I just listed the '71 iron heads on ebay: http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=130284833884 Opening bid is $1. Hope one of you guys gets them, they are nice pieces.
Thanks Allen. We're getting there slowly but surely. Dale and the boys have really made that old 455 you donated look good. It will be the showpiece of the car no doubt, especially with the new heads. We're all going to have one heck of a new toy to play with once it's done. You, Bill Young, Terry Schute, Brad Carson, Curtis Jacobson, Dan Jones, Rob Ficalora and Bill Guzman presently make up the western contingency. Terry's up in Souix Falls, Brad and Curtis in Colorado, Rob in Texas, Bill in KC and Dan in St Louie. We could use a couple of members betwixt and between, say Arizona and Idaho or Utah for instance and someone between you and Colorado or Souix Falls, but I think we have enough to set up a rotation once it moves under it's own power. Dave Van Wyck is stopping by on his way home from a trip down south to look at our exhaust needs. He said he thinks he can probably help us with that, which would be a very big plus. I've got the body mods tack welded in place and I'll try to get some more welding done on that before he gets here, maybe finish that up and drop in the engine so he can give it a good looking over. Then the heads come off and get shipped to Dale. Jim
Parts still needed: Flywheel clutch pressure plate starter cam lifters tubular pushrods distributor carb coil-over shocks hydraulic throwout bearing lower oil pump housing from a 215 (straight, filter does not angle off to the side) and a single hump bellhousing would be nice as it would be stronger than the double hump one which we had to cut one hump off of. There will be other items like wheels and tires, but this list would take care of most of it and let us get the drivetrain finished up. Jim
The iron heads went for $522 on ebay. I'd say the buyer got a pretty sweet deal, and we got operating funds. With that and a few other things we probably have 7 or 8 hundred in the treasury at the moment. I've now test fitted the 455 with the alloy heads for the first time in the blue car, so our immediate needs are for a starter, coil-over units, and valves, etc. I'll get right on that next week. I should be able to attach some photos. Dave came by today and I helped him out with his 215 MGB project by selling him a number of pieces from my old drivetrain, like a pair of T-50 trannys, bellhousing, HTOB, flywheel, clutch, pressure plate, starter, motor mounts, remote filter adapters, and valve covers at a price that made us both happy. He looked over the 455 and took measurements and photos and said he'd get right to work on the headers, probably make them out of stainless. He needs exhaust gaskets to lay out the flanges though so unless someone has some spare (stage 2) ones to send right away I'll have to contact TA for them. He said he'd make up the pieces and then we can take the car up to his place for final fitting and assembly. Jim
You know, I'm not really sure. It'd be whatever valves are used in the TA stage 2 SE heads. Since we have the bare heads we'll need to come up with valves, springs, keepers and retainers. We also need tubular pushrods and a mild cam and lifters. Dale might be able to help us out on part of that, or I may find a deal or two on ebay, but I was really sort of hoping one of the big block guys might have some stock pieces in good condition that they could contribute to the cause. But I have no idea what range of valve sizes can be used with these heads. The seat inserts look like they are very wide, but this is a very definite first for me. Just for the fun of it though, you know it's you BBB guys who got me into this mess in the first place. You guys do remember that right? All that talk about how compact and light the BBB engine is? Not that I'm complaining mind you, it's going to be one heck of a toy when we get done. Jim
you know it's you BBB guys who got me into this mess in the first place. You guys do remember that right? All that talk about how compact and light the BBB engine is? mwuhahahahahahahaha. you're going to post vids when you're done, yes?
I'm pretty positive one of our Canadian friends, Martyn Harvey will be on hand to record the event for posterity. That is, if you are able to see the car through the tire smoke. Jim
I have a set of standard valves from a set of stage 1 heads that I believe will work. I haven't looked at them in some time but if you are interested I could give them a good look. I also have a new crower cam and lifter set,pushrods,point style distributor,and a rebuildable Q Jet off a 455. I might even have a good HEI distributor if I can find it. I had replied to your cam wanted thread with this info. I have somebody interested in the carb if you pass,but I told him I would give you first shot. I probably have a set of stock rockers if you need them. Willing to work with you since you're working on a tight budget.
