[AAIIIC]

May 10, 2012:

I had a fellow gearhead from work come over this evening and we got the heads torqued down and valvetrain installed. Progress!

May 26, 2012:

Progress is being made this weekend. Basically, because I'm a huge procrastinating moron, I'm getting down to crunch time. I'm moving in a month, and right now I'm attending an extremely intensive course of study in preparation for command, which keeps me at work 12-14hr per day during the week, plus time on the weekends. Not a whole lot of free time to play with.

So, with that said, I really want to get the engine in the car this weekend. Other than one small hiccup - where the frack did I put all the flywheel bolts?!?! - I think I'm on track. As discussed before, the heads are on and torqued. A couple nights ago I installed the front cover loosely, awaiting install of the ATI damper. (The FSM has you use a special tool to ensure the front main seal in the front cover is properly centered on the crank snout. Without that tool, it appears the "normal" method on the internet is to install the front cover loosely, then install the crank damper, which helps to center the front cover, then tighten up the front cover bolts.) The motor mounts are installed on the engine.

The big job today was fighting with the wiring harness that goes over and around the top of the engine. As I said much earlier in this thread, the FSM method is to drop the engine out the bottom of the car, so the wiring harness on top of the engine isn't a concern. However, if you're pulling the engine out the top, the harness is a big problem. Imagine a 3/4 - 1" thick bundle of wires in a rectangular loop sitting on top of the engine. At each front corner, thick bundles run down to the A/C, ABS, PS, fans, alternator, etc. And at the bottom of the radiator support, a thick bundle runs from one side to the other, making a continuous vertical loop of wiring at the front of the engine, which is connected to the continuous horizontal loop of wiring that sits on top of the engine. And then at the rear, there are two legs that go back along either side of the transmission, so there's no easy way to move the damn harness out of the way! This picture gives a pretty good idea of where the harness goes:

When I pulled the dead engine, I had already removed the heads. With some stretching and cursing, I was juuuust able to pull the engine up through the horizontal loop of wiring. But with the new engine, I've already installed the heads (since I figured it would be easier with the engine out of the car), so that ain't gonna work - the engine is too wide fit down through that loop. Today I was under the car tracing the harnesses along either side of the tranny, disconnecting the various sensors and labeling everything, then pulling both harnesses into the engine bay. At that point I was able to flop the entire horizontal loop and the two rearward legs over the radiator, moving the harness out of the way of the soon-to-be-lowered-in engine. Hooray!

Tomorrow morning, assuming I can find all of the damn flywheel bolts, I'll pull the engine off the stand and install the flywheel and clutch. I also want to make a heat shield for the starter with some sheet aluminum - the starters are somewhat notorious for having issues with melting the harness connector and/or terminal plug, and that issue gets even worse with headers. The starter wiring harness on the car now is relatively new, as the old one failed on me during an event at VIR, but even this "new" one has clearly seen some heat already, so I want to shield it.

The next bit of fun will be repositioning the car. I live in a townhouse with a 2-car garage, but the garage is pretty shallow. With the V's rear bumper an inch or two from the garage door, I've probably got 2-1/2 feet or so at the front of the car - not enough room to maneuver the engine hoist. When I pulled the engine, I did it with the engine hoist on the side of the car, at a bit of an angle. That really made it a pain in the ass to control the fore-aft movement of the engine. To avoid that, I want to shift the car back a couple feet to give me more room to play in front of the car, so I can put the engine hoist in a more conventional position. That will require reinstalling the rear wheels, taking the rear off the jack stands, jacking up the front end to get if off the jack stands, rolling the car back, and putting the front back down on jack stands. I'll end up with the car hanging out the garage door, so hopefully I'm able to get the engine in without too much trouble, at which point I can get the engine hoist out of the way and move the car back forward. That also means that (obviously) the garage door has to stay open, which really sucks, since it's supposed to be in the 90s tomorrow. Normally the garage stays pretty cool due to the positioning of the house, but with the big double door open, methinks it'll be plenty warm in there.

