So being today is three years of the turd not running I have been engine hunting around. Anyways the local pick and pull got a 97 Camaro Z28 in. I was down there today getting parts for another car and decided to go past it. The car was wrecked in the back pretty good. Interior is torn up. Anyways I pulled a valve cover and it was a little grungy. The sheet says it has 138.8k. Other than an electric water pump and an aftermarket muffler out back the car looks stock. I got under it with my 3/8 inch ratchet and was able to spin the engine over. It stopped but the car was in park and the e-brake was up. I got the car into neutral and put the e-brake down. I was able to turn the engine over about three turns. It felt like it had some compression. Anyways debating going to pull it in the morning for my 96 Firebird. A running car is easier to work on or build vs a car that is just sitting. Shoot three years have flown by. Out the door the engine is $404. I have a 20% discount on some of that from buying other parts. It will have a 30 day warranty so worst case if its bad I could always return it. So figure about $340 I could have an engine. Here are the pictures I snapped and a couple form the pick and pull website.



I took the valve cover off



Rear end Damage


Pan Looks ok

A couple from their website.



So debating to go pull it. Its late so most people will not see this. Got a few weeks since I am done with college for now as I am job hunting. Very worst case its a return or something I could slap my le2 heads on with a cam and just re-ring the bottom end. My small worry was being able to turn the engine with my 3/8 inch ratchet. You could feel the hits. Pushing up was hard, But most were pulling down with my 230lbs. So maybe its ok. The other kicker is that is a non start car when it went threw the auction. So who knows. Maybe its a pinched fuel line maybe it just would not turn over at all.

Any opinions from you guys.

 

If you have a 30 day warranty, go for it. Get it home and do a compression and leak down test. If it's good clean it up and put it in. Just try and get a few miles in before your warranty is up to be sure it's ok!

 

Why not a much better LS engine than an LT1?

Rick

 

Cost. The conversion is not cheap.

 

I have looked but being a t-56 car the cost goes up a lot. Figure even a cheap 5.3 $500. Converting the accessory drive to ls1 car. $300. Converting the t-56 over is almost $500 now. K member and rack $100. Clutch and flywheel $600 even just a ls7 unit. Some sort of y-pipe or a set of headers. $450. Car intake manifold $100-500.

Right there alone is $2550. There are other things not listed like wiring and pcm. Before you know it a 5.3 swap is an easy 3k. Could maybe sell my t-56 to offset the cost of a ls1 t-56. But I will not going autotragic. No fun in that. Plus I bought my car to be a 6spd.

 

Well took a risk.



I forgot how much of a pain it is to pull the engine out of the top Anyways its home. Going to throw it on the stand this week and check it over. Swap over some of my parts and probably my brand new 1k old oem opti and msd wires.

 

good luck, hopefully its all good!!

 

exactly this^^^

maybe cut the oil filter in half for a quick inspection.

good luck keep us posted.

 

You wouldn't believe how many times I pulled an engine out of a junkyard and just threw it in. Got burned maybe twice out of a good 50 swaps. As wrecked as that car is, smart money is on it running fine... Had to be running to wreck.

 

Its not the first time I have junkyard pulled an engine. I grab a lot of the miata stuff that comes threw as that is what I do a lot of track time in. Plus always buying and selling miatas. Trust me if the car was not wrecked I would have walked away. Usually running when wrecked. Wish a lemons buddy would learn that. Remember him pulling a engine out of a kia sephia. Said the body was perfect.....usually means either the engine or transmission took a dump. For him it was the engine was junk.

Today took a look at the bottom end. Pulled a random rod bearing and here are the results.





Debating throwing a set of bearings at it. Might price it out. But everything looks cleaner in the bottom end. Its at least good enough not to really worry about. Good news it is coming apart pretty easy. The exhaust manifolds came off with no broken bolts. So at least its a keeper.

 

a set of bearings wouldn't hurt. unless you were putting a top end kit and spinning over 6000 rpm I doubt its necessary.

 

Heads are not coming off and the stock cam for now. Just going to be a bolt on car with intake, headers, exhaust. Might slap on the twin 58mm throttle body or at least my older 48mm with slp flow booster. Otherwise just going to have pcmforless retune my obd2 ecu or start learning how to tune on obd1 since there are no obd2 data loggers. I am at $260 in gaskets,bearings, and a few other things. Might just do them and forget about it for a long time.

Idea is to get this car going again. Then maybe rebuild the 385 bottom end and le2 heads laying around in the garage. Its easier to work on a car once it runs. Shoot the car has not ran in 3 years. But also has mostly been on and off the road with me only putting 1500 miles on it since 2-21-2009.