Thanks, I really appreciate that. Why don't you shoot me a PM and let me know what sort of a deal you're talking about, there are one or two things like the rockers we already have but most of what you mentioned are things we need. Jim
Big things happening here guys! Big news. First, one of our very own vendors, a man with a great reputation and obviously a heart to match, Jamie McClinton http://www.v8buick.com/member.php?u=226 has donated one of his mini starters to the project! This will go a long ways in helping us get the car running in time for the June meet. Just as importantly, Coach http://www.v8buick.com/member.php?u=19368 is going to send us a mild Isky cam, lifters and pushrods, meaning that if we can just come up with a manual flywheel and a few more valvetrain parts and other small pieces we just might be able to make it. Towards that goal we have a set of coil-over units ordered and they should be here in a few days. Ted Lathrop of Fast Cars, Inc in Wayland Michigan helped us out there, getting us the parts at cost. His company does engine and suspension conversions, and they are guilty of allowing only the very highest craftsmanship. Very good people. So at this point we have about $250 in usable funds and a few pieces we still need, particularly a flywheel and lower oil pump housing. That would be the 215 style with the oil filter sticking straight out instead of at an angle. for some reason those seem to be hard to find. This is great progress. Once the starter comes in I can finalize the engine mounts and weld them in place and then Dave can get started on the headers. In the meantime I will finish up the rear IRS and get the driveshaft details worked out and then send the heads off to Dale to finish up, and by the time they come back from his shop with a little luck we may have most of the rest of it worked out. Great stuff! This toy is gonna ROCK! Jim
More good news. In talking to Dale (Motion Machine, Danville, VA) it was apparent that he would really only be happy with putting new parts in the new heads and was perfectly willing to pass on his prices. So I asked him what the chance was of deferring payment on those parts until after the meet and since we weren't talking a great deal of money and because business is booming for him he was quite willing to accommodate that request. Although I had not intended to incur any credit obligations on behalf of BADASS, hopefully passing the hat at the meet will cover it and in the worst case I think we have enough spares that we can sell to pay it back. That only leaves clutch, pressure plate, HTOB and minor bits like brake hoses and such. I'll shop for the clutch and pressure plate, leaving the HTOB as the last big item. We may end up with close to half the cost of that. Also, once the flywheel comes in I'll see about getting that and the pressure plate to Dale so he can balance them. We're moving along well. Stay tuned! Jim
Hydraulic Throw-out Bearing. They tend to be pricey. Quartermaster and Tilotseon units run about two fifty or better and although there is a GM OEM unit I do not know if it will work with our driveline. They run about half that. We have a Camaro T5 transmission, I don't know what year, and Carl said he thought there might have been some sort of design change in '92. This is an area where I haven't kept up with the technology at all, having been stuck in the past with the T-50 I was using. So I don't know which works with what, but If we could use the GM part that would seem to be better. We can't use the usual clutch fork because there isn't room in the tunnel. Jim
A few more parts have come in. The mini starter that Jamie donated bolted up and fit just fine with good clearance. A 11" Corvette clutch/PP kit has been bought and shipped to Dale, Allen has sent us a rebuilt Q-jet which looks good, a set of spark plug wires, and either has or soon will ship the flywheel to Dale also. I need to get off my butt and send along the flexplate so he can match balance the flywheel. We have stainless flex lines on the way from Bill Young for brake and clutch and are waiting on a few other bits and pieces. Bill Guzman has acquired and sent the seal race we need to finish putting the IRS together along with a set of new gages. I expect to finish up the motor mounts within the next week and then get back on the IRS Springs and hardware kits for the coil-over shocks are here but the shocks haven't shipped yet. We're also waiting on the cam and the lower oil pump housing but those should be on their way also. We need to decide how to deal with the clutch release. There are three options. The HTOB is one. I've looked and there is room for the shortened fork arm and reverse pull type slave alongside the T5 tranny so that's option 2. The third, and one that frankly appeals to me is a cable. There is room alongside the upgrade master cylinder for the cable to pass through but I haven't checked out the other end or what we'd need in terms of ratio, let alone looked for a suitable cable but that's option 3. Jim
Holy crap man! How have I missed this thread!? You're doing a awesome job. I'll be watching from now on!:beers2: :TU:
Steve and a buddy of his will be here tomorrow for a "Roadmaster Weekend" and we'll see how much we can get done on the car. I finished modifying the motor mount bracket so they now match the frame rails in this car but I still have to weld in the tubes and the rail caps. The shocks came in, and I've been working on finishing up the IRS. I found some heim joints for the diagonal struts and also found seals for those and the shocks which use spherical mounts. Those should make them last longer. Also Marmon/Keystone gave us the tubing to make those struts out of. I found some 1/16" wall 1/2" ID stainless tubing and cut bushings to hold the 1/2" stainless bolts we'll be using to mount the coil-over shocks, and also reassembled the rear suspension uprights to the half-shafts using the correct spacers to set the spindle bearing preload. The 3 ft lengths of drill rod that I bought for the new longer inner suspension pivots are now polished down to the correct size ready to be cut to length and threaded, and Steve is bringing a set of urethane spring bushings that we will use for the attachment points of the forward cross bar which also locates the inner pivot of the diagonal links. That all sounds pretty complicated, and it is, sort of. But it'll look pretty simple when it's finished. The important thing is for it to work right. The brake setup is not pretty. In order to avoid any cutting of the body, the entire rear suspension has to be dropped out to service the brakes. This isn't as bad as it sounds, only 6 bolts, two brake lines, a universal joint and a brake cable, but there may be a better way. I bought a Jag differential (center section) and it had a pair of completely unfamiliar brake caliper mounting brackets bolted to it. These could allow a very easy caliper change but first I have to find out what Jaguar they came from. I don't know if these will look familiar to any of you, but I'm going to attach a couple of photos just on the off chance. If they look familiar, please let me know. Jim
Been a big weekend here. I'm achy all over and my hands hurt, but I'll do my best to get y'all caught up on where we are. Steve DeGroat came up from Lugoff, SC and brought his friend Tom Caine along to help, and we put in at least 75 good solid man-hours on the car. They accused me of being a slave driver (good naturedly of course) and talked about me behind my back, telling Edith I was a workaholic, but everyone was real happy with the results so I guess it wasn't such a bad thing, and I know for sure they didn't feel like their trip was wasted. Anyway, I got a lot of pictures so I'll post those up and then comment on them. In the first photo, there's Steve on the left and Tom to the right by the mule we use to fit up the rear suspension. We have the fender and outer wheelwell cut away for fitting large tires on one side and stock sheet metal on the other. We began the weekend by finishing the crossbar that ties the suspension into the forward spring hangers. Second photo is two sets of tie-bars for the IRS that we finished next. Then Tom cleaning up the engine bay and several shots of the bay modifications we made in preparing the car for the big block, including replacing a section of one inner fender, welding in the new steering cone section, stepping back the firewall behind the passenger's side head and installing stanchions for the engine mounts. Next post. Jim
