My From Start to Finish 6.0L Build

[RAMurphy]

Plan is to plastigauge the crankshaft tomorrow. I will take pictures and post.

 

[RAMurphy]

Pulled this bad boy out last night from the shipping container for a thorough inspection and cleaning. All looks good.
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Unfortunately life got in the way. I was called into work this morning. So I need to put this off for a few days. Once I got back home, I worked on a few other things on my baby until my wife gets home from work.

 

[RAMurphy]

Received my FAST throttle body. First thing when opening the shipping box I pulled out a case. My first thought was they shipped the wrong product. But then I realized the TB was shipped in this case. The other obvious thing when opening the case was the quality of this TB. I was so much superior to the Holley TB. This thing was obviously built with quality. After looking it over, I was pretty confident tis was would not give me the same problems. The IAS port was much much bigger. Installed it and started up the Tahoe and no whistle or unwanted noise whatsoever. I do have one problem, not unexpected, is how to mount it to my cold air intake system. It is 92mm vice the 90mm and that causes me some fitment issues that I will overcome.


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My parts arrived this morning to finally to secure this bad boy to my intake system. Gotta love Amazon at times.

 

[RAMurphy]

I was able to move a few wire bundles slightly and trim my back cable bracket (plastic piece) slightly so it fits better on the TBSS throttle body and now my Vortec engine cover fits in the two back slots and lays nicely on the throttle body. Looks nice. The next problem to overcome is to come up with a way to secure it from the top. The 10mm bolt that normally holds it down is right over the new MAP sensor location. Although the cover fits nicely, I want to find a way to secure it at the top. Back to the drawing board - but I'm closer.

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Vortec Cover is now installed. We'll see if my fix holds up. Looks very nice.

 

[RAMurphy]

So I decided to start putting my free floating pistons and connecting rods together. Boy those circle clips are pain to install. Ended up buying a tool for the job.


Here the parts are out for the install.

Unfortunately, I needed to modify the tool to make it work with my pistons. Gotta love a pneumatic cutoff wheel.

Now it fits properly.

 

[RAMurphy]

A continuation of previous post. So, essentially you force the circle clip into the center of the part I modified to work - not an easy task. You can see the clip inside the tool.

Then you use the other part of tool to push the clip into the piston - again not an easy task. then you just ensure the clip is inserted properly.

Two piston assembly down - 6 more to go.

 

[RAMurphy]

All eight pistons and connecting rods completed. Should have time on Friday to work on my crankshaft measurements and hopefully installation.

 

[Just Fishing]

brings back memories!
nice build so far

 

[George B]

All eight pistons and connecting rods completed. Should have time on Friday to work on my crankshaft measurements and hopefully installation.
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Did you weigh them all to see if they are all the same?

 

[RAMurphy]

Thank you for the response. I bought a fully balanced rotating assembly so that has already been done. But I will - trust but verify.