grumpyvette

OK I ran all that info thru my software and I called crower/crane/isky, to verify what I got in results bye thier tech guys YES IM WELL AWARE theres several ways to maximize the turbo maps pressure curve and cylinder fill efficincy, now theres several factors that you left out so I was forced to assume a few things here,one is that were working with slightly restrictive heads, and that you really want 650 plus hp,that and I didn,t know the turbo maps I was working with so I was forced to assume they were almost ideally matched to that LT1/377 displacement and 3500rpm-6400rpm power band, and the cars weight was about 3300 lbs with you in it, and its 99% a race car application with race octane fuel ID suggest youll want a significantly larger cam that you thought if you really want 650hp AND a massive tq curve with that combo, partly because the heads are slightly restrictive but mostly to maximize the tq curve, and your goal is over 650hp (yes youll need to change springs on the heads and do some clearance work.) ID suggest a CRANE 10R000015 solid roller cam,(thats normally a 106 LCA) but have it custom ground on a 112 LCA its got a 630 lift on BOTH the intake and exhaust and a 248/256 durration, yes its says 3500rpm-7200rpm but your larger displacement makes it fit the 377 just fine youll need to order from CRANE 386-258-6174 anyway thats what ID put in the engine IF IT WAS MY CAR and I was serious about wanting over 650hp

ID suggest building a combo to maximixe the 350s basic ideal power range of about 3500rpm-6700rpm,something similar to this, this intake and 200cc heads and solid flat tappet cam, & 750 cfm carb matched to a manual trans or 3200 stall converter and 1 3.73:1 -4.11:1 rear gear ratio http://www.jegs.com/i/Brodix/158/1021001/10002/-1/760699%7C10187 http://www.jegs.com/i/Holley/510/300-25/10002/-1 http://www.jegs.com/i/Crane/270/113841/10002/-1/746648%7C10707 http://www.jegs.com/i/Barry%20Grant/132/5402010BC/10002/-1 the differance from what you currently have will be noticable, BTW WHERE IN FLORIDA?, IM in PALM BCH

"For ARP Fasteners, follow ARP’s torque procedure TO THE LETTER!, including the exact lube for the torque spec they recommend." "As long as you NEVER EVER torque ABOVE the max torque spec, you can use as many times as you want. Many people think "hey I can torque my bolts a bit more than it says just for that extra tightening effect" WRONG. NEVER do that, you are going past the designed yeild point of the material. Always use some sort of moly graphite lube as well." youve gotten good advice in the above posts... and the others, follow the manufactures procedures, and youll be fine, several of my engines have been totally disassembled and reassembled 7-8 times and IM still useing the same ARP studs........now I will point out that there ARE TORQUE to yeild and torque plus angle fasteners but they also come with instuctions, and are plainly marked for single use http://www.arp-bolts.com/FAQ/FAQ.html http://www.digitalcorvettes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=55575 http://www.digitalcorvettes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=81323 IF your useing ARP studs or bolts USE ARP SPECS AND PROCEDURES

http://www.gofastnews.com/board/technical-articles/30-manifold-mania.html

figure out a realistic budget and ILL suggest a few viable options, but keep in mind if you do some of the assembly yourself youll save some money and your drive train and gearing WILL effectively limit choices. good cylinder heads, large displacement and the correctly matched cam/cpr ratio go a long ways toward making a sweet combo good place to start http://www.ohiocrank.com/chev_sb_shortb.html http://www.jegs.com/i/Brodix/158/1021001/10002/-1/760699%7C10187 http://www.jegs.com/i/Holley/510/300-36C/10002/-1/746535%7C11937

step one set the timeing and verify that its advancing smoothly from about 12 BTDC at idle to about 37-38 degrees at 3000rpm next adjust the valves while it idles to a 1/4 turn in from where it clicks when they are loosened up adjust the spark plug gap to between .043-.047 advust the fuel pressure to 4.5-5 PSI and verify you get a MINIMUM of a QT of fuel in 30 seconds set the floats correctly check for vacuum leaks make sure the throttles open 100% fully do a compression check and use a backpressure gauge to see what the restriction to flow in the exhaust is. learn how to read plugs IF you installed the cam, VERIFY and DEGREE IN THE CAM I have zero idea as to your location, but if you close to palm bch fla drive bye and Ill help you figure it out

