Well, after about 6 months of downtime, a semi-exploding budget, and all around difficulty, I finally got my car started today.

Quick run-down, since it's been a long time since an update:
'93 Z28
LE2 heads, LE intake, small LE custom grind cam (219/22X .56X/.56X 111 LSA)
Scorpion 1.6s, LS7 lifters, custom length PRs
LPP longtubes into TDs
Oil filter relocation kit (custom made bracket by me and my dad. )
Odds and ends, all sorts of new parts, etc., etc.

Filled her with fluids today, let her turn over for a few seconds without the coil connected (build oil pressure/circulate coolant) and decided to give it a go.
First attempt, got a backfire and shut down before it actually started (I'm assuming i got a little bit of gas in the cylinders when I was priming the system - no biggie).

Second attempt, It turned over for maybe 4 seconds, caught, and started. It idled at 500 rpms by itself for about 10 seconds and died.

Third attempt, it fired after maybe 2 seconds of cranking, and was jumping for 20-30 seconds from 500-700 rpms before dying.

Fourth attempt, it cranked right away (very healthy). I gave it some gas to get it to idle between 750 and 1000 for 30 seconds, then let it go by itself. For about a minute it jumped from 600-900 rpms, but never died. We shut it down to check (visually) for any problems. Now that it can sustain itself, we're going to pull the VC's and adjust the rockers with the car-running method. There's a little noise coming from a couple of them, and cylinder number 3 is getting hotter than the rest (you can tell by watching the headers change color. ) and is the noisiest.

Fifth attempt: Decided it was time to get some oil on the cam and up to the top end. Kept the rpms at about 2000 for a minute or so, and then tried to back it down the ramps. It still wasn't holding idle quite right (it was about 650 rpms (pretty steady though)), so when I put it in reverse it killed it.

Sixth attempt: We figured we'd let the PCM learn its new tune/all the new readings and junk for a bit, so we just let it sit at 2000 for about 5 mins longer, then let it idle for five mins, then just didn't some revving from 750-1500 rpms for a bit. Then I let it settle down for a couple seconds, and it fell right into a 750 rpm idle. I put it in reverse, it dropped to 500, and it recovered ()! Got it down off the ramps and into the driveway, and decided to go for a quick drive around the block. After a quick drive everything kinda came into place. Throttle response went back to normal, idle speed/quality picked up, and it was acting great! Pulled back into the driveway and my dad said I was leaking tranny fluid (You could see spots). So we brought it in the garage, drove it up the ramps, and found where the leak is coming from. Its the upper tranny fluid line where it meets the radiator (gotta take both lines off to tighten it down more/apply some sort of sealant potentially). So with the combination of tranny leak (minor thing really) and the rockers needing to be adjusted, I parked for the week til I can get a ride home from school next weekend. At which point my dad and I will fix the leak, adjust the rockers, and we'll do the whole break-in procedure of driving and oil changing and junk.

Now that the story is over, it's on to the descriptive part!

LPP headers + TDs + sweet thunder chambered mufflers = surprisingly quiet idle, with one of the most old school chopping muscle car sounds you can get! 1000-2000 rpms isn't bad/loud in the car at all, but apparently outside of/behind the car it's quite a noise maker (Throaty as all get out though!). 2000-2500 rpms starts to make some noise in the car, you've gotta raise your voice to talk to someone else in the car (with the windows down). Windows down, 3000 rpms, and you might as well not even try to hold a conversation though! I haven't gone higher than that, so I'll update next weekend when it's good to go in the 3000-6000 rpm range.

Drivability is great! Way better than I expected with the stock stall. Around town/neighborhood driving is smooth as silk (in terms of acceleration), and it's still got more than enough torque to cause some trouble in 2nd gear doing 20 mph! Cruising is excellent, and the only time you can even tell it's got a cam (other than sound) is below 1000/1100ish rpms. That's where it's got a tiny bit of a buck (only noticeable when you aren't giving it gas), though I'd wager money that it'll totally settle down with some more drive time.

I'll try my hardest to get some videos up, but the best video-taking device we have is my sisters camera. And it isn't the greatest! :P Plus she probably won't be home next weekend. It'll happen though, I'm sure I could borrow something if I have to.

Any questions/comments are always welcome!

Edited for ease of reading. (Sorry for the novel, I'm excited!)

 

sounds awesome bro! i love to read about LT1 builds, since ya know, the LT1 sucks and all .

what gears are you running? i'm pretty surprised you say the stock stall works so well with all that. good to know!

why such a small cam? emissions or somthing? just curious.

you need to get us a damn video! you're getting me really excited to get my new engine! keep us posted bro!

 

I was lucky and got the 3.23 rear end from the factory. lol

I went with a small cam because I've got a bottom end that's in great condition...with 150000miles on it. I knew power wouldn't be the demise of it, so I went all out on everything but the cam, since RPMs would probably be what does it in. With this cam, Lloyd says I'll only need to spin it to about 6200 rpms to reap the full benefits. It'll make great numbers up top relative to the size of the cam, since the whole setup works well together, but I needed to keep the rpms down. The valvetrain components could all see 6600 rpms all day long and survive, but the bottom end would probably fly apart. So instead of going with a higher duration and wider LSA to make both good low end and high end, we tightened up the LSA and dropped duration numbers.

The way we like to describe this cam is 'a big cam in little cam guise'. lol Though a cam along the lines of 226/232 could make ~400 at the wheels through an A4 with a stellar setup, I decided to change it up a bit, make ~375 to the wheels through an A4, and do it all with a 'small' cam.

I'm happy with it.

P.S. estimated torque at 2600 rpms - 340 lb ft...to the wheels.

 

nice man...all your logic makes sense. lloyd really is an LT1 genius...whatever he says, you just have to listen to and accept as a fact, lol. just skip school this week and get it straightened out now! lol

 

I wish I could! Holy crap, after 6 months of not even starting it, I couldn't believe I got held up by a tranny fluid leak! But patience is the biggest lesson learned through this whole mess. I'd rather take another week and make sure everything is at 100% (And then romp the living daylights out of it! :P) than rush and potentially cause irreparable damages.

There's some other lessons I've learned, and I plan to make another thread here in the next few days. I hope it can be maybe made a sticky...something along the lines of "Planning a big project? Here's some insight to help out". Because to be quite frank, if I'd known what all it would take to do this project 6 months ago, I'd have just waited til this coming summer and pulled the motor. Not that I regret doing it, it's just that there's some realities more newb-esque car guys need to face about this sort of project. I'd like to share what all I've learned through this process with those people.

 

sounds sick man, cant wait to see vids of it, or even better..vids of it at the 1/4 mile

 

I'll definitely work on the vids! But 1/4 vids will have to wait til summer. Everything will be closed for quite some time here in MI!

 

cool just about the same as what im doin. cant wait to hear it. im still drivin mine and gathering parts. should have it ready for the change in two weeks. so no pictures?

 

haha, here in PA things should open up in march i think..

 

There's another thread many pages back with some pics of the heads, but I didn't document very much. (I'm embarrassed by how dirty everything under the hood is...teehee)

I'm definitely gonna get some of those up next weekend though - for sure.

I haven't actually checked yet, but I can't imagine things being open here 'til at least april..