RAMnGO

well now that i've gotten all my parts i finally started on my H/C swap. And i had an idea that everyday at the end of the day i would put a post on here telling what i got done and how bad it was to do... today i've gotten the intake,coil packs, exhaust,water pump,and radiator out just to name a few things and the radiator was not bad at all.. i didn't disconnect my A/C either...the intake kinda sucked and the coil packs also but only because of the back bolts, i had some kinda bracket on the drivers side and the 2 heater core hoses on the passenger side in the way for the coil packs.. the power steering pump i took off at the head and that way i hope all i have to do is just add a litel bit of power steering fluid afterwards....wellthats it for today....let me know if anyone has any advice for me also...

Jabroni

Here's a tip: Take that back passenger coil pack bolt and chuck it in the lake! You'll never need to use it again! What a knuckle-breaker. I can't say for the heads part of the job but the cam swap is relatively simple. Just take your time, check and recheck your reference material and you'll have smooth sailing.

Cal

iTrader: (1)

Ditto on the coil pack bolt!

Tracer X

I wonder if you threw yours in the same lake mine is in?!

Constrictor 98TA

If you have a 98, you wont have any problems with coil pack bolts! The way they're arranged on our cars theyre all pretty easy to get off!

RAMnGO

well here's an update on what i got done tonite... i got everything off but the oil pump. ok first if you're doing heads, goto the hardware store and get a 5 ft piece of 1" conduit tubing... man i paid 2.61 and it made my life so much better..the cam itself was not as bad as i thought to get out..the harmonic balancer on my car has these tangs on the inside to attach the 3 arm puller to and it wasn't as bad as i thought either to get off but what i had to do was use the stock bolt in the crank then i took a 13/16 spark plug socket with a wide washer and used that to finish pulling balancer off..make sure when you take the grounds off the back of the heads that you don't drop the bolts either coz they'll go in the lifter galley, also i didn't take the lifters out till i had the heads all the way off..so i guess weather permitting tomorrow i'll clean the block,new cam, and new heads and i noticed also alot of dirt and what appears to be carbon in the top end of the engine so i'll be cleaning that out and hopefully getting the new cam in and the Rollmaster double roller on....any advice for this is welcome...

Red2000SS

What did you use the 5 ft. piece of 1" conduit for?

Doug Tschantz

I remember the days of teardown.(uhhh) Wait till you have to put the harmonic balancer back on. Your gonna need a longer peice of condoit than what you bought I tell you that. I used the jack handle off my Napa jack (about 4ft long) and still busted a nut.

Doug
00 Pontiac

RAMnGO

well today we got the block cleaned up nice and the oil pump, double roller, cam, and drivers side head on also the lifters. Ok 1st complaint that damn harmonic balancer was SOOOO a PITA!!!! also torqing the head down was not fun. Oil pump and pick up tube was also kinda tricky at first.the best part was putting the cam in. that went even better then what i thought it would be like..remember i talked about that 5 ft cheater bar? mann what a life saver that is unless you have air tools, get you a cheater pipe!!!!tomorrow is the other head and then exhaust and intake i guess... any thoughts about this just ask...

Constrictor 98TA

I used a 2 foot piece of fence post over the handle of my breaker bar and I was able to get the crank bolt off. I cant imagine needing a 4 or 5 foot pole!

I did pretty much the same thing you were doing this past winter/spring, and while doing it, it seemed like such a monumental task, but looking back, I am so glad I did it myself, and sometimes on the weekends, I get sad because I dont have something else to do on the car! I joke around that I want to pull the engine apart just to have something to do! Have fun, and if youre interested, check out my Project Resurrection page, which is a diary of sorts as to everything I did! The link is in my sig.

RAMnGO

well not much got done tonite, we got the intake on but couldn't torq it due to no deepwell socket we did get the pushrods and rocker arms on and we finished up the other head other then an issue with the right head being torqued a bit too much but now the motor looks like a motor almost again i'm hoping weather ,tools, and parts provided we will crank it up tomorrow nite..any last minute fire up advice is most definitely welcome also since i am re using the stock lifters shouldn't they already be pumped up a bit still just wondering if the lifters gonna be loud on start up..

robertbartsch

No on the lifter pump up...you probably should have soaked them a tad,,,,but no biggie...

I would spray (silicone) the hell out of the springs, valves, valve seals, if you still have the heads off...

robertbartsch

I would spray silicone "if you still have the valve covers off the heads" I meant to say... ...you said you bolted the heads on already, right....

Q. What did you do about the over-tight small head bolts? ..just left them extra tight, right?

RAMnGO

well tonite was the nite, we fired her up!!ok lots to say on this... ok first be careful about torqing the TB bolts down i broke one, how i don't know.. also the radiator wasn't bad at all to install we fired it up and it did smoke a bit and we took it around town with just headers on.. it doesn't wanna idle and around 1500 it does surge as you are driving.. tomorrow i put the cats on it and i have a y pipe that i might put on not sure yet also i'm still waiting on my x pipe to get my true duals on...with 2 3" flowmaster mufflers should sound ok... well now i need to know where the closest and best tuner around central Va is...

Carlos

Any more updates? How's it handling?

RAMnGO

well took it to hte track last nite and it was not good. The motor is getting broken in i can feelit running smoother as time goes on, i like the cam,heads combo but thing is with this cam you need to get at least up to about 3 grand before it really does well,also at 1500 it surges really bad regardless what gear you're in. Also i can't run straight headers without it running too rich, so i got cats on it now... but it did a best of 8.66 with a 2.24 60' and spinning in all gears... so right now not sure but it does feel stronger...

ne14a6t9

keep me informed, I am in the market for a good set of heads for my vette and I have seen the absolute heads seem to be making gtp like or better hp numbers, when did you get your heads, what did you do the motor, sounds like I want to stay with a 114 lsa, the last combo I seen made 431 and should idle

RAMnGO

i ordered my heads back in March but i got them around 4th of july and it took me a week to get the engine together. basically its a TR 224 cam on 112 LSA , SLP double roller, SLP headers, TR pushrods, i kept the stock oil pump, and 5.3L heads, the cam is fine one thing i have found is that generally it takes a while to really get the engine broke in and the valves finally seated. It took about 3 days of town driving then 1 nite at the drags to get the motor running good. also i have noticed the cam really likes about 3000 rpms, any lower and it kinda surges especially around 1500...

TireFryer30th

You really need to get your car tuned...the cam you have is relatively mild, and the issue's you described, are symptoms of a lack of tuning.

RAMnGO

well i think i'm gonna try and do it myself due to i need to know how to anyway..but also it costs around 600 i was told by 1 place man you can buy LS1 Edit for like 550... plus also i have other mods coming soon so i will be tuning it quite a bit i'd imagine since i race at least once a week every week sometimes twice...