It would have been at least worth a shot to at least call your insurance company.

My '95 Camaro was totaled out during Hurricane Isabel. After the storm, I started it, and the ABS inop light was on. They totalled my car out and I have the TA now. It's been along time already and you've decided to take matters into your own hands though.

I don't see hydrolock happening in his situation with the car being on stands. Possibly sabatoge, vandalism.

Do you have any of the fuel left? Try getting a sample maybe?

I'm sure all will be revealed when you pull the heads though.

 

Ah, it's good to be back. 30 days is a long time to be unable to post. I still have to change my sig back vs. "How does that search feature work now for you?". Those of you who saw the thread know what happened, but I won't go into it. I've also had quite a few things happen since my last update which I'll try to catch up on.

First: I forget the date, but I loaded the car up with all my stuff. Jason drove up from Green Cove with his family and picked it up for me.

Loaded Up:




I managed to cram 4 tires, a set of subframe connectors, set of heads, fuel injectors, and my offset LCAs in there. It was almost like playing Tetris trying to get the tires to fit.

One thing that majorly ticked me off though is that when I was loading the stuff up I noticed this:





You can tell that it isn't small. I new it was fresh too because I had gone out and taken some stuff out of my car a couple days before and it wasn't there. I think my ******* neighbor might have done something to it. It wasn't the post either. It's just at a weird angle in the picture. It's actually about 6+ inches under the missing paint. Not to mention the white scrape all around the tire because my mom doesn't understand the word stop.

Monday is going to be the big day for ordering parts. I get paid tomorrow along with the money I have right now should be some of the engine done along with some other odds and ends. One thing that ticks me off though is that my scholarship for school has now taken a week too long to go through so I have to pay for classes tomorrow or get dropped. It sucks for me because I'd rather have my $800 now and then get a $450+ check a couple weeks from now versus getting a $1250 check in two weeks.

 

Either way, practical or not practical, it happened.

I personally stand by you in confusion as to how water got way the frik' up there from just sitting in a storm, but unless there is another cause, i'm gonna have to go w/ some SERIOUS bad luck on your part dude.

 

Sorry to see and hear that. Good excuse for a rebuild and probably a new block while you are at it. Good luck though...

 

My car sat for about 2 weeks and I started it up and had a delicious collapsed lifter. I just finished my cam and 241 head swap. I'm getting my stall put in this weekend and getting it tuned next friday. It sucks and you obviously get paid more than I do or I would have done the same thing

 

I doubt I make more money than you. I just have have very little expenses. All I really pay for is car insurance, gas, school, and random meals. I'm paying for this completely in cash though. That's why it's taken me two months to even think about ordering some parts.

 

I know this is off topic but just dealt with this EXACT problem yesterday. Sounds like a horrible sewing machine now...

 

how high was your compression

 

Not mine, you couldn't hear it at idle. It was when the motor was revved and when the rpms dropped from the rev it was a very distinct claning noise. CLANK CLANK CLANK CLANK CLANK.....I was getting ready to go to the track for the first time with it and that would have been disasterous

 

I'm 21 and pay for both of my cars, car insurance, meals, and rent. There's not much to spare, just enough for gas. School sucks...

 

sorry to hear ur loss....my motor just blew too

 

I believe it. That's the one thing that's keeping me from moving out of my house now.

I paid for both my cars in cash: $1500 for the camaro from my brother and $7965.58 for the Formula. I'm extremely frugal about what I spend money on and work my *** off. I saved for 5 years to get enough money to get my Formula. I only spent money on what I absolutely needed.

Example: When my passenger side windshield wiper on my old grand am rotted off I left it on there even though it was just the bare metal on glass. It scratched the hell out of the windshield, but I refused to spend any money what so ever on that piece of ****.

The same thing is going on now as I'm back in cheap *** mode trying to save up to get this thing back on the road the way I want it. The good thing is I should be able to make some of my money back with it once it's done.

 

UPDATE:

I've been really busy with school starting again and work so things have been going rather slowly. I've been collecting some more parts though as time goes by. First up the things I've acquired recently.

I got a nice Spohn adjustable body mount torque arm for long tube headers off of speedyhawk101, a member here in the for sale section.



I also recieved today my new set of All Pro heads. I was really happy to get these. I ordered them off a guy on ebay for $875 + $50 S&H (about half of what they normally cost).

The guy sent me a shipping number and I tracked the package on its way to my house. About a week later at school I saw it was delivered. I was pretty excited, but when I got home I didn't see a box. I went inside and found a tiny box:


WTF:


Needless to say I was pretty pissed off so I called the guy and he said that he was out of town and asked his friend to ship the heads for him. He told his friend to put the small box in the big box and ship it out. Instead his friend put the shipping label on the small box containing the valve guides and shipped that. He sent me another set of heads, but it ended up taking another week for me to get them. Here they are and they're beautiful:









Upon inspecting them a little more closely I noticed some casting flash. These are an as cast head so I expected some. Anyone have any recommendations for removing this. I realize a dremel, but what sort of bits / wheels would you recommend?

