Before NSCA Nationals I took the car out was doing to some back road tuning. Everything was going peachy until one WOT blast and noticed oil smelling smoke coming into the cabin. Since I happened doing this road tuning in Richard Clark’s neck of the woods, I drove the car to his shop and things didn’t look to good. Valve cover breather was puffing smoke, took the oil dipstick out and it was puffing smoke. Oil looked good, but there was obviously a good amount of blowby happening. Did a quick compression test on the driver’s side and cylinders 1 & 3 showed 50, but 5 showed around 120. So thoughts were the head gasket went.
Decided to leave the carnage behind, go to the GSCA Nationals and have some fun and let the car sit and wait until I came back.
Sunday evening after the BG trip, started taking things off the motor, Monday we pulled the motor and transmission, Tuesday took the heads off and examined the gaskets. I was using felpro 1000 gaskets and at first glance they didn’t look blown, but there was a lot of scorching beyond the fire ring on cylinder 1 and a little around cylinder 3. Since the motor was out of the car and we weren’t convinced just replacing head gaskets was going to solve the problem, we decided to strip the remaining parts off the block. This isn’t the first time this block has been rebuilt (was rebuilt before I bought the car) , but the first time I have seem what’s inside the block.
So what’s inside???? Pistons1 & 3 were cracked on the lands. Pat (SloGN) was able to pull a nice 1” long clunk on #1 piston’s land, #3 was just cracked. Rod bearings on those two pistons were also showing wear. Cranks was in good shape, but was walking. The cam was in great shape, however it was a naturally aspirated V6 cam and not the original cam or a proper replacement. But let’s not stop at the engine, let’s move on to the transmission. Eagle eye Pat was checking out my transmission and it’s not the original transmission for the car. We believe it’s a Monte Carlo 2004r transmission, but we’ll find out more soon when we tear into it next.
So for the last few days I haven’t been all that happy. Yesterday we filed away my car amongst in one of Richard’s warehouses where he keeps a whole lot of other Turbo Regals. I have a small spot in his shop where my block, transmission and various other parts are being kept.
Thanks to my friends Pat (SloGN) and Vernon (Turbo1dr), I have a GT6152e turbo and a naturally aspirated 109 block is on its way. We’re going to clean up the block, bore it, girdle it and start my new stoker hot air engine and supporting transmission. With luck I’ll have it all finished for the spring 2011 season. Richard Clark told me to plan on living at his shop because it’s going to take a awhile to do this up right.
Hopefully some vendors will be running some hot deals during the holiday season so I can start my new collection of go fast parts. Going to buy a stroker kit, roller cam kit, roller rocker, new heads, FAST XFI, bearings, gaskets and misc supporting stuff.
Don’t really care if the car will break into the 10s, but I want a really strong 11 second car.
Decided to leave the carnage behind, go to the GSCA Nationals and have some fun and let the car sit and wait until I came back.
Sunday evening after the BG trip, started taking things off the motor, Monday we pulled the motor and transmission, Tuesday took the heads off and examined the gaskets. I was using felpro 1000 gaskets and at first glance they didn’t look blown, but there was a lot of scorching beyond the fire ring on cylinder 1 and a little around cylinder 3. Since the motor was out of the car and we weren’t convinced just replacing head gaskets was going to solve the problem, we decided to strip the remaining parts off the block. This isn’t the first time this block has been rebuilt (was rebuilt before I bought the car) , but the first time I have seem what’s inside the block.
So what’s inside???? Pistons1 & 3 were cracked on the lands. Pat (SloGN) was able to pull a nice 1” long clunk on #1 piston’s land, #3 was just cracked. Rod bearings on those two pistons were also showing wear. Cranks was in good shape, but was walking. The cam was in great shape, however it was a naturally aspirated V6 cam and not the original cam or a proper replacement. But let’s not stop at the engine, let’s move on to the transmission. Eagle eye Pat was checking out my transmission and it’s not the original transmission for the car. We believe it’s a Monte Carlo 2004r transmission, but we’ll find out more soon when we tear into it next.
So for the last few days I haven’t been all that happy. Yesterday we filed away my car amongst in one of Richard’s warehouses where he keeps a whole lot of other Turbo Regals. I have a small spot in his shop where my block, transmission and various other parts are being kept.
Thanks to my friends Pat (SloGN) and Vernon (Turbo1dr), I have a GT6152e turbo and a naturally aspirated 109 block is on its way. We’re going to clean up the block, bore it, girdle it and start my new stoker hot air engine and supporting transmission. With luck I’ll have it all finished for the spring 2011 season. Richard Clark told me to plan on living at his shop because it’s going to take a awhile to do this up right.
Hopefully some vendors will be running some hot deals during the holiday season so I can start my new collection of go fast parts. Going to buy a stroker kit, roller cam kit, roller rocker, new heads, FAST XFI, bearings, gaskets and misc supporting stuff.
Don’t really care if the car will break into the 10s, but I want a really strong 11 second car.
A.j.
