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bramagedained

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Posts posted by bramagedained

  1. Watching the vintage cars race at Road America was great again this year.  Much nicer weather(it wasn't blisteringly hot this time) than last year.

     

    Did you do any of the events at Street Machine over the weekend?

     

    The MN Healey club has a hill climb event near Alma, WI(basically across the river from Wabasha) on Sept 23-25.  It's not in any way a serious event, but, it's a cheap fun weekend to close out summer.  It's open to anything more than 30 years old.

  2. I was going to LS swap my car until I made a concrete list of what everything would cost, then leaving $750 for all the random nickle and dime stuff you invariably need to buy.  It was just more than I could swing with all the other stuff I was doing as well(wiring, flares, front suspension/brakes, wfritts 8.8 rear setup, fuel cell, etc).

     

    Instead I spent $1500 on making the 350 that was already in it a much better motor(it was fresh from the 70's with an era performance cam and edelbrock intake).  I only have like 500 miles on it, but, Im overall happy with my choice.

     

    The way I look at it is that I bought myself a few years to acquire all the parts to make the boosted LS setup I really want.

  3. Two wires from the HEI(the cap itself is marked, or should be).  One is switched 12v when the car is on "Run" or "Start", the other is the Tach signal.

     

    One wire each from Oil Pressure and Water Temp senders for the gauges.

     

    Two wires to the starter.  One heavy +12v from the battery and a smaller wire that runs to the solenoid from the starter switch.

     

    One or more heavy gauge ground wires should be attached to the block in some way.

     

    Alternator might have one, two, or three wires depending on which type it is.

     

     

     

    That is all assuming you have a carb'd SBC with an HEI.

    • Like 1
  4. I hear nothing but good things about those guys.  I took the mustang there once to do a couple pulls to check an email tune I had.  Solid guys who love what they do.  Running E98 is just nuts.  I don't know how you ever got bored with that thing!

     

    I didn't.  The transmission just didn't hold up, and I didn't want to drop several grand on one that would stay together.

     

    http://imgur.com/a/fZKmZ

     

    That happened mid pull as it came up on boost in 4th.  I broke 3rd the same way shortly after. 

     

    I should have maybe kept the motor and the AEM EMS for the Datsun, though.  Someone sells adapter plates/flex plates to bolt up a TH350/400 to a 4G63.

  5. Danny and Shane at DB are solid people.

     

    The Evo I had was there a few times for different things over the years I had it.  The last of which was the big boy fuel system to run E98 and Shane's tune to get ~900hp and ~700tq out of a 2.3L.  The motor which I put several thousand miles on that way, then went into a friends car for a few thousand more.

     

    I was bummed when Danny told me they don't do any carb stuff, they would have been my first choice for the Datsun, too.

  6. That black rubbery stuff between the panels in the rear is a mess when you go to make a lip and stitch the two back together.

     

    It messes with the weld, and it will catch fire and burn right next to the weld.  When the metal is hot, even from just the little tack welds to stitch it together, it melts and gets drawn to the heat where it will catch fire.  It looks sort of like a candle flame when the wick was too long.  It will leave a black sooty mess on the paint, too.

     

    Try to get as much out as you can, I wish I had done it when it was really cold out so maybe it would have been more brittle for removal.

  7. Unfortunately I didnt take any pictures when I cut the fenders,  The lip of the flares are just above where the OEM Arch would have been, I think at the top the piece I cut out was about 2"-3" wide.

     

    I'd have to bottom the whole car hard for the tires to rub.  With the shocks fully compressed they can hit, but, that hopefully doesn't ever happen.  If I went for mounting high enough that they never hit, it would have looked bad so that was the compromise I made.

  8.  

    You are then supposed to check the rotational starting torque, but it felt nice and smooth to me with little resistance like it was prior to taking apart.  

     

     

    I did that the first time and it was too tight, and the bearings got hot.  I overestimated how much resistance was the correct amount.  I just used a cheap fish scale when I re-did things pulling on the wheel studs and it was much better.

     

    Did you start cutting up the body to mount the flares yet?  I cut up my rears and I'm doing the fronts tomorrow.  I'm borrowing a welder this weekend to stitch the rear fenders back together and to build my frame for the fuel cell.

     

    I felt just a little bit bad cutting up the otherwise completely rust free fenders.

     

    The Marugen flares fit the body very nice.

  9. I've had an engine apart before exactly one time, when I was 18 and in High school. Mostly, it was a family friend that did the work while I sort of tried to learn what was going on.

    I have it written down somewhere, but, the iron heads that were on it were a 70cc chamber with small valves.

    The Cam was a copy of one of the early performance cams that came from GM.

    It was topped with an Edelbrock Streetmaster intake that I guess they only sold in the late 70's.

    With help from a friend, it wasn't that bad to pull out and only took maybe an hour since I pretty much had everything already disconnected.

    IMAG0580_zps0bklpuid.jpg

    The Datsun has a surprising amount of room for the engine/trans. It's just too bad that the steering shaft is in a weird spot. It basically ensures that no long tube headers will fit, short of a custom set. There was once a specific set make by Hooker that is NLA.

    IMAG0579_zpsrvjizqx1.jpg
    Soaked with degreaser:

    I ended up with a Comp XE284H, Victor Jr, and Promaxx heads.

