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Well that was fun while it lasted, the 4.8 made a bang and some funny noises just after leaving home the other day. I pondered rebuilding it, then went to the junkyard and took home a 5.3. I've torn down both motors now, the BTR cam from the 4.8 looks great, no signs of damage. The oilpan had alot of muddy sludge in the bottom, and it's oil filter was pretty packed after a few hundred miles. We never tore down the bottom end of the 4.8, just cleaned it up, added cam and springs/valve job and sent it.. The 5.3 seems to have been rebuilt at some point, it's bearings look fresh compared to the ones in the 4.8, and the rods were marked with numbers in ink. I've purchased new bearings and rings for the bottom end and will rebuild the 5.3 and move on from here.
We found no shrapnel, the bearings look worn. Our guess right now is a plugged up oil filter may have caused low pressure and wore out a rod bearing or two.
The 5.3 is rebuilt and back in the car, fired up and went around the block! The bottom of the 4.8's oil pan was covered in oilmud, I hope the new 5.3 fares better.
Cleaned the pistons, new rings, swapped out the rod bearings even though they looked pretty fresh.
BTR cam was reused
Decided to replace the plastic oil barbell with the billet one while redoing the rear seals
The Dorman knockoff intake and valve covers were painted with a textured black paint
All back together and running!
There are things to tweak and finish up, a small cooler line leak, the shifter needs adjusted etc, but its back together and running again!
I was able to complete this swap by using PCMHammer and TunerPro to edit a PCM bin file from a 2004 SSR 5.3. I had some help from a fellow LS enthusiast with where to edit the file with TunerPro, and was able to upload the changed file to the car and get it running. I am forever grateful to @PeteS160@NSFW and @B52bombardier1 for taking the time to walk me through making some changes over several emails.
Last edited by JC72NOVA; May 11, 2020 at 12:11 AM.
I'm a moron and never knew this was your build thread. That is a gorgeous Nova. My first car was a same body style 70 Nova with a 307 smog motor. It had a leaky front window with a rusty passenger floor, gym sock smelly carpet - a real chick magnet it was. =:-( I could'a married Christy Brinkly if not for those smelly carpets!!
A set of Cragar Hot Pipe headers and a 600 Holley kinda' sorta' woke it up a little but it was still a low compression smog motor.
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