All,

If you are like me then you may have nothing to do except spend time working on your car! Awesome. So I invite you to follow along as I struggle through this project and hopefully complete it. Any questions about items are more than welcome while things are taken apart and accessible. (if you need to know an internal dimension or fun fact but dont want to pull your heads for example, I will try and answer them). I have done a good bit of research and planning before ordering parts and pieces- But any advice, tricks, tips, dos and do nots are VERY welcome!

The background- The car is a 1992 Camaro RS. Bought it in AUG of 2015 with 136,000 and have driven it ever since. It is now less of a daily and more of a for fun car and weekend auto-crosser. She sits at 196,000 miles. Power train is an LO3 backed by a factory 5-speed. Car was bone stock when bought, and the only changes have been header back exhaust, and new suspension parts- Nothing to the motor (untill now) apart from an air pump removal.

The new cylinder heads are 062 castings off a junk yard suburban that have been freshened up and milled .025. Along with them is a new edelbrock manifold, and holley sniper system to top it all off. - Should be a fun time!

Now the first of many questions during this-
Is removing the Ac bracket and alternator bracket really as hard as I am making it to be or is there a secret? My hopes were to remove it completely, but I am having trouble finding all the bolts holding it on. I have the two bolts (one on each bracket) that sit inboard of the motor, off. The passenger side bracket has a blind hole as if there should be a bolt but there is nothing sticking out- as if there is a pan head bolt recessed into the bowels of the bracket. Anyone who has done this and can tell me what i am missing would be very appreciated. Or a diagram / manual snap would be great also.

Any info is appreciated, and at the very least feel free to follow along for free entertainment.

Thanks in advance & Stay safe out there!

- Jeremy

 

There are two bolts at the bottom of each bracket, one each near the waterpump, then there's a long thru bolt below the A/C compressor.

 

Thanks for the conformation Drew- turns out said long through bolt had been removed and not replaced during my removal of the air pump..... So I was looking for something I had already taken off- NICE.

Anyway- I opted to just remove the top fasteners in the heads and leave the brackets on the block, which seemed to work out nicely! I have the driver side head removed and hopefully the passenger side tomorrow. The heads were in reasonable shape albeit gunky inside the ports from the EGR. The cylinders however were in surprisingly good shape! Pictures are attached. The bore had barely any ridge at the top, enough to say so but only because I was feeling for it. The walls also still showed cross hatching! I know this is an iron block, but is this typical for 200,000 miles? a part of me is wondering if the car had a re-bore or new shortblock at some point in its life. Will be checking dimensions tomorrow.

-J

#5 cylinder

#1 cylinder

187 casting head

View down intake port. (sideways)

 

Typical of a chevy engine with proper maintainence.

 

Not surprised at the cross hatch because it's an EFI engine. They don't get brutalized during the warm up cycles like a carbed engine tends to w/fuel washing down the cylinder walls. I have pulled a myriad of 305s with 100K+ on them and I don't think I've seen any without cross hatch; I'd have no problems taking a moderate mile engine, doing a quick check on it and throwing it in if it's EFI.

 

That is a very good explanation about the EFI being a little nicer on everything. Still rather impressive that it can take that much wear over a large amount of time, definitely a nod to the engineering behind everything.

Update as of last night- Both heads are now off, I am taking some time while there is amble space to plan out and route some of the wiring for the Sniper setup. Mainly getting the control unit wire through the dash and tracking down keyed ignition ect. Once I have a general plan in mind re-assembly of the fun parts will begin !

One thing I did find is that the supplied O2 sensor for the sniper is just slightly too big to fit the provided bung on the hooker 2460 shorty headers. The thread its self seems to be right, but the inner wall of the collector is narrower. A stock O2 sensor tip is just small enough to fit, but the newer wide-band does not- So It needs to be drilled out slightly.

-J

 

My Q-Jet fed 305 had cross hatch at nearly 200K.

 

PSA- When re-installing cylinder heads, remember to take extra care that the grounding strap meant to fasten to the rear of the head, does not inadvertently make its way between the cylinder head and the gasket when attempting to align the cylinder head....... SO, now that I have a new gasket ( only took a week because the first one I re-ordered was literally FOLDED IN HALF- Thanks autozone.) I can get back re-assembling the motor. I have both heads back on and torqued down, and the new rocker arms on! Manifold and Sniper system soon to follow.

For those of you that are curious 1.6 rockers on 062 heads do allow the push rods to clear the head without enlarging the passage ways. Do note this is probably due to the very low lift of the peanut cam!!!! By no means am I an expert but I wold say that with more lift over the stock LO3 cam and you will probably need to do some clearance work before hand- The clearance is acceptable, but just barely.

 

Any updates? Was enjoying where this was going.

 

Yes! I have been making great progress this week. The manifold went on nicely- edelbrock says only 11 ft-lbs on their vortec manifold bolts. While I trust they have a reason for such a light spec, I am curious as to why the vortecs get such a lower number. Also have the Hyper spark DIST in and aligned, as well as the sniper unit on. I must say It looks pretty darn good assembled. I was able to bend and contort the stock throttle bracket to work nicely- A huge plus since the sniper install kit came with the correct swivel fitting for the stock linkage. - An added bonus to using the stock bracket is the cruise control cable also still works! From the best I can tell the cruise should function as normal since I am still keeping the sock computer and harness. I think it is its own logic process that is based on speed and throttle position. Can anyone attest yes or no on this theory?

