The Break Down of a '69 Pontiac OHC inline six

Discussion in 'The "Other" Bench' started by TheSilverBuick, Dec 20, 2010.

  1. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    Haha, thanks!
     
  2. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    Got a whole bunch of stuff checked off my list yesterday and the car is essentially as ready for a 1,200 mile round trip next weekend as it's going to get.
    Got the front turn signal lights working (the housing plugs are jacked up), got the wiring all loomed up, even got rubber grommets finally on the holes in the firewall, got the huge (cold) air hole on the passenger side kick panel blocked (kick panel is off the car and the heater box has to be removed to install it), added a 12v power port to the side of my console, installed the glove box, hooked up the illumination light on the oil pressure gauge, patched some vacuum leaks in the throttle body (seems some internal passages bypassed air to below the throttle blades) and I got the idle air valve working!

    I changed up the idle valve setup and used a plate of aluminum and drilled and threaded it directly to the original PCV port that goes into the intake plenum, then had a 90 fitting on it with a hose going straight up to the air filter housing. Which I drilled a hole in the housing, inserted a rubber grommet and a hose barb.
    [​IMG]
     
  3. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    Trip summary.

    From Friday night to Monday night I drove just shy of 1,200 miles. I didn't track the mpg's while driving around town in California, but out on the highway there and back it was averaging 20mpg. Seemed to consume/lose about a quart of oil every 250-300 miles which to me is a ton of oil. Basically I checked it when ever I stopped at a gas station and topped it off. All in all, I knew the used engine would likely have some issues, rather it was oil consumption, low oil pressure, or low compression on a cylinder or two, and it appears it only has an oil consumption issue at present so I cannot complain too much as the EFI and other modifications I made to it portion worked like a champ.

    About an hour into my drive out of town, 60 or so miles, my external oil line let loose and sprayed the engine bay with around 1.5 quarts of oil by the time I noticed the oil pressure fluxuations and shut the engine off. FYI, that is a bunch of oil in the engine bay =P So the pink oil line I had couldn't stand up to the heat, and what is worse is I figured as much, bought a replacement 1/8 EFI fuel line hose that would have no issue with it and forgot to both install it or bring it with me d'oh! Since I was only an hour out of town I called a friend for a big favor of swinging by my house, grabbing the hose I bought and bringing it to me. I was up and running within five minutes of his arrival. I had five quarts of oil with me since I was unsure of it's oil consumption rate at sustained highway speeds. Turns out it's quite a bit so far. Cruising between 2,800-3,100rpm seems to suck oil out of the thing. I drove a tad slower home, but it didn't make much difference. I think this engine would do well with gears that would put the cruising speed right at 2,600rpm. I haven't calculated what ratio that would be yet. My oil air separator(pipe) isn't working nearly as well as I'd like it too either, so more work will have to be done there. I'm getting quite a bit of oil out the breather even when the reservoir isn't even close to being full. And getting around 20mpg, which isn't terrible considering the 4.56 gears and rpm's turning. a friend of mine says the cruising speed is equivalent to driving with 3.25 gears and no overdrive.

    Here are a few trip pictures.
    On the road.
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    On the side of the road.
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    Back on the road, and actually this was in California.
    [​IMG]

    It didn't run hot, it climbed all the 6% grades in overdrive at 70mph with out issue, and made the trip with out fuss after the oil line repair. Funny thing about climbing hills. I programmed the electric water pump to be on when ever the engine is under a higher load, basically calibrated it so that if the torque converter disengages the water pump should probably be on. The logic is if I go WOT it'll pump cool water into the head regardless of the engine temperature to keep detonation at bay (which has turned out to be a non-issue so far), which will be helpful when I have a turbo engine in the car. The funny thing is, when I was pulling the first real mountain, about 10 miles of 5%-6% grade outside of Primm, NV, I noticed the engine temps dropped to 140F and kind of sat there until I crested the mountain then it started to climb back up to normal 185-195F range that I have programmed in. It took me several miles before I remembered the pump stays on under load, lol. The only time I think the radiator fan kicked on was while I was in a Carl's Jr. drive through for a while, and so far has been more than adequate at keeping the engine temperature in control.

