Replaced my Camaro with a.....Camaro. 4th Gen LT1 Fbody Content

In reply to GCrites :

I ran one for like 8 years on a previous car, it was more reliable than an OE pump, gave me some horsepowers, and was much easier to change than OE.

I got off my butt and decided to finish the job.

Here's the ratchet dent in the new radiator that required me buy yet another radiator.

I was going to upgrade to a slightly larger 2 row aluminum radiator, but they are a little thicker and I was worried about clearance with the bigger EWP. Probably a good thing I didnt upgrade

had to cut a pretty healthy chunk out of the fan shroud and we have about a 1/4 inch to actual fan blades. A bunch of the turbo LS guys and bigger power LT guys are running the stock 93-96 LT1 rad anyways so I should be fine.

Now the reason I was putting this job off. Wiring it up. The first time this job I ran a pretty ugly but functional setup and it took a couple iterations to actually clean it up and move it to the fusebox. I actually give a crap about this car and dont have to drive it to school in less than 8 hours so I figured Id do it nice and clean, and I hate electrical work.

The fusebox has an empty relay socket I used on the last car but i figured Id save myself some trouble and use the Air pump relay since I just threw that garbage in the trash. The only trouble is the air pump relay is ran with constant hot and the ECM toggles ground. Id prefer to not rely on a 30 year ECM circuit not shared with anything else to run my cooling system. I swapped that to a permanent ground and moved what was the constant hot on the coil side to a Key on and run hot. The fuse box already had a key on and run power rail, just had to run a couple inches of wire and crimp it. Then cut the air pump power and run it to the pump, and give the pump a ground and we are good. Was able to hide most of it in the fusebox

I could have hid the grounds better on the pass side frame rail, but I was standing up and that ground was already close by and it didnt require me bending down. I might move them later.

Now that Ive got power to the pump I can bleed the system, and I dont even have to start it, just key on

 I normally run LT1s with mostly water and water wetter and just a little coolant. Figured since flushing the block was about the cleanest Id get this cooling system Id go ahead and switch over from the 50/50 I had been topping it off with.

Got everything buttoned back up and tried to clean up the wiring as much as possible. With some dirt on the new loom, this may pass as OEM at a glance. Im pretty happy but I think I will move the grounds so I have a little more space when I go to a more conventional CAI that runs over to this location.

Then the finishing touch

There might have been some bourbon involved with this repair, and I dont want to forget in case Im ever diagnosing this or changing something up. I ran it for a second and got it to operating temp and burped it. I forgot how much easier that is with an EWP. Didnt see any leaks so thats good. Then I thought to check and see how much voltage this pump is actually getting, since my original idea was to run power straight from the battery stud, but decided against it because it wouldnt have been as clean. KOEO is 12.1V, didnt check it with the car running, but that seemed OK enough. Ill watch performance, but I doubt it will be a problem since I ran a pump that flowed a little more than half as much, wired the same way and made more power, with a shallower air deflector and never had a problem. It was hot outside so at that point I left it on jack stands and went inside to have tacos and play video games.

Ill mess with the tune and test drive it tomorrow.

Went out for a drive today to check everything

This is stabilized temp at a cruise. Gets to about 190 after a while at idle. 190-195 is about as hot as I was able to get it. Its a weirdly cool morning here in TX, I need another 108 degree day to really stress the system.

Stopped and took some pictures. I really like this car, just needs about 150-200 more hp.

I guess ill order some bushings to finish putting the front end together so I can put all these parts on Anthony gave me with the car.

I just finished reading the entire thread.  I think these are great cars.

Do you still have the 16" wheels from the parts car?  I have a bent one on my set and I keep missing out on the cheap ones I see posted locally.  I'm in SW, Michigan and I travel the Midwest for work.

GCrites said:

Electric water pumps for LT1s are extremely popular in drag racing street classes.

Can you even buy a stock mechanical one that's worth a crap these days?  I went through 2 to get a good one and that was 20 years ago.

I'm in the market for one of these

fornetti14 said:

I just finished reading the entire thread.  I think these are great cars.

Do you still have the 16" wheels from the parts car?  I have a bent one on my set and I keep missing out on the cheap ones I see posted locally.  I'm in SW, Michigan and I travel the Midwest for work.

