Going to convert to the Crane XRi points conversion this weekend, finally. Then I can really attack proper timing... Put a pertronix kit in a '67 Cougar I'm working on - so much better now. I will be doing that to all the old cars I come across now.
Crane Conversion kit went in great. I had to modify the adapter plate a bit to cover a ground wire mount from the vacuum advance. Retimed it and runs just fine. I did have to adjust the rev limiter to 5500 and it will now run up to that without issue. Started a lot faster this morning too. Got it off ebay at US Parts Outlet for a good price too.
After hearing how smooth the 289 my brother and I rebuilt earlier in the year, and now having taken it out for a spin, I decided to give the 340 another once over. Main focus giving all the bolts another turn. Quite a few needed to be retorqued (3rd time). I then used some carb and choke cleaner to see if I had any leaks, nothing major but two of my rubber plugs on the carb and intake were leaking. Runs smoother now at idle- I have 17" where I had 16" previously. I may need to turn my idle down a touch also. I am at 10 degrees of initial timing. Next season I will get into the total timing and tuning per Larry's article.
Nice- the grill looks great like that - and good to see somebody running the 340 right. keep up the good work! :beer:beer
Minor update for those that search for similar issues. Had an issue with the trans lockup not kicking in and occassionally not coming out. Simple enough fix - Torque Converter Clutch solenoid was the issue. Seems fairly common and I swapped in a new one when I changed the filter and fluid. A whole 18 bucks and came with some adapters for the extra length the new snout had. Wire connectors were pretty easy and genious in design. Now the 2004r is doing it's job again-and the B&M kit is still a great investment when doing the tranny swap.
Your car gives me a lot of inspriration. Only I cannot keep up with your pace.... Where did you put(hide?) the B&M box? Could you please give me the no. of the brake Switch you were refering to that should be added to the B&M lock-up box. Is yours a console shifter? Or how did you adapt your tranny shifter to accomodate for four gears? pics? Will stay tuned to see what you do to your rear gears. Thanks Patrick
Where did you put(hide?) the B&M box? See the picture I attached, nothing fancy, just some sticky poster "clay" as I didn't want to mount it permanently yet. I like to be able to see that green light, but now that I have the new solenoid I will probably hide it. (after I get the rear gears in and have it set where I like it) Currently at 62mph. (update: after putting in the rear gears it's now at 52mph) Could you please give me the no. of the brake Switch you were refering to that should be added to the B&M lock-up box. They just didn't provide the much needed brake light switch which I found at Autozone for 9.00. The Skylark brake switch has a 12v source not just an open ground. So switch DR497 (corvette???) has both 4 terminals, two always open, two closed. Is yours a console shifter? Or how did you adapt your tranny shifter to accomodate for four gears? pics? I have a column shifter, so my Park,reverse,neutral and drive line up with the indicator. When I downshift manually I can get it into any gear but the indicator no longer lines up. It doesn't bother me a bit. I would think a floor shifter would be similar. I didn't have to adapt much. I had to put some spacers in the linkage mounts on the frame of the car and just recently tightened some of that up underneath when doing the solenoid. Very easy to see what to do. Will stay tuned to see what you do to your rear gears. I'm hoping to order them this week yet, and will do posi 3.55's !
Now wait. I agree park, reverse, neutral and drive line up. The new 3rd gear is pretty much where the initial 1st was. And I can shift into 2nd manually. But I cannot downshift into first (e.g. when going downhill) because the linkage must be bloeked off by something. Can this really be adjusted? How? Would prefer to also be able to go into 1st gear. Coming from? 2.78? Lookng forward to hearing about your experience. .
I can get mine into first gear. I didn't have to do anything special to get it adjusted and make it do that. You should be able to make it work by adjusting the linkage under the car and not mess with the column. Disconnect the linkage from the transmission and put it in first gear manually. Then see if your linkage needs to be adjusted. Pretty sure I have 2.78 gears now - open rear. Going to posi and 3.36 will work nicely.
Just read your thread, good job with the car it turned out very nice! Can't wait to hear how the new gear works out! Its very cool you stayed with a small block, ever consider bore and stroking the 300 by using a 340/350 crank? If you plan on doing a track test with the new gear you should have a test and tune with the current gear for a comparison, would be cool to see anyway. Thanks for posting this, GL. Derek
I may have pretty much done what you suggest although a different route. Check the thread line #34 where I freshened up the heads on a 40k mile NB coded 340 with the better compression 10.25:1. Which is basically a stroked 300 yes? I need to stop buying boats and building beach volleyball courts and fun summer stuff for the kids and drop the 700 bucks on gears already - birthday is in two weeks maybe it's time after 4 years of delay. I still have the 300 block and it's all in excellent shape - know anyone that will give me 700 bucks for it???? Or are you saying I should track down a crank for the moth balled 300 That's not a bad idea to play around with for fun. I would like to run it down the track, but at this point I just don't want to break anything and I'm guessing that I'd go from high 14's to mid 14's and that's about it!
