Re: The Life and Time of Typhoon #2320
oh hey...it's been a while since i updated this thread. Might as well do it now.
So a year and a half ago i pulled the motor to see what all was wrong with it. It had some intensifying blowby smoke in it's final days in the truck so i figured enough was enough...time to rebuild.
Yank the motor and found some cylinder scoring, but nothing toooooo bad.
Tore deeper into it and got the pistons out to find 2 pistons with some cracked/broken ring landings - makes sense.
The crank had also seen better days. So it was time to decide what to do: replace the broken/worn stuff in this aluminum 5.7 LS1, or build for a little more fun/power. I chose the latter. So i set off to find an iron block. I wanted either a 5.3 or a 6.0. Didn't care which i found, if I stumbled across a 6.0 in a yard in good shape, i'd grab it. I took this opportunity to visit Tom / Sportmachines and he was dying to take me to a junkyard and help yank a motor. Did i mention this was the dead of winter with a real feel of 0 degrees? Dedication!
No 6.0s worth a damn in the yard, but we found a 5.3 truck with a rear end hit and decent shape otherwise, and only 120k on the odometer i think
The damn tranny to engine bolts hate me.
Time to order up some parts and get to it. Oh, my father in law runs an engine machine shop out of his garage, so that's helpful. He hadn't build an LS yet so he was anxious to start in on them. I scored some 317 heads on craigslist, then just ordered everything else new. Forged pistons, valves, springs, etc etc. Oh and it was cheaper to custom grind a cam than for me to do the 'normal' z06 cam for turbo since they all get snagged pretty quickly and for more than they're worth. So send all my specs and get a freshly ground howards cam, with a minor amount of lope. Curious to see what it'll sound like!
Polishing the crank....
So i got the whole thing assembled and back home and installed into the Typhoon. Went pretty smoothly for installing it myself for once. Buttoned it up as much as i could get done because Wrenchfest was only a few days away. Of course didn't get it completed. I was hoping to have it all done and fired up so i could just tune it at Wrenchfest. Oh well.
So get it loaded up (thanks to Adam) and headed to wrenchfest
I decided buying an oil prime tool for the LS was ludicrously expensive. I was no way interested in spending $300+ just to prime the oil once. So i did the next best thing and made my own primer. Just a simple PVC tube that can hold all 5 qts of oil and then uses compressed air to force it into the motor. Did it up to i think 45psi on my meter and thats when i started getting oil seeping into all the rockers which was a good enough sign for me. I think the total bill for my custom prime tool was $25 since i made it large enough to hold 5 qts. Even got to break out some geometry skills to figure out the volume of a cylinder. Hooray for math!
So i spent the majority of wrenchfest buttoning up odds and ends that it needed done...and eating lots of pizza....and listening to a syclone start and get its starter stuck 452 times.
Oh hi Jack! So glad you made it down for the meet buddy. You will be missed!
Towards the end of the day it was all buttoned up and was go time! Key on...builds fuel pressure. Sweet! Start her up.....cranks and cranks and cranks, no fire. Hmmm.. Start the troubleshooting. We had a lot of collective knowledge still at wrenchfest, and me. Tested about everything you could think of, threw new crank and cam sensors into the block, counted reluctor ring teeth, ohmed out wires...just wasn't getting spark. WTF!
Clueless.
A header bolt was broken off in the head and i hadn't noticed until the motor was already installed. MattW came over and helped extract it - we welded to the bolt to get it off. I called Big Stuff to ask if they'd have any clue what might be up and the first thing they asked me was if i'd welded on the car w/ the ecm installed. OOpps....sure did. So i send the ecm to Big Stuff to test out and they call me w/ it running on the test bench. Dammit...so that's not the problem. But at least i got the a flash upgrade while they had it.
Wrenchfest was June 28 2014. I trailered it home and parked it. Tested more stuff for more hours over the next couple months. Couldn't figure it out...and basically just let it sit and simmer while i dealt with other life events. Would have some ideas now and then of what might be wrong...try it....still no spark. WTF.
I knew it pretty much had to be something stupid seeing as how the truck hates me and finds any way possible to make life hard. The last thing i could think of was maybe the cam and crank alignment was off and that's why the computer wasn't telling it to spark. So I make my son start disassembling down to the timing cover so we can check it out. Get down to everything, hoping to see an issue. Well...scroll back up to the timing set picture above: my idiot motor assembler didn't align the thing button to button. Somehow i managed to use the camshaft button rather then the sprocket dimple...so it was way off. Thankfully the computer is smart enough to not fire so that i didn't ruin anything. But wow...talk about a stupid oversight. I was debating keeping this to myself, but after all the other crap i've been through w/ this truck, it's only fitting to share this also.
So i'm happy to find this out of synch and fix it, put everything back together...hop in the truck, key on, go to start....fires right up after in 3 revolutions of cranking!
IT LIVES!
So here we are almost a year after the truck was fully put back together, and it's finally running. MattW came over this past wednesday to help start to get a tune in this thing, and we had Keith (sy-1193) on the phone helping out as well. But it's idling well and drives at part throttle just fine. Now i just need to put the truck back together so it is a bit more safe to drive (no front bumper, lights, grill in it currently) and so i can start logging and tuning, and maybe even see some boost.
So...barring anything stupid, my goal is to drive this down to Carlisle this year since last year it obviously wasn't ready. Hopefully progress is positive from here till then!
oh hey...it's been a while since i updated this thread. Might as well do it now.