    Sunday was the big car day, went to two car shows and helped a fellow cammer set an engine and transmission in his '67 Firebird. The first car show I went too, the car had a constant crowd around it. When ever I'd go look at other cars my friend's would call my cell phone and say "Dude, get back here, these guys have lots of questions!" haha. Then and helped out setting in an engine and trans then made it to the tail end of the Buick get together at a Bob's Big Boy in the same area. I'll post a couple more pictures later, but by the time I remembered to take some pictures of my Firebird there were only two other guys there. It was good to meet a few of you guys. Reminds me how rough my cars are, lol. But it did make the long round trip!

    A common sight around the car at the first show (I'm the guy in the hooded jacket with his back to the camera). People were equally interested in the engine setup as the shifter setup. Definitely made a conversationalist piece if nothing else.
    [​IMG]
     
  4. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    Memorial weekend I'm going to swap in a new E-cam and followers. I'm going to keep the used 1bbl springs in there during break in. After some driving I may follow it up with the re-ground cam (for the turbo engine, and it's own set of new followers) for break in purposes. I need to decide at that point though if I'm going to lash cap the valvestems or dedicate a cam housing and shave the housing. I'm leaning towards lash caps.

    When I go to do the valve springs for the E-cam I have to come up with either a good part number for a single spring (I don't think dual springs fit on an unmodified 1bbl head) or shim the springs I currently am using. BUT I'm considering pulling the whole engine and doing it a little more proper now. Still a weekend rebuild, but put new piston rings in and dingle ball the cylinder walls in an effort to reduce the blow by and while it's out install 0.001" undersized rod/main bearings to bring up the oil pressure some, and perhaps a minor port job on the head and chamber.

    If I can't find approapriate springs, I might, might, maybe, snowball, take the head to a machine shop to cut the head for dual springs. And if I do that, I may use my remaining stock of new valves and get a valve job and surface the head. Of course I'll be hammering the valve stem height spec into my machinist's head if I get to that point.

    The main motivation for wanting to pull the engine is to reduce oil consumption because it's making me hesitate driving it out of town (around town is fine). The Car Craft Anti-Tour is in July and involves an 1/8th mile track and I'm indecisive on bringing my Skylark which had significant upgrades since the last time it made it to the track or the Firebird. I'd like to see if I can get the OHC decently healthy (aka not blow oil every where..) and have the bigger E-cam and more spring pressure for some RPM's and take it down the track. Remember, mini-spool and 4.56 gears!
     
  5. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    Small update on what I'm doing this weekend.


     
  6. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    Got this running with the new cam (the OE 215HP cam over the OE 175HP). I haven't plugged the laptop in yet to see what changes it actually needs, but it fire right up and seems to run and sound the same as with the small cam... I haven't done a full WOT test though since I have not checked the tune. Over the next week or so I'll get some tuning done on it and some 0-60mph runs to see if it picked up any power.

    I purchased new valve springs, piston rings, .001" over sized rod and main bearings and a full gasket kit for right at $300 after taxes and shipping, then ponied up for an appropriately sized and gritted flex ball hone for another $50. They should be here in the next week. I'm going to drive the car to California again the weekend of June 6th so will be able to test out the fuel mileage with the bigger cam then the following weekend I'm going to pull the engine and do a weekend rebuild on it. I may drag it out to two weekends and spend a week porting the head some while I have it apart. Nothing fancy, just open up the bowls some, smooth out the valve guides castings and maybe a little bit of chamber work around the intake valve. The chamber work is the BIG maybe.


    On another forum someone was asking about the blow-by, and so I made a quick video of how the converted mid-90's LT1 electric smog pump to vacuum pump works out. I want to hook a vacuum fitting to the crank case to measure what negative and positive pressures are in the crankcase under different conditions. I o-ringed the oil-cap and dipstick to try and further enhance the vacuum seal. I like using the vacuum pump over the pcv valve because I want to keep as much oil out of the intake and combustion chamber as possible to minimize crusty build up of the intake and reduce detonation in the chamber.

    [video=youtube_share;fPTy8ThxfVw]http://youtu.be/fPTy8ThxfVw[/video]
     
  7. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    Got it up and running on Friday, then re-engineered the alternator bracket again and I'm much happier with it now.


    I've gotten tired of the bog off idle and decided to make a bigger effort to install a throttle position sensor on the Holley carb throttle body. With it done and with minimal tuning of the accelerator pump shot it's running pretty good and 90% of the bog is gone. I still have a bit of work to do, but it's pretty good now. And of course the first time I wired it up it registered backwards so I had to reverse the power and ground wires.


