2005 Pontiac Grand Prix GXP LS4 DoD 4T65E TAPShift powertrain swap into a Pontiac Fiero

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Here is a picture of the engine block when I had the heads off.
  

I did the port work on the cylinder heads myself -- focusing especially in the area of the valve guide in both ports; which needed a lot of attention. I then took the heads to the machine shop to have a multi-angle, performance valve and seat grinding job done. Installed new valve seals and put everything back together (engine only had 40,000mi on it so there was no reason to change out valve springs).

Here are some pictures of the stock ports...
     

 

Here is after the porting before the heads went to the machine shop...
        

 

The factory head gaskets are 3 layers (aka: multi layer steel, or MLS) and are coated with a black sealing agent in key areas. Obviously new factory gaskets were used, and the head bolts that are used on this engine are torque to yeild, so those had to be replaced as well. The LS4 uses ten - 11mm x 2.0 thread pitch bolts around the cylinders and five - 8mm x 1.25 bolts along the lifter valley per head. The 11mm bolts get torqed to 22 ft/lbs in sequence, then 90 deg turn each in sequence, then an additional 70 degrees in sequence for the final pass. Then the 8mm bolts get torqued to 22 ft/lbs from the center out.

Pics of the engine reassembled...
        

 

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