Just got this guy delivered to my tuner at XtremeMotorsports in Blountstown, FL. It will be installed in my 2002 C5Z week after next when I get back from a trip next week. I could drop it off next week, but heck, I want to video as much of the install as possible. This isn't something I expect to ever do again....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSD1DypWHQM

 

sa-weeet!...nice video

twin turbos on a 427! what kind on rwhp #s are you antcipating?

...and please let me know when you get done with it and maybe I can check your z out at cruise in or something, me and my 402 stkr. are in jax

 

My tuner is thinking it'll be producing around 850 rwhp, but he was shooting high on all the rest of the drivetrain, just in case. I didn't really had a target, I just told him I wanted a Warhawk 427 and compatible with as much boost as I can get out of my turbos. And make the rest of the drivetrain strong enough so I don't get embarrassed by parts laying all over the road in back of me when I decide to punch it.

It's supposed to go in for the install on 10/26. All the parts are in so I'm figuring on a week to 10 days, barring any problems. I sold off a good portion of my gun collection and when I couldn't get any dealers to sell me a C6 Z06 with the options I wanted at a price I wanted to pay. But this will keep me happy for a while, and I have extra money left in my pocket.

I figure the wife and I will be wanting to go out to Amelia Island here and there, so maybe we can hook up then. Send me a PM and I'll give you contact info.

A couple of us from my club are going to St. Augustine next week, Tuesday thru Friday, but I will still have my current drivetrain then. We'll be at the Inn on Charlotte if you can stop by.

 

Well, been some delays in getting this all together. First I got sick, then Chris got sick. Then I had to take care of the construction of my new garage. Then Chris had some deaths in his family that knocked him for a loop. So that kicked the timeline back about three weeks, all total. Today was the first time I could get by the shop, and pretty much the first Chris was able to get his feet on the ground as well.

I had high hopes of a lot getting accomplished today, but hit a snag, putting it mildly. I show up this morning and right away Chris shows me that there is an issue with that FAST intake manifold bolting up to the heads. The mounting bolts for the intake are about a quarter inch off. In other words, if the bolts on one side line up properly, the bolts on the other side are a good quarter inch wide of lining up with the holes. It's not the FAST, as he tried a stock LS7 intake and the same issue was there.

WTF? It's not like I'm the first in my block to ever get a Warhawk LS7X now is it? Why doesn't the intake manifold line up? Anyone else ever ran into something like this?

Chris has calls in to both World Products and LME (who built the motor) to try to figure out what is going on. But I'll be honest, this really doesn't give me a nice warm fuzzy feeling at all............

 

While I was out at the shop yesterday, Chris asked me to take some pics of the misalignment problem between the intake manifold and the heads. Here's what we are looking at....







As you can clearly see, if one side of the intake manifold lines up with the mounting holes on one side, the other side is a good quarter inch off.

 

Definately an alignment problem. Does this block and head combination require a custom made intake manifold?

 

It's not supposed to. And I certainly would not have knowingly purchased something like that. It would lock me into a place I wouldn't want to be if later on down the road I decided I wanted to drop the turbos for Kenne Bell or something.

What I did was to tell my tuner/wrencher guy (Chris at XtremeMotorsports) that I wanted a 427 Warhawk to replace me LS6. He made up a list of top of the line components for the motor, got my approval and a check, then ordered it from LME. They then ordered all the components from their own suppliers, and got the block and heads from World Products.

So the screw up ball is somewhere in either World Products or LME's court.

And here another day is done and I haven't heard a word out of anyone about this..... Might not be too much longer before I decide that the LS6 goes back in and the Warhawk goes back to LME for a refund. If someone can't figure out what went wrong and make a quick decision about how to fix it, then I'll have to make my own decision about the steps necessary to get my car back on the road.

 

I thought that World was producing the Warhawk block as a "tall deck". This would change the spacing of the intake side, but surely World has an adapter or something?

 

Either the block is a bit taller Likely the case w/ a warhawk) or the heads have been milled, or have a lower profile than the originals.

I smell a sheet metal intake in your future.

*EDIT*

I see you ordered a standard (9.24) deck height block. Gotta be the heads.

 

No, I'm not using a sheet metal intake on my engine. This will be going back to LME. I don't know if the problem is from what World Products sent LME, or what LME might have done to the heads afterwards. But in any event this is a problem they need to fix. Fortunately the block is still on the engine stand so all it needs to be is crated up. If they don't pick up the tab for shipping both ways, then I will pay the shipping to them and just have them refund the money and they can keep it.

My tuner said he talked to a guy named Brian at LME today and evidently he offered to mill a FAST intake and make the holes oblong so the intake would work. Thanks but NO thanks! That means if I ever want to change anything on the intake, such as perhaps sometime going to a roots style supercharger if I get tired of my turbos, then I would be screwed. I certainly don't want some frankenstein kluge underneath my hood. I paid way too much money for that block to accept some Rube Goldberg contraption. I can't believe the guy would even offer a bandaid fix like that.

