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An IROC-less season

Engine rebuild

This was the first summer driving-season in 29 years that my 1988 IROC-Z (305/LB9, 5-speed manual) had not seen the roads.  What initially was to have been just a valve stem seal replacement morphed into pulling and rebuilding the engine.  So sit right back and read a tale, a tale of a frightfully long process.

For many years--actually since not more than a few years after I purchased the IROC in 1988--I would get a puff of smoke when starting the engine.  However, since I was not burning oil and never went much lower than 1pt. between my overly protective 1500mile oil-change interval, I thought nothing of it.  I did take the dust cover of the bell housing and found all bone dry: so it wasn't the 1pc. rms.  But it did get worse a few years later. 

The year (2012) that my wife and a friend "stole" my car and had it repainted (actually, it was to have been the year before, for my 50th), oil was starting to burn.  And to drip "significantly," meaning more than just a few drops over night.  Something like a tablespoon.  But I couldn't identify where it was leaking.  When my buddy drove the car back from the painter in September 2012, he told me that he had stopped over a friend's house on the way home to show off the car.  Well, it seems that the car relieved itself of a quart or more of oil on the new driveway!  After my wife, sons, and buddy marveled at how good the car looked, I pulled it into the garage.

There was no puddle on the driveway--only a drop or two.  I checked the oil and, sure enough, it was about a quart and a half low.  Hmm?   Looking around, I determined that it just HAD to be the oil pressure sender.  Of much colorful metaphors spontaneously spewing from my mouth, I got the danged thing off.  It looked ok.  Well, maybe just a bit oily.  Off to NAPA to get a new sender.

While for the next few years the car continued to burn oil, it never once took a leak.  But in the summer of 2016 I found out that the burning was a bit more troublesome than I thought.  No, not because it was approaching being down a quart at the 1500mile oil change mark.  But, because--with the T-tops off--I overheard a couple of guys on their Harleys (of all things) say that my car was "burning oil pretty bad."  It wasn't like a cloud, but it smelled.

At that point I decided that, before I brought the car out of storage in 2017, I would replace the valve stem seals.  (Of course, the hope was that it wasn't the rings at fault.)

With annual target date of 1 May to bring the car out of its annual hibernation, I set out to perform the "quick" valve stem seal replacement on 22 March 2017.  As I stood leaning over the fenders and pondering whether to push rope into the cylinders or to use compressed air to keep the push rods from dropping, I had a penultimate epiphany.  While going through the trouble of removing the valve covers and not really wanting to use rope or air, why not just get a proper valve job. Off came the heads.  Were that it only happened that quickly.  With the younger one having Crew, other family obligations, and Easter fast approaching, and the fact that the intake manifold had to come too, I didn't get the heads off until  April 22.  There went the 1 May target.

(Why so long, really?  Bolts, seized bolts--galvanic reaction over the course of 29 years.  Oh, and those damned Torx heads on the bolts!  Yeah, yeah, you can wax eloquent about how wonderful they are, how well they can be torqued, etc.  However, in the real world, were things seize, get dirty, and cannot always have the nuts-on perpendicular drive of an assembly line, those fargin' sneaky bastages are just begging to strip.  Harlots!

I removed the valves, slightly cleaned the heads, and finally got a chance to drop the heads off the first week of May at a shop in North Royalton, OH.  This was to be just a simple valve job.  I will not mention their name, but they sat on the heads for a week. When I called about the status, the secretary did not have any record of it. I went to pick up the heads and the owner (who originally helped me carry them in) asked why I was taking them.  He was visibly p.o.’ed at the secretary who had dropped the ball in getting the heads into the job queue.  He told me he could start on them first thing in the morning, but I told him that I would just rather take them elsewhere.  It was now mid-May.  And I now had a follow-up epiphany: since I'm porting the intake, plenum and runners (see below), why not just get larger valves installed and boost the performance a bit?

The heads ended off at Victory Engines  and were don 5 June 2017, which was a much better choice.  (Ray, his brother, and third partner are great guys.)  They had to heat press (?) new hardened seats for the larger intake (1.94") and exhaust (1.60") valves which I ordered from Summit Racing.  (Also ordered new valve springs, 1.6:1 rockers, and the Fel-pro valve stem seals.)  I got the heads home and prepped them for the GM Blue (not Corporate Blue) paint, and then assembled the heads.

