Bryce Curry and his '96 LT1 Trans-Am
This update from: 03/22/2006

We removed the engine to rebuild it for Bryce. The engine had previously been rebuilt by a well known performance shop in Indy, but the car just never made any power. We were only seeing rwhp in the low 200 range, almost what these LT1 cars get bone stock!
This car has been in litigation for several years, as a number of things happened to it at several different shops, including getting dropped off a lift! Our job is to rebuild it into the car Bryce wanted in the first place.



The first thing we noticed when we looked at the valvetrain was the rockers were sitting cocked! Hmm...





Upon removing the rocker arms we noticed they were subjected to some extrame heat, notice the blue finish on the seat of the rocker arm.



The pushrods that had been used were non hardened el cheapos! The valvetrain guideplates tore them all up!




The engine build-up!



We were fortunate enough to be able to pick up a Callies Stealth crankshaft for the price of the Racemaster, saving Bryce some money. This crank will likely outlast the rest of the car!  We ordered it with a 3.75" stroke, which with the 6.00" rod will give the engine a 383 cubic inch, or 6.3 litres.







Callies Compstar 6.0 connecting rods are being used. We use the Compstar rods in most of our builds, and we have had excellent results with them.



The top right corner of the cylinder bore was notched for clearance for the stroker crankshaft.



The engine block is cleaned and ready for the crankshaft.





In this picture the end thrust is being measured on the crankshaft.



We use Total Seal Rings and file to fit them for each cylinder bore.





The Mahle forged and coated pistons and Compstar rods are together, and are ready to go into the engine block.



ARP head studs were installed, as this engine may see forced induction in the future.



Now the engine is ready for the Trick Flow heads! Not shown was the Comp Camshaft that we installed. The bottom end was also balanced.



This is one good looking engine! The red LT1 intake looks good with the Holley 58mm billet throttle body.



Trick Flow roller rocker arms were added as well as hardened pushrods. This engine is going to make some power!



A CSR electric water pump is being used, as well as a Fluidampr harmonic balancer. This engine also has a new distributor and a new water pump.



The Canton oil pan has arrived, and it is a great looking piece!



Canton pn# 15 242T oil pan is designed for high g's in the corners.



There are three trap doors inside the pan, making this an excellent pan for road track use.





Brent and Chip can be seen here priming the engine. We wanted to make sure the valvetrain was getting a good supply of oil, as this engine had problems with it's oil supply in a previous life.



The engine is now waiting on the valvecovers and intake to be installed.



Brent and Jake can be seen here installing the engine back onto the K member.   We ordered a new pair of valvecovers, as the ones that had been on the engine would not work with the Trickflow rocker arms.  



This is one good looking engine!



We ordered a new set of Hooker long tube headers to replace the mid length headers that were on this T/A.







The taller valvecovers ended up creating an interference problem with the alternator, it is something that we have run into before with the LT1 engines.



Brent cut the end of the valvecover off and modified it for clearance.



The alternator now fits and almost looks stock.







Hooker threw in some surprises for us. Their LT1 F Body super comp headers didn't use to come with air tubes on them, so we had to plug the tubes on both headers. One nice thing is they now have the 02 bungs welded into the header collector tubes, something we always had to do weld in ourselves in the past.




It's Alive! This T/A is back up and running, and after Brent did some inital tuning on it he took it out for a drive. Brent said this definately isn't the same car it use to be, as he said it now is quick! We'll be getting some break in miles on it, then we will get it on our dyno to see what it does.   

We more than likely found out why Bryce's car initially hydraulic'd his first engine, bending a rod which started his whole three year nightmare. We found the fuel pressure regulator had internally ruptured, passing gas through it!




Bryce's car is now tuned and running great! 362 rwhp and almost 400 ft lbs of torque are going to help this Trans-Am really come out of the corners hard. Not bad for a naturally aspirated engine on a Mustang (loaded)Chassis Dyno! This is 162 more rwhp than what we first recorded with Bryce's Trans-Am! If we had upped the compression ratio another full point, the horsepower and torque would of been even higher, but Bryce wanted to keep forced induction as a possible future option.



We also installed an Amsoil pre-oiler oil system on Bryce's engine. This system will automatically inject oil into the engine prior to start up, eliminating much of the wear that an engine receives. Test have shown that 50% of an engines wear comes from the initial start up.







Bryce's T/A is shown here eagerly awaiting it's owner.

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