jt1

Glad you had a good weekend. Last time I was there it was mid 90's with a 80deg dewpoint, real suffering weather. Congratulations!!! You're riding with me at the next event. jt

Not many people do HH because it's a huge PITA. You got to seal up the block, have a water supply to supply the water at the desired temp, deal with the water lines during the honing operation, and have a means to catch the water when the HH is done. Nobody wants to dump water all over their 75K sunnen boring machine. You've got to do it twice, once for the bore and once for the hone, and there's the question of how many people will pay for it to make it a profitable venture. I guess a HH would cost 2 or 3 times as much a standard job. jt

Bah. No cords showing. Run'em. Just wait till you get the V8 car running. Usually I get 3 or 4 two day events off a set. How was the weekend? Everybody have a good trip? jt

The circle track guys have been experimenting with this for years. Some think it's worthwhile, others don't. There's no doubt the block changes dimensions as it heats up, and the hot honing believers think the HH process makes for a better bore. Nonbelievers say the block doesn't heat up uniformly, some parts of the block are hotter than others, so the HH process is of little value. Nobody has figured out how to account for how stresses incurred while the engine is running change the bores. You are basically trying to push the heads and crank away from each other, and these stresses affect the dimensions also, plus the fact is they are not constant as the crank rotates thru the firing order. Imagine each firing event applying force to the crank, the crank pushing down on the main caps, the main cap bolts pulling on the block, and the head bolts pulling the other way. The net result is a stress wave passing thru the block with several orders of harmonics, all of them changing the block dimensions, with each firing event and rotation of the crank. It's a complicated equation. John

Best wishes Pete, that's a tough deal. Maybe they've got a handle on it now and can get you fixed up. John

Don't waste your time on the 77 360 heads, they're smog heads with no quench, low compression, and small ports. Save up some money and use the Edelbrock aluminum heads with a performer intake and a 220ish at 50 hydraulic cam. Easy 325hp or so, less weight, money well spent in the long run. jt

I wonder what would happen if you turned the wheels a little with the jet lit? Would the thrust of the jet keep pushing the car straight ahead? Or would the jet spin the car like a broke bottle rocket? Or would it turn normally? That's some nice work. It's a shame he's an *******. Perhaps Darwin will improve his attitude. jt

Probably a good idea to take off the oil filter, cut it open, and see what's on the filter paper. jt

Pete, what ratio did you want for fifth? I think the 0.75 will be fine; my TKO is a 0.83 and I wish it was a little higher, it only gives about a 600 rpm drop from fourth. It's good for the track, but a little short for highway driving. jt

http://www.cranecams.com/pdf/Page266-275.pdf?PHPSESSID=69ae0483719b080d67d3cddd73eb446a Crane doesn't really overwhelm you with info there, but it looks to me like the intake valve closing @ 0.050 is 55deg ABDC. Comp gives you a IVC at 0.015, which is what I've used for my DCR calcs. I'm not really sure how to deal with that????? jt

To make a motor more pump gas friendly, you retard the cam, thus delaying the intake valve closing a little longer, and lowering the dynamic compression. Advancing the cam will raise the DC. The best thing to do is find out the net cc's of the pistons and the intake closing point of the cam, and calculate the static and dynamic compression of your combo. Then you can play with the cam setting and see the results. Edit: Check this out: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=110913&highlight=dynamic+compression Grumpy covers it well in that thread. No big surprise there, huh? John

Trans options for a LS are the T56 six speed manual OD, or the auto for the LS, I'm not sure what it is. 700R4 fits 1st gens and LT1's. Anything other than a stock LS install is going to blow the 5K budget all to hell. Even that is going to push it. A 450hp LS would push 10K. Do a search on LS1, LS2, LS6, and you'll get an idea what's required, there are several hours good reading there. Good 1stgen info here, a lot of dyno'd combos to give you an idea of what's required for a 450hp 1stgen, which you can get close to for 5K. http://ryanscarpage.50megs.com/combos1.html jt

To put a LS in, you'll need completely different motor mounts, and a different transmission. Neither of your current ones will match up. That one doesn't need a ECU, so the wiring is a lot simpler. jt

There's essentially no difference. The variations between individual blocks will be more that the difference between different casting #'s. A four bolt is stronger than a 2 bolt, but the best is to take a 2 bolt block and put 4 bolt splayed caps on it, since the 2 bolt block itself is a little stronger than the 4 bolt block. Before you spend any money on a block, get it sonic tested to see what you got to work with. My most recent hand grenade had walls as thin as 0.035", a complete POS, and it never really performed to suit me. John

