Finally Making Some Progress
12-27-2012 | 12:34 AM
#21
Thread Starter
Launching!
Joined: May 2012
Posts: 232
Likes: 0
From: Mayfield, KY
Im with the other people. Get the car running again with the engine thats in it.
Go buy a torque wrench if you dont have one, or have access to one. A good one. This is the first tool required for doing any type of engine work. The rest of the car, tighten at will, but if you want an engine to work and last you need to torque bolts to the right specs and in the right sequence.
Im not sure how you feel your in over your head on this. Are you not mechanically able to do the job? are you just overwhelmed with the pile of things that came out of the car?
I would buy head gaskets for it, assemble and make it run. Use this as a test and a learning lesson to how your engine works. Sometimes Its not fun doing things twice, but everyone who does something like this for the first time, normally does it a second time anyways. You will learn every bolt on the engine, and thats honestly something alot of people cant say lol.
shbox.com has AWESOME info. If you go to cam removal and install you can get a look at ALOT of the parts you are probably confused with and where they go.
Since you are on a tight budget I think this is the best route. I did start out my last build with a tight budget and ended up buying a camshaft that was "priced right" that I wish I wouldve saved another 100$ and gotten a better camshaft. Im just saying that if your budget is make or break by 100$, your over your head and will end up taking a short cut on something, somewhere.
Ive never done heads, but they honestly dont look scary to me. IF you got all the bolts out without breaking or rounding any off then your doing good. There are alot of forums and info out there. Most people are more helpful through PM then actual threads I learned when doing my first cam swap. If its possible to put the new head gaskets on, new head bolts, and then test compression I would do that. IF your compression isnt to crazy, slap the rest of it together and start saving your pennies for a build
Im in cincinnati and I see LT1 blocks and engines ALOT for under 500$ sometimes even 200$(not complete). normally if they are attached to a T-56 is when they get expensive. You have aluminum heads already, so if you go find any old LT1, even if its a iron head, you can build a good engine with the 2 of them.
Hope this helps. btw, we got hammered with that blizzard today lol.
Go buy a torque wrench if you dont have one, or have access to one. A good one. This is the first tool required for doing any type of engine work. The rest of the car, tighten at will, but if you want an engine to work and last you need to torque bolts to the right specs and in the right sequence.
Im not sure how you feel your in over your head on this. Are you not mechanically able to do the job? are you just overwhelmed with the pile of things that came out of the car?
I would buy head gaskets for it, assemble and make it run. Use this as a test and a learning lesson to how your engine works. Sometimes Its not fun doing things twice, but everyone who does something like this for the first time, normally does it a second time anyways. You will learn every bolt on the engine, and thats honestly something alot of people cant say lol.
shbox.com has AWESOME info. If you go to cam removal and install you can get a look at ALOT of the parts you are probably confused with and where they go.
Since you are on a tight budget I think this is the best route. I did start out my last build with a tight budget and ended up buying a camshaft that was "priced right" that I wish I wouldve saved another 100$ and gotten a better camshaft. Im just saying that if your budget is make or break by 100$, your over your head and will end up taking a short cut on something, somewhere.
Ive never done heads, but they honestly dont look scary to me. IF you got all the bolts out without breaking or rounding any off then your doing good. There are alot of forums and info out there. Most people are more helpful through PM then actual threads I learned when doing my first cam swap. If its possible to put the new head gaskets on, new head bolts, and then test compression I would do that. IF your compression isnt to crazy, slap the rest of it together and start saving your pennies for a build
Im in cincinnati and I see LT1 blocks and engines ALOT for under 500$ sometimes even 200$(not complete). normally if they are attached to a T-56 is when they get expensive. You have aluminum heads already, so if you go find any old LT1, even if its a iron head, you can build a good engine with the 2 of them.
Hope this helps. btw, we got hammered with that blizzard today lol.
