CI GS

Forgot to share this: since I couldn’t get a socket on the crank bolt to rotate the engine, and I was too lazy to go under the car jack the engine up out of the cradle, I came up with the idea of using one of my shredded belts to wrap around the crank pulley and used it like a pull-cord to turn the motor. Works like a charm.

realcanuk

Good thinking... I use the blower pulley to turn the engine if its still got a belt on it.. but in your case it obvious didn't......LOL

CI GS

Yep, I remembered you saying that. What do you think gave me the idea in the first place? The blower was MIA, so I had to improvise...

CI GS

Just took delivery of an aFe/Pfadt Drag Race Spherical bearing kit. It includes solid bearings for the shocks, which I noticed a lot of people don't change and/or isn't included in other kits. I've always thought that shocks need to have solid bushings to do their job properly.
I know that this choice may draw out a few adverse comments from the "F@CK Pfadt!! Haters Club", but after a lot of research and pondering, and sifting through the invective, I decided it was the only viable option for me, since I only wanted rear bearings and wanted a bearing type bushing than can articulate to allow the suspension to work properly. I also didn't want to spend a fortune having to send parts overseas for installation, which is simply not a viable option for me. And after reading on other forums that guys have raced road courses and auto-crossed with these in their C5s and C6s for multiple seasons, and especially after one said he had Pfadt's in the front of his car and LGs in the rear and had discovered that they used the same bearings, that did it for me.
After I'm done with resurrecting the engine, I'm going to do an install thread on these along the Viking Coilovers that should be on their way to me shortly.
Yeah, I'll be busy over the next few months.

CI GS

Picked up the 2110 lifters and new gasket and seals yesterday afternoon and spent a few hours on the car last night. Thanks again to BTR.
The Johnson lifters are visibly a high-end product. Not one blemish that I could see on any of them. So I wiped them off with some solvent and submerged them in motor oil until I was ready to start installing them. It was amazing to see the air bubbles coming out of those, so I think this is a worthwhile exercise.
I started on the passenger side and used my mityvac to pump some of the coolant out of the block so that I didn’t have to worry about any coolant getting on the gasket/sealing surfaces and I also used the mityvac to pumpmthe coolant out of the lower bolt holes. Then I sprayed green Brakleen (love using that stuff - it’s much less toxic than the regular stuff) into all the bolt holes, cleaned them out and then used compressed air to blow everything out of the bolt holes, etc. I then wiped the gasket surface down with some clean shop rags and brakleen and started the install. I used an oil squirt gun and spouted fresh oil all through the lifter bores and into the cam lobes and then installed the lifters on the passenger side.
BTW: The Johnson lifters fit very snugly into the lifter bores as well as the new lifter trays from BTR. It took little a bit of jiggling to get them to line up and slide into the lifter bores, since all 4 lifters (per tray) have to line up perfectly to slide into the bores at the same time.
Then I cleaned the deck surface again and installed the new LS9 gasket and then the head.
I followed the ARP bolt instructions and used their recommended torque sequence.
So, the passenger head is on. I’m hoping to get a chance tonight to do the other one, and then start bolting everything else back together...

schpenxel

Looking good!

CI GS

Thanks man. How you doing?

schpenxel

Pretty good, dug into the corvette the other day for some major work... Just kidding. The coolant temp sensor went out so it was reading -40*F coolant temp so I replaced that in the parking lot. I mean, it was actually only like 15*F so I guess it wasn't that far off. That's about the only car work I've done lately. The good news is I actually drove it yesterday, first time in a month or two.

Otherwise, doing good. Just doing the work and play thing, living the dream I guess.

I'm a bit more free these days travel wise so I might actually make it down there one of these days.

CI GS

Lol. Good to hear. 15*?? Man, that’s friggin cold. No wonder the sensor went out! Man, we need to find something for you to work on.
You should make your way down here one day. Just let me know. You might also want stop in Cuba before they ban US citizens from traveling there again.