 

[AAIIIC]

May 27, 2012:

False alarm on the flywheel bolts - I was thinking there were supposed to be 8, and I was wondering what I had done with the other 2. Turns out there are only supposed to be 6.

May 28, 2012:

Lining things up. Hmmm, it's been so long since I pulled the old engine - was it transversely mounted?

So close, and yet... so far. Flywheel and clutch installed, front damper installed. Successfully rolled the car back and worked the engine hoist around the garage to get it in front of the car and the engine is lowered into the engine bay.

Unfortunately, I just can't quite get the engine to slide back onto the tranny. I know from fighting with engine swaps in the Subaru that sometimes that's the way it goes, but this seems more stubborn than anything I've fought with on the Subaru.

Earlier this evening I'm pretty sure I had the splines on the clutch at least starting to engine the splines on the input shaft of the transmission - using a wrench on the crank pulley bolt, I couldn't rotate the crank anymore. At that point I was as close as I've gotten - about 1/2 - 3/4" gap between the tranny and engine. It just wouldn't go any closer. The gap was just big enough that I could only get a couple/few threads of engagement with a few of the bolts, not enough that I was willing to put any torque on them to try to pull the engine and tranny together. (In the back of my mind I always have the cautionary tale of a friend of mine, who mangled the splines on the input shaft of his Miata's tranny by pulling the engine and tranny together when things weren't quite aligned.)

After shaking and pushing and rocking to try to get it to close the gap, I went ahead and pulled the engine back to try and "reset", and then couldn't get it to go back to where it was. Blast! I already pulled the engine back up once to eyeball the pilot bearing alignment with the splines of the clutch discs, looked fine, so I'm not sure what else to try.

Here's how she sits for now (well, except it's darker since it's midnight):

Have to leave the garage open overnight, which doesn't thrill me. And I'm not sure what else I can try tomorrow, so I may just have to lift the engine back out and set it aside so I can pull the car back in the garage.

 

[AAIIIC]

Once you get it close enough to get a few threads on all the bolts, depress the clutch pedal - if you can get the pressure plate to release it will let everything align, and you should be able to push it the rest of the way on. On the LT1 backward clutch, this would also pull the tranny home.

Ahhh, thanks, I wouldn't have thought of that.

More on May 28, 2012:

It's in! Hopefully I didn't frakk anything up, but I wouldn't be surprised if the pilot bearing is a bit worse for wear. I got it to the same point I was at last night - about 1/2 - 3/4" gap - then used a few longer bolts to hold things together. Depressed the clutch pedal and locked it into place against the front seat with a jack handle, then started tightening the bolts. After a little work (and I wasn't putting a ton of torque on the bolts - I was using a short Gearwrench ratching wrench and a little 1/4" drive ratchet specifically to keep myself from trying to gronk it on there) I heard a big pop (snout of input shaft bound up on the pilot bearing and then releasing?) and was able to tighten the bolts the rest of the way pretty easily.

I guess I'll find out in the next couple weeks if I fooked something up.

In my excitement, I went ahead and bolted the front cross-member into place. Then I remembered that I wanted to install the headers while the cross-member was still down (and the engine was still lifted up by the hoist) to give me more room to play with. Doh! So, I'll probably have to re-attack that tonight. For now, though, it's time to roll the car back into the garage, then get cleaned up and go study nuclear powah for a while.

 

[AAIIIC]

June 1, 2012:

Makin' progress. Got the headers in with new gaskets. I had the headers installed a while back by Lindsay Cadillac, and I gave them ARP header studs to install. When I removed the headers last fall I discovered that those studs really make removing (and installing) the passenger side header a huge PITA. The engine sits noticeably closer to the passenger side strut tower, so the header won't even clear the studs unless you lift the engine a bit. On Monday I did that so I could hang the header on a stud just to get it into position, but tonight I had to fight with positioning the header and gasket and threading a bolt in with only two hands.

I also finished up my starter heat shield and installed that. Not sure if it'll make any difference, but it makes me feel better.

And I worked on re-installing the tranny wiring harness - got 1/2 of that done.

