So it seems that a lot of you enjoy reading build threads. Well this one my be a little different. For one I like to ramble and two, I'm an idiot. What I mean by that is that this build is in no way done properly. So read at your own risk. Also this is going to be long. I did say that I like to ramble. If you think the world will end if you re-use an MLS head gasket or torque TTY bolts more then once then this thread isn't for you. This is a junk yard (Sloppy Mechanics) style LS build that is meant to be fun and not cost a lot. I would way rather be doing this then drinking beer or listening to the wife complain so even if it blows up it wasn't a waste of time for me. The purpose of this build is to see how much power I can put into my 84 Vette with junk parts and some nitrous. So lets start at the beginning.

I way over paid for an LS1 from a 2002 F-Body years ago. I bought the motor with all the accessories, harness and PCM. I also got the 4l60e with it. I got some cheap adapter plates and with a lot of help from the wonderful people here I managed to get her running. Then I had kids. The car sat for years and the paint literally fell off. I knew I would never sell the car. I bought it when I was 18. I'm 41 now. So I figured something needed done. 4 years ago I painted the car and got it running. I truly enjoyed it. But I wanted a little more power. Not that a stock LS1 isn't impressive. But I wanted more.

It was about that time that I had started a little side business. I found this amazing salvage yard in Pittsburgh, PA called U Pull & Pay. They started getting Vettes in on a semi regular basis. They also started getting 2000's LS4 powered Impala SS's. So I pull parts when they have sales and then I sell them on ebay. I've pulled and sold 2 Dana 44's and God knows how many 36's. A whole slew of Vette electronics and other parts. It gave my kids an awesome Christmas. Anyway I had a thought of "Why not turn my LS1 into a LS6?". So I pulled a set of 243 heads for myself and I ordered an Elgin cam to go with it.

Now let me say that I HATE the idea of dyno tuning. I also HATE parts being in machine shop hell. So you will notice that neither of those expenses are on my list. So I bought a Holley Terminator X system to run the whole thing. It's not perfect but I feel it really is the best way to LS swap anything. Especially if you hate paying for tuning like I do. I had no interest in keeping the digital dash so I made a custom one.



So this is what I ended up with. Or well not exactly. This is how it is right now. Griffin radiator, QA1 coil overs bla bla bla. Anyway It runs better then anything I have ever owned before. Well that wasn't good enough I guess. So I started planning. I had already swapped in a Dana 44 with 3.73's almost 20 years ago. So I figured it would probably handle most anything a street engine (on street tires) would throw at it. So I needed a better transmission. The 4L60e isn't bad. Well yes it is. It kind of sucks from a power handling standpoint. I wanted something that I could beat the snot out of and not care. So I went 4L80e.



This came from a 2009 Chevy Express 1 ton work van. U Pull & Pay was having a sale that weekend. Any motor with a transmission for $200. So I got this with a 4.8L V8 attached. It had the TBSS intake and 799 heads. Now for you LS guys you're already seeing dollar signs just like I did. So I made almost $900 selling the heads and intake. That means I got paid $700 to take this transmission. See this is how car building should be!!! So the 4L80e is in the car now. After making a C beam adapter, putting in a 3600 stall FTI converter and having a driveshaft made it's ready to roll for the summer. But wait....I said this was an LS build thread. Yeah so about that.

I always wanted an LS2. But I just couldn't afford one. That and my LS6 was doing just fine. Then one day at the junk yard I cam across a 2004 Cadillac Escalade with a 6.0L Now for those that don't know the Escalade's have an LQ9. These 6.0L's are just a little different from your garden variety LQ4 truck or van engines. They use LS2 pistons. Now this particular day at the junk yard was a 50% off sale. So it was like fate or something. Also someone had already half pulled it for me. The fenders were off of it. The motor mounts were already un-bolted. The exhaust was off. Oh and there was already a hoist attached to the motor. Someone the day before got it ready to pull and then figured they would come back for the sale and grab it. Yeah I'm an *******.



If you want an LS engine like this on a 50% off sale day you need to show up at 8:30am and wait in line. That's just how it is.



So after lugging this iron beast around the yard finding some parts that my friend needed for his work van I figured it was time to go home. Now there is some fowl language in the next part of this story so reader beware. On my way out I wanted to stop and look in the Escalade just to make sure I didn't leave any tools there. I found this written on the dash in marker.




