Yeah, I got them. Speed Inc had them drop shipped directly from Tooley. Unfortunately though, I won't be using them for a while. Turns out my stock aluminum block got trashed by the failed lifter (#7 exhaust). The lifter's roller axle had partially worked its way out the side and created it's own clearance in the bottom of the lifter bore. I guess I'll be saving those lifters for the next build.

 

Oh no. Guess this puts you out for a while? Any idea how or why the lifter failed?

 

What about a bronze bushing in the lifter bore? I'm not sure if those are ever done on LSX engines, but it's a common mod for other engine families to correct worn lifter bores.....or just to blueprint all of the lifter bores in a block.

 

Puts me out for a while with the TA but luckily the Camaro's motor is still together. The biggest disappoinment is that I was going to take the TA on the Power Tour this year and now that isn't going to happen. I'm considering putting a tighter converter in the Camaro and taking it, but haven't made up my mind yet.

 

That's not completely out of the question yet, but there is a good size chunk missing out of the bottom of the bore. In other words, it's not just gouged.....its gone. So there would be nothing behind the bronze sleve in that spot to support it. I suppose the block could be welded up first, but that starts to make me question if the cost to fix this block is worth it right now. Don't get me wrong.....the block isn't going to the scrap heap. This is just kinda giving me the motivation to build the stroker motor I've always wanted for the car.

 

Sorry....I forgot to address this part. I really have no idea what caused it to fail. Best I can tell, the roller axles are just pressed in because I don't see any kind of retaining clips on them. I haven't tested this theory by trying to press one out on my own but I guess I could/should.

Even still, I would think the lifter would have to have rotated in it's bore to see the kind of side load necessary to dislodge one of the axles. The plastic lifter cups are supposed to keep the lifters from rotating but I've read of instances where the cups can get loose over time/miles and can allow the lifters to rotate. This MAY have happend to mine but I doubt it. The reason I doubt it is because the damage to the lifter bore indicates the lifter was facing the correct direction when the axle came out and I see no evidence of rotation inside of the cup (ie. no scuff marks or obvious stretching). I also doubt it could have rotated, spit the axle, and then rotated back to the proper position all in one cycle.

So at this point I'm just blaming it on a faulty lifter (too loose clearance in the axle's bore?).

 

Hey Gary, can you give me some details on your manual steering and brake conversion?, I'm ready to start getting my 73 together :-)

 

Sure thing. The steering swap just consists of swapping the power steering box for a plain old Saginaw 525 manual box that GM used on many of it's mid to full-size cars from probably the mid 60's through the late 80's or whenever they switched to the metric boxes. I think mine was originally out of a 69 Camaro but they came in lots of cars. Mine didn't have a rag joint attached and I couldn't use the one off my power box because (if I remember right) the input shaft diameter and spline count was different. So I ordered a 7806391
from a dealership. Finally, you need a flat 7 inch pitman arm made by Borgeson. This is so you can use your power steering drag link with the manual box. Here's the part: http://www.borgeson.com/xcart/catalo...rs-p-1627.html

The brakes are much easier. I just picked up a remanufactured manual master cylinder for a 70 Corvette at Autozone for like $30. I'm sure other year's will work as well but I know for sure one for a 70 Vette works. The reason for getting the Vette master cylinder instead of a Camaro one is because the Vette one has the deep recess in the plunger to keep the pushrod from falling out when you let off the brakes. The manual Camaro boxes have the shallow pocket. From there you just need an adjustable brake master cylinder push rod since the stock power one won't work. I got mine from MP Brakes also for around $30. Although I'm sure my stock proportioning valve would have worked fine (it's still a disc/drum set up), I went ahead and ditched it for a Wilwood adjustable proportioning valve. This just made things easier when I plumbed in my line lock.

You can see most of this stuff on pages 6 and 7 of my original build thread on nastyz28 at http://www.nastyz28.com/forum/showthread.php?t=170213.

 

Thank for the info Gary, I hope to have my enging in the car this week.

 

No problem. Good luck getting the engine in the car. I hope all goes smoothly.

 

For anyone who is curious, I pulled the crank out of my TA's LS1 tonight to get a better look at the damaged lifter bore from the bottom. It's about what I expected to see. You can see where the failing lifter's axle smashed itself a path through the aluminum material of the block. Like I said above, it looks fixable with some TIG work and a bronze sleeve, but for now I'd rather put this motor on mothballs and build something else for it. The stock motor will go in a corner to be repaired some day when I lose my mind and want to "restore" the car back to stock or worse yet......I decide to sell it.







Here's the lifter that caused the damage.

 

Gary maybe I am not seeing correctly but it appears to me you could deburr, and a light hone and keep on track with this engine. How high up the bore does the damage appear to be?

 

Tony, without taking a measurement, I'd say the damage goes about 1/4 or more up in the bore. You are probably absolutely correct with what you suggested but, with as hard as I run this motor, it would always make me nervous. I guess it would be different if the motor went in and out of these 4th gens easier (without a lift)......but they don't. But I will freely admit that I'm always a worst case scenario type of guy and I may eventually decide to "chance it" with this motor. But for now I'm daydreaming about strokers.....lol.

 

Cool! Keyed lifters. Just cut the other 15 holes and you won't need trays or link bars.

 

Hey.....what can I say......I've always been on the cutting edge of automotive engineering technology!

 

Hey, I was trying to see witch adapter you used to hook up your flex-a-lite fan controller, or do you have the screw in sensor or push in sensor type, I was looking at getting the screw in sensor type but dont see a adapter anywhere for M12 x 1.5 to1/4 or 3/8 or 1/2..??

 

My fan controller came with the push-in style. I have it as close as possible to the inlet of my radiator. I set it to turn the fans on when my temp gauge (which reads from one of the heads) reads 160. The controller seems very consistent with the gauge. Comes on right away when the gauges reaches 160. But like I said, it's adjustable so I could set it to a lower or higher temp if I needed to.

 

Thanks for the info, I was wondering why I couldn't find an adapter, as popular as these LS's are we would figure someone would have made that adapter.

 

Autometer makes some metric to npt adapters. Part number 2277 is a 12mm x 1.50 to 1/8 pipe. They should have others as well.

 

I have that one and the other for the oil pressure, they just dont make one from 12mm X 1.5 to 1/4 pipe or 3/8 and 1/2 pipe thats usually used for water temp screw in sensors found in the fan controller kits. I would like to use a screw in sensor and the only option I see is to grind down the threads on a 3/8 pipe sensor and thread new 12mm X 1.5 threads on it using a die.