As for milling being done, the block was trued (from what I was told) and the heads only shaved about 5 thousandths. I wanted the compression ratio to be 9.5:1 so LME couldn't have removed much metal.

And yes, this is the standard deck, and not the tall deck. I verified this by comparing images of both.

I really don't know what is going on, but I'm not at all happy about this particular wrinkle. Can't help but lead me to wonder what else might be "non standard" and a headache waiting to be discovered in this setup...

 

Having to mill an intake is very common when you use different head/block combos that dont have the same deck height or geometry. It does suck having to be tied to milling any intake you want to try.

I agree with your stance on wanting to find out where the difference lies, please update us when you get the answer.

 

That just should not be the case with what my tuner purchased from LME. It's a standard deck Warhawk LS7X block with the standard Warhawk LS7X heads. A standard LS7 intake manifold should bolt right up.

http://www.gmhightechperformance.com...iew/index.html

This is all going to be crated up and shipped back to LME so they can figure it out and send me back a motor that will work without modifications in my C5 Z06. If they cannot do that, then they can just refund the money and I'll find a motor from someone else who can.

 

Well, I'm still in limbo.

The engine was shipped out of Blountstown, FL on 11/04, and so far I haven't heard anything from Bryan at LME about it arriving out there. So where the heck is my $16K engine?

I did talk to Chris at XtremeMotorsports a couple of times on Saturday as he tried to find some sort of tracking number on the bill of lading he got when he dropped the engine off. And he mentioned that he thought that LME was just going to redrill those heads to make the manifold bolts work. Now those current holes will be right next to the new holes drilled, and even if they fill in those old holes somehow, how well will those new bolt holes hold? Bear in mind that I will have those turbos putting in at least 15 psi to that intake manifold, so I certainly don't need the manifold tearing loose from the heads because of kluged mounting holes on the heads. Matter of fact, if those bolt holes aren't lining up properly, are the ports themselves in the heads and manifold lining up properly? Maybe it's just me, but would anyone else be a bit perturbed at the thought of spending this kind of money on an engine and then being told the heads were just going to be jury rigged to work with the intake manifold?

Man, I'm trying to be patient and take this all in stride, but it's getting REALLY tough to do. To be sent a very expensive engine that the intake manifold won't even work on just blows my mind....

 

Did you try using a LS7 intake?

 

Yes. The problem isn't with the intake manifold.

 

16 grand. Holy Christ, I wish I could write a check like that for a motor. My money's on the heads. A tall deck block would move the threaded holes in the heads further apart. Unless FAST also makes this manifold for a tall deck block, I doubt the manifold is wrong. They make a ton of them, and the tooling/setups don't change. That leaves the heads. Maybe the apprentice milled them on an angle? If a guy built his own motor for 16 large....whole lotta Rosie...Does that include the TTs?


Good luck, man! Keep us posted.

 

fustrating im sure. Just follow the advice RevXtreme gives you, and the motor will be fine.

I cant wait to see how much power this motor makes when the project is done.

 

I'm sure this is very frustrating. I too would expect the "fix" to be more than drilling new holes in the heads. I would want the heads replaced with ones that had the correct holes drilled in them the first time.

 

If I were in your place this is the outcome I would want too.

Good luck and keep us posted, your car is going to be a beast when it is finished!

Darion

 

No, the price is the engine alone and all the labor and internal components. All total I'm spending around $30K for this build. Even going with a new carbon fiber driveshaft. I told my tuner to figure out what the weakest link would be in the drivetrain and make that link strong enough that I wouldn't have to worry about it, no matter what. So just about everything is being replaced by beefy upgrades.

Actually I am in the process of trading one hobby in for another. I sold off most of my gun collection, and that provided the funs for something else to play with. Actually my PLAN A had been to buy a ZR1, but I didn't like what GM came out with. So then I modified the plan to buy a 2009 Z06 3LZ but set an upper limit of $70K (out the door) that I just could not get any sellers to match. So I decided to build up the 2002 Z06 instead and not scrimp on the options.

So yeah, this really does **** me off. I know some guys seem to be OK with having their car in the shop for months on end, but I'm just not that way. I told the builder (XtremeMotorsports in Blountstown, FL) that I would pay for everything up front, to have everything at the shop so I could pull the car in, have the swap done, and be out with minimal down time. This heads/intake problem sure screwed that up.

I've sent emails to World Products and LME about this issue, so we'll see what happens. Quite frankly, if the machining was done wrong at World Products and they won't man up to doing the right thing, I'm not willing to advertise their products every time I pop the hood at a car show. Of course, that puts LME in the hot seat as well, but they ARE the builder of that engine and I would have thought at least measurements for something like that were taken. So if the ball winds up in their court, I do expect them to do the right thing. If those jury rigged intake manifold bolt holes let loose two years down the road, guess whose dime it will be to replace those heads?

No, this either needs to be done RIGHT, or I will demand a refund and do elsewhere. My LS6 was still running strong, so that can go back into the car while Chris at Xtreme gets someone else to build me a new engine. Which if that is the case, will NOT be a Warhawk.