A little more progress over the past few days - got the springs out of the heads and did the Comp Cam Rocker Trunion upgrade to the rocker arms.

But first, a few new arrivals.  Layout fluid and a 150/320 grit aluminum carbide / silicon carbide stone for when I eventually get around to leveling all critical surfaces on the heads / block, and a TrickFlow spring compressor from Summit Racing for removing the valves from the heads.

  
Valve Spring Removal:

Really straight forward.  Install compressor.  Compress springs.  Remove valve stem locks.  Uncompress springs.  Remove tool.  Remove springs.  Remove valves.  Repeat.  Estimated completion time for both heads:  ~15 minutes.  I really hated spending $70 for the tool to do this job, but I would have really hated trying to rig up another way to do it.  Provided that some tools are north of $200 bucks, I feel like I (kind of) won.

 

Rocker arms:

To get the old bearings/trunion out, I simply set the rocker on a 22 mm socket and pounded out the trunion with a hammer and punch.  Literally took maybe 10 seconds per rocker arm.

This is the carnage.  As you can see, the needle rollers go everywhere if one of the end caps decide to come out.  Catastrophe for your engine if it happens while it's running.

All out.  Excuse the shitty picture.

Difference between the new and old trunion.  The Comp Cams one is much beefier.

"Pressing" the new bearings in was a breeze.  And by "pressing" I mean hammering.  Because I don't have a press.  But don't worry, I was gentle ;).  Using a wooden block to pound the first one in flush, and then and a 15 mm socket for the second bearing worked flawlessly.  The benefit is that the new bearings are captured needle-rollers, so I don't have to worry about the needles falling out.  Also, the press fit seemed to be tighter, which also helps retain them.  Snap rings on either side of the trunion add an additional layer of security.

All done.  Again, another really easy and straightforward job.

 Next up will be some head porting.  Still have to finish the second valve cover but engine work is so much more fun.

And oh yeah, and Happy Halloween

Engine Tear-Down / Build Prep

Things took a more interesting turn this past week.  I spent the last few days tearing down the engine to prep for a mild-rebuild and cleaning.  I actually did the bulk of the tear-down in a single night, only took me about 2-1/2 hours.  These motors are stupid easy to work on (or to tear apart, anyway).  Some of the upgrade parts in so far are Comp Cams rocker trunion upgrade kit, ported LS6 oil pump, LS7 lifters, LS2 lifter trays, and an LS2 timing chain.

Still need upgraded springs, chromoly pushrods, and a timing chain dampener to go along with the cam swap.  Strangely enough the engine in its stock form didn't come with one, even though it has provisions for it (2 tapped holes in the block above the crank gear).  A case where GM accountants (sadly) took charge of component selection.  The addition of the dampener will help alleviate chain-whip problems that occur when going from WOT to closed throttle and hopefully help prevent the chain from breaking.

The block stripped except for the pistons and crank:

Stock oil pump.  The one I'll be replacing it with from Texas Speed is a ported LS6 - should give me more flow and ~+10 psi over stock.

Stock cam.  No gouges, looks clean.  If I can't sell it I'll be making a sweet lamp out of it.

LS7 lifters vs. Stock Lifter.  Note how the roller is completely enclosed in the LS7 design, which is proven for 7000+ RPM.  It's unlikely that I'll be spinning the engine that high, but it was relatively cheap insurance to upgrade them.

Stock LS1 timing chain (left) vs. LS2 chain (right).  Slightly beefier - the most cost effective upgrade before going to a dual-roller setup.  Along with the addition of a dampener this should be pretty robust.

Bottom end

Everything looks clean.  I plan on doing ARP mains and rods, and will be checking the bearings for any excessive scratches/gouging while I'm in there.

Cylinder Head Prep - Cleaning/Porting/Valve Lapping

Instead of spending $1500 on a set of Stage 1 LS6 ported heads, I've decided that I'm going to DIY port the 241 castings I've got myself.  I've read that they can be made to flow better than the stock 243 castings used on the Z06 'vette, though they're really easy to fuck up if you aren't careful.  I bought a porting kit and some carbide burrs from Eastwood for use with my die grinder, hopefully that will be arriving this week.  More research to come on methodology, but with some patience I believe I can get good results.  While I'm at it, I'll also be lapping the valve seats to help improve sealing.

