Phase II
LS1/LS6 Heads/Cam swap + bolt-ons
So after you’ve swapped the coolest motor in the world, or perhaps you’ve bought a 4th gen Camaro/Firebird, maybe even a Corvette with a LS1 the best bang for your buck is doing a heads and cam swap on the motor.
With my first 98 LS1 having a broken rod I wanted to look into my newer 99 LS1 alittle closer, change out bearings and add alittle more fun. I wanted to keep it on a budget but make some good power so I called up Texas Speed and Performance, they set me up with their 233/239 cam on a 112lsa for alittle extra bump and their 5.3L heads with the stage 2.5 port job. While you have the motor opened up it’s a good idea to change out the oil pump, I went with their ported LS6 pump, and also an LS2 timing chain. And lastly I slapped on an SLP underdriven harmonic balancer. Here are the steps and pics as I went along.
First the stock 99’ stipped down
Next remove the rocker arms, pushrods and lifter, then you can take the head bolts out and remove the heads.
After this remove the oil pan, harmonic balancer, and front motor cover
At this point I took the time to scrub and clean the whole external parts of the block. You can pull the oil pump & pickup off, then slide the cam out. Lube up the new cam and put that in. put the new oil pump on and the front cover.
And then the shiney new heads are good to bolt on, I used a set of ARP head bolts for added strength since I planned on using nitrous at some point.
Now here I cleaned up and painted the valve covers, as well as the LS6 intake the same color as my roll bar called Black Metal Flake. Definitely gave it a lot cooler appearance. And you can also install the new harmonic balancer. Simply toss it in the oven on 350* for about 45 min, it’ll go on the majority of the way then you need to get a longer crank bolt and you’ll be able to draw the balancer on the rest of the way.
Engine with the intake in place looking hawt
Motor Installed
Happy Modding…
