I have a 2006 GTO I'm currently doing a winter heads and cam and other stuff and I've got the front stripped off and I need to remove the oil pump as part of my cam swap the trouble I'm having is getting the oil pan lowered enough to get a 10 millimeter wrench on to the pickup tube the front oil pan bolts are relatively easy to get at but I'm concerned about getting to the back ones in order to be able to drop the oil pan about a half of an inch if anyone has had this issue could you please tell me how you resolved it because right now I'm kind of stuck at this point I really don't want to have to bring in an engine hoist and then unbolt the motor mounts and unbolt the cradle in order to get at these rear bolts I also don't want to leave the rear bolts in completely and then bend the oil pan I suppose it might come down to choosing the lesser of two evils anyway if anyone can give me some help on this I would really appreciate it thank you also sorry there is no punctuation in this I'm using my voice to text on my cell phone to post this

 

I actually did this over the weekend, that oil pump bolt was the devil.
here's what I did, I loosened the oil pan bolts. pretty much all the way before they fall out.

there's an oil pan bolt on the driver side, just above the rack, you will need a 10mm ratchet wrench with a flex head to remove it. the pan will drop, but not enough, for me anyway, it will sit on the cradle. at this point I loosen the 2 18mm motor mount bolts and jacked up the motor from the trans, that when I got good enough room for activities.

when installing, tie a string onto the oil pump bolt until you catch some threads in the pump, so you don't accidentally drop it into the pan. that will ruin your week.

then enjoy the gains

 

...and be prepared for the oil pan gasket to leak if you don't replace
it, which is hella difficult with the engine in the car.

 

Wow, I appreciate it. Thanks so much!! Yeah, when I was looking at this, it looked like the difficulty of the intake tube bolt would make it pretty tempting to just change the cam without changing the timing chain or oil pump. Again thanks!! I now have a strategy and moving to a proper solution.

 

remember, you can always change the cam timing gear, and
keep the factory crank sprocket.

 

This '06 GTO has about 98,000 miles on it and has some slack in the timing chain. I have a new IWIS chain that I really should replace the OEM chain with. I have to determine if I can lift the engine high enough with the auto trans attached to get at enough of the bolts over the cradle to drop the oil pan far enough to get that one bolt off the oil pickup tube. I also have a Mellings high pressure replacement oil pump that I want to install so taking short cuts here would, I think, be pretty bad. I could be playing russian roulette with my engine if I were to leave the current timing chain in the engine and just replaced the cam. Granted, I have run the engine to 6600 rpm lots of times and the chain has never jumped or broken, but why take chances when I'm already spending a lot of money with the H/C swap, Fast 102, and NW 102 throttle body, JBA long tubes and catless mids along with a 3600 stall converter, one piece driveshaft and better rear axles. Just doing the mods I mentioned here costs thousands of dollars-and thats with me doing the labor. No, I'm either going to have to use my floor jack, unbolt the motor mounts and lift it as high as possible or get a hoist and pull the motor to do this (Oh Crap!!!). I hope the floor jack method works out, cuz I already had the tranny out to do the converter and trans cooler. And now, the tranny is back in the car with its new converter, the wiring harness and cooling lines all installed along with the driveshaft, and re-hung exhaust. Yup, It sure would have been easier to pull them both together and just get all this done. I've done a lot of research both before and during this project, but I think I may have really dropped the ball as far as planning this part.

 

yup, unfortunately you did you could have pulled the block out
while the trans was out. then you could have done all of the upgrades
while the engine was on a stand, and that's HELLA nice when you
can do it that way.

 

Yeah well, just got to get creative and get this done. I want to get this car back on the road ASAP. Thanks to everyone for the suggestions!

 

you're over thinking it.
but for what it's worth, I just lost my LS2 chain on last motor, at 6000rpm. it has about 60k on it, granted it was a hard 60k only think i was able to savage from the motor was my headstuds and valve springs