Best Florida story yet.
Best Florida story yet.
One of the things I have noticed about my fellow GRMers:
It is common to hear folks on this forum extolling the virtues of their better halves and how they are a great match or how they complement each other.
So I feel compelled to share a conversation from a few moments ago.
Realize, I am building my FIRST challenge car now, and it is still in a state that seems to concern even Seth, master of the the improbable.
Setting: Two car garage that serves as a 1.5 car workshop. The garage is full. The center is occupied by a 1946 CJ2a project on a body dolly. Prominent items include a 1974 Coke Machine, Recently rebuilt Wheel Balancer, Rim clamp tire machine, engines on stands, cherry picker, and a ton of Corvette bits grouting it all together. The general feeling is that of complete disarray, but with a purpose.
AFM (me): You know, I only have about seven years to build Jack's first car.
AFW (wifey): Yeah... You could give him one of your challenge cars.
AFM: *blink* * blink* Uh, you mean its ok to have more than one?
AFW: Well, there is going to be more than one right?
AFM: Uh... ...yeah.
AFM: That a good thing?
AFW: Yeah, babe.
How do we get so lucky?
For the weekend:
First I need to restore order to the garage, to the extent that is possible.
I should have the tpi motor out and the first pressure washing of the body and suspension.
The parts car will be unloaded from the trailer.
That should be enough...
Today was ok, more logistics than news stuff, but still quite necessary.
Took pics to show the current state of the teardown:
Unloaded the parts car to the shed. The challenge here was the whole no suspension thing and wanting to be precise as to where the car sat in the end... basically slid it on ply wood an caught it on the jack stands in phases.
Tomorrow hopefully the engine will be out of the black car and on the stand.
Had a great call with a forum member this evening, really nice guy. Networking with GRM has been fun!
Dude, seeing that picture with the rear bodywork off really makes me want to Mad Max a Vette.
No plastic, pre-runner style bumpers with all the light behind matte black expanded metal. With a big ass splitter/diffuser combo.
2 turbos out the hood like the hoonicorn.
I'm definitely not going to live long enough to do all the things...
Well, the engine is out. A little more tearing down, and the body shell / engine compartment cleaning can begin.
Hey, now that does LOOK like a SBC....
MAYBE tonight I'll get a peek inside...
So, finally some good news on the ole L98.
VERY Clean inside a testament to Mobil1 for 100k+ miles.
I knew it was going to be good when I pulled the distributor.
Intake
And so on..
Forged Pistons and no lip with LOTS of cross hatching still visible.
I am expecting a lot of cam wear, as you can sort of see in the pic of the engine valley.
If the bottom end looks this good we have a decent used platform for a mild build and flog...
What, you mean these didn't come with <0.3" lift? 
Wow. That is absolutely horrible. I love it!
From horrible to horrific?
Not all of the lobes are still lobes... lifter bases are ALL concave as well.
Good thing it is a challenge car right?
I think I should see some performance gains...
This looks better the more you take it apart.
New bump stick check
Roller lifters?
1.6.1 roller rockers?
Keeping the TPI?
mazdeuce - Seth said:This looks better the more you take it apart.
Yes, I agree, and luckily there is a lot more 'apart' to come.
759NRNG said:New bump stick check
Roller lifters?
1.6.1 roller rockers?
Keeping the TPI?
Roller Lifters : no, probably not a good way to spend budget money for my plan, otherwise I do like the idea. I've got an 880 roller block with a manual fuel pump boss that might get built in the future...
1.6 to 1 Roller rockers : not likely to need 1.6 to 1 (I expect that the head choices I'm likely to have will be lift limited) and definitely not roller rockers, no return on investment for the challenge $$
Keeping the TPI? : Yes as the goal in this build for the challenge is cheap torque, absolutely.
Engine mods will likely look like this:
Long tube headers
MAF modification
Custom TPI tune, spark, fuel, knock response
egr delete and block off
aluminum 87-89 L98 heads (mainly due to $$ limits)
In reply to a_florida_man :
FYI a stock mechanical fuel pump won't clear the front crossmember of the Vette. Also, solid lifter performance cams are $50-$70 on Rockauto.
