Zee Big Fix - 383 LT1 Build
The 355 motor from Internet Racers
Suppy made great power until...
The pages below document in some detail what has been done, what fun and interesting things I ran into along the way and how they were solved. This page is a work in progress until the engine is sitting under the hood of the car again. Fun Fun Fun :)
2/15/2002 - Return of the Shortblock documents the work I did to finish the short block prepared by Mike Blackstone. Check out how the stock oil pan was modified to work with the new rods instead of me dropping big $ on an ill fitting aftermarket pan.
2/24/2002 - Added 2 photos of the windage tray mods and an image of the oil spring "shim" I used to increase the oil pressure to 70PSI at redline. Hopefully this will be the last major hack I need to do.
4/15/2002 - Finished the install and the engine fired up on the first turn of the key. Excellent! Lots of tuning work to do, and I still have to repair the T56 transmission, but hearing your new hotrodded engine run for the first time is sweet music to a motorhead's ears.
This page and the Return of the Shortblock page above
are now "done", there won't be any more updates to them.
-The Gory Story-
You likely already knew that fine piece of engineering called an Optispark was involved. But it died in such an interesting and weird way (also unsurprising), the tale of terror deserves to be told.
One of the plastic spot welds on the rotor broke off, allowing the rotor to flop about, causing erratic firing and, worst of all, cross firing cylinders. I drove it like that for 8 months (bad motorhead, bad!) until smog time rolled around and the car failed the sniffer test.
The cross firing of the cylinders caused the engine to generate massive heat, but the cooling system was able to keep up with most of it, and it ran kinda ok for a while. I eventually figured out the Opti was DOA and replaced it. The car then passed smog but was way down on power and...
The oil went dark black too quickly and I noticed the engine was sipping lightly on the radiator. Much unhappiness then occurred as I realized I had baked the engine into submission and a rebuild was required.
With a lot of help from both the usual and unusual suspects (tnx guys!) I got the engine out. I tore the engine down to the short block and took it over to Mike's shop for a refresh - rings, bearings and bore honing with a bonus of installing stock length forged rods to beef up the bottom end some.
I got a phone call from Mike a few days later and the block turned out to be a real mess. It required everything you can do to a block short of bushing the lifter bores. Worse, the cylinders took over .003" to clean up and go round again. That meant the .030" over Wi$co pistons I had wouldn't work any more.
Mike also told me the rings had been baked and lost tension (explains the blow by contaminating the oil) and the bearings were toast.
So now I'm buying Eagle forged rods as planned plus having to buy new .035 over custom blower piston$. Well hell, I might as well install the new Callies 3.750 crank along with the Blackstone ported heads I have had sitting on the shelf for the last 2 years. The extra cost to stroke the engine would be minimal over the cost to just turn it into a 356.
So the engine ended up going from a rings, bearings and bore fluff job to a full on 5.850" rod 384c.i. motor. I know all you car guys out there understand the concept of "project creep" and how the most expensive phrase in the world is "as long as I'm in there...".
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