Car is for now and will be a daily driver so I'm just looking to change the head gaskets as they are blown (currently just blowing white smoke out of tailpipes..for now) want to change them before greater problems arise.

The car is only an exhaust and intake car at the moment and want to know what should be replaced when I do the change. I will be using the same heads and I have read that I need to resurface them. Anything else that I should know or replace while everything is apart?

The car is a 2000 LS1 Camaro Z28 M6 with about 123K miles...I have never done a repair this big so any advice on parts or process would be very useful and greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

Bare Minimum:
GM MLS Head gaskets
ARP head bolts
LS7 lifters
surface the heads (not much though if you dont want to tune the car.

Best deal:
GM MLS Head gaskets
ARP head bolts
LS7 lifters
mill the heads
cam
timing chain
oil pump oring
valve springs
trunion upgrade for the rockers and hardened pushrods (might do these while in there anyway. $109 is all
Dyno Tune
Good luck!
be sure to follow the head swap guide perfect and figure out how you want to clean off the block before you start. Aluminum is soft so be careful, It pretty much needs to be as close to a mirror finish as you can get

 

$109 is all what? Sorry but I kinda lost you there...thanks for the reply btw

 

$109 is for pushrods, relatively cheap for an LS1 part and the level of reassurance

 

Oh ok I see now...I'll look into all of this...thanks

 

no prob, if theres one thing ive learned so far its that If you are going to mod it, its cheaper to do it all at once, alot faster and easier too. If you do want to do the repair only I just remembered that ls7 lifters will take a slightly shorter pushrod as well. If you go that route contact texas speed and they can sell you the lifters pushrods gaskets and all

 

Oh trust me I know what you mean...I've lost a lot of time and blood modding by sections so to speak... I've definitely learned my lesson lol...good looking out on the lifters though...btw I would also need to replace the valve springs and seals regardless of what route I decide to go right?

 

well it depends, technically you don't have to if youre going ot go stock cam still. However, if you stick with the stock cam I would have the machine shop that surfaces the heads just put ls6 springsa nd hardware back in it when the y put the valves back in, or to save money you can reassemble them. If youre gonna cam the thing I would put a nice set of springs it it, you will have to obviously. But for i think maybe 70$ for ls6 springs youd have a nice stock fresh setup. Adds up fast though doesnt it. it's that "well while im in there I might as well......"

 

Why don't you decide what you want to do first with the car instead of having ideas thrown all over the place.. decide whether you will mod the car and what mods or if you are going to fix it and let it be for awhile.. then we can hatch out a plan instead of throwing out a bunch of random *** parts lists.

 

Lol yeah it adds up pretty quick...small projects never exactly turn out small with these sort of things lol...def gonna look into it though

@djfury: right now I think I'm just gonna fix it...I'm definitely gonna mod it down the line and do a head/cam swap but I also wanted to weigh my options...it's a DD so until I get another car I'm only doing basic bolt-ons...what would your suggestion be?

 

You need to do 2 things first.
Take it apart and find out how much is reusable.
Try and figure out the root cause of why it blew the head gasket. They normally don't just blow at a certain mileage. If you don't correct the "reason" it may well blow them again.

No need to get worried about what your going to need till you have it apart and can determine damage levels.
If the heads are seriously warped or have deck material missing you'll then be thinking about head swaps now rather than later.
If the bores are trashed you'll be thinking about engines.

Best case will be headgakets, head bolts, minor gaskets, fluids, All cheap IMO. Occasionally you don't even need to have the heads resurfaced.
I've done slap together/make it run type repairs that lasted far far longer than they had any right too.
I once J/B welded a missing chunk of deck surface between 2 chambers that went over 10 K miles. I guessed it would live 90 minutes. I was WRONG.......

DO NOT purchase any parts till you really know what you need.

Hope this helps.