 

[AAIIIC]

June 2, 2012:

More progress being made. Two sticking points thus far: (1) The frakking oil dipstick tube doesn't want to slide all the way in. I've read a number of times that the dipstick is a PITA to get seated, and now I'm experiencing that first-hand. It needs to go in about another inch to be able to line up with the bolt on the header that holds the tube in place. (2) I have a mystery connector on the passenger side above the starter. Not sure what they hell it could possibly go to. Anyway, still some work to do, but I think I can actually fire it up this weekend.

Crank position sensor?

Aha! Yup, that's the one. Now I just have to figure out how to get to it, as the starter and header are already installed, which is why I couldn't see it from above or below.

 

[AAIIIC]

Frakk me, that was a battle! Wrapped things up about 0130, with probably the last 90min or so dedicated to trying to get that damn crank position sensor hooked up. But, I got it!

I was worried I was going to have to pull the starter to get to it, and the starter won't come out with the passenger side header installed, which won't come out unless I jack the engine up a bit. I had to unbolt the starter (partly to remove the heat shield I made so I would have more room to work with, and partly to allow me some wiggle room with the starter), and then I fought with it for probably 30min before I finally got my fingers in there (couple left fingers over the top of the starter, couple right fingers squeezed up between the starter and the block) and popped the connector into place. That was after 30min or more trying to reach in from above between the header tubes, feeling around with my fingers trying to find the sensor. The headers have Swain Tech White Lightning on them, which is like rough sandpaper, so my left hand and wrist got pretty abused squeezing down between the tubes.

So, between the little bit of work Friday and the lotta work Saturday, I...
- Went to the Caddy dealer Friday PM for a couple jugs of GM coolant. Thought hard for a minute to make sure there wasn't anything else I still needed. Apparently, didn't think hard enough (more on that in a moment).
- Finished re-routing all of the harness stuff that I had moved out of the way to install the engine. To route the harness back along the passenger side of the tranny I actually had to loosen all the bolts on the front crossmember and drop the engine/tranny/crossmember about an inch to make enough room, as it runs on top of the transmission and I just couldn't feed it through the limited space.
- Got the water pump installed.
- Went back to the Caddy dealer Saturday AM for a new thermostat gasket after installing the water pump and realizing I had gotten new water pump gaskets months ago but not a thermostat gasket.
- Pre-lubed the engine with oil.
- Went to Advance Auto to get some more blue shop towels and oil dry after pre-lubing the garage floor while pre-lubing the engine. Also picked up a PS pulley installer/remover rent-a-tool kit.
- Got the alternator installed.
- Got the PS pump installed, along with a new pressure line (the old one had been seeping for a while so I finally elected to replace it while everything was apart). Unfortunately, it seems to me the new line isn't bent properly, as it doesn't line up quite right. It'll work for now, but I'm not thrilled by the fitment.
- Pressed the PS pump pulley on with the installer/remover kit.
- Cut off an 18mm wrench so that I had something short enough to remove (and then reinstall) the fitting on the PS line where it goes into the rack. (It was much easier installing that fitting a month or two ago when there wasn't an engine in the way!)
- Removed the PS pump pulley with the installer/remover kit. Removed the alternator and PS pump to check to make sure I had the new pressure line routed properly. Tried a different configuration (it crosses over itself, so I tried it with A on top of B and with B on top of A) with no better luck.
- Pressed the PS pump pulley on with the installer/remover kit.
- Got the PS cooler re-mounted to its bracket and reinstalled. (I was going to upgrade that, but the plan never came together, hence I put the OEM cooler back together and I'll worry about an upgrade later.)
- Did an initial fill on the PS system. I'm sure it'll need more fluid once the engine is running. I suppose I could put a drill on the snout of the pump - I've done that to bleed pumps in the past.
- Installed new intake port gaskets in the FAST 92mm intake manifold.
- Decided I wasn't going to need to lift the engine again and bolted the engine mounts in place.
- Fought with the crank position sensor wiring harness and finally got it hooked up.
I think that's about it.

