Engine

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2007 Walter Mitty

Engine

Soon after purchasing the engine it was stripped down so it could be cleaned a painted.  Basically what was left was the bare engine block.  Some Gunk was used to clean it down and black high-temp paint was sprayed on.  Eventually the engine looked as new. 

The valve covers were removed to see how things looked inside.  Much to my surprise, it looked really clean.  There were no carbon deposits or any crud floating around.  Since the valve covers were off, the tired valve springs were replaced with a set from GM Performance Parts.  The rockers were replaced with a set from COMP Cams.  The new rockers are roller tipped with a 1.6:1 ratio.  In addition, the pushrods were also replaced.  Finally, both the oil and water pumps were replaced just to be on the safe side.

The L32 V6 engine has no distributor.  Instead a coilpack fires two cylinders at the time controlled by the PCM.  In the F-Bodies (Camaro/Firebird) the coilpack is mounted directly to the engine with a small bracket.  To make the engine bay as clean as possible, the coilpack was removed from the engine and mounted on a special bracket in the area where the battery normally sits in the TR6.  The battery in turn was relocated to a custom enclosure in the trunk.

In order to lower the centre of gravity the engine was installed as low as possible.  The L32 cleared the front crossmember perfectly, but the oil pan ended up being lower than the crossmember.  So, the pan was removed, cut and TIG welded to solve the clearence issue.

Next, a special adaptor was machined to replace the oil filter.  This adaptor has two braded stainless lines routing oil to and from a remote oil filter.  This modification allows for:

  • Increased oil capacity - The remote adaptor allows for a bigger oil filter.  This enabled the system to hold more oil to compensate for the modifications to the oil pan.

  • A cooling effect - the remote filter housing is mounted to one side of the radiator and exposes the filter to fresh cool air.

Since the engine had been sitting for some time, the injectors were in bad shape.  They were not spraying in a consistent pattern and this caused some problems when the engine was started for the first time.  Several of the cylinders ran lean and this was not good.  So, rather than having them reworked, new ones were purchased.  Instead of using the stock 19lb/hr injectors, a set of Accel 21lb/hr ones were installed. 

The weak spot of the L32 is its intake manifold.  From the factory, the intake is a single 50mm butterfly design.  On the LT1 V8, the throttle body consists of two 48mm butterflies.  So, the original intake was cut and modified to accept the LT1's throttle body.  The improvement is quite dramatic and throttle response, pickup and top end revs were improved. 

Please click on the links at the right for more specific info on each topic and pictures...

 

 

 
 
 

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Specifications
Headers & Exhaust
Cooling System
Fuel System
Gallery 1

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