Agreed ...If I had your space I'd be wrecking marriages left and right...Oh Wait...!! I have done 2 so far.

 

Well, the list of while I'm in there grew quite a bit as usual. Besides the new oil pump, timing chain set, two new cylinder heads.... Unquestionably the oil pump check valve was sticking so that solved the fluctuating oil pressure. But I could not definitely determine the head gasket was responsible for a little bit of coolant in the oil and oil in the coolant. So I threw in a brand new radiator, added and external oil cooler to rule out any future issues. Also added an auxiliary transmission cooler to run in series with the factory one, bypassing the radiator. All that's left is to throw the intake on!

 

Red covers looo sweet, is that a Viper engine in there? Might as well do valley cover if you havent already. What size fittings dod you use on the external radiator? Are those 6an.

 

10an on the oil cooler lines. I went with 6an on the external transmission cooler. Nothing special on the engine, just a stock lq4. The red valve covers I've had for about 6 months and have been quite pleased with them. It's an upgrade to the newer style found on the 6.2 that has the better PVC baffle built in, eliminating for the most part oil building up in the intake. Very reasonable on Amazon:

MILIPARTS Upgrade Aluminum Engine Valve Covers Compatible with 1999-2008 Cadillac Escalade Chevy Silverado, Suburban Tahoe Trailblazer GMC Sierra Yukon Replaces Parts 12570427 12582224 https://a.co/d/9V7yzWw

 

i was joking on the viper engine lol, Just hred valve covers on the v10. Awesome work, i have the tru cool, just had to install in. Ill post somepics once i stalled. Cheers

 

100 mile test drive. The main reason that replaced both heads was I had a lot of blow by from worn valve guides at just under 110,000 miles. The lq4 is completely stock. Runs perfect, excessive blow by issue resolved, 13.8 MPG averaging 60 miles per hour. Hot oil pressure at idle 40 PSI, cruising at 60 MPH 63 PSI. That's with the Melling 295 oil pump, which came with the +10 PSI spring installed. Timing chain sprockets were visibly worn. I'm thinking previous owner didn't keep up on regular oil changes. Still had hone marks in cylinders. If I do the head gasket ever again I will use ARP head bolts and a torque wrench. Difficult to get to the back bolts and have room to turn them a certain angle in one move. For example, to turn the rear bolts 90°, instead of doing it in one move I had to do it 45° twice. That made me a little nervous. But seems to have worked okay. To prime the system with oil, I replaced the oil plug on the front driver side with an adapter that goes down to a 1/8 NPT.... Temporarily screwed in a nipple and pushed on a piece of hose hooked up to a new weed sprayer with a gallon of oil. Pumped it until I had oil coming up through the push rods. Then installed a 1/8 npt plug. Perhaps later I'll put an oil temperature sending unit there. I bypassed the radiator with an external engine oil cooler, connected with 10an stainless steel braided lines using the Derale adapter on the side of the oil pan. Went ahead and mounted the cooler below the radiator. Not much air flow there with the front splash shield installed, but kept my oil temps around 162° cruising at 60 MPH on an 85° day.

 

 

Also didn't want to take a chance with a failure on the transmission cooler side of the radiator. So while replacing the radiator I bypassed first to a new OEM tranny cooler, the next in line was an aftermarket Derale tube and fin cooler which I went with strictly because of limited space. On my test run detailed above, transmission settled at 155° at freeway speed of 60 mph.

 

Looks like a Ridgid bolt extractor, not the coveted Snap-On?

 

I've had this set since probably the mid 1980's when I worked on aircraft. Never even noticed that all of the collars say Rigid around the middle. Wonder if snap-on was involved in rebranding?