    The castings for the heads look nice.

    IMAG0566_zpsnpzduorw.jpg

    IMAG0569_zpstfiglrtz.jpg

    IMAG0568_zps32etebeb.jpg

    Pile of Comp stuff with a bottle brush hone and new rings.

    IMAG0570_zpscaejttsd.jpg


    After running the bottle brush hone through it. There was no carbon ring at the top of the bores and there was still a very faint crosshatch from whenever this thing was apart before.

    It was already .040 over.

    After running the hone through:

    IMAG0584_zpsm5qx88br.jpg

    The bearings looked ok, so I just put it back together with the same ones in it. Once I had it back together it sat at ~35psi of oil pressure at warm idle@900-1000rpm with 30wt break in oil.

    I guess the Streetmaster was the first single plane designed by Edelbrock, so I took a picture of it next to the Vic Jr.

    IMAG0571_zpsvbhsn0ho.jpg

    I copper spray'd steel shim gaskets for the heads when I put it back together. I didn't actually CC the pistons(flat tops w/valve reliefs) at TDC(.026 in the hole) or the chambers, but, by math it should be just 10.2:1. When I plugged in the cam, to a calculator it gave me just under 7.8:1 for DCR.

    IMAG0591_zps64uigfyz.jpg

    It ended up not being worth the wait time/cost of the tool, but, I did actually buy a pushrod length checker.  It's like a regular pushrod, but, you can adjust it's length.  You color the valve stem tips with sharpie and put on the rocker arm/lifter/pushrod and turn it over by hand, you want the witness mark to be in the middle 1/3 of the valve stem.

    IMAG0590_zpsmotcxjyo.jpg


    A 3500 stall converter went between the motor and trans when I put it back together.

    It actually slid right back into place so easily that I had it bolted up alone before my Dad got home to help me.

    IMAG0593_zps9pge02p4.jpg

    Now, everything was fine and dandy and I was going to fire it up the next morning, which was a Sunday. Until I found this in the HEI. Noticed when I went to swap the 4/7 plug wires since the comp cam changes the firing order.

    IMAG0594_zps4kmszg6w.jpg

    IMAG0595_zpsbwua3qau.jpg


    I put about 5000 miles on the car last summer, including driving it back to MN from VA. I never noticed an issue or any misfires.

    I just bought the summit HEI rebuild kit.

    It was so loud in the garage, my phone didn't like recording it. I threw the cast ram-horns back on, with some cheap ass glass packs shoved onto where I sawzall'd the old exhaust off. I figured it might help not piss off the neighbors too bad, since I live in a cul-de-sac.

    It fired right up and per comp and the internet I kept it at 2000-2500 rpm for about 30 minutes to wear the lifters into the cam. I did get a pre-luber and used that first, before then throwing the HEI in and starting it.

    The video is after that was finished with.



    There were no rogue noises from the motor at all, which left me quite pleased with myself.  I still need to figure out what to do about headers.  The cast manifolds will not be staying.

    I know I should have changed the oil right away, but, I didn't think that through to have oil or a new filter on hand. I intend to cut the filter that was on there apart to inspect it.

    I don't have the fuel cell installed yet so I just ran some hose into a fuel jug.

    Lastly for this round of stuff, I got the shifter mounted. It had some B&M thing in it before, that had no neutral lockout or gear indicator.

    I had bought the cheap ratchet from Amazon and got shipped the Stealth, which they told me to just keep.

    IMAG0601_zpsftgcvtcb.jpg

    The console is honestly pretty fugly. I'm thinking about buying a small sheet of carbon fiber to use as a trim panel to cover up the hole to make it look better. But, that has nothing to do with the function of the car so it can wait. I still need to take the cover back off of it to hookup the neutral safety and reverse light switches.

    The next project is probably mounting the fuel cell.
  10. Everything but the torque converter is on the way.  I can assume it still has the SB flexplate, but, I'd rather be sure.  Granted a lot of them have both bolt patterns and will work on either.

     

    I ended up ordering a Victor Jr. intake, which should fit, otherwise I may have to mess with where the motor sits to keep things working.  It seems there are 2" drop bases for the air filter which hopefully work, otherwise I could have to get clever.  I will not modify the hood.

     

    I have midterms this week(last one is Thursday morning) so I've not been in the garage at all.  I'm hoping to have the Wilwood master and prop valve in place on Thursday afternoon since I guess some modification needs to happen there.

     

    Friday I'll slightly re-organize the garage and then the fun begins.   Everything is already drained and disconnected to pull the motor/trans.

     

    Luckily it is supposed to warm back up Friday at least until the extended forecast ends.

     

    I don't have the exhaust figured out.  I will put it back together with the cast iron ram horns just to run it in.  I want to be absolutely sure things don't need to change places before trying to figure the whole header mess out.  If I had a TIG here I'm probably dumb enough that I would try to make a set myself.

     

    Since LS swaps are the new hotness, there's very little info about headers here(or anywhere for that matter), especially when the motor is up and forward like mine, which may or may not be the Scarab/Hooker position as I don't have another one to look at and compare to.

     

    This makes me feel somewhat less bad if I have to bash something off the shelf to make it fit, though. 

    https://youtu.be/azPKIjxmmdU

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