My advice- 1)Determine your budget and timespan for that budget, i.e. I can spend 5K on it in the next year. 2)Research the mods you would like to do, giving each a price and timeframe. 3)Give the mods a priority considering price, time, desirability, and how long the car is gonna be on jackstands. While you're working on it, you're not going to be driving and enjoying it, and this kills a lot of projects. 4)Proceed with the mods based on the above considerations. There's no one ideal combo. That's why you see everything here from super boosted four cylinders to V-12's. You've got to research possibilities, decide what's gonna make you happy within your budget, then proceed. Nobody can make those decisions for you. Remember that the nice cars you see here, Pete's, Mark's, Clifton's, plus a lot more.....are the result of many years of work. So that's it. I can talk semi-intelligently about 1st gens if you want to go that route, and will be glad to offer my opinions. John

I hope all goes well. Enjoy the trip!!! John

Timing loop means trying different timing to see what the motor like best. for reasons unknown to me, some motors like more timing, some less. Lots of time 35-36deg is about right, but not always. jt

Comp went to 369 at the crank with that cam. I would think 300 at the wheels is a reasonable goal. http://www.compcams.com/Technical/DynoSheets/XE274H-10_001.asp Put the intake on, spend some time at the dyno with both carbs, get the jetting to 12.5-12.7 at WOT, and do a timing loop to see how much timing it likes. Edit: Also check to absolutely sure you're getting WOT. An easy but common mistake. jt

It's a 355 flat top motor, 10.3:1 compression, Canfield 195's with a bowl cleanup/blend, Comp solid roller, something like 248/252@50, 580/586 lift, air gap, MSD 6AL. With the 700DP, which has the tower cut off and blended, it made 480hp/429tq at 6500/5400rpm. With a 830 annular, it went to 501hp/448tq at 6400/5100rpm. Crank horsepower, 93 octane pump premium, 36deg timing. It ran good enough to split #2 & #4 main caps at a track event one day last month. I was using a mid 80's mexican block which was a POS. I'm currently rebuilding it with a 72 010/020 block, with milodon caps. John

Hickl, my setup is 1st gen 355, JTR mounts, Eddy performer air gap, uncut, Holley 700dp. My car has the 1/2" JTR spacers between the crossmember and frame. With a 1 1/4" drop base air cleaner, a repop Z28 style, I was using a 14 x 3" air filter with no problems. With a 1 1/2" drop base, I run a 14 x 4" air filter. This is very close and would not fit without the crossmember spacers, it has about 1/4" clearance to the hood. I made 501 hp @ 6700rpm with the unmodified air gap. It makes good top end and doesn't give up much torque lower down, like a single plane. Edit: A good easy way to check clearance to the air cleaner is take a piece of aluminum foil, wad it up into a loose ball, tape it to the air cleaner with duct tape, then gently shut the hood. The hood crushes the foil ball, and it doesn't rebound, so you can measure it. The closest place isn't the center, it's where the bulge on the hood blends back into the hood. John

Either carb should work fine for your combo if properly tuned. You need to learn to do it yourself, or find somebody to help out, preferably with a wideband 02. I run a RPM air gap under a stock hood, you just need a drop base air cleaner. They're a fine intake. jt

Is there a bellhousing to connect the LSX to a TKO? If so, this would be an ideal combo. The only downside to a LSX is that what weight is saved in the motor, most of it is lost using a T56. With a 1st gen/JTR/TKO/Pro 5.0 setup, I had to trim about 1/2" out of the front of the shifter opening, with the shifter in the rearmost position. A TKO weighs about 105#, cost is around $1800-$2000 or so. John

When I bent my S&S's, I took a round steel bar about 1" in diameter, ground it smooth on the end, and stuck it up thru the collectors to the flattened places. Then take a torch, heat the tube red hot, and work the bar around to open the tube back up. Put pressure on the tube from the inside with the bar, then tap the tube where it isn't hot to push out the flat areas. Working carefully with the bar and a hammer got them looking pretty good again, but it took a while. jt

1. Unscrew light bulb in ceiling light fixture. 2. Discover entire structure supporting light bulb is rusted away, previously repaired with fiberglass and bondo. 3. Spend six months on the dark fabricating new pieces, welding them in, decide it isn't strong enough, fabricate more pieces, weld in, decide that's too heavy, cut out the whole show. 4. Get disgusted, take a six month break. 5. Fab third structure, weld in, learn there's a new style light fixture that's not compatible with your just welded in structure. 6. Fab fourth structure, get installed, decide it's perfect. 7. Wait one year to get it painted. 8. Screw in new light bulb. jt

I'm not sure. My machinest wants me to bring it over and check it out some more. The only way I checked it was to make sure the cam was free. In my years of hot rodding, this is the first time I've seen a motor eat cam bearings like this. It sounds a lot like what doc is describing. "Squaring a block" is a machining process. First you line bore/hone it to make sure the mains are straight, then a milling machine that indexes off the main bore and cam bore is used to machine the decks. This ensures that the decks are parallel to the main C/L, the same height form the main C/L, and 90deg to each other. "Zero decking" means the height of the deck and the top of the pistons at TDC are the same, which improves compression and quench. NONE of this explains why it broke the main cap. John