Hey everyone. I have a project-in-the-making for over a decade; I bought a high-mileage '97 SS (with the original window stickers, nice addition) back in 2007 with the idea of driving it a little and fixing it up as I went along.

At the time it had over 220,000 miles.

Since then I've moved to a different state and back again, and acquired other expensive hobbies and projects... so I'm looking to get back to working on this car. Maybe I'll get to drive it before I'm too old.

A little over 2 years ago I pulled the motor out through the bottom, disassembled all the accessories but never got it off the K member before putting it back to move 800 miles. At the time I was pulling it because there were some broken exhaust manifold bolts in the back of the drivers side head, and I wasn't going to redo all of that on a 200K+ bottom end. So the idea was just to freshen it with new bearings and whatnot. At the time, however, it was still a running motor.

Fast forward to now, I finally got the engine back out, on a stand, and was working to strip it down to a bare block. When I pulled the oil drain plug, straight water poured out! I nearly filled a gallon milk jug before oil started coming out.

So I'm trying to figure out what happened... where all this water (coolant?) could have come from. It's clear-ish, I think the last coolant that was in there was the orange stuff that is compatible with dex and green. I'm afraid that over the winter the coolant/water froze and the block cracked internally... I have it down to a shortblock right now, I haven't seen any glaring cracks yet. The car has been stored indoors, never outside, so even though I had the intake manifold loosened for the past 2 years, it's not like it's been getting rained on or anything.

So any thoughts? Am I most likely looking at a cracked block? And in that case, what's next? LT1's in decent shape are harder and harder to find, wondering if it might just be time to bite the bullet and swap it with something more modern.

I found online a place (hawks performance) selling a complete running 100K LT1 with accessories and computer for $1500, everywhere else I look it's just parts or half-torn down projects. The same place has 2000/2001 LS1's around the same mileage, with accessories, wiring, PCM, for $2500. Of course I could try to source a 5.3 or something locally, but then it seems like it would be more work trying to fit something like that when I'm not starting with an LS-equipped car.

I'd just hate to try and rebuild this or another LT1 and chase my tail trying to find parts, or throw in a running motor which would just be a gamble on how long it may last... Don't want to throw good money after bad here. There's something to be said about keeping it original, but it's just so much easier to find stuff for LS.

Thoughts, opinions?

Pics for no real reason:

When I first brought it home in 2007:


Current status:

 

What are you planning on using the car for and what is your budget?

 

I sold a running LT1, computer, harness and trans for 600 a few months ago. Cheap options are out there. I'd strip it down and clean it up best you can and look for cracks then drop the block off at a machine shop for testing and go from there. I took my LT1 out and am in the middle of swapping in a gen1 carbed small block. LS is an option and I've seen stock LS1 k members for about 100 bucks a few times int he past year.

Buut, more importantly, you still have that SS hood?? Looking to sell it??

 

Just fun driver. No interest in racing. I don't really have a budget in mind, to be honest. Things cost what they cost. I'm not interested in spending a fortune, but for a mild performance build, I don't see that getting too expensive regardless of which route I go.

My original plans were to keep the LT1 shortblock stock (unless an overbore was needed), and then do a LE/AI/Trickflow head-cam package. Wasn't set on one yet... was leaning LE.

I found a shop that can hot tank the block and magnaflux it for under $100, but if there's this much water, isn't it pretty much guaranteed there's a crack?

And no, not looking to sell off the SLP parts Except the shocks maybe, I suspect they're the original Bilsteins.

 

Drove through a lil' bit of road salt?

Anyway, when out of the car was the intake off? Did it ever rain directly onto the motor while it was out? If you fear the block is cracked, completely disassemble it, take it to a machine shop and have it magnafluxed.

 

Yes, the intake was off. No, it was never outdoors, so rain is ruled out.

 

Figured, worth a shot haha. But for under 100, I'd have the block magnafluxed unless something else guaranteed came my way for a decent price. Is there rust on the crank or in the cyl bores?

 

Thankfully, no and no.

 

So I know this is posted in an LT1 sub-forum, so maybe it's a bit biased, but the question I think for me really comes down to this:

Is it still worth it to rebuild an LT1 these days, with limited availabilty of specific parts and people who know how to tune them?

So far no one seems to be pushing me away from it.

 

It's up to you. At this point if you want to restore the car back to original SS status it would be ideal to rebuild the LT1 but if your block is bad you basically have to find a new LT1 block or LT1 donor engine and just rebuild it like you would any motor. It's going to cost money but you can have it running again for maybe 2-3 grand. With quality bottom end and rebuilt heads. The LT1 stuff just isn't as expensive as it used to be that is if you're trying to get it back to stock trim. You want to 383 and throw in a bunch of forged stuff and ported heads, bigger cam blah blah blah figure to double those prices.

Now the alternative...

The LT1 is yester year and GM has evolved the LS stuff is more affordable now than it was some years ago. You could get low mileage LS and dump it in there or get an LS block and build your own motor. It will probably cost you in the ball park of 3-5 grand to get you a stock trim motor installed up and running with the conversion goodies but again if you want it modified double those prices.

So you're options rebuild an old motor to keep the nostalgia of the car or rebuild a new year motor that will make more power. Depends on what you want to do with it. To me it seems like your more fond of the idea of rebuilding the car to restore it so I would try to get a hold of a good LT1 block if yours doesn't check out and just rebuild the motor.

 

If the liquid looked like coolant then it's highly unlikely it froze. By your description I would guess it was water, and if you know for a fact it was never exposed to rainfall, or a leak somewhere then somehow, someone or something poured water into the engine.