back at work on the 401 this weekend... Got the front cover on (with new seal), oil pump hung, balancer on and torqued... All we're waiting on is the right gasket for the oil filter housing (WTF felpro?), Oil pan baffle fab and the heads...2 years later, its starting to actually look like an engine again! The it's off to the dyno, maybe early April?
After you bolted in the oil pump have you checked to make sure it's not binding & it rotates freely????
Rhett, That pan is kinda low. I would install some kind of a skid plate to help protect it. I know you will be careful, but all it takes is once!!!! Tom T.
well If I estimated right, it's even with the crossmember and still got the exhaust below it. If I guessed wrong, then it's gonna make a hell of a mess!
Looking good, I am at about the same place in my Build after a 1-1/2 year break. My heads are back on but not my timing cover or remaining Valve train parts. Good Job !
Thanks, just found out my heads are ready so this weekend we will be checking valve to piston clearances and final assembly. With all sorts of lucky breaks, maybe on the dyno by the 11th, in the car by the 18th and racing on Memorial Day weekend? I can dream anyway.
Got to spend an afternoon on the engine yesterday: Heads finally came in, and I was able to measure up valve clearances, etc... Have to give it to Tom, he spec'd out great valve releafs in his pistons.. generous enough to accommodate as much cam, valve or timing you could throw at it, yet maintains target compression with overall dome volume. I had .100 radial clearance on the intakes, much more on the exhaust (no worries about shrouding there). With the Pistons .009 in the hole, Toms roller rockers (which give an average of .495 lift on the Intake, and .506 on the exhaust) and .044 composite head gaskets, I had .390 clearance on the exhaust at 10 BTDC, .375 on the Intake at 10 ATDC. I was also able to mock up all combo's of valvetrain : Stock Rockers, Tom's Rollers, Hydraulic lifters and solids and measure what length pushrods I needed (if I wanted to use solid pushrods, I'm initially using adjustables) Then I torqued the heads down using NOS'66 Felpro composites i picked up on ebay - they are the same part number as the current Felpro Blues, but these are all silver and look like asbestos. According to Joe (GSGTX) these torque down to .037, which combined with the .009 pistons give me a quench of .046, right in the target zone. Going to dyno this engine with hydraulics and stock rockers, so I set that all up with .025 preload. And thats as far as I got.This thing is starting to look like an engine again!
Got the motor back home and fully dressed -hopefully tomorrow Ill be breaking in the cam..If I was going to make Memorial Day . If I was going to make Memorial Day at LVD, I had to skip the dyno session.
Wow, that's great. I've tried cams that had so little valve-piston clearance (stock pistons) that they wouldn't even turn all the way over!