    Closed throttle
    [​IMG]


    Wide open throttle.
    [​IMG]


    Since I am not gaining the 1.5 points of compression with the 4bbl cam, I've installed the Sprintbird adjustable cam sprocket I have and set it for a full 8 advance. Should help the low end and bring the power level down the band a bit. Might even pick up a few mpg's.


    And being a non-interference engine, there is no risk of valve to piston contact in the event of a goof up :) The piston reliefs are stupidly large for the lift.


    I ran the engine before picture, so the timing mark doesn't line up in the photo.
    [​IMG]


    and just a shot of the whole engine bay with the timing belt cover off. I installed the cover after the picture.
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    A short video of it running with the timing belt cover off.
    [video=youtube_share;Kb0T5-OFJnU]http://youtu.be/Kb0T5-OFJnU[/video]


    Driving it around town some and it's running pretty good. The TPS sensor is working like a champ. 'll get it further dialed in over the next week. I think after I do the weekend R&R on the engine I may actually go to a chassis dyno to satisfy my curiosity of what it's making.
     
  8. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    Today's posting and work.

    On another forum some one was asking about the porting work I want to do, both to this engine and what will be my turbo engine, so this is just pasted from there:


    They are opened up a bit and cleaned up a lot. I don't recall the exact measurements off hand but I think they were essentially gasket matched to this gasket.
    [​IMG]
    (this is my cleaned up head in the photo ready to go to the port shop)


    This is what the head on the engine currently looks like. No work done to the ports.
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    I scaled the pictures best I could and cropped them next to each other to show the difference in the chamber shape. The top head is currently the one on my engine. Basically opened up around the intake valve to unshroud it.
    [​IMG]


    Hard to believe this engine looked like this when I picked it up a few years ago.
    [​IMG]


    [​IMG]


    [​IMG]




    I have a spare '66 1bbl head that in effect will likely never be used, so I'm going out there today and trying/practicing the chamber work on it.

    My attempt at chamber re-shaping. Over all I am quite pleased. This was about 30 minutes worth of work. I had to account for a bigger/deeper chamber than in the picture because the one in the picture is a high compression head. I wonder if I should smooth out/open up the other side of the intake valve as well? Who needs compression anyways?


    [​IMG]




    My friend Nick that ports heads professionally (think Engine Masters) is doing his best to make me do better :) I may be ordering some nicer burrs for the real test.

    I took a dial indicator and some calibrated rocks and set the intake valves at 0.438" lift, which is how much lift my current cam has to show the difference. It was recommended to me, if I can, to get 0.020" shaved off the bottom of the head if I can. Hmm, I may try that after I port and re-shape the chamber on my running head, I'll see if the Machine Shop in Elko (2.5 hours away..) can shave the head in the same day. In the past they have been able to do same day work for me when scheduling it in. I need to run some numbers, but l don't think it's possible to bring the compression up too high from shaving the head while using a head gasket that is around .030" thicker than the stock steel shim gasket that is impossible to get now.


    I adjusted the color for more contrast because the sun was white washing it out.
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    Then I brought it indoors.
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    You can see where I was working with the dial indicator as it scrapped the carbon off the valve on the right. I just shifted the set up left to do the other valve.
    [​IMG]
     
  9. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    A pile of updates.

    June 3rd.
    June 4th. The car ended up not making the trip due to a plugged fuel filter or lift pump problems. In drive through traffic on a reasonably warm day the fan did drop the temps where the old fan barely maintained.
    June 12th. After it failed to get me out of town.
    June 13th.
    June 14th.
    June 15th.
    This up coming Friday I'm taking the head to a machine shop to shave as much as possible off the bottom to try and gain some compression back. Will try for some bronze valve guide inserts but I'm asking for same day turn around time.
     
  10. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    Update time. Still not running, but hopefully by the end of this weekend.

    June 18. Installed ports to install EGT sensors into the exhaust. Hoping to do this before the end of summer.

    June 21. Drove 185 miles to the nearest machine shop to have a day's worth of work done.
    June 23. Adding baffles to the existing baffles in an effort to have better oil control. Hopefully the new rings will reduce the blow by which will also help. It pulled quite a bit of oil into the crank case vacuum pump so hoping to reduce/stop that, and the oil fill tube being on the crankshafts up sling side has always created an oil seep problem on these engines at the oil cap. I've o-ringed the oil cap and the vacuum pump pulls it tight, but the baffles should help, especially at higher RPM.
     
