Irish's pickup from hell, the 454SS.

[Rough Country]

thats one sweet engine build

 

[Irishman999]

thats one sweet engine build

THanks man, crossing my fingers that I did everything right. I have a ton of work into this thing.

 

[Irishman999]

My buddy brought this over, took it around the block! Pretty sweet ride, it had a big block and was fun as **** to drive.

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[Irishman999]

Thats my buddy who is also my mechanic at work. Just a couple days ago he was chasing a short in my work lights wiring and today he's working on the SS with me.

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[bluex]

That engine sure looks pretty in there....

 

[RetroC10Sport]

Put some miniquads in it and freak people out by telling them it's a 1989 prototype.

 

[Irishman999]

Put some miniquads in it and freak people out by telling them it's a 1989 prototype.

That would be hilarious, maybe get those inverted color stickers the trucks from mexico got and leave the interior blue.

 

[HotRodPC]

 

[RetroC10Sport]

That would be hilarious, maybe get those inverted color stickers the trucks from mexico got and leave the interior blue.

You maaaaadddddmaaaaaaannnnnn!

 

[Old77]

I assumed with the recent developments that this build was on hold. Good to see that motor back in the engine bay

 

[Irishman999]

Son of a bitch!

Second to last thing preventing me from my big block running is ordering push rods. Before I can do that I need to figure out what length push rods it needs. So far I have ordered two push rod checkers that were the wrong size, finally just broke down and got the comp cams master kit. Had to order another roller lifter so I can make a dummy lifter and thats where it all went wrong.....

I took the lifter apart and gobbed as much epoxy in as possible thinking the extra would just ooze out of the weep hole and I could get the plunger glued where its supposed to be. Instead, thanks to hydraulics it got stuck with the plunger sticking out about 1/4. The whole thing was burning hot from epoxy and I knew I was in trouble. Im not a quitter and have a few tricks up my sleeve so I dropped the whole thing in a cup of laquer thinner over night hoping the next morning the plunger would just come out with pliers. Epoxy is serious ****, it did turn some of the epoxy into a jelly like stuff but the plunger was still stuck.

I got my propane torch and thats when **** got real serious. Whole thing got red hot, finally got the plunger out. Direct flame seems to be the only **** to battle epoxy with. Where things went really wrong is when I went to put the plunger back in and nothing fits. I am hours into this project at this point so im not giving up. I finally ended up working the plunger over with roto disk on my little die grinder to get it to fit back in the lifter. Once it was back together I set the .050 pre load by stacking feeler gauges and just epoxied the top of the plunger to the lifter assembly without any epoxy inside the lifter itself.

Whats next? Well after seeing what some heat did to these parts and how everthing fit together afterwords I suspect the lifter will not drop into the engines lifter bore because its all warped and ****** up. My fingers are all burnt to ****, I have spent several hours of my time as well as money just so I can have a lifter that has a plunger that does not move. What was learned from the experience is I should have ignored the internet advice about epoxy and followed dave vizards method and filled the lifter full of washers for my desired pre load. Had I done that I could have just dropped the lifter in the bore without worrying about it screwing anything up.

I swear, this has been the biggest pain in the ass, I probably could have just dropped the lifter off at my machine shop and had him use his mill to solve this whole thing for 20 bucks. Instead I have burnt fingers and wasted a bunch of time. Who knows if this thing will ever run.....

 

[89Suburban]

Hang in there man

 

[Irishman999]

Not much is left except pain in the ass projects. If my dummy lifter fits right I am golden and can seal up the intake manifold and figure out something with intake manifold fasteners. If my suspicions are right the lifter wont fit in the bore and I will have to rob one out of the engine and order a replacement online along with the push rods I will wait for. On another note, if I use washers the lifter wont be damaged, I could just take it apart and replace the washers with the spring and use it!

Break in oil is another gray area, oil for this thing period is a grey area. I am stuck on conventional oil, I dont feel like running full synthetic would be a good idea in this engine. I found break in oil offered by lucas but its a straight weight race only oil so im not using that ****! Thinking I will most likely break it in using conventional stuff with Lucas oil additive until everything is scrubbed together good and switch to some full synthetic lucas 10-30 after the first month or so of run time.

Fuel lines are the next issue, I took the tbi off in the dark and ruined one of the hard lines. Wrecking yards around here dont exist, the one we have is a joke so that option is out. This is an easy one, stainless braided lines with AN fittings. Sounds easy enough but I am sure it will turn into a pain in the ass with stuff not fitting right.

Its all the little details about this project that keep me up at night, at this point if this thing fails I will have a ton of egg on my face and a very pissed off wife. Several dudes I work with ask me about it on a regular basis, all it takes for me to look like a huge ******* is one small detail I missed and a big block is full of them.