Also also... Jim said you have some nice bronze door panels? I'm definitely interested if they're for sale. He gave me your #, I just haven't got around to calling you yet.
This is the outboard side of the piston skirt.
no wear!, with 100k+ miles... happy for this for sure.
Same piston, looking up at the bottom of the top shell. Bearings will be replaced, but as you can guess from this, so far the crank is immaculate.
The bore in the block shows honing marks all around. The rings look to be chrome so I think I'll leave that alone.
rods, mains, and cam bearings should have this short block in nice shape.
Anyone have a nice serviceable set of L98 Aluminum heads lying around?
Pete Gossett said:In reply to a_florida_man :
FYI a stock mechanical fuel pump won't clear the front crossmember of the Vette. Also, solid lifter performance cams are $50-$70 on Rockauto.
Also also... Jim said you have some nice bronze door panels? I'm definitely interested if they're for sale. He gave me your #, I just haven't got around to calling you yet.
Did not know about the mechanical pump issue, thanks! Sticking with TPI for the challenge, but down the road, that might have been a big frown.
I had not considered a solid lifter cam. That might be fun.
As for the door panels, call any time. If it's a bad time, I just won't answer... leave a message.
Jim gave me your number as well FWIW.
The parts car has a bronze interior, and its all there except for the seats.
It even has floor mats.
you may recall, we spoke at the challenge this year, at the 'car show' that Saturday.
You can have your pick of the bronze interior parts, I assume bronze is hard to find.
We can maybe trade stuff, or you can have them for free, I don't want $$, especially for someone like yourself that is trying to stay stock on the interior stuff.
I think you should put a big nasty cam in it so it at least sounds cool. That was Pete's mistake, his car was way too grown up. 
mazdeuce - Seth said:I think you should put a big nasty cam in it so it at least sounds cool. That was Pete's mistake, his car was way too grown up.
That is precisely the plan, and the reason I chose MAF TPI, as opposed to speed density.
I'm going to try to find a set of 88 and up L98 heads, and go from there.
Pete suggested solid lifter, which made me giddy briefly until I imagined knock sensor issues... so hydraulic flat tappet is likely.
And it won't be too nasty, actiually since I want low end torque and hp on the cheap... thinking L79 "3151" cam or a little bigger.
In reply to a_florida_man :
Its not a roller block but can you just drill and tap the bosses in the valley then get an lt1 spider and lifter brackets?
Also if you want cheap roller rockers, drill out some stock ls1 rockers. It was a prettty common upgrade for lt1s for a while. Can probably find the info on ls1tech.com. you can get geb 3 rockers for pretty much nothing. They are 1.7s and the same in all gen 3 ls motors.
Opti said:In reply to a_florida_man :
Its not a roller block but can you just drill and tap the bosses in the valley then get an lt1 spider and lifter brackets?
Also if you want cheap roller rockers, drill out some stock ls1 rockers. It was a prettty common upgrade for lt1s for a while. Can probably find the info on ls1tech.com. you can get geb 3 rockers for pretty much nothing. They are 1.7s and the same in all gen 3 ls motors.
Thanks for the new information to explore.... I'll be sleepy tomorrow :)
Make sure to replace all of the gaskets in the TPI system including the throttle body. TPIs cannot have any vacuum leaks whatsoever or else they get stumbly and the RPMs hunt at idle. Considering how far apart it is, you're probably doing them anyway. Oh and you might as well port the upper and lower intakes since it's FREE.
In reply to GCrites80s :
Thanks for the info....
October 2018.
Hmmmm better stay up all nite to stay on schedule, haha...
Im grateful for this thread.
If you find a good writeup on ls rockers to earlier sbc, please post. My el Camino needs it.....
In reply to Dusterbd13 :
My piqued interest led me to do some Googling. Most forum posts I found were old, with broken links, but Corvette Forum had a short thread with good info, that has me leaning away from looking for some 1.7 LS rockers, due to extra $tep$ needed to fit them.
I thought this was funny, just had to share....
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