Z06 and new ZR1 owns everything Thats why i am getting the bottle so i can hang with a Z06 LS7

you need a good 500+whp for that

 

What part of this do you figure is poor advice. The kid is obviously just starting out and there are a ton of things to consider, not the least of which is putting together a 500 horse motor and then finding that they are high maintainance and expensive to run. Now you can't afford to put gas in your everyday car because its an absolute pig on gas. I'm sure (don't take this the wrong way Pheonix) the guy has no idea how silly fast an 11 second street car is! He is going about it the right way. He's asking questions, he's doing his research. Aside from his early goals of 800 hp, I don't really see alot in here that is bad info. Building a 500 hp SBC these days is not hard.....but he needs to understand that the rest of the drivetrain needs to be built to handle it. Lets say $7500.00 for the motor..........great....I can afford that he says. Now how about $2000.00 for a solid trans and converter and another $750.00 for a well built rear end.....and I think the above numbers are a little light. Now he's at $10,000.00. Did you want to spend that much? How often do you read on these boards about a guy installs a hot motor only to smoke the trans in 5 days......and now he doesn't have $1500.00 to fix the trans cause he spent it all on the motor. I don't see alot of bad advice.......yet.

 

I really dont know the strength of our supension and our frame, but I'm sure some upgrades in those areas would be needed for that type of power too.

My suggestion is to build the 383, drop it in with the stock tpi or do some upgrading like a big mouth base, slp runners, etc. and see where that gets you. For a while, that will probably be enough. When you have more money and want more power, then do cam, heads, better intake, fuel, tranny, etc.

Or you could get a shortblock for your car right now for a much lower cost than the $2500 rebuild. Do heads, cam, intake which will again probably satisfy you for a while. When money is available and you want more power again, then do the 383, tranny, and other mods.

It's just alot smarter IMO to build your way up in power. It may not be pratical on your wallet, but when it comes to cars, they are not something to toy with. I've had many friends lose their lives because they had vehicles they were not ready to drive.

 

Yeah he's supplying the parts and everything else for the price and even threw in a free courtesy inspection of the whole car. I'm still debating on whether I should just rebuild my L98. drive the **** out of it and buy a zz383 crate engine later or go on with the 383! Right now im leaning towards plan "a" because it'll allow me to choose the parts carefully and save some extra cash while im at it! The car is going into the shop on monday; im just counting the days lol! Still appreciating the info! Thanks!

 

Phoenix: Either plan will work. I chose plan B because it allowed me to keep the numbers matching motor in one piece. I have kept all of the factory parts that I have taken off of my '87 IROCZ and also I am the only owner.

But even if you are not interested in preserving the factory engine or not, I think that its best to start with a new GM block having 4 bolt mains to start as your fondation for your 383 buildup. Building a separate motor will allow you to drive your car as you build this new motor. That is the other reason why I went with plan B.

Anyway you go I will try to help with some pointers that I learned in my buildup. For the most part, I know that I limited myself on Hp output because I wanted to reuse the 190cc AFR heads that I had for couple years already. Assumming that you do not have any high cost performance parts already, you can start with a clean sheet. I have my perferred parts in mind that I would like to put on my 395 to make a bunch more Hp. I was going to replace the heads, cam, and intake this Summer, but I had a set back when I blewup my LS1 engine in my '99 Camaro SS. I have build a 402 LS2 stroker as the replacement motor, but it has been very costly, so the 395 upgrade must be delayed.

 

Actually, its plan A that will allow me to drive my car and build a killer 383 engine! Plan B is to stroke my current L98 .30 over! The only high cost part I put on it so far is a performance starter . The car came with hedmans, crane cam, chip (which appears to be old) and a flowmaster exhaust! Yeah I agree with you on starting from a fresh new engine block! It'll keep me busy and researching on what I will need to reach my HP goal! Thanks again!

 

Ok just an update! I decided to rebuild my L98 for now and buy the necessary parts for my 383 when enough money is available! Gotta start saving now! Thanks again for the info...I've copied, pasted and saved it for my reference! later!