So a year and a half ago i pulled the motor to see what all was wrong with it. It had some intensifying blowby smoke in it's final days in the truck so i figured enough was enough...time to rebuild.
Yank the motor and found some cylinder scoring, but nothing toooooo bad.
Tore deeper into it and got the pistons out to find 2 pistons with some cracked/broken ring landings - makes sense.
The crank had also seen better days. So it was time to decide what to do: replace the broken/worn stuff in this aluminum 5.7 LS1, or build for a little more fun/power. I chose the latter. So i set off to find an iron block. I wanted either a 5.3 or a 6.0. Didn't care which i found, if I stumbled across a 6.0 in a yard in good shape, i'd grab it. I took this opportunity to visit Tom / Sportmachines and he was dying to take me to a junkyard and help yank a motor. Did i mention this was the dead of winter with a real feel of 0 degrees? Dedication!
No 6.0s worth a damn in the yard, but we found a 5.3 truck with a rear end hit and decent shape otherwise, and only 120k on the odometer i think
The damn tranny to engine bolts hate me.
Time to order up some parts and get to it. Oh, my father in law runs an engine machine shop out of his garage, so that's helpful. He hadn't build an LS yet so he was anxious to start in on them. I scored some 317 heads on craigslist, then just ordered everything else new. Forged pistons, valves, springs, etc etc. Oh and it was cheaper to custom grind a cam than for me to do the 'normal' z06 cam for turbo since they all get snagged pretty quickly and for more than they're worth. So send all my specs and get a freshly ground howards cam, with a minor amount of lope. Curious to see what it'll sound like!
Polishing the crank....
So i got the whole thing assembled and back home and installed into the Typhoon. Went pretty smoothly for installing it myself for once. Buttoned it up as much as i could get done because Wrenchfest was only a few days away. Of course didn't get it completed. I was hoping to have it all done and fired up so i could just tune it at Wrenchfest. Oh well.
So get it loaded up (thanks to Adam) and headed to wrenchfest
I decided buying an oil prime tool for the LS was ludicrously expensive. I was no way interested in spending $300+ just to prime the oil once. So i did the next best thing and made my own primer. Just a simple PVC tube that can hold all 5 qts of oil and then uses compressed air to force it into the motor. Did it up to i think 45psi on my meter and thats when i started getting oil seeping into all the rockers which was a good enough sign for me. I think the total bill for my custom prime tool was $25 since i made it large enough to hold 5 qts. Even got to break out some geometry skills to figure out the volume of a cylinder. Hooray for math!
So i spent the majority of wrenchfest buttoning up odds and ends that it needed done...and eating lots of pizza....and listening to a syclone start and get its starter stuck 452 times.
Oh hi Jack! So glad you made it down for the meet buddy. You will be missed!
Towards the end of the day it was all buttoned up and was go time! Key on...builds fuel pressure. Sweet! Start her up.....cranks and cranks and cranks, no fire. Hmmm.. Start the troubleshooting. We had a lot of collective knowledge still at wrenchfest, and me. Tested about everything you could think of, threw new crank and cam sensors into the block, counted reluctor ring teeth, ohmed out wires...just wasn't getting spark. WTF!
Clueless.
A header bolt was broken off in the head and i hadn't noticed until the motor was already installed. MattW came over and helped extract it - we welded to the bolt to get it off. I called Big Stuff to ask if they'd have any clue what might be up and the first thing they asked me was if i'd welded on the car w/ the ecm installed. OOpps....sure did. So i send the ecm to Big Stuff to test out and they call me w/ it running on the test bench. Dammit...so that's not the problem. But at least i got the a flash upgrade while they had it.
Wrenchfest was June 28 2014. I trailered it home and parked it. Tested more stuff for more hours over the next couple months. Couldn't figure it out...and basically just let it sit and simmer while i dealt with other life events. Would have some ideas now and then of what might be wrong...try it....still no spark. WTF.
I knew it pretty much had to be something stupid seeing as how the truck hates me and finds any way possible to make life hard. The last thing i could think of was maybe the cam and crank alignment was off and that's why the computer wasn't telling it to spark. So I make my son start disassembling down to the timing cover so we can check it out. Get down to everything, hoping to see an issue. Well...scroll back up to the timing set picture above: my idiot motor assembler didn't align the thing button to button. Somehow i managed to use the camshaft button rather then the sprocket dimple...so it was way off. Thankfully the computer is smart enough to not fire so that i didn't ruin anything. But wow...talk about a stupid oversight. I was debating keeping this to myself, but after all the other crap i've been through w/ this truck, it's only fitting to share this also.
So i'm happy to find this out of synch and fix it, put everything back together...hop in the truck, key on, go to start....fires right up after in 3 revolutions of cranking!
IT LIVES!
So here we are almost a year after the truck was fully put back together, and it's finally running. MattW came over this past wednesday to help start to get a tune in this thing, and we had Keith (sy-1193) on the phone helping out as well. But it's idling well and drives at part throttle just fine. Now i just need to put the truck back together so it is a bit more safe to drive (no front bumper, lights, grill in it currently) and so i can start logging and tuning, and maybe even see some boost.
So...barring anything stupid, my goal is to drive this down to Carlisle this year since last year it obviously wasn't ready. Hopefully progress is positive from here till then!
. See you Carlisle.