The wiring is about done. even with the optional spark control, and having the sniper trigger the fans, It is easier than i first imagined. I am taking my keyed ignition source from the old coil connector as it should be hot while cranking, and conveniently this also provides a good spot to feed the tach signal in the same harness. Since the sniper comes with its own temp sensor. I located it in the passenger side head where the stock fan ground trigger is, and instead ran the fan trigger from the sniper outputs based on temp. Next is running the fuel pump power. The sniper comes with its own pump relay, So i am going to take the power lead from the driver side firewall and run it straight to the sniper to let it handle everything. I am pretty sure I am looking for the relay in the corner, (1 of 3) containing 5 wires- red, orange, Grn/w, black, and grey. It is my understanding that grey is main power to the pump, and hence this should be what i feed power from the sniper too. Again can anyone confirm yes or no on this info?

Lastly I am running new braided fuel line from the end of the hardline on the frame up to the sniper. Going from GM metric o ring to the -6 sucks a little since all the fittings are $10 a pop along the way. But I would rather do it the right way I suppose. ( or at least try) . Then with some misc hardware to hook the exhaust back up and get the CD box secured, It should be about ready to attempt to start!

Does anyone know, Or have a suggestion for, what a good start point would be for setting the timing on this? I am not a tuning person at all, and from what I read on here the vortecs like a little different than typical heads anyway. So any suggestions are more than Welcome!! I will get some pictures of the setup tonight to put up.

-J

 

Well needed update after a good bit of time (whoops got busy)- But mostly wanted to clarify some of my own questions now that everything is buttoned up and running, in case anyone in the future has the same ones and stumbles upon this in a search. I will also put some pictures of it back together for some context.

1. The cruise control does still work! (as long as you leave the stock computer in) I simply unplugged all the wiring harness from the TBI only.
2. My Stock tach is off by a good amount when compared to the Holley reading. about 500 rpm at 5500. and about 300 rpm at 1000. Mine indicates high so maybe thats why the poor thing has lived this long
3. You will need some form of drop base air cleaner for hood clearnance- I went with an all star. Pn AAF-ALL25943 on summit racing. It has a 1.625 " drop 14" base and it fits nicely over the holley and the throttle bracket. - you will need to use 90 degree fittings on the fuel feeds, and in my case i had to put a slight clearance dent on the bottom to have it sit level and not hit the return fitting. only about 1/8" is needed.
4. For the fuel line adapters I used a kit meant for a tpi fuel rail. PNSUM-220009B on summit This has the same fittings that come off the fuel lines on the driver side frame rail of the TBI cars. They allow you to replace the hardline from the end of the flex-lines by the charcoal canister and adapt to a -6 cleanly.

5. This is the most notable- If you plan on running the sniper on a car that you want to be street able (or probably any manual trans car) GET A PROGRESSIVE SECONDARY LINKAGE. It really does make a massive difference. I got mine for $13 from EFI pro. Well worth it. The problem is that in stock for all four barrels open instantly with throttle application. Because of this putting even slight pressure on the pedal resulted in 4000 rpm because of the massive airflow it provides (especially on a small motor like my 305). This made it a royal pain to get started ( t5 with a 3.08 rear) and was hard on the clutch. An auto car may be better- but even when you are started the difference between 25% and 100% throttle is marginal so modulation goes out the window. The new linkage made my secondaries tip in at around 45%. And it made it feel like a completly new car! Would definitely recommend for as cheap and easy as it is.

6. just a couple details in case anyone is curious- I ended up putting the Cd box for the hyper spark where the charcoal canister used to be. I ran the power across the nose to the battery (where a tpi style airbox would be) and then the signal wiring up along the same route as the cruise vacuum hoses to the DIST. This kept it rather clean. It definitely isn't disguising anything but looks mostly normal. The handheld wiring I ran to the passenger side fender and routed it in near where the radio antenna enters- kind of by the passenger side foot well. This still gave me enough slack to have the hand held easily accessible in the driver seat.

7. For anyone that is wondering if you should put exhaust wrap on your headers. Just..... Dont. 19 year old me decided to and it just makes anything else you have to do down the road involving the headers or motor an itchy pain in the *** for no reason. Unless you buy super expensive nice wrap it isn't going to do much anyway- and then you might as well just get ceramic headers. Im sure there are niche applications where it is a good idea. But for most people- ya just nah haha. (it also rusts the header quicker-even if you seal them after the wrap.

Throttle linkage under air cleaner

Top down view of driver side. I kept the new coil in the "stock" location and managed to reuse the Throttle bracket as well.

Overall pic before finishing the wiring. Also showing the new fuel lines at the bottom.

 

fitech 600?

I am thinking of either that or the sniper efi.

Thanks,
Chris

 

Chris- I don't have any experience with the Fitech. I decided to go with the Sniper based on a large portion of the reviews on multiple sites seemed to indicate it was a little bit better of a product. Seems that it had a little more R&D put into it- good support and instructions, those types of things. I had a very smooth install with the sniper. Everything was correct and the wiring diagrams were easy to follow. I think it is a matter of you get what you pay for type of thing.

Cheers.