How smart is it to go heads/cam/intake/nitrous on a motor with 70k on it?
03-18-2006, 12:36 AM
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How smart is it to go heads/cam/intake/nitrous on a motor with 70k on it? Hi all. I've come into a bit of money and I'm restoring the '99 Trans Am. I had a multitude of problems and the car sat for literally 1 year and 4 months or so while I drove an Eclipse Spyder and my bike. During that time it was broken into, the door left cracked, it was rained in, the interior molded/mildewed, etc. The abs inop light and the tcs off lights are always on due to the Moser 12 bolt I had in there. Apparently we didn't install the abs correctly and the stock 10 bolt that's in there now didn't have tcs. I'm just now getting the car up and running again and cleaning the heck out of it. I completely stripped out the interior to lay sound deadening and clean every little piece and that's going great.
Anyway, the motor has 68k miles on it and they haven't been too rough with nitrous use or anything, but I did drive the car like I stole it back in the day. I've never bent pushrods or hurt the motor in any way that I'm aware of, but it's not exactly been maintained at all while it's sat for over a year and it makes all kinds of strange noises now.
Is this a good candidate for one of the $3kish packages with a built bottom end (while using the stock crank) and a nice set of heads/cam/headers/nitrous or do you think I could get by with just slapping that on the motor that has 70k miles? I do plan to daily drive the car although I'll have my SV1000 bike as backup while the car is in the shop getting the mods/tuning. I just don't have much faith in the old motor to take the kind of beating I'd like to put it through. I want to spend $8-10k, but this has to include the clutch (probably ls7), fuel system, possibly another Moser 12 bolt, heads/cam/headers/y-pipe, nitrous, install, tuning, probably some used rims (ZR-1 chrome like I used to have) with nitto drag radials so I can use the stockers for et streets, etc. If I go with the built bottom end then I probably can't budget the 12 bolt and I'd just have to keep the 3.42's and hope they don't blow out. I've broken 4 sets of 10 bolt gears in the past so it's a bit of a sore spot.
Quite a rant there, but any advice you could give me would be much appreciated. The car currently has an SLP loudmouth with a hooker muffler welded in, MTI air lid, Pro 5.0 shifter, and Zo6 clutch...just so you know where I currently stand. How would you spend $8-10k on a car with almost 70k miles?
Thanks for your advice.
Anyway, the motor has 68k miles on it and they haven't been too rough with nitrous use or anything, but I did drive the car like I stole it back in the day. I've never bent pushrods or hurt the motor in any way that I'm aware of, but it's not exactly been maintained at all while it's sat for over a year and it makes all kinds of strange noises now.
Is this a good candidate for one of the $3kish packages with a built bottom end (while using the stock crank) and a nice set of heads/cam/headers/nitrous or do you think I could get by with just slapping that on the motor that has 70k miles? I do plan to daily drive the car although I'll have my SV1000 bike as backup while the car is in the shop getting the mods/tuning. I just don't have much faith in the old motor to take the kind of beating I'd like to put it through. I want to spend $8-10k, but this has to include the clutch (probably ls7), fuel system, possibly another Moser 12 bolt, heads/cam/headers/y-pipe, nitrous, install, tuning, probably some used rims (ZR-1 chrome like I used to have) with nitto drag radials so I can use the stockers for et streets, etc. If I go with the built bottom end then I probably can't budget the 12 bolt and I'd just have to keep the 3.42's and hope they don't blow out. I've broken 4 sets of 10 bolt gears in the past so it's a bit of a sore spot.
Quite a rant there, but any advice you could give me would be much appreciated. The car currently has an SLP loudmouth with a hooker muffler welded in, MTI air lid, Pro 5.0 shifter, and Zo6 clutch...just so you know where I currently stand. How would you spend $8-10k on a car with almost 70k miles?
Thanks for your advice.
03-18-2006, 04:50 AM
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I didnt mod my car til about 60k. Now i got just about 90 with heads and cam and it's still running great. If you look hard enough youll find people on here who have heads cam n20 even with well over 100k. It's all in the tune and maintanence.
Your car is stil a baby, have fun.
Your car is stil a baby, have fun.
03-18-2006, 01:46 PM
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Yeah, the more I read the more I realize that my post was a little premature. It seems that folks are having great luck with high mileage LS1s.
I think I'll just go for the heads/cam/headers/ls6 intake/moser 12 bolt/ls7 clutch route and maybe add a nice stereo and spray once the thing is tuned right. Oh, and rims/springs of course.
I think I'll just go for the heads/cam/headers/ls6 intake/moser 12 bolt/ls7 clutch route and maybe add a nice stereo and spray once the thing is tuned right. Oh, and rims/springs of course.
03-19-2006, 05:22 AM
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Yeah, just do some reading and make sure you have all the supporting mods with your big ones, especially if youre gonna go to the track. IE: 12 bolt.... need a driveshaft. Cam, need pushrods and springs. You know, all that good stuff so you don't have to redo it. Might wanna throw some ARP bolts in the bottom end too...
