Girlfriend has a 98 Z28. Car was driven when really low on oil. (I have no clue how she manager this one. I was out of town!) Car is knocking really bad now and I think she spun a rod bearing. I want to rebuild the motor but I am not sure what the best way to go about it is. I am looking at the LS2 short blocks but I dont know which parts can carry over. Can I use the heads, intake, etc? Then I would want to either port the heads or get some new better flowing ones. I know nothing about the LS1 engines and am looking for some guidance here. I would like it to be making 450+ HP when it is all done. Also, trying to decide on forced induction low compression or just high compression naturally aspirated. Any guidance and/or recommendation on parts, combinations and installation would be greatly appreciated.

 

If the block is still good, you could add a 4.00" stroker crankshaft and end up with a 382 ci, potentially saving yourself (or your girlfriend) quite a bit of money. For $4,500.00 we pull the engine, rebuild it using a Callies Racemaster 4.0 crankshaft, Callies Compstar rods, Diamond forged pistons with your choice of compression, Comp cam of your choice, new oil pump, rotating assembly balanced, Total Seal file to fit rings, reinstall your heads using ARP head studs, reinstall the engine and tune it on our chassis dyno. You can add aftermarket heads to this combination for just the cost of the heads. A new clutch can also be added for just the cost of the clutch.
Just thought I'd throw this at you. Bob

 

Its really hard to beat the iron or aluminum 402 packages out there. Youll need a cam and heads, as well as an ls6 intake to really get it to perform (although the motor would still run with the stock components). Youll also want to upgrade the timing chain and oil pump which add on a few more bucks. After that, everything should carry over. With 450 HP, get ready to start replacing broken parts (ie. the rear diff.)

EPP sounds like a good deal if you dont want to do the work yourself.

 

I had this same thing happen about 2 weeks ago, except I had plenty of oil. We are still unsure of what caused my spun bearing. Mine was the #6 and the #5 was right behind it had I drove the car any further. I didn't do any damage to the block but will have to replace the crank. I have ordered forged rods and pistons and have already received them, just looking for the 4.0" crank. I will tell you right now, this is not a cheap rebuild.

 

Ok, here is what you have to look at. MONEY MONEY MONEY. Personally I would do a rebuild as long as it isn't tore up too bad. If the rod is a knockin you need at least one new rod maybe more @ $90 a piece. To resize them it is about the same. Stock rods aren't a bad choice at all if upgraded with ARP hardware. As for pistons, if you plan on staying NA then stock pistons aren't a bad choice if you are certain that is all you are going to do with it, as long as honing the block doesn't take the piston to bore tolerance out. If it does then you can get 3.903 pistons for that motor. 98 blocks have thinner sleeves and can only be taken .004-.005 over, newer motors can go .010 over. To turn your existing crank is going to cost about $150. As for her heads if she still has the stockers then she would have to change over to the centerbolt style heads and get all the brackets and such or she could just send her heads off to TEA or somebody else who is good at porting the stock heads and go from there. If you are looking at only putting on stock rockers (which aren't bad from the get go) then porting the 98 heads will work just fine. There are 100 other things to get into here but that is the jist of it. I just paid about $550 in parts and machine work to fix a similar problem like what she just had. It's an easy and somewhat cheap fix if you can put the motor together yourself. If you can't then dollar for dollar you are just as far ahead with a preassembled longblock.

 

EPP.....That sounds like an awesome deal....to bad your in Indiana....and i'm in cali

 

we are doing the same thing on a friends 98, pumped died and he kept driving it. found a nice used short block and are in the middle of swapping it out.