After finally finding some time I have my 455 in my 65 Lark. It went in pretty easy just followed everybodys tips,TA pads, slotting frame holes etc. I went with an all gloss black silver,chrome valve covers scheme for something different looking. Cant wait to fire her up in a few weekends. J.
that looks pretty slick in there. it appears that you used your origanal 300 p/s and alt. brackets, am i right? i will be doing the same exact swap in my 65 skylark conv. eventually. i am just slowly gathering parts.
looks nice! Make sure your belt aligns correctly with the 300 ps pump and both of the other pullies. I've never seen one with the belt going around the water pump pulley. It definitely fixes the problem of the belt rubbing on the water pump when it is routed as it was on the 300. :TU:
Dcon, Paul you are observant...yes that is the stock alt block bracket but an aftermarket chrome alt arm and yes I did have to tweak the 300 p.s. pump alignment a bit. It needed to be bumped out about 3/8 to 1/2 an inch...I did it with 3- 5/8 washers plus the 300 pump backside bracket that is about 1/8 in thickness. The washers sit behind the 300 power steering bracket sandwiched between the block and bracket so you dont see them unless you really look ..I then got 1/2 inch longer bolts to make up for the thickness of the backside bracket and washers. I will take a picture of the backside of the pump to show you the modified 300 bracket. Originally its a 3 point bracket that attaches to the back of pump,front of head and then on one of the 300's exhaust manifold bolts. The 455 head is obviously bigger so the exhaust manifold bolt point wont align with the bracket. I decided to cut the bracket exhaust bolt mount point off. When you cut the bracket its now a 2 point bracket. But its plenty strong enough for the back support point for the pump. The belts also were all non stock length as I went with a few aftermarket pulleys which changed the length. The stock power steering belt and factory pulley slot DID hit the water pump body as you said so thats why I ended up modifying it all and going this route I did. I have radiator hoses in today and none hit so it looks like its all going to work. An added benefit may be is there shouldnt be any slippage as its now being pushed along by 3 pulleys instead of 2. Hopefully the hood closes ha ha .....J.
J,that's a very nice looking engine bay I would say that you nailed the stealth look with that one:TU: .Post more pictures as you go,that's going to be a nice one.
THanks for the compliments guys ...I will take a few more pics this weekend and post. Just por15'd my master cylinder so it looks better now,radiator +hoses in etc. John
Guys , dont know if you saw these but heres a few more in the meantime. John http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?p=1003940#post1003940
Hey Sootie, That's a nice setup. I have a very similar setup that i'm working on but except that pulley setup you have, and mine will be in a wagon. Are those march pulleys?
None are March.... 300 power steering is home polished stock,alternator is one I bought off ebay - guy didnt know brand, The water pump pulley I bought from Poston it was I believe. Balancer pulley is stock- painted heat resistant silver. J.
No having tranny-converter install issues right now...after that I should be firing it up within a week I would imagine if my g-friend gives me time .........J
The saga continues trying to fire this car up for the first time .... So I had to fix my front to rear break line before initial startup ...this line I ripped out by accident thinking it was the smaller fuel return line to the tank when I ran my new braided fuel lines from the tank to stage 1 fuel pump........I didnt want 400 ft lbs and NO BRAKES upon initial startup....sooo once again this car turned into a nightmare..... I disconnected the old line tried to affix the new one to the brake distribution block mounted in a kind of hard place to get to and ended up spending 3 hrs on my back trying to get the damx thing started in the threads that were boogered in the first and second threads of the distribution block ....I ended up borrowing a thread chaser from a friend and after another 45 mins I got the stupid thing finally in ...of course it still leaks aaaarrrrgh......I guess this cements I am getting a front disc brake kit .........anyway I finally filled the tank with 5 gallons of fuel - no leaks miraculously ! I then put the battery in , crossed my fingers and prayed for no smoke from the harness as I wasnt a 100% sure of all my connections .......she finally turned over after 1 year with the coil wire removed - NO SMOKE !!! I did this on purpose to make sure the starter gear was retracting as I had read of peoples not letting go and seeing a shower of sparks........so after a few keyturns I go under the car and I will be damxxx the starter gear on the stupid aftermarket hi torque mini starter is hung up on the flex plate and not fully retracting...I already have 3 washers on it to get the gear depth correct and evidently I now need one more ! Now to go up to another washer I need slightly longer starter bolts...aaaaarrrrgh ...........so I go in the house to take a shower as I am literally black head to toe from my rear brake line work earlier around the greasy rear end then off to home depot I go for the bolts ......then conveniently a torrential afternoon thunder and lightning shower comes so I pack it all in after the bolt run and plan to try to get home early enough tomorrow to get this thing started finally.......nothing has gone right on this car ...Im thinking of calling her Christine.........ha ha J .
