You are wasting your time and perhaps REDUCING your flow by opening the head and intake to gasket size. This has been discussed to death. Make a template from your head and only match the intake to that size, NO larger.
My reconditioned rods are on their way back, I should have them Wednesday. I will start calling machine shops tomorrow and see who will best fit my needs. I'd like to see if I can find a place willing to do a bit of pocket porting with the larger valves. Given the time frame I wish to complete this, my lack of experience and the fact that I will certainly scoop up a set of aluminum heads once they come out, I decided to not go crazy with the iron heads since there is more risk than reward given my goal. It's been tough to spend all this money and have nothing to show for it to this point. It's an understatement that I am impatient. Once the motor is at the machine shop I'll feel a lot better. Still shooting to have it running before the end of the summer.
Finally got everything off to the machine shop last week. They said it would hopefully be done by the beginning of September. I really hope to have this together for Musclepalooza at the end of September. I am now getting around to installing my lockup harness for my 200-4R and changing the speedometer gears to something that might get me close to actual speed. I also decided to upgrade the suspension and wheels while I am waiting for the motor so in the coming weeks I'll have front tubular control arms from CPP, 2" front drop springs (Should be a big difference from the big block springs I had before) adjustable rear upper control arms and a set of 2 17x8 and 2 17x9 Magnum 500 wheels from Year one. I know its a Dodge/Ford wheel but I still think it will be Buick appearing at a glance and the Buick center caps make it a better option than most available. It seems the Billet Vintiques wheels are now discontinued. I also ordered a Hitatchi mini starter (Which I realized after ordering probably won't fit but oh well, guess I'll deal with that later) and a Griffin Aluminum radiator to replace the cheap plastic autozone unit I've been using for years. At this point it seems almost impossible to come up with the cash for the turbo stuff but I'm going to do my best to make that happen this winter.
Sick that'll be fun! I really wish I would have took more pictures during that whole process. Your gonna turbo this ?
I think my skylark is the only thing I take pictures of haha I have hundreds I've taken over the past 5 years. The plan is an intercooled twin turbo blow through setup. Goal is around 500hp. It's more of a test bed for myself. Relatively little money invested in the short block but still set up well. That way I don't break the bank if things go south. In the future a higher power build would be in the works for a strictly strip car.
With the motor at the machine shop its certainly been easy to get side tracked into different projects. I test fit the oversized radiator I bought. I can certainly make it work now but once I start looking for a way to set the intercooler up I'm sure I'll regret it. I decided to put lipstick on a pig and cleanup the engine bay a bit. Certainly not a permanent solution but to avoid getting too sidetracked I knocked down some rust and brushed on some Ospho and Zero rust. I'll top coat it with semigloss rustoleum this weekend. Shame to put a brand new motor in a rusty engine bay. The machine shop called today telling me it would take .070 to get the pistons at zero deck. I guess they thought I would be shocked but I knew it would take the much. They have the heads and the intake so I told them go for zero deck and mill the heads as necessary to fit the intake. They tried talking me out of decking the block by saying I need less compression for the turbos. I don't think they realized I have 29.5cc dish pistons which should bring the CR down quite a bit with the .050 head gaskets. At least they are working on it, I did say I wanted it back by the first week in September.
V6 pistons are about .030 lower compression height depending on manufacturer. 76 up 350 ends up with the v6 pistons . 1.805 CH vs 72 350@ 1.835
These pistons are 1.850 CH. Before I disassembled the block I measured deck height off one piston. It was almost. .100 in the hole. Looked like aftermarket pistons too.
I understand that. Would have been better to get the taller pistons is what I was thinking. Keith black hyperutectic I think are 1.825 with 25.9 cc dish.
