BUILD THREAD 86 GP 2+2~Blown 6.0

Well started reassembling the heads. Got a little sidetracked and ordered the wrong (factory) valve stem seals instead of the smaller ID set needed for the BTR dual springs. Also I think sent the spring locator seats back with the core engine so had to get replacements of those.

Cleaned up the stock lifters and installed into new trays.

Bolted heads on with some new lsa head gaskets and reused the stock head bolts as it's been tested that unless you spend $350 on a set of ARP studs the reused stockers outperform almost everything.

Cheap 2yr old digital torque wrench wouldn't turn on so broke out Mr. John Deere 1970's swing beam wrench dad gave me 15 years ago.

Dropped the rockers on to find .075 of slack between the spring and rocker. Seems odd as everything is essentially the same type of part as the old lq4 and that ran stock pushrods.

I need to determine if BTR changed the base circle diameter on the series 1 stg2 blower cam I used to have vs my new stg2 torque blower. If so the ~.050 pushrod length change maskes sense. If not IDK

Have a stretch of 16 days off before I go back to work so my goal is to get the engine back in the car by Jan 5th.

Spent the first half entertaining family with Christmas, they are all gone so back to the garage.

Ended up deciding I might need longer push rods but it's hard to measure the length I need now until they pump up and I think dimensionally it's OK enough to run. I sent it and am reusing the factory lifters as they all looked OK. Some might be a bit air logged and that's giving me the funny slop at the rocker measurements but it should be fine.

Cleaned the block off and shot it with some paint-


Started removing about 32 wires (mostly auto trans controls) from the harness that I have been toting around for 9 years


Scrub a dub dubbed the frame and firewall, I never painted any of this in 2015 when I stuck the engine in as I planned to pull the engine shortly after I installed it, well that never happened.


Painted



Got the crank pinned, water pump on, AC bracket, and motor mounts on. The motor mounts are home built by Dad and I in 2015 around a stock truck pan and the engine sits kinda crooked, high, and off center but everything clears so I am keeping them. They were bird sheit welded upside down and blind in the car when I dropped the engine in. I was a bit terrified how little weld there was holding the tabs on so I cleaned them up, welded some missing areas and painted them up.

Also and redid my steam lines. The blower manifold sits really low and leaves almost zero room for any stock steam line kit to fit or anything aftermarket. I had 1/4" copper compression fittings on previously but they intermittently seeped so I just transitioned everything over to brake flare NICOP line on the back and some steel line on the front.



So basically the engine is ready to drop in. I need to get my harness re-loomed which that stuff is supposed to get here Thursday. Maybe get the engine installed Saturday? Then I can lounge and get the trans, accessories, blower, and wiring buttoned up through February.
Just gotta work through this pile...

Got the harness finished up, totaled 39 wires I eliminated. Replaced all the loom and cleaned up some routing.

Also dropped the engine in.

Vacation is done, back to work tomorrow but I met my goal of getting the engine in.