 

ok, i agree on your choice on the stock rebuild with the .030 overbore... you havent had enough time to research properly for the 383 build... i greatly disagree on the stroked 383 block and stock heads and intake.... it will perform like $hit.... WAY to little airflow.... and while you are saving for the 383 build, put some more money away for the axle swap, break upgrade, and suspension upgrade.... the 7.5" 10bolt rear end will blow apart when you go to power break the car showing off to all your boys... not to mention the stock torque arm will probably twist like a twizzler as will the rest of the car...(maybe) from all the torque because the unibody is NOT strong at all... and the tranny... whichever you decide to run, make sure it is rated for the hp and torque you end up with. the 12 bolt rear is probably the easiest swap, i think currie sells the mounting hardware and tabs to weld on the 12 bolt swap so you can run a factory appearing settup with new components... and BREAKS! 500hp is awesome untill you go to break running 120mph and the stopsign comes up way to quick.... the L98 rebuild with .030 overbore a mild cam and matching springs, lifters, pushrods, decent pistons (hyperutectic is what i would go with) and rings, gasketmatching ported heads/intake and runners... this would be a great street motor and could use all the rest of the stock drivetrain..... anyways, im babbling on and on, its your choice but make the right one

 

thats a smart way to do it. i should do the same and throw a small cam in my L98 to run it as is till it blows which shouldnt be long and then have the 383 on the side, but i'm doing it all now so the car is gonna be down for alittle while but i dont mind really

 

Hey Pheonix,
I figured you were going to be inundated with lots of free opinions. However, before you throw in the towel maybe you might take a moment to head back to my first post and then compare it to the post info that was kindly provided to you by 'Doc'.

When I bought my 88 IROC two years ago, I KNEW it was going to be a long term adventure. I made sure I had money in the bank and that it was only going to be an extra project car. I am really good at figuring out how to find the failing broken part and replacing it with a higher quality part. With my IROC, I could have bought a car that's had all of the things I want in an F-body for $5500 to $8000. But it was time for ME to step up to the plate and commit to myself that I would go from a 'wanna be' sidelines racer to one who could maximize his talents and abilities to the best possible. Heck, I don't even race the other guy at the light; I'm only focused on improving my personal skills. I'm also a very detailed oriented individual and love to tweek a part way past the mainstreem expectations.

Now what does this have to do with you? I guess I'm hoping that you are at a place in your life where you actually CAN make a commitment to your F-body and yourself. The mental snapshot that keeps popping up is an old Star Track episode where Spock does one of his famous 'mind-meld' scenes to become one with the problem in order to best deal with the crisis at hand.

Can you absolutely, positively make a commitement to making your dream come true? Do you actually know the percentages of what style of driving you will be requesting your car to pull off??? Have you taken a blank booklet and devided the car's major area's into separate projects, figured out how to maximize each area (such as PROM burning, adjusting/ transmission stage buildups that will more than be bulletproof for what you'll be requiring it to do/ figured out exactly where your power band needs to start and then end/ designed a complete suspension package/ come up with the needed CFM of air required from you intake to feed the correct velocity past both the intake and exhaust valves/ when you get the engine ready, do you have a specific plan on how to maximize your dyno tune session before dropping it between the front wheels, etc.

I personally just screwed myself out of $3000 dollars by not checking more thoroughly the inner business working of the transmission shop that I selected to upgrade my 700R4 tranny. The work they've done in the past was bulletproof. I turns out that the business has been recently sold, corners have been cut; and even though I handed the shop rep a WRITTEN request of itmes I needed covered in a Stage 3 build up; they snuck in cheap parts, stuff has been failing steadily over the past 6 months, it blew up my newly gone through Borg Warner 9-bolt rear. So now I'm over six months behind, I have to pay for a new rear end that had only 300 miles on it, I may have to buy a completely new transmission and add stressful court costs to my already overbusy life. Can you see where some of us are coming from???

As far as getting you an engine that will work for now till you get more learning curves under your belt; check back with Doc. I think you'll most likely find that doing a mild 383 build will cost nearly identical as refurbishing your L98, it'll bet better fuel mileage and be more fun to play with! PLUS, there's nothing like adding 383 emblems to the sides of your engine hood so people will know automatically you're a man with extra large *****!!

As a side note, I buy automotive speciallty books and read them with a highlighter. I started with Smokey Unick's book, moved to 'How To Tune & Modify Chevrolet TPI Engines, 'Camaro Performance Handbook', TPI Fuel Injection', 'Bracket Racing', and the two newest additions I bought last weekend; Ignitions and Penthouse Best Of Letters' . Next, I'll have to read/study up on doing my own PROM burning.

Again, talk with Doc; he's an inventor that understands the deeper needs of our cars. Best of luck, Nitro

 

The "Zen" art of hot rodding. I like it. Excellent Post.

 

Well, I don't want to sound like a know-it-all. But when I look back over my car history, I had some that are the totally envy of the current muscle car world and totally BLEW IT by not having an understanding of what each car really needed; so I'd get frustrated, mess something up and sell it for another. The partial list starts with my first one: 1970 Barracuda, 1968 442, 1968 Mach 1, 1978 Z-28 etc.

