And we're underway:





I took the intake tube/elbow, STB, front air dam, AC condenser, battery, and a couple other things tonight. I didn't have anything to drain coolant into, otherwise I would've taken out the radiator and fans also.

 

Out of curiosity, how much do you think I could get for a LT1 short block with heads with a spun bearing?

 

Did some more work on it today. All that needs to be disconnected now is the AC lines, driveshaft, brake booster, and shift cable.

 

What. A. Day.

Yesterday, a friend of mine and I met at a shop at 10:00am, with the plan of removing the engine using the hoist method. Well, after working on this car for however many years, I should have known that nothing was going to go at all smoothly. Not a single bolt came out the first time we tried, half of them seemed to get rounded off in the process, working around my uber-janky exhaust (which we had to cut with a sawzall) was a royal pain, and our cart couldn't be pulled out with the hoist in place. We actually had to switch hoists twice. At least I feel better knowing that the car hates anybody who tries working on it, not just me haha. But anyway, at 1:00 this morning, we were finally out of there. Yup, 15 hours. Granted we needed some time to eat lunch and dinner, and make a run to my friend's shop to pick up some supplies, but still. Long day. But now, the motor is actually out.







The kicker is that at the shop I was working at, you can't leave a car in there overnight. So once we got far enough in, we had to be there until we were done.

 

nice, got the old out now gota get the new in. clean everything you cannot normally get to.

 

Picked up a RevMax 3600 torque converter and a trans cooler last night.

Also, here's the info on the LT1 I'm buying:

353 cubic inches, stock rebuild with forged pistons, I think 10.9:1 compression ratio
Lunati 60121 cam - 221/229 duration, .549"/.565" lift w/ 1.6 rockers, 112* LSA
Mild ported heads, stock valves, 176cc intake runner, around 250cfm or so @ .550" lift

 

At last, progress!

Removed the headers, transmission/TC, and flexplate

Here you can get an idea of how nasty my headers are right now. They're ceramic-coated, but the coating is flaking off pretty badly.



So VHT header paint, or get them recoated?

(on a side note, it's amazing how much easier it is to work with longtubes with the motor out of the car )

Here's the torque converter shield:



judging from the pool of oil, I think my rear main seal is shot.

Here's the only thing that went wrong tonight: caught one of the bolts with my wrench when I was disconnecting one of the wires on the back of the starter, snapped it right off



guess I have to add a new starter to the shopping list. It's not like this one was only a year old or anything

Anyway, I got the transmission off:



Next order of business: get the replacement engine and start moving stuff over.

 

Skip on the VHT header paint and go with either the new coating or DEI header paint. The VHT stuff doesn't stick well unless you have a oven big enough to bake them. The DEI stuff works better if you bake them first, but still sticks pretty darn well even if it's not heated.

 

I do have access to an oven large enough to fit the headers. Why did the ceramic coating do this in the first place, though?

 

Could have been a cheap coating. Plus winter salt destroys everything. You have Pacesetters don't you? I hate to knock them because they are good quality for the money, but there's a reason why all the other coated headers are 600-900 bucks.