Well alomost 10 months since I whiped out 4 bearings in the stock shortblock, finally got the 383 fired up today. Started as soon as I hit the key seems real smooth. hoping my oil sending unit is bad though I had about 50psi on startup and 20 once it got real good and warm, I've got melling 55 oil pump with white spring in it just thought it would have been higher, it'll go past 60 when you get over 5000 rpms though.

The 847 cam kinda sounds like a sissy cam now in the 383 it used to sound like a raped ape in the 350, guess I'll have to live with it for a while, if the bottome end treats me good and seems real good maybe I'll get some cash one day for afr's and custom cam and get rid of the stock ported ones.

The transmission is also new it works on jackstands forward and backward so hopefully its good too. tomorrow I'll check the driver side rocker arms, sounds like I got one a little loose. I have to fix abs headers melted melted wire on passenger side from before I fixed it but still got a light??? I also gotta put the seats back in it I had all the interior out to install jegs torque arm, that was a pain in the butt.

Well wish me luck I'll hopefully be cruisin the streets this weekend if it all holds together and the weather is good. later

 

Sounds like it's doing it's job. Remember the M55 is a standard volume pump.

 

Put in straight 30 dino oil and see. It's amazing how a stroker will eat smallish cams for breakfast.Tames um right down.
What are your bearing clearances?

 

Yea I hope thats good oil pressure, I know alot of old 350's that have the same pump and spring and have way more pressure. Maybe these lt1's are set up different because I did a search on here and looks like several people have the same oil pressure, and my stock motor had the same idle pressure just didn't have as good of pressure at high rpms which is why the bearings went!

The cam kinda sucks now I wish I would have went the extra mile and got a custom grind cam but man I just couldn't put much more money in it now doing everything motor and trans all at once eats a hole in your pocket fast. I thought about running 20w50 and at the last minute decided to go with 10w30 I've done searches over and over and all I get are opinions on oil weights and no real data so I went back to what I was using. As far as bearing clearances I dont know I bought the the shortblock off ebay and it supposibly had 500 miles on it and was a 355, well when I went to order head gaskets I ran the speed pro piston part # and it came back to a 383 piston so I went out and pulled the pan off the engine, the guy said it had stock rods, replacement crank. well I knew as soon as I seen the rods they werent lt1 rods, then to my surprise it was a scat 9000 crank, 3.75 stroke. Emailed the guy and he said his cousin had the motor, 6 speed and rearend built all at once and didn't know anything about cars just took it to a shop and had it all done. the wiring harness burnt up on the exhaust and fried the computer. the guy I got it off of told him it would cost $2000 to fix it and stole the car from his cousin for $1200 he kept the rearend, 6 speed, and interior, sold the heads and lots of other parts then sold the car for $785 and me the shortblock for $500 so he got his money back plus free parts. I never told him it was a 383 I bet hed be kicking his self he put all the other parts on his irocz.

 

An LT1 is the same as a SBC except it is reverse flow cooled.
I wouldn't care what oil was in it as long as it had the right pressure. Like I said I would put a straight 30 dino in it and see if it comes up when hot. If it didn't I would go 40 then 50. Get a good filter too,one that flows good.It may be loose and require that viscosity to maintain hot idle pressure. The dino is so it won't cost so much to do. If ya like synthetic then put the same weight syn after ya find out what it will do with dino. My preference is Kendall. All this thin oil stuff is BS as these cars were not built for it(0/20 and such) and we ain't running Pro Stock.
What is your idle RPM's? Are ya still running the oil cooler? If so throw it away.

 

Is kendall the dino oil your talking about or what is it? Can I buy it anywhere? I have castrol 20w50 do you think I should try it when I change the oil? I have a k&n oil filter. my car idles around 800-900 rpms, My car never had an oil cooler. would heavier oil really show an improvement in pressure?? I cant wait to try it out just gotta get alot of work done when I get home today, if it runs good I'll get my tags and switch the insurance back to full coverage. thanks,

 

I used a Scat 9000 3.48" crank in my LT1 and as it came the journals were on the small side, I had about .0035" rod and .0032" main clearance (IIRC) with std. bearings. I ended up with .001" under bearings. Is it possible the shop just threw that motor together without measuring bearing clearances?

 

Well I dont know I haven't been able to get the number to the shop I need to call the guy and see if he knows it. Its supposibly a reputible shop in indiana but who knows? I guess I really wont know anything until I drive and maybe try some different weight oils.

 

Heavier oil will tell you if it's clearance related and probably bring the hot idle and upper RPM's oil pressure up too.
I would get some Kendal from AZ in 30W dino and try it or some Delo 400 diesel oil straight 30W might be better. Try not to get a multi viscosity oil. Just dump your filter if it hadn't been on long and try it. If nothing changes I would drive it some and then move up to 40W and try a different filter,maybe an AC. If that don't change things(it should) move to a 50w and see. If that don't change anything then it might be on the pump has the relief open all the time and need to go thinner maybe 20W and see but that's not likely to happen at idle,maybe at 5000.

The Kendall GT-1 has to be ordered from the people in the link I posted,but I wouldn't do that untill I got the pressure up.

 

why throw away an oil cooler? i heard it was better than an oil pressure kit

 

The oil cooler that comes stock on 93-95 LT1s is a piece of junk, it can get clogged up easily and you will lose pressure because the passages for the oil are very small.

 

Whoever told ya that doesn't know anything about an LT1 or the oil cooler.

 

didnt know the LT1 came with a stock oil cooler

 

They did.

 

well I dont have one, dont know wether they are good or not.

But I sorta figured out what my problem was and what might have caused my last engine to dump on me. When I first bought the car I didn't know anything about lt1's and I was doing a tuneup decided to change the pcv valve, didn't know where it was thought maybe it fell apart by looking at the fitting in the valve cover, so i put a pcv valve in the valve cover. Well about a year later I found the pcv valve so I thought it wont hurt to have 2 so I put a new one in there 2. well I was running my engine the other night and had the noisy rocker so I took the oil cap off well it released a bunch of pressure, thought about it cut the end off the pcv valve in the valve cover to hollow it out then gues what oil pressure reads more steady and hasnt dropped to 20 psi yet. sounds crazy but I was ignorant to these motors when I got it and it cost me.

Anyways car runs great and pulls like a raped ape. anyone that says 383's arent faster giving the same heads and cam and that they dont rev as fast maybe mines a fluke but its a ton better than the 350.

I have a quarter marked off on the highway its 4 lane with hardly any traffic at night and a new dodge magnum went by running about 70 I rolled out and didn't put it even close to all she had I passed the car and was running a 100mph when I crossed the marker. awesome considering the car stock ran 100 mph stock hooking up completely and giving it everything she had. I love it. every gm lover should have a 383.