🔧 BUILD Turbo 3800 T56 Swapped G-body Grand Prix w/ Holley EFI

[Turbocharged400sbc]

I'd be looking at the aftermarket offerings for the l s x lifter

 

[Turbocharged400sbc]

The only thing i've ever done to factory lifters is pulling em apart to clean the sediment out of them and the checkball...then hd c clip

 

[sktchy]

I find hilarious people replace the gearotor when it is not the Problem, it's the Timing cover with one hell of a groove worn into it.

Lil 20w50 and idle at 900 it'll be fine

 

[bs009]

I'm down to try the stock lifters on the engine I just pulled from the junkyard. That engine had less than 137,000 miles on it so I'm sure it's all in good shape.
Haven't taken a lifter apart before but I'm down to try the heavy c clip though too
I definitely have enough spare stock and ls7 lifters lying around ?

These are the lifters I ran in the car since I've been running the Thrasher race cam:

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/NAL-12499225

Had no issues putting about 3,000 miles on the whole setup with the old engine that was low on compression on one hole so I'm pretty convinced the engine I used this last time has something blocked somewhere
Can't wait to see how damaged my timing cover is now. Replacing mine is going to be annoying because it has a pipe thread insert welded into where the coolant elbow would go and I can't weld aluminum yet. I've always relied on my brother Mattstrike to do my aluminum welding but now that I'm in Nashville that's going to be difficult lol. Might finally be time to buy a TIG welder ?

 

[sktchy]

I can't really speak from a longevity standpoint, but I've got about 500 miles on my L36 head top swapped L67 and no ticking yet and just ran the lifters through the parts washer, goobered em up in assembly lube and tossed em back in. Probably throw my 136 springs in with stock cam sooner or later just to make sure I don't hit valve float when I put good fuel in and turn up the bewst.

 

[bs009]

Took apart the timing cover and oil pump and it was looking pretty rough.

Would've run it if it weren't for this piece of metal that was worn into it. I'm thinking this may have been causing some of the squeaking I was hearing on the last engine but idk. Better safe than sorry right?

This was the original timing cover from the L36 that came with the original donor 98 Camaro.
Also almost cleaned up this rough casting for where the timing cover outputs oil to the rest of the engine but there ended up being no point messing with this cover. Thought some might find it interesting how rough that casting is though

You can definitely feel that trashed metal in the oil pump though so this necessitated switching over to a normal timing cover. This also meant figuring out what to do for the heater core lines since my last one had a pipe thread insert welded into it.
The port is too large for a 3/4" npt thread and too small for a 1" npt thread or at least it seemed too close to risk it. Decided to just run a coolant elbow but needed to find a way to hold it in since I modified the accessory bracket so much. This seems like it should do the trick though:

so that's just a steel piece with a rubber grommet on it where it touches the aluminum coolant elbow. Hopefully that should be enough to keep the aluminum from getting worn through with all of the vibrations going on here.

New camshaft

big surprise I know lol

Ended up buying a few more LS7 lifters to complete a set with the remaining 4 from my last two sets.

So once again here is where things are now for the engine:
137k mile L67 from the junkyard
old home PnP heads
150# PAC valve springs
double roller
ST5
3/8" pushrods
ZZP MLS gaskets
ARP head studs
160# injectors.
GMPP LS7 lifters $$$

Only thing different here this time though is the short block, camshaft, and I have a 67mm GT45 turbo I'm going to switch to this time. The bigger turbo and the ST5 should make this thing even more ridiculous than it already is
It'll take a bit more RPM to spool compared to the old 62mm billet wheel turbo but it is what it is haha.

I already have another project car lined up now that I'm going to put that 62mm turbo into so I'm real f-ing excited for that lol

 

[bs009]

Hopefully the next update is with the car running again. Waiting on a few parts in the mail since apparently 2 day shipping is no longer a thing with Amazon. Pretty sure Summit is faster now for getting special parts that stores don't carry.

GT45 incoming

Old turbo on the right, new on the left:

I'm pretty sure that old turbo was sized absolutely perfectly for a stock to mild cam 3800. It was a twin scroll 62mm with a billet wheel so the spool was really fast with it. I figured it was finally time to put something bigger on here though. Definitely going to re-use the old one on another mild 3800 build haha.

New one is a 67mm so it should make plenty of power for this thing. It's going to take much longer to spool though so I'm going to lose a lot of bottom end torque but that's alright for this car I think.
I don't really have a HP goal for this car anymore with the way things are set up in it so if this whole build works out it'll probably stay this way for a while. I'll probably leave this at 20 psi of boost and 25 on the scramble for now and see where that puts things. Really can't fit a bigger turbo in here with the way the exhaust and everything is else is setup here and changing things will make it lose its glorious exhaust note ?


Fitment is tiiiight!

 

[bs009]

This thing is finally running again! Took my time with it a little bit on this swap to try and make sure I didn't forget anything.
I still have a couple quirks to work out but otherwise this thing runs crazy well compared to how it was before. I don't know if it's the new engine or the new camshaft but this thing runs crazy smooth now compared to how it used to run and I haven't messed with the tune at all on it since I swapped from the Thrasher race cam to the ST5.

This thing pulls much harder above 5,000 rpm right now or at least it feels like it with all of the turbo lag I have now. Sad part about the turbo lag is that last year I wasn't able to find a single billet wheel 69mm GT45 knockoff turbo when I bought this one but now they're everywhere apparently. I'm sure if this turbo had a billet wheel it would spool much much faster but it is what it is and I'm happy with it for now.

I haven't given it full throttle yet and I've kept the boost down to 10 psi and the rpms below 6,000 for now but here's a video of some of my shakedown run:


I have a few bugs to look at still but I think I'm glad I can finally move on to the next project haha

 

[SleeperLS]

that makes all the right noises. Good shit.

 

[Mr_Roboto]

Fuck. Yes.

 

[GTPpower]

Sounds awesome!

 

[bs009]

So the car has been doing really well since the engine and cam swap so far. I think it's safe to say my lifter issues were from the old engine since everything is going so well here!

I've driven this thing to Michigan and back to Nashville twice now and haven't had anything too crazy happen yet. Took it up to Michigan over last weekend for our annual fall color tour we do with a few friends in northern Michigan each year.
I beat on this thing pretty hard at least with only 20 psi of boost and 6,500 rpm pulls and it has been taking it all like a champ! I did manage to blow one of the flex pipes somewhere in the exhaust system pre-turbo though but I figured that would probably happen at some point

I've been having some intermittent voltage issues lately too that were getting pretty bad on color tour this year. I finally found the culprit though, somewhere in this fuse box there is a loose connection on the main power rail causing the stud to not transfer power to the relays and fuses. Pretty much everything in the "run" mode of the power system is powered by this fuse box so this might have been a pretty big issue all along...
I put on a temporary 10awg bandaid from the main stud to the bottom rail for now though so I could get the car home. Depending on how the Cutlass shapes up I'll probably take apart all of the power distribution and do things differently over the winter.

This year's group for color tour:

Cool bridge in northern Michigan we discovered this year!

The final gang for the leg home towards southern Michigan: