Pictures, we want pictures! I ordered a set of TA S1 SE's too. Sounds like TA's sale was successful, as mine are about 1 month away :ball: Did Greg do any bowl work? What do they flow? Were they port-matched?
No pictures yet. Level 2, bowl blending. match porting of the Edelbrock Performer intake and work in the Plenum. .040 off the cylinder head for 59cc chambers. Final compression ratio: 10.4:1 Greg flows withoutr a header flow tube, so I would think the exhaust flow #'s would be higher.
Felpro, .040 I had the 70 style forged pistons with the smaller dish. I believe they are either 22 or 23 cc. I used 23cc. The pistons were .035" in the hole. 59cc chambers. I figured compression was 10.4:1
Am I reading this correctly? The Larry AKA "The wizard" had heads put on his car? Not, I just put a set of heads on my car? The same guy that offers help about problems they are having with there cars? I dont get it. uzzled:
Jeff, I have a garage that is kind of tight, and it has no lighting. It was easier for me to have Greg Gessler get the heads from TA Performance, port them and do the valve job, then bring them to Rob(They are close enough together). I didn't have the equipment to cc everything to determine what needed to be done as far as surfacing the heads. All things considered, I think this was my best option. It's not that I couldn't have done this myself. But it would have been a real pain, and taken much longer. If I had a heated, lighted garage, with lots of space, I might have done it myself. I trust TA Performance, Greg Gessler, and Rob Chilenski. I put some dollars in their pockets, and supported 3 big members of the Buick community. That's the way I look at it. I'll be the first guy to tell you I don't know everything. But I try to help as much as I can because I really enjoy it. Someone on the board gave me the name "The Wizard" It kinda stuck. BTW, are you still gonna give up on Buicks?
I am just saying I was very suprized reading this. With all the good advice you give others, I thought you would have enjoyed doing the work. I now see why you didn't, as you explained. As for a full out race piece I may go BBC, the factory 455 block has too many down sides. I cant see paying $5000 for an iron aftermarket block, when I could do a whole BBC shortblock for that. The current BBB engines I have now I will still run. I have 3 track cars. I do love Buicks, but as for all out race engines they are probably not the best choice.
Larry, I can relate to you situation, and think I fully understand your reasoning. While I generally do all of my own work (oftentimes twice) I have gotten to the point that it might not only easier, but cheaper to farm some of it out, were I able to have easy access to some of the Buick experts you do. I have had to drive for 200 mi just to work on my cars, or try to bring enough stuff back to my apartment to do a nice job on something while working outside on a nice day. There's not much more frustrating when you have the right tools to do a job, but don't have reasonable access to them, or a proper place to do the work nearby.
Larry, I appreciate all your advice so I thought I'd offer some food for thought (grain of salt may be needed). Are you still running the KB-118 cam? I assume you are given the 59cc small chambers. With the numbers you gave, with an ICL of 114 (guess), your DCR will only be 7.5 or so. This cam has a late intake valve closing. Since your pistons are .035 in the hole you may want to go with a somewhat thinner head gasket. This would give better quench and a better DCR; you should still be able to run pump gas. This thinner gasket would give you 7.6 DCR, a little better. An alternative is to install the cam with an ICL of 112; this will give you 7.65 DCR. If you did both (advance the cam and go with .032" head gasket) you would have 7.78 DCR. What do you think? Congratulations on the new parts!
Craig, I will probably just change the cam eventually. I really wanted to see what good Aluminum heads and a manifold change would do for me. With all the problems I see with the current lifters and cams, I wasn't anxious to change it just yet. I have a friend who is running iron heads(ported) with a B4B and Q-jet, and the KB118 cam, and he has run as fast as 112 MPH in the 1/4. And he has less than 9.5:1 compression. He is about 120 lbs lighter than me, even after my car's weight loss. I don't see anything good being written about the 118 cams. Most say they are old school, and there are better cams today, but this cam powered cars into the 10's back in the day. I asked Greg about using the thinner Cometic head gaskets. He thought it wasn't a good idea, because the cometic gaskets need a perfect deck surface. This wasn't a problem with the new heads of course, but being unsure of the procedures taken with this current engine (prior owner rebuilt ) Greg thought it best to go with the Felpro. As far as the DCR is concerned, that's OK for now. If I can run this engine on pump gas, I'll be very happy. I've had to mix some race gas in with the iron heads, and 9.3:1 compression I had. The DCR with my iron heads figures out to 6.7(72 cc chambers) Now I'm 10.4:1, but I have Aluminum heads, and my DCR is 7.5. Let's see how the car runs. I can always have a custom cam ground for my combo.
