The 383 is ALIVE

[zz17iroc]

I just fired it up this afternoon and man it sounds good with that 4" mufflex and longtubes ;D. The intial start up went fine and I let it run for 20 or so minutes alternating the RPMS ranging from 1800 to 2400. I'm using plasma moly rings, so the rings should set pretty quick. I only have two issues right now.

1. I have a tiny oil leak at the rear main seal, so you now what has to be done this weekend. I used a .008 feeler guage to install not once, but twice the rear main seal. I had to back track during that install process. No big deal because it doesn't leak to bad, but it still needs to be fixed. I know now to use a scribe style feeler guage next time and not the flat one. The scribe style feeler guage has rounded edges oppossed to the sharp edges on the flat feeler guages. LESSONS LEARNED!!!!!!!! :

2. After the first oil change I noticed that I did not fill the overflow resovoir with coolant after filling the radiator, so I think some air was sucked in through the empty resovoir. I tried three times to bleed the system with no luck, I guess I have to jack the car up in the front and leave the rear on the ground so that the air bubbles can come up. The car is running to hot for my taste. Temps during the two 15 minute test drives where 195* to 200* with a 160* T-stat and the fans are on too. Correct me if I'm wrong. Does 11.2:1 CR have anything to with the high temps?

I already updated my web page with some pics and there will be more to follow. Check it out.

[DocSpeed]

Your temp problems are probably due to air being trapped in your cooling system. Bleed the air out and you should see your temp. operating at a desireable range. An option to raising up your vehicle to bleed the air would be to buy a waterneck with a bleeder valve. They cost a little more than your typical waterneck but do a fine job a bleeding air out of your cooling system.

[metalbeast]

Seems like I had to bleed the air out of my Vette more than a few times to get the air out of the cooling system after I rebuilt the engine. Try doing it again like you said with the front of the car jacked up. Good Luck!

[AAron]

congrats,

i know what you man about the rear main seal. a bunch of people told me to change it on my caprice when i changed the tranny so i did, it didnt leak before, now it does

[AAron]

TPI should bleed just like a normal SBC because they are, the LT1s trap air like mad because of reverse flow coolant. and the optimum range for coolant is 180-185. because the coolant wants to be cool, 160, and the oil wants to be above 200. so you split the differance, but this is mainly for race engines.

[DocSpeed]

aaron said:

congrats,

i know what you man about the rear main seal. a bunch of people told me to change it on my caprice when i changed the tranny so i did, it didnt leak before, now it does

Don't you mean "I know what you mean about the rear seal." Just kidding with you, thought I would return the favor. ;D

[AAron]

ahh yes cuban bee

[zz17iroc]

;D Yeah boy! I took it apart again and it only took 4 1/2 hours from start to finish to replace the rear main seal. I made sure I did not scuff this one up.

I also drove the car up on some ramps to bleed the coolant system again, but yeilding the same overheating problem. So I continued to trouble shoot the system and found that the passenger side fan was spinning alot slower than the driver side fan. And also the toggle switch I used for my passenger fan burned out, so I bought a new fan motor and a better quality toggle switch. And yes it helped alot and now I'm going to buy a new fan motor for the one on the driver side aswell. It's just like doing brakes " whatever you do to one side you have to do to the other.

Thanks for your input fellas and I'll keep you updated.

I can't wait to get heavy on the gas!!!!!

[DocSpeed]

Glad to hear things are starting to come together. Let us know when you finally put your foot in the gas!

[x383xstroker]

congrats! i cant wait to fire mine, i have about 4k in the whole project. very dissapointing if i started it and somthing went wrong but seeing a thread like this makes my day a hole lot beter. good luck for the future.

[zz17iroc]

Keep your head up. It'll all come together, just make sure your fuel system is up to par.

It's like I said before I'll be swapping to the accel pro-ram single plane intake with a 1200cfm TB after I get a base line with the mini-ram.