I cannot say enough about how knowledgeable these guys are with 4th gens. For those who don’t know, my motor severely clearanced 3 of the main bearings resulting in a lot of metal in the motor and big-time loss of oil pressure. Paul (nyturs1) trailered my car to his shop, and the motor was out that night.
A teardown followed the next day to see the extent of the damage, and it wasn’t too pretty. Crank=junk, #2,#3,#4 mains= shrapnel, most of the rod bearings simply fell of of the caps, and 2 of the pistons would simply fall into the bores=compression ring failure. The good news is the block actually looks good. Still has a lot of factory cross-hatch on the cylinders, and almost no ridge, perfect candidate for a rebuild/stroker motor.
My budget right now didn’t allow a full-on race motor to be built (spring '07 baby!) so Paul suggested a low-mileage LT1 that he had in stock, along with a new crank, new bearings, and new gaskets.
Those guys are meticulous when it comes to cleaning internals. The LT1 was completely stripped and a time-consuming cleaning followed. Brake-clean, gasket remover, oven cleaner, you name it, the motor is spotless!
I thought the build-up would be pretty straight forward, but Paul caught a few problems. A measuring of the heads showed a too-low install height on the beehives resulting in a broken one. He overnighted a new spring along with special valve locks (+.050) to raise the spring slightly to bring it into spec. You guys out there running bigger cams than me with beehives on stock heads should take note! Mark (BaD AZz) built the shortblock with help from Aaron (95zzz28) all the while working hard to get his own car done.
Now for the interesting part. On Friday October 6th at 8pm, my motor was simply a shortblock. The BBQ at Ellicott Creek Park was 16 hours away! I was freaking out to say the least! Those guys thought it was amuzing how panicky I was. I stopped by for a bit and left around 1am on Saturday with those guys assuring me it would be ready for the BBQ.
They pulled an all-nighter, motor was in the cradle at 7am, at 10:30 they fired it. One tiny coolant leak (connection tube on the back of the heads) was found and fixed, and then it was on to Mark’s car to get that going for the BBQ.
At around 2pm Saturday the Green car (Mark’s) and the Black car (mine) rumbled into the park. Job well done guys!
The only bad thing about this, is I feel kinda guilty that Paul’s car isn’t out yet. For those who have seen it, you know it’s gonna rock! He puts everyone elses cars before his, which doesn’t allow any time to get his rolling. There’s always someone elses car in his shop getting worked on, which goes to show you what good word of mouth can do. Header installs, Nitrous systems (his specialty), suspension mods, custom fabrication (see Mark’s intake), you name it, he can do it. He always answers his phone or gets right back to you quickly with an answer if you have any questions.
BIG :tup: to you guys!!!
Hit up Paul with any questions at [email=“nytrus1@yahoo.com”]nytrus1@yahoo.com
Bummer to hear your car went down…but wow, that was a quick recovery! It’s good to hear about guys like this that go outta there way to help someone out.
My dad and I are looking at the possibilites of an LT1 or LS1 in his '55 Chevy…if it ever becomes a reality I know who I’m going to hire!
Joelster, so if your car still gonna be on the road for the rest of this season?
Paul has lots of crazy swap ideas in his head, and lots of fabrication skill. Lt1 or LS1 swap in a shoebox would be a piece of cake. My car will be on the road the rest of the season, with track times soon. I’ll have to hit up Lancaster one of these saturdays, weather pending.
I had fun taking care of all that stuff. I could have helped more. My schedule restrictions due to school and work make it hard to put lots of time in.
Glad to do it for you and always enjoy working on different set-ups. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to work on another motor. Practic makes perfection(so they say)
Speak for yourself aaron, I am the LT1 juggernaut, biotch
I told you we would get it done for the cruise. Funny thing is, you left us 16 hours to do it, so it only took one person. I got yours done while Paul got mine done. :tspry: