lamune engine build (can engineer guy build a motor?)

FWIW when I parted my wreck, I took the fenders and radiator shroud off and pulled the engine, headers, and T-56 out in one piece, but then I wasn't putting the car back together either lol.

Maybe just removing the radiator and it's shroud, you can slide the whole shebang in one piece.

I couldn't see from the pics, but it was mentioned that motor mounts were put on.

What mounts did you use? Did you leave the lower piece in the car and replace just the upper half?

The lower half is almost impossible to get out without removing the lower suspension arms. If yours are a little worn, you can place the engine in, and shoot windshield adhesive in the open areas of the lower mounts You do not want to put the urethane in without the engine in place, because the mounts may not be in the right place for the bolts when the urethane sets up. If you put the engine in place with uncured urethane, it will move it around, and you may squish some out of the mount.

Sprocket I'd be inclined to pull the whole front clip off if I were to do this again. But then again there's a lot more stuff in the way in this car than say a 70 Chevelle. I have the A/C system completely out and the rad as well as the bumper. I should have plenty of working room to get it in, I hope.

I replaced the cheap Chinese ones I put in there with the much. much more expensive ACDelco Chinese ones. We'll see how these work out.

So to answer Booster and Fred - I changed the mounts that go on the frame. The first time I did that it was with the motor in the car and the suspension was still installed also. It's a piece of cake with the lower control arms out, but it can be done with them still installed. You just need swivel sockets, a bunch of different length extensions and a great deal of patience. There's a slot in the crossmember that gives you some access. A second person helping working topside with you underneath holding the other end fixed with a swivel socket would make it go way faster too. It's not impossible, and if I can manage to do it a competent mechanic with a really good complete set of tools could probably do it in minutes.

Taking notes the first time would probably have helped though. I got under there and I probably spent an hour or two trying to figure out how I managed to do it once before.

I did save the old ones though. I might urethane those for if I ever get around to building a second motor that has more serious torque.

lamune wrote:

Sprocket I'd be inclined to pull the whole front clip off if I were to do this again. But then again there's a lot more stuff in the way in this car than say a 70 Chevelle. I have the A/C system completely out and the rad as well as the bumper. I should have plenty of working room to get it in, I hope.

I replaced the cheap Chinese ones I put in there with the much. much more expensive ACDelco Chinese ones. We'll see how these work out.

So to answer Booster and Fred - I changed the mounts that go on the frame. The first time I did that it was with the motor in the car and the suspension was still installed also. It's a piece of cake with the lower control arms out, but it can be done with them still installed. You just need swivel sockets, a bunch of different length extensions and a great deal of patience. There's a slot in the crossmember that gives you some access. A second person helping working topside with you underneath holding the other end fixed with a swivel socket would make it go way faster too. It's not impossible, and if I can manage to do it a competent mechanic with a really good complete set of tools could probably do it in minutes.

Taking notes the first time would probably have helped though. I got under there and I probably spent an hour or two trying to figure out how I managed to do it once before.

I did save the old ones though. I might urethane those for if I ever get around to building a second motor that has more serious torque.

Thanks for the information. I am in the process of doing my entire drivetrain updates so engine and trans are out of the car, so I did pull the control arms and do the whole motor mount setup. I did get the urethane as I read a lot of places that the AC Delco mounts were no more reliable than the other Chinese ones and probably came from the same factory. The urethane ones totally fill the sheet metal upper section of the bolt in mount so can't "droop" like my OEM passenger side did. Engine was down nearly and inch on that side, it appears.

I do think there is a quick and easy thing you can do to the rubber mounts to reinforce them, though, now that I see them. The rubber is not bonded to anything like in many other mounts and only held by the recesses. They have a V shaped protrusion on each side which stays about 3/8-1/2" away from the top housing. I think a 1/2" thick piece of plastic or aluminum, with a bit of a groove the mate with the rubber V could be put on each side of the mount to stop the movement of the rubber out of place and limit travel under high loads. They probably could be driven in from the side if lubed up with some soapy water and would stay in place because of the closed ends on the ground out groove in them engaging the V of the rubber. When I did my mounts I took apart the old metal frames from the original mounts and used the bottom flat part as a bolt retainer. Welded the bolts to it and put the whole works up from inside the frame, arms out of course, and put a couple #10 flathead screws through it to hold it in place if the nuts are taken off. Never would need to ever take out the arms or go in underneath anymore.

