H/C Don'ts
 

like to hear about what to look out for and make sure doesnt happen. I've heard alot on what to do and how to do it. but would like to hear about precaustions and mishaps to look out for. learn from others and hopefuly not make the same mistakes. thanks

Be completely sure that you get ALL of the coolant out of the holes in the block for the head bolts. You WILL have problems if you slack in that area. That was the biggest pain for me, but about 3 swaps ago I changed over to ARP studs and my life is much better now.

-Make sure you understand the head torque sequence. The smaller bolts have a different torque spec. Don't rush this part.

-Make sure you have the correct head gaskets for your application.

-You won't be able to get the rearmost bolts out of the intake manifold, so what I do is pull them up and then tape them up so I can remove the intake and not need five arms.

-A clean mating surface is paramount, unless you enjoy doing things twice.

-You can use clothespins instead of tape if you'd like.

Take the hose off the brake booster before pulling the intake. When you the intake loose there is a sensor (MAP) and two vaccum lines pull those before pulling intake out. Be very careful with that MAp connector the wires like to come out of it.

Clean up is ALOT OF IT, those bolt holes take awhile and using a plastic scraper makes the gasket removal take forever. Other than that its pretty easy just time consuming.

In fact I'm thinking of going with a bigger LG or FMS grind on a 112, A cam swap is an afternoon project on these cars!!

Bobby

As mentioned, most important is to clean out those bolt holes; trust me, I speak from experience. Although on the other hand, I wouldn't have a forged shortblock right now had I been more careful the first time ;) I actually rigged up my shopvac with some small diameter plastic tubing to make DAMN SURE those things were dry this time around :D

Just take your time, follow LS1HowTo, and you'll be fine :cool:

Another good tip is when you get to the last step of the torque sequence on the heads you should put a straight line across the bolt heads with some white out or a marks-a-lot. You do this AFTER you finish tightening the bolts to the specified torque value and you are about to turn each bolt a certain number of degrees(90 or 45 degrees; I forget exactly what the values are). This helps a lot when trying to visualize how many degrees you have turned the bolt. I used compressed air to get the water out that I didn't soak up with paper towels. Some people don't have a compressor in their garage, but if you do you might want to put some tape over the water jacket holes or you'll end up sending water everywhere.