Hello Guys, I am new to the forum and have recently acquired my parents Impala SS that they bought new in 96 and are now handing down to me since I have a little boy due in August. I grew up in this car and loved it from day one. Can't believe it's mine now! This car has well over 400k miles on it and my dad had already completely re-built all the suspension about 5 years ago. My dad and I pulled the engine out back in April and I have been going through an entire engine rebuild. I own a shop called H-Squared Racing Engines out of Houston, TX so I will be doing all the machining and engine building myself.
So far I have decided to go with a 383 cubic inch with a scat 9000 crankshaft, scat pro series 4340 I beam connecting rods and a set of custom Wiseco pistons that are gas ported and have a spherical dish. The Edelbrock LT4 heads and LT4 intake are on the way and I opted for the bare LT4 heads so I could put a hollow stem stainless steel Ferrea intake valve and stainless steel Ferrea exhaust valves, topped off with a nice set of PAC 1219X springs and titanium retainers. With these heads and my custom pistons the compression will be right at 11.23:1 using a FelPro MLS .026" thick head gaskets and the piston sitting .010" below the deck.
I have a good set of 42lb/hr injectors, motorsports technologies TB and G2 CAI. Purchased a SFI powerbond damper and the engine will have ARP main studs and ARP head bolts with a complete ARP engine bolt kit throughout the entire motor. I have chosen to stay with the opti spark ignition for now but will convert everything over to a LS1 computer and ignition in the future after I have this up and running. I am also contemplating going over to an electric water pump as I have read quite a bit about it on this forum with pretty good results. This will be my daily driver when she's back on the road so I have a good vehicle to drive my kid around in.
I am looking for good advice from some of you on here as to what oil pan fits best in these cars and how I can remove all my smog components. Also if anyone wants to chime in on a cam that they have ran that has performed great for them that would be great as well.
I'm excited to be a part of this community now and will be posting plenty of pics real soon! For now I have tried adding a link to dropbox so anyone can go check out the current progress.
Thank you all in advance for any help and input.
Halston Harrist
So far I have decided to go with a 383 cubic inch with a scat 9000 crankshaft, scat pro series 4340 I beam connecting rods and a set of custom Wiseco pistons that are gas ported and have a spherical dish. The Edelbrock LT4 heads and LT4 intake are on the way and I opted for the bare LT4 heads so I could put a hollow stem stainless steel Ferrea intake valve and stainless steel Ferrea exhaust valves, topped off with a nice set of PAC 1219X springs and titanium retainers. With these heads and my custom pistons the compression will be right at 11.23:1 using a FelPro MLS .026" thick head gaskets and the piston sitting .010" below the deck.
I have a good set of 42lb/hr injectors, motorsports technologies TB and G2 CAI. Purchased a SFI powerbond damper and the engine will have ARP main studs and ARP head bolts with a complete ARP engine bolt kit throughout the entire motor. I have chosen to stay with the opti spark ignition for now but will convert everything over to a LS1 computer and ignition in the future after I have this up and running. I am also contemplating going over to an electric water pump as I have read quite a bit about it on this forum with pretty good results. This will be my daily driver when she's back on the road so I have a good vehicle to drive my kid around in.
I am looking for good advice from some of you on here as to what oil pan fits best in these cars and how I can remove all my smog components. Also if anyone wants to chime in on a cam that they have ran that has performed great for them that would be great as well.
I'm excited to be a part of this community now and will be posting plenty of pics real soon! For now I have tried adding a link to dropbox so anyone can go check out the current progress.
Thank you all in advance for any help and input.
Halston Harrist