I will be very interested to see how much vibration the urethane mounts transmit, as that is my only hesitation in using them. If I need to, I will just go in and drill some holes through them to soften them up a bit. It works well.

I have urethane mounts on my 454, and they transmit almost all of the vibrations to the body. My inside RV mirror shakes at idle. They do hold the engine nice an tight, so you do not get any abrasion on any of the wires or hoses.

Fred Kiehl wrote:

I have urethane mounts on my 454, and they transmit almost all of the vibrations to the body. My inside RV mirror shakes at idle. They do hold the engine nice an tight, so you do not get any abrasion on any of the wires or hoses.

How much cam you got in the 454?

Fred, heh, that sounds pretty dramatic. So much for "Dynaride"?

Looking at the AC Delco mounts next to the cheapo ones I got from Rock Auto - they look identical except the AC one had some minor cleanup work done at the ends of the metal bushing.

I like the idea of using the plate to hold bolts on from the other side!

The mount I put in did droop on the passenger side as well. Not a ton but definitely noticeable.

Tonight I got the motor off the cradle and onto the hoist.

i always put mtr in or out with the trans connected saves alot of cursing from under the car. i use flr jack to help trans get the correct angle. then put headers in. i dont know what you are using for header bolts. i love stage 8 bolts. i always lay them out on mtr before install. usually need to file the locking washer to fit the header tubes and always mark where they go if i remove them again. once they are tight they stay tight. Have you used that leveler before. i got one and tried to put motor in with it but it was hitting the cowl and preventing it from getting in. might change if i would have tried different bolt locations on the motor. your progress looks great

Yes, I had to ditch the leveler, but I didn't use intake manifold bolts either; I used the rear cylinder head holes as my lift points. I hope it works better for you than it did for me.

Thanks guys - so while lining this thing up it's clear that the grille is in the way. If I were to disconnect the gas struts on the hood, can you lift it higher without causing any damage to anything?

Yes - It can go ~vertical without damaging anything.

Thanks, that confirmation helps. John hopefully the leveler won't get in the way. I've got it chained to an intake manifold stud on the pass side which I think will clear the cowl.

So finally this happened yesterday. I now see the wisdom of removing/installing the engine and trans together.

If I recall the bracket that holds the wiring harness that goes behind the motor is held down with one of the top bellhousing bolts. Is that right?

I should make that question more clear. I looked in the FSM and can't find a routing diagram. What you're looking at is the driver side head, water steam pipe bolt visible. The harness that goes behind the motor seems to want to attach to the bellhousing bolt and stick straight up. I'm not sure if that's right, if the harness is supposed to lay flat on top of the trans case... but that's where it seems to want to be. I should have documented this way better.

Yes, it's secured to the top left bellhousing bolt.  It is easy to get to with the catalytic converters off.

On the '96 Impala I'm currently working on, I'm really wishing I had put the accessory bracket and especially AC compressor on before putting it in the car. The rear bracket has too much slop to just blindly tighten the bolts; I ended up putting two washers between the block and the bracket, then snugging all three bolts down.  If you don't, you'll end up bending the compressor quite a bit while it's just sitting there, causing a premature case leak.

Thanks Sherlock- I didn't want to get that wrong as I'm working from the back of the motor to the front. It just seems like it'll be easier to get all that stuff in the back done first while there's less stuff on the front and sides in the way.

Funny you mention the AC compressor. My plan there was to install the hose on the compressor, put the compressor on the bracket, and then install the bracket with it on it. Not sure if that'll work but that was what I was going to try.

So now I just need to remember if there was anything else that gets bolted to the back of that head except that one ground strap.

I used a Corvette oil pressure switch/gauge adapter thing (it's longer and has two holes) and I was quite happy to see that I could fit the sender for my VDO oil pressure gauge. So I can use that during break-in to monitor the pressure and then move the gauge inside when I'm ready.