I sold them, surprisingly for way more than I used to get for them. I couldnt get 100 for a set with good tires years ago. Got 300 with smoked tires. If any of my fbody buddys have a stock one laying around for cheap I send you their way. Im in TX though

A 401 CJ said:

GCrites said:

Electric water pumps for LT1s are extremely popular in drag racing street classes.

Can you even buy a stock mechanical one that's worth a crap these days?  I went through 2 to get a good one and that was 20 years ago.

I always just picked up parts house WPs in the past with good luck, everything but my drag car went to an EWP after a few years though. Probably never kept one long enough to know if it was decent

Lately I havent done much with the car besides drive it. I told the wife I wasnt working on it unril I finish the renovation, but I would be collecting parts if a good deal pops up, and that brings us to todays post.

I found a set of ported heads on the old face space. They were done by GTP, who used to be a big name in LT1 head porting and had some real quick cars in the late 90s and early 2000s but after that LE and AI seemed to take over in the ported stock casting realm. Guy measured the valves and said they are in the 2.0-2.02 range and ~1.55 on the exhaust. This leads me to believe they are a 2.0/1.56 setup which if I remember correctly is the largest the stock seats will take. Stock is 1.94/1.5. Its been a while since I knew anything about GTP heads, based on old forum posts they probably flow in the 270 cfm range on the intake side.. Planned on some LE2s but I couldnt pass this deal up, so hopefully they are good, Ill do some more closer checking and measuring before bolting them on. They also come with springs which I need to check, maybe if Im real lucky they will work with my cam choice. They do come with 7/16ths studs, guide plates so that saves me a little money for sure.

I had originally wanted to do a 383, but had since decided to just do a stock crank 355 with some better rods and hyper pistons. Id been keeping an eye out for some bargains and a couple days ago I stumbled on something.

Story is that its a 383 that was built and put into a drift car that was stuffed into a wall, butt first, at the first event. It was ran on a carb and conventional distributor setup. I was told it had about 30-40 minutes of run time, I was a little skeptical but when I got there the guy was super cool and knowledgable and a pretty big LT1 guy. The things I could verify lined up with what he told me.

Its a scat crank and Hbeam rods and Keith black hyper pistons. They are flat tops with valve reliefs. The block has been decked but I need to verify how far in the hole the pistons are. My guess, without measuring the heads or height of the pistons, with the headgasket I want to run is I will be in the mid to low 12s on compression with about .050 quench. This is where I wanted to land for compression but little bit wider quench than I wanted but it was a pretty smokiin deal so Ill make it work.

It came with a MSD distributor he used to plug the hole in the timing cover, Ill probably check that and sell it to recoup some money. It also has a cam and lifters, that was described as "rowdy and too large for stock heads." My last car has a cam that conventional knowledge would say was too large for stock heads, and my plan this time was to run an even larger one, so this is right up my alley. Ill check the cam and may consider running it, but if its one of the popular shelf cams Ill probably sell it and recoup a little more.

My pops has my cherry picker right now so I cant get it on the stand right now. Hoping next weekend I can get it up and do some checking. I know the KBs run a weird top ring location and are very picky about ring gap, so the plan is to pull a piston and check ring gap, if its were it needs to be Ill throw some new gaskets at it and bolt the heads on. Im interested to see what cam is in it. Im hoping its a GM847 or CC306, but Id bet its one of the newer grinds.

P/S the green is going away

Had a few minutes after work last night and got it on the stand.

I was curious to see what cam was installed. so I pulled the front timing cover.

Pretty sure thats not a stock timing set. I think the Cloyes and GMPP are solid like that but couldnt find any identifying marks. I also didnt look that closely. It still has the W/P drive on the back of the cam gear. Given Im running an EWP, it unlikely I will use this timing kit, but maybe I can sell it. The cloyes double rollers used to be real cheap, Ill probably run one of those.

Next I popped the cam out

Looks like its a Howards 181815. Thats a 237/245 .560 .560 110LSA. I would agree thats a "Rowdy" cam but I plan on a bigger one. Maybe I can get a hundred bucks for this thing.

This is were it sits now, the wife said it was time for dinner, so I had to cover it back up and head inside.

The lifters are new but have no part numbers or anything on them, and I found some wear I dont like on the cam thrust plate, so I need to look into that. Mainly I need to keep cleaning and investigating to see what I have here.

If you still have that Howard cam I would be interested.