I'm repeating myself from an earlier post then I'm sorry. Its been a while since I updated so I cant remember what all has been said here. First, the biggest thing that has changed is the transmission. This car is going to see a lot more track time then street time now so I decided the 4L60E wouldn't cut it. I now have a built TH400 with Griner 1+2 pro tree transbrake. The unit was built by Mr Wendells Motorsports here in DFW. Its paired with a BTE nitrous converter. Ive also ordered my direct port nitrous kit from Nitrous Outlet. I got this kit a couple months ago through a friend that is one of their dealers. Right now the intake is down in Waco getting plumbed by them and should be ready at the end of the week. I have also decided to ditch the stock GM computer and harness and run the Holley Dominator EFI system. Its a bit of overkill for me right now but gives me plenty of room to grow. Ive been busy just making money and waiting on the trans to get built, I could have made some more progress but have been a little lazy. As soon as I get back from my cruise in a few weeks we should get rolling.... here are some more pics!!!

 

very nice. I see in your sig you have ported 5.3s? Is that for this motor? Do you have any pics of the port work and what was done? I got some refurbished 862 5.3 heads on their way. Going to remove the swirl ramp, rocker bolt boss and clean them up a smidgen. Then swap the springs for Howard's .6" lift.

Are you running roller rockers?

 

Yeah I have the 5.3 heads on this motor. They were ported by Lloyd Elliot Portworks, I dont have any photos of the ports and they heads are currently on the motor at my friends place. Yeah Im running the roller rockers shown on the previous page. The heads have larger valves installed and .650 double springs, I had already bought those heads when I was still planning on using the stock LQ4 bottom end so I went with those heads to gain some compression. Ill keep them for now and see how they do.