One of the main reasons I felt overwhelmed was because it was 110 degrees in 100% humidity most of the days I was working on it outside in july. And the stupid BBK Shorty headers that are on the car got in the way of EVERYTHING. Like when I reinstalled the heads with new gaskets and new spark plugs, I ended up breaking every single spark plug but one in each head, by just trying to move the headers out of the way enough to reach the lower 9 head bolts to torque them. And I also wasn't sure about reusing the stock head bolts. My fried that got married swore up and down I could just reuse the stock head bolts but I read in a lot of places on here that if they're Torque to Yield bolts then they won't work twice.
12-27-2012 | 08:08 AM
#22
On the head bolts the confusion comes from them changing bolts, early LT1s had standard bolts that I think were rated to be reused once, later they were TTY, on a 96 I would expect to find TTY as the 96 stuff I have torn down had different bolts than the 94-95 stuff I have torn down.
The TTY are likely to break if you try and reuse them.
I think when most of us were young we would stand on our heads trying to work around stuff. To bolt the heads on you are going to need the headers out of the way, no sparkplugs in them, alternator out etc. have to get all that stuff and more out of the way. With headers it might help to say put a few plugs in before the headers then the headers and finish the plugs, or maybe some plugs are better reached from the bottom which might require moving the starter out of the way which REQUIRES disconnecting the battery.
I know it can seem like a shortcut to not unbolt things but stuff in your way just makes everything harder.
I really think a used engine is going to be the ticket here, the b-body engines if nothing else command a lower price, sure the iron heads weigh more but we are talking 45lbs on a 3600lbs car, not ideal but not the end of the world for a purely street car. The power difference was much more in the programming than the compression and cam so ignore those that will tell you how bad the b-body motor is due to the 260hp rating. In bolton form they make roughly the same power but by all accounts the torque starts sooner with the b-body motor. Just have to watch out for the 4.3l V8 that was the base engine in the Caprice sedan.
If you found a motor a little different year we could talk you through what needs to be swapped.
I know here there is often a LT1 on craigslist for like $1200 guy just keeps sitting on it and it doesn't sell because for less than that you could get a 5.3l, the LT1s I have bought from junkyards I have paid $500 and $550 for, and looked at another for $600 one of the yards I found through a friend of a friend sort of thing it didn't come up on car-part or any of the other JY inventory search sites so a little time spent with the yellow pages could help vs just online searches.
The TTY are likely to break if you try and reuse them.
I think when most of us were young we would stand on our heads trying to work around stuff. To bolt the heads on you are going to need the headers out of the way, no sparkplugs in them, alternator out etc. have to get all that stuff and more out of the way. With headers it might help to say put a few plugs in before the headers then the headers and finish the plugs, or maybe some plugs are better reached from the bottom which might require moving the starter out of the way which REQUIRES disconnecting the battery.
I know it can seem like a shortcut to not unbolt things but stuff in your way just makes everything harder.
I really think a used engine is going to be the ticket here, the b-body engines if nothing else command a lower price, sure the iron heads weigh more but we are talking 45lbs on a 3600lbs car, not ideal but not the end of the world for a purely street car. The power difference was much more in the programming than the compression and cam so ignore those that will tell you how bad the b-body motor is due to the 260hp rating. In bolton form they make roughly the same power but by all accounts the torque starts sooner with the b-body motor. Just have to watch out for the 4.3l V8 that was the base engine in the Caprice sedan.
If you found a motor a little different year we could talk you through what needs to be swapped.
I know here there is often a LT1 on craigslist for like $1200 guy just keeps sitting on it and it doesn't sell because for less than that you could get a 5.3l, the LT1s I have bought from junkyards I have paid $500 and $550 for, and looked at another for $600 one of the yards I found through a friend of a friend sort of thing it didn't come up on car-part or any of the other JY inventory search sites so a little time spent with the yellow pages could help vs just online searches.
