[PRAY]

Originally Posted by Hard Parker

What would you recommend as far as maintenance?


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Not sure on maintenance brother. For prevention I would do the Elite dual outlet catch can and the UPR check ball crank case breather. I don't run either but I think they are the best options. I will explain more on that later. That is basically how I run all of my LS set ups. There hasn't been an option that I could find up till now for the LT platforms.

[Chevy71]

Nice thread man. I sent my heads off to get port and polish at a local hot rod shop. My objective was different than yours, I wanted to free restrictions and ensure my boost flowed well to help with temps due to restriction. I did the valve and springs myself with nothing special. It took the shop two days to do my heads. I didn't have mine off in three hours, but I was also tearing down for my cam and other mods, so I took much more off mine than you did.

I had a hard time with coolant too. Given the radiator doesn't have a cap, and it has separate coolers.. it's so easy for air to get stuck in the system. I ran into my tank getting drained at shut off and it acting funny because of air. What fixed it for me was hooking up an external pump and with the system closed off I cycled coolant through the engine for around half hour. And shut it off with my upper reservoir full and the expansion tank under it empty. I ran it for almost two weeks before doing my pro charger and had zero issues after that. Haven't ran it with my pro charger yet, still at the dyno. I didn't drain my coolant for the blower though.

[bigsapper]

Mighty Mouse Solutions is another option for catch cans for the LT series. It's what I'm running.

[PRAY]

Originally Posted by bigsapper

Mighty Mouse Solutions is another option for catch cans for the LT series. It's what I'm running.

Did he change up the design? I liked the idea originally but it needed some reworking to function. The car I was referencing had one of those can/breather combos on it. Needless to say, it didn't work. Since the breather was on the can the feeder hoses were not big enough to get it to vent properly and it never caught any oil. The PCV was also a good idea but limited the flow potential of the can. It all just went back into the motor. That motor only had about 8,500 miles on it when I pulled the heads. But that was just my personal experience with it. I am sure the LT model is well thought out and works properly.

This is why I was suggesting a dual vented with PCV valves catch can. If you can't vent to atmosphere then it is your next best bet to evacuate the crank case back into the motor. I however do fully believe in a "check ball" breather for the valve cover is the best way to vent the crank case in conjunction with a proper catch can with a PCV valve between the can and the manifold. In my opinion, any time you generate real crank pressure it need to be vented to atmosphere to keep a contaminated charge out of the cylinders. I also don't think that a single 5/8" hose is enough to properly evacuate the crank case before is creates pressure under the rings. I will admit that the GM CCV system on these cars could take care of that but I haven't given it much thought on this motor. Having a contaminated charge when you are just driving around is a deal but now a huge deal. But when under WOT the last thing I want is the engine unable to properly vent the crank case or ingest contaminated crank case fumes when it need all the fresh air it can get to mix with fuel.

[PRAY]

Originally Posted by Chevy71

Nice thread man. I sent my heads off to get port and polish at a local hot rod shop. My objective was different than yours, I wanted to free restrictions and ensure my boost flowed well to help with temps due to restriction. I did the valve and springs myself with nothing special. It took the shop two days to do my heads. I didn't have mine off in three hours, but I was also tearing down for my cam and other mods, so I took much more off mine than you did.

I had a hard time with coolant too. Given the radiator doesn't have a cap, and it has separate coolers.. it's so easy for air to get stuck in the system. I ran into my tank getting drained at shut off and it acting funny because of air. What fixed it for me was hooking up an external pump and with the system closed off I cycled coolant through the engine for around half hour. And shut it off with my upper reservoir full and the expansion tank under it empty. I ran it for almost two weeks before doing my pro charger and had zero issues after that. Haven't ran it with my pro charger yet, still at the dyno. I didn't drain my coolant for the blower though.

If you have the proper tool then doing the springs is pretty easy. I think for nest time I am going to modify my comp cams tool a little to get that to work. If you are swapping springs on the heads then you will need an option like this. Getting the heads off wasn't bad. Getting everything cleaned up, torqued back down and everything back up took me about 5hrs. So all in all it is about an 8hr job. Cool thing was that I only had to jack the car up once to loosen the headers from the cat's and to pull the steering shaft. Everything else was done from the top. Super easy.

Did you get before and after flow numbers for the heads? Did you dyno before and after to see what they were worth? I am curious to see what others are gaining from heads.

I don't think I could get a set done in two days even if this was my only job and I spent 8hrs a day on them. I think just the port shaping and finishing would be two days minimum. Then the valve jobs and flowing each port and touching them up so that every port is within 1% flow wise would be another whole day. These LT1 heads are like the old LS2 heads as far as removing material goes. This is also a very sketchy head to do with how thin it is in some places. Cutting the valve jobs by hand is quite a pain as well. My next tool purchase is going to be an electric cutting "drill".


I think I have the coolant deal taken care of. I will know tomorrow. I am going to have to find a good way to do this next time.

[bigsapper]

Originally Posted by PRAY

Did he change up the design? I liked the idea originally but it needed some reworking to function. The car I was referencing had one of those can/breather combos on it. Needless to say, it didn't work. Since the breather was on the can the feeder hoses were not big enough to get it to vent properly and it never caught any oil. The PCV was also a good idea but limited the flow potential of the can. It all just went back into the motor. That motor only had about 8,500 miles on it when I pulled the heads. But that was just my personal experience with it. I am sure the LT model is well thought out and works properly.

