Pushead

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. 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...

Pushead

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.

Pushead

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.

Pushead

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!



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.

Pushead

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 old clearance (stock Y-pipe)


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.

Pushead

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:

Youtube "stock" dyno

Here is the first start up:

Rebuild first start - no tune

Here is the dyno run from this Friday:

Rebuild dyno tuning




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.

bad95killer

Wow Really Nice Summer Was .. So Glad U Made It By Urself

94lt105

iTrader: (1)

Very nice write-up bro, car looks ad sounds great with the new exhaust, sounded really weak before. Your mods seemed to really help her out. Have fun with it

Vince