69 Camaro at Best of Show

[Matt@BOS]

Originally Posted by Payton King

Hate that your motor broke. Look forward to you getting it back on the road. Sometimes it always seems one step forward, two steps back. Good luck to you and keep us posted. Car is too nice to sit around.

Thanks for the kind words Payton!

It has been about a month now I guess, and it is time for a little update.

I took the block over to Steve Demirjian of Race Engine Dynamics. After looking at it for about five minutes he came to the conclusion that it was pretty effed up. The passenger side cylinder bank saw some serious heat at some point, and all of the cylinders were out of round. Additionally the sleeves, which interlock had still managed to move, some might have sunken a hair. Basically it could be bored out from 4.185 to 4.200, however that still wouldn't insure that it wouldn't leak at all when hot.

In other words, that block is done. Since the engine came with a "Rupp warrantee" rather than get a new block, Steve has offered to raid his parts shelf so that we can put together a 416 LS engine. We could have done a 427 LS3, but I prefer the shorter stroke of the 416 LS3 for something that is going to see plenty of miles, some of which will be hard miles. I've got a couple of ideas on a few cool (looking) parts, but nothing is set in stone at the moment. Oh, and I will likely be tossing out the MEFI 4 computer...

In other news, I just bought a pair of 550 lb front springs, and have decided to downsize my brake master cylinders. When will it ever end

In the meantime I've been having too much fun with my newish GT500. I picked it up with only a thousand miles on it. The previous owner tossed a set of Eibach springs on (I have no idea what kind) and I've put tires on it. With only those two modifications it absolutely flies. Just ask David Pozzi We traded off driving it at MATS in Vegas this last weekend, and it managed to hang with all of the heavily modified new Camaros and Challengers. I think I'll be taking it to Buttonwillow in September

Matt