Hello all,
I have been lurking the pages of this forum for the last few weeks trying to read up. I come from the diesel performance world, so camaro's are kinda a new ball game. To start off, a little background. I purchased my camaro, a white 1995 z28 when I was in highschool from a family friend. We purchased the car knowing it needed some engine work, and the price was right so we went ahead and purcahsed it. The car had 116k miles when purchased, and we purcahsed from the original owner.

When we had the engine looked into, we discovered it had gotten a little hot, and had toasted the head gaskets. Instead of just fixing the head gaskets, we decided to send the motor to Gopher Engines and have them go through the entire thing. When we did this I was still wet behind the ears and had not come to appreciate vehicle performance at all. Looking back I realize there are a lot of things we should have done differently while the engine was out but, that was then this is now. I am just happy to be able to enjoy the car, and now that I have an appreciation vehicles and making power, I will turn to you guys with some questions.

Does anybody have experience with gopher engines?
I know there are always amazing motors that last hundreds of thousands of miles with no work, and there are always motors that cant go a hundred miles without seeing the shop, but generally, how many miles are these motors good for?
Coming from the diesel world, 116k on a motor is just breaking the dang thing in. We dont start getting worried about internals till like 400k .
Eventually, I would like to add a shot of nitrous, is that something that a rebuilt motor like this can handle?

Sorry for all the questions in one post. To even it out, if anybody has any questions about diesels, more specifically cummins, just let me know!

Thanks,
Alex

 

the lt motor should go 200k no problem. of coarse there is the odd one but for the most part thats about the average.

 

Understandable. When you say 200k, is that 200k total or would you think I would be looking at an additional 200k from when we sent the engine in?

 

Yep, it's just like any other engine (but better :P). Proper maintenance and it'll last longer than you'll drive it.

currently 153000 miles here.

 

Well that is good to hear. I am very particular with vehicle maintenance/fluids, ext. I have only put 14k on the motor since we sent it in. Once I started college here in wyoming the truck became my daily driver. The roads out here are not very forgiving.

Do any of you guys have any experience with Gopher? The have a pretty nice website, seem very knowledgable and reputable, but its always nice to hear others opinions.

 

If properly maintained... The LT1 motor will run well over 200k. I personally have an old LT1 with 315k on the motor and still runs... The motor usually lasts longer than everything else. (Transmission and radiator mainly)

 

I don't have experience with Gopher engines, sorry.

As far as nitrous, from what I've heard these engines can handle 100-150 shot of nitrous stock, so for rebuilt if you put decent internals or near stock I'm guessing it can handle pretty close to the same.

 

never heard of em. if theyve been in business for a long while then i would say they must be doing something right. and ya i been a bit curious about a little shot of nitrous myself but its at the bottom of my list right now. lets see a couple of pictures.

 

The internals are all stock in my motor. I dont have any pictures right now, I just got this laptop but Ill get some up. Yeah, Gopher Engines have been in business for a long time, and they were very good to deal with. Ill just assume all is good then.

315K on a lt1. Thats impressive. I have 116k on my cummins.

 

i think its safe to say that 200k is the minimum..