Rebuild time

[joshnmn]

Looks like we spun a bearing in my son’s car. He is right at 140k, been cammed for about 30k. He heard a funny noise, loss of power, and had intermittent “Service Stabillitrack “ messages so he pulled over to listen. Wouldn’t start after that so we had it towed home. Pulled it in the garage today and drained the oil. It’s full of glitter (https://youtube.com/shorts/FMjpHaEfY...o9KYJ88ITspnct)

I’d love some advice/ options/ history from anyone that has had to rebuild.

Realistically, I know I need a forged bullet for my car so he may just get mine (with only 14k on it) and I’ll send mine to TKM. That’s one scenario.

[morepowerjoe]

No matter how far you have to drive or even ship it to a very good machinist would be my first recommendation. Everything else is on you if you're going to do the build yourself. King SI series bearings are really good, Eagle rods are about the same weight as stock and DSS pistons are about the same too. Have the stock crank balanced, and get Melling 10296 or a 10355 oil pump. Also if your not going to ever put a power adder on it then have your rings set up for N/A.

[CamaroCracka]

When the vert spun a bearing, it totally wiped out the crank, so I went with an Eagle stroker kit that took it to a 416. I had a local machine shop I had worked with before do the build. They even did the R&R for an extra 1000 which was a bargain in my opinion. IIRC it came out to about 7k but did take months to get done.

[SlowLS1]

I would go for the second option. You need that forged short block more than he does.

[joshnmn]

lol

Thanks for the replies guys. Turns out one of his soccer teammates now works at his dad’s machine shop here. I’ll take it over as soon as I can yank it.

I was leaning towards the stroker option. Need to talk to Andrew and look at options.

[joshnmn]

Wanted to follow up on this for posterity.
First, finding some place to do this was a chore. Now that I have a place to do it, we are making headway.

Knowing that there’s metal in the oil, I started the teardown with the end goal of pulling the engine. I went right in and started removing exhaust, PS pump, water pump, alternator and a/c compressor. The a/c was the most trouble- there are more bolts holding that bracket on that you’d imagine.

Here’s the engine ready to come out with a Motion race works LS lift plate in place of the intake manifold.



Here you can see that the lift wouldn’t reach the engine. It was way off from the side. From the front it was closer but still couldn’t reach.



I eventually had to take the bumper cover off and even then do some shenanigans to make it reach. Here it is out of the bay with the harnesses and a/c pulled back.





With the engine on the stand (not pictured, but also a pain the butt) I dove into it.

Plugs look good.

Valve springs, rockers and push rods all look good.

Houston- we have a problem





This rocker won’t budge. It will spin ~45 degrees but doesn’t move in or out. Something’s wrong… whatever it is- it chewed up the cam.





I’m assuming that’s the source of the metal in the oil. Probably didn’t spin a bearing, but hits highly likely they’re all toast with particulate being forced through the oil.

[joshnmn]

Before heading to the machine shop I wheeled the stand outside, emptied a can of gum out engine degreaser on it and took the pressure washer to it for a while.

I put the heads and intake on it to clean them and also keep from making a huge oily mess.

[joshnmn]

Though they’re messy, the heads and pistons look pretty good. Tune was a bit rich.

[joshnmn]

Took the oil pan off and found more carnage:

[joshnmn]

I initially thought I found the source for the lifter failure. If you can’t see it those are needle bearings that have rebelled and took a hike.

Here’s where it gets interesting- when I put the cam in 20k miles ago, I also did valvetrain, including the CHE trunnion upgrade. It shouldn’t have any needle bearings left in it. Anyone know another parts that uses them?

[morepowerjoe]

Looks like maybe the guy who owned in before you (unless you bought it new) hade a rocker failure. To answer your question, no there's not anything else in the engine that uses needle bearings. Also on the engine hoist, it's adjustable. If you take that bolt out on the arm and move it out to the last bolt hole and then put the bolt back in it will be a lot closer. BUT, I think that I have the same hoist, and it still doesn't reach with the arm fully extended. So, I moved the arm out where it was dead over the engine, marked the arm in the bolt hole with a marker, then redrilled the bolt hole on the arm, and then put the bolt back in. While I don't think that I would do this on an iron block it's totally fine on an aluminum block especially with the all the accessories and the heads removed. So, I don't remember if you said that you were ever going to add a power adder?

[joshnmn]

It was in the last available hole. I thought about drilling one more as well, but made it work before resorting to that.

No, we got it used. Agree- must have had an oem rocker go out. Pretty amazing they can just roll around in there for years.

[SlowLS1]

Man that sucks big time. What are you going to do if the lifter bore is damaged? Can it be sleeved?

[joshnmn]

I’m really hoping they can save it at the machine shop. Haven’t really explored options.