Mystery solved I think. I had the wiring harness bracket that's supposed to on the back of the head along with the ground strap installed at the bellhousing where another wiring harness bracket was supposed to be. Got that straightened out and now the connectors and plugs are sitting where they're supposed to. I found an old ad on ls1lt1 forums for a pull-out motor and trans with some pictures of the back which showed me what I did wrong. (Aside from failing to document things which are hard to see from the front, of course) Now that's resolved I can go ahead.

I think I might have another one of those back-of-head brackets that came off the Police Caprice motor I got, just possibly adding to my confusion.

Here's a snip for reference



Edit: I'm still not sure what this thing came from. The orientation is different from the harness brackets on the back of the motor. Any ideas?

Just bolt the AC compressor in first, by itself.  Tighten all three front bolts, then get the rear bracket all set. I ended up loosening the rear bracket bolts, shifting the bracket so it was at end of travel if the compressor was being pulled on by the belt, then shimmed between the bracket and the engine block. Then I tightened all the bolts. Attaching the lines to the back is easy. (For reference, this was with the heater hoses, AC lines and alternator removed. What I describe is not possible with all of this installed.)

NOTE BEFORE YOU INSTALL THE AC COMPRESSOR - replacement AC compressors have a shallower stud hole for the hoses than stock. I had to cut about 3/32 off the end of the original stud to get it to fully seat on the new compressor. The lines will take some standoff but not much, otherwise you'll have a pressure leak that no amount of tightening will fix. Definitely fit this in BEFORE you install the compressor.  Thanks to sprocket for this tidbit.

Sherlock - thanks for the tip. I'll go test fit that stud and see if it bottoms out. Did you have the newer style rear bracket with the slotted hole? I think I did find one of those. That should make it easier to install. I'm not clear though on what you're shimming for, is that to adjust the position of the pulley?

On the '96 I'm currently working on, the bracket was NOT slotted - so I slotted it with my angle grinder.

The shimming is to ensure that once the front three bolts are on, the rear of the compressor doesn't get distorted, but is simply secured. I'm just now seeing most of your pics, and with the inner fender and stuff in place, you may have a tough time accessing those bolts on the back of the compressor.

Figured I'd share some pictures of the silicone heater hoses I put together. I've got them cut to size, need to figure out the brackets and mounting since they're much wider on the O.D. than the stock or 9C1 hoses are. In lieu of the heater core restrictor I have a filter in place, but I think might machine up a restrictor anyway. The 9C1 hose tee seems to have a restrictor built into it that I can use as a model.

Where's Nick been? I can hear him telling me how silly it is to waste so much time on something that provides no power gains.

Looks nice!

I,m still around,. reading about such silly fuckery as to change the frame side of engine mounts,.
it's a simple steel pedestal,. whyor how the hell would it wear out,..
Hey its your car,. your soup,. you add to it what ever you please,.a lot of the ocd stuff you,ve been doing is purely psychological comfort for you,. and then you don;t want to add stuff that would make a difference,.
It's not my build,.. I,d have added a used motor, 3.73's and a 2800 stall converter,. and just drove the car like i do with mine,. after 40,000 miles or so if its still running and you still have it,. you can pat yourself on the back and say "i did a good job"
What i think is entirely irrelevant,..

Carry on best of luck.

ps, i did forget to add,. just take a grinder and grind the heads off the frame mount pedestals,. use new bolts,.

phantom 309 - I'm going to guess that you're not an engineer...?

NICK!

I missed you! Thanks for the long awaited feedback but as you recall a wise man once said "Do what you want, you're gonna anyway" right?

Or as my buddy who's shop I've been using says: "we ain't building a piano here" which is correct except for the fact that, I guess I am building a piano.

Fix Until Broke wrote:

phantom 309 - I'm going to guess that you're not an engineer...?

please explain your comment better,. i'm not sure if you are insinuating something.

Nothing insinuated - just calling it like I see it.

You seem to be giving lamune a hard time about what and how he has chosen to do with his vehicle in comparison to what you would have done.

Engineers typically approach things differently than non-engineers which can generate comments like yours.

Fix until broke wrote:

Engineers typically approach things differently than non-engineers which can generate comments like yours.

Very true, and being one I understand why. When the project you are doing could waste many 10s of 1000s or dollars if it doesn't work or cause a multimillion dollar lawsuit, you quickly develop a liking for dong things more carefully and the best you can.

Think Boeing 737Max for a prime example. Likely cost and expedience taking precedence over best practices.

Fix Until Broke wrote:

Nothing insinuated - just calling it like I see it.

You seem to be giving lamune a hard time about what and how he has chosen to do with his vehicle in comparison to what you would have done.

Engineers typically approach things differently than non-engineers which can generate comments like yours.

i have dealt with "engineering" my whole life,.  I too call things as i see them,.  I am not an engineer,. i am a practical man with engineering skills,. Having an Engineering degree is very much like any other qualification in this world,.it doesn't necessarily mean you are a good one. A large percentage of the population has drivers licenses,.i don't come across many people that can drive very well either.

As i already stated my opinion is irrelevant in this matter,. you have decided to dwell on the irrelevant, much like an engineer would do,.
You seem to take umbridge with my comments, and your reply was definitely an insinuation,.
Having built various engines my whole life from simple street to all out out truck pull motors,.at one time did final assemblies for a high performance shop here in canada,. I have re and re'd so many engines and transmissions from all makes and models over the years i can't remember them all,.
I have a few friends that are engineers,. i value their theoretical inputs,. but in the practical world none of them shine. As for aircraft 'engineers'  lets not go down that worm hole,. There are so many safeties and redundancies built in and overlapping that the engineers are like doctors that don't really know how two differing medications are going to work together.
As for the stupid 'MaX' aircraft,. in a simple world without "over engineering" The pilots should have been able to shut down all the "nannies' and simply fly the aircraft manually instead of fighting the "engineering" designed to make it a better aircraft,.

"when you are up to your ass in alligators,. you sometimes lose sight of the goal, which was simply to drain the swamp"

Nice to see you have a cheering section LAmoon!

I actually agree with quite a bit of phantom 309's last post. Practical skills do count big in nearly all things in engineering. I am, now retired, a mechanical with manufacturing specialties my prime field. This means I spent 45 years working in places where I normally was given the task of production floor support, which entails dealing with everyone there from the design engineers, to QC dept, to the production schedulers, supervisors, production workers, etc and also often includes being the support for the maintenance and facility, plus all the process equipment and processes. Needless to say, I have probably seen more "not so good" engineers than most people and even more with very poor attitudes and demeanor toward other fields. We constantly dealt with actually building what other engineers designed and looked at as their perfect children. Ironically, some of the very best engineers at their jobs, usually design, have some of the worst people skills you will ever find. In my field on the shop floor, you better be able to get along and work with production crews because they know way more about the job than you do, including what works right and what doesn't. They are just short on resources and status to do anything about it, and that was my job to get that done for them.

I also went for the more "old school" if you could call it that, companies that tend to be smaller, less tech oriented in general except where needed to compete and less formal, so I also saw a lot of up through the ranks, non degreed, engineers there. Most were very good at what they did, but were limited to varied extents depending on the industry, by their lack of science training. A very good team is to have a gristled veteran non degreed engineer working with a degreed one that understood that the school parts are only a reference point for doing the things that need to done in the best way.

But, it still doesn't change any of my ideas about the need to do things carefully, as that is in my nature and reinforced many, many times over the years. Attention to minor details and innovations are what can make for winners and losers at the race track and in the very competitive world of manufacturing, IMO.

As a point of reference is that I always check the machining of blocks when I get them as well as heads and all the clearances. In the 40 years worth of engines I have built, I have had exactly one that came back with no machining errors, but all they did that time was bore, hone, and fit pistons to the block by cylinder. All others had errors that could be issues depending on the build. Tapered main bores, too much piston clearance, deck height off by .020 and/or tapered were just a few of them. I was not told of any of the errors by the shops, so they either didn't know or didn't care. Everybody makes mistakes, that is just human nature, so it is up us to catch them and take care of them, especially if they are our own errors.

Quote :

Nice to see you have a cheering section LAmoon!

Nick, that's pretty funny. Seems like your motivations and intentions are being misunderstood but hey a little support doesn't hurt I guess. I certainly appreciate it from the gang here. To be clear, I don't think Nick is attacking me here, nor that he ever has. If his commentary seems critical it's by far less critical than I am of my own work. Additionally I agree with his points, and in fact I stated pretty much what I thought he'd say about what I was doing... and I was pretty much spot on.