Sometimes when I'm feeling down I look at this picture as a pick me up. Moving on.

So I pulled the motor apart. I knew that if I built this and put it in my Vette as a replacement to the LS6 that it would NEED nitrous. I mean come on. Gaining 110 pounds from the iron block I have to get some benefit out of it. So I needed rings gaped for a power adder. So over the last few months I started cleaning. 3 cans of oven cleaner and some rubber gloves got the block kind of clean. The bores looked really good just a little glassy. So I went after them with a flex hone. Then I ordered a Hasting piston ring set with a steel top ring and gaped them for the juice.

Now I made the mistake of looking at my cam bearings. I know if you look at them that's what makes them go bad. Well I did and they were bad. So I did in fact change the cam bearings. I threw in new rod and crank bearings too. I wasn't going to just for the fun of it but they weren't that expensive.



So this is what it looked like with the decks cleaned up. New bearings and rings. I even used plastigauge on the main and rod caps. I was so proud of myself.



So last night I ported and shimmed the oil pump that I pulled off that 4.8L It seemed in way better condition then the one that was on the 6.0.

I get home today and find my Summit Racing order showed up. That means it was CAM TIME!






I think I am going to love this cam!



So this is how it sits now. I got new lifter trays from Summit along with a new LS2 timing chain. Not sure why but it was only $30 so why not. I slapped in a set of LS4 lifters that didn't have too many miles on them and there you go. My plan is to put a set of stock 243 heads on this to get me 11:1 compression. Same as an LS2. Then splurge a bit...or a lot and buy a FAST 102 intake. I figured it should be fun with a progressive 200 dry shot being controlled by the Holley. And if I blow it up I'll just put the LS6 back in.

I can't find my cam sprocket anywhere so I guess I need another one before I can button up the front cover.

 

That will be a super fun car and she will hit hard as f with that converter.

 

Whatever you are or aren't, you're a pretty damn good storyteller. Props.

 

Thank you. I appreciate that.

 

Best thread on here for years. Keep wrenching and posting.

 

The headgaskets make me leary but realistically that's the whole point of MLS... as far as head bolts just torque them and don't try to yield and they'll be fine.

All kidding aside I love it.

 

China head bolt 100 bucks
work great

 

I've reused OEM head gaskets and 250k mile head bolts on LS engines with tons of boost and never had an issue.

 

Me too. Well not with boost. I like doing it at this point because people tell me I can't.

 

You absolutely can. Don't listen to the people here who spend $8000 for a 400 HP 383 stroker build. They get off on overspending for disappointment.

 

You just torque them right? (No extra 180 degrees or whatever?) I've luckily never had to pull a head on an ls but so long as you do that I'd see it being fine.

 

The idea is that the factory head bolts are TTY. So if you're using new bolts your first pass you torque them to 22 ft lbs. Then on the second pass you tighten to 90 or 70 degrees depending on what bolt it is. This works fine on new GM bolts. I've seen the Chinese bolts/studs break so I try to avoid them. Well a few years ago a few car YouTube channels got together and sent a sample of used and new head bolts to a lab to have them tested. What they discovered it that due to work hardening factory LS head bolts can absolutely be re-used BUT the torque to angle method can't be used because the bolt is harder then it was new and it has been stretched to some degree. So the going practice is to torque them to 65 ft lbs. This has worked for lots of people and no real issue. The main cap and connecting rod bolts are the same story. Just a different torque spec.

 

Here is a YouTube link to one of the guys who did the bolt testing if anyone cares.

 

Yeah. So standard SBC spec. You skip the "yield" portion. Makes sense. Kind of what I figured earlier.

 

I have a few spare head bolts with slots cut in them that I use to clean threads up.
I set a head on the block and then run one of these cut bolts in/out a few times in each hole with an impact to clean up the block.

Then I take my old head bolts, dip them in a little oil, and torque to 75 ft-lbs. Have never had a single issue reusing them.
I don't like using bolts in aluminum blocks though, so I usually go studs. I've used china studs every time and haven't had any issue, even at 30+ PSI of boost.
This next engine is getting ARP studs just because someone PMed me and offered me a price break.

