The V8 that was to soon be in the truck was originally from a 1984 Corvette. My brother had already done most of the work for me but since I was going to put a different cam in it we tore it down so that only the crank and pistons were still connected to the block. Before we pulled the motor we tested all the cylinders and we got solid pressure from all cylinders.
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Once out, we stripped it of the accessories since he would eventually need those once he gets around to sourcing and building his own engine.
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The cam I decided to go with is the Comp Cams 12-206-2. From what I could research it was the most aggressive cam I could put without having to upgrade the torque converter and without having to sacrifice too much vacuum. I wasn’t looking for something that was too radical nor something that I would have to be in a higher RPM range to notice. So this cam is a happy medium for me. The following are the specs from comp cams about this particular cam:
Intake/Exhaust Duration @ 050 inch lift -212
Intake valve lift w/ stock rocker arm ratio -0.440 inch
Exhaust valve lift w/ stock rocker arm ratio -0.440 inch
Lobe Separation -110 degrees
Along with the new cam, a new timing chain set and lifters were installed.
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Here’s a mock up of what it would eventually become. The 2 piece rear main seal was replaced, a high volume, standard pressure oil pump was installed, oil pan gasket was replaced with a one piece rubber fel pro one, freeze plugs were replaced, and pretty much every other gasket that isn’t the head gaskets were replaced with one from a summit kit.
I’m blessed to live so close to Summit Racing that I can drive there on a regular basis and get pretty much anything I need. They really have come in clutch during this entire build for pretty much everything. I decided to paint it chevy Orange to give it a classic look, but sorta got lazy with everything else lol
I have some Vortec heads I’m gonna install on them later once I can find an intake manifold that’s cheap so that’s why I skipped over painting the heads. The pan is painted black and the valve covers are from the corvette and I kept them black with the corvette emblems on them as a homage to where the motor came from.
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Here it is on the day we broke in the cam. The headers wouldn’t clear from the bottom since the engine stand sits real low so we flipped them and ran it that way. After a successful break in the engine sat for a couple of days until I could clean the engine bay on the truck.
Overall from what I had learned on the V6 motor this time it was much easier to get the motor to turn over and to get it in time. It was definitely an experience to swap the cams and to clean all the parts. Honesty half of this build is cleaning parts, Bottles of brakes parts cleaner and degreaser have gone into making sure the motor that went into the truck is in as good of shape as a motor can be.
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Next the search to buy headers was on. I opted for some shorty headers. here they are once I had stripped them of their original paint, painted them with ceramic high temp header paint, and wrapped them to keep the inside of the engine bay cool and to keep down the heat since these run really close to both the fuel lines and the transmission fluid lines. This was my first time wrapping headers and it was definitely a good experience. I’m very happy with how they turned out and the difference in engine bay temp is night and day. The headers are Flowtech Brand that cost ~180 and the wrap is from amazon. I saved ~35 dollars buying the wrap online versus at summit or at a local auto parts.
As my neighbors know, having open headers is ridiculously loud, especially when you’re still in the midst of tuning the engine and getting the transmission to shift properly. So soon after the engine was installed I took it to the local muffler shop and had them install my exhaust system. I’m assuming when most guys take their cars or trucks to have a full exhaust put on they opt to get something loud like Flowmaster 40s put on, so when I told the guy I want it “quiet” he looked sorta confused. They put on some Flowmaster FX mufflers and I’m content with the noise level. There is some drone inside the cab but it’s not really bad once you gas it. The exhaust is dumped before the axle, I had it done this way for maintenance reasons, so if and when I have to drop the exhaust I can do so without much fuss and headache.
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Going from a V6 to the 5.7, cooling needed to be stepped up. So I went out and bought the radiator that the 5.7 trucks came with and got this fan set up from a Z28 Camaro. Those come with the same size radiator so this fit exactly to the radiator I had bought. It keeps the engine at a nice 170 degrees and not a smidge above. These are wired through a relay and are wired to a switch that’s connected to the head on the passenger side so they cut on once the motor reaches operating temp.
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