I bought my 2000 TA about a year ago and promptly started piling up parts. Nothing crazy. After a lot of research I decided on some 243 head which I got from a dude on craigslist they came with dual springs and titanium retainers. I ported/cleaned them up. I took out the swirl ramp and rocker arm boss, blended the seat and worked the guides. There is a lot of information out there that's says don't port your heads they flow fine and a bunch of people who say do it. I had the time. So I did it. Guess we'll see there. I bought a used k member from a member here. I got a dorman 901 intake from rockauto and a Chinese 92mm t-body from amazon. I got a preowned, never installed Btr stage 2 cam. I put in new lifters, chain and sprockets, oil pump, all bearings, rings, and gaskets. Since my engine only has about 115k miles I wasn't going to replace the rings but the po did not maintain their air filter and so there wasn't much cross hatch left. So I honed the cylinders and put a new set in. I got a set of arp head studs from a dude on Craigslist. He bought them and never used them. I got some bronze rocker bushings (we'll see how they last) seems like I've seen some recent failures here. I put some btr pushrods in. I also replaced the motor mounts with some poly mounts. I got some bbk headers from another guy on Craigslist. I got a used speed engineering dual exhaust from a member here I plan to send my pcm to frost to ge it programmed so I can break it in and then go get it dyno tuned. In all the research and internetting that I did prior to my build I never saw these two issues. As we all know the steam tubes are a hot topic and much debated. So I wanted to keep the oe setup. But I didn't want to smash my tubes THAT much so I found a thinner gasket for the lifter valley cover it is a mister gasket p/n 4798G. It's about half the thickness of the oe gasket and compresses and allows for mor room. Also I wasn't aware the the heads of the bolts would hit the bottom of the intake. Luckily the dorman came with bolts that had a lower profile. Lastly. When I removed the rocker boss in the intake runner you expose the bolt threads. Well, when you actually put the bolt in there could potentially be some material that sort of pushes out into the runner that could then be ingested by the engine. it was sort of like flashing. 6 of the 8 runners had a small piece pushed out.

 

Sorry folks. Not sure what I got but suddenly it was just posted! That was the rough draft. I was gonna edit that and make it shorter.but in conclusion. I stabbed the engine today! I had to share with someone. My wife tries but just kinda goes "cool".

 

Welcome to having a family and an LS addiction...

Wait till you see the look on her face when you tell her "All I want for Christmas is a GT45".

 

Thanks. I can't wait to drive it! Hopefully it'll be running by Christmas!