That's the same trick i used on TOPCAT's motor mounts 20+ year ago :TU: Dented a hood when i broke my first motor mount.....air cleaner did'nt look too good either..... Great job being done on "Kokomo" ! I'm very happy that the car went to you. Peace WildBill
I'm glad you guys enjoy the updates in this thread. It's already been a year since I started it, and may dad says it will take him more than a year to get it finished from this point. I'll try to keep the updates coming. He has more time to work on the car since he retired in June 2011, but there's still a bunch of money to be spent (building the engine is expensive) and that slows things down. For the engine he's still got to buy head bolts, cam/lifters, rocker arm assemblies, carb, headers, and other misc items. Today he said he was putting putting his oil pump together to set the end clearance on the gears.
Yeah, we can relate to your story, I had one break on my '67 back when I was in high school but I was lucky that I didn't dent a hood like you! He had the original mount break on his '72 Stage 1 back in 1992 and the fan got into the radiator and fan shroud. When that happened he parked the car in a storage shed in the back yard and it has never been started again. It's only been rolled outside 3 times since then. Thanks for selling this car to me. It was too rough for me to tackle but I was happy when my dad said he would like to build it for himself. He's crazy.
Can you take a few photo's of the other side of the mount ??? That is a great trick !!! I've just used a section of chain before, doe's the same thing, but dosn't look as nice.
Ya I had a mount go on my 68 GS, trouble was I was up in Canada when it happened, a long way away from MASS. As I said in the other post I just chained it, it got me home. I replaced them once I got home and I put the chain back on :Brow: :laugh:
Here are some more recent photos. Finally selected a cam and decided to stick with the original plan which is a regular flat tappet hydraulic cam that is relatively tame. We are sacrificing some power with this cam, but this car is not being built to be a racer. It will be primarily driven around, taken to shows and cruise-ins with an occasional trip to the dragstrip maybe once or twice a year (like at the GS Nats). Therefore, good street manners and engine vacuum for the power brakes were more important that squeezing out more power. For what my dad plans to do with this car, this cam will be more than enough. Specs are shown on the card. After getting the cam dialed in, the heads were finally bolted on. A set of 2" headers were ordered from T/A and bolted on so that the dipstick tube could be worked out. If this car had standard exhaust ports we would have probably used 1-7/8" headers but 2" are the smallest diameter headers available for the Stage 2 heads. You can see that my 2-year-old is helping his granddaddy by adjusting the headers with a small hammer. The headers will be removed and coated before final installation. The intake that's being used on the engine is an Edelbrock Performer. Sure it's only marginally better than a stock iron intake, but my dad just prefers his cars to look mostly stock so he wanted to use this intake rather than a single plane. After bolting on the heads, the intake was put on to check the alignment. We bought this intake used from Mr Bigg and he had already had it cut to fit one of his engines. It turned out to align almost perfectly with this engine too which saved a little time and money. The intake gaskets being used are the .062" thick fiber type from T/A. Stock style stamped steel rockers will be used on this engine, which required the use of either adjustable pushrods or custom length pushrods. In the end we decided to measure the length needed, then order fixed length pushrods. The fixed length pushrods are a little bit cheaper, probably a little bit lighter, and they will not ever come loose (rare but possible). To get the pushrod measurements the intake and exhaust pushrod lengths were both checked on 1, 2, 7, & 8 using some extra adjustable pushrods that I had as spares. But we had one problem...our calipers would not open wide enough to measure something this long. So my dad just went to a local machine shop and they were happy to measure them for free. In the end I ordered 9.400" length 5/16" pushrods from T/A which should give an acceptable amount of lifter preload for this set-up. The rockers are stock steel but the shafts are the extra thick wall, heavy duty units from T/A and we used the hold-downs from a '67-'69 engine, instead of just using a bolt alone. Of course the intake along with everything else, are being painted red (Kyrlon) so it will help the engine look a little less modified. My dad wants the engine compartment of the car to appear completely stock except for a set of headers if a non-Buick person looks under the hood. A Holley carb will probably also be used but it will not be obvious since it will be under the large stock air cleaner. And for those that noticed the Fram oil filter, it will not be used on the engine while running and is only being used to prime the engine. ---------- Post added at 11:09 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:59 AM ---------- Every time my 2-year-old little boy Hank sees this car he makes sure to point out to us that it's still missing the door lock and says "look no place for the key." He also tries to stick stuff into the hole. Crazy kid.
