Ever been in that zone where you thought everything was right with your Vette only to find out you were on borrowed time? That's what happened to me and I was very lucky. My troubles started in March this year after I changed wheels and exhaust. I went to "get on it" and noticed the car ran rough above 5.5k rpms. I looked high and low to see what could be the root cause. Was it the fuel filter (which happened to be the original on my 02)? Changed it...problem not resolved. Bad plugs maybe? Ok...changed them...problem better but not resolved. Changed the wires...changed the fuel pump...still the same. Out of time and headed for my new assignment I just kept driving and behaving myself. I had started communicating with Brett and Cajun from Bare Essentials Racing since I was relocating to NC and wanted to find someone close that could work with me on making my car right...and better. The picture below is a testament to dual springs.

Brett informed me I actually had 4 broken springs. He found quite a few other issues as well, but this could have been UGLY. I was still using my car as a daily driver and had I not been as conservative as I was I would have been looking at more than just replacing springs. Back in December 2013 I had an aw sh*t moment and this was the result.



End result...cracked cylinder wall, #7, cracked piston, presumably cracked head (the car...not mine....well maybe). Rears were new short block, replaced diamond piston, fresh shortblock build...problem solved...ran great. Unfortunately here's what the head looked like when Brett pulled it off and cleaned it up since I was having him do "better than CNC porting".

And here's how it looks now since Brett took care of it.

Brett did an amazing job. He even let me turn a few wrenches. In the end the broken valve springs were replaced. Fortunately the valves were not damaged. Had to replace the pushrods and rocker arms (this was my doing). Ported the heads, corrected the valve angles, corrected the porting on my FAST 92mm intake and LS2 T/B, changed the cam for one that was friendlier on the valvetrain, but provide more usable power and torque, and fixed a poor installation of my Kooks headers by a shop in Northern VA. My first drive in it was a "holy crap" moment. The throttle response is instant and totally awesome I thought we were going to travel back in time I'll be posting video clips shortly. We should be posting dyno results this week, but I must say in the days since...I've provided schooling to a Chrysler 300 Hemi and a M5 Beemer. Got the headlight flash from both...most gratifying. The car pulls harder now than when I thought is was perfect Hey Brett...how about we do an LS swap in my Mercedes????

 

Thanks for the kind words Charles. Glad we could help. I wish I would have sent you a pic after the heads were milled. They cleaned up really nice. The pitting was gone and the shape was correct. I will post up the technical details when we get some dyno numbers. Now on to the touch up details. Glad you are happy with the way the car turned out. I know I am very pleased with it. Lets see if we can touch 500rw.

 

Nice save. Could have been way worse.

 

I am moving to Va. What shop?

 

Lucky you caught it when you did. Great that the car runs so much better now.

 

This shot has an interesting look.

 

What part of VA?

Vetteman - agreed on the absolute LUCK. I was driving it since March thinking the problem was fuel or spark. Never considered going into the internals.

Bluestreak - imagine my surprise when I sent Brett the original picture from the head being damaged in 2013 and what he sent me after removing it.

 

CPT you have a PM

 

Replied.

 

I guess I missed the lucky part of the post. I had to pull the heads off of two different late model firebirds, and I wasn't happy in the least either time. I pray to the corvette gods this never happens to me.

 

The lucky part was I didn't drop valves....which would have been a real disaster....especially considering how often I was traveling with this car.

 

Charlie:

Glad to see you were not hurt from any of this (You never know if it could have happened in traffic).

Im glad you back up and running !

Now go enjoy it for many more miles !

Toque