This is why I was suggesting a dual vented with PCV valves catch can. If you can't vent to atmosphere then it is your next best bet to evacuate the crank case back into the motor. I however do fully believe in a "check ball" breather for the valve cover is the best way to vent the crank case in conjunction with a proper catch can with a PCV valve between the can and the manifold. In my opinion, any time you generate real crank pressure it need to be vented to atmosphere to keep a contaminated charge out of the cylinders. I also don't think that a single 5/8" hose is enough to properly evacuate the crank case before is creates pressure under the rings. I will admit that the GM CCV system on these cars could take care of that but I haven't given it much thought on this motor. Having a contaminated charge when you are just driving around is a deal but now a huge deal. But when under WOT the last thing I want is the engine unable to properly vent the crank case or ingest contaminated crank case fumes when it need all the fresh air it can get to mix with fuel.

Lol, I probably should have kept my mouth shut. I know squat about managing PCV systems other than back in the day we vented to the atmosphere.

I've followed the catch can wars for that past 3+ years. I drag race, so all things considered, probably a good deal.

I'll see if David will respond to your response.

[PRAY]

Originally Posted by bigsapper

Lol, I probably should have kept my mouth shut. I know squat about managing PCV systems other than back in the day we vented to the atmosphere.

I've followed the catch can wars for that past 3+ years. I drag race, so all things considered, probably a good deal.

I'll see if David will respond to your response.

On the contrary. I am glad you posted. It is all informational. I have questions about the new system as well. On the older LS platforms I now have a proven system that works on all the cars I do like a champ. I took designs, like the Mighty Mouse stuff and others and reworked them to do what I think is the best possible solution. So if there weren't guys out there making products for people to test then we would be no better off. I know I would still have no grasp on it and wouldn't have developed a product that works great for my application. Again, I was just sharing my personal experience with a product manufacturer you mentioned. I am sure there will be a thousand people lining up to refute my findings.

[bigsapper]

I think we all benefit from the discussion (provided we understand it).

[glenB]

You need a tool like this to properly fill today's coolant system.

It doesn't need to be this one there are others

http://www.tooldiscounter.com/ItemDi...FQwYgQodHfEJ1A

[Chevy71]

Originally Posted by PRAY

If you have the proper tool then doing the springs is pretty easy. I think for nest time I am going to modify my comp cams tool a little to get that to work. If you are swapping springs on the heads then you will need an option like this. Getting the heads off wasn't bad. Getting everything cleaned up, torqued back down and everything back up took me about 5hrs. So all in all it is about an 8hr job. Cool thing was that I only had to jack the car up once to loosen the headers from the cat's and to pull the steering shaft. Everything else was done from the top. Super easy.

Did you get before and after flow numbers for the heads? Did you dyno before and after to see what they were worth? I am curious to see what others are gaining from heads.

I don't think I could get a set done in two days even if this was my only job and I spent 8hrs a day on them. I think just the port shaping and finishing would be two days minimum. Then the valve jobs and flowing each port and touching them up so that every port is within 1% flow wise would be another whole day. These LT1 heads are like the old LS2 heads as far as removing material goes. This is also a very sketchy head to do with how thin it is in some places. Cutting the valve jobs by hand is quite a pain as well. My next tool purchase is going to be an electric cutting "drill".


I think I have the coolant deal taken care of. I will know tomorrow. I am going to have to find a good way to do this next time.

They had around 20 hours in my heads. I do have dyno data, but it's not heads alone. It's all in my pro charger build thread. I just got my charger in so one final numbers aren't concrete, but it's sitting around 667/577 as of now.

[MAGAUSA]

Pray - have you noticed any weak points yet? Seen a couple issues on this site that appeared to be within the valvetrain. Could be anomalies, but any thoughts are appreciated.

[PRAY]

Originally Posted by glenB

You need a tool like this to properly fill today's coolant system.

It doesn't need to be this one there are others

http://www.tooldiscounter.com/ItemDi...FQwYgQodHfEJ1A

Yes Sir, I do need to invest in one of those. I have been getting away with my other methods for so long I haven't bothered.

[PRAY]

Originally Posted by Chevy71

They had around 20 hours in my heads. I do have dyno data, but it's not heads alone. It's all in my pro charger build thread. I just got my charger in so one final numbers aren't concrete, but it's sitting around 667/577 as of now.

20hrs sounds about right with the proper tooling and machines with a pre stripped and cleaned head. My hand with disassembly and assembly and what not it takes me a little longer. Those are great numbers. I will look up the rest of your build thread. Thanks for posting up.

[PRAY]

Originally Posted by MAGAUSA

Pray - have you noticed any weak points yet? Seen a couple issues on this site that appeared to be within the valvetrain. Could be anomalies, but any thoughts are appreciated.

I have heard that these cars have dropped valves but I have no proof of that. I didn't notice anything that jumped out at me. I will have to take apart the stock heads to see if I can spot any abnormal wear patterns or bent valves and what not. I will say that the car is much quieter and smoother now that I have swapped the heads.

When we were cutting the valves I did notice that some of them were "out of round" meaning, the back cuts showed low spots and high spots as we were cutting them. If I rotated those valves in the head while flowing them it would change the flow numbers.

One thing that did concern me is that both of my lifter trays on the drivers side were loose. I would walk them left and right to both extremes. I am sure it didn't hurt anything but the potential for binding of the lifters or at the very least extra friction and ware were present. I am also wondering if that could have caused a false knock scenario. I pulled the bolts on both sides and loc-tighted them back in place. We will see how that pans out.