Everyone engaged in "automotive enthusiast" activities has their own set of priorities and parameters to do the things they want to do. Working on a daily driver you need to get to and from work is quite different than tinkering on your own project car for fun or as a hobby. A show car may be very different than a drag car, or something for a burnout contest, or maybe you want to be the first Buick Estate to win a drift competition in Japan... it's fine as long as what you're doing is fun to you.

No issues with Nick, his feedback is fun and often quite useful.

Earlier in this long discussion, while you were spending quality time  with your valve train and needed to remove the heads to do some things, that setup washer can make you life really easy in such cases.  I got my block back and got ready to do the port alignment setup and adjusting so the ports would be ground and the part locations index marked for final assembly later, so got the setup washers put on.  Harder for me because will be using ARP bolts, not studs, so nothing to hold the washers when putting on the heads.  To take care of that I just cut off 12 or original headbolts to use as washer holders and guide pins.  4 bolts in the middle holes bumped up barely snug to not bend the head.  Studs can't bend it as the nuts will be right above the washers so can use only 4 places. Washers are 12mmX1mm thick shim washers from McMaster so they right o .039 thick which is exactly the given compressed thickness for the Felpro gskt.

Looks really nice booster. I'm not sure what I was doing that we did something like that. I'll have to re-check. But we'd probably have done the same thing if I didn't have used the studs.

Thanks for the tips by the way, I got the A/C compressor and starter squared away. Clearly I'm going to spend days putting heat-shielding on wires once I get this straightened out.

I wanted to validate the starter gear engagement so I put 12v on the solenoid to engage it. It goes about 75% across the flex plate which is good, and I stuck a bent paperclip in the tooth mesh gap, and that was good. When I dropped the 12v the gear didn't completely retract. I'm not sure if that's expected.

Ok so the solenoid doesn't retract unless the motor is spinning. so apparently that was normal. I couldn't get the hose at the back of the a/c compressor installed as the discharge hose and the #4 header tube wanted to be in the same spacetime. It took quite a bit of bending of the discharge hose to get that to fit. Hopefully that won't end up leaking on me.

Making good progress now.

lamune wrote:

I should make that question more clear. I looked in the FSM and can't find a routing diagram. What you're looking at is the driver side head, water steam pipe bolt visible. The harness that goes behind the motor seems to want to attach to the bellhousing bolt and stick straight up. I'm not sure if that's right, if the harness is supposed to lay flat on top of the trans case... but that's where it seems to want to be. I should have documented this way better.

I am currently checking out option for the no longer available steam pipe seals. What did you wind up using?

Booster - a new steam pipe comes with the seals and bolts. That's what I ended up doing. There's also a guy in Florida who sells C4 reproduction parts and sells bolts and seals as well. I can't find his card at the moment but I'll let you know when I do. I also see some sellers on amazon and ebay selling repro bolts too.

Thanks, Lamune, I already have a pair of bolts and seals coming from ebay which I hope are good. It will be interesting to get his information once you find it it, as I would order a set of just in case gaskets. Engine is ready to go in, but need those seals, which won't be here until midweek.

Yesterday I got everything buttoned up and turned the key. The motor started right up! It runs really smooth compared to the old one and so far the telemetry from the PCM looks normal.

On the negative side, the head studs are leaking coolant pretty badly, which my buddy says not to freak out about yet- he's seen it before and usually stops after a few heat cycles in his experience. I also noticed coolant coming out of one of the water pump bolts. Both I sealed with the ARP thread sealer.

I also do see some oil seepage around the sandwich adapter, but other than that a few minor things here and there, it's running and sounds really good so far.

It's been a few weeks and I haven't had a lot of time to work on it, but I was able to swap out the head studs for bolts which stopped the coolant leakage and fix a few stupid mistakes I uncovered. Got everything reassembled yesterday and fired it back up and it runs.

But it runs exactly like it did before. Same roughness, same hesitations, same strange noises and and "sounds like it wants to die sometimes" things, so clearly those particular issues are related to something I didn't touch.

And oddly I think the strange noise from the front of the motor is coming from the distributor.

I wanted to share some data now that I've gotten datacat working.

The motor seems to be running well at leat by ear, but I'm new at looking at this data to interpret if it's actually ok or where there's a need for tweaking it. I did at least validate that my alternator has a problem.

