Found the missing needle bearings.....
 

from the factory rocker arm that failed.....this is good news....29 needle bearings cam out the drain plug, 1 was in the head and the remaining 3 were down in the lifter cups(?).....so luckily it appears as though no damage took place other than the failed rocker arm.....I checked the pick-up screen and the needles don't fit through the screen, so there is no way they could have cycled throught the oil pump or the oil cooler. Now I just have to put it all back together....

Questions

Whose head gaskets? Felpro, GM, Cometic or ?????

Is the oil pan gasket reusable, it appears so??

No intake gasket, just the O-rings around each runner, clean and reuse???

New Head bolts, GM or ARP????

Any other maintenance that I should do with the motor out??? Water pump, Oil pump...

I am pumped up to get this thing back together, for awhile there I pretty bummed out....now all is well.

Chris:-D

I always use Felpro.
Yes oil pan gasket is reusable
Dont know about that one.
If old ones are fine, use them
Since its out, Heads, Cam, Intake.........

In most cases dont listen to koll...this is one of them

As far as head gaskets it depends on if you need something reuseable(ie your going to be pulling the heads more then just now)

Oil pan gasket I have no clue if its reuseable or not.

Stock head bolts are tq to yield meaning DO NOT REUSE...again it depends on if you want something reusable & if your getting heads...i think people were having problems when using arp's & afr heads other then that the arp's seem to be the way to go.

He's already got a mild emissions friendly cam, ls6 itake, stock heads...they only thing i wouldve recommended is maybe putting in a new cam &/or new springs if the ones on there have been there a while.

To add to what foff667 stated.

All are good, Cometic Gaskets are handle allot of compression ( boost + Nitris) and are reusable, but Cometic gaskets require specific surface finish (smoother finish then stock) on both the block and heads in order to seal properly. If you want to use then the block and heads will need to go to a machine shop.

I kniow you are not to reuse the head bolts on an LS1 engine, Don't know about the gaskets. E-mail PAGREGGSS, He's the person I use for all my LS1 questions.

the intake, exhaust manifold, & 99+ waterpump gaskets are all reuseable head gaskets are not other then the cometics

Thanks for the info....I think I'm gonna stay with the felpro's that's what was on the car and they worked fine, and I really don't want to sink any money into this short block. I would rather step up the cubes and go to an LS-2 with an aftermarket set of heads....So right now I just want to get this bad boy back on the road. Looks like Felpro's and ARP is where I'm headed.

While the heads are off I'm gonna have the springs checked and my buddy put one on the flow bench for curiosity, they supposedly have Stage 2 porting done, but I don't know who did the port work, maybe Cartek, but I'm not sure...

I'll post my findings...

Chris

Chris

now that i think of it I think they are an older set of cartek heads on your car...talk to scott but im pretty sure he bought them used from phil?

ya know what, they are. I just checked his website and on the back of the heads, they say PHIL.....so that's probably who did the head work, Cartek...I'm very curious of the flow sheet....

Chris

yeah phil/miriah tried getting me to buy the heads like 2 years ago when I was in the market for them lol

glad you found all of them suckers. yeah they are older design cartek heads.
springs should be fine but won't hurt to check 'em.
i would install ARP rod bolts; common for stockers to fail if worked hard. peace of mind and easy install.