EGash

After pushing some water out of the coolant tank on my last two trips to the track I decided it was time to put in a few hours of wrench time and upgrade from head bolts to studs and from stock LS2 gaskets to LS9's. This may be only an interim fix, as the SCR on my motor is arguably still too high for boost, but for now I'm happy to have it back on the road and not lifting heads and puking out water under boost :-)

Here are a few (crappy cameraphone) pics from the project. Enjoy!

Teardown



Visible tracks across the HG and Head



Yuck



Fast Forward after many hours of careful cleaning:



That's a studly motor!


Heads cleaned up and milled




Going back together



Doesn't everyone torque head studs like this?? (Thanks to my Bro Elic for helping me!)


Back together...



... and Running (Video)

helga203

How much boost??? Nice 1/4mile runs. What size blower 2200???

ajrothm

Good job! Looks like a nice freshen up job.... Every time I have heads off, i always have to do a full clean up of everything as well....For some reason I just always feel better after the decks/pistons are clean again..

DOUG @ ECS

I gotta get that new-non MAF upper duct to you... sexy looking blower though.

EGash

It's ECS's Standard 6 rib Novi 2000 kit on 10psi.

Yeah, after I saw all the carbon buildup I just couldn't put it back together without cleaning it all off. I was really happy with how well it all cleaned up.

Thanks!

jerrad

What's Gollum doing with a tq wrench? lol

The pistons cleaned up nice, great job.

0East Tx Muscle Cars

thats one of the best mods your gunna ever do right there!

EGash

You mean the ARP Studs and Ls9 gaskets??

BLOWNBLUEZ06@RKT Performance

Nice work Eric! How did you clean the piston tops so well? No concerns about getting trash stuck in the ring lands by cleaning the piston tops while they're in the motor?
Did you use 8740 studs or 2000 series? I've noticed the 2000's are worth the extra dough.

Nice Haltech plug BTW! It's like watching the movies. Ever since my wife started pointing out all the product plugs they throw in throughout the TV shows and movies, they jump out at me so much that I can't enjoy the show.

but I enjoyed this one!

EGash

Thanks. We used soft cleaning pads (like scotch brite) and parts cleaner. After everything was clean we used the shop air gun and evacuated all the trash from around the ring tops, and sprayed it down, rotated it over, blew it out again, sprayed it down, wiped it out, blew it out, rotated it over, rinse repeat, rinse repeat... etc... etc... etc... Once it was all clean we gave the walls a nice thin coat of ATF and then reassembled.

8740's I think.

Funny, I that 'haltech plug' was truly and totally unintentional, he just happened to wear that shirt that night.

1SwtRide

Where can one get the Haltech shirt, hmm?

EGash

I usually go to the stock room to get one ;-)

1SwtRide

I'm thinking one or two should find their way to ECS for a loyal customer using the Haltech system in his vette (of course I'll pay for them)

EGash

I guess it's only fair, since I did make it out of there with a pair of ECS T-shirts :-)

1SwtRide

...and I'm still waiting on my ECS shirt - go figure... btw, you're car is looking / sounding great!

joshtownsend

I doubt its too high.. 10.2 with 26psi here... just a smaller tuning window and other things you need the higher you go.