Yup, that's it. The front&rear covers are suppose to be 0.010" below the rails IIRC... Hone out the ID of an old balancer to make an inexpensive front cover alignment tool.

 

I've seen people loosely mount the front cover, install the balancer, then make sure the cover is up to .010 blow the block and torque. I used this method.

Clint,
GREAT write up. I with I had your way with words. (Brains too) LOL

 

Your almost there!
Can't wait to hear it run!

I am going to modify my existing OEM balancer decribed in the article.
I purchased an ATI balancer the other day for my build.

Thanks for sharing.

Mike

 

X2 on this method! Make sure to oil the seal real good prior to assembly.

 

Tony I've read in several places these seals need to be installed dry. I don't know why but I'll look into it.

A few random updates. I hoisted the engine and torqued the remaining rear cover bolts that I couldn't access with it on the stand. After putting it back on the stand, I attached the flexplate and torqued those bolts to spec (thanks again to my flywheel stop!). I replaced the three screw in plugs (2x oil and 1x coolant) and bolted down the crank & knock sensors.

I also replaced the front cover crank seal. Look very closely at the image below and you'll see I sat the old seal on top of the new one for the photo. The old seal has a much larger ID on the lip than the new one. I think it's just worn away which may be part of the seal design or perhaps a bad seal. The part number molded into the rubber is identical between old and new. I wonder if the old one would have leaked.



I put the Dougs SK100 adapters back on and the motor mounts. Something I hadn't mentioned before that FatFreeGTO pointed out was this plate made contact at the bottom edge and could not seat flat against the mounting bosses. I ground a 45 along the edge of the bottom so it would clear. Now it sits flat.





I also put on the valley cover and installed the new LS7 lifters and trays.





I thought about putting the heads on, but I want to turn the motor upside-down to install the pan and I hate hate hate rotating a heavy longblock around on the stand if I don't have to.

 

So much engine picture **** and word erotic novel happening, if only the rest of us had the patience to document **** like you have... quite impressive really!

 

Hahahaha! Maybe I can tryout as a writer for GMHTP or the likes. I'd love to do that kind of thing as a side gig. You can see how much I love taking photos and writing about them.

On another note, I can't decide if I should repaint this thing after it gets buttoned up. This Duplicolor spray didn't work out so hot after my awesome rust-inspiring prep work. It has some areas where it's chipped off with rust underneath, probably not the paint's fault. I wonder how I should prep those areas to touch them up. I was thinking wire brush the loose paint and clean oil residue with denatured alcohol, but I don't know what to do about the rust. Any ideas?

Oh and tracking info says my parts will be here today. Hopefully by the end of the night this will be a longblock.

 

Dont be gay! You are pretty good at arranging words but the lack of engine knowledge may not be helpful in a High Tech Performance magazine.



I would paint what you can and be done. You will barely see the block after you have everything bolted on. If you own it long enough for it to rust through, well you will be 150 years old and it will not matter at that point. If you do decide to clean it and respray it, use carb cleaner as it is nothing more than lacquer thinner in a spray can. Brush the rust or use a twist lock pad on an angled die grinder. Use caution as you have all areas of the engine exposed. I say leave it for now, finish assembly, and touch up as necessary. Engine is coming together nicely by the way.

 

POR15.. It can be brushed on, seals in the rust, and looks like powder coating.. I used it on the Dart LittleM 427 SBC in my camaro.

 

What I lack in brilliance I make up for in style. Besides, you always need the dummy commentator in the wings.

Thanks Mike. I think that may be just the ticket. They carry the stuff at National Parts Depot which is right around the corner from me. I think I'll pick up a can on my way home. It's not cheap, but I've heard great things about it.

I think I'll be kicking myself later if I don't clean it up while I have access. I'm not going for a show winner, but I may as well make an effort toward sanitary while I can.

 

Phaser & tensioner finally arrived last night. I have no photos to show because I am busy putting things back together. So far so good.

I had concerns with replacing the phaser since I degreed my cam and checked valve piston clearance with the old one and didn't know if the new one would throw it off. Even though it is the same PN there is always some manufacturing variation. So I decided to check a few things. First I measured the new phaser travel using calipers between the vanes. With the limiter, the available travel measured at the tip of the vanes was .264in where the original phaser was .257in. I approximated the diameter of the vanes at 3.294in (it's very hard to measure) and calculate the following phaser travel:

OLD: 360*.257/(3.294*3.14)=8.94deg cam travel = 17.89deg crank travel
NEW: 360*.264/(3.294*3.14)=9.19deg cam travel = 18.38deg crank travel

So there appears to be about 0.5deg of additional retard travel in the new replacement phaser. I don't think this will have a significant effect on the valve-piston clearance and will give me just a tiny bit more retard without throwing codes if I want to use it. So far so good.