Hay larry, Did you look at the Sp 235 Lunati cam i love it and sounds mean but dont know if thats what your looking for...
Larry, you need to use seat to seat or advertised duration to calculate DCR. The spec.'s I have for the KB-118 are from a Kenne Bell catalog (not sure of the year) are .480/.480 with an adv. duration of 284/304 with a 118 lobe center. This wide lobe center should give good upper rpm power, especially with the great flowing NEW heads. I suggest going with the TA rollers (even if your rockers are not shimmed), for better rpm capabilities. The extra lift won't hurt either :TU: . Race gas with 9.3 compression? Sound like my old 350 engine. The `72 350 motor I had was stock except for aftermarket cam and headers. It would detonate easily, especially on a hot day and the cranking compression was only 110 psig. What is your cranking compression? The 350 ran good especially with the 800 cfm Q-Jet and HEI installation but it was not ideal. My 350 pistons were way "in the hole" w/dish with low compression and a later than stock IVC event and still was detonation prone. It did not detonate because of cylinder pressure. I think the culprit was too much quench height. With my 455 I've got a quench of .043", .005" in the hole and .038 compressed Felpro, 10:1 compression, 70cc chambers, 25cc piston and a cam IVC of 70 ABDC. My 455 never detonates even on the hottest day with the timing advanced too much (38 total). The KB-118 has an intake valve closing of 76 ABDC (very late, at 114 ICL which is 4 deg. advanced). Others may have better suggestions or even corrections to my post....that's cool. I'm looking forward to hearing about your progress!
larry your right about that stock rear it cant take to much abuse i bought my 70 stg 1 when i was 18 and blew the rr 3 wks later w exact same combo you had running the exact same times(stock heads intake w 118 cam,headers) i would go to hunts point (bronx) and look for anything w a posi tag and bolt it in they would last about 6 months and then id be back to the bone yard,i finally doug deep and bought a nine inch,10 years trbl free but slightly slower. i saw your heads by gregs, about three yrs ago i put my iron heads under the knife,spent 60 hours w a die grinder hoggin the hell out of them and since i have the motor apart again i had greg flow them ,not bad for iron hds but dont look as gd as those numbers flow maxed out at .500 and then backed off at .600 by 15 cfm thought that was odd that they flow better w a valve in the way. chris, the other brown 70 stg 1
For the short term maybe you should stay away from the soft tires, they pick up and throw too many rocks anyway.
Thanks Craig, Never had occasion to measure my cranking compression. It always ran well, just had to put 3 gallons of 110 in with each tank. If I ever have this block rebuilt, I will do everything right. I downloaded a neat DCR calculator off the web. It calculates the Dynamic stroke length, and intake closing event from the advertised durations and LSA. This is a neat article explaining everything. http://www.empirenet.com/pkelley2/DynamicCR.html I do have the 1.6 TA roller rockers now. I think it should run like a raped ape once I feed it enough fuel (Robb Mc mechanical pump), and dial in the timing.
Sigh... Larry, you wus. Drive it to Salem and beat on it. The anxiety of worrying about whether you'll get stranded or not really lets you know you're ALIVE! As for the order of performance... based on what we've seen it goes Curly, Larry and then Moe. We HAVE to put Moon last because HE NEVER RACES HIS PRECIOUS METAL! Waaaaaaaahhhhhh! Heh heh. Oh, and I've driven with cardboard in front of my radiator for the last 5 years. When temps are below 60* I never get to operating temp. And like you were thinking, Larry, yes, you want it cool, but you ALSO want it to get to operating temp for total combustion.
Pictures! Painted the Performer Intake as well as the heads for the stock look. Ground off the Edelbrock logo too. :Brow: Double gasket on the chrome Stage1 valvecovers to hide the TA 1.60 Roller Rockers. :TU:
Larry looks nice how does your air cleaner fit?Mine, the foams are crushed hits the back of the hood a little.I Lowered the air cleaner but that a different story.
Yes, the foams are always crushed. The Performer is a little taller than the stock cast iron intake. I had the 14 X 4" K&N air filter that held the air cleaner lid up about an inch. It won't work anymore. The air cleaner lid was all scraped up when I picked the car up. The hood was rubbing on it.
