Crispix396

Need a shop in Houston area to go to.

383 Stroker, Forged internals, LE3 Heads/Intake, Headers, Exhaust, 58mm TB, Green Top injectors, Racetronix Fuel.

Started smoking, took to a shop (Split second Performance in Spring), stopped smoking on drive there, shop owner told me to just drive it till something happens. After telling them I wanted to catch it before something BAD happened, and asked them to run some sort of test, they did compression test (no leakdown test) and said they want $300 for having done the compression test, and that they really don't want to mess with an LT1's.

So i need a place to take it to. I mainly just want to have someone pull the engine, and go through it and 1: see whats wrong 2: make sure the guy who built it the first time actually did a good job.

if your in Houston, or know a shop, please leave it here or call me. 832.722.0396
I would like to drop it off on monday.

I know HPE, Gforce, stopped messing with LT1's (so i was told on the phone) and Westside built 2 of my engines, 1st spun the main bearings within 30 min, and the "fix" never got oil pressure. Maybe they have changed up in 3 years since, but it is not on the top of my list.

Crispix396

PS: I can pull the engine and just deliver to a shop OR I would rather just drop car off, as my neighborhood community citizen police have been getting upset with my car parts, and me working on my car. But if someone is gonna charge $600 to pull it, i will just pull myself.

1965GP

Good luck man- no one wants to touch LT-1's anymore

Crispix396

yeah... I don't get it.

In "modded car land" when a new generation of a car comes out, the old generation becomes cheaper and more affordable.

Now, LT1's are cheap, and the cars that take lt1's are plentiful. Naturally, good shops are all trying to gain bragging rights, and be the biggest and best and have the "first" of something. So I understand why shops now only want to do "new camaros" or Vettes or CTS-V's, however in a city the size of Houston, if a shop was to open that specialized in LT1's (tuning, building, installing diagnosing) they wouldn't be breaking records at the track, but they would have hundreds and hundreds of people who have LT1's and only have the 1 shop to go to...

1965GP

I agree- I have three that could benefit from a tune.

AdioSS

Have you tried to figure out what the problem is on your own?
Where was the smoke coming from?

Crispix396

Whats up AudioSS, good to see another imp on the z site.

I tried to figure it out, but i have been chasing little crap on this build since i got it. tired of drive a month, down 2 weeks, drive a month, down 3 weeks etc.

this time was a mix of "power steering pump almost fell off" and immediately got tons of smoke out the rear. I imagine it gave me tons of knock retard, which must have done something to cause the oil to suddenly burn. burnt pretty bad after that, fixed pump, still burnt pretty bad (smoked the neighborhood out idling in driveway)

But its more than just this issue, for a while i have had smooth starts, which sounds good, but usually i start, and it fires up like an instant beast. lately it turns over and is just "running".. without that beast. Most people have still heard the car and think its running great, but i know what it "should" be like. Thats sort of why i wanted to take to a shop that actually knows these engines. some import shop hears my car and just thinks "it sounds good therefore it is good"... which is not the case.

Daniel6718

im in dallas and could help you can bring me the motor or car...first i would want to see how its smoking/what color/and under what circumstances...might not need to pull the car that far apart...pm me if interested

AdioSS

argh, there is no U in my screenname.

As you can tell from my Join Date, I've been around here a while. I've been back more recently though. I am definitely more active here since I became a Moderator

Before going through the trouble of pulling the motor, be sure to check everything.

When the weather warms up, I will be getting back to work on my SS again, also chasing down an oil leak. I've got a pretty good guess that mine is from a leaking intake manifold gasket. Either that or a bad valve stem seal? I worked on my car at my parents' house a while back, then on the drive home, about 50 miles from there my wife called from the truck behind me telling me that the car was smoking. There was only another 300 miles to go... That was one of the last times the car moved under its own power... about 3 years ago...

MILLER8338

Don't use G-Force in Pearland. It looks like they do decent work if you have a big enough wallet but they give LT1s about the same service that Split Second gave you.

Well, it is cheaper. They only charged me $75 to tell me they didn't want to work on LTs.

I've started doing my own work. It's not that much more complex than "Old School" cars, you just have to learn about the computers and sensors. Shoebox has a website that is a GREAT help.

Any decent shop with an ASE certified mechanic should be able to help.

Also, there is someone who advertises in the AutoParts section of craiglist that he works on LTs and LSs. He usually is offering a DynoTune for $250. He seems open to working on them but, I can't recommend him because I've never even talked to him much less used his services.

1965GP

Actually my buddy that works at G-force just figured out my LT-1. I had a vacuum leak throwing everything off.

What did you pay for at G-force? dyno pull?

bdc95ta

My friend Nathan Spargo from college just opened up a custom car shop in Tomball, & I just called him on the phone & he says he would love to work on it, they like trying to figure out difficult custom situations, & doesn't mind working on LT1's at all.

He's currently out of town on vacation but he'll be back on Friday. He's just a regular ASE mechanic (graduated top of he's class & UTI(?)) & works during the day at a shop & on nights & weekends works at his own shop with his friend, also ASE, Mike.

I'll give you Mike's # for now it's 281-813-1412.
27503 Tomball Parkway #12
Tomball, Texas 77375

Crispix396

AdioSS, sorry about that. For some reason I have called you AudioSS for years. My game used to be the stereo business, so i guess thats just what my mind saw there.

At Gforce, I know they used to be great. I know a friend, who is friends with a guy there who is supposed to know LT's inside and out, but I was told they dont mess with them at the shop. And when i tried to contact that guy, i told my situation and never got a call back.

The guy on craigslist is chuck anders. He advertises that he does LTs and LS's but when i tried to go get a dyno tune, he first told me it would be 350 for an lt1 opposed to 250 for an LS, and that his cable was broken at the time. Now, almost a year later, I got a call from a guy a few weeks ago asking if I had a cable, cuz this guy on craigslist was gonna tune his car, but didnt have a cable. So if in a whole year, he has not purchased a 50 cable to tune cars he charges 100 more to do... I dont know, i just have an issue with that. That being said, he is the only person in town that says they do a dyno tune on an lt1, so when the time comes, im probably gonna have to take my car/cable to him...

Split Second ended up working with me on the price, 150 for their troubles. Almost ended up costing me a lot more as I got 10 miles away and decided to check everyhting, and saw all my spark plug wires were draped over the headers and my head temp sensor wire had already burnt through to the metal. Luckily it did not short out on my headers and ruin my Polydyn coating. I found out after pulling the engine, that they ended up stripping 2 of my header bolt holes when they put my headers back on...

Thanks for all the input guys.

Sparkz28ss

so you got the engine out?

1965GP

I have never met chuck but have heard good and bad things (like any shop). For some reason I heard there was some drama about him leaving HPE and then all of his tools/software getting stolen except the LT software.

Dunno- just what I remember hearing a few years ago on the GTO boards

I know a lot of the GTO guys were really happy with his work