BUILD THREAD 86 GP 2+2~Blown 6.0

[81cutlass]

Man, I've been getting my butt kicked.

I put a new slave cylinder in and struggled for 4hrs trying to get it to bleed. I finally gave up and am working to replace the t5 master with a tilton one.

But the tilton needs an adapter. You can buy the adapter from hawks/tick, but it doesn't fit my G body obviously so might as well start from scratch.

I'm supposed to race Saturday so the cars gotta be loaded Thursday night.

No pressure 😞

No 1.5" drill bit? Boring bar coming in clutch.

Master cylinder brackets are done. Need to install and fingers crossed it bleeds...

 

[81cutlass]

After significant struggle I got the system bled and working. It is better with the new TOB and a proper aftermarket master cylinder.

Loaded up and planning to head to the track Saturday.

 

[81cutlass]

Got to the track, found out they were only running 1/8 mile today. Not great but still good opportunity to test.

First pass off the trailer and got a 7.34 which is right in line with where I left off last fall. About an 11.25-11.35 from my experience and the fuel and spark looked good.

I had a bit of tire shake/chatter 80 ft out maybe so something to tune out and pick up some time.

Pass 2 I waited for a while because two cars broke in the burnout box right in front of me.

Pulled up, launched and spun really hard. Ended up driving through a few pedals and shifted to 3rd and it laid over. I put it in neutral and coasted to the end of the track. Realized my power steering wasn't working and saw the the engine shut off. Odd but no big deal. Tried to restart and it wasn't running right.
Got out and didn't see any big oil spilled but one small dot in the ground. Started it up and heard metal blender. Got towed back.

Loaded on the trailer and pulled a few plugs. #3 is mangled. Pan has a crack. Pretty sure #3 rod folded.

Tune looks clean and I've been at this power level for over a year. I think 20k+ miles, 150+ passes, 7 years of bang shifting just fatigued my poor little gen 3 cast iron rod.

I hope my cam, block and heads are ok. Hopefully the pan can get welded and repaired.

Blah

 

[Supercharged111]

I'm sure you are too.

 

[81cutlass]

View attachment 229063

I'm sure you are too.

Obviously not happy, but I'm not mad either. I didn't see any obvious mistakes in the tune so I can't blame myself. I think the engine just expired due to a long, hard life.

It's the end of the season, I was 1/8 mile from the trailer, I didn't oil the track down, I didn't get hurt and the sheetmetal is straight. If I hadn't had to cancel my drag and drive weekend I would have been 200 miles away from a trailer.

The engine has been at 2X oem power for probably well over an hour, it came out of a Baaken Oil field ND pickup with unknown miles, I never took the pistons out. Honestly I got pretty lucky. $200 for 7 years, the worst LS you can basically get (worst rods).

Pending the condition of what I have, I am considering picking up an LQ9. Better rods, 10.5 vs. 9.5 compression. Probably going to yank the engine and do the slow-build over the winter and drop it in over spring. I think the cutlass is going to come down before winter so I can swap the rebuilt 2004r I did this summer into it.

 

[Supercharged111]

Don't build it, you'll let out the magic smoke.

 

[81cutlass]

Don't build it, you'll let out the magic smoke.

Open it enough to swap the valve springs & oil pan 😉

 

[64nailhead]

I don't want to muddy your waters any, but here's something to consider : 6.0 (large bore LS tax) - they cost more used, hands down, no questions asked. Locally, it's at least $500 and upto $1000 additional for sub 150k mile motor. Consider an L33/LC9 aluminum 5.3 - 100lbs lighter (you know what that's worth in a 1/4 mile), the 100 lbs is off the nose which helps your front to rear weight split a bunch, lighter rotating assembly which allows for another 3-400rpms safely - that 3-400 rpm's giving a larger tuning window, a larger driver mistake window. And they are cheap and all are Gen 4.

Their are two downsides to a 5.3 vs 6.0 - 1st - 30-40hp less with the same head and cam (double at 14 psi and 2.5 at 18psi). 2nd - limited aftermarket head gains (but are you going to buy a $2000+ set of heads for your 6.0).

I've been re-hashing all of this for the past 6+ weeks when I had an issue with my LC9. And after looking at prices of an aluminum 6.0/6.2, piston & rod, balancing, machine shop and replacement parts, I can get where I need to go with an aluminum 5.3 (LC9).

Just thought you needed something else to ponder

 

[81cutlass]

Dad was in town and helped pull the engine today.

Still need to crack onto it but there was shrapnel in the intake manifold and a piece of an oil control ring in the #5 intake runner so yeah...

 

[64nailhead]

Can you tell if anything made it into the blower?