It's the original 2 bbl 350. Nothing special. I planned on going with the .020 steel gaskets that ta offers. Will that not work for my application?
You can use shim gaskets .just ask at Ta what the suggest on installation. if you don't do it right they will leak coolant. Had to replace them on my brothers car last summer as he was loosing antifreeze.
Well the progress so far is that I've dropped the heads off. He seems to know his stuff and has done a bunch of Buick heads. He told me that he even built the first wet flow bench and built the one for dart. I feel really lucky to have a resource like that just around the corner.
I would use the felpro head gaskets and just mill 20 thou off the heads to keep the compression the same.
Just an FYI, you can be close to the 13s without touching the long block at all. If you do all this work shooting for mid to low 13s is a more realistic goal
Ok. I was thinking the steel shims would work but I will look into the fel pro gaskets. As far as time I didn't expect it would run that we'll so my line was 15 seconds.
Bringing up an old thread, finally trying to order the valves and cam. Do I need to get retainers and keepers? I'm having a tough time understanding the retainers.
check with ta on the keeper but valves are supposed to be for stock keepers/retainers so you shouldn't need to purchase more.
OK well the heads I'm getting ported and put together are a spare set. So I can just get a stock set of keepers and retainers. For him to put everything together? My goal is to have everything ready to install this winter and still cruise around this summer.
So this is an older thread, but I wanted to revive it to continue my build and see what you all think along with what I should change/add. I will give you a run down of what's been done already and we'll go from there. So far. Engine: Full Length Headers & Dual Exhaust Transmission: 2004R upgraded to handle the beating (I hope) & D9 Torque Converter Rear: 3.73 8.5 Posi Purchased Already Engine: Aluminum Intake Manifold Silvolite Pistons 30 over (from CGARB) Recon Rods (from CGARB) ARP Capscrews (from CGARB) Valve Train: Stock Retainers 3/8" 1.92 Intake Valves 3/8" Valve Keepers 284 Cam Hydraulic Lifters Stage 1 Valve Springs Spare set of heads getting ported along with valve job and installation of valves springs according to the 284 Cam tension along with shaving the heads potential 60 thousandths Plan to Order: 350 Head Bolt Kit PCV Grommet Stock Cam Bearing (Should I get something different?) Fel-Pro Head Gasket (.043 crush) Stock Pushrods (Should I wait and measure?) Rubber End seals for intake manifold Intake Gasket (Size?) Timing Cover Gasket Thermostat Gasket Gasgacinch (Should I just get the full gasket set and what does that not include?) Higher Stall Converter (not sure what I should be looking at though any help would be greatly appreciated, I was thinking something in the 3000 - 3500 range, but also I'm just driving this mostly in town. I imagine I will have to get the Quadrajet tuned up a little better after it's done. I honestly am trying to not do all of the work so I was gonna pull the motor and drop it of with a machine shop to assemble everything that I have given them. I just want to make sure they have everything and it will all work. Again, please let me know what I'm missing or should change and I'll see what I can do. I've noticed that the crower cam is being voted much better than the 284, but I am thinking with all of the changes I'm making it will perform pretty well with the 284. Thoughts... Thank you all and I apologize, I'm sure this has already been discussed at length, but my noggin is so scattered from information I'm easily confused at this point, ha.
What's the difference on the D9 convertor. I have the D5 straight from my gn trans. If you shave heads .060 you will need Alittle off the intake side of head to get intake to fit right. Don't mill the intake as then you have to use that intake with those heads and can't swap intakes to something else
I meant that to be D5, my bad. I figured I may need to trim a little on that side. The guy doing the heads would offered to mock it up to determine how much may need to be taken off. Also since I'm going with the felpro gasket. Doesn't that end up being .037? Am I making that too simple?
Felpros are .043 crushed. If you had .020 gasket then yes .037 is what the change will be. What cc chamber do you hope to land at. 45-46?
Honestly I'm not really sure. I'm such a newb about this, what should I be wanting to shoot for? If that's a plausible question.
Depends on which silvolite pistons you got. Do you have a part # or cc of dish? And if pistons are not in engine I suggest you mill block instead of heads. More cc gone with less material removed as cylinder is larger around then chamber of head.
The d5 convertor should work fine for starters. I would at least get 1 ta cam bearing for very front. I think they sell singles. Like I mentioned find out cc of piston dish. Then we can figure estimate on compression. The 284 is good for higher compression but I do think the Crower would be better . the d5 might actually be high for the level 3 or bump to the level 4 or the ta 310 if you want to be more aggressive. Actually thinking of pulling my 310 for a level 4 cam
OK so you think I'd be much happier with the crower level 3 than the 284 or would you recommend jumping to the level 4? Regarding the bearings should I go with the dual groove version or is stock still ok?
You need to tell them to mill the deck so the pistons are .005" below the deck surface if you're using a .040" thick head gasket. If you're are using a .020" thick H/G then you'll want the piston .025" in the hole. For clearance reasons you want a total of .045" deck clearance, clearance between the top of piston and the bottom of head. For a performance build trying to get every tiny bit you could have your block milled to a zero deck height for a .040" thick gasket. I would NOT recommend using a .020" head gasket with a zeroed deck block. Then tell them to measure or if they can get the piston cc spec to look it up that and the head gasket diameter and measure the head combustion chamber. Then tell them what you want your compression at and if the heads need to be milled to get that ratio tell them to do that as well and you should be good to go.(unless they had to mill a whole lot off of the head because the piston dish is to big, if that would be the case different piston would be a good idea)GL Derek
