Signs your winter project just snowballed... (damage pics on page 3)
 

Well, today was going to be the last drive of my Chevelle before I pulled it apart for my usual big winter changes.

The last time I drove the car was 2 weeks ago to an end of season cruise-in, and everything was fine. So today after lunch I go start it and back out of the garage. I'm really easy on my cars when cold so until the coolant & oil is up to temp I hardly give it any throttle and shift before 2500 rpm.

I'm about 1 mile down the road from the house in 3rd gear at 2200 rpm when the engine starts missing; the mirrors are shaking and the exhaust is popping-- I figure it's a bad plug wire or bad plug as it feels like 7 cylinders and there is certainly raw fuel being dumped into the exhaust to cause the popping. I turn around and head home.

I get home and while it's idling I start disconnecting injector wires; disconnecting cylinder #6 doesn't change the RPM but the raw fuel smell from the exhaust goes away. Bingo!

So I pull the plug wire and check it; the meter says it's OK. Then I pull the plug and see something I never expected to see... I saw lots of $$$ signs. :mad:

Something has obviously impacted the plug, folded the ground strap over, and left sharp dings in the ground strap. The engine hasn't ingested any foreign material, so that leaves internal bits. The dings are far too sharp for aluminum to have created, so I'm pretty certain based on how sharp the dings are I'm thinking the upper ring and ring land of the piston came apart.

http://home.comcast.net/~swedish_che...tuff/plug1.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~swedish_che...tuff/plug2.jpg

Then again, I kind of figured something was up; over the course of this year my oil consumption kept slowly increasing and most of the plugs started to show signs of oil in the cylinders. I guess 5 years of 15 psi of boost & abuse on JE lightweight pistons is about all they'll take. When I added the Procharger I opened the ring gaps up but left my original pistons in place; I guess it's time to step up to actual blower pistons. :lol:

All the other plugs were OK.

It's probably a good thing it decided to let go at a low RPM, low speed cruise; had it let go at 6600 rpm under 15 psi of boost things may have been really ugly.

In a way this event is a blessing; because if the rings & pistons had scattered next year it would have taken out the turbine wheels on these brand new PT-61/76RS turbos that are my winter project...

http://home.comcast.net/~swedish_che...uff/turbos.jpg

More updates after I tear it down. I'm hoping the head, valves, and valve seats are OK, and the block can live with a .010" bore (I'm .020" over right now.) Either that or now is the time to step up to a Dart Little M, I was already pushing my luck with a stock 010 block and 15 psi of boost.

Time to dig a little deeper in the piggy bank for more parts.

UGH! Looks like a lot of work. Also, on the wheels, lets just do you a set when your ready. Changing those others is going to be to hard.

I'll hook you up when it is time.

God luck.

No problem Frank, but I'm fairly certain the new wheels just turned into a Dart Little M and new pistons. Argh!

I thought that was what you were going to say.

well, bummer. But you were planning on the turbo side of things anyway, so the timing is good. Let me know if I can help.

Jody

Can I borrow your engine?

:lol:

I'm trying to decide now if I want to stick with Gen 1 or go LSX.

As much as I'd like to go LSX I have a bunch of Gen-1 specific parts that I would have to sell and I'd probably lose a lot of money on, including my custom Canton oil pan, custom stealthram/sheetmetal hybrid intake, new in box Vintage Air FrontRunner setup that I just purchased for the turbo setup, the new turbo cam that I just ordered last week, etc. Selling the Cola 4340 crank, rods, ported Dart Pro-1's, and all the "standard" stuff would all be easy but moving the more "custom" stuff such as the oil pan and intake would either take a while or require me to take a big loss.

Going LSX would be nice but not only would I have to take a loss on my Gen-1 stuff I'd have to acquire a lot of new LSX specific stuff besides the engine including a new ECU, new engine wiring harness, A-body oil pan, flywheel, bellhousing, accessory drive, etc.

I'm not going to make any rash decisions until I tear the engine apart and determine the extent of the damage. I'm keeping my fingers crossed the cylinder head is OK, but I expect cylinder #6 will have little bits of ring and piston smashed into the quench pad of the head and probably some dinged up valves and valve seats.

And of course the kicker is I just ordered my Stack ST-700SR tach/multifunction display this morning for my rebuild of the dash... the money I just spent on that plus the add-on harness and sensors would have paid for 2/3 of a Little M. :willy:

I may just concede the car will be off the road for a year and work on it little by little. Things are still very slow at work so I'm extremely reluctant to either raid my rainy-day fund or become a credit-card-racer and get things fixed ASAP.

That sucks to hear Troy. Sounds like it might be best to stick with the small block. Good luck and hopefully it will all work out :thumbsup:

We'll see how things go once I have it torn down.

Right now I'm working on a spreadsheet to figure out what an LSx swap would really cost, minus the money I would make by selling my current crank, rods, heads, lifters, rockers, intake, FAST ECU, oil pan, new-in-box vintage air Frontrunner etc.

I'd probably go with a stock stroke LS2 with stout internals, and either AFR or ETP heads. Don't know what I would do for an intake, and I'd probably use a factory ECU and use EFI Live, and buy an LS vintage air Front Runner setup. Keeping the LS2 to 364ci means the turbos I just purchased will still be in their ideal efficiency range.

Right now the cost difference between freshening my engine with a Dart block and new pistons and going LS2 looks like about $2500-3000 more for the LS, about 1/2 of the cost difference I expected; but the "big if" in that equation is getting what I figure is reasonable for my Gen 1 parts I'd need to sell.

Did you remember the little things to add an LS motor?
Such as:
adapter plates for the motor
extra parts to hook the trans to the ls motor
drive shaft mods
maybe a new radiator for the ls motor
and more

I can't wait to see what you end up with...should be cool :thumbsup:

Yep, I'm counting on oil pan, adapter plates, new bellhousing, etc. I'm going to be keeping my current transmission so I'll scoot the engine forward/back as necessary to keep the driveshaft.

The radiator is iffy, but I'm sure I can make my current one work with a few mods for the steam bleeds and the like.

I will probably have to change to a hydraulic clutch while I'm at it.

Lots more research to do before making a decision. Right now effort & money still favors a rebuild of what I have now. It would be a no-brainer if I could find a smokin' deal on a lightly used Little-M.