  11. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    This weekends work. Not quite running, but getting there.

    June 27.
    June 28.
    June 29
     
  12. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    A few days ago I got the cooling and charging systems installed. I could have probably fire it up right then, but to be safe I want to change the rear fuel filter and do a crank test with a timing light to make sure I don't have the cam sensor 180 out. It should be fine, but I rather check it.


    [​IMG]


    Then when I finally fired the car up it was mostly good. Fired right up and idled well. But it wouldn't rev above 1,200rpm. The tach signal kept dropping out. I re-adjusted the crank sensor and tightened up the clearances to the crank trigger, but it didn't change anything. I did a data log and all the inputs are reading clean, including the tach signal until it dropped out.


    Took me a bit longer than anticipated to troubleshoot the problem, but I fixed it. I tried adjusting the signal filters on the MegaSquirt board, no dice, then I swapped sensors, no dice (then put the old one back on), then using my LED test light to check for how the sensor signal was doing when it'd break up and suddenly it would rev cleanly as much as I wanted. Unhooked my test light and back to cut off at 1,200rpm. So I knew it was in my crank sensor wiring and may be my pull-up circuit.


    And sure enough, there was the culprit. Re-soldered it back up and it ran like a champ.
    [​IMG]


    Got a video, but almost didn't. The dang fuel problem cropped up again and stranded me on the side of the road three times before I got it back home. I richened it up quite a bit, probably from unknowingly at the time offsetting the fuel starvation issue, so I need to un-do those changes. I'm going to drop the fuel tank tomorrow and check out the pickup and start redoing the whole fuel system.


    And the video. I wanted to do a burn out video, but after the fueling issue I didn't.
    [video=youtube_share;zV01a0cHNUA]http://youtu.be/zV01a0cHNUA[/video]
     
  13. Aaron65

    Aaron65 Well-Known Member

    I love this thread, not only for your tenacity, but for the fact that you put a six-cylinder in a Firebird 400! That has to make some guys scratch their heads... :) Keep it up!
     
  14. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    Thanks! It certainly does! I just tell them I have two big block Buick's and a 428 FE Thunderbird, why do I need a another large displacement V8? And I still get ---> :error: lol.

    I bought the first Firebird that I found within my budget with decent bodywork and interior. It just happen to be a manual drum brake, manual steering, 4-speed, 400 car. Though the 4-speed had been removed and replaced with a TH400, the clutch pedal still hangs there. The 400 that came with the car date coded as a '72, so I didn't feel bad at all, the OE drivetrain was long gone.
     
  15. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    Update time. Excuse the text in some of the posts if it doesn't make sense here as I had some problems with fuel starvation again, so I overhauled the entire fuel system.

    July 12.
    July 15
    The air pump toasted a 25amp fuse, and it turned out I had already prepped my spare air pump, so I simply swapped it on the other day. The one removed had a bunch of oil in it, so hopefully with my new baffling the new one shouldn't be pulling through as much oil and last longer.

    Yesterday. I'm heading out after work to do a shake down run to CA in prep for attending the Car Craft Anti-Tour July 25-27 (including 1/8th mile test n' tune!). Should be around 1,100 more miles on the odometer by the time I get back home on Sunday.
     
  16. SteeveeDee

    SteeveeDee Orange Acres

    Young, good cash flow and single. It's gotta be a fun life. I've been following this for awhile. Pretty cool stuff! I got married 33+ years ago, and that late night hot rod work disappeared at the same time.
     
  17. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    So as seen in a couple threads, my Skylark made the Anti-Tour as the Firebird failed to make it, which the car failed to make it reliably during the test trip I last posted about. Ran into fuel problems again and turned around and went home and got the Skylark. However, since then I have solved the fuel problem (turned out the high pressure fuel pump, bought just a couple months earlier was the problem) and finally had a successful drive to southern California and back. Got the crankcase vacuum setup under control, which reduced oil consumption considerably and finally saw that the 4bbl cam gets about 0.5mpg less than the 1bbl cam, which is now at 20mpg flat.

    Here are some updates on what I've been doing on the car since the last update back in July.

