[RobZL1]

Originally Posted by Joshinator99

Really not worth the extra coin on a blower application. If you really need the last bit of flow you should go to aftermarket castings with a thicker deck at that point anyway. The LT4 head will typically handle a good CNC port job with no problems and Katech will do a great job so I’d call it a day there. Get some ARP studs and new Cometic gaskets and go make some steam.

I like that logic. Josh is out here saving my money for me!

Gor the studs, but went with GM gaskets. I'm not planning for more than 18-20 psi so I'm hoping those will do the trick in conjunction with the studs.

[Joshinator99]

Originally Posted by RobZL1

I like that logic. Josh is out here saving my money for me!

Gor the studs, but went with GM gaskets. I'm not planning for more than 18-20 psi so I'm hoping those will do the trick in conjunction with the studs.

Yeah should be fine. ARP will use a significantly higher torque value than OEM bolts so you should have plenty of clamping force for 18-20 psi as long as you don’t get detonation or pre-ignition. Get yourself a decent spark plug like a Brisk RR12S and you’ll be looking good.

[RobZL1]

The RR12S is already on my shopping list.

[RobZL1]

Today I got the CHE trunnions knocked out, and some additional gasket scraping and block cleaning/prep. The assembly is going feel kinda anticlimactic. Its going to go so quickly compared to all the prep work.

Here are some trunnion pics. The 'ol HF press got called up to bat today. It gets to play about once every five years or so.


Trunnions unboxed:



Pressing out the old rollers:



Start of assembly where everything is nice and clean:



Midway through and not quite as clean...



All done!



Everything went together well. I think tomorrow I'll begin assembly. Sorry for the pics. I forgot to take forum-appropriate angles when I was snapping shots. I'll fix them later.

[radz28]

You gots nice knees

HAHAHAHAHA

[RobZL1]

Originally Posted by radz28

You gots nice knees

HAHAHAHAHA

[RobZL1]

I didn't have much time today, but made some progress. I really wish someone made gaskets for the rear cover and oil pan. The RTV is such a ridiculous, time consuming PITA.

Anyway, I got the DoD plugs installed and ensured the valley cover still installed without interference.




Then, I pulled the rear cover and cleaned the gasket surface and all the spillover into the holes. This was a cool view, I thought:



I also cleaned up the rear cover and installed a new rear main seal. Given the price of a new rear cover with seals installed ($80) it might have been better to just buy that instead of the $30 rear seal and an hour of cleaning... maybe the next guy will benefit from my experience.

Also, when I pulled the cover the oil barbell came with it, so I think I'll buy one of the aluminum barbells while I'm at it. Those always seemed a bit gimmicky, but I guess a smaller gap would certainly prevent larger particles from getting past the filter. Might as well throw one in since I'm in there.

[RobZL1]

I made some serious progress over the holiday weekend. I'll break it out over several posts over the next day or so.

I'll start with my valley cover mod. I decided to go a slightly different direction. I was originally just going to use the DOD tower plugs and call it a day, but I wasn't entirely happy with how the VLOM manifolds fit over the tops of the plugs after I pressed the plugs into the block.

I also didn't want to spend $200-$400+ on a valley cover from TSP or Katech or wherever- I'd rather push that money elsewhere into my build budget.

I looked into Escalade V "LT4.5" and ZR1 LT5 non-afm valley covers. They have different part numbers, but they appear to be the same cover. Basically, it's an LT4 cover with no AFM solenoids. These are also about $160-$170 to your door and would require DOD tower plugs, too. So, for about $200 your options are the TSP cover or the non-AFM supercharged GM cover. The GM part numbers are 12685112 for the LT5 and 12702934 for the LT4.5 for those interested.

I really wanted to get rid of the solenoids, so I decided to modify my stock valley cover instead of buying something else and pulling out the plugs I had pressed into the block already.

Here's what I did:

Step 1:
I pulled out the tools and cut out the solenoid electrical raceway. I also carefully disconnected and removed the electrical plug because I needed to use that again after some modification.

Step 2:
The PCV baffle can then be removed with the 5 screws that hold it in. Similar to what you'd do with a Katech or TSP valley cover if you plan to keep that baffle and transfer it over to a new cover.

Step 3:
Now there's the issue of removing the solenoids themselves, which are screw-riveted (if that's a thing) to the cover. I used the cutoff wheel and buzzed them off, then came back and smoothed them over with a flapper wheel on the dremel to make them look like the non-AFM cover. GM giveth VLOM solenoids to an engine that doesn't use them... and Rob removeth.




Step 4:
Now there is the small issue of the open hole in the oil tower that feeds the solenoids. As it turns out, the hole is 6mm. As luck would have it, a 7mm-1.0 tap requires a 6mm hole. Of course, you can't find a 7mm set screw, so I bought a 7mm 8.8 bolt and turned it into a 20mm-long set screw. I tapped the hole about 22mm deep out of 30mm available hole depth, so the set screw could bottom out a bit into the non-threaded section. Then I washed the heck out of the valley cover and dried it off to remove any aluminum shavings.






Step 5:
I slathered the set screw with red loctite as I fed it into the hole and drove it home. Then I reassembled the valley cover: thread sealant on the oil pressure sensor and torqued a smidge past where it was stock since there are crush washers involved, thread sealant on the oil tower plug with a little blue loctite at the top, then blue loctite on the PCV baffle screws.







Step 6:
I modified the electrical pass through to be just a plug. I took of the top and the bottom, sanded it all, cleaned it all up (including pulling the o-ring and cleaning it), and put it back in the valley cover. I think I'll mill a small pocket where the copper pins are on top and fill it with black RTV, just in case those leak at all. I don't think they will, as they are molded into the plastic... but just in case.