we need to know things like.... CARB, INTAKE MANIFOLD TRUE COMPRESSION RATIO THE CAM USED THE HEADS used PISTONS REAR GEAR RATIO IGNITION used WHATS a COMPRESSION TEST SHOW HOW WERE THE VALVES LASHED/ADJUSTED your fuel line size ETC,ETC,ETC.

OK, you get a screaming deal on a project Z, the guy says its a 383, but is it, can you test that without engine disassembly, and testing sure costs less than find you bought a 283, or 307 after the guys long gone with your cash YES,YOU CAN!, but the current owner MAY not allow you to test it, ......and it will cost you a small bit of change, remove the valve cover on the drivers side and rockers from #1 cylinder buy this CHEAP test kit, remove the inner valve from the spark plug adaptor and connect a 2 ft extension hose, of clear flex fuel line, http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=95187 connect the free end of the hose into a measuring cup marked in ML (metric) Measuring liquids in milliliters is easy. Every liquid measuring cup I've ever seen always has a metric scale on at least one side. In the picture, from left to right, 250 ml, 1 l, and 500 ml. DOLLAR STORES carry plastic versions for under $3 bring the #1 cylinder to TDC, remove the sparkplug and replace with the adapter, and measuring cup, fill those with marvel mystery oil and run the cylinder to BDC and up to TDC at least twice BYE HAND SLOWLY, so your sucking in and pushing out oil and air, bring the #1 to TDC, fill the MEASURING cylinder to the top line then turn the engine to BDC, record the difference in measuring cylinder volume in CCs one liter =1000 milliliters one liter=61 cubic inches 307= 38.375 cubic inches or 630 ccs 350=43.75 cubic inches or 717 ccs 383=47.875 cubic inches or 800ccs and once your done, remove and replace the necessary parts and test equipment except for the spark plug, start and run the engine with it out , let it run 30 seconds to slightly over 1 minute, (yeah noisy and messy), but you won,t hurt squat, shut it down after 1 minute and replace the sparkplug, it will smoke for a couple minutes but it will quickly clear

a brief spike in coolant temp, to 240-250F is hardly something to worry about,in fact oil temps can reach 260F-270F briefly without major problems either, just add a quart of fresh oil and let it cool down slowly, adding a bunch of cool water quickly to the radiator could cause problems

taking a CLASS is a great idea, it won,t do much in the way of getting you a personal welder. BUT, IT may make you the contacts to get one at a screaming deal and the skills to use one, PLUS your bound to find out more about WHICH type of welding ,process and machine models you prefer or want to avoid. personally I think the oxy-acetolene torch and the tig ar the two best options, as I get nice looking solid welds with those but then Im seldom in a hurry and the arc and mig are faster and at times easier to use and certainly learn on. remember WHAT METAL your welding, the material, thickness, surounding area and WHERE your welding effect which welders the best match, and in a few cases only one process is known to be clearly better, you can TIG or use an oxy-acetolene torch in many applications, that a MIG OR ARC won,t work as well on or work at all.

http://www.welders-direct.com/merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=WD&Product_Code=907335 buy THIS WELDER AND rent or borrow A REASONABLE SIZE GENERATOR, on the days youll acctually be welding then when your done you can sell or upgrade the welder as your needs dictate, look the welder costs $650 or so, you can easily sell it used for $450-$500 if its kept in decent shape and if the job drags on a bit and takes a couple weeks to finish, well, renting a welder costs will have far exceeded the $200 -$650 you have invested depending on if you sold the welder,.....which rents for far more daily than a portable generator, plus portable generators are far easier to find, borrow from buddies and are cheaper to rent than decent welders. PLUS youll gain skills AND you can possiably make money with the welder doing your friends projects even if you charge them a pitance for the work done, look in the long run spending $650 on a decent welders a BARGIN, and you can get a large percentage of that back at any time selling the welder if you need cash or choose to trade it in or sell it to upgrade

