Spiers

Just did a cam swap on my car. Comp XE230/236, Comp Magnum 1.6r, Comp studs, Trickflow pushrods, Patriot gold dual springs and seals. Reused stock lifters. The motor currently has ~113k original miles. ~50miles after the cam swap the car started burning oil and smoking like crazy. Oil pressure gradually getting worse. Plugs fouled with oil and 02 sensor dripping wet. Did a compression and leakdown test, and checked the oil.

The leakdown test resulted in a 45%-57% leakage in cyl 1,3,5,7,8, and 6. Cyl 4 was at 35% leakage and cyl 1 at only 10%. After this we did a compression check. I don't know why but all cylinders checked out with 180-210psi. This was with all plugs removed and the throttle open.

Checked the oil and it is full of metal flakes. The best way to describe it is it looks like metallic black paint. On the oil filter it was almost gray, looked almost like aluminum.

When we first tore into it to do the swap, the lifter valley and valve covers were caked with sludge and crud. Just handfulls. We spent about an extra hour scraping and cleaning and vaccuming it out. I think it's because of neglect from the previous owner, because when I got the car with 78k, it still had original everything -plugs,wires,fuel filter, etc. Probably even the air filter.

Below is a picture of only what was scraped off of the bottom of the intake manifold!
http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/h...uobhyiop15.jpg

And here is a pic of the engine with the intake/valve covers off.
http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/h...uobhyiop14.jpg

What I believe killed my motor is sand. While the intake was off I cleaned and sandblasted it. Painted it up red real nice and thought I cleaned it out good enough. But about 50miles after the swap, when it started smoking, I checked the PCV and there were grits of sand the the end of it. Either that or some debris in the lifter valley maybe? Or a combination.

Here's a pic of it half assembled. I was so happy
http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/h...huobhyiop3.jpg

Now it's parked, and I am bumming a ride back and forth to work. Havent touched the motor. I don't have a garage of my own but the car still runs (barely) and I have a friend with a shop to use. This car has been my daily driver. Now I don't know where to start. I have about 3k to spend TOPS. I don't know if I should buy a beater and tear this motor apart to rebuild and reuse, or buy another used motor and swap it in for the time being and build this on the side while I am enjoying driving my car still. I have no idea what setup to go with. Summer is coming fast and I want my car back on the road. With some power of course.

Do you guys think the cam and supporting valvetrain I just spent all my money on is still good? When it comes to motors I am just starting to really learn. All I really know right now is valvetrain. When it comes to bottom end and heads Im kind of lost. My friend will be helping me do the work and hes built many motors. We have pretty much everything but a lift. I just have no idea what direction to go.

Z28Freak86

wow! i dont think that previous owner ever changed their oil! i cant say ive seen sludge quite that bad yet. that is very unfortunate. very sorry to see that.
However i would just like to throw in my 2 cents for ya. It really depends on how much time you would like to spend on getting your car back up. Doing a rebuild with 3 grand isnt awful, but you could be missing out on alot of fun. If you have the time and patients, i say buy a complete motor to swap out and use, and rebuild that one on the side. with plenty of time and saving up some more money, you can really get a nice daily driver, and also the motor that you want.

However if your not looking for that sort of thing, you could go the really cheap route and just buy a used motor and swap out your cam and lifters. Of course the choice is totally yours. Good luck!

94TEALz

Buy a cheap car to get around for now( I swear by jeep cherokee's). Plan some goals for the car like what power you want out of it, what its gonna be used for etc tec, and go from there. I would think the topend would be ok but pull the cam and check for scaring or grooves. You can build a stout bottem end for around 3k. Check my sig, the motor I built ran me about 2900 but I also had to buy the cam, and seeing how you already have that you should be able to come out a little less than that.

WS6T3RROR

Hop on ebay and find some mahle stock replacement type hyper pistons and rings in whatever overbore if you need to do that. Put some arp bolts in the stock rods or go to some scat rods with 7/16" cap screws. Have the crank polished or turned down if needed and then get everything rebalanced.

The cam you just installed should be just fine unless there is major scuffing minor stuff can be polished out. For the sake of time skip porting the stock heads hop on summit or some other sponsor and pick up a set of trick flow genx lt1 heads for about $1300 (or lt1 dart pro 1 200cc heads can be had for another hundred dollars) or less assembled the important thing is they will ship out today. Then sell your old stock heads on here for $200ish, it will gain you money back and you wont have to spend cash rebuilding your current stock heads and waiting several weeks for somebody to port them.

You should probably at that point look into some new injectors to keep up with everything and get a good baseline tune to get you started. All that may stretch your budget by the time you get all the nickel and dime stuff (there will be alot of this; like the coolant cross over line between the heads, o-rings for the rails, a new oil pump drive assembly) taken care of but that is the fastest way I have seen to get it done. I built and tuned a 383 lt1 for a street rod doing similar things in 9 days and most of that was shipping time and it still managed 400+rwhp.

I will probably catch hell for suggesting something besides ported stock heads but it is only for time constraints and the fact that you can get money out of your stock heads and not sink anymore into them paying to have them rebuilt. Unless you want to wait a couple of months for somebody to port yours.

Also unless you have some super serious plans for the car in the future AND the bankroll to finance them in the future skip all the super duper forged crank nonsense. An n/a lt1 does not warrant any of it 99% of the time. If you absolutely must have forged pistons with your budget I would go for the newer keith black forged stuff they go for about 300 and are very nice for what you get.

James Montigny

OH NO! That sucks man.

Depending on what is salvageable, $3K may give you enough to build something you will be very happy with.
In the mean time, I'd dump $500 in to beater to get to work and back.
Generally, reliable cars that are "undesirable" due to appearance or make/model can be had dirt cheap.

mad95z

Wow the sludge was the only thing holding the engine together.

I would have been very hesitant on proceeding with the cam install after seeing that.
Get a beater and rebuild.

Spiers

Thanks for the replies guys. Right now my girlfriend has been driving me to work. I think what Im going to do is buy another used LT1 (found one local for 600) and swap it in and swap over the parts Ive just bought. I think thats the easiest fastest and cheapest way to get it running soon and have some power. Maybe put a little spray to it. Then I can do a lot of searching and figure out my plans and build this motor as time and money allows, as im having fun driving my car too. Sound like a good plan?

95firehawk

Put the stock motor back in it and leave that engine alone. Then take the "bad" engine, throw it on a stand, and put all of your parts, time, and money into that one. This way you have a car to drive and you won't be splitting your resources between two engines.

rskrause

That makes a lot of sense to me.

Rich

Spiers

Well that's what I meant. Except just swapping over my cam and valvetrain to the new one and leaving it at that.