It’s been awhile so I thought I’d post some updates. The plug wires are a set of Pertronix “Stock Look” 7mm plug wires which are plain black with no printing on them. They also fit in the stock wire holders without any modifications. They make custom sets that are supposed to fit right out of the box but my dad decided to buy the cut-to-fit set and cut them to the lengths that he wanted. These are supposed to only have 500 ohms of resistance per foot. The coil is a new MSD unit. The plastic portion at the top was already black and the MSD decal was removed and the red paint was taken off in the beadblast cabinet. It was then sprayed with some semi-gloss paint. Since the car will have an MSD box, there is no need to run a ballast resister with this coil. The bracket is a stock piece that was replated for a couple of bucks by a local plater. The distributor is a stock Buick item but it's not an original Stage 1 1112016. This one was chosen from the spare parts pile because it wasn’t sloppy and worn out. It was just disassembled, cleaned, beadblasted, cleaned again a couple of times, and sprayed with some satin clear. For an original restoration, the distributor should be painted red since it was installed when Buick painted the engines, but since this is a modified car, it will just be left natural since it looks better. It was reassembled with a new stock style vacuum advance unit and a set of old-school points. The points are Accel “high-rev” type, and will work fine to trigger the MSD box since this engine will not turn up very high with the mild hydraulic cam. These valve covers are not what will be used in the car. These covers came from the parts pile, and were blasted and sprayed with some generic red paint to keep them from rusting. They are just on there to keep out the dust, dirt, and debris. The chrome Stage 1 valve covers will be installed on the engine eventually.
Actually my original 2016 dist had just some red on the sides from overspray as it was installed prior to painting. I have pics of it
Okay, let me restate and say: from the factory there would have been some red paint on the distributor since it was installed prior to painting the engine. Some were barely painted, and others were almost completely painted, depending on who was doing the painting. Better?
DL, it looks like the stem of the distributor is pretty well painted, but it just gets light up near the cap? That's how most of the original distributors look that are in our parts pile. Lots of paint on the stem and not much near the cap mounting area. ---------- Post added at 05:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:13 PM ---------- I dont have a photo of it, but my dad had the engine completely assembled recently with all the brackets, pulleys, fuel pump, carb, fan, etc. But as an early fathers day/birthday gift, I told him that we were going to take it to the dyno to break it in. He was not really very excited by this idea but agreed since he knew I really wanted to do it. So everything was removed from the engine and it was once again completely bare since none of that stuff is needed on the dyno. After arranging a date and time that worked for all of us, the engine was loaded into the back of the truck and we drove two hours up to Philpot, KY to Automotive Machine & Performance. We were worried it might rain so we rapped it up with some plastic. Fortunately we didnt see a drop of rain all day. Here were unloading it and Bob at AMP is getting it mounted onto the dyno cart. At this point my dad was actually getting a little bit nervous but he knew that if its gonna break something, it might as well be now instead of in the car. The engine had already been filled with 6 quarts of 30wt Brad Penn Break-In motor oil and primed before the engine left home so after getting it all mounted on the dyno with all the fuel, water, and electrical connections it was fired up for the first time and run for 20 minutes to break in the camshaft. We were relieved that it fired right up and didnt make any strange noises, had great oil pressure, and generally seemed fine. A few very minor adjustments were made to the new Holley 950HP carb since this was the first time it had ever had fuel run through it. It ran like this for about 20 minutes. After the initial run-in, it was cut off and allowed to cool off for a few minutes and then the inner valve springs were installed as well as drained the oil and poured in 6 quarts of Brad Penn 15w40 oil and a fresh PF24 oil filter. Before proceeding we cut the first filter open and there was nothing inside of it that shouldnt be there, which is always a big relief! The engine was restarted and the timing was set to 34 degrees total before attempting any power pulls. The first pull was just from 3,000 to 4,000 to make sure it was still okay. Then on the next pull the engine was run from 3,500 to 4,500, then the next run was 3,800-5,000, then 3,800-5,200, then 3,800-5,400 and the highest the engine was run was a single pull from 3,800-5,600. The engine never had a hiccup. The highest numbers were achieved with 36 degrees of timing. The final result was 515 hp @ 5,300 and 570 ft-lbs of torque @ 3,900. On the other two pulls the torque was 570 and then 571, and it always occurred at 3,900 rpm. The torque was 512 ft-lbs @ 3,000 and stayed above 500 all the way to 5,400 with the peak always occurring at 3,900 with 570 or 571 (it peaked at 571 on one pull and was 570 on the other two pulls). There was no need to turn the engine any higher because it made the peak power at 5,300 on every pull. We didnt want to just absolutely beat the engine to death so after getting a few good pulls, we were content that it consistently made respectable power (I was hoping for at least 500 hp and 540 ft-lbs) and held together with no issues or oil leaks. We were happy with the power, and were very happy with the torque. One thing that surprised me is that even with the Holley 950HP carb, the engine was still pulling 1.4 of vacuum at WOT at peak power. We know that if we replaced the small cam, stock rocker arms, and the unported Performer intake we could make more power, but that was not the goal with this engine. My dad wanted something that would sound good at a cruise-in, drive fine on the street and operate the power brakes, make plenty of torque so he can light up the street tires, and be reliable. Hopefully this engine will allow him to do all of that. Oh and all the pulls were made with 93 octane fuel that we purchased at the Kangaroo gas station down the street from the machine shop. We figured would should run it on the same cheap gas that it will see in the real world. The pump said it was 10% Ethanol which is what all the pump gas is in our area.
Those are some nice number Gary, your going to have plenty of power to reach your dads goals. I wish the 67's came with the 455's there's no substitute for cubic inches, I can't help but be a Little jealous. Looking good!
