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Well the day has finally come for me to swap my 243 heads... Passenger side head decided it did not want to live any longer... Dropping the 243's off tomorrow to have them cleaned and a valve job performed.
You can catch your finger nail in the scoring on the cylinder wall, thinking a hone might take care of it? Also concerned about the piston itself.
Just ordered new lifters, trays, and head stud kit. Sent the 243's off this afternoon to have them worked over. Hopefully everything arrives in 2 days since they are close and the machine shop finishes in 2 days ( Can't rush this part, I know. ) Fingers crossed.
Scored a semi complete 5.3 motor yesterday for $400 and a bottom end 5.3L (with pistons and rods) for $140.
The block and crank will definitely need some loving at the machine shop but the semi complete one should be just fine. It had 110,xxx miles on it when pulled from what the PO said. Guy blew out his transfer case in his silverado and coated the whole engine in gear oil....
The cylinders cleaned up pretty nice after a WD40 bath and rags.
No plans as of yet, but I'm thinking a small cam before I drop her in and boost project in the summer.
Got a engine stand and was able to get to the bottom end today, everything looks amazing. Cleaned up a slow head gasket leak in cylinder two. Minimal sludge in the oil pan, previous owner did a great job taking care of this motor.
I 2nd the crack thought, is that piece of metal in the cylinder a helicoil gone wrong,
It's not part of the helio coil but is a helio coil gone wrong and nitrous gone wrong. If you look at the head picture, you'll see where the threads broke off and ate the engine to bits.
Welllll pulling the old LM7 cam out turned horrible. 2nd to last cam bearing has a nice size hole in it from cam being stuck.
Local machine shop is giving me a hell of a deal to clean everything, new cam bearings and polish the crank so I guess some good things are coming out of it.
Got the other 5.3 down to bare block. Previous owner let the block sit in a wooden shed without cover or being prepped for storage. Looks a lot better than the other block minus the gunk.
Cam picture below shows cam from block just disassembled and the block with spun cam bearing.
Edit***
I stated above Previous Owner took care of the block, well he can kiss my a**. $400 + 4hour trip + $40 gas mistake.
12-09-2014, 10:54 PM
Engine Build - Going Turblowed 