 

Alright now that you have decided that your just going to fix it for now we need to know your realistic budget. This way we can decide what parts are going to be the best for you and what you can afford. In Whiteaw57's first post his Bare Minimum list is about $400 worth of parts depending on head work I.e are you just going to mill them or adding new seals etc. Are you going to be installing all this yourself? If not you need to factor in the price for install etc. Don't forget things like coolant and oil is a good idea too.

 

i just reread the first post and im curious. why do you think you have blown head gaskets. Usually its just one at a time in one small spot and there are usually more indicators than smoke. you may just be burning oil from somewhere. maybe the pcv system has filled the intake, valve seals, etc. Are you loosing coolant and cant find it? charging the cooling system with pressure? I just wanna be sure you are doing the right repair before you rip the bad boy apart and your machine shop says yeah you had a broken valve seal thats all

 

White smoke is an indicator of burning coolant tho correct?

 

How much coolant are you adding?

 

yes white smoke is an indicator of coolant, or oil, or rich fuel condition etc. what im saying is just because you have white smoke doesnt mean you have a blown head gasket. If you fill the radiator up, drive it for an hour and check the radiator later has it lost any water? Any overheating issues? is the motor running poorly? Im just not convinced you have a blown headgasket yet. Does it have white smoke constantly all the time? is it only at WOT? is it only when it falls from high rpm after a WOT pull?

 

ok so here's the deal..I don't know if I do in fact have a blown head gasket...car has been blowing white smoke for a while now and was told by more than one person it probably is a blown head gasket. BUT i don't ever remember having to add more coolant after i changed the coolant about 2 years ago (year after i bought it).

Now the following happened about 2-3 months ago: I had been hearing a weird noise coming from the engine bay at idle but couldn't figure it out...one day on the freeway it just overheated, power steering went out and so i got a off the freeway and i pulled over (temp. needle was in the red maybe for like 3-4 min while i managed to exit in rush hour traffic)..turns out the belt snapped and tore my belt tensioner to crap...replaced that and the belt and everything seemed fined.

2 weeks later it overheated on me again on the freeway but after i pulled over and let it cool for a few minutes it was fine...did it to me once more till i got it back home. Turns out it was a water pump leak, so I replaced the water pump, put in a new 160 tstat and new coolant temp sensor and filled her up with 50/50 dexcool...fired her up and let her sit with the radiator cap open to bleed the system and it overheated once more. I let her sit for a day and the next day i fired her up once more and everything seemed fine...topped off the coolant after the stat opened and she's been ok ever since.

Now, i do have a check engine light for a knock sensor...changed the sensors and replaced the harness twice and the light just keeps coming back...when I pulled the intake both times there really wasn't much oil coming from the intake if any at all. I am leaking pretty bad from the valve cover gaskets and the guy that did my exhaust said I have a bad rear main seal...she slowly seeps oil from down under by the oil pan but its not like dripping or anything.

 

If its not using coolant ITS NOT A BLOWN HEAD GASKET! Plus you can smell coolant coming out the exhaust. It has a umistakable smell.

 

whiteaw57 it is smoking to what seems to me constantly while sitting there at idle...i haven't really payed much attention while it is being driven or at WOT so i'll have to check later today and let you know. Motor seems to be running perfectly fine since i bought it back in 07 though.

btw djfury to answer your last post i have about a $600-800 budget..I want her running in tip top shape...for like 2 years at least before I do a head/cam swap

@technicalninja...that is also good advice...thanks for all the help and suggestions fellas

 

yeah i have the rear main leak too, alot of us do. Valve cover leak should be fixed its easy to do. as for a blown head gasket im not convinced. i wanna wait for more opinions also. However, if youre not consistently losing water to somewhere and cant find it (burning it) then I dont think its a head gasket. I hate to say this but im wondering if through all the overheating it didnt take the tension out of the piston rings. Have you noticed any loss of power? the biggest thing to ask now is when are you getting the smoke? does it billow smoke idling in the driveway? WOT? Falling rpm?