Now, let's jump back a bit.  In the rare time that I had time to work on the car and while the heads were gone for the extended period of time, I attacked removing the gasket material that had become one with the block. I was about two-thirds complete when the unthinkable happened.  I had plugged the various galleys with dowels and cotton balls and, as I was scraping, one of the cotton balls began to slip-slide away down into the block.  I couldn’t grab it in time, and by the time needle nose pliers were in hand the cotton ball was in the block’s abyss.  (This was roughly mid-May and I did tell Ray, when I dropped the heads off, that I would be bringing the block in for work.  He wondered why I wouldn't just get a 350.  My only response was that I want to keep it a numbers matching car.)

I told my wife the engine was coming out. She said no it’s not. I explained what had happened and that there was no other alternative.  She again said, "NO, you're not pulling the engine out!."  So, I ordered a 2-ton crane and 2000-pound engine stand!

I now set a "realistic" deadline of the second week of mid-July 2017 to get back on the road.  Deciding to pull the engine without the World Class T5 transmission, I found that unless things were perfectly aligned it was impossible to separate the bell-housing from the block.  After some effort, the tranny came out and my older son and I then pulled the engine.  The block went off to Victory Engines.

On 27 June, I picked up the engine block: bored 0.020” over, decked, and line bored. The crank and cam lobes were also polished. The flywheel was ground down to mate with the new clutch.

I set a mid-August target date to get the car back out on the road.  Summer is extremely busy—vacation at Dale Hollow in TN, for example—so the August target was somewhat optimistic.  I painted the block, water pump (and rebuilt it), timing chain cover, harmonic balancer, pulleys, etc.  I purchased a new power steering pump and 140A alternator.  I ordered a set of Dyno Don ceramic-coated headers and 3” y-pipe, and also ordered and installed a new UMI adjustable torque arm and relocation bracket.

It was "fun" assembling the engine--though challenging at times for a newbie, like me.  The boys also helped some: though Danny kept insisting I'll never get it back together and in the car.  I did have a couple of snafus, one of which was the dual timing chain gear (purchased on-line from Summit Racing) had bolt-hole mounting locations a little more widely spread than the original.  A trip to Summit and the correct one (for a cam held in with a plate) was eventually found.  It's always a trip going to the store in Talmadge, OH which is about 1/2-hour from me.

The engine, fully assembled and with the tranny on it and without the headers, went back in the car the 12 October! I nearly got it in by myself, but could not swing it past the front radiator bracket alone, .  The boys got back from school and I had my younger son help. The fully-dressed engine would not fit: I had to take of the crankshaft pulley so that it would clear the radiator bracket.  After some fiddling with trying to get the engine mated with the mounts, it was in the process of having everything hooked up.  I also decided to get a QA1 3pt. Strut Tower Brace, two PVC system catch cans, and a filter for the power steering fluid.

I stopped working on it nearly the end of October, and had long since come to terms that the IROC would not see the roads in 2017, partly because I have to learn to weld (finish the exhaust) and because the AC and--more importantly--the heater are not in the car. The AC may go back in next year, the heater never will.

Oh, “learn to weld” you may ask? Yes, sir. The 3” y-pipe butts up against the outer sub-frame connectors that I had installed last year by Big 3 Racing.  I will have to cut pi-sections of tubing and weld it all up to get the new y-pipe and catalytic to line up with the stainless cat-back system that I installed about 10 years ago.  I also have to weld new exhaust brackets…..and I may install a GMMG chambered exhaust.

While this write-up does not even hint at the number of frustrating little and big troubles (e.g., seized bolts) I had had during this process, I am glad that I did it.  I have never been a gear head—I hated working on my Enduro motorcycle as a teen in the mid '70s—but in the last five or so years I was drawn to and fascinated by the prospect of tearing down and rebuilding an engine. My wife not so much.  My boys, ehh.

Here is a somewhat complete list of what I have done (or was in the process of doing as of late 2017) and upgraded on the car:
The best part of this entire process is purchasing new tools. The worst part is that I did not get to finish the wood shop updates that I began in the ’16-’17 winter season, and now have to clean-up the engine-induced mess and get back to woodworking….and learn to weld.

Here is a rather long (nearly 20minutes) video of this project.  It is rough still.

Questions, broken links, comments, concerns?

e-mail me, Greg Kimnach (non-hyphenated American)

Soldier. The only way to learn anything is to do it.

--Captain Stillman