Thanks Richard. I spoke to David on the phone, he was extremely helpful. He left a message for you to call me when you get a chance, I'd like to discuss a few things with you as well.

 

Progress?

 

Motor is going to be rebuilt again. I'm going to be sending my 408 to WCCH and having them work it over for me. I'll be getting new pistons, rings, and a set of WCCH CNC'd 317 heads. Rex is going to do all of the motor work for me. I've spun my wheels enough, I just want to pull the motor and ship it away, then get it back and put it in. No assembly for me anymore, I'm tired of working on this damn thing.

FWIW - Richard, David, and Rex are great guys and have been extremely helpful. I should have worked with them the first time around.

 

Glad to hear it is getting taken care of. I see that Jones cam is going away. Plans for a new one?

 

Something smaller. Right now I have a Z06 cam in there, and it picked me up about 2-3 mpg around town. I haven't beat on it much to see what the net effect is on my 1/4 mile times, but seeing someone like WildeRacing hit low 11's on a stock LQ4 on 14 psi tells me that something is working right with that setup. I may go a little larger, but it won't be anything close to the 235/239 that I had in there before. I like the way a stock-ish cam idles and I like the efficiency since my truck is my DD. Add in the fact that my truck is a tow vehicle, and off-idle and part throttle torque become very important.

As of right now, the tentative plan is to reuse my Callies Dragonslayer crank and Compstar rods, go with a smaller dish piston (Wiseco was recommended) and larger chamber heads (the 317's apparently are more efficient at removing exhaust heat, which should cut down on knock), and some plasma-moly rings. Camshaft is still up in the air. I may stick with the Z06 cam, or possibly something a little larger. I need to talk to Richard more about his recommendations there. Based on Rex's recommendations, the target SCR is 9.0-9.25:1, and I'll be swapping back from the .040" Cometic gaskets to some stock .054" gaskets.

 

Sounds like everything will be taken care of. Did you ever discuss your issues with the guys that originally built it? I mean wasn't there some kind of warranty. Are they denying it saying it was the heads, because didn't you eliminate that variable by switching heads?

 

I haven't talked to them, and I'm not going to worry about it at this point. If the problem turns out to be the oil return holes in the pistons, it's not the fault of the shop in Tucson that I had do the work. I selected all the parts and took them to him to assemble, so any fault would be my own. That's why I'm letting someone else pick parts and do the entire longblock assembly this time around.

 

Ahh, cool. Thinking about something like a straight pattern cam, or a reverse slit for the turbo? 2-3mpg is a pretty impressive gain from a cam swap, although that other one was huge.

Although smaller in displacement than you, check out Harlan's setup:
https://ls1tech.com/forums/showthread.php?t=306077

 

KEEP THE CAM