Finally after 3 years of sitting I got the bird in a garage and yanked the motor. Only had enough time to pull it so the teardown and diagnosis of the problem will have to wait a few days. I am guessing a spun bearing. Got a few pics for everybody.








While I have the engine out I plan to get the trans rebuilt or put the one I got from eeeeeefirebird. I also bought the 2.8 from him too. Heck of a guy. I also plan to clean the engine bay and make it nice. I was thinkin about painting it all black. Any other suggestions? Also while the engine is out and going to be rebuilt are there any moderately priced performance upgrades you would suggest?

 

well if its a bearing hopefully itll be a rod bearing so youll need new rods and probably some lighter forged pistons should be in order hopefully your mains are ok or else you will be swapping motors unless you want to bring to get line honed good luck

 

Well I got the motor completely down to the block yesterday. I found both head gaskets were blown with two of the cylinders looking a little rough, probably needing a .30 over bore. Then when the bottom end came out I found a spun main bearing, spun rod bearing, and one of the wrist pins is frozen. I had to use vise grips to pull the lifters out. So tonight I start pulling the spare motor apart and looking for good parts to use from it or maybe just use that block to start with.

The guy helping me said that a new cam and lifters would probably be a good idea and with everything else I have found anything performance wise I can find is going into this motor. Can I get some of you guys that have put performance parts into these engines to help me along with this build? I am thinking cam/lifters/rocker arms/timing chain/port and polish/headers. Am I missing anything?

 

What year is the donor motor? The early years (pre'86) had smaller main journals and you would be better off finding another donor.

If your keeping the stock tune you can get a 262 grind cam. For a re-ground cam and lifters, I paid about $100 from Delta. The last cam I bought was a brand new stick and was about $175 with lifter IIRC. 1.6 rockers are also a good choice.

 

Hmm, sounds like one of Dave's engine's LOL..... j/k

 

hey man the motor is just fine,the cooling ysstem on the other hand .............

 

The donor motor is out of an 85. I dont have a lot of money to be spending so a 3.4 is probably out of the picture

 

Finally got some pics of the original motor tore apart...... nice and pretty inside











I ripped the motor I bought from eeeeefirebird apart. It looks to be in good shape. So now its time to start looking for rebuild kits. The way prices are looking, the car may get a v8 before its all over

 

^ It is one of Dave's engine's.....

 

So is the Dave we speak of the same Dave that had the turbo thing going on? I looked at his profile on here but it looks as if he is inactive

 

He's still here, and turbo'ing harder than ever lol, he's member project89 above....

 

Got ya. Any of yalls have any reccomendations on go fast parts while I have the motor apart?

 

That motor looks so sick. Time for a lot of cleaning...

 

dude i have to post pics of my 200k engine it was spotless inside, the sludge is from not changing the oil regurally

 

Mine looked real good inside when opened it at 89k miles.

 

Well the guy that had this thing before me did not take care of it. He was the type to put it to the floor until he got to his destination. And his oil of choice was whatever was cheapest. You should see some of the other stuff he did to the car. Made it very interesting to fix this thing

 

cant find the others atm but t he top of the motor was just as clean,infact the motor is sittin as abackup engine right now,needed new rod/main bearings

 

Just got the trans back thursday. I figured while I had the engine out I may as well get the tranny done. Good thing I did as the guy doin the trans said I had about 3-4k before I lost 3rd gear. So while he was going through it I told him I wanted a nice shift. Cant wait to get it all back together and see what she does. Just have to clean the engine bay and find some time to get back in the garage to work on it.

 

Wow, that thing's looking a little crusty. Just dust it off a little.