NO not really, Im just stating what Ive seen after several visits to several dynos to get cars friends own dyno tested, in several citys ....like every thing else in life theres good carring knowledgable guys running some businesses and a few guys who could care less and just want your cash for putting your car on thier dyno equipment, they purchased thinking that like a car wash its a tool and profit center thats meant to have a line of cars going thru as fast as you can process them. that and guys that think that without a dyno you can,t tune a car, now I think most guys running dynos are decent and skilled car guys tring to make back an investment on equipment and help clients improve thier cars, but Ive been to enough places and watched enought dyno testing to know they vary wildly in the skill and concern levels of those operateing them I won,t mention names or even cities, but I will point out that knowing what to expect helps BTW have your car well strapped down, bust the straps holding the car in place and it gets expensive/dangerous BTW, Ive had a couple guys dyno engines Ive built to find out if they got decent numbers, (they did)

if you get a chance to dyno your car for the first time, JUMP ON IT , if the cost is reasonable, but in many cases it requires about 2-3 hours and parts changing to get good results, if your trying to dyno tune the car while your testing. you need to allow the engine to cool off between runs, plugs to be changed and inspected, possiably O2 sensors changed, carbs re-jetted etc. and most dyno charge by the hour. $200-$400 is comonly the final cost. ENJOY THE EXPERIANCE:thumbsup: I suppose we all need to visit a dyno ocasionally, just to verify the results we got from mods we have done, and If youve never been its a good experiance, and youll learn a few things, and probably find your car makes a completely differant hp level than you thought it did. but after youve been a couple times you start thinking about all the TOOLS that $400 can buy for your shop and how many parts that $400 could buy , IR TEMP GUNS, DIAL BACK TIMING LIGHTS,JET ASSORTMENTS,A/F RATIO GAUGES, diagnostic software, vacuum gauges and digital multi-meters,exhaust back pressure gauges, ETC, and if your like many older guys, (you find that a few dyno shops are not staffed with the brightest lights on the tree,more like car crazed minimum wage, high school rejects in a few cases) guys that know LESS that you do about correctly tuning a car, they look at the F/A mix and the timing and exhaust temp info and can generally improve your cars performance.....but you can do the exact same thing with the correct test equipment, real time data log software, reading plug condition, and your experiance and YOU owning the tools and YOU GAINing the experiance & knowledge if YOU do the tunning is a better investment for YOUR money......yeah youll still occasionally go to the DYNO, but if your like me your hearing your wallet scream ALL THE TIME YOUR THERE, and HAVING THOUGHTS ABOUT the TOOLS YOU SHOULD HAVE BOUGHT INSTEAD!

after reading that, Im both impressed with your ingenuity and thankful Ive got a water cooled 300 amp tig torch, and 100 amp feed circuit on my tig welder. It took me years of looking to find a decent used TIG with the water cooled torch etc, for what Ive got into the equipment cost, btw correctly hooking UP a dedicated 100 amp breaker and adding a 50 ft 2aw, 3 conductor feed cost damn near what the welder cost, and it weights easily 900lbs plus, so be aware of that when you get a price on a USED OLDER TIG, I picked mine up from a shop that was going out of business for ALOT less than a similar capacity newer TIG would have cost , I have about $1500 in the rig and a new tig could easily cost $7K, BTW Ive found blocking off the ends of the exhaust pipes with metalic backed air conditioner duct tape and flushing the inside of the pipe sections with argon helps the weld quality just like you stated, Ill need to check on the tig rods Im useing as I don,t remember the id number

considering the TIG set-up your useing IM even further impressed, but your correct, the more I use my tig welder the more impressed with its potential Ive become,for years I had only an 220volt 230 amp ARC welder and a oxy acetolen torch, and you would probably be surprized at what can be accomplished with just those, its not that good equipments not a huge help (it is) but the skill and experiance of the guy useing any equipment has a huge effect on the results GAS FLOW RATE SETTINGS? AMPS? filler rods?

