I used to hate my L03. Ive complained about it for years, and hate the way its such a dog. So I thought I would post and brag a bit.

In this recent snow storm we had on the East coast, I was caught out in it. My son and I had went to shop for Christmas, and when we went into the store, it was raining. Within 30 minutes, it has turned to snow, and was snowing at about 3" an hour. Typically this store is only 20 minutes away, today it would take over 4 hrs to get home.

I would wind up in bumper to bumper traffic for about 3-1/2 hrs. My fan thermal switch has been out for ever, and I just havent fixed it. I had planned on switching to dual fans anyway, and Im never sitting in traffic. Even if it gets hot, I can turn on the A/C or defrost, and it goes back down. No problem, right?

Well as you might guess, it overheated. At one point, this douche in a 4X4 in front of me, stopped, up hill, to let a car cross the street, and I was screwed. The temp was already at about 220. As I tried creeping up the icey hill, it went to the red, and then off the scale. I never got it back down. The car was smoking (tires spinning, I guessed), and it was pinging badly, but I wasnt letting up. It took 45 minutes to get 300 feet to the top of the hill. 2 hrs later I got home, temps still in the red, never got down close to normal, and I shut it off. I told my wife "that should do it for the little 305". But the little bastard still started, and runs fine. The only damage was to the thermostat, which is stuck open now.

It might be a dog, but how many other engines can run in the red for 2 hrs, and not blow their guts out? Ill give respect where its due.

 

Nice! I know what you mean, I've been in similar situations with my L03. Strong, stubborn motors.

 

tell me about it, I've been trying to blow mine up, what am I going to have to do, lose the oil plug and hit the highway?

 

I've had a lifter tick something awful since I bought my car a year ago and figured it would limp around for a month or two and puke out, which is no problem because I have a stock 350 vortec in the garage and didn't really want the l03 anyways... the only problem is it just won't die! I am beginning to come to terms with the idea that I will have this 305 for at least a few more years.

 

I know what you mean about the realibilty of these little engines. A couple weeks ago I pulled a stupid move and forgot to turn on my water pump before I got on the HIGHWAY! I drove about ten miles before I found out what I did. All it did was boil in the overflow and after that all was well. I guess that's the reason I haven't swapped out this engine yet.

 

Ya these things are tough mine constantly overheats.

 

I really should take better care of it. Ive had the car for about 8 years now, and several thousand miles (tens of thousands, maybe 50k) and only had to replace the fuel pump, water pump, head gaskets, heater bypass, radiator (could have cleaned it, but it wasnt expensive), and a bunch of hoses, and filters. Oh, and of course, the headlight flip up motors.

The car as a whole has been impressive too. Goes great in the snow, and rain, and really does nothing I hate. I wish the brakes were better, but Im going to fix that, soon. And it needs a new interior, but thats a product of the leaky t-tops, which I can fix, and really should.

I keep telling my wife, its been the best car weve owned, as far as reliability, and repairs over time, and she finally agrees. This car deserves to have a few more dollars spent on it. If it blew up today, Id buy another one next week.

 

S**T!

That did it in, well, the trans anyways.

 

Right before I had a chance to install the dual fans, mine hit 240-250 a few times on the ride home. I thought a 350 was going to be a transplanted very quickly, but not needed.

 

I have had my car for 11 years and have 200,000 plus miles on it. I got it when I was fifteen and its the only car I have ever owned. As you can imagine its lived a pretty hard life. Countless burnouts, 100mph trips down the freeway, overdue oil changes, overheated many times but I won't hesitate to drive it anywhere. I recently drove from Houston to Dallas and still averaged about 21-22 mpg. A powerhouse its not, but more reliable than anything else i have ever had.

 

Agreed, mine ran flawlessly when I had it. One good trade off for it being a "dog" I guess. Low power usually leads to reliability and longevity.

 

I wouldn't say that, my last 305 had a very hard short life, and it was no powerhouse!

 

So I bought a RS with a dying tranny. I was going to put it out in my uncle's garage and swap the tranny. Well there was a problem with the TV cable and it found fish for a gear at anything lower than 60 mph. No problem I thought, well as I was driving that speed creep up and soon it would be fishing in anything under 70. I had plates from a different car on it, I couldn't be speeding. So I knocked it down to 3rd and left it there. 3rd plus a 3.42 rear meant a cruising RPM around 3500-4000 rpms. And the little 305 did that for half an hour no problem.