At that time, they were all considered hillbilly hot-rods and most did look like they'd fit in parked up on blocks outside of the trailer park; which happens to be the basic standard our 3rd have for now. Most of us who are on this board know better and we should help those who might make a mistake by letting "The One" get away.....
Nitro

 

No it is not. It's a TPI replacement intake. Don't know where you get LS1 from.

 

Jay, I went to the link provided, scrooled down that page and saw the LS1 intake. Maybe the link has been changed since I clicked on it, but since I modify an L98 and an LS1 car, I know my intakes very well.

 

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/atta...setup-5014.jpg

The thread goes on for several pages ( and years lol. started in '04 ) But the above link is a picture of the intake in question. It's definitely a TPI replacement, but availability is still up in the air.

 

Oh yeah! I am definatley committed to my f-body; these cars I think are the nicest looking, not to mention they turn alot of heads ! I've been planning the mods that I want to do to the car since I even bought the thing; I bought it in august of last year and have been doing a research on third gens almost a year before; learned alot over them ever since. One thing I will point out on my situation with the car is that I don't know if its my luck-of- the-draw but the car started to come up with problems when it seemed like it wouldn't aside from the small things it already needed! I already had to put in a new starter so far and was planning on repairing the engine one part at a time but I figured if I get it rebuilt now, i'll basically have a new engine internalwise which meant that I wouldn't have to be spending money on it all the time to fix whatever decides give out on me; it'll finally allow me to save up and mod my car which is why I went on with the rebuild. As far as my master plan on maximizing the major areas on the car goes, there are some aeas that I understand very well on what I need to make them 'bulletproof' i.e. suspension, external and some internal engine parts but theres also the more complicated stuff (atleast for me) like cam duration, head cc's, figuring out the velocity passed the intake/exhaust ports which is something I didn't take into consideration until now, etc. All that stuff involves calculating numbers and what not which is something that I have no experience on with engines thats why I started this thread so I can improve as well as learn about matching the proper components (and numbers) to make a 500-600+ HP GTAl; I'm not leaving the non-related engine stuff out either. Its a little late to do the 383 build because the car is already in the shop; its been there since this passed monday. The shop I took my car to is owned by a guy who has known my dad for a long time. He used to work at an auto mechanic shop years ago but the guy who owned it paid them too low and so they separated and started their ow business; the machine shop I took my car to bieng one of them. One thing I thought was cool was that the mechanic is going to call me in a couple of days once he has the engine out of the car so I can go take a look at what was bad on the engine and while hes at it teach me on how to repair the engine myself so I can save some money and not have to take it a mechanic all the time...pretty cool huh? So theres my reply; I am not going to stop until the thing is just the way I want it to be; my dad told me that if I have a car I like, not to hesitate to spend whatever is needed to keep it running which is something I have considered ever since; he has a 1971 chevelle malibu that has been through hell and back and now the thing looks bad ***! lol! Hey thanks again guys for taking the time to mentor me on this I didn't expect alot of info to be given but I was wrong. TGO Rocks! Later!

 

Update: The car is still in the shop (since 1/28) getting the rebuild on the L98. I paid a visit to the shop the other day and was told that it was going to need a new crankshaft and repairs to the engine wiring harness, If the job gets to be too much for him, he's going to have to take it to an electrician to re wire the thing ! If thats not bad enough I was also told that 2 of the fuel injectors weren't connected...sux if u ask me! Now i'm not completely bummed about the situation though; I also found out that my engine had a port & polish job done to it by the previous owner! cool huh?

 

wonder what was wrong with the wiring harness?

 

Some exhaust wrap on the passenger's side header caught fire while bieng welded to the exhaust pipe and it burned up some wires along with it; thats what I was told be the previous owner atleast He told me that it was repaired but I guess it was just a bunch of so now I have to get that rewired !

 

Dude, go find a new shop. He is playing you! What it comes down to is he knows you don't know a lot when it comes to motor building. He wanted to get your motor in his hands, have it apart and go "I can't do it for the price we originally talked about. It is going to be xxx more." Of course you will say yes. after all, he has your motor in pieces on his bench. Run away from this guy, and find yourself a reputable engine shop. Talk to local racers and find out who they use. You are going to pay up, but you will get someone who isn't feeding you a line of *****. I was lucky enough to know a good shop in my area. Though I was cut a huge price break, and I had traded a computer for a block. Either way, I still ended up paying $4k for it. But I know I have a good quality motor that will stand up.

 

Actually, my dad and I had a long talk with the guy before handing over the deposit and leaving him my car. As for the price, I was never charged 1 cent more!

