Newb with piston/rod replacement Q

[IHeartMikeVick]

Whats goin on guys.. My first post here so bare with me. I picked up a 96 gt with a few mods a couple weeks ago. The car has svo heads and ecu and at one point had a vortech sc on it, from what I understand the svo ecu and and supercharger are not a good combo together, and I think the previous owner burned up a cylinder. I have no compression in cylinder 4 and it is burning alot of oil. Picking up a used engine tomarrow and I'm thinking about just swapping a piston/rod in that cylinder for now, wondering if it's possible to do through the bottom of the engine?

Also if anyone has any info on the svo heads that would be awesome. I mainly wondering if they are as good or better than PI heads and what kind of hp #'s can be had with them with the right cams/intake ect.

thanks in advance!

 

[trinity_gt]

You won't be able to replace a rod & piston assembly through the bottom of the motor. I guess you might have room if you removed the crankshaft but compressing the rings would be a bitch... To be honest, if a piston has been damaged, it's best to pull that head and inspect its chamber and the valves to be sure they weren't hurt too.

AFAIK, the SVO head is better than the PI. It's got a bigger intake, no swirl-dam by the intake valve, the valves are unshrouded (relative to the PI, anyway) the biggest intake port volume and outflows the NPI and PI heads across the board. For example, according to Hyland, the NPI and PI heads flow 156cfm at 0.500" lift on the intake side. The SVO flows 193. On the exhaust side, the flow numbers are 117, 133 and 140 respectively.

They're definitely keepers if they're really SVO heads.

 

[IHeartMikeVick]

good info, thankyou..

And yes they are svo heads on it, got alot of receipts with the car and I checked the part number on the side of the head M-6049-D461. I'm excited about getting it running correctly now!

just curious, Have you tried taking one out of the bottom before? I figured that compressing the rings would be the hard part but that it could be done..
Maybe I'm crazy, but I was thinking about compressing one ring at a time with a large zip tie.. any thoughts ? The car is my dd right now, still runs decent, I just can't afford the down time to take the top end all apart..

 

[nancygrl]

You could try it, but I wouldn't attempt it. Like Trinity mentioned, I'd pull the head to make sure that everything is ok there. With the head pulled, pop in the new rod/piston and you won't have to reinstall the crank and all the other rod ends, mains, etc. that go along with that.

 

[IHeartMikeVick]

Confirmed, .. I decided to pull the oil pan on my used engine just to have a look, and Trinity you were right, there is no chance in hell any piston can be taken out from the bottom . Not only are the counter weights in the way but also just the way the block is layed out won't allow for it. It looks like even with the crank removed I wouldn't be able to get #4 out. Possibly 7 or 8 could be, but it looks like more work than taking a head off. Thanks for the heads up.. I would have been pissed if I went through the trouble of attempting it on the engine in the car!