Sounds like he has alot bigger problems than an opti going south If a full rebuild is in order, I wouldn't want a used opti going on my new motor

 

Have had one or two off, In fact I build engines in my little shop and have built engines since the '60's. Like I said in an earlier post,it is probably destroyed and has to come out anyway.
Anybody that has fooled with a stock LT1 knows there is no water in the intake.

 

Well im used to my old Pontiac that has the thermostate in the intake manifold..I noticed the LT1 doesn't so I was a bit curious. This is however my first LT1 to work on...also the first one I blew up

Approximately how much collant does the system have when full because im sure some was burned when I blew it up. I need to know how many empty milk jugs im going to have to find.

Someone want to correct me if this is wrong, but powershift gets the RPM to say 6K, retainer goes and the valve stays open because there isn't anything holding the valve to the spring, thus hitting the piston and causing it to poo out.

 

3 or 4 will do.
Pretty much how it happens.
Then before ya can shut down the busted piston parts come through the valve hole and get sucked into the manifold. Then as the rest of the engine is working it sucks those metal hunks into ALL the other cyls,pretty much destroying the engine..

 

yep ble wmy piston in pieces recently on n20..

now im getting a 355 forged shortblock being built right now with a custom cam

 

Got the intake manifold and valve covers off, the springs and rocker arms look fine...if that means anything.

 

Up until you said the valves looked ok from the top side, I agreed with racerdude about dropping a valve. Now it would seem that either just a piece of the valve broke loose and destroyed a piston or the piston itself broke. That is if you really did see metal bits inside the intake.

But I would have expected you to tell us what came out of the intake when you pulled it off AND told us which intake port on the heads had debris in it.

BTW, if the engine were only hydrolocked, removing the plugs would allow it to rotate again unless a rod were bent too badly. In any event, removing the plugs would have shown fluid in the suspected cylinder.

 

There were indeed metal chunks all in the intake, but the springs, and rockers look fine. I havn't taken the plugs out yet, but the 2nd driver side was filled with oil/coolant up to the intake port. It was oil colored but way to viscous to be oil.

I havn't found any debris in the heads yet, just a leaf that fell in when I pulled the intake off, and the previouslly mentioned oil/cooalnt.

 

Just pull the heads off! It sounds like you definitely took out a valve. When one valve goes the other usually goes with it. You'll more than likely see more small pieces of metal when you pull the manifolds off. Make sure you pull the rest of the exhaust off and get all of the metal out.
Oh, and good luck with the rebuild. Looks like at the very least you'll be buying your brother a set of heads and a 355 short block. You might be able to go with a set of stock heads that somebody on here is selling. Maybe they'll even sell you one. To bad it's not your car. I get excited when I break things on my car because then I get to upgrade.

 

lol I don't have the money to buy him anything, so this is more a obligatory gesture.

I'v been waiting for the week to start on the car again...give myself a break over the weekend.

 

Think I found the problem, the rocker arm on the first passenger side cylinder was loose, I was able to turn it and take it off the spring without any problems...the spring had no tension to it...which leads me to believe it was the one that failed...

SO what all do I HAVE TO remove to get the heads off..im planning on leaving the valvetrain in, and simply removing the whole assembly I already drained the coolant...there wasn't even enough to fill a whole milk jug. There is still some coolant/oil in some of the cylinders though.

 

exhaust manifolds and pushrods. You already did the hardest part. It's a good idea to loosen the rockers on the valves that are compressed to relieve the spring tension before you remove the heads. Expect to waste a few bolts when you do.

 

what about the alternator braket...or any of the rest of that stuff?