 

Actually, what the Cow-Tipper was actually meaning, is that from a stranger to stranger point of view, the response you gave of what the builder said sounds Really Suspicious! given that it's a family friend and he's showing concern is great, but based on a 'reality check' it dosn't hold much water. The big question is: Are you a responsible enough person to drive a powerful, lower traction car (as per the factory set-up)? If so, then wait until you get some driving 'seasoning'.

I for one, am saddened now that I didn't go the 383 route. Basically the same cost, better mileage, more driving options, etc. There's just more intellegence needed when pressing down on the 'go pedal'.

What concerns me, is that you came on the board here and asked for advice from owner's and driver's of F-bodies. Yet, you seem to have a Come-Back for every single hand of friendship that's been extended to you. If you'd rather take advise from people outside the F-body box, than don't waste our time or yours. A factory spec engine will be plenty for you to handle. You'll know absolutely when you've reached the point when you can deal with a stroker motor; apparently now is not the time. There's nothing wrong with that- it actually does show maturity and the rest of us appreciate it when someone knows their driving boudaries.

Heck, I remember the first time I stole a car, it was way to much power for me to initially handle (442).....
Nitro

 

This is absolutely the right thing to do. Talk to the people who are actually going fast and see what they are doing and who is doing their stuff. It's always great to learn from other people's experiences.

 

I find it odd you talk about "500-50HP" benig streetable, then confuse the isue with the gear ratio of 3:08?

How the heck you going to get that sucker going? With a 500+ HP engine, that's "streeable" you have to run such a high stall converter and a low rear to be able to keeep it in it's RPM range running down the 1320.

Careful about talking about "all the poor advice given", you're tossing fuel on the fire.

 

Come-backs???? Not at all I've read all my posts and they don't seem like combacks at all to me...but if thats how they sounded then I apologize bro; I didnt mean for my responses to sound contradictive! The advice that you've all given me is greatly appreciated and did I mention saved on my hard drive? lol!

Neagan, so the idea of getting my L98 rebuilt now and then "collecting" the parts for the 383 later ; was that a bad choice???

 

Naw, you're fine. I just got crabby with some other person who was wasting several of 'us''s time and read in more than what you were really saying, so I absolutely owe you an apology.

You are the only one who can know what you need to do. It's just that from a cost point of L98new parts to 383 new parts, you start becoming $$$ equal. BUT! and it's a big But; if you chose to use the extra torque and horses, it's going to cost you big time as your factory drivetrain and suspension will NOT hold up. There's always the joker who has to add: "well once apon a time; my caymarrow rear end held up to 3000 horsepower with 80inch slicks and has 400,999 thousand miles on it, and nuthin done broke yet...."

Gee, I once had a chevy vega that was running strong at 100k miles too- so what? Anomolies happen.

Then you get the person who asks for help in spades, pushes you for details then comes back with: "my uncle had a sister who's friend's niece did that modification and she ended up preg-nant with space alien babies....."

It's like: "What the f345k RU talkin' 'bout Willis???" You asked, I spent time, now U wanna start whinning and questioning. Usually we don't care how someone takes the advice; it was free and is worth just that. But when someone milks us for pages of info and then get's squirrely; the polite thing to do is either shoot the damn squirrrel, shut up OR just say:"Thank-You". "I'll study and research this out further" and JUST LET IT BE. If the squirrel thing is whatcha find happening, then it's time to stop & spend a few weeks using the ; find out more, and only then start another thread with more facts under your belt.

You yourself have had some excellent input by some HIGHLY knowledgeable F-body guru's. It's time for you to state WHAT IT IS THAT YOU THINK; which I think you've finally done (which seems ta be thatcher not ready)

What's different between you and I is that by using the 'SEARCH' heavily, I knew that I was making this car into a onetime purchase for life. I knew there wouldn't be much of the original IROC left when I was done, so now that have finished most of the base plan and realize that I should have waited until I was absodamlutely sure about what engine should have built; I wouldn't have gone with the 355, even with upgrades, would have built the right4me engine just once and just played with it till the whole package was done. I had dreams of doing the engine up, driving for a while, then tackling slowly different areas. Heck, I would be able to drive one of the new Camaro's or the Dodge Challenger that'r coming out with what's $$$ going to be involved here. But again, mines a keeper dill death (which hopefully will be behind the wheel). So it turns out I wasn't even able to drive it over 400 miles this year and I won't be able to drive it even 1000 miles next year because I'll be to broke for the blower I'm going to have to use since I chickened out too early on the stroke. (which would have been such a sweet, easy driving car with all the longevity one could ask for).

