Bigpoppa

As I get started, a bit of background (okay, alot of background). Earlier this year I picked up a 95 2 door Tahoe cheap. We were looking for a vehicle for my next son that will start driving and we have 3 other Chevy trucks so I am familiar with them. Exterior is straight, brand new radiator and transmission so it has had some work done. Got it cheap as there was water in the oil so I assumed best case scenario, blown head gasket, worst case, junkyard engine. Finally got around to pulling the heads and sure enough, multiple giant cracks in the block. The intake manifold even had a crack in it.

Started sourcing engines and was looking at around $600 for an engine with around 140k miles. But I found a guy on craigslist selling a motor he had someone build for an old car that he was going to fix up but sold. Story was, he had his mechanic pull the motor from a junkyard, and get it to a machine shop. He didn't know much about the motor (or apparently engines in general) except in his words his mechanic told him something about "30 over" and that he went with upgraded pistons and rods that were an extra $500 over the stock options. Engine has obviously been professionally cleaned and put together. I can actually look with a flashlight through the spark plug holes and see the new cross hatching and "0.30" for the 30 over pistons. You can tell the valves are new and that it has a new cam and lifters. I don't know how much he spent on it but I guess he had it so long he just wanted it out of his garage so he took $500 for it.

On top of this, I took a buffer to the paint and the factory black shined up to near mirror finish. So, this went from thinking I was buying something that was going to be an old worn out truck, to all the sudden, something where I could have a nice straight truck, with effectively a new engine and nearly brand new transmission. So Im taking a bit more time, cleaning it up and trying to make sure I'm doing things right. To that point, I have a couple of questions that I really can't find specific answers on from google.

1. I have no clue what cam is in this thing. Unfortunately, he had no paperwork on this engine as his mechanic had it built and he had just sat it in his garage, took the tarp off from time to time and looked at it. Since he was having it built for a car, I'm a bit concerned putting it in a truck as I still want low end torque. He had a full MSD distributor, Edelbrock intake, and Upgraded carb for this thing (all of which wouldn't work for me) so I'm assuming the cam would have to be a performance cam. Is there anyway to get an idea of the kind of cam it is without pulling the cam or buying an expensive tool specifically for measuring the cam lift and duration?
2. He didn't have the pushrods or rocker arms. Probably a good thing as I wouldn't have liked some of the valve springs being compressed over the years that it sat. I have read differing opinions on reusing the pushrods and rocker arms. I have cleaned them up good, shot carb cleaner through all the pushrods to get the old gunk out and have them installed in the motor. However, wanted to get thoughts on those that have done this in the past.
3. When I manually turn the crank, it seems that the outer sleeve of the lifter is moving far more than the pushrod seat. In the old motor, they both only move about a quarter inch. In this motor, the lifter moves quite a bit more than the old motor, but the seat only moves about half way. Is this normal?

Thanks in advance for any assistance. I'm very mechanical and have done several rebuilds in the past, it's just that I have never dealt with pushrod lifters and rockers. Most of my work on the valvetrain of engines have been with overhead cam engines.

Kazoocruiser

I'll take a run at this question:
3. When I manually turn the crank, it seems that the outer sleeve of the lifter is moving far more than the pushrod seat. In the old motor, they both only move about a quarter inch. In this motor, the lifter moves quite a bit more than the old motor, but the seat only moves about half way. Is this normal?

Until the lifter gets pumped up from oil pressure, I think what you are seeing is normal. Once the engine starts and is running, you have to adjust the free play out

Bigpoppa

Thanks for the response. I kind of suspected that. However, how does that affect measuring the pushrods? I have read on several sites about using a sharpie on the top of the valve to make sure the pushrod length keeps keeps the rocker aligned correctly on the top of the valve. When I rotate it through a revolution now, it wipes the sharpie off correctly. Concerned if it changes the lift significantly that I could have some problems.

BTW, reusing the steel rocker arms, not rollers.