What parts should I use for tune up & maintenance

**lt1impalass** · 03-12-2009, 12:36 PM

Hi I had the previous post of Need help picking the right parts for performance or crate engine, so now since the car has been sitting since the day I bought it last year and I still don’t know if the engine has 80,000 or 200,000 on it & I know it wasn’t running on all cylinders I’m going to have a mechanic tune it up and maintain everything so I could see if its running right so I could do heads & cam.

What should I do because the mechanic I’m going to have work on the car is pretty good but his English is not so good so I would like to tell him or give him what parts need to be changed besides what he suggests or I think he’s saying?

I was thinking E3 spark plugs at $6.00 a piece, MSD wires at $125.00 and the auto parts guy suggested doing a Cardone water pump at $100.00 & ACDelco Cap & Rotor $190.00 since I would be taking apart that area already. If my Optispark is bad does the eBay one come with a cap & rotor?

When I changed the rear axle to an Impala since the car had a Caprice drum rear end it started leaking so it needs to be fixed and I’m also going to put 22” wheels on & try to improve horse so I was wondering what gear ratio I should change to? I was thinking 3.73 because it’s going to be a summer street driver and that’s what was in my Mustang and is $600-$650 a good price for parts and labor lifetime warranty at a highly respected rear end shop?

Please list any suggestion on what I should do and actual parts because I’m trying to get this done this week and I like to buy quality parts to do it once or until it’s time to change the part again thanks.

P.S. I’m going to post this in multiple LT1 forums for fast responses and different opinions in case nobody responds.

**bigrondownhiller** · 03-12-2009, 02:57 PM

I would skip the 6 dollar plugs and just use regular ac plugs. For the water pump I would just go with a gm pump also because I never heard of a cardone. An ac cap and rotor will be fine. If it is a whole opti it will have a new cap and rotor on it. 600 for a gear sway sounds fair especially if they know what they are doing. Just remember that you will have to update the computer for the gear change. With the bigger wheels it might not be that big of a change depending on what gear came stock.