Some supplies.  WD-40 for keeping the rust away as the parts sit and IPA for cleaning parts.  Also some engine assembly lube, valve grinding compound, and some valve lapping tools (basically suction cups on the end of wooden sticks).

Cleaned up the sealing surface of the head with steel wool and IPA to lubricate.  I'll be lapping this (and all of the other critical surfaces) flat with a 320 grit aluminum oxide honing stone and using a layout fluid to help make high/low spots more visible.  I read that going much finer than that diminishes the ability to achieve a proper seal - the gaskets need a little bit of texture to bite into.

So I'll be waiting on some supplies, in the mean time I'm finishing up the second valve cover - will post pics of that once it's done.  Later.

Valve Covers

I finally got one of the valve covers repainted after sanding, filling, painting, sanding, filling, painting, sanding, beer, painting, beer, beer, beer, beer, etc.  The surface finish this time is a lot better and the masking turned out a bit sharper.  Not perfect, but it looks pretty good, I think I can live with it.  Still one more to do.

Throttle Body

Also spent a couple minutes throwing my throttle body back together.  The spring was tricky because you have to wind it around once before fully seating the shaft, otherwise it doesn't have enough preload.

Also sanded and threw some flat black paint on the idle air control motor (had to look that one up haha).

And here's one more of her waiting for me to finish all of the stupid shit I'm doing:

I finished wet-sanding the rest of the ridges and scratches out of the surface of the throttle body over the past couple days here.  Ended up taking it to #800 wet for the finish pass, then polished it with mag-aluminum polish.  I'll probably go back and use a cutting compound first because there's still a slight haze on it, but it came out pretty good I think.  Well, good enough to make it hard to justify spending any more time on it.

Before:

After:

I've been really busy the past couple weeks at work, but have had some time to work on the valve covers some more along with porting/polishing the throttle body.  The rest of my free time has been spent mainly reading and researching parts for engine reliability/performance mods.

Valve Covers

Here's what the valve cover looked like all painted up.  The filler for the coil mounting bosses shrunk when it cured - I thought the paint would cover it up more than it did, so I restripped it.  Good for a proof of concept though.

After I finally got everything back down and leveled, I used Lab Metal for the filler material - it's a high temp aluminum-based filler.  Dries really fast, but doesn't shrink and is heat resistant to 450 degrees.  Really the only stable filler solution for metal that I could find for high-temp applications.

Here it is applied to the other valve cover.

Using a die grinder is ok to rough the filler back down flush, but I prefer to hand sand it when it gets close.  The grinder seems to pull the filler out of the low spots and is difficult to finesse, I found myself re-filling it several times because of this.

Not a bad little tool - definitely marked under the "nice to have" column.  

After a couple rounds of filler and a hell of a lot of sanding finishing with 150 wet, I ended up with something like this:

Painted with a few coats of high temp engine enamel.  Used flat gray as a "primer" and a bright silver for the first color coat.

Compared to the first attempt prior to wrinkle black:

But here's the pair in their current state.  Still a lot of sanding to do on the driver's side valve cover, and I've got to figure out how I'm going to mask the other one for painting with the wrinkle black.  Currently exploring several options.

Also spent some time shaping the pcv contour

Intake / Cover Hardware

I also ordered some stainless hardware for the intake/valve covers to clean up the appearance a little bit.  I hope to eventually turn the heads on these to clean them up a bit more but here's the general concept:

Throttle Body Porting/Polishing

Tearing the throttle body apart.  You can see all of the rough edges / ridges that impede airflow in past the throttle plate.  From a normal view, the throttle plate itself is sheathed by a ridge in front of it.  My goal is to remove all of this.

Get out your favorite dremel attachment and get to work

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Prelim Polish

Came out pretty decent so far.  Going to continue sanding until all the scratches / low spots are out - I want the intake surface to be perfect (or as close as it can be).

Non-project related, I snapped this on my phone one night after work this week, surprised it captured the sky as well as it did.  One possible good thing about working late is that you get opportunities for shots like this.

Also, Happy (belated) Oktoberfest!!!!