My task list is out in the garage, but off the top of my head I still need to:
- Install the intake manifold and throttle body.
- Replace the injector o-rings and install the injectors and fuel rails.
- Install the radiator (a nice new aluminum one) and fans, fill the cooling system.
- Install the air intake / filter box.
- Put the rear end up on jacks and install the exhaust. (I think I'll leave it on the jacks for the first startup so I don't put the car through the back wall of the garage if I frakked up something with the clutch / tranny during the install. )
- Top off the engine with oil.

 

[AAIIIC]

June 3, 2012 (morning):

Man I'm glad I'm not the only one that has to redo and/or mop up my installation mistakes. Not that I wish on anyone else or on your project Patrick but I feel a little less foolish knowing it happens to most everyone.

Yeah, I definitely have my fair share of mishaps. What I've always thought is strange is that I'm not an incompetent mechanic - at least, I don't think I am. But I seem to have a knack for making the one small mistake that can't be fixed in 5min, and instead requires me to spend 2hr disassembling and reassembling things in order to get to that socket that I dropped into just the wrong spot or whatever.

That is a heck of a lot of work in a short period of time. Congrats. Sounds like I might see you running the V again in time for the sweltering VIR July heat wave.

It honestly felt like I didn't get that much accomplished, but when I wrote it all out like that I felt better. Obviously I burned some time running errands that should've been unnecessary or should've been combined, but such is life.

As for VIR, if I get to any more events this season it won't be until the fall, as the Navy will have me jumping locales from the end of June through September.

June 3, 2012 (evening):

:thepan: Today the Gods of Wrenching decided to punish me for saying that I'm not an incompetent mechanic by making me do things that would make me question that statement. I got the intake manifold installed, then the fuel rails, then removed the fuel rails and flipped them 180deg so that they were actually properly installed. I did a couple touch up things, like getting the 2 grounds on the back of each head installed - quite a PITA, as there's little room to play with and you can't see. (I can only imagine how impossible that task must be on the Vettes and F-bodies, with the back of the engine tucked under the cowl!)

I then installed the throttle body, which is an OEM 90mm job that came with the conversion harness to run an LS2/3 TB on an LS1/6. Made note for the first time (despite having had these parts for months) that the LS6 TB has a nipple on it upstream of the throttle plate, and has coolant running through it, while the "new" TB has neither. Hmmmm... Did some searching and found this pretty comprehensive install thread that addresses both issues. Went to Advance Auto to buy the PCV grommet bits he used to tap into the intake pipe upstream of the TB.

At some point after that I discovered that there's a vacuum nipple on the rear passenger corner of the FAST intake manifold. My car doesn't use that nipple, so I need to cap it, but of course the only vacuum caps in my little arsenal of spare parts are either tiny or too big. Having already been to Advance Auto twice during the day (once to return the PS pump pulley installer kit, once to get the PCV stuff), I elected to just write that down and get the cap tomorrow.

Then I went to install my spiffy new aluminum radiator. Slid it into place and couldn't get the condenser to bolt up. (The condenser bolts directly to the radiator, 2 bolts on the upper tank, 2 on the lower.) Tried various iterations of getting one bolt in place, then tugging and shifting and forcing to get the other holes to line up. No go. Took the radiator out and made a couple measurements. Hmmmm, that looks fine, let me try again. Surprisingly enough, still no go. Fortunately, I still have my stock radiator - just never got around to tossing it - so I pulled that out of the corner. I took some rough measurements but I couldn't figure out why the damn condenser didn't want to bolt up to the aftermarket radiator. I didn't want to fiddle with it anymore, as I just don't have the time to spare, so I went ahead and installed the stock radiator (condenser bolted up with no muss, no fuss). Then I was reminded that, despite what the FSM says, it is physically impossible to install the fans with the radiator already in the car - you have to put the fans on the radiator, then install everything together. After making that re-discovery, I recalled fighting to get everything out last summer, and kicked myself for not remembering.

