38 CHEVY HIGH PERFORMANCE II OCTOBER 2019
SAY HELLO TO THE
EN FUEGO SIX-OH
We attempt to rebuild the worst junkyard
engine ever, so you don’t have to
✜ TEXT & PHOTOS: Jeff Huneycutt
to release the engine from the
transmission. We had to pull both as
one unit. Not easy in a four-wheel-drive
vehicle. The engine itself didn’t look
too healthy either. There was water
in several of the cylinders and one of
the spark plugs was broken off in the
cylinder head.
So, as the realization dawned on us
that this particular engine was a napalm
bomb of things gone wrong, instead
of moving on to a better engine, we
decided to see what would be required
to rebuild what’s possibly the worst
junkyard engine ever. Yes, this is a bad
idea. And maybe this engine would
be better off melted down and turned
into a washing machine or lockers for a
middle school somewhere. But where’s
the fun in that?T
his is not the story that we planned. General Motors’ 4.8/5.3-liter LS-based
blocks are relatively plentiful in the junkyards, but the larger displacement
6.0-liter LQ4 and LQ9 engines are tougher to find. So when we spotted a 2005
Cadillac Escalade ESV (the Suburban-sized version) on a recon run at the local
junkyard, we immediately went to take a look.
It wasn’t pretty.
The engine was covered in caked-on fire extinguisher powder, and even though
the plastic intake manifold wasn’t melted, something had obviously been on fire.
Plus, it was seized up and wouldn’t turn over, even with a breaker bar on the
crank bolt. Still, the eighth letter in the VIN code was “N,” so we knew it was the
345-horsepower LQ9, which are tough to come by. I thought this one could be
salvageable with some machine work, so I called my dad and asked if he wouldn’t
mind helping me pull an engine from the junkyard bright and early the next day. I
told him we should be done in time for a late lunch, and the burgers were on me.
Boy, was I wrong. Practically every bolt was galled tight with rust. We worked
for a day and a half to get the engine and transmission out. It rained. I collected
fresh scars on my hands I will carry for the rest of my life. It was a miserable
experience, and I loved every second of it.
Pretty early on we realized this LQ9 wasn’t worth the effort. Because we
couldn’t get the engine to spin over, we couldn’t reach the flexplate bolts
WRENCH
01 | No, we aren’t planning to rebuild the
transmission along with the LQ9 engine
we pulled from the junkyard. Because the
engine was seized—we couldn’t spin it over
to loosen the flywheel bolts—the engine
and transmission had to come out as a unit.
Thankfully, someone else wanted the trans
so we were able to get rid of it no problem.