Remember; I'm feeling grumpy so my post might be highly unpolished. And Lastly, if you cruise through the diagnostic threads, prom thread, and engine threads going back for 10-20 pages deep, you're going to find out who gives the most consistant and concise answers- people you can trust. Don't ever be convinced of other's thread responses because of emotion, reaction, or by a stuck back in the terrible 2's (Years of age stage) who always has to be right.

What helped me was in finding some of these top people like VADAR and once I had done deeeeeper depth of , I sent them private emails to pick their brains. And don't forget you're best sourse of all; The group of people who like in your calendar/map area of the country and periodiacally get together and share major ideas. Also, if you havn't followed this build-up of what is to be one of the most famous 3rd Gen buildups in history, check out this long term build and start making your car on paper FIRST before you start getting any more advise. Here's the thread:
tp://www.thirdgen.org/techboard/body/386427-phase-i-complete-now-new-post.html

Again, I apologize for unfairly jumping you earlier, okay???? Nitro

 

HOW WAS THAT FOR AN IMPROMPTU RANT!

 

I for one was impressed

Hey, how'd them gears work out for you...never heard from you after I sent them, I see'em in your sigline so you must have gotten'em

 

The gear set up was great; I loved the change in throttle response from those old highway gearing. I'm sorry I didn't get back to you, should have at least checked in. I've been mad dog hammering on getting this project ready for some track testing- after I did the rear I jumped on the trans, then tore out the entire undercarriage to start fresh, etc. Now I'm just dialing in everything.
I know I need to stop and see how to give the 'consumer rating' thumbs up for all the signitures of the seller's who've been helping me out. At least I took time last night to get laid; thus I'm feeling MUCH mellower today !!
I'm gonna have to budget another $4grand to get this show on the road. To think; when it's all said and done; if it get's wrecked, I'm sure I'd have to fight the insurance company to get one nickel for every three dollars spent!

Perhaps I'll have to start pimping out my sister-in-law again to pay for the paint&body work next year.....

.....But didn't this Thread sure quiet down after yesterday.....!!!!!!!!!!
Nitro (Nitro-active or maybe Nitro-retarded; who cares right after having receiving a great lay)

 

OKay, I'm typing this after 10 minutes of laughing

Glad ya got lucky, best (for family reasons) to leave the SIL out of the picture...

But then again if you can make a buck...then make a buck!

Glad to hear the gears are good...no reason for the I-net thing, wasn't my intent.

 

OK, you guys are too funny.

neagan: thank you for the compliment back on 2/2/2008. I dont know why I never thanked you before.

 

....Nitro sayz, yer more than welcome, cause it was awl truth-words....!

(what a memory; can I take the same vitaminz that you do?)

 

What a memory!!!! I have no memory anymore. I knew that I had made several posts in this thread, but could not remember any details,, I actually scanned the entire thread from the very first one, and that is how I finally saw your post.

This is a good thread for beginners, and we now have Phoenix up to 334 posts! Phoenix this is your thread, please come back with data on your engine rebiuld, how is it going? Your engine needed a new crank, that sounds serious, how far has the engine rebuild gone?

 

Lol! no problem man I didn't take it personally at all so its cool! I'll admit that I was one of those who would just ask in order to get answers without bothering to do research myself, but the fact that theres alot of free info out there which can be accessed easily through the internet as well as keeping me busy at work (lol) motivated me to use the function more often for whatever reason; building a 383 bieng one of them! Thanks again! Take it e z guys! later!

 

my l98 had a tick on the passenger side at the valve cover to .all it was was a lose rocker arm tightend it up now she runs smooth with no noise...easy fix

 

I had the same exact ticking on the driver's side head before my rebuild which turned out to be a loose rocker as well. Once that noise quieted down, I could hear other strange clicking and ticking sounds which eventually meant the engine needed a rebuild. Since I'm here I thought I'd update you guys on my car. After the rebuild, I needed a replacement engine harness since mine was a nightmare . I purchased a harness off of a member of these boards, had it retrofitted by a friend to fit my car since it was off of an '88 GTA but it ran like crap. I then had to replace it with a true '89 GTA harness with out the cold start injector as well as the computer. While I was at it I changed the dry brittle plastic convoluted tubing that covers the harness with blue tubing to give it some color under the hood. The car's a beast now it really pulls the hell out it itself when I smash the pedal! The only thing left is to replace a bad o2 sensor since i'm getting popping out the exhast at idle. I'm replacing it with a 4-wire denso heated unit which I'm waiting to arrive at my door step this week. Well thats pretty much it for now. I'll keep you guys posted on how she runs afterwards.

Later,
Phoenix