Pulled the radiator, installed the fans, slid the whole assembly back in, bolted everything up. Then came the biggest bonehead move of the day. I chopped an old radiator hose to give me a 90deg piece, put that on the upper hose connection on the block, and started to fill the block with coolant. I put 1 - 1.5 gal in and then started to hear fluid splashing on the garage floor. WTF?! Coolant was coming down from somewhere at the back of the engine on the passenger side. I threw down some more blue shop towels and some more oil dry stuff, all the while wondering what the hell could be leaking. Of course, it had to be at the rear passenger side, which is the worst for visibility. After crawling under the car a couple times fruitlessly searching for a source, it hit me - the heads aren't side-specific, which means they both have a port for the coolant temperature sensor. The sensor mounts in the front of the driver side head, which means the back of the passenger side head has a 1/2" hole in it unless you plug it! Fooooooccckk!! So stupid of me! I went and dug through the bits that TEA sent me when they sent the heads back, found the plug, installed that, poured in a bit more coolant and then decided to call it a night.

I started the day thinking I might actually try starting the car, and finished almost wanting to blow it up.

 

[AAIIIC]

June 5, 2012:

A few pictures of progress.

The pre-lube process. It turns out the FSM tells you to use this port on the driver side of the block. I had bought a 16mm-to-6AN adapter to use in the oil pressure sending unit port on the top of the block, but this plug ended up being the same thread. I found the oil pressure sending unit a bit of a PITA to remove / install, as it's a big hex head, so using this port allowed me to install the sending unit on the top of the block before installing the engine.

Garden sprayer + a couple adapter fittings/hose nipples to convert the sprayer's hose to 3/8" hose, then a 3/8" nipple-to-6AN hose end. The shutoff valve was probably unnecessary, but helps minimize mess.

Here's the nice fat radiator:

I really wish I knew why the fracking condenser didn't want to bolt up to it, but now that I've filled the stock radiator I'm not going to go back and try again. I'll save that task for a later date after the car is on the road.

Last night I got the exhaust into position. A bit unwieldy by myself, as it's all one piece from the cats back to the mufflers. (Technically, it's a few pieces, but Magnaflow's somewhat cheap stainless is pretty well corroded together. Plus I didn't want to remove the cats from the X-pipe, as that all has to be aligned just right to fit together.) Header flanges are loosely bolted in place, mufflers are on jacks waiting for me to hook up the hangers tonight.

I have some starter heat shield pics, but they all suck, so I'll try to snap better ones tonight.

 

[AAIIIC]

June 6, 2012:

OK, some pics of the starter heat shield. No idea if it will actually help, but it's in there.

Looking in from the passenger side, you can see the shield in the gaps between the header tubes:

Looking up from below, you can see how it's attached using the starter bolts, and you can just see the edge of it as it runs alongside the starter:

This picture is sideways (up is on the left), forgot to rotate it. This is looking forward from above the header collector.

The cable right next to the header primary wrapped in Thermo-Tec sheathing is the positive cable to the starter, and it's the closest thing to the header. It's not quite as bad as it looks in the picture, but it is closer than I'd like - probably ~3/4" or less. There's really nothing to use to pull the cable closer to the block / starter, though, so there's not much I can do about it. The heat shield is intended to protect the end of that cable where it attaches to the starter, which is not wrapped in any sort of heat protection. I actually cut the heat shield back a bit to clear the wrapped portion of the cable, otherwise (due to the angles of the various bits) the heat shield would be touching the header and the cable, which I figured would kind of defeat the purpose.

Last night I finished installing the exhaust - all the hangers are hung, and the flanges at the header collectors are bolted up. Before I pulled all this stuff apart months ago I had used a green paint marker to mark the header collector and cat pipes and was happy to see my marks all lined right back up.

I also fought with the damn dipstick tube, still can't get the thing to slide all the way in. This morning I sent an email to the tech at the dealership who always works on the car to ask him for some tricks. When I get home tonight I'll see if he has any advice for me. That's basically the only thing preventing me from finishing off the oil fill (I pumped a couple quarts in during the pre-lube, as that's what the FSM said to do) - I don't want to just blindly pour oil in without having an accurate dipstick to check the level.

