Phase 4: Give it some Go!
By this point, the v6 was out, I had the kframe mounted back to the car so I had a roller, and it was pushed out into the driveway. Over the course of the winter, I worked on gathering parts, cleaning up the engine, cleaning up the engine bay, etc.
This is where the project got fun and I started really learning alot. My dad liked to use the phrase "If you're going to do it, do it right." Well - I used that phrase right back at him. He wanted me to leave it stock, I knew I wanted it to be cammed. My response, "If I'm going to cam it in the future, we might as well do it right and cam it now while the engine and everything is out."
Being the spoiled kid I was, I won.
I knew I wanted lope. To be truthful, I really didn't care about performance. I wanted that lopey cam that would give me the best sound. I'll admit it. When I looked online, I saw the Comp Cams CC503 was the "biggest cam you could run with stock heads" without sacrificing performance and that's what I went with.
While acquiring parts, I also started tearing down the LT1:
Working on the heads:
Had a small stock pile by January 2009:
Me being addicted to Carbon Fiber - I couldn't pass this up:
LPP Stainless headers:
I took my heads to my tuner, he knew a guy who could deck and mildly port the bowls on my heads. I also had a nasty time trying to get the 918 beehive springs installed with the crappy rental spring compressors from the local auto store, so he installed the valve springs for me while he had the heads:
Cleaning the LT1 intake:
Yanked the stock cam out:
Stock cam vs CC503:
CC503 in:
Heads on, timing cover on, valve covers sitting on the heads:
LT1 intake painted red, fins sanded smooth and polished:
Intake installed, opti installed, waterpump and harmonic balancer installed:
Looking like an engine!
And then, as if the project wasn't expensive enough... this is around the time the project really snowballed...
