Update: the motor took a ****, only drove the car a MAX of 5 miles. Knocking, so this is a full rebuild thread now.

This is a 96 trans am, black with black leather 6speed. It has had 4 motors in it before I got it and of the 4 they all spun rod bearings. The CC306 had been inside all 4 motors.. I got the car with a tick, witch was a header gasket and it ran like ****. 3 injectors didnt work, it was richer then a fat pig. and the harnass was hacked up.

How ever! the body was in very good condition aswell as the paint other then the back bumper. And being a bodyman, the cost of repairing a bad body is more then any motor rebuild would cost.




The Motor that was in the car had been painted Chevy orange, i found that to be kind of funny since its a Pontiac



when i was doing some repairs to the harness I found the motor had been left hanging NOT bolted to the K-member, That was a little much for me and I was pretty mad about that.
After bolting the motor down, I went down the street for a test drive. It was still running like **** and I gave it a little throttle to see how it felt, maybe 35% throttle and I hit 4k RPMs. Then I heard metal breaking sound.. Well the starter blew up.


After getting a new starter, I start the car up and reved it a little in the engine bay, And I heard it. a very slight knock. So the next day I grabed my tools and started pulling **** out.

My stock rockers with 918 springs, very strong valve train for the little CC306 cam.


I found metal!


The cam that the last installer thought was ok and put in this one.


I picked up a new longblock with opti and a few other things for a good price, it had been sitting for 4 years with no oil.. So i ran into a few problems with it, but its getting cleaned up

Little rust I found, and after removing the stock cam I found all the cam bearings where shot, as expected.




I decided I was going to repaint the engine Pontiac blue from the 77-81 years I started with the intake.


And my lovely girlfriend started polishing the metal.


and the end product




Bought a electrical water pump for a killer deal, just had a small scratch on it, then painted it.



Body detail

So the car looked like this







it now looks like this







These 2 are my fav pictures



There is still a few imperfections here and there but I did not wet sand it at all, this was only my 3 step buff and wax. Only the back half of the car right now because we are still working around the engine bay and it would get dirty again.

 

is lookin awsome man

 

Looks 100% better nice job!!!

 

whatd you use for wax/buff job? looks amazing!

 

WOw that looks way better, keep up the good work.

 

Update: got the motor back together, it wouldnt start but it turns out my throttle position unit is acting up, i might have put it on wrong not sure. The alt's bearings are shot so its annoying to hear the engine bay.. but the valves sound good. changed the header gasket also, wasnt much of a improvement I need some top notch ones and some new headers. the headers I have are a little warped.

 

ditch the flowmaster

 

I plan too, I want mac mids and duels with maybe hookers.. not sure yet

 

Well im sad to say I couldnt make it to the Austin regular Saturday meet because It would not run right.

I got the fuel rails all back together and put in, pluged a few holes in the intake that where leaking air, tryed to start it up. no go.

Well i kept cranking and it would start then die instantly. So i figured it had to be one of the sensors on the TB because I took them all out. I unpluged the TPS and it started up. Well i figured I had the TPS on wrong so i adjusted it and get it to start again, a SES light came on some where between all this, i figured out the oil pressure sending unit came unpluged but its still throwing a code.

I tryed to drive it up the street but at around 2.5k rpms it fell right on its face, so i gave up and pulled back into the driveway.

I replaced the MAP so im guessing it could be that. either way theres still something wrong with sensors and tune.

I changed the oil and there was only about 3 quarts of oil in there.. and in the process I found my tranny is missing 3 bolts that hold it to the bellhousing.

Another fun day in my first lt1!

 

Thread updated, will have more pics tomorrow!

 

got the transmission out today. Found my false knock problem....lol picture speaks for its self



I has lots of parts

 

X2 what did you use for the wax/buff job. I hate to take anything away from this thread but I am afraid i cannot focus on any other subject until I get some answers My paint is getting a little shabby as well, kind of like picture #1 and I would much rather it look like picture #2

 

3M compound, #3 mirror gaze, 3m swirl removal. Just a basic buff job. but it works!

 

The car used to sound so good Pulling the motor tomorrow

http://s428.photobucket.com/albums/q...t=MOV03780.flv

 

PM sent.

 

motors out

 

got to love it when your motor doesnt even make it far enough to seat the rings. thanks to the previous engine builder on the first motor build and my dad on the second im now redoing the whole motor to make it right. btw my SR396 made it 12 miles after my dad had his way with it. its awesome when people dont check clearances!

 

hmmm what doesn't belong in here



The cylinder walls are trashed, it looks to me like the block sat for a long time based on the rust on the back side of the block. So im assuming the cylinder walls rusted so the last engine builder tryed to clean it up with something that scared the hell out of the walls.

 

Painted the engine bay.

Before




After, sorry it started getting dark outside.