73 Camaro "Black Pearl"

[WSex]

update?

[WSex]

Update?

[PolarBear]

No engine, no trans, sitting in the driveway. It may wind up with a stock 454/TH400 in the spring after I play musical chairs with the engines in the truck and the suburban and the 6.2 in the garage if I can get that running

**Posted from Minnesota**

[V]

i think a certain part from that 3rd gen needs to be bought by me , lol

[WildBillyT]

Originally Posted by PolarBear

No engine, no trans, sitting in the driveway. It may wind up with a stock 454/TH400 in the spring after I play musical chairs with the engines in the truck and the suburban and the 6.2 in the garage if I can get that running

**Posted from Minnesota**

Where is the 4.8/T56 now?

[PolarBear]

Originally Posted by V

i think a certain part from that 3rd gen needs to be bought by me , lol

Not sure what you mean, but if it is what I think it is then you already have one

Originally Posted by WildBillyT

Where is the 4.8/T56 now?

In the white/patina/burned car for exhaust mockup. It may go back in the Pearl, but right now the plan is to put the 4.8/T56 into the Yellow car, once I get the 69 Suburban completed. I have another/another T56 I can put in the pearl behind the 454 though.....

[V]

Originally Posted by PolarBear

Not sure what you mean, but if it is what I think it is then you already have one

I actually have two now lol but none in good enough shape yet ready for paint

[WildBillyT]

Originally Posted by PolarBear

Not sure what you mean, but if it is what I think it is then you already have one



In the white/patina/burned car for exhaust mockup. It may go back in the Pearl, but right now the plan is to put the 4.8/T56 into the Yellow car, once I get the 69 Suburban completed. I have another/another T56 I can put in the pearl behind the 454 though.....

What are you mocking up? Turbos?

[PolarBear]

I am pretty sure he is talking about a body panel

[WildBillyT]

I am aware of that, "notchbackgta"

I meant exhaust mockup?

[PolarBear]

Oh, nothing like that then. I am just going to make a stock routing exhaust for the 4.8 like the 3rd gen has, I got a Magnaflow Y pipe from CTW and I have to modify it to work with the F-body manifolds

[PolarBear]

Holy old thread Batman.
I picked up an aluminum 5.3 with 110,000 miles on it to put in the old black pearl. I got all new gaskets and have almost everything I need to put it back together and into the car. I got a little done on cleaning the engine up over the weekend. I pulled one head, chased all the threaded holes and put it in the parts washer to get all the old road grime off it. At any rate, I hope to get the car back together and running again in the next few weekends, so I can move it out of the driveway since I need the space to get work done on other projects. The only caveat is that I need to make sure that my "aftermarket" T56 will work with the LS engine, since I am not sure whether the crack sticks out farther/closer from the back of the block than does a SBC/BBC, otherwise this will have been (somewhat) in vain, since I don't have the money to rebuild my production T56. Yeah, so what? I have 2 T56s sitting around

Also had some good news and bad news within a few minutes of each other. I got the OK from my body guy to start working on the car, but then a few minutes later he told me I shouldn't bother doing the car unless I clean out the garage and can keep it in there so it doesn't go to pot sitting outside all the time. I guess I will have to give up my prime spot in line and let someone else get their car worked on

[Jersey Mike]

Or buy an enclosed shelterlogic canopy for it to protect it from going to hell

[PolarBear]

Why would I do that when I have a garage?

[sweetbmxrider]

Just prime over it before day's end

[PolarBear]

So, with my piles of parts lying around I am trying to use the same transmission I already had in the car at one point. It is the "aftermarket" T56, and I had it on the BBC with the 3rd gen bellhousing and hydraulics. Now that I will be putting in a LSx I needed to make sure everything will work together. I bolted up the bell and measured the spacing for the input shaft, and it will work with the large diameter roller bearing that mounts in the end of crank, where the snout for a torque converter would mount. The problem lies with the throwout bearing situation, the 2nd gen engine swap headers come down fairly close to the back of the side of the block. This is the area where the external slave for the 3rd gen would normally go, so that's not going to work.

