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Need to preface this latest update by apologising for the lack of Pictures! I've been so busy I totally forgot to snap away some pics while i've been working on things! Anyway with that said I have been starting some work on the LS3 which is of course rather exciting. With money the main factor in really moving along with engine related work I wanted to start off by doing a few bits that are free, namely cleaning up the grubby exterior of the engine and starting to disassemble it. Cleaning it up is no rocket science, being that I am planning to strip the engine down in almost it's entirety I decided to go at it in a rather blunt way with simple some oven cleaner and pressure washer. Being that the block and heads are Aluminium there's no real risk of them rusting externally but I largely wanted to get off any oily or loose grime hanging on so I can later paint the block before it gets anywhere near my car and in the process I found a rather alarming issue.. it wouldn't turn over by hand anymore! That brings me on to the first of my latest videos: Now going on from here I went back the next week to obviously work out what on earth was causing the engine to seize at that point in the crank rotation. I wasn't really worried about the engine being totally seized as I've been periodically turning it over and spraying fogging oil in to it to keep everything nice and lubricated but clearly something was causing it to jam up.. Time to tear it down! So that Weekend with the help of my Dad who's been itching to tear in to the engine with me we stripped the heads off the block and found the engine to generally be in a pretty sludgy oily state, it's by no means bad condition simply used and likely without too many frequent oil changes. The oil that was left in the engine has clearly been in there for a while, probably through a few heat cycles, etc etc. If anyone's an Oily science person (technical term) i'm sure they can give their 2 cents as to what they think All that aside however simply taking the heads off the block and lightly wiping off any excess sludge and oil from the top of the pistons didn't free up the engine, so next we whipped off the front timing cover and found nothing particularly stuck or otherwise in the timing change, etc. However when we took off the oil pump.. eureka! the engine was freed up again and could turn over as many times as we wanted, nice and smoothly too i might add! Upon taking the oil pump apart it seems the gears inside were not dry by any means but simple got stuck together or perhaps sliped/jumped a tooth etc, not an issue i'm aware is quite common but perhaps where i've been turning the engine over by hand all this time with no oil in the pump these things happen, it's not the end of the world however as I was always planning to replace it regardless and that gets me on to my plans for the engine... Now plans wise I want to give the engine what I would consider a pretty standard rebuild. I'm not going to be attacking the bores with a bore gauge or the crank journals with a micrometer and subsequently re-boring or grinding them if they don't need it. I will however be checking the head's aren't warped, checking the bearing tolerances (with plastigage albeit, i'm not made of money for the big boy tools!) and re-honing the bores of the block. From my initial inspection everything is worn very well and there are no alarming amounts of scoring that would indicate anything to worry about, everything generally looks in tip top shape just oily.. stained, etc! So with that said here's the list of things i'm planning to do to it: - New Rod bearings (will check clearances with plastigage, don't really have funds for big boy tools) - New Piston Rings (Will gap accordingly) - Hone Piston Bores - Connecting rod ARP Bolts - Leaving Crank & Main caps in place, not removing (this might change, i've had a change of heart and will research further) - New Lifters & Lifter Trays - New Gaskets and Seals throughout ( Everything from head gaskets, sump, valley cover, front & rear cover, etc) - Cam Swap + 3 bolt 58 tooth x4 Cam gear - New Cam Retainer Plate - LS2 timing chain guide + new chain - New timing cover /w front main seal + cam sensor - New Rear cover /w rear main seal - Rear Oil barbell - Hardened Pushrods - Rocker Arm Trunnion bearing upgrade - New Valve Springs - Clean, reuse & re-lap old valves to head - New GM Performance Oil pump + Pickup brace - New LS3 Intake Manifold /w Attachments - ATI superdamper (no pulley on engine when purchased) - New front accessories (none with engine currently) I've posted this to a couple of LS Swap groups and had some pretty good responses and no one jumping at the chance to flame me for being a fool (atleast not in regards to the LS!) so i'm pretty confident that this is a fairly sensible direction to head in. Of course without going the full lenghts of re-boring, crank grinding, measuring with proper tools etc the engine is never going to become some kind of monster race engine but I simply don't have the money, time, etc to do those things nor to be able to pay someone to build the engine for me. These engines are fairly robust ofcourse and as long as don't do anything silly like fit the wrong bearings or try and fit round pistons in oval bores I feel i should be fairly safe. And with that all said it gets me on to my next couple of things... firstly I will ofcourse be utterly soaking this engine top to bottom in degreaser and going over as best I can to clean out any water, oil passages etc. Heck i even bought a little Bench mounted parts washer which is exciting and 25L of degreaser concentrate, so that'll probably last me a lifetime! and further to all that i've already ordered a couple of part that have arrived! What you'll see below is a Texas Speed LS3 Stage 3 NA cam (look it up for the specs or check out my video!) which i'd be pretty conservative in saying should give an additional 50hp to the engine along with their .660 lift dual valve spring kit, hardened push rods, CHE Trunnion bearing replacement (a weak point of LS engines) and the new oem GM high performance oil pump! and the following video to tie it all together!

