Well, ran the motor for about 3 hours and no issues. Today, I was turning onto a major street and some guy on a motorcycle came zipping through two lanes of traffic (lane-splitting) and I jumped on it. Pulled through second. Guy was a total douche, riding my ass. Car ends up making this horrible screaming as I let off the gas. Pull over and it looks like head gasket? I am running a 4-corner steam line kit. You can sort of see some vapor on the right rear of the engine. Oil is clean. Engine temps never rose but the car did have a bit of a stumble afterward. Let it cool for about 10 minutes and it was fine driving home. I do see that the coolant is down about an inch through those 3 hours of driving but I chalked it up to the system bleeding. How much and when should I see the steam line dumping into the radiator? Is it possible I installed the head gaskets wrong? And wouldn't I have seen this issue in the prior 3 hours of runtime? Also, drive belt jumped 2 ribs but I'm not sure if that was during this or prior, as I didn't look at the engine after my drive last night.

So tuner came out today and got the firebird road worthy and I must say… it’s pretty dang sweet!! However… the next issue we found was I am getting a lifter tick and oil pressure drop (8psi ish) at idle after the oil temp gets up there (can’t recall how temp he said when we were driving). pressure did come back to 30+ when accelerating. LS3 BTR stage 2 V.2 cam with the stuff deleted, and running Melling 10296 pump with black o ring. Didn’t touch the barbell, doesn’t seem to be foaming the oil, and sadly I’m not absolutely positive the oil sump is 1/4 or so from bottom of pan. I was running Valvoline 5w30 synthetic and the thought was that the oil gets too warm and the oil too thin to essentially lose viscosity? So some suggestions we discussed were: 1. change oil and look for flakes 2. Heavier oil ZR1 20/50 was brought up 3. Interwebs suggests Mobil 1 FS European Car Formula 0W-40 or Pennzoil Platinum Euro 5W-40 4. Oil cooler with thermostatic plate 5. Scrap the car And buy a Prius. I want to hear your thoughts on what you are thinking. I’m sure I’m missing details and will try to fill them in as this gets discussed but I really really really hope to not have to tear this motor out again if I can help it.

Looking for recommendations on a cylinder head shop in the Cowley/Summer/Butler/Sedgwick County KS area. I have some PRC 225 heads bought second hand that had dropped a valve and been repaired. I have had issues with that cylinder since getting the car up and running. I was able to get tickets for sick week and need to get this sorted out. I’m going to check the cylinder and piston over before taking the head in but wasn’t sure who folks in the area were using for head work these days. When the issue showed up I ran compression and leak tests and they checked out ok but there could be some run out on a valve that doesn’t show up without heat and more valve speed. I’ll run the tests again before pulling the head too. I’ve been through multiple coils and injectors already troubleshooting. Theres a fair amount of blow by that didn’t really show up until it’d been driven a few hundred miles and right after I put the first e85 in it the blow by showed up. Thanks for any recommendation on a shop.

We’re rebuilding a 4L80E out of a 2000 3/4 ton 4x4 pickup truck, replacing the output shaft and tail housing to make it RWD and putting it behind an LQ4 that came out of a 2004 truck. It has a $1600 EBay turbocharger kit waiting for it (yes I already gapped the rings and don’t ask me how or why my friend bought this turbo kit because I don’t know either). It’s going into an 86 Camaro. • Do you guys recommend a higher stall torque converter or a factory stall? The biggest deciding factor in choosing a torque converter is cost. It’s just going to be a fun street car put together with whatever parts we can get our hands on. The engine isn’t getting any internal go-fast-goodies (yes I know it needs better injectors and a fuel pump) until we can actually afford them so in the mean time it should only make around 400hp with 6-10 psi of boost. The trans rebuild kit is from Summit Racing and comes with better clutch discs and other parts to handle 550hp. We’ve already made enough poor financial decisions at this point but we’re putting this car together thru hell or high water. We’re doing this whole swap in a dirt floor makeshift garage/ in a gravel driveway so I’ll be smiling whether you laugh at us or encourage us. I have enough tools and I’ve done a healthy number of successful engine and transmission swaps before. Located in Northern/Central Arizona

I want to use the low, forward, right side AC compressor mount in tandem with the low left side alternator mount and no power steering. Is that as straightforward as is sounds or are the idlers and tension going to be a problem?