'89 Stepside "Way Cool Jr."

[HeavyAsAChevy]

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I spy with my little eye a Firebird?

 

[Erik the Awful]

Congratulations, Erik! What's the story on that sweet 2 door?

I don't know the guy who owns it, but he's another maintainer. It appeared to be a very straight and clean, mostly stock Vortec Blazer.

I spy with my little eye a Firebird?

Yup. It was very clean and nice as well. I don't recall who owns it.

The two Advanced design pickups were incredibly clean and detailed, both with LS swaps. The '67 Camaro parked next to WCJr belongs to one of my Chiefs, and he's owned it about as long as I've had my truck. It's very well done, and he says the next step is to go into the motor and refresh it. As it was it sounded plenty nasty. I teased him a bit and said it sounded like it was misfiring.

I think Way Cool Jr was probably the ugliest vehicle on show, but I probably have as much sweat equity and far less money than any other vehicle there. I got "best interior", which I think was more "best with the least". Several of the other vehicles had insanely beautiful interiors, but mine's pieced together from ten other trucks and featured the heated, leather Cadillac seats on my custom frames. Excepting the $120 stereo, I have probably $150 in the interior, and that's mostly spent on Duplicolor vinyl paint. The best part was when I pulled up, parked it, and immediately two young troops came over and said, "You have to tell us about this truck. I sounds awesome!" Yeah, a big cam and good exhaust will do that. There were nine cars total in the show, but the others were so beautiful I felt like I'd worn sneakers to a formal dinner.

 

[Erik the Awful]

Since I'm planning on plucking the motor from WCJr to put in Roscoe, I've been looking for another roller-cam ready, 1-piece rear main seal, 4-bolt main block. In searching, I picked up another engine tonight. It was advertised locally on the faceplace marketbook. In the pics I saw the mounts for roller cam hardware, and it was listed for $200.

A local 19 year old bought a '72 Chevy C10 that needed a motor, and then bought a used 350 with the intention of tearing it down, rebuilding it, and putting it in the C10. He pulled the heads off, got busy, and it rained on the motor. Then he looked at the C10's frame and realized the body was on a different chassis. He gave up at that point.

I looked at the back of the motor, and it has a 1-piece rear main. I asked if I could pull the pan and he agreed. 2-bolt mains. Ugh. I told my wife I was looking for a 4-bolt block, and money's a bit tight right now, so I really didn't want to come home with a block I didn't intend to use. The bottom of the motor had a couple gallons of water in it, but it also had plenty of oil, and nothing in the bottom is rusted yet. The upshot is that the engine came with a whole lot of other goodies.

The heads have casting number 14096217, which outintheshop lists as '90-up 1.94/1.50 64cc crate motor heads, which tracks since he was told it had been a crate engine.
The intake is a stock GM Quadrajet manifold, and it comes with a Quadrajet.
It has a direct-drive starter, but I can throw that on my cheap vintage-style 350 rebuild and use the gear reduction starter that's on that.
It also came with a Mallory Marine YH points distributor in beautiful condition.
Supposedly it also has a performance flat-tappet cam.

Altogether, it appears some old-school hot rodder took a mid-'90s GM crate motor and put a bunch of old school parts on it. We agreed on $150. He and his dad were cool to deal with, helped load it with the Auto-Crane on the back of his dad's truck, and come to find out they were neighbors of one of the retired Chiefs I used to work with.

Now I'm wondering how much it would cost to have it modified to accept aftermarket 4-bolt main caps... Anybody have any experience with that?

Edit:
Doh! I was just looking at the funky fuel filter setup mounted right below the big aftermarket mechanical fuel pump, and the weird line tapped into the oil pan, and then I was looking at the overly complicated flexplate and it dawned on me, this thing's a boat motor! This will be interesting.

 

[Erik the Awful]

The block. It will probably clean up with a hone, but if I get it modded for 4-bolt mains, I'll get it bored.

