Hey guys, have yet another project to occupy my life and drain my bank account. I bought a 94 1500 longbed regular cab 2wd truck for $500 from a friend. He's a VW kid and bought this to haul parts, drove it for a week, and couldnt figure out what was wrong with it. Supposedly the motor is a '70 350 block bored and stuff to make 358". I dont know how correct the "358" thing is because thats just what the previous owner told him, and quite frankly ive never heard of them. Well, the "miss" above 3000 rpm turned out to be a little more than that.
a sleeve or bushing of some sort was put into this out of shape pushrod hole on the head for the number 1 exhaust valve.
this caused the pushrod to bind and not go through its normal range of motion, thus causing an awesome flattened cam lobe and trashed lifter. ill put a pic up tomorrow of the lifter.
im at the point now that im thinking of selling what i can of the motor, and buying a junkyard/running lt1 out of something, slapping a carb and distributor on it, and driving it through winter. WildBillyT made a good point in my tech thread to be concerned about all that metal that went through the rest of the motor due to the wiped lobe/destroyed lifter. i dont want to spend the little cash i have on a new cam/lifters/pushrods/gaskets/etc and put the time into a motor thats just a ticking time bomb and hear pop after a week.
basic plans: make it run and be reliableish. then lower it and put some nice wheels/tires on it. its mostly gonna be a parts hauler/daily beater so i can finally do the work to the z28 that it deserves.