Exhaust Port:


Intake Port:




I also have a new respect for people who manage to take really good pictures of cylinder heads. I should be getting at least the longblock done pretty soon. I still have to order the valvetrain parts, fasteners, gaskets, and some other little things though.

 

Update:

Quite a few parts have been coming in recently. The only downside is that my mom broke our camera on our short trip to Connecticut so... shitty camera phone pictures it is. I ordered the stuff in these pictures from New Era Performance and have to give Mike a huge thanks for the deals he hooked me up with.

JP Double Roller Timing Chain: Normally $199, Sale Price $99.95 - 10% extra sale discount = $89.96


Powerbond Underdrive Crank Pulley: Normally $249, Sale Price $179.95 - 10% extra sale discount = $161.96


Yella Terra Shaft Mounted Rockers: Normally $499, Sale Price $419.95 - 10% extra sale discount = $377.96


I also ordered, but haven't yet recieved a BMR turbo style tubular k member (Don't know if I can state the price) and tubular a arms (5% off sale price). I'm pretty much broke after spending $1774.69 on parts from Mike, then $280 for another set of heads and, $250 on another set of rods. It's really hard to not buy parts with the little money I have left over, but I've got to save up for Christmas.

I've also been gathering random parts for my Camaro when ever I seem to find freakishly good deals. I've been trying to plan on what to put in it for a while now and am still not 100% sure. I have a complete forged 347 rotating assembly assuming my crank is still good and a really nice set of ported 806 casting that have been O ringed and set up for a solid roller. I'd like to thank Jason for letting me use his washer today to clean them off. https://ls1tech.com/forums/member.ph...oster&t=821711 . I plan on taking them to Dover and having them flowed at some point soon. I'll also have my stock K member and a arms off of my formula so that puts me a decent way towards a Gen III setup. My friend has also offered me the 350 out of his van that needs a rebuild for free so I'm not sure which avenue I'm going to take yet. Either way I go both would be turbo setups.

 

Well, another update is in order. I recieved my K member and a arms from Mike at New Era. They look pretty sweet. I also picked up a LS1 shortblock with a weak #7 in South Carolina from a member on here for $200. Once my formula gets done we'll be putting that in my Camaro.

Thanks Mike for the great deals:






I'm still trying to save up and finish everything up. As odd as it sounds now that school has started again I have a lot more free time. I went down to Jason's yesterday and dropped off my parts. It was funny because I felt majorly crammed in there. I had to take my seat out to get my shortblock in. That combined with the giant k member box and all the other stuff I had to move around I had almost no extra space.

The most interesting part was trying to get my shortblock into my car by myself. Now this might not sound too impressive to some of you who have done this before, but I'm 5'8 and 155. Moving that shortblock was one of the hardest things I've had to do in a long time. On with the pictures.

My shortblock was on a engine stand and sitting in my garage.


Now the key to doing this was I started at 11:30 at night and was trying to do it as quitely as possible to not wake anyone up. Here's where I started with my goal at the end. (I took these after I was done because I was amazed I did it)



I started off by dragging the thing out with the bags underneath it about half way down my driveway. After that I screwed these two boards together in hopes that when I put them on the jack that extra ledge would help it not fall off. Which I'm extremely glad I did because there was one time when I almost dropped it and luckily it caught.



After I made that I leaned the shortblock up a little and slid the board under it. Then, I picked up the board and slid the jack under it. Once I got it on there with lots of finesse I jacked it up a little. I then had to roll it the rest of the way down my driveway. Which was extremely scary because it kept getting caught on all the cracks and I thought it was going to fall on me.

Once I got it to the car I jacked it up to get as much clearance as I could. Unfortunately I had no way of knowing before hand that it wasn't going to come up about 10-12 inches short of being in the car. It only came to the outer edge of the black plastic stuff inside the door. That's when I got really scared because as I was trying to move it around to get it on there it started tipping the jack. I really thought it was going to fall and either hurt me, mess up the short block, and / my car. Luckily enough when it did fall it landed in the car. Almost perfectly in fact. All I had to do was move the front part into the car.



Mission accomplised!




A word to the wise though. After doing this by myself I have to say if you can get someone / anyone to help you do it. Just getting the shortblock in the car alone took me over a hour. It'll be a lot safer and majorly easier. The next stuff on tap is valvetrain parts and a few other goodies.

 

cool.... CONGRATS

 

ah makes me miss my bgc formula

 

It's just aluminum, why'd you need the jack?



























just kiddin, next time wake someone up to help you

 

LOL!! Don't you know somebody whose truck you could borrow?



Seriously, glad to see things are progressing.

 

You folks are all, I hope, joking about the possibility of RAIN causing hydrolock in a FI motor.

However... hydrolock can be caused by ANY fluid, and I propose a somewhat more likely scenario, IF in fact hydrolock caused the failure: injector leaking down, especially if the key was turned on multiple times while working on the brakes, say to listen to the stereo. That could certainly supply enough fuel to cause hydrolock.


Here's the MOST likely scenario... no hydrolock, but first firing puts a fair bit of strain on the rotating assembly, more than just idling. Combine with morn bearings and/or a motor that might have been overreved a few times over its life...