New motor for my vette...

How's this thing coming along? Any updates?

I had a 29ft motorhome that had a 454 in it and before it left the factory built the enigine to 550 horsepower.They did that so it was able to pull trailors the same size as the motor home itself.That motorhome was the fastest one around! I cant even imagine what that much horse power would be like in a corvette! Be Carefull! That engine is Sweet!

Unfortunately we discovered a problem with the new motor. The intake manifold just would not bolt up to the heads. So there is a problem somewhere that the people who put the block and heads together needs to address. So that motor is being sent back to them to figure out what the problem is, and resolve it.

That's just the latest delay. Prior to this one, I got sick, then the local guy working on the job got sick. Then his grandfather died, and a few days later, his wife's grandfather died. Then with all this going on, we had a hurricane move into the area. So my car has been sitting on the lift at his shop for just over a month now.

I have no idea how long it will take to get that motor back here and ready to be put onto the drivetrain. That motor is being shipping to Texas, so even ignoring what they (LME) need to do to it to resolve the problem, we're talking about a week just for transit time... So I'm thinking I will be lucky to have it back by Christmas time....

ahh sorry to hear about all that! the wait must be killing you! I'd be counting the hours!

well at least you'll be able to drive it all winter.. my muscle car is in storage, and my little tuner is back to its stock tuning for a few months.. darn MN winters!

Well I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product!

Any news on the transplant Rich?

Originally Posted by Rich Z

Well, over the past 6 months or so, I sold off a big chunk of my gun collection and decided to buy a new motor and drivetrain for my vette with some of that money. Kind of trading in one hobby for another, I guess.

Anyway, the new 427 Warhawk motor came in to my tuner's place, so Connie and I ran over there yesterday so I could get my first look in person at it.

Honestly, I was surprised at how SMALL it actually was. Seemed to me it should have been a lot bigger for some reason. I guess it is surprising that so much power can some from something that small.

Anyway, I took some video of it and threw it together here:



My car will be going into the shop on 10/26 to get the transplant done. Then I'm going to have that older engine put into Connie's pickup truck... She'll be about the only person around with a vette powered pickup truck, I would imagine...

nice i love corvettes nice motor too. my uncle has a chevell ss with a 502 big block in it my girls dad have a 1991 silverado 2500 with a corvette motor in it. itsa firedepartment truck so it has to be fast

Well, it's been a real fiasco lately. A while back we discovered that the intake manifold wouldn't bolt up to the heads. So the entire engine was shipped back to LME in Texas. They took off the heads, did measurements, and determined it was the head manufacturer's problem. So they shipped the heads to World Products in New York. Rather than replace the heads and then have to have LME do all the machining they did all over again on those heads, the fixed the mounting holes and guaranteed the fix for the life of the engine. Then the heads were shipped back to LME, who then ported the intake manifold to match exactly with the heads, for free. This was to alleviate my fears that the manifold bolt problem was indicative of something more serious and the ports would not align properly between the heads and the manifold.

So the engine finally got back to the shop in Blountstown, FL on Tuesday. So I've been over there every day while the build continues. And I am planning on being over there every day till it is finished. But it's slow going. Just about everything that needs to be mounted to that Warhawk engine needs to be modified to fit properly. So much for a "drop-in" engine upgrade.... I've been without my car for nearly three months now.

No telling how much longer this will go on. My original plan to have the tuner have everything at the shop so I could just bring the car in, have the swap done, and then get my car back home didn't go even close to the way I had envisioned it. I really can't say I would recommend this process to anyone.... I certainly wouldn't have done it had I known all these headaches were awaiting me. Maybe I'll think differently when this is all said and done, but right now, nope, not what I had in mind at all...

Custom porting should make the intake and heads flow nice. Good luck with the rest of the work. Look forward to hearing how well it performs when done.

Rich,

Was this you with the new motor?

Originally Posted by tsst

Rich,

Was this you with the new motor?

Nope... My car is STILL in the shop.....

When I got that Warhawk engine back, I wasn't real crazy about the idea that World Products was going to fill in those incorrectly drilled intake manifold bolt holes but they offered to guarantee them for life, and LME offered to port the intake manifold to exactly match the heads. So I figured what the heck.

But when I looked at those holes World Products drilled, damn.... But I was getting antsy to get my car back and accepted the "work", regardless of the poor job they obviously did.







Meanwhile I had my Fuji camera at the shop and took a bunch of closeups of the engine just at random. When I got back home, I downloaded the images to my PC and just picked one out at random to make sure the download went OK before deleting the images from the camera. And this is what I saw..





Obviously, the game was over as far as I was concerned. I was expecting a court battle when I told the builder that I was just rejecting this new engine completely and wanted my money back or a new engine that was NOT build using World Product products. But luckily LME immediately accepted the consideration to build me a new engine, this time using a RHS block and different heads. That new engine should be done today, and is supposed to ship out of Texas on Monday.

So we'll see, I guess...