Part XIII

1989 RS Camaro

We have quite a bit to cover in this week's update. Last time we posted that we had the bottom of the engine done and ready to go...well not quite so fast. As we were checking things, we noticed that our connecting rods were very close to the cylinder walls, in fact a few of them had what amounted to paper thin clearance. You can certainly imagine that while spinning the engine over on a work stand everything might look great, but when you start spinning that assembly at 7500 RPM things start moving around a little bit and paper thin clearances are going to be a major problem. The entire assembly was going to have to come apart again.

All the piston assemblies are out at this point, we then proceeded to pull the crank, clearance the block, then wash and clean everything again.

After you do this a few times, it just starts to fall together. Believe it or not, this is an "after photo". The motor is going together for what should be the final time.

It only took us three tries to get the right oil pump pickup and even then we had a minor problem. The pickup is sitting right below where the oil drain plug is in the oil pan. The drain plug had a magnetic end on it that was about 1/2" long, it is now about 1/4" long because it was trying to punch a hole in our pickup screen.

Here we have the timing cover in place and the oil pan gaskets are glued to the block then greased so that we can remove the pan in the future if need be to check the bottom end.

Some work had to be done to the windage tray to get it to clear the connecting rods, nothing really bad that a ballpeen hammer couldn't handle, but it just shows that you have to check everything and I mean everything as it is going together. And if it doesn't feel right or look right, you had better pull it apart and find out why.

Pan is on, new filter in place and just because I am a hot rodder, we scrounged up an old Rod & Custom magazine decal and put it on the pan.

The heads dropped into place without any hassle. We went with a Felpro head gasket and intake gaskets from Speedway Racing. The intake gaskets needed a little work at the top of each port and then were siliconed in place. A nice bead of black silicone was placed at the front and rear of the intake and then it was set into place. Of course before this occurred, we dropped in the roller lifters and put the pushrods in place. Six quarts of oil and one quart of Valvoline engine treatment was added to the crankcase. The engine treatment is very beneficial to the new engine break-in cycle. Of course our break-in will last less than 15-20 minutes, but every little thing helps.

It's starting to look like an engine finally. We put the dampner in place, then setup the MSD crank trigger and added the electric water pump. All of this stuff has been sitting in boxes for the last few months so it's kind of nice to see the parts finally get installed.

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