These are the taller pistons, they are for tall deck v6 buicks. They aren't much taller than stock like I hoped but they are still fairly tall pistons. Pistons are JE131557
With a 10.188" deck height those would only be .028" in the hole, so you're saying the deck is starting at 10.230"? That would be an extra .042 above the factory spec, what year is that block? Is it a later block or a '72? That would be good info for people looking to do a sbb 350 build. Taking .070" off of the deck would be a no, no if it was closer to the factory spec, but seeing how the factory didn't want to change their tooling you have extra deck height which should be no problem after cutting it down where the factory should have in the first place! So you're actually only cutting it down .028" under the 10.188" blueprint number. Tell that to the machine shop, maybe you can talk them into charging you less because its only .028" under. LOL You should go an extra .005" and have them take .075" off so your pistons are above the deck .005" for the .050" head gaskets so you have a .045" quench ring instead of a .050" quench ring. Usually .045" is what you would want max for quench distance with .035" being minimum quench thickness. .005 above the deck won't hurt anything its less than the thickness of a human hair which is usually about .007" thick. Derek
I plan on taking a trip to the machine shop Friday to get on the same page. Either they are using a reference for these numbers and just assuming it will take .070 to get zero deck or this is an unusual block. It is an early 72 block. No coolant scallop pads on the block. I want to make sure they are actually using real numbers when I go there on Friday. I don't want them to just start cutting things down and find out my pistons are a crazy amount out of the hole.
Well .042" high is about .012" more than I have typically seen with the older nut and bolt rod engine blocks but is possible to be that high before a tooling change if the cutters were worn down, could be the last block before the cutter change back then? But yeah I don't blame you for wanting to know for sure, the piston .005" above deck is no big deal but .020" wouldn't be cool because you start loosing your piston to head clearance! Derek
If your block is average height that I have been finding . the stock rod/piston would be at .058 down hole. My guesstimate is that with JE pistons at 1.850. You would need .043 to zero deck. With standard replacement pistons some find .090 down hole. Those pistons are rated at 1.805 . so it mostly adds up 1.805 @.090 76-80/most replacement pistons 1.835 @ .058 stock 68-75 engines and hi compression pistons are rated same just smaller dish. 1.855 hyperutectic pistons should be at. 038
I would like to know where this 10.088" blueprint number came from. Did someone actually find a print or is this a number derived from measuring blocks? A blueprint would list the tolerance on the dimension as well. Bottom line is you or the machinist need to mock up the pistons on the rods and install them with the crank to get actual dimensions prior to cutting. I have seen factory assemblies with the piston 70 to 90 in the hole. My current engine with Speed pro hypers was cut 70 for zero deck.
Actually the deck height can be measured very accurately if the machine shop you take your block to has the main adapters for their milling machine. A set of depth mics measured down to the main adapter plus half of its diameter which is the same diameter within .001" of the housing bore which will get you within .0005" of the deck height if measured properly. Of coarse this won't factor in the rod center to center variance but if you're using aftermarket rods they're usually within plus or minus .001", I'm not sure what the factory tolerance was but I would guess that back then probably plus or minus .005" to maybe plus or minus .010"? Or even plus zero minus .010" so compression was kept to the lower tolerance? Or doesn't factor in the piston compression distance variance which can be plus or minus .005" for the cheap stock replacement pistons. And then there is the crankshaft stroke tolerance from back then which I have heard plus or minus 2 degrees. All of these bolt into the block pieces can be measured on the bench except for the crank stroke which can be index ground to ensure the accuracy of the stroke. But after this being said, using the "nominal" numbers will get most engine builders close enough to the target compression ratio probably within plus or minus .2:1 which isn't enough to make or break most builds. The deck height spec of 10.188" is what I found off of the internet which does coincide with the factory compression ratio if you do the math of all the variables of stroke, compression distance, head chamber volume, gasket thickness & diameter and piston dish volume so I would say that nominal dimension is as good as it gets. Here is a site that lists these numbers; http://victorylibrary.com/mopar/m-table-c.htm Years ago mocking the engine was the way the deck height was measured but today there are much better ways of doing it. Steve, if that is how your machine shop wants you to measure your deck height then I would suggest taking your work to Dave at Engine Craft, he can give you an accurate dimension after the deck is squared to the mains, the deck will be within +- .0005" from front to back measured off of the mains, plus he's only about 10 miles away from you. No more guess work. GL Derek
