Hello all!

Well, I got back from U-Wrench-It today with a $30 prize... A '94 LT1 Intake from a 4.3L (L99) V8 Caprice.. Got it with the fuel rails and everything... So...

This winter, my brother and I will be building a motor to replace the L03 in his '91 Bird. I've got the old L98 from my '91 GTA that we're planning to rebuild (had a rod knock when I got the car). It's got the stock roller cam, and we're planning to use the L98 heads (maybe a little porting if necessary). I'm eventually gonna send the intake to John at www.lt1intake.com to get it set up for the Gen I SBC...

I have some questions and would like any advice anyone has to offer. We're going to be converting from the TBI to a '730 SD TPI ECM. Any experience out there with repinning the harness from the TBI system?? (I'll be reviewing the article that was written about TBI->TPI, just wondering about any extra tips people have to offer).. Oh, and making the chip is no problem, I've got that under control..

Any other tips or suggestions are welcome.

Thanks all!

 

Well, I checked the casting number and it turns out that this manifold is the 10108630 which is the LT1 casting instead of the L99 casting (go to Johns site here for differences between the ports).

 

Cool. John does great work, I had him do an intake for me. Then I sold it.. lol. Actually I traded it for some ignition stuff and sold half of that.

Anyways, his work was very nice and I'll probably be sending him my new LT1 intake within a few months to have it modified half as much (I'm converting a pair of ported LT1 heads as well). He tells me it'll cost me $100 to get the distributor hole drilled and the shim and mounting all that fun stuff. Not too bad of a price I must say, though he must make a killing in this business.

My advice...get a bigger cam. Stock L98 cam won't match the LT1 intake very well.

 

It'll match well enough. Consider that the stock LT1 cam is actually SMALLER than the L98 camshaft. Take a L98 cam, and add 1.6rr's and you will have a cam that has more lift, and more duration than a LT1 camshaft.

So, if you don't want to touch the internals then doing 1.6 rockers is a worth while upgrade.

 

Great find on the intake and rails for $30.

A tip I have that I just took for granted.........use allen head intake bolts instead of the stock intake bolts. The allen head bolts are available from most parts stores in the "high performance isle".

 

We were actually thinking about doing the 1.6 rockers on the L98 cam. As for pistons, I think we're just going to go with flat tops. We're gonna disassemble the old L98 soon and get it ready for the machine shop; at that point, I'll have a better idea of whats in there (I have read that some of the L98's came with flat-top pistons, and some came with dished pistons)..

 

I would not put a stock cam in there if I could afford a new cam.

 

Well, hell. I agree with John then. I thought you were just going to do the intake. But if you are tearing the whole engine apart then I'd do just about everything I could to the motor.

I really wanted a LT1 intake, but the $$$ didn't allow for it at the time.

But if anyone wants to give me about $450 for my AS&M SS setup then they are welcomed to it.

 

Well, we might reuse the L98 cam if its still in good condition. This is going to be a budget rebuild (we just don't want it to suck ).. A cam swap will probably happen sometime down the road after the rest of the car catches up with the new motor (suspension, brakes, rear axle (2.73 open drum at the moment)). We want a good and solid long block, but at this point, we're going to try to spread the $$$ so everything gets done.

 

LT4 hotcam! With tuning you can nail about 300rwhp from the setup. All bolt-ons, but stock heads and tuning. John has a video of a guy making 300rwhp on a set of stock L98 heads.