The engine came without an oil filter adapter, there was no sandwich adapter with cooler line fitting either. Gen VI blocks have provisions built in for oil cooler lines, mine have plugs in them so it appears the engine was not running an oil cooler unless it was a sandwich adapter which is kinda stupid considering you could remove a couple plugs and run pre bent factory lines. This problem matters, if I am wrong the oil filter problem oil will be bypassing the filter completely and all the little particles of aluminum bearing and cast iron chunks will flow through everything. Engines running an oil cooler system have different check valves to compensate for resistance caused by oil running through hoses and a cooler. For now I am not running a cooler because I am not sure which one I want.

This whole project is keeping me up at night, just want it done.

 

[HotRodPC]

Not much is left except pain in the ass projects. If my dummy lifter fits right I am golden and can seal up the intake manifold and figure out something with intake manifold fasteners. If my suspicions are right the lifter wont fit in the bore and I will have to rob one out of the engine and order a replacement online along with the push rods I will wait for. On another note, if I use washers the lifter wont be damaged, I could just take it apart and replace the washers with the spring and use it!

Break in oil is another gray area, oil for this thing period is a grey area. I am stuck on conventional oil, I dont feel like running full synthetic would be a good idea in this engine. I found break in oil offered by lucas but its a straight weight race only oil so im not using that ****! Thinking I will most likely break it in using conventional stuff with Lucas oil additive until everything is scrubbed together good and switch to some full synthetic lucas 10-30 after the first month or so of run time.

Fuel lines are the next issue, I took the tbi off in the dark and ruined one of the hard lines. Wrecking yards around here dont exist, the one we have is a joke so that option is out. This is an easy one, stainless braided lines with AN fittings. Sounds easy enough but I am sure it will turn into a pain in the ass with stuff not fitting right.

Its all the little details about this project that keep me up at night, at this point if this thing fails I will have a ton of egg on my face and a very pissed off wife. Several dudes I work with ask me about it on a regular basis, all it takes for me to look like a huge ******* is one small detail I missed and a big block is full of them.

The engine came without an oil filter adapter, there was no sandwich adapter with cooler line fitting either. Gen VI blocks have provisions built in for oil cooler lines, mine have plugs in them so it appears the engine was not running an oil cooler unless it was a sandwich adapter which is kinda stupid considering you could remove a couple plugs and run pre bent factory lines. This problem matters, if I am wrong the oil filter problem oil will be bypassing the filter completely and all the little particles of aluminum bearing and cast iron chunks will flow through everything. Engines running an oil cooler system have different check valves to compensate for resistance caused by oil running through hoses and a cooler. For now I am not running a cooler because I am not sure which one I want.

This whole project is keeping me up at night, just want it done.

Sounds like a bunch of ******** to figure out which push rods you need. Have you looked over any information included with your cam or the roller rockers as far as a suggestion on what size push rods to get??? There is also such thing as adjustable push rods for BBC IIRC.

 

[Irishman999]

Sounds like a bunch of ******** to figure out which push rods you need. Have you looked over any information included with your cam or the roller rockers as far as a suggestion on what size push rods to get??? There is also such thing as adjustable push rods for BBC IIRC.

I read all included instructions with my cam and lifter kit, it did mention if you use the stock non adjustable rockers you need to mark the stock length pushrods and measure how far they travel. I was about to just run stuck stuff until someone mentioned that with a different cam than stock it could cause problems with non adjustable rockers. Simple enough, just got a retrofit stud kit from comp cams to make everything adjustable. All this combined means I just need custom length push rods. As far as adjustable push rods, never herd of them, I have push rod checkers that look like pushrods that thread in and out to make them longer or shorter.

Just about everything I predicted that would go wrong today did, like clockwork. Everything was going smoothly, was actually doing the length checking process when I noticed the lifter was doing weird stuff. I pulled it apart and noticed the plunger had broken free of the epoxy. This was after massaging the outside of the lifter so it would fit in the bore again as predicted. I got creative and decided I would just drill a hole in the side of the lifter and fill the body full of epoxy below the plunger. Dont ever think you will just drill through a lifter, I had my snap on drill bit that is brand new soaked in engine oil and barely put a little dimple in the lifter body after a good attempt at drilling through it.

Resorted to the backup plan and robbed a lifter out of my complete set just to notice they are slightly different, same lifter just a couple differences and that makes me nervous. Got the new one all epoxy glued together and said **** it, nap time. Now I am going back to work for 4 days followed by a trip to my home land to visit a family law lawyer so who knows when I will have a free day again to do this and get some push rods ordered.

This so far is the worse part of this engine assembly, I have learned a ton from this though. Epoxy is a mother ******, sets up very fast and you better have an immediate plan of what you are using it for as well as a back up plan.