Here's two runs from cold to operating temperature at idle. The second one was a first-start after disconnecting the battery.

DataCat data

Also I was able to verify this odd noise coming from the front of the engine, which I'm pretty sure is coming from the distributor.

not a clue on the noise but sure does sound weird!

I would use a long screwdriver as a mechanic's stethoscope to isolate the noise. Too much going on on the front of the motor. Push the tip against what you want to listen to, then rest your ear on the end of the handle.

Step 1: remove the serpentine belt and see if the noise goes away.
Step 2: drain the coolant and remove the water pump and start the car up. See if the noise goes away.
Step 3: replace ignition coil with a different one and see if the noise changes.

sherlock9c1 wrote:

I would use a long screwdriver as a mechanic's stethoscope to isolate the noise. Too much going on on the front of the motor. Push the tip against what you want to listen to, then rest your ear on the end of the handle.

Step 1: remove the serpentine belt and see if the noise goes away.
Step 2: drain the coolant and remove the water pump and start the car up. See if the noise goes away.
Step 3: replace ignition coil with a different one and see if the noise changes.

Yep, so I did that. The screwdriver trick didn't yield much results but using a piece of hose the noise appears louder from the distributor area. I can share some more data

1: I did remove the belt, the noise isn't from any of the accessories
2: I didn't try that. I'd have to do that hot which would make that more difficult
3: This is a replacement coil, so I don't think it's coming from there

This noise existed before I rebuilt the motor. The water pump is a replacement. The distributor is not. Behind the cover the timing set is new, including the water pump drive gear and its bearing. The only parts there that are the same as before are the distributor, the crank snout and damper.

To repro the noise, I have to let the car get up to operating temperature- it doesn't do it cold. Then rev the engine. The noise will appear as it spins down back to idle. Do that a few times and then it'll start randomly making that noise as I captured in the video. It's quite loud by the way.

Did you replace the crankshaft damper?

Booster - I replaced it before the rebuild, it's a NOS part. I think I do have another one on hand somewhere, I can give that a try.

Aha, the decelerate is a key. That's a time of super high vacuum. Are you sure the optispark vent harness is flowing properly? Unplug the optispark vacuum line on driver's side of the intake manifold and cover the port with your finger. Rev the motor. Did the sound go away? If so, check the vent line from the intake piping to the optispark and see if it's restricted. The checkvalve and the restrictor need to go on the vacuum side of the harness.

Sherlock, we have a winner. Well, a loser is me I guess. That was a great suggestion and the short answer is- the noise is 100% coming from the distributor. Here's more details:

I decided to test this by disconnecting the vacuum lines and hooking the distributor up to a hand vacuum pump. No matter how hard I tried though, when cold I could not reproduce the noise. At first that lead me to believe it wasn't the problem.

I hooked everything back up as normal and inserted a gauge in the line. It builds vacuum slowly and stays there. About 15 psi. Rev the motor and let it roll back down, about 25 psi. That seems like a lot to me, and more than I was pulling with the hand pump.

Once things warmed up though, a totally different story. I was able to get the noise to start with some rev cycles. Once the noise started, I used the hand pump and I could make it louder with more vacuum, and almost stop it by letting it go back to atmospheric pressure. However once the noise started, even disconnecting the lines entirely doesn't stop it.

At that point I did notice that the more vacuum I pulled, the worse the car ran, which makes sense as you increase the dielectric constant between the contacts by reducing the amount of air in there. I could suck it down to the point where it would stall.

Also once I had the noise going consistently, touching the front of the cap with a screwdriver let me feel the vibration directly- yeah it's that bad.

Sucking through the lines with the check valve not in the picture at all, air barely moves through the thing. I think one of the vents may be clogged. I have 3 or 4 other distributors on-hand and by comparison the others seem to flow air more freely.

So in summary, looks like this distributor always had a problem that made it hold too much vacuum, probably damaging the cap in the process. It may also be that I did something wrong when I rebuilt the vacuum lines too. Kinda sucks because this was a NOS unit, but really as we all know the only part in the thing that's worth anything is the optical sensor and that's probably still fine. I'll swap out the distributor and see what happens then.

Thanks again Sherlock for the tip