The next question to answer was if the cam was installed on the same ICL. To check this, I installed the new phaser along with the new Katech C5.R timing chain and new spring tensioner. One note on this, the Katech chain felt a lot tighter than the original - it was hard to install the cam sproket and the tensioner hardly moved when I pulled the pin. I installed my degree wheel again, found TDC, and looked for the intake opening angle @050. It matched up exactly with what I measured before, 7deg BTDC. That put my concerns to bed. I finished the night by installing the oil pump, though I still need to check that it's aligned properly to the crank.

I would have a ton more done if I didn't come home every night and spend every moment I can with my son before he goes to bed at 7:30. I love being a dad and I know these days are going to go by fast. He's only 2 now, but pretty soon he'll be asking to drive this car, at which point I'll start the Gen V LT1 swap - sorry son, it wont be running again for a few years lol.

 

.

 

Have you stopped smiling yet?

 

Looks good Bandit!
No sleep for you tonight!

 

Looking great Clint!
Article attached talks a little about stick balancer.

Purchased an ATI and it is expensive but worth the price.

http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/g...e/viewall.html

Mike

 

Took me almost 3 days to read this whole thread, lol Looks good Clint! Cant wait to see it set in its final resting place, looks like i tuned in just in time!

 

So much information on this page, thank you for taking the extra time to show us all of your hard work!!

 

Thanks all! It feels like things are finally moving again. Let me get things back up to speed.

My phaser and tensioner arrived earlier this week, opening the way to progress. The phaser was special ordered from the apparent supplier, INA.



I wasted no time opening it up to put the phaser limiter in. As noted in an earlier post I checked the phaser travel and it was about 0.5deg more than the phaser it replaced.







Next I pulled this thing out of its bag - a Katech C5.R timing chain. These have a flawless track record - no failures to date.



In it went along with the new tensioner. It was a bit harder to install than the old chain assumably because it is tighter.



After installing the timing chain, I wanted to check the installed cam angle to see if it had changed since I degreed the cam and check piston valve clearance with the old phaser. Somewhere in my reading over the last few weeks I discovered the cheapo mag base I have from Harbor Freight can be disassembled and threaded directly into the block. This made finding TDC and monitoring lifter motion a bit eaiser. I checked the intake opening @050 and found it was the same as with the previous phaser - phew!

 

This thread is so full of badass.. it makes me feel bad.

 

After checking the cam, I put the oil pump on with the bolts just finger snug, rotated the crank over a few times, then torqued it down. I pulled the cover off and stuffed a few feeler gauges in to check if it was centered on the crank. It was spot on.

Next it was time to install the crank damper pulley. I naively went to the local autoparts store and borrowed their damper installation tool, only to find like many before that it will not work on the LSx. It just isn't long enough to thread down into the crank. So I went to the local Fastenal and found some M16-2.0 threaded rod and an assortment of washers and nuts. I combined that with a solid pinion bearing spacer from a 4cyl Toyota diff and the bearing from the loaner tool to finish my installation tool. I was going to cut the rod down, but at the time my son was napping and I didn't want to make noise, so I lubed the involved threads on that 3ft stick, threaded it as far into the crank as I could, and went to town.







With the balancer on, I was able to align the front cover and torque it into place.

Next I moved on to the bottom end. I installed the pickup tube and proceeded to check the pickup to oil pan clearance. I laid a straight edge across the pickup and measured at each oil pan rail, then did something similar with the pan. I also measured the gasket thickness.



I found the pickup wasn't quite straight and was too far from the pan (almost 1/2" on one side). Hmm... what to do.



That worked like a charm. When pulling on the pickup like this the mounting tab could be bent and the whole thing resituated. When finished I ended up with 3/16 to 1/4" of pickup clearance, depending on which side I measured.

Then the oil pan went on. I bought new bolts for the front & rear and reused the originals for the others. The Autokraft pan rails are only 3mm thinner than the factory pan, but I didn't want to chance bottoming the bolts into the blind front & rear cover holes.



Next I laid a pair of new GM MLS head gaskets on and bottoned down the heads.