i just bought a ws6 ls1 on ebay. I bid on it and got it for pretty cheap. I was very happy...went and picked it up and its been a nightmare ever since. It has patriot stamped on the heads and a fairly looping cam in it. It has lines hooked up for nitrious still. It idles high in netrual when you are in netrual bout 1900 rpm to 1400 rpm for 15 secs intill it slowly goes down, I assume its a vacuum leak has exhaust leaks at the headers and at the cutout underneath. it rattles like a bag marbles. after say all that... where would I begin to find what cam and heads are in the car? is there stamps model numbers anywhere I can find and look up? how can I tell the cam duration?
It has this issue where u put in the clutch and it will bog down and die at times. its got all the stuff like h/c/headers but has no upgrades on intake manifold or tb. could that be part of the problem? the check engine light goes on and off and I checked it and it says its running rich. anyone help point me in a right direction thank u

 

Header leaks can mess w/ the O2 sensor control. Fix all the items you can.

1. Run a leak down and compression tests.. Post them.
2. Data log it B4 you fix the issues, then again after... cold start included.
3. Post the log[s] and the tune.
Fuel psi is?
Plugs look like?
Sounds like the N2O may have taken it's toll...

 

Sounds like it needs tuned.

 

Run a leak down test or at least a cranking compression test to see how if the N2O has done any damage or not. If the motor checks out ok fix the exhaust leak, check for vacuum leaks with a unlit propane torch, give the car a tune up, and get it to a tuner. Skipping any of these steps my lead to wasted time and money.

 

As far as identifying the Patriot heads most were factory casting with their cnc program. So just look for the casting # on the lower right corner close to the valve cover. They most likely are 243s or 317s and there was Stage ll and Stage lll the only way to tell if they are stage lll is to have the heads off and measure the intake valve . Stage lll will have a 2.08 , the stage ll will be 2.05 or 2.02 iirc. The exhaust should be 1.57 hope this helps , oh and their Patriot name and logo should be laser etched on the end not stamped of each head , about the size of your palm of your hand.

 

thank u guys im gonna fix the header leaks today. as I started unscrew the bolts half of them are only hand tight! patriot is stamped on the passenger side only that I can read on the end. so I think going by what omc8 said they are correct. It hard to swallow that I might have bought a half blown n20 car. can I do a compression test on my own or does that need to be taken somewhere? more evidence I find it had a rolled cage in. all the screws are missing inside on the trim the seatbelt that were put back in don't even match the car!

 

Good advice.

One reason to be leery of buying modified cars secondhand. Sounds like the original owner threw it together and then got fed up with how it acted instead of spending the time to fix the mechanical gremlins and then get it tuned properly.

 

Kinda what Jake said, yeah. Almost like someone demodded it, threw some "parts on the shelf" he had, did a half *** job... Tune from whatever Parts HE had on the car is still in the PCM...

First thing I'd do is a leakdown / compression test and see if the motor is even WORTH fixing all the small stuff for. You might be tightening headers bolts just to take them right back off to pull the motor