That's not entirely true.... I shall explain. Had a little convo with Matt@Cosworth recently and he told me they do have supercharger kits, but they are missing the Eaton blowers themselves. Now if there was a group buy he said that it might enough to convince his boss to buy some superchargers to make up and sell some kits... Food for thought for those on the fence.

There is a chap on Facebook Marketplace selling a brand new Cosworth Stage1 & Stage2 Supercharger kit with the Ecutek programming kit for £5200.

I'm in Swindon. I'll be heading past London just before Christmas so could make a detour then, if the timing works for you. I don't know the exact date yet but I can drop you a DM once I've worked out details. Mark gave me a discount on some parts but not the SC. I spent a fair amount when mine was in having the SC fitted; they fitted my brakes & suspension (Black Friday purchases!), and sourced me a new manifold, catback, and some other suspension parts (LCA, ARB, and bushes) and fitted those.

Mine has a Harrop fitted by Abbey and I'll gladly recommend them and the Harrop kit. Most of the turbo/SC kits are around 280-290 at the flywheel, which is ~250whp. Mine is dead on 250whp with the Harrop. The stock clutch and injectors work fine for that. I'm running KW V3 coilovers and Reyland's brake upgrade with AP Racing callipers too, the brakes mostly because I get the stock ones too hot on track (even with uprated pads & fluid). Happy to take you for a spin in it if you want to see how it feels, it's definitely got punch 😁

Nice, congratulations!

@Mark@Abbey M/S for a Harrop, at least that's what I have done! Mark will look after you well.

There are different types of superchargers. There are 2 very popular and successful Positive Displacement ones here : Cosworth or Harrop. Cosworth have stopped making their kit , so you will have to look for a used kit. The other choice is Harrop which does come from OZ and gets rave reviews too. The other type is Centrifugal, which then brings you to a HKS kit. If you go with Harrop , Abbey Motorsport in Surrey is your closest and they can supply , fit and tune the car for your needs. If you go with HKS, Fensport in Cambridge can do a drive in drive out deal for you. Just make sure you know your goals and are very clear from the start as mods are a slippery slope and there is no end to it. If you add too much power, then you need all supporting mods like better fuel pump, bigger injectors, brakes, wheels and tyres. Also do you want to make it a road or a track car , in which case coilovers etc also come into play. Good luck and don't rush for the SC, get the car, learn to play with it, test its limits and then go from there. Sent from my SM-G970F using Tapatalk

Thanks bro I’m putting the deposit down tomorrow! Thanks for your help

He has a build thread here: Not sure how much he's around these days as I believe he sold it.

To be honest the KWs were on the car when I got it and that’s the way JRM installed them, so I’ve left them like that, I don’t think it should make any difference really so I don’t think your missing a trick :-)

Atleast all the bolts on it use Metric! otherwise i'd have dropkicked the thing in to the ocean!