Well I finally bit the bullet and decided to just throw what I have together, as removing the block is just too much to deal with, worst case scenario the setup fails miserably and I save up to pay someone else to drop a v8 in and call it a day. Best case scenario it works well, maybe even great.
Hopefully the most likely and realistic scenario, the setup works/runs but roughly, but not so much that I can't fine tune it to smoothed perfection.

Cleaned up the block today, I didn't go all out, but its a lot better than what it was, I got the rust flakes out of the cylinders, cleaned all the piston tops such that you could at least see the rings, and not have any raised deposits, cleaned the lifter valley and lifters. I'm planning an oil change(water in current oil, so necessary) followed by a can if not 2 of seafoam, followed immediately by another oil change to remove the remaining crap that the new oil and seafoam will break lose, hence I didn't go all out on the thing.

Then I put the left cylinder on, and attached the ground wire, anyone verify that there is only one ground wire to connect on the left side if memory serves?
Anyways, many of you are probably familiar with my hybrid build/aspirations. Here are some pics of current progress, also as a side note I still have to remove the old exhaust manifolds...there's a sawsaw or torch in a bottle thing in the works for that.....

 

You don't need to buy SeaFoam to clean the crap out of the engine... They make a motor flush to do that, or you can put 3 qts oil and 1 qt of ATF to fill the engine. The ATF has built-in detergents (which is why everything is usually so clean when you remove the trans pan) which will help to break things up, and it is also a lubricant, which SeaFoam is not.

There are 2 ground wires on each side. Don't forget the body to engine ground. Might even want to go with a bigger wire for this while it's easier to get at .

:edit: Don't know how many guys with V-belts have done the swap, but you might want to look into a serpentine setup.

 

Yeah, but I need to clean the piston tops, and manifolds as well, and your ground wires must be different...I only found one on the left, which I seem to remember being correct, but I KNOW there are at least 3 on the right side if not 4 or 5.. As for the belt setup I'm taking it one little thing at a time.

 

Could be yours is different... There should be 2 black/white wires, a tan wire, and another (I think it's black and it's for the HVAC), besides the engine ground. I'd have to look it up on the web.

 

SOFB....got to be kidding me...........I just got an email that the head gaskets I got have a major design flaw with coolant passage locations.............

 

What ones did you get?

 

Cometic MLS from ben at WOT tech. email reads as follows:

"It was brought to my attention this weekend, that the Cometic MLS Head gaskets are not made properly. At first I thought this was just a bore offset issue, that would not cause a problem with the operation of the engine. Instead they seem to be designed off of the 3900 head gaskets in their coolant passage locations, and the fire ring is moved further back and crosses over coolant passages. This is very bad.

I will know more on Monday, but I need you to ship the gaskets back so that I can take care of this. I am very sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused."

 

Which is why I'm sticking with FelPro head gaskets.

 

I kind of thought things seemed a little bit wrong when putting it in, but then brushed it off as I reminded myself that you would think a manufacturer would get that sort of thing right......

 

Which is why the car companies are swirling the drain (remember Toyota?).

 

which are known to fail.. lol


GM graphite gaskets are the only way to go, ROL also makes them for the iron heads (.040 compressed).


I'm sure Ben will fix the issue, that does suck though.

 

Doubt that a lot... My engine sees 4k regularly and the head gaskets were changed about 40K ago... I'll stick with mine. You can pay three times as much for yours.

 

i use vr gaskets on mine which are great they have taken everything i could throw at them

i was going to suggest u take the p istons out and have them machined but looks like u already have one of the heads on
i have a thread on here or 60* that shows u the cr for how much u machine of the piston tops and how thick it leaves the piston crown.
i belive at 10-1 was the lowest u could safley get by machining the pistons tops on an n/a engine bu hell u could deff drop it 1 full point by fly cutting the pistons with 0 issues

 

how far form Pittsburgh are you im moving about 45 mins from there tommorow

 

Doubt what you want, i know what i've seen first hand over the last 15 or so years playing with these engines.


ROL graphite gaskets are about $10 each, the GM ones aren't much more than that. I spin mine to 7K and abuse the hell out of it, i'll spend the extra few bucks for the added insurance.

 

I live in Coraopolis/Moon township, I'm literally 5m from the airport.
But Pulling the pistons wasn't really an option, theres not many shops around here and the ones that are are freaking retarded, try to rip me off with 1k for a full engine swap just to pull the block, all you have to do is unbolt the engine mounts and transmission and lift it out...I could do that myself if I had the room or tools.

 

how far from johnstown is that ?

 

I know that the reason I put the FelPro ones on was because the STOCK GM GASKETS had a leak through the FLAME RINGS on 3 and 5, losing compression in BOTH. Besides, every gasket I've seen of that type is just CRAP (especially the factory LIM gaskets). You know a gasket is good when it has a bunch of miles on it and it comes off in the same condition it went on in (one piece without leaving pieces behind)... Can't say that for those crappy GM LIM gaskets! I'll stick with my metal based gaskets, you can have the graphite ones.

 

Bout an hour and a half, 2 hours max, barring something like rush hour traffic.

 

LIM and headgaskets are completely different.. lol


i've pulled heads off of 100K+ mile Gen3 engines that had the newer graphite style gaskets and they showed no signs of fatigue. I know the older ones used in the gen1 and gen2 engines did fail once in a while, but those are not the ones i was talking about. The good ones came out around 2003. There are people pushing 400+ hp on them.


Felpro does make a better LIM gasket than GM does, i've used them on gen2 and gen3 engines, never seen the Gen1 set though.

 

Made out of the same crap the gen 1 HG is.