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I researched the 14096217 heads and they're apparently a later crate-motor-only version of the L98 heads. What I'm reading is that they're thinner castings and don't take much more than clean-up porting. Anybody know any more? I will take the time to at least clean up the combustion chambers and ports

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The motor came with all the accoutrements including a v-belt accessory drive.

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It also has some interesting boat parts. A Mallory points distributor, a spark arrestor air cleaner with a Coast Guard approval number, a funky flexplate, and a big water separator/fuel filter/fuel pump assembly. That dipstick tube in the top pic wraps around up under the oil pan and plugs into the drain plug hole. Interesting. I know next to nothing about boat motors, other than the cooling system usually uses lake water.

 

[Erik the Awful]

I can't find any markings on the cam, but it's a flat tappet cam and measures out to .399/.414" lift with a 1.5 ratio, which is pretty close to the '87 L98 specs. I'd say it''s weaksauce, but the factory TBI cam is even tamer.

 

[AnthonyS]

I just finished this entire thread. It took a few days, but this truck is on quite a journey. Keep up the updates!

 

[HotrodZ06]

What pull a part yard do you use? I can't seem to find any close to me.

 

[Erik the Awful]

Pull-A-Part OKC. It's an independent yard, not a part of the Pull-A-Part chain. I've chatted with the owner a bit, and he's trying to sell the yard so he can reopen elsewhere - it's currently in "the projects". He had it almost sold to developers who were going to turn it into apartments, but there's only one road in for emergency vehicles, so the city council nixed it. Hence, he sells parts far cheaper than the LKQ yard on the west side of town, and the yard is slowly getting a little more sparse.

 

[HotrodZ06]

I'll have to check it out seems to be the closest to me. Thanks for the info.

 

[Erik the Awful]

I haven't made any more progress with the $150 350 lately. It needs to go to the machine shop and I'm getting hit with $3000 in expenses this week. Right now the block is being used as a modeling buck for the mocking up the motor mounts in Roscoe. Hopefully I can get it in the machine shop next month.

I've been driving WCJr while my wife drives my Mustang, my daughter drives my wife's 300, and my daughter's Focus is in the shop. I have a pile of parts for the truck, and once I get the Mustang back I need to focus on getting a series of fixes and upgrades done. I did replace the taillight I broke last week because I don't like getting pulled over unnecessarily. On the plus side, I've discovered that if I keep the throttle below 20% it gets great gas mileage. Dip into the 30-50% range at every stop sign and it gets about 8 mpg.

Alternator - the current one charges great, but squeaks loudly.
O2 sensor - the Holley wideband suddenly quit working and the Sniper thinks it's unplugged. I checked the cable and it's fine and well away from the exhaust.
Power steering pump and rebuilt power steering box need installed - the current box leaks and the pump I rebuilt started growling.
Exhaust collector bolts on the passenger side are missing. The high-temp RTV I used to seal the joint is still holding, but I need to get some bolts and lock nuts in there.
Driver's door armrest is flopping. I need to epoxy a tab onto it so the clip will hold it in place.
Glove box door also flops. I need to epoxy a small washer into the lower right corner.
Door locks are gummy and difficult to work. The power actuators aren't strong enough to lock and unlock them. I need to clean them.
Steering wheel is offset a little to the right. Once the steering is tight I need to adjust the steering straighter.
Carpet needs another respray of paint.
Underhood box is fitting a little crooked, and I'm afraid if I don't fix it soon the box will crack.
Dipstick - I had to tweak it to fit around the header and the dipstick doesn't go in and out smoothly
Transmission shift lever - I need to secure it to the shift arm on the transmission. It's just flopping in the hole right now.

There's also a fairly significant oil leak on the front of the motor somewhere. I've poked around, but can't find it. It doesn't appear to be the crank seal. It might be the timing cover or the intake manifold.

Finally, the transmission is starting to slip more. I'd really like to get Roscoe running before I start swapping transmissions around. I'd guesstimate a 40% chance that my rebuilt 700R4 works on first install, and I really need the truck to stay running. I'm considering just dropping a quart of Type F into it.