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Finished the wiring in the trunk and tested everything Saturday..... All worked fine except I had a little trouble with the water/meth level sensor, but I got that straightened out..... Today I will get the torque converter changed and should at least get started on the gear change.....
Got the gear set up this weekend, plus a couple other small things..... I still new to reinstall the axles and brakes..... I also had to modify my tailpipe slightly to clear the new fuel cell lower box, I'll get that welded later this week.....
It's getting close, I think it will run again next weekend and hopefully be able to drive it some next week.....
I did get most of it together..... MIA is a piece of the Tial BOV Clamp, I've got one coming..... The only other thing I still need to hook up is the water/meth fittings in the charge pipe..... I did get it running again, started right up with the new tune( I might be starting to get a decent understanding of the tuning)….. I also got it back on the scales, it has lost 120lbs but it still weighs in at 3290 with my big *** in it..... After some adjusting on the suspension it's now only 33lbs heavy in the right rear, much better then the almost 90 it was before..... I am pretty happy with that..... The new converter seems pretty good so far..... It should be up and driving next weekend..... Hopefully I don't break it on 20psi.....
Got everything together this morning..... Drove it around a little, made a couple test hits..... it's making a little more boost then I thought it would, 21- 22 psi..... The new converter seems to be pretty good, the real test will be on a sticky surface..... Overall it feels really strong, and is driving well..... I have a couple tweeks to make and I'll get it cleaned up in the morning, maybe I'll even get it out to the track for a little testing this week.....
I thought it was because my 862 heads are the early notched deck ones..... But as it turns out it appears that it pushed the gasket out on the hole next to it first..... There are no signs of any detonation, I think it was probably just that the GM 12558940 composite gasket just couldn't hold the 22.7 lbs it was making..... It blew the driver side, I believe 5 first and distorted the gasket so much 3 went too..... The pass side was not blown, but it looks like the gasket was moving around a little from the scuff marks on the sealing ring..... The shortblock looks fine.....No water in the oil at all..... I will get the deck surfaces cleaned up and ready to go..... Time to do a little research and figure out if I need to replace the heads and what gaskets I should use either way.....Here's what it looked like when I pulled the head.....
Time for a LS9 head gasket? I am not comfortable with the LS9 gasket's larger bore size, but people seem to have excellent luck with them.
Does anyone make an aftermarket 5 layer MLS gasket for the 5.3L bore?
Andrew
I don't like the bore size of those gaskets on the 5.3 bore either, and they won't seal with the notched heads..... I have been looking around and it looks like the WS6 store has some 5 layer MLS gaskets as of 2017 that are made to work with the notched heads..... A lot of people have welded the notch and surfaced the heads, but I think I would rather just get some heads without the notch..... Still gonna do some more research.....
On a good note I quess, the car did still go 6.47@109.52 in the 1/8th aparrently on 6 cylinders.....
I finished taking a couple things apart this morning, then cleaned the deck surfaces on the block and heads..... After that I took most of the parts to work and washed everything, plus I have a nice steel block at work I have used to block and check deck surfaces..... I did a fairly quick going over the heads with some 320 and the surfaces look really good..... Then I took everything back to my shop and did a really quick blocking on the block deck surfaces and they look fine too.....I have done some research and have a couple options, I need to make a couple calls tomorrow and dig a little deeper.....
Here is the driver side head(side that popped) and the pass side head after clean up.....
Here is the block after quick scuff, driver side then pass side.....
Why put any time/effort into that head? Any LS head without the notch will seal better and are capable of huge power. Slap in an LS9 gasket and let it rip. Small valve truck heads can be had for peanuts and made to flow better than a 243 pretty easily.
05-29-2018, 07:46 AM
