Well, I would have loved to have gotten more shit done, but I’m happy that I at least got to work on it and get some progress.

My friend came by and put my crank pulley on and showed me the proper way to install the rockers.  During the week I had been scrubbing the crap out of the motor, and you can see that in one pictures.

I also had the misfortune of discovering that my transmission bell housing had some damage on it I was unaware of when I bought it.  Apparently the pressure plate had exploded in it and put a hole in the side of the bell housing.  To top it all off, a piece of it was broken off the bottom as well.  I took it to the local LS1 place, VA Speed.  They have an excellent welder who welded this tin can of a bell housing back together and cleaned up the hole from the pressure plate explosion.  I am probably going to just put duct tape over it or something, the metal was too thin there to be welded and they said it will not matter.

I also pulled the fender on the other side of my car (where the bondo is).  It pulled like crap so hopefully  it is pulled out enough and it’ll just get cleaned up when it gets painted.

I also forgot to include my two surgery photos from when I trimmed the block for the LS6 PCV conversion on the last post.

I have wanted to do a paisley print door panel insert for a while now.  I’ve had the fabric and backing sitting in my room for a few months now and decided I wanted to get creative tonight rather then just mindlessly cut and bolt things.

It took about an hour and a half to do this one panel (and cut out both sides of fabric).  I’ve never done this before and I was surprised at how well the whole process went – I had some help from my roommate’s girlfriend.  I had to use a wire brush to get most of the yellow foam off of the door panel, and I used the original fabric to trace the outline on the new stuff.  There was a tad too much fabric in a few areas but it all fit down into the crease of the door panel for the most part.  Once it dries completely I will see if I can shove it down some more in a few areas.

The best part is there was NO BUNCHING AT ALL!  I took some pictures up close to show that off, haha.

Sorry for the lack of updates.  I went out to California to visit my sister and have been pretty slammed at work.  I went out last week and bought a die grinder, a cutting wheel conversion, 3″ cutting wheels, some quick releases, and some air hose so I could finally use the air compressor I got from my friend.

This allowed me to tackle the task of cutting off the piece of the block that impinged the oil separator on the LS6 valley cover.  I took a picture to show what the cut did.  I think the pictures speak for themselves.

Replaced the cam bearings, installed the cam, cleaned the heads and block, installed valve springs/retainers, reinstalled the lifters, LS4 oil pump, and timing chain.  It took a few days after work to accomplish this, hopefully it’ll be all together after this weekend.

I took a few pictures to show the difference between the stock valve springs and new ones, they’re MUCH beefier and even taller.  I also took some pictures to show the difference between the LS2 chain and LS1 one.  I scraped the heads and block down then did the rest by hand with scotch bright.  You can see how bad the block was in the picture of the cam being installed.  I can’t wait to get this thing running!

I finally got all of my parts in the mail, got moved in, and stopped rolling people’s fenders on my time off.

A good friend of mine who is much more familiar with these motors is helping me out quite a bit with this – and I definitely couldn’t have done this with out him.

I loaded up my accord with all of the motor parts and the engine stand (I should have taken a picture, it was nearly tucking tire out back, haha) and headed over to my friends garage so it would be easier for him to work on it.

I am replacing the main and rod bearings (clevite), the main and rod bolts (with ARP janks), putting a Lutani 224/224 cam in, dual valve springs, hot trick hardened push rods, stock valves rockers and lifters, LS6 valley cover with LS6 intake manifold, 5.3L 703 heads, and an LS4 oil pump (plus basic gaskets and what not).  I am going to install the valley cover at my place after we get the motor together w/ the heads on and what not.

I laid everything out so I could get a picture of it all before it got put together, by the time I did that he had removed most of the crap on the motor – I couldn’t believe how fast he is, it took maybe 5-10 mins for him to tear the motor down and take the old bearings out.  The old bearings and the whole interior of the motor was in very good condition, my friend kept commenting on how good it all looked.  I attempted to take a photo of how good the cylinder walls looked (it took 6 shots and a flashlight to get it!).  Enjoy the photos below – we had to stop because he needed to borrow a cam bearing removal tool and I have to pick some new cam bearings up!  Luckily I should be able to get that taken care of tomorrow, so I will HOPEFULLY have another update tomorrow.

My buddy Raz tooling around in his FC…

Picked up this Tw0 Hearted Ale mini-keg yesterday.  It’s awesome, and 1.32 gallons!!!

I’m going to need it to get me through the wiring I have to go through, haha.

I wanted to see what if I could fit my wheels at nearly 0 camber so I decided I could get a decent measurement with the free level app on my iPod, haha.

Before I did anything:

The camber reading:

Jacked up:

That camber reading:

During the process:

Camber reading in the air after adjustment:

On the ground:

It hits in one small area so I am going to pull it out a hair more, and double check my camber on the ground – I think it can come out a little more.  I’d love to go a little lower, but I am not sure I will be able to get the front low enough to not have reverse rake.  I’ll fine tune all of that when its running, haha.

My friend Raz’s S14 came to life tonight.  He sent me a cell phone video—so the quality sucks—but you can hear the 272 cams pretty clearly, haha.

Oh yeah check out his completely tucked engine bay too – everything is in there!

Raz’s S14

Maybe I’ll be lucky enough for them to show up on my door step.