We just got done breaking in the cam, and didn't even get to smoke the tires. I will let Steve Everist tell you the rest. Sure sounds good Steve! :3gears: How do you make only one burn out mark?
The $300 Buick is alive!!! Yep, it's up and running - but it's not quite finished yet. I can't explain my gratitude for all Rick has done to try and get this thing ready for today's BOP. Unfortunately a few things not quite lining up kept that from happening. After BOP Bremerton, Rick and I went back to his place (where the car has been for a week and a half) and we found out that there was a bad neutral safety switch, and the distributor wasn't on the #1 cylinder. After a bypass and some fighting with the oil pump drive shaft alignment, it fired up! :TU: :grin: Fortunately there wasn't any major excitement during the cam break-in. There were a few oil leaks at the oil pump housing and the valve covers, but that appears to be about it. We set the clearances for the oil pump gears using the TA shim kit, and we must have gotten it right. It fired up with initially 75lbs of oil pressure while cold. Once warm for 15 minutes or so, it settled down to around 50 lbs at 2500 rpm and 40lbs at 1500 rpm. We're still working to get the idle set just right, but it was putting out 25lbs at around 900 rpm. That's better than my 71 GS455 ever showed me. Here's what it consists of: a 1976 stock shortblock (everything stock!) with the TA 288-96H cam with stock 1.55:1 steel rockers. The heads are very worked Stage 1 conversions that I got from Mike Pollack (Carcrazy455). They've seen mid 10's and have radically raised ports on the intake side with matching early-style SP1 intake. Right now we've got Rick's Qjet on it that has went high 11's in his car. I do have an 850 dp that will replace it down the road. I've got TA headers that were coated by Performance Coatings with a satin titanium color. They look pretty good. Right now it's just running straight 2.5" pipes from the headers back to DynoMax 17749's. It stops at the mufflers. Hopefully I'll get a chance to hit the track before the season is over, but it will be through 2.56 open gears. Things are looking up for the $300 Buick. I can't thank Rick enough for everything he's gone out of his way to do to get this thing running. :beer
