Chevelle upgrades.
- Thread starter rfletes79
- Start date
Godspeed it's for a grand national I've had it for years bought it off eBay, Ive put 90 pounds of boost to it. Have never had an issue.
9 years on the same engine, runs high 9's, you can drive it home from the track doubtful any 9 second gasser with a big block could that and still be in one piece and a daily driver.....:thumb:
Well my stock LB7 finally came out and got tore down. It never really failed, just stopped making more power. In early 2016 I started making upgrades to the motor and it never really responded. Modded the factory IHI turbo, added the S475, put in new injectors and earlier this year put in a 10mm exergy pump. All of this did nothing, in fact in our last outing it actually went slower............ significantly.
Guess we finally wore her out. Put approx. 60k miles on her (in the last 9 yrs) and hundreds of passes, never missed a beat. In fact if it wasn't for it "not going faster" after all the upgrades I probably would not have tore it down.
So this is what we found: valves leaking compression, cam gear pin bent ready to shear, reluctor hub pin bent ready to shear, couple injector cups leaking coolant causing coolant consumption, 4 hammered main bearings (smashed to shit!!) but don't think they actually spun.
So......... new stuff. Not doing a full build but am upgrading several components and replacing a bunch of parts. Heads, block, crank and cam all getting replaced with factory parts but the cam and crank are keyed. Balancer and flex plate are SCD and getting the rotating assembly balanced. Going with LBZ rods and cut LB7 pistons. New IHI 63.5 high boost turbo and a new S475 T6 1.32 atmo turbo. All the same fueling, 10mm pump, stock sticks and aeromotive fuel pump. I will upgrade the injectors down the road, just getting too pricey now with all the changes and upgrades.
Also going thru the tranny, converter and gear vendor........ these have all been torn down and are back together waiting for the motor to be done. Went with Reybestos blue clutches this time. I have never tried them before and have been running Red Eagle clutches this entire time. The reds worked, were cheap for rebuilds but feel I need to try something different, so here we go. All new clutches, steals and band (pretty normal rebuild after 10k miles or so. Converter had about 20k miles on it so had it gone thru and the gv needed a new clutch, sprag, annulus, plannet carrier and planet cam it had about 13k miles since last rebuild.
Now the car........... needs some work up front in the engine compartment area, crossmember, frame mounts and motor mounts all need attention. Then the exhaust needs to be tweaked for the new Atmo turbo. Then Interior, fronts seats are shot. Then tires, picked up a set of 315/60-15 ET Street Radial Pros this past weekend, hopefully they work out!! been wanting to try the pros out since they came out a couple years ago.
Whole bunch of changes and work. Hopefully the machine shop will finish up this week and I can start assembling the motor, make the changes to the turbo plumbing and get this thing running!! Fingers crossed that it actually makes the power its suppose to and holds together for awhile, we see soon enough!!
Guess we finally wore her out. Put approx. 60k miles on her (in the last 9 yrs) and hundreds of passes, never missed a beat. In fact if it wasn't for it "not going faster" after all the upgrades I probably would not have tore it down.
So this is what we found: valves leaking compression, cam gear pin bent ready to shear, reluctor hub pin bent ready to shear, couple injector cups leaking coolant causing coolant consumption, 4 hammered main bearings (smashed to shit!!) but don't think they actually spun.
So......... new stuff. Not doing a full build but am upgrading several components and replacing a bunch of parts. Heads, block, crank and cam all getting replaced with factory parts but the cam and crank are keyed. Balancer and flex plate are SCD and getting the rotating assembly balanced. Going with LBZ rods and cut LB7 pistons. New IHI 63.5 high boost turbo and a new S475 T6 1.32 atmo turbo. All the same fueling, 10mm pump, stock sticks and aeromotive fuel pump. I will upgrade the injectors down the road, just getting too pricey now with all the changes and upgrades.
Also going thru the tranny, converter and gear vendor........ these have all been torn down and are back together waiting for the motor to be done. Went with Reybestos blue clutches this time. I have never tried them before and have been running Red Eagle clutches this entire time. The reds worked, were cheap for rebuilds but feel I need to try something different, so here we go. All new clutches, steals and band (pretty normal rebuild after 10k miles or so. Converter had about 20k miles on it so had it gone thru and the gv needed a new clutch, sprag, annulus, plannet carrier and planet cam it had about 13k miles since last rebuild.
Now the car........... needs some work up front in the engine compartment area, crossmember, frame mounts and motor mounts all need attention. Then the exhaust needs to be tweaked for the new Atmo turbo. Then Interior, fronts seats are shot. Then tires, picked up a set of 315/60-15 ET Street Radial Pros this past weekend, hopefully they work out!! been wanting to try the pros out since they came out a couple years ago.
Whole bunch of changes and work. Hopefully the machine shop will finish up this week and I can start assembling the motor, make the changes to the turbo plumbing and get this thing running!! Fingers crossed that it actually makes the power its suppose to and holds together for awhile, we see soon enough!!
Good questions....... I'm trying to post pics so you can see what I see. But having issues with my computer right now. Hopefully I will get this sorted out soon and you guys can check it out.
Got the motor fired last month and into the car last week. Running and driving this week, racing tomorrow!!
Lots of changes and upgrades. Here are a few pics. Cleaned up the engine harness and ecm harness a bunch. Also did a bunch of powder coating, vc mods and made up custom fuel return lines. So far so good. Everything is working happily together.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Lots of changes and upgrades. Here are a few pics. Cleaned up the engine harness and ecm harness a bunch. Also did a bunch of powder coating, vc mods and made up custom fuel return lines. So far so good. Everything is working happily together.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I used Josh idea for the vc and harness mods. He did a rat rod LB7 like this and it just looked clean and simple. Reduced the harness 1 bale connector routed to the back of the engine, relocated the ficm and shaved valve covers. Took it one step further with the custom fuel return lines. Tons of work but well worth it in the end.
Thx Josh for planting the seed!!
Thx Josh for planting the seed!!
I guess I hadnt paid attention to how you routed everything before, but that really is a nice job on the packaging of everything. Very compact and well laid out.
I find it funny that the guys running the van Tstat housing were searching for an upper rad hose routing....and all they had to do was look at pics of your car. Good old GM A-bodies.
Have fun. Good luck.
I find it funny that the guys running the van Tstat housing were searching for an upper rad hose routing....and all they had to do was look at pics of your car. Good old GM A-bodies.
Have fun. Good luck.