R A N T !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well tonight I finally fired the 455 up for the first time. I ended up buying a hi torque starter from Jamie on the board here as my Hitachi off ebay was hanging on the flex plate with numerous combinations of spacers........ .. I bolted Jamies in this afternoon ...no probs at all ....after about 5 start attempts it fired right up....oil pressure went to ~50 psi .....it was pretty tame sounding I thought with only 1/2 the Pypes 2.5 " exhaust system installed and Pypes race pro mufflers dumping out below the rear seats . I only ran it for 40 seconds at around 2k and shut it off to check on everything as I am by myself ...when the smoke cleared I saw my brand new painted performer intake totally covered in its galleys with 1/3-1/2 a cup of gas, VHT ceramic paint melting-peeling off in huge chunks from the ton of heated gas leaking from BOTH the banjo fittings on my Edelbrock 800 thunder series carb. Once again another couple of high priced defective engineered sxxx products...VHT, Edelbrock.......those Edelbrock banjo fittings are a joke and are leaking like a seive. I even made sure I bought Edelbrocks manufactured dual feed line specifically made for the 800 series carb so I wouldnt have to deal with any leaks. What a piece of sxxx for around 50 bucks !!! I got raped. I am tired of garbage engineered products with obviously no quality control. The line when installed wouldnt even fit their OWN intake and CARB without bending it. As far as the vht ceramic paint- again what a joke at almost 6 dollars a can it cant hold up to gas and honestly held up no better than Kmart bbq grille or Rustoleum grille paint. The intake is trashed cosmetically and needs to be removed and repainted with only 40 seconds on the motor . When are we all going to get sick of this and quit buying these crappy products. Unfortunately we have limited choices. When is someone going to come along and start building good quality products that do what they claim they do ? I dont mind paying extra if the quality is there ! When I do pay and the quality isnt there I get furious! I will try some teflon tape tomorrow to see if I can quell all the leaks......if I cant stop the leaks I will have to rig up another fuel line ......the saga continues on C H R I S T I N E ........ha ha......J.
In the paint's defense, most of it isn't too durable until it's been hot and had some time to bake. There's not much worse than gas on fresh paint, except maybe laquer thinner. I've used I think Plasti-Kote ceramic engine paint with good luck. Yeah, it sucks to see your hard work melt before your eyes. But that's also why when the challenge works out we get such a thrill. It's love-hate!
ive had good luck with the dupli-color brand of hi-heat paint.but then again,i only pissed coolant on my intake.uzzled:
Update- Friday night- I put a bottle of comp cams cam break in lube in the Rotella oil today as extra insurance...as I only have about 40 seconds on the motor so far . I put teflon tape on both the Edelbrock Thunder series -dual feed lines threads and banjo bolt backsides and it appears to be holding for now - so the carb wasnt spewing fuel all over the intake today ..... ran it today for about 20 minutes at 2k...my initial timing which I though I had at at least 10 degrees- was off and I only had about 3 so I had to twist the distributor to get it up to 15 ....tomorrow I will let the idle down and see where its really at- at idle ...I still think its retarded as Im running a little hot right now.....had a few leaks spring up ...passenger side valve cover...tightened it up and we will see if it holds...then the front corner of my brand new ta oil pan had some oil oozing - also had a little from the oil pump so I lightly snugged those too....... the cork gasket on the turbo 350 pan is also slightly leaking from one corner my trans guy installed that gasket so I just snugged it up trying to be carefull not to overtorque it. The one wire alt appears to be charging - but I think I need to put a smaller pulley on it which I have to get it charging at lower rpms..... Tomorrow I will focus on letting the idle down - seeing where the timings at and do some basic carb tuning with a vac gage.......J
Monday -oil pump leak grew worse-really bad -so today I dropped the oil pump and looked at everything....no gaskets were broken etc. So I dont know what was wrong ? I did something different this time however ...I sprayed both sides of the gaskets with copper spray before laying them on the pump...hopefully that will help. I snugged everything up and will try it again tonight to see if it still leaks or not. I also took the startup oil filter off and cut it open....I was pleasantly surprised to find nothing-no metal flakes etc....I did however see a few small "chunks of assembly lube in the filter about the size of bb's. That stuff is tough....I have had the motor up to 210 and 55 psi a few times and that lube still didnt break down completely. After firing her up for about a minute at 15 degrees initial it will hold its own idle at around 700 rpm. Its funny at first I thought it sounded pretty tame but it actually has a nice lope-spit to it at idle (288-94h). I am not running tailpipes yet -just dumping manifolds -dual exhaust pipes under the passenger seat with dual race pro turbos on it for shakedown tests...its pretty loud -so it should quiet down alot but it actually sounds nasty -pretty good at idle . I tend to like a quieter exhaust but I really like the sound of this cam and I think I should be really pleased with this pypes 2.5 system when the x pipe and tailpipes get installed. Tonight I will fire it up and see if oil pump leak is gone and see if I can stop the tranny pan leak. I dont know whats wrong there as its an all new trans and gasket. Still running a little hot at idle ...will start to chase that down next....I have an aluminum rad ,flex fan and electric fan but it still creeps up there at idle . I dont know if I am lean or maybe it needs the initial still bumped up a tad or vacuum advance hooked up- anyway headed that way next. Still need to bleed brakes again before trying to put her on the road for the first time as there is no pedal after I changed the brake line I accidently ripped out. J.
Tonight I fired it up again after dropping the oil pump last night . I had to remove the distributor to prime it which it came up to pressure relatively quick.....I have about 55 psi doing that with the drill . Anyway I ended up putting a little more initial in it at 18 degrees and it made it start on the first key turn and held its own at idle after about 20 seconds. At the risk of jinxing myself it looks like the copper spray did the trick on sealing the oil pump gaskets. I just sprayed both gaskets liberally before applying them to the pump housing and it didnt leak a drop tonight. I am still running hot at idle. I will have to move the electric temp switch for the fan as I noticed it comes on way too late mounted in the rear bung of the intake.....by the time it comes on the motor is already at 195-205 ! So Im going to move it to one of the front bungs on the performer intake and see if it makes a difference. I think I am simply underpowered fan wise. I have a single spal fan which came with my Alumitech radiator that the guy recommended and a 15" flex fan on the water pump.