12-27-2012 | 08:23 AM
#23
you can do a shortblock cheap and have it be nice.......im doing one for my truck right now, im geting a pre balanced rotator from flatlanderracing, scat 9000 cast crank 3.75" stroke, SCAT I Beam 6" rods and a set of speed pro forged slugs i can adjust rod/main clearances with bearings by swapping out full or half shells with .001 overs or unders so all i need at the machine shop is a bore and a hot tank $500 im out the door......RA is $900, melling std press/vol pump is $32 pickup is $7 stock pan, Pan gasket $30, rear main seal $12, stock replacement main bolts from GM so i do not have to touch the main saddles (just mic them to make sure they are in tolerance), timing cover gasket is $12, $28 for durabond cam bearings, $8 for a core plug kit and bam you got a 383 shortblock that will handle 500hp all day long for under 2k its a no brainer.......now up top set of pro comp alum heads off fleabay for $550 and a TPI intake i scraped off a friend and im good to go on a super budget..........
another words it can be done.........take your time......reasearch before jumping in and spending money on parts your gonna have to send back and do it right.......it CAN be done regardless of what the interwebs say good luck!!
another words it can be done.........take your time......reasearch before jumping in and spending money on parts your gonna have to send back and do it right.......it CAN be done regardless of what the interwebs say good luck!!
12-27-2012 | 10:18 AM
#24
Thread Starter
Launching!
Joined: May 2012
Posts: 232
Likes: 0
From: Mayfield, KY
Well I got the entire driver side head torqued with the original bolts and none of them broke. But since we're pulling it out, if I can't find a used one soon I'm just gonna order some ARP head bolts to put in it to make sure. But do 93-95 Camaro lt1's need any changes to run in a 96 model? I know they have slightly different opti's
12-27-2012 | 10:23 AM
#25
Thread Starter
Launching!
Joined: May 2012
Posts: 232
Likes: 0
From: Mayfield, KY
you can do a shortblock cheap and have it be nice.......im doing one for my truck right now, im geting a pre balanced rotator from flatlanderracing, scat 9000 cast crank 3.75" stroke, SCAT I Beam 6" rods and a set of speed pro forged slugs i can adjust rod/main clearances with bearings by swapping out full or half shells with .001 overs or unders so all i need at the machine shop is a bore and a hot tank $500 im out the door......RA is $900, melling std press/vol pump is $32 pickup is $7 stock pan, Pan gasket $30, rear main seal $12, stock replacement main bolts from GM so i do not have to touch the main saddles (just mic them to make sure they are in tolerance), timing cover gasket is $12, $28 for durabond cam bearings, $8 for a core plug kit and bam you got a 383 shortblock that will handle 500hp all day long for under 2k its a no brainer.......now up top set of pro comp alum heads off fleabay for $550 and a TPI intake i scraped off a friend and im good to go on a super budget..........
another words it can be done.........take your time......reasearch before jumping in and spending money on parts your gonna have to send back and do it right.......it CAN be done regardless of what the interwebs say good luck!!
another words it can be done.........take your time......reasearch before jumping in and spending money on parts your gonna have to send back and do it right.......it CAN be done regardless of what the interwebs say good luck!!
12-27-2012 | 11:39 AM
#26
quik95lt1, most folks don't have bore gauges and mics etc and for the price of them to use them once or twice a guy is no further ahead than letting a shop do it. Same with the cam bearing tool.
For a performance car engine should be looking at cutting the deck for compression and quench.
No doubt SOME guys get away with a couple grand build but MORE often guys go into something with that idea and it snowballs out of control.
For a performance car engine should be looking at cutting the deck for compression and quench.
No doubt SOME guys get away with a couple grand build but MORE often guys go into something with that idea and it snowballs out of control.
12-27-2012 | 12:34 PM
#27
Thread Starter
Launching!
Joined: May 2012
Posts: 232
Likes: 0
From: Mayfield, KY
12-27-2012 | 12:59 PM
#29
I would just look behind the driver's side head to confirm 5.7 not 4.3 because the base Caprice sedan engine was 4.3l(called an L99), they look the same on the outside. This is confusing even to some dealerships as the 4.3l V8 was only used in the Caprice sedan and was the base engine with LT1 available so it is fairly uncommon and to make it worse they used the VIN code "W" just like the 4.3l V6 from other vehicles.
If he sends you pics and there is a mechanical fan that is an indication of a "tow package" car which is very likely for an LT1 Caprice and I have never seen that on a 4.3l.
If he sends you pics and there is a mechanical fan that is an indication of a "tow package" car which is very likely for an LT1 Caprice and I have never seen that on a 4.3l.