CONGRATS! Ive seen guys that have been building exhausts for YEARS not do as nice of work...........in fact my local muffler shop has NEVER done work on welds that looks that nice! BTW WHAT TYPE, MODEL AND BRAND OF WELDER AND WHICH AMP & SHIELD GAS SETTINGS...WIRE OR RODS, MIG? TIG? HOW ABOUT MORE INFO ON THE EQUIPMENT YOU USED AND SETTINGS, Im sure some of us can always use more info. a JOB like that plus materials would easilly cost several hundred dollars at most shops so it makes having a welder and the skills almost a no-brainers and easily cost justifying the welder purchase , returning the expences in only a few jobs , from that point on the welding equipments paid for....I purchased my MILLER 252 MIG last year for 2K and its already paid for itself, I purchased a USED 330 amp TIG IM still learning to do welds with but the more I use it the better I get and the more I prefer TIG over MIG for some applications

learning to WELD several ways is a huge advantage in this hobby, Ive been welding for 37 plus years and while Im no expert I can efficiently stick stuff together so it won,t come apart http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=108912&highlight=tig

http://www.themotorbookstore.com/resmchstvi.html buy this book/CD its an EXCELLENT SOURCE of info for the newer guys theres useful info in the threads and sub-links I post here http://www.digitalcorvettes.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=238 and here http://www.chevytalk.org/fusionbb/showforum.php?fid/72/keyword/Chevy_Performance/ remember the KEY to having a nice car is NOT wasting money, having a high power to weight ratio , plus good suspension and brakes and knowing exactly what your trying to do, then doing it correctly,and doing it safely most of the guys on this (Z) site will help you with info,and keep in mind that since they are generally doing more extensive mods with aftermarket parts and engine swaps ETC. they are the true hot rodders, are usually forced into thinking things thru, rather than the parts swappers on most sites

glad to help increase the general skill levels

first Id point out that you can RENT a 220volt generator with a built in MIG or ARC welder on a trailer from many rental places http://cgi.ebay.com/MILLER-RENEGADE-180-ENGINE-DRIVE-MIG-WELDER-907395_W0QQitemZ360040925204QQihZ023QQcategoryZ113743QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem OR you can RENT an OXY-ACETOLENE TORCH WELDER (probably the best route) in that its fast, portable and works fine if your familiar with gas welding REMEMBER...that requires NO ELECTRICITY NEXT to have any 110 volt welder work correctly youll need a MINIMUM of a 10 gauge extension cord for over 75 feet and a 8 gauge would be prefered NEXT yeah, a QUALITY 110volt welder in the hands of someone whose familiar with one OR willing to learn thru EXPERIANCE and maYBE some semi skilled friends should do the job,in fact its about ideal for floor pans, but not ideal for steel over 3/16" thick,but it could do the work , but youll pay a bit for a DECENT 110 volt welder ON the PLUS SIDE its tool you will wonder how you ever got along without after your good with it, and the $600-$650 cost is a SMALL FRACTION of what a shop will charge to replace floor pans and once your done you could always sell it and recover most of the cost PLUS youll have learned a skill and be ready to use the cash to UPGRADE to a 180-250 amp MIG later ID TALK TO YOUR MANAGER IN THE APPARTMENT FIRST! not much sence in renting or buying a welder then being told theres no way in hell you can use it on his property and loose the cash and time youll invest with zero results http://www.welders-direct.com/merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=WD&Product_Code=907335 http://www.welders-direct.com/merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=WD&Product_Code=K2471-1 http://www.brwelder.com/indextemplate.cfm?file=shop/detail.cfm&ID=13&SubCategory=1 I just sold my 110 volt mig , that was in perfect working order and looking like new,and several spools of wire for $250 so there ARE deals to be had on used welders, if you look around, it worked great on sheet metal and exhaust systems but was really to small to be easy for use on roll cages and suspension brackets ,motor mounts, frames ETC. which is mostly what I use a MIG welder for so I bought a miller 252 mig last year, yeah! the 110 could have done a good deal of the work but theres no way it had the amps to do it correctly on the 1/4" and 3/8" thick stuff