I called Hanlon and spoke with Bob a few times about all this, and he is fairly sure that I will be able to use an aftermarket style hydraulic bearing. I gave him the measurements of the bearing retainer that came on my setup, and it looks good right now. I will have to mount up my flywheel and clutch setup and make sure I will have the proper clearance between the slave in the collapsed position and the fingers on the pressure plate. If I don't have quite enough space, Bob said he can machine down the bearing retainer I have to get me a little more room.
I cannot recommend Hanlon enough here. Bob is a great guy, and very knowledgeable on all things Tremec He was even somewhat familiar with the transmission, seeing as they were never offered in a production vehicle, he had still seen a few of them in his time. The nice thing about this transmission is that is a "close" ratio compared to the LS T56's, at least that is my understanding. 2.97, 2.07, 1.43, 1, .8, .62 is the spread, so it has a slightly lower first gear compared to the other.

Over the weekend I also got the garage cleaned up a bit more and a little more of the 5.3 cleaned up. I got a complete gasket set, and I got one head completely clean and all the valve seals replaced. I didn't realize though, that one head has a broken exhaust manifold bolt in it when I got it I saw two broken bolts, but they were broken flush with the manifold, so I had something to grab with the vice grips. One was easy and the other gave me a fight, but I didn't see the third bolt broken flush with the head. I can get it out, I just wasn't expecting to have to deal with more broke stuff. I'll try an easy out, gently, and then if that doesn't work I will break out the welder and weld a nut to it.

[PolarBear]

Measured the height of the PP fingers relative to the bell face and whatnot. I have about .23" of depth between the plate and the compressed height of the hydraulic bearing that Bob can sell me. Will call tomorrow and get it ordered so I can continue to make progress.

This weekend I will be wrenching on the Banana, I got almost the whole second bay cleaned out in the garage. Woot, I get to pull the transmission out

[WildBillyT]

Originally Posted by PolarBear

Measured the height of the PP fingers relative to the bell face and whatnot. I have about .23" of depth between the plate and the compressed height of the hydraulic bearing that Bob can sell me. Will call tomorrow and get it ordered so I can continue to make progress.

This weekend I will be wrenching on the Banana, I got almost the whole second bay cleaned out in the garage. Woot, I get to pull the transmission out

Project Chiquita?

[PolarBear]

Originally Posted by WildBillyT

Project Chiquita?

That's what someone at work said too, lol

[Mike]

White car gone?

[PolarBear]

Originally Posted by Mike

White car gone?

Oh, wait, you're serious? no, and it's really in the way, and taking a spot away from the Camaro. I did take a lot of the parts that were sitting on it, off this past weekend though

[PolarBear]

So I got the new throwout bearing for the 5 speed 3rd gen setup that will work for this combination. I will need to plumb it once I get everything in the car, should only need a short piece of hose from the master to the bellhousing and a few -3 fittings. I am going to hard plumb some stainless tube from the bearing to the edge of the bell, where the shift fork comes through and secure it to the bell with a clamp, so I don't have to worry about anything moving around inside there. I don't like the thought of putting hose all the way in there.

I have slowly been ordering parts and getting stuff done with the engine. Tonight I got the broken bolt out of the head, I just fired up the MIG and turned up the voltage and got that bi tch orange hot, then got a nut on it and it came right out. I have one head off and all scrubbed clean with new valve seals and now that I got out the bolt, I can pull the other off and get it cleaned up. BUT, I think I convinced myself to put a cam in the engine I was just going to put it back in as inexpensive as possible, but things keep snowballing. The more I was cleaning stuff the more I wanted more stainless bolts, so the ARP Stainless bolt kit is $$$, so I thought, why not a timing set, this one seems pretty loose. But then I thought, well why put in a new timing set if I am using the stock cam and springs. If I put a cam in it, I guess I should do a rocker trunnion upgrade, and an oil cooler..... and

So I have no chance of getting this all in the car by the end of the weekend now. Fortunately I keep jumping on little projects for the Suburban at the same time. I cleaned up some of the parts for that, and I am getting ready to bead blast them.

[PolarBear]

Well, I ordered a BTR stage 3 cam for the LS1 for the Camaro, instead of the 5.3. Along with a spring kit, and a rocker trunnion upgrade. Now I just need to send my heads to Thompson Motorsports for their CNC package on my 243 heads

[PolarBear]

The Pearl rides again

[IROCZman15]

cool.


so...
. . https://www.umimotorsportspark.com/kotm/





ready?!?!