All done! Only spent $25 on the TSP plugs, and a couple hours of time on the mods.

[RobZL1]

Cam time!

Time to slide in the Katech LT4 Track Day cam. This is a 233/250 119+4 single-bolt cam with 0.649"/0.658" lift and a 38% fuel lobe. It went in easily, particularly with the valley cover and the rear cover removed to help support the back end of the cam as it was almost home.






Then I installed a new retainer plate with blue loctite on the screws and 11 lb-ft in a down/up/left/right torque sequence.




Once the cam assembly was together I decided to degree the cam just in case. I'm nearly 100% certain this is not necessary these days due to tight manufacturing tolerances, but I did it anyway to be thorough. After finding TDC with a piston stop, I verified the cam events at 0.050." I found the valve events to be within half a degree of the cam card. I found the lift to be about 0.0010"-0.0015" short of what was on the cam card, but I trust the cam card to be more accurate than my cheap dial gauge.





So I called it a win and final-torqued the cam bolt. Per LME spec, I lubed the threads with ARP torque lube and tightened to 150 lb-ft. Per Katech advice here on the forum, I grabbed the back of the cam with some bolts in the holes and used a pry bar between them to torque against instead of risking stretching the chain. A 3-bolt cam would be the ticket here to avoid this, but this Katech cam is what I wanted, and it only comes as a 1-bolt.

I opted to use Katech's new chain guide instead of the LME dogbone (or the TSP knockoff) to save cost. $50 instead of $240 or $100. I really like the design and it just snaps in place. Easy peasy. I also went with a Katech timing chain.

[ZLRob]

Damn dude. Looking at your build progress it makes me happy that I've been done with mine. Now I can move forward with dealing with the little things. Like running out of high side fuel pump all over again.

[RobZL1]

Then there is the Katech billet oil pump to fix the thing that got me into this build in the first place. It's obviously a nice piece. I shot some assembly lube in the pump and spun it around a bit, installed it and torqued the bolts to 18 lb-ft.




I used SDPC's private-labeled LME cast timing cover. LME private labels them for GPI and SDPC. $300 for the SDPC version instead of $349 for the LME or GPI version. This is a really nice piece and comes with an appropriately modified timing gear to match where they located the cam position sensor on the timing cover vs stock. It comes with a cam bolt, two shorter bolts for the bottom cover holes, and two o-ring gaskets. It's basically like their billet kit but cast instead of machined from billet. It has the LS3-style crank seal, too. (Also, no RTV! Yay!!)

I took the time to remove the VVT solenoid plug from the wire harness and re-tape everything because it looked well worn after 8 years. I see many people just leave it dangling, but I wanted a cleaner, more "it came this way" kind of look. Plus, it is in line with my plan to keep everything looking tidy under the hood. (Not that you'll ever see this under the water pump anyway.)

Then I tightened everything up to 18 lb-ft per the factory torque sequence.






Next I turned to the back and installed the Improved Racing barbell on the back of the block since the old one pulled out when I removed the rear cover. It is a nice piece and fits in well.






I then recleaned the surfaced one last time, and shot a bead of GM RTV onto the rear cover. I'd say definitely use the one that goes into a caulk gun instead of the squeeze-tube. MUCH easier I imagine (I used the caulk gun version from the get go.) Here's the torque sequence for those bolts since it was harder to find on the general interwebs. They are also 18 lb-ft, just like the front cover.









Cam install... check!

[RobZL1]

Finally for this round of updates, we've got the oil pan.

----------------------------
It's at this point I'd like to pause and have a drink for all the poor o-ring gaskets that are still on the bench, that didn't get put in the game with the LT motors. It's okay, o-ring gaskets. We all really wanted you to get in the game with the Gen V's, we really did. This RTV is probably great for cost savings, but you are the king when it comes to maintenance. We sorely miss you, o-ring gaskets of the world.

I'd also like to take a minute to convey my absolute disdain for cleaning up RTV gasket surfaces and prepping them for reinstall. It has now surpassed my hatred for coolant spilling everywhere. Oh yes, as bad as that is, it's SOOOO much less time consuming that all of this RTV cleanup clusterhooey.
----------------------------

Now that's out of the way, I will say that cleaning the oil pan and then pulling the windage tray to ensure it was spotless with no RTV boogers anywhere, took approximately 3 hours. It was ridiculous.

I'm finally done with plastic razor blades and carb cleaner though. So that's a big win. I swear, this job would take soooooo much less time if everything was just o-ringed like the LS motors. Meh. Oh well.

Alright- here are the pics. Starting with one clean oil pan (minus the front that I sprayed with carb cleaner after the pic.):




Then, an RTV'd and installed oil pan with new o-rings for the oil pump and oil filter. Torqued to spec and in GM sequence:





Finally, we have the motor as it sits now. It just needs heads, lifters, (measure for pushrods), pushrods, and rockers. Then it will be all buttoned up!

[RobZL1]

Originally Posted by ZLRob

Damn dude. Looking at your build progress it makes me happy that I've been done with mine. Now I can move forward with dealing with the little things. Like running out of high side fuel pump all over again.

It's a huge time killer, for sure. There are many more painful cleaning portions than fun assembly. I knew the gaskets would be a time suck, but man, what a pain!

Yeah, you know, little issues. What is the plan? Are you going to upgrade the pump or go port?

[Joshinator99]

NICE work! Coming out great. Super attention to detail.