Hey all, I finally pulled the engine out of the '84 yesterday for a cam and torque converter install. Figured I would share and document the fun! Getting the engine ready to pull out was easy, I'm sure there is a lot more involved with the majority of c4s but since my engine setup is very "simple" There isn't much to remove from the engine before it can be yanked.

Accessory drive is off in this pic, spark plugs and headers were off next, exhaust had been dropped already.


Here is the engine on its way up and out. Getting to the top two bolts on the bell housing was a real PETA and took a while with a wrench getting 1/32 of a turn at a time, the bottom four bolts are fairly accessible.


Bad news bears... cyl 1 has a head gasket leak. There was no coolant in the oil or oil in coolant when I drained fluids so I know its not bad, and it didn't run rough. In fact I only noticed once I put the engine at cyl 1 TDC when this little bit of milkshake started dripping out. Oh well only an extra $35 for a new head gasket and I have ARP head bolts so those should still be good.


This is as far as I got it last night, turns out I lost the bolts for my engine stand so I had to go pick more up this morning so I can start tearing down the engine for the cam swap. Also, the tire under the engine is only there in case my engine hoist decided to fail overnight, which it didn't. The tire was there just in case, it wasn't resting on it.


For those wondering, I am installing a Comp Cams 292H kit (lifters, chain and gears included) and a B&M 3000 stall torque converter along with new engine mounts, oil dipstick and removing the front spring to install the lowering kit. I already have 1.5 comp cams magnum rockers, hardened chromemoly pushrods and from the pics you should be able to tell those are not the stock heads or intake either. lol

 

sucks about the head gasket, but at least you were pulling the engine anyway, that makes the head gasket considerably easier as you well know.. tires are good places to set engines, been using tires for a long time to hold an engine..

 

Well, I got the engine on the stand, disassembled what I had to on the engine and pulled out the old cam. Pulled off the drivers side head and inspected cyl 1 for damage. No cracks in metal so everything is good. Noticed that my old headgasket was extremely flimsy and also noticed a lot of carbon buildup around the dowel pins. I am assuming that I didn't clean that area all that well when I installed my edelbrock heads least year and that was the cause of the tiny amount of coolant getting into cyl 1. So I cleaned everything off really well making sure to remove any carbon buildup around the dowels.



After placing the new headgasket in position I installed the new cam and put the old timing chain and gear set on it because as it turns out, the new timing chain and gear set I got is way too big to fit under the timing cover, and since the timing cover hits the water pump I would have to replace a whole lot more to get that chain and gear set installed. I inspected the old chain and there wasn't a whole lot of stretching in it and the gears look great so I'm not too worried. I don't plan on drag racing the car more than once or twice a year so I think it should be fine. Timing marks are lined up.



This is how the engine is sitting now. I have to go pick up some thread sealant for the head bolts, not having enough thread sealant on the head bolts could have also been a possible cause for the coolant in cyl 1 so I'm going to make sure that the threads are covered enough on the head bolts this time.

More to come later! After getting the head torqued down comes the all important test of making sure the valves wont hit the pistons. I doubt the engine will go back in tonight, I still have to pull the front spring for lowering and want to do some cleanup in the engine bay while I have the room for it.

 

Looks like you've got everything under control. Nice job.

I just checked mine a couple days ago. 64cc, 2.08" intake, .504" lift, -10cc Probe pistons, zero deck, no head gasket and had plenty of room.

Any idea what size cam you had in it and what ratio rear end you are running?

Now would be a good time for a can of this.

 

I don't have any pics of when I had the engine upside down and the oil pan off because I was too oily to grab the camera. But I managed to remove what remained of my broken oil dipstick, put on a new oil pan gasket and bolted it back together. Checked for piston to valve clearance and everything is great, so I installed the rest of the pushrods and roller rockers. The only thing left to do on the engine before it goes back in now is install the timing cover, scrub the block and throw some paint on it. Going with black though since the engine was originally black. I may still end up going with a different timing chain and gear set if I can find one that fits under the stock timing cover, if not I will still probably put a new chain on it at least, just to be safe.

Thanks! I'm going to measure my old cam and see what lift its got. Not sure if it is the stock cam I pulled out of that or not, but I have a feeling that it isn't. The one I took out has a manual fuel pump lobe on it and it wouldn't make sense for the stock cam to have one, but GM has done stranger things in the past. As far as my rear diff goes, again I'm not 100% sure what I have. The car has had a lot of hands on it in the past. But its an '84 z51 auto, so it could be whatever came stock for the z51 auto. I could try to find some serial numbers or something, or when I get it running compare my mph to rpm with the TCC locked and see where it falls.