I was hoping to get to work on the car again tonight, but just got out of my last meeting for the day.
Too damn tired. I’ll get back at it tomorrow night.

CI GS

Got the other head installed tonight. Will start fitting every thing back together tomorrow night. With a bit of luck, I may just have this thing running again by the end of the weekend.

CI GS

So, I ran into a little snag last night, which has set me back for probably several days.
First I installed some steam/coolant bleed lines on the rear of the heads, using some swivel fittings from Earls and a couple of -4AN fittings from TFS. I was going to use the stock front crossover at first (since that gets replaced with a Magnuson piece when you do the Hbeat install), by carefully bending the hose nipple so that it pointed towards the right side. It bolted up and fit perfectly, until I realized that the nipple was right where I need to shove my hand through to get to those two PITA muthaf@#in upside down rear lid bolts. So, I installled swivel fittings and some 90 degree elbows to tuck the lines down behind the head, out of the way of my access point for those bolts (top picture below).
When I was done with that, I set up the Comp Roller rockers to check preload. However somehow, when I was putting them on, I managed to install the pedestal the wrong way around/upside down, as it has a bevelled edge that is clearanced so as to not hit the top of the intake port. When I was torquing the rocker down, I heard a sharp pop, and backed bolt off and pulled off the rocker to find the damn thing broken clean in two!
You can probably see from the bottom picture how easy it is to install these things upside down.
So, after emailing and calling a bunch of vendors, and Comp themselves, I finally found out that you can order these separately, but no one but Comp has them in stock, and Comp themselves only has 7 of them.
So, I ordered one, along with some 7.375” pushrods, since it’s taking just over a full turn from zero lash to 22 ft.lbs. which is either ~.047” or ~.078 lift, depending on who you believe and Johnson says they want ~.035” of preload. I’m hoping that I can get the parts and bolt it together by the weekend, as we are finally going to have an event at the track this coming Monday, which is a public holiday down here.
So, that’s my sorry story for the week. Just another challenge to overcome I guess...

realcanuk

To get .50 preload on my Morels it ended up being right about 3/4 turn, just for reference.

CI GS

Thanks Jody, that is very helpful. The Johnson 2110s can work with .050” I’m sure. If I end up with 3/4 turn, I may leave it right there. I’m getting just over 1 turn on the exhaust and 1 turn on the intake with 7.400” Comp Hi-tech pushrods. I was going to order some 11/32 Mantons from Hinson, but thought I should stick to the same brand of pushrod, as I’ve heard that some companies pushrods lengths measure out differently than others.

realcanuk

I would get the tool and measure properly. Went through that hassle myself and got it wrong the first time.

By the way, shorter push rods will give you more turns. Are you going the wrong way ?

realcanuk

I take that back. I think I'm going the wrong way. Lol

realcanuk

One more thing. On my phone so easier to repost than edit.

Trend pushrods directly has amazing service, and if you get it wrong they will take them back as long as engine didn't run. You can even order few sizes and send back what you don't need. Great help on the phone too.

CI GS

Man, you really had me going there for a second!

realcanuk

Sorry. Doing something else and didn't put thought into that.

CI GS

Yeah, I really need to go look for my dial indicator and rig that up to measure preload properly. One thing that makes it hard to measure preload with a non-adjustable rocker is that without the rocker seated properly in the pedestal or rocker rails, the rocker isn’t centered and can move around quite a bit, and this tends to make it difficult to find the exact spot where you have zero preload. I suppose that with a lifter with .200” of plunger travel you don’t need to be **** and get it down to the last .0001” though...
Having said that, I want it to have as little preload as possible to avoid the lifter pumping up at high RPMs. Everywhere I’ve looked indicates that 0.035” is the sweet spot for the 2110s. For all of Johnson’s hydraulic lifters, apparently.

CI GS

No worries. That’s exactly how I managed to put that damn pedestal on the wrong way last night too. Was too tired and distracted. Couldn’t stop cursing myself for hours...