Well, after months of gobbling up all the information I could, and after receiving great words of wisdom from countless forum members (both here and at corvetteforum.com), I have amassed my parts and begun my head/cam swap... I thought I'd post my experience as it's happening to give some of you fence-sitters who are debating whether or not to do the labor yourself can see how an inexperienced mechanic handled the task.

The cam I'm installing on my 99 C5 FRC is Texas Speed's 224/224 .581/.581 on a 112LSA. I went with that cam, because it seems to provide a really nice, broad torque curve, putting out nice peak numbers while still giving great low end grunt. I paired the cam up with a set of Texas Speed's PRC 5.3 liter heads, stage 2.5 port/polish. I have a set of LG's Street Series long tubes on the way. I also bought a used (new, but never installed) LS6 intake from a member here, one of Texas Speed's 25% underdrive pulleys, an LS6 oil pump, an LS2 timing chain, and all the other gaskets and goodies associated with a h/c swap. I'm aiming at what I believe to be a conservative 415whp with this setup on my 99 M6 Fixed Roof Coupe. I hit 317whp with my Z06 Ti catback and Vararam, and I will overlay that baseline dyno with the final dyno.

To preface my experience, let me say that the only experience I have working on engines, is installing a cold air intake, and a set of shorty headers on a 1994 Z-28. Other than that, I'm pretty darned green... I'm using LS1howto.com's write-up on the h/c swap, and so far, it's been extremely accurate and helpful.

So far, I spent around 6 hours removing the wheels, radiator, alternator, water pump, and steering rack, which is the first section of LS1howto.com's write-up. Other than some parts that were difficult logistically, conceptually, there wasn't anything difficult at all. Howto's instructions alot 2-6 hours for that job, so I squeeked by at the high end. The only problem I encountered was a section of the aluminum ABS control module bracket had sheared off, most likely prior to my removing it. I have heard others say they have encountered the same thing. GM doesn't currently have a supplier for the part, so I'm either going to have it welded, or use some liquid steel to hold it in place. The part that broke off is not one of the main bolts holding the bracket to the cross member. For a pic, you can search for the thread I started about the broken bracket...

Last night, I went to work on the second section, which is the intake and exhaust. That again, is slated as a 2-6 hour job, and I had everything in that section torn out within 3 1/2 hours, so I impressed myself with my efficiency. I'm now ready to begin the head and cam portion of the job... At this point, I'm beginning to think that the toughest part is going to be putting all the parts I have thus far removed back in without missing any plugs/wires/etc... I'm extremely optimistic, and consumed with a sense of pride that I'm actually doing this on my own. I'll post back once I tear into the heads and cam in the next day or two.

Here's a pic of where I'm currently at. I was amazed at how filthy the intake ports on my heads were at 55k miles. I can't wait to get them off and clean my cylinders and pistons and then put on fresh, new, clean heads.

 

very nice

 

Looks like fun.

 

you will love the end results!

 

Yeah, but my stock clutch won't!!!

 

i love working on ls1s

 

Sounds like your off to a good start! Remember to take your time and not rush anything. When you rush...you tend to forget important imformation. And also, if you get frustrated with something, take a break, have a beer, and try again!

 

almost finished with my install. Pretty easy, steering rack was pain. especially trying to get power steering inlet and return lines off. hopefully will go back on easier, i guess i will find out this weekend. Good luck with your install, looks like your making great progress.

 

Sorry for the thread jack but why did you remove the steering rack?
I ask because Im getting ready to do heads/cam and have been doing alot of reading as well and on ls1howto it says nothing about removal of the rack.They just unbolt the PS pump bracket and tie it off. Anyways good work.

 

On a Vette, the rack sits only a couple inches directly in front of the crank pulley (balancer), and it has to be moved to get the pulley off.

This is not necessary on a F-body.

 

You only have to remove the steering rack on the vettes. You have to take it off to get to the crank pulley and timing cover.

 

opps sorry for the re-post Thimble beat me to it.

 

Nice.

I'm actually in the process of doing my Hawk and I 'm at about the same point you are.

 

Well, it's been an interesting couple of days. I took half of Friday, and worked a total of about ten hours. Got the heads off, and decided to clean the pistons, as they looked pretty nasty. From what I have read on the forum, they probably weren't so bad that I needed to mess with them, but I did anyway. I used B12 (I believe) carb cleaner to get the carbon off as best I could, then moved each piston to TDC to scrape what I couldn't get with a razor while holding up a vaccuum to get whatever chunks came off. They cleaned up very well...



After the heads were off and pistons clean, I went through the excruciatingly boring task of drying out each of the 20 large bolt holes for the heads, and then using a used head bolt with a channel dremmeled into it to clean out each bolt hole. Imagine running in a bolt into each of 20 holes about 7 or 8 times each to get the grime out. What a bore! Scraped the gasket off of the deck, and got ready to pull the cam. Everything on the front end came off without a hitch, and I had the cam out by late evening. I have a Vararam intake, and I didn't remove the front-most portion of it, so it made it a big pain to get the a/c radiator far enough forward to get the cam out. But eventually, I prevailed, and got the old cam out and slipped the new one in.



Disaster struck as I was bolting the cam retainer plate back on... I stripped two of the four bolts. I'm going to blame it on my ultra-cheap Harbor Freight torque wrench. I got some advice from a few helpful members (thanks, Vettenuts!), and got the holes tapped and heli coiled Saturday morning, and wound up stripping a third. In the end, got them all torqued down, and everything was ok... Also threw in a new oil pump.

I was absolutely amazed at how easy it was to get the cam timed. I heard it was kind of tough, but I actually got it right the first try, and being the **** guy that I am, thought "I couldn't have gotten it that easy; it must be off a bit." So, I took it off and tried again. Unless you get the crank dot at TDC, it looks like the cam dot and crank dot are slightly off. I could never get them quite together, but I'm sure that the amount they were off was due to the crank being slightly off center.



I didn't work on Sunday (gotta give the family some love). I think I have somewhere around 35 hours into this at this point. Of course, that includes several trips to the parts store, and me figuring out things I have never done before I'm sure a pro would have been done long ago. Now, I'm basically holed up trying to locate some 16mm all thread to build a pulley install tool. I am going to proceed with installing the heads tonight while I await delivery of my all thread. I don't see why I can't move on to the heads without having the timing cover on (you have to leave the timing cover loose until you get the pulley on). I don't want to set a schedule, but I'm hoping to get the heads on tonight, and get that pulley and timing cover back on by mid-week. Then I can get my headers and intake on and start re-assembling. I would love to fire her up next weekend!!

 

Looks good man, glad its going well for you. Make sure you get a good torque wrench before putting the heads on!

 

Must be nice working on the C5. In-car head swaps are a little more challenging on the f-bodies with the motor sitting a few more inches under the cowl.

Looks great so far though! Keep it up...

 

Have one sitting on my desk from a maintenance guy at work.

 

Your doing just fine. Your gonna love the end results.

I was the same way on getting mine dot to dot. I rolled the engine by hand and got it lined up perfect. For me, it appeared to be a little "slack" in the chain. Fired right up and still going strong. Once I close on my house next month I am looking at scoring a set of those TSP 5.3 heads, too.

Great job.

R/

Frat

 

it's well worth every penny.....hope we see a vid when its done

 

Awesome! Good luck with the rest of the install. Keep us posted!