One other thing I was playing with over the weekend was the install of the FAST intake manifold. The factory manifold has a little ground bracket between one of the fuel rail mounting bolts and one of the intake manifold mounting bolts. The FSM seems to think that little bracket is important, but the FAST instructions don't address it at all. It won't fit on the FAST manifold without some modification, so I did some trimming with my tin snips to make it work:

The fuel supply line routes over the top of the manifold on the CTS-V; my impression is the Vettes and F-bodies aren't routed here. As you can see, the silver supply line don't fit - the two "legs" that are supposed to bolt to studs where the fuel rails mount don't reach.

So, I cut those off:

I'm pretty much down to installing the coil brackets and plug wires (waiting on getting the oil dipstick in place - I suppose I could install the driver side now), topping off the oil, topping off the coolant, installing the battery and firing it up. Getting close!

Oh, and Monday was 1 year. It would have been nice if I could've gotten it started on the weekend, just to beat the 1 year, but alas...

 

[AAIIIC]

More on June 6, 2012:

The trick I use for dipsticks is to use a crows foot wrench on the end of a long extension. Slide it over the tube and set it down on the ridge that seats the dipstick then tap the extension and it drives the dipstick right in.

The other alternative is just to figure out that you're trying to align the dipstick tube holder bracket with the wrong hole on the head!!! This whole time I was thinking that the dipstick bolted to one of the header bolts. After futzing with it a little bit more this evening, and getting ready to install coil packs and plug wires, I was thinking to myself, "I don't know how the damn spark plug wire boot is going to have any room when I get this dipstick tube into position. Am I lining it up on the correct bolt?" I looked at the FSM to make sure I was lining it up right and at that point I noticed that the FSM showed it lining up with a bolt hole just above the header flange. Well, whaddya know! So, that's fixed.

Also got the coil packs and plug wires installed (that's more of a PITA than I remembered) and hooked up the battery. Added some more coolant (although I'm sure I'll have to "burp" the system once I get it running) and filled it with oil. By the time I was done with that it was about 11:15pm, so I elected not to start it (again, townhouse neighborhood, no point pissing everyone off!). I did turn the key to power everything up and got a couple of warnings - "Service Theft System" (maybe since it's been without power for a year and lost whatever memory it had?) and "Engine Power Reduced" (I think because of the new throttle body). I just shot another email to the dealer tech to ask about those; hopefully he'll shoot me a response tomorrow and I can try starting it when I get home from work!

 

[AAIIIC]

June 7, 2012:

She lives! (One (leap) year and 3 days after the engine blew.)

It wasn't exactly seamless, but it's running. The Service Theft System warning cleared itself - the relearn process for that just teaches it to recognize your key, so I guess using the key last night was enough for it to recognize it. I found two different relearn / reset procedures related to the throttle body, so I tried both of those and then started it up. It was idling pretty rough and had a CEL - two different codes (0220 and 2135), both related to the throttle body / TPS. I had to give it gas to keep it running, and I was seeing a lot of oil smoke out the tailpipes. Like, worrying amounts of oil smoke. I wasn't too surprised that there was some oil in the exhaust from the old engine, but even after idling for a couple minutes at 1500-2000rpm it was still coming out pretty heavy.

So, after keeping it at 1500-2000rpm for a couple/few minutes, I shut it down and went to change the oil. While the oil was draining, I checked the LS2/3-to-LS1/6 throttle body conversion harness. Sho' nuff, one of the pins was bent. I managed to straighten that out,carefully put the harness back together, and powered the car up again. Cleared the codes, no more Engine Power Reduced warning. Hooray! Started it again and it was able to idle by itself. And, strangely enough, the oil smoke was gone.

I had been thinking earlier today that I would drive the car if I got it started, but I had forgotten to account for the fact the hood is sitting on the roof. Tomorrow my brother will come over so we can resolve that issue. I will most likely get the car delivered back to Zip Corvette down by Richmond this weekend so they can tune it again next week, and at last this saga will be complete!

