Alright I began tearing the LS1 down.
To be honest....Not really sure why everyone is so adamant against taking these motors out the top. I had the block nearly tore down in about 3 hours and that was with me taking breaks. I understand the whole "The engine is to far back there's no room in the engine bay".....but......




You can see how crowded it is now.....but if you remove things like Radiator, condenser, accessories, and what not you get this as a result.



Hmmm....better but lets get a better angle to truly see the difference.




Oh ****.......nigh and day difference.
Hell I can sit on the radiator core support frame and wrench on the motor. I can stand up in my own engine bay. When I yank the motor out I'll see about filming it and loading it up on youtube to see how fast it comes out.

 

Removing the balancer will help a bunch according to other F-body owners.

 

zDid you wash the block incl. the oil passages before reassembly?

 

Good progress.Ready to see some numbers

 

Subscribed for numbers

 

in for numbers as well

 

I purchased one of these blocks and it's sitting in my garage right now.
I am curious to know what your tolerances were in the Bore's and the mains. Also, did you receive Brand New Cam bearings with yours?
If you did spec everything before assembly, would you mind posting the results here?

Great job on the build. Looks like it's going together real nice.

 

Subbed, I'm basically doing the same. Going with ATK as well. Great prices and free shipping. What's their warranty like?

And also why rectangle ports instead of cathedral? Just want to see your opinion, as I'm making the same decision at the moment.

Good luck with the build.

 

Going in backward order before updates.

Since it's a bare block I believe the warranty is just limited to the block itself most likely in terms of workmanship and quality much like a tool you buy from a store. I was very happy with the quality of the block when it arrived and the attention to detail. I have no worries.

I went with Rectangle over cathedral for the same reason GM did. Higher velocity airflow. The L92 heads flow stock giving out impressive numbers. And since the motor will see close to 7k rpms I needed something that could breath up high.

As for clearances, I'm at work at the moment so all the paper stuff is at home (if I can find it). I know the main bearing clearance was .003 and the rod bearings came in at .002 iirc. The pistons had a clearance gap of .0027 to .003 on 2618 forged pistons. It did come with new cam bearings installed.

Alright time for an update.



What goes in, must come out........

As someone said earlier. Taking off the pulley would help as it's tight otherwise going over the front radiator support bar. The flexplate gently brushes over the lip of the rubber on the cowl as the pulley is a mere inch from rubbing along the metal support rail. But it does come out as long as your slow in raising it up and verify all the connections are undone. This includes the transmission tube retaining bolt that screws into the head on the passenger side. Otherwise when you pull you'll yank the dipstick tube out and leak a lot of atf onto the ground. Only other issue of note is two ground straps on both sides of the block. The driver is easy to reach the passenger was hard and I ended up lifting the motor up to get access. Thankfully the cable is long enough to warrant this.

It really wasn't anything hard or challenging and had I pulled the pulley off it wouldn't have saved time just it would of given a little bit more clearance with out the rubber getting lightly brushed by the flexplate. I highly recommend a good 15mm ratchet wrench to get the top transmission bolt of the bellhousing it makes things so much easier. In fact a good ratchet wrench set should be mandatory along with good sockets for any auto tool box.

I am told sometimes the bolts are 13mm for the 4l60's but mine were 15 so take from it what you will.

At this point I need to pop the clam shells open and replace the motor mount rubber. Then seal it up and put it on the new engine. I'll swap the stall converter out for my new one. Pull the old headers and exhaust out from the car and put the new ones in before lowering the new engine into the body. This should make it much easier to install the headers instead of playing twister to get them in like most end up doing.

After that its reinstalling everything and bolting things up. Should be a few weekends of work. Unfortunately It's Florida and it's getting hot out again. Makes it hard to work for too long in the sun before cooking.

 

Sorry it's been a while since I've posted. Life and all other things have kept me busy. The 408 is now in the car and hooked up. I couldn't get her to start at first...she'd crank but never fire. On a whim I took the spacer off that several people advised me to install on the crank sensor. And whalla she fired up immediately.

I put a basic tune on her prior to firing just so that she could idle and I was very surprised to see how dead on the idle was since this is an Ebay 102mm Throttle body. Speaking of before any one ask, (yes I had to enlarge the IAC hole, THe TPS sensor was no issue and I put Loctite on the throttle blade screws and the idle screw and holding screw just as precaution.).

