As some of you have seen, I recently purchased and took delivery of another LTX powered vehicle to my "fleet." As I mentioned in my intro thread, I am a big fan of the LT1/LT4 engines, so much so that not only have I had many LTX powered vehicles, I also purchased the forum/website, www.ltxtech.com
So here is the beginning of this build... my 1996 Impala SS.
So lets get started. As a member of LTXtech.com I have made many friends. Well this one belonged to one of my page friends. I believe he may be a member here as well.
He had purchased the car for a great price and almost immediately took the motor out and made some modifications. LE1 heads, and a custom grind cam from LE. When he took the motor apart, he found heavy sludge build up... so he did his best cleaning out the motor. He enjoyed the car for a while, including participating in my dyno event last year. The car put down 367 rwhp through the built CPT transmission and stall.
Unfortunately he had parked the car a while ago fearing some damage in the top end. Well while it was parked, life began to happen and he began selling some parts off of the car. The heads, and other odds and ends were sold, and the car was parked away for a later day.
Well life continued to happen and the time came to sell the car. He posted it up, non running for 1500 bucks...
Well with the Imp SS being on my "bucket list" I purchased the car within 7 minutes of him posting it.
We made a deal, that I would purchase what it needed and have the parts delivered to him.
So off to ordering I went. new upgraded LE1 heads... scorpion rockers... good pushrods... ewp... etc etc etc.
Well as part of our deal, he began reassembling the car, till finally he fired it up.
He said it fired right up and he sent me a video...
Well the day finally came. Ready to pick it up. The wife and I jumped in her Genesis Track and we were off to NJ from PA to pick up and drive home the Impala. Borrowed my friend's RT plate and ofd we went. Picked it up and drove her home.
It was a fun drive. My first NA big cam car (my other big cam car is a procharged ride).
Once we made it home, we both hopped in the Imp and went out to dinner.
Since the car had been converted to obd1... i knew that emissions inspection was going to be a challenge... so I opted to register it as a "classic." That way it does not require emissions inspection. I also paid extra to get a custom vanity classic tag... which would take a long time to get, so I parked the car and waited for my plate.
Well... about 4 weeks later, a classic plate showed up, but it was not my custom vanity plate. Oh well... it was a plate, and I wanted to put some miles on this thing.
So i said F IT and bolted it on... and I started to rack up the miles.
So as planned... i drove the hell out of her.... it also gave me the opportunity to send my other cars out for some work.
Well one day... on my way to work... while sitting at a light, i felt the car stumble... then i saw the SES light come on. I tapped the gas, and the light went out... the i heard a horrible " crack sound".... just once. The light turned green and I could feel I was down on power... then another crack... and crack... and crack crack crack. I limped the car along until i came to a driveway where i could pull off of the shoulderless road.
I reached around and started the car and i was concerned with the noise. Unsure exactly where it was coming from... whether rod knock or valve train issue... it was not good.
Unfortunately the people whose driveway i was in came out and yelled at me to get off of their property. I tried explaining that my car was disabled... amd i had a tow coming... but they insisted.
So i closed the hood. Fought to fire her up and limped her home.
Waited for the tow to come get her for her trip to the shop so we could figure out what happened...
Well, lets continue. Got the car to the shop and pulled the driver side valve cover. Thats is where it sounded like the problem was. Well everything looked fine. We made the plan to pull the heads and see if a valve had been smacked.
The day came and we went to remove the passenger side valve cover amd it would not come off. Took alot of work... prying and force, then finally got it off... and what we found;
It appears that one rocker has been all over the place for a little while... (see the color difference of the spring where the messed up rocker is).
Smooth as butter! Excellent oiling through all of the rockers.
Simce the motor ate a little extra metal from the rocker carnage... we did a few oil and filter changes... added some magnets to the filter put everything back together and have crossed our fingers.
This is my first classic tag. I was suprised Penn dot sent me a permanent plate as a temp till my vanity classic tag was ready. But then again... the vanity part was an extra 100 bucks...
Im very happy it was a simple fix as well. Its alot of fun to drive, even as the tank that it is.
I'm glad it was a reasonable fix and nothing to horrible had broken.
Nice plate too.
I'm in PA but haven't bothered with a plate for mine yet, still have the ordinary plate on it.
I went with the tag because the previous owner did an obd1 swap and that would make emissions inspection impossible for me. With the classic tag, it does not require emissions.
I run magnaflow on my TA and my boosted camaro. Im kinda partial to the sound of it...
Ill need to research the look of a 1" drop... idk if it will be noticeable enough for me.
Thanku for all the info though. Uve given me alot to think about. Ill also need to get the adjustable lcas to center the rear wheels after dropping it.
Well....as you know, there's no such thing as a 'free' mod.
Extended/adjustable lower control arms ordinarily means purchasing an extended drive shaft. A new, aluminum shaft goes for about $400. So.....be prepared for that additional (hidden) cost.
I ran an 18 inch magnaflow on the TBSS and absolutely loved it. I'm thinking about changing the no name exhaust on the car now to magnaflow. The car actually still sounds a lot like it used to, so...
Nothing like buying expensive rockers and having a failure, but luckily that's all it was. I broke a stud, had some noise and loss of power, but no light, and luckily it happened about 100 feet from the shop. That sucks you had to drive it home, freaking weird people. Some people are just out there...
Are you thinking about possibly trying to come to Nats in Nola this summer?
I get more than enough time off myself, but it's usually pretty used up by the time I do my hunting trip and nats with the Impala boys. I'm very lucky to have 30 days off a year, but it goes pretty quickly. I really feel bad for people who only get 10-14 days, or no days really.... You want to look into ECIRS as well. We're a local east club group filled with a bunch of serious bracket racers. They've been going strong for about 15 years now. I don't really do it anymore with the 6 speed. I make pretty decent money, but I can't afford to keep breaking things, nor do I want to put a clutch in it that's for drag racing.
But I feel ya on something new! Check it out and if it's something that interests you, I'm sure you'll have a great time, if you like to cut loose!
Oh I hear ya. Same issue here. My wife has limited time off and between vacation, holiday and personal time each year... not to mention what Ive carries over, I have more cto than i know what to do with. I have over 400 hours to be used.
Have a little work to get done to my ta in the next 2 weeks, but soon as I pick it up I will be dropping it off for 5% tint all the way around... front wheel moldings, painted and reinstalled (currently in the trunk) and a in depth detailing to the interior and exterior, plus some odds and ends like replacing the power mirror and making a support bracket for the PVC CAI.
Lol... no worries. This is far from my first project.
LTXtech.com IS my drug...
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