I also forgot to put something in here about the 340 badges I tracked down. Given that the GS-340's were the inspiration for the "theme" I figured it should have a 340 badge on it too. I found three and used one that had the pins missing. Repainted it and put it on the trunk lid where "400" usually goes. Now the car makes a little more sense! The other two I'm holding for someone who desperately needs them for a fully restored true GS-340. And yes, people have asked me why I put a Mopar engine in Buick.... Update: I have seen reproduction 340 badges on ebay now.
Well kinda but not really, the sbb 300 has a shorter deck height than the 340, 9.543" vs. 10.188". But seeing how you got the better 340 with the higher compression might as well run with that with how good of shape its in.(good find) The TA Rover aluminum heads would be a good addition to your engine if it was more than a cruiser and you wanted more out of the engine? As for driving the car at the track and having something break, I don't get when people say that? Same thing as taking off from a light with full throttle except you hold the peddle down a few extra seconds, what's going to break? If something breaks at the track it should be fixed anyway because it can happen on the street just as easy. I don't think you have enough traction to be able to break anything from reading how the tires break loose in first gear from a 20 mph roll. Anyway just my thoughts about the track, its your car so how or where you drive it is up to you. With enough power and traction you can find a weak link fast. As for track times the 3.55 gear could slow you down because of traction issues but the mph should stay close. With good traction with either gears reducing the 60 ft times with the 3.55 vs the 2.78 will = better QM times. Derek
After doing more reading on deck heights here too, I think I may have inadvertantly lost a little compression due to my head gasket choice and I may address that at some point when I have some time in the winter to tinker with the engine again. Original engine had very thin metal gaskets and I put fel pro's back on which were thicker of course. If I ever get back in there, I'm sure I can dig some thinner metal ones up and put those on and gain a bit of compression back. I would consider putting in a little higher stall converter in at some point also...
From the .020" steel shim head gasket to the .040" Fel-Pro head gasket is about .5:1 difference so the advertised 10.25:1 would be around 9.75:1. But usually the factory spec on the deck height is higher on a production block than the written spec so your actual could be closer to around 9.25:1 with the Fel-Pro gasket. Changing back to the steel shim will net you back to around 9.75:1 that's if the block is .025" taller than the factory written spec which is usually the case with the early 350 blocks but I'm not sure with the 340 blocks? Measuring the volume would be the most accurate way to know exactly what your compression is. You can easily do that by securing a piece of square Plexiglas big enough to cover the bore with grease around the bore's outer diameter that has a hole in it by the top of the bore. Use a cheap drugstore syringe, the biggest one they have so you can measure the amount of CCs of liquid that will fit in the cylinder with the piston at top dead center. The liquid you use should be a light oil so it thick enough to not seep down past the rings fast but thin enough to be sucked in the syringe, mixing WD-40 with motor oil for the right consistency will do the job. You can measure the head's CCs this way as well to be super accurate on compression ratio, and if you want more you can have the heads milled while they're off. When you get that measurement you can use a compression ratio calculator and entering that measurement in the dish volume line and enter zero in the deck height line because the Plexiglas is at the zero deck height. If you have the factory turbo v6 torque converter in your trans with a stock cam you really don't need to upgrade the torque converter because the one you have should be around 1,800 I think, around 600-800 RPM higher than what a stock converter usually is. If a cam swap is in the future plans then a higher stall speed could be needed depending on cam choice? Knowing close to what the actual compression is a good thing to know when swapping cams, FYI to anyone that reads this. Measure twice cam once. LOL GL Derek
I finally pulled the trigger on the gears and set aside a Saturday to get them installed. We drove the 150 miles to my brother's house so I could get his help and use his lift. That was a great way to go. Axles cames out with some persuasion and heating up the housing-I used the drum reversed as a puller which I read about and it worked great. Went with Eaton posi and Yukon gears at 3.36. I would have gone 3.55 but I could not find a kit with the Eaton/Yukon combo, only Auburn/Motive Gear. I don't race so it was more to get the posi and match the gears up better to my 200-4r. It makes a huge difference in drivability! Glad it's finally done. Put in a new tail-shaft bushing and a new gas tank and sending unit. I also had the drive-shaft straightened and balance with new u joints. Got rid of an annoying vibration I've had for awhile. Next is to re-balance the front tires and it should be all smooth.
Nice job, Ive enjoyed following your thread. Does the front spoiler seem to help at highway speeds? I had a 71 GS that used to float a bit until I installed a GSX spoiler and am considering one of Randy's now for my 67.
I strictly put it on for looks! Not sure if it helps with any type of airflow. Sure does pic up it's share of bugs and sand though.