Here is a video of it idling on a hot start.

Once I finish hooking up the last of the exhaust I'll start tuning and driving her around. Dyno time will probably be a few weeks away if all goes well.

 

subbed as well for the #'s. just have a question on the cam. if I am doing the math correct that has 14.5 deg of over lap?

 

Sorry for the delay everyone, life events have happened.
My tablet that I use to tune was stolen while I was in another state attending a wedding. I have a replacement ordered and once it gets in I can get back to finishing up my base tune. No Ac hooked up in Florida means I'm limited to early morning and late evening drives for the time being but so far I'm very happy with the engine.

It honestly scares me a bit. Before you could hit the throttle at say 40 mph and the tires would spin...but you could ease into from 40. Now..........it doesn't matter. full throttle, part throttle, 40mph, 60mph, 80mph, doesn't matter.....you better very lightly ease into WOT or your just roasting tires. LOTS OF TORQUE.

She screams like a bat out of hell.....I just regret the TD's.
At cold start its just way to loud....after it warms up at idle its alright but any throttle and it's just loud in the cabin. I'm going to have to see about instead of dumping before the axels, instead running it out the back to get rid of the vibrations in the cabin.

Hopefully I'll get my new tablet soon and can continue tuning, I'm hoping to get to the dyno sometime after that. Axld, yes your math is correct. The cam has 14.5 degress of overlap. I idle her around 800 rpms and she has that clear lope sound.

 

I hear you (Or Can't hear you) about the TD's. I liked mine for a day and then it drove me nuts. I changed the bullets and took the pipes out the back under the axle. I'm a lot happier.

 

What did you end up going with for Mufflers?

 

OP any Update, numbers or Videos of this beast?

 

In for updates too

 

Sadly been one set back after the other, you all know how it is when it comes to cars.
My tablet pc was stolen so I had to replace it and reload HPT. Been doing some wiring with the car to get everything hooked up. Double din in dash, two widebands for both banks, a fuel pressure gauge, and an aeroforce Interceptor guage all had to be wired up. I also put new seats in the car. Then moved on to the next project.

AC had not been in the car since the day I got it so I went about getting a new compressor and other components and flushing everything out. AC is ice cold now, next step was fixing alternator issues. Alt would not charge what so ever. Put a replacement junkyard alt on it and it would charge on cold start, but after warming up it would quit.

I ended up doing the infamous Truck Alternator upgrade. I kicked my self in the butt for not drilling and tapping the missing hole when I was building the engine. Any one building an LQ4 take this as a strong word of advice. Even if you don't think you'll even need it....DO IT! It will save you time and hassle later on if you do end up going to a truck alt like I did. I lucked up and had a 90 degree swivel adapter for my drill other wise the radiator and ac condenser would have to come out to get room to drill from under the car.

Drilling this spot takes about 10 to 15 minutes with a good 5/16 cobalt drill bit. Use the alternator mounted backward as your guide to make sure your drilling straight at the beginning and the rest is easy. Their are plenty of write ups on how to do this on here.

What a difference, before the stock alt would put out 13.6v on cold start and then just drop to 12.4v after that. With the truck alt I get 14.8v on cold start and after it gets warm it goes to 13.6v. I'm very happy with this mod especially with all the electronics the car is running.

Now that things are taken care off I plan to go to the muffler shop and have them extend my duals out to the back (TSP True Dual Dumps) because it is way to loud inside the cabin.

After that then it's back to driving tuning and I should be hitting the track in the next month of so now that fall is starting to come to Florida. (Our version of fall anyways if you can call it that.)

I'll post up videos at the track and on the dyno once I get there.
Thanks for following along.

 

Hey everyone, sorry for the delay.
Haven't got to a dyno yet but I did take her to the track yesterday. Information on the run and videos are here: https://ls1tech.com/forums/11-second...408-motor.html

 

What pan was used?

 

When you say pan I assume your referring to the Oil pan?
Stock Ls1 F-body oil pan was used. I'm not aware of any aftermarket or other oem pans that can be used on the F-body's.