June 9, 2012:

Put some miles on it Friday before meeting up with family for dinner, and then again afterwards. Feels strong, and I'm not even getting into yet. Just doing some moderate acceleration, then letting it coast down to help seat the rings. One way or another I want to get it delivered to the tuner this weekend so he can re-tune it.

 

[AAIIIC]

June 10, 2012:

BTW it's amazing the car fired up, idled, and now pulls hard with a cam and head upgrade on a stock tune. My car started but barely ran until the tuner had at it. The 115 LSA will make you happy on the street.

The idle is somewhat finicky - I've started it now maybe a dozen times or so, and about 50% of the time it has started and idled on its own. The other 50% of the times it died unless I gave it a little gas. Rolling up to a stop sign/light I had to give it gas - it wouldn't drop down to an idle on its own after I put the clutch in. The actual driving has been perfectly fine, maybe the slightest hiccups on tip-in, but not bad at all. The ECM was tuned for the headers a while back, but I wouldn't think that would make much difference with the heads/cam/intake/TB that have just been added to the mix.

My brother and I delivered it to Zip Corvette this morning. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what sort of numbers it puts down, and looking forward to being able to confidently mash the pedal to the floor.

June 19, 2012:

Got the old engine out of the corner of the garage and started tearing the shortblock down so I can scrap the thing. It's basically a bare block now, except the cam won't come out. What's strange is that I had been able to turn the crank (with the timing chain still attached), but now the cam doesn't want to move. I'll try righting the engine tomorrow - maybe being upside-down cause the cam to shift just enough that it's bound up.

And I know what it's bound up on - one of the rod bolts. I don't know if my pictures came out well at all, but I'll post a couple up here shortly. One of the rod bolts is smashed in between the cam lobe and the top of the cam tunnel in the cylinder 5/6 area. The bolt has actually been curved to fit the top of the tunnel, and the cam lobe has machined probably 1/32" or more off the side of the bolt. Very impressive to see and appreciate the forces involved in deforming that high strength steel fastener like that! Hopefully I can manage to get the cam out, so I can then get the bolt out for some better pictures.

 

[AAIIIC]

After this many posts in a row, I suppose a double post was inevitable.

 

[AAIIIC]

So, that gets us caught up to now. I still haven't been able to get the cam out, so the block will just go to the metal scrap recycler with the cam stuck in there.

Justin @ Zip Corvette is working on tuning the car this week. I'm hoping I'll be able to go retrieve it on Saturday, but I need to get an update from Justin to find out where he's at. I will definitely post up the dyno graphs once I've got it back.

 

[jcollege]

Wow man just went through all of the posts, awesome build, congrats on getting it done!

 

[Cobrahunter]

glad to see im not the only one that has trouble swapping engines..... mating up the engine to the transmission is a pain!!!!

Good job!!!!

 

[rand49er]

Pat, that was a great read just now! What a saga! Couldn't wait till I finally read the post where the new motor fired up. Whew!

BTW, good luck with your move.

 

[TheLostDriver]

Lookin forward to an update!

 

[AAIIIC]

Tuner had some scheduling issues with dyno time, so looks like I won't get the car back this weekend. Sad panda is sad.

BTW, good luck with your move.

Thanks. As often as I've done it in the past 10 years, one would think I would get good at it, but as per usual I'll be spending the last couple days before the movers come scrambling to get stuff organized. :bigroll: It doesn't help that I've got a few months between the time I leave here and the time I actually settle at my final location, so I need to figure out what stuff I'll need along the way and thus can't let the movers take.
2002 - CT to HI
2005 - HI to DC area
2006 - DC area to RI
2008 - RI to WA
2010 - WA to DC area
2012 - DC area to Norfolk, VA

 

[rand49er]

...
2002 - CT to HI
2005 - HI to DC area
2006 - DC area to RI
2008 - RI to WA
2010 - WA to DC area
2012 - DC area to Norfolk, VA

One good thing is it gives you the ability to experience tracks all over the place.