"Now that's funny! A custom header for $200?" oh! yeah! HAVING BUILT OVER A DOZEN CUSTOM ENGINE SWAP HEADERS... TRY $800-$1800 ON AVERAGE, YOULL BE FAR CLOSER JUST THE MATERIALS (especially stainless with merge collectors) CAN VERY EASILY COST $700-$1200 IN SOME CASES AND then IT GETS LABOR, INTENSIVE, in many cases modifying a standard set of production headers can save you a bunch of time an effort IF YOUR FAMILIAR WITH which headers ALMOST fit the application, that and your limited in many cases to 30,45,60, and 90 and 189 degree preformed bends to cut and modify of a standard radias, yeah, you can cut and fabricate but its never a cut to length, bolt on and weld deal with easy cuts a pipe cutter could cut, the edge weld circumferance distance is only consistant on 90 degree cuts, heres something that helps occasionally... http://www.pontiacracing.net/js_header_length1.htm http://www.metalgeek.com/static/cope.pcgi http://victorylibrary.com/mopar/header-tech-c.htm

"You know if they took the price down to $4-500 I would probably buy it. I think I could make some money off of it building headers for guys I know. Heck I could build some headers for the V8 280ZX guys! Sweet product but way over priced" DITTO! EXACTLY MY THOUGHTS, I do enought odd engine swaps that dropping $500 on that would be fine as a tool cost, but I looked into this youll really need about $1900 in parts to build decent headers and thats MINIMUM it could easilly cost more, the parts allow you to build primairy tube lengths at about 30"-33" youll need 37"-39" primairies on many applications and that would require addition of custom kit parts PLUS I don,t see the collectors or flange plates listed , youll need several differant flange plates to make the tool cost worth it. YEAH! Im sure I could work around those problems easily,but for $1900 PLUS Id expect that to be handled in the cost

do you bother to inspect your oil filters, occasionally, I do, especially on my cars, but because I help lots of guys work on thier cars and most times its not my car , I don,t bother. BTW if you want the tool, summit sells them Proform 66490 $73.99 the interesting thing youll find many times is how cheaply made some filters are, and yeah theres big differances in some brands, in the total surface area of the filter screen and how well they are assembled, the ,materials used ETC. http://minimopar.knizefamily.net/oilfilterstudy.html http://www.aloha34.com/information/oilfiltertable.pdf btw, add a few magnets to the oil pan and drain back area in your engine, the trap and hold metalic dust that comes from wear and increase engine life span by preventing that crap embedding in the bearings http://www.kjmagnetics.com/proddetai...d=D66SH&cat=13 http://www.kjmagnetics.com/proddetail.asp?prod=D66SH these are even more tollerant of temp swings and retain strength at even higher engine oil temps plus they are smaller and easier to use The SH material in the D66SH magnets, means that the magnets can be heated to 300° F without any loss of magnetic strength, unlike standard neodymium magnets that begin to lose strength at 175° F. Suitable for many high temperature applications.

"this is really cool! untill I saw the price for a 6 cylinder.. $1,100!?!?! I guess its not too bad if they fabricate it up for you and ship it off! not toooo shabby" Im not sure I read this correctly... but I don,t think they provide a welded up functioning header, from your finnished pattern ,they just provide the plastic parts that allow you to mock up a design? and YOU still need to build your own headers for that price? so for $1400 or so you get plastic sections to mock up a design then you still need to buy the steel, cut, fit and weld up a header all at further expence

yeah compression ratio test, it should indicate if your getting decent ring and valve sealing before you go doing mods