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  1. #1
    Junior Member Pushead's Avatar
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    How I spent my summer - engine rebuild, pix & vids

    I was at the track (Summit Motorsports Park) in late July and ended up bending a pushrod while there. I shut the car down when I noticed the power die, and didn't make another run, but I drove the car home which was about 45 minutes away.

    That began a $5000 - 7 week long process of rebuilding my engine. :eyes: OCD is terrible, kids.

    As a point of reference, here is how my engine started it's life with me:



    The project started innocently enough. A friend and I pulled the valve covers off to replace all the pushrods, and noticed that the hole in the head for the pushrod was "enlarged".





    I didn't pay attention which pushrod was the problem, can you guess which one it was? lol



    With a rod bent that badly I decided to pull the head.





    With the head gone, here is what we found on the piston:



    continued...

  2. #2
    Junior Member Pushead's Avatar
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    My friend is a ACE certified engine mechanic, and he works on heads for a living, so he took the head and found that the valve stem was bent. He cleaned the head (both of them, actually) and replaced the valves.

    It was at this point where the OCD kicked in and my friend kept pushing me, so I decided to buy a cam and headers (and eventually an oil pump and other fun stuff) to bump up the car. I figured it would never be any easier to do it, and the car needed a tune anyway.


    Engine stripped down even more:




    Headers gone:



    No radiator and water pump:


    But since the car has been on stands for about a week at that point, I decided that maybe I wanted to replace my lowering springs for taller springs so it rides this high:



    But luckily I regained my sanity.

  3. #3
    Junior Member Pushead's Avatar
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    After waiting a few weeks for parts (stupid hurricanes in the south!) we removed the main pulley, the front seal, the oil pump (replacing with a Melling 10296) and finally, the cam! That day it was raining, so we were soaked even with an easy-up tent over the car.


    Oil pump and timing chain


    Lifter guides. You can see the old cam through the holes.


    Ready to pull the old cam!



    Bye bye old cam!


    Lifter guide without the cam.


    See you in hell, old cam!

    Missing pictures should be inserted here. I used my small camera that weekend and then the memory card took a dump. I'm still trying to pull the pix off, there were some cool pix of the new cam going in, and the oil pump.

  4. #4
    Junior Member Pushead's Avatar
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    I cleaned the head surface, and the pistons. It turns out that previous owners have also smacked pistons with valves. I don't feel quite as bad, but it is good to know that my hit was harder than any of theirs! :eyes:



    Previous owners (there is another one that is not pictured)


    Mine

    I got the timing cover, oil pump, oil pan, main pulley (pain!), all taken care of during the day that Friday. Sick days dumdumdum!

    The heads came back that Friday evening, and looked brand new.




    My buddy Mark, who is the ASE Head guy assembled them after work, so I got to see how it went together.




    We started putting the rockers back on, and torquing them.



    This is the side with the enlarged pushrod hole. It seems to be fine.


  5. #5
    Junior Member Pushead's Avatar
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    The next thing was installing the American Racing Headers.




    They had to go in from the bottom, so we had to get the car up a lot higher.


    My dad volunteered to work on the ground. He probably won't do that again.

    Well, the day got busy, so I didn't get to take many pictures.

    Here it is when we broke for lunch. Headers and exhaust mostly done (needed tightened up), intake on, and valve covers on.




    Here was one of the biggest problems of the late morning:

    Stupid dipstick!

    Finally, the engine is (almost) done. It needs fluids, and that damn coolant sensor, and the air intake stuff, but otherwise it's good to go.



    Replaced the coolant sensor and buttoned the engine up:


    Here are my "custom made" aluminum EGR and Air covers:



    (Finally!) The car is back on the ground. Here are some pix of my new ground clearance.





    The new cats are the lowest part, and the headers and Y-pipe fit much tighter, but everything is bigger. Now the lowest point is much closer to the front tire than the old low point, so who knows. After driving it for about 2 weeks, I haven't run into any problems.

  6. #6
    Junior Member Pushead's Avatar
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    So, more perspective here:

    The car had a GMMG catback when I got it. Here is a dyno run with that setup. I was having AFR issues, so I didn't get a complete set of numbers, but it was around 315 or so when he shut it down at 5200rpms. That was with a lid and the catback:



    Here is the first start up:



    Here is the dyno run from this Friday:






    And the results?



    402hp at 6295rpms and 385ft/lb at 4750rpms



    I couldn't have done this project without the help of my buddy Ante, my buddy Mark (not pictured) and my dad...

    and of course:


    Barkley! He's my buddy and my helper. I never liked little dogs until he came around.

  7. #7
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    Pewter Metallic
    2002 Trans Am WS6 M6 D1SC

    wow man! Good pics and awesome re-build! My friend and I are getting to a full on engine swap and rebuild. He but a hole in is stock ls1 and he got an LS6 short block today. Should be a busy winter. Glad to see you guys had a good time doing it!

    Great numbers and nice dog!

  8. #8
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    VR
    1993

    Great stuff pushed...I will be starting my rebuild soon. Did you buy OEM headgaskets?

  9. #9
    Junior Member Pushead's Avatar
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    Yes, I went with the GM Tech head gaskets.

  10. #10
    down in it 310stanger's Avatar
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    white
    90 Mustang 5.0

    so that pretty sizeable horsepower increase came in the name of mostly the cam swap? Did you guys port those stock heads as well? Either way great results


    ps. tell me about that fox hatch. i'm all about those cars lol

  11. #11
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    sweet

  12. #12
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    black
    2000 camaro ss

    what was the deal with the dipstick?

  13. #13
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    Pewter Metallic
    2002 Trans Am WS6 M6 D1SC

    Quote Originally Posted by tbias View Post
    what was the deal with the dipstick?
    It never does what you want it to. When we did an LT install on my buddies WS6 the dipstick would not come out of the oilpan worth a damn!

    After bending the hell out of the mounting bracket for the dipstick tube to fit through the manifold, the end of the tube just came out easy .

  14. #14
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    black
    2000 camaro ss

    i c.. im in the early stages of my tear down rt now. the fn intake is killing me ! theres all kinda shit going on on the back of that damn thing. ive got the bolts up and i put zip ties around them to keep them from falling back down (they wont come all the way out) . but theres still something holding it in the back .

  15. #15
    Member ebdboudreaux's Avatar
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    99' 30th Ann TA

    nice work...

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