Oh and if any of you were wondering how tall my engine is... here is a pic of it on a stand "assembled."

 

She is rather tall...

 

Might be some #'s stamped on the ends.

Speaking of height, do you have any pics of your car? The only one I can find is in your avatar.

.

 

Sure do!





I have more pictures on my PC at home, but I cant access them from work so I can post up more later if you wish.

 

Say, that doesn't look anything like my crossfire. BTW, If it's a stock diff. the '84 AT with z51 had the Dana36-3.07.

 

Looks pretty clean. I bet that air intake is going to shake pretty well with that 292H cam in there.

 

Yep I'm thinking its the stock diff, I know its not geared lower than 3.07 and its not a D44, so unless someone put an aftermarket ring and pinion in it, which i doubt, it would be the 3.07. Also I bought this car after one of its previous owners attempted a carb swap. It had a mutilated fuel system, a cast iron intake manifold with a broken quadrajet carb without an air filter and a rats nest of wiring. Here is a pic of what it looked like minus the carb.



Thanks! Yeah I cannot wait to fire this thing up and see and hear what the cam does to my engine.

 

Cool project. Love those 84s.

 

Thanks! I would by lying if I said your avatar pic isn't what I am aiming for. Also thanks for the reply about my torque converter question. B&M trick shift trans fluid isnt cheap so Im glad I got to return a bunch of it.

 

So since its the weekend now I've done some more work to the engine to get it ready to drop back in. I did decide to install my new timing chain and gear set after finding out that it will indeed fit under the stock timing cover.



Hurray for double roller timing chains! Wasn't difficult to install at all. Actually the hardest part about it was removing the old timing gear from the crankshaft, and that was only difficult because my puller decided to keep slipping off...

Lining up the timing marks and getting the chain to play nice wasn't nearly as taxing as I thought it would be.


I decided it would be best to go with the "0" cam timing key way vs the 4* either advanced or retarded. With my setup and it being a mostly street vehicle I didn't care to move the power band up or down in the RPM range more than the cam does on its own.

After I got the timing chain and gear set installed I moved onto cleaning up the front of the block so I could paint it. Don't worry, I didn't paint the timing cover or even clean it with it on the block. putting it on was just the best way to "mask" what sits behind the cover.


Woo fresh paint! You might be thinking to yourself, "That moron forgot to mask his intake manifold!" But actually that manifold is a spare, I'm using that one to hold the weight of the engine instead of my nice Trick Flow intake in case something decides to go wrong.


Tomorrow I will be cleaning up the engine bay and lowering the front end. Maybe even putting the engine back in!

 

Try from underneath the car with about 3-4 feet of extensions and a swivel. Might need to put some electrical tape on the swivel to keep it from wobbling too much.

 

 

Got a lot done this past weekend. I removed the front spring and installed the lowering kit. I didn't take any pictures of that because I didn't want to clean up every 30 mins just to take a picture and then get dirty all over again. I quickly got tired of how oily and greasy it was so I removed the power steering rack to scrape all the crud off of everything and scrub it down.



In doing so I also found out that the power steering rack is puking fluid out of the pass side, a new one of those is getting added onto the list. Since I used rubber cement to glue the lowering bushings onto the spring I clamped that down and let it dry over night and installed the spring and reassembled the suspension the next day. After I installed the power steering rack I installed my brand new shiny B&M torque converter and then began the task of getting the engine back in its home. After wrestling with the engine and transmission for a bit I decided to put the engine mounts in the car and lower the engine down on top of them and that worked like a charm.



Wont be too much longer and it will be running again! Goal is to get it started Friday evening or Saturday morning since I really don't have time to work on it during the week.

 

nice windshield **** op

Let us know how it drives when completed!

 

Yep there is a rule in my garage between my roommate and myself that if a car sits in the garage that doesn't run, it gets "glass art" until it runs again. His 1984 Mazda RX-7 hasn't ran in 2 years... so you can imagine the amount of "art" on that one.

I will for sure be posting how the car reacts to this cam and torque converter, and after the cam break in period I plan on putting it on a dyno.

 

hahaha glass art, I like that! I pity that poor rx7 though :lol;

I bet a cam and convertor will make that thing feel like a totally different animal.