Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 5:04 pm
Last Sunday my son and I finally had some time to button up the engine in his 1979 Camaro Berlinetta. This is his very first car and bought it on his 16th birthday. Well that was 17 years ago. The car had been sitting since the NEOCC Fall Classic back in 2003 when the car substained some body damage while being towed inside an enclosed trailer to the show. My son was so ticked off about the accident he totally lost any interest in this car. We rebuilt the engine several years ago and installed new rings, bearings and swapped out the factory solid lifter camshaft that had a 106 lobe separation, 302 degrees duration and 5" of vacuum at idle for a much more streetable cam with more lift but less duration (284 degrees), 108 lobe separation and hydraulic lifters. This LS6 454 only has about 2.500 actual miles on it. When it came apart it only had a small spot of carbon on each piston top. It still had some nice cross hatch pattern in the cylinders. The engine went through 5 gallons of fuel for the 1/2 hour run time for breaking the cam in. The carb has a bad power valve so it causes the mixture to be rich. We will fix that later. Here are a couple videos of the engine and car. Click on the photo to see the video.
The engine was primed and we made sure again by turning it over with the distributor installed.
The engine running!
The engine was primed and we made sure again by turning it over with the distributor installed.
The engine running!