    August 7th. I'd been ignoring the distance problem and just driving it locally on a regular basis
    August 30
    September 5.
    September 6.
    September 8.
    September 12.
    September 17.
    September 26.
    October 7.
    October 12. The faithful trip to California!
    October 13. The trip home. NAPA warrantied the fuel pump for me.
    October 26.
    The today!

    Since I'm on a holding pattern for the transmission I've decided to play around with making a sheet metal intake for the car. Playing with PipeMax, it looks like a 3rd harmonic runner should be about 10", depending on how many rpm the engine is going to be spinning, but 12" seemed like a good middle of the road number. Doing some math, from the throat behind the valve to the where the intake flange bolts to had a taper of 6, so I just propagated that out 10" out from the flange, calculated out the area using the same height to width ratio of .875 so the ports at the end should be about the same dimension, just bigger.

    So I started by making a wooden form of the port from a chunk of 4x4. I drew out the area on either end, lined across the sides for the taper then took progressively closer cuts with a sawzall. I was going to get it close and use my belt sander, but after wasting at least 2 hours looking for the damn sander I gave up and continued making closer cuts with the sawzall and then got the idea to stick a paint stripper disc on my 4.5" grinder and that did a pretty good job of removing material slowly and smoothing out the sawzall cuts. I made it a bit smaller than needed for wiggle room to account for the size of the metal.
    [​IMG]

    I used a blue shop towel wrapped around the piece of wood and trimming it to size to make a pattern to cut the metal by since the taper wouldn't be a perfect rectangle.
    [​IMG]

    Then using a series of C-Clamps and vice grips to hold the metal in place on block of wood while I used my work bench to wrap the metal around the block of wood. Some light massaging with a rubber hammer was involved and I managed to even get the seam to be on the bottom of the runner with a light overlap. I then gave it a quick tack weld to hold it together and knocked the wood out the end.
    [​IMG]

    Some tapping and it slide right into the port.
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    Not overly fancy.
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    From the flange side.
    [​IMG]

    And will it fit on the engine?? It's about an inch or so long here as the plenum end still needs to be cut and squared up. I'm contemplating ways to get a rounder bell shape on that end, but not 100% sure it's going to happen.
    [​IMG]


    It's pretty thin gauge metal, so I intend to use small lengths of angle iron along the bottom of the runners to support the weight of the eventual plenum. I am going to get steel injector bungs and they will be tacked to the flange to hold them solidly in place.
     
  18. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    Runner 2 done. I think I have it down to about 15 to 20 minutes per runner. Maybe even less time.
    [​IMG]




    Now onto making a curved entrance. Each sheet of steel I have will yield a scrap piece I can make a mini runner with, and if I practice on both ends that'll give me six practice/experimenting tries before having to attempt it on one of the runners. Hope I learn quick =P This was a combination of the anvil,a giant trailer ball hitch (2.5"?) and flattening/leveling the top with my workbench. I did take a sanding roll to it at one point, but then ended up beating on it some more. After posting these pictures up on FB, the airflow guy says a 1/2" radius is as close to ideal as I'd have a chance in making. I'm not so sure I can stretch the metal that much, but I've got a couple ideas floating around in my head I want to try.
    [​IMG]




    Also, my transmission case plug, filter and gasket showed up today. I'm going to California next weekend so won't be able to install it until next week or later.
     
  19. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    Practice/experiment round two. Once again started with the trailer ball hitch (it is a 2-5/16") to round out the port, then it seems the easier thing to use is the anvil to start then finish up with a piece of round 3/4" pipe. My other ideas just weren't panning out. Go figure =P

    Going for a 1/2" radius. IMO, not terrible terrible.
    [​IMG]

    Another port made up.
    [​IMG]

    And everybody likes a good mock up. The tube is a bit far forward, and up, compared to where I intend on placing it.
    [​IMG]

    I was surprised my cell phone camera flash actually makes it to the end of the port.
    [​IMG]
     
  20. TheSilverBuick

    TheSilverBuick In the Middle of No Where

    I finally signed up for Photobucket, and I see it can automatically take my Facebook albums. So I am hoping at some point to go back through the thread and fix all the photo links (again...) and hopefully they last at that point.

    Today I made up the last two runners then trimmed them all to equal length. Now to start on the plenum details!

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     

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