 

Best intro to a thread in a while "For one I like to ramble and two, I'm an idiot." LOL

 

I love this story. I am saving this picture for those days I think things are bad and just need a smile. Yeah, your an ******* with an awesome motor though. It has been a great day here at C4 forum. I need to find me one of these yards. Cheers,

 

Not much new has happened to my sloppy LQ9. I got the oil pump bolted on and I cleaned off the half inch of sludge from the top cover. When I pulled the cover off to tear the motor down one of the seals ripped apart. So I replaced them. It was almost the same price to get a gasket kit with a new top seal so it got one of those too.




So I found out what happened to the cam gear that I've spent the last two days looking for. So the LQ9 and the LS1 from the factory use the exact same stock cam. Same GM part number. For whatever reason people buy used LS1 cams on ebay for super budget turbo builds. I learned this back when I originally sold the LS1 cam. Well I also sold the LQ9 cam for $100. Anyway when I did I also included the cam gear. So that's why I don't have it any more. Oh well. I'll either pull a used one the next time I'm at the junk yard or I'll buy one. But at least now I can stop looking.

So I don't know if anything will get done on this over the weekend. If any of you read my other thread about my driveway being a pile of suck then you know that over the winter I installed coil overs and a rear lowering kit. Well I dropped the car a little too low to be able to get out of my 1/4 mile long driveway.




She looks good but it's just not going to make it. So I gotta jack it up at least an inch overall. I guess that's the great thing about coil overs.

 

So I figured I would post an update to my LQ9. So the motor I have in the car now uses F-body belt driven accessories. So I only have one balancer. I really don't feel like buying another one. But I wanted to get the front cover bolted down after I got the new cam gear from Rock Auto. I tried finding a good STL file that would let me 3d print a alignment tool. But I couldn't find one that fit very well. So I resorted to what I always do when I don't feel like spending money. I re-use junk. I had 3 truck balancers in my scrap bin. So I cut the outer pulley off. Then I used a sanding drum to remove just enough material so it would slide onto the crank snout by hand.



This little trick saved me from needing to buy a special tool. Thank you to SPPTV's YouTube channel for the awesome idea.

So then I put in two new knock sensors with a new sensor harness. I still need to tighten up the rear cover. It's just on finger tight at the moment.




So this past Saturday I went back to the junk yard. I seem to say that a lot. I may have a problem. Anyway the sale they were running this weekend was buy any motor with a transmission for $300 + tax. The nice thing with this kind of sale is the rules don't say that both the engine and transmission have to come out of the same vehicle. After checking there Facebook page I found out they just got in a 2008 Silverado with a 5.3. And they also got in a 2006 1 ton Express van with a 4.8L. So my plan was to pull the 5.3 because it's a gen IV motor with 799 heads and a TBSS intake probably with flex fuel injectors. Then I could get the trans out of the Express (4L80e) and put them together for the sale. I wanted an extra transmission for when I do something really stupid and break mine.

Well the Silverado was hit super hard in the front. So hard that the balancer on the motor was broken in 3 pieces. And the intake was already gone. So I wasn't going to waste my time with a motor that may have a bent crank. Not when this coming weekend is a 50% off sale and they will be adding more inventory. Then I found out that some *** clown had taken every single 4L80e in the yard. I counted 6 gone. So to not make my trip a bust I pulled the 799 heads from the smashed truck.


Now for the funny part. I also grabbed some S10 fenders and a tail gate for a friend at work. I put everything on the cart and went up to pay. The 16 year old kid behind the counter had no clue as to what a cylinder head was. He couldn't find "cylinder head" on his computer. So he shrugged his shoulders and told me $118 please. I gladly put my credit card in the machine and left with my items. I looked at the receipt when I got home. I was charged for 2 bare fenders and a tail gate. I got 2 heads with rocker arms, rocker stands and valve covers for free. I'll have to remember to look for that kid when I go back

So I realize this is a budget build and all. But I have my children's college funds burning a hole in my pocket. I mean they can get grants and loans like I did right? So I think these are getting sent off to Texas Speed for there stage 1 port and polish. I'll have them throw on a set of PAC 1219 springs while there at it. Not a bad service for under $1k total. And definitely not bad for a free set of heads.

 

I have a lot of take-off LS (LS2, LS3, and LS9) parts from when stuff is upgraded. Keep my name if you are looking for parts, as I likely may have what you need.

Great project!