Baby back home. Finally. See y

My wife is a great cook. Helping in the garage. Not so much.

 

I bought the 290 HL . Hydraulic . Supposed to be a match for those SE2 heads. Straight. 540/540. 290/290. 110 center. Would have loved to get a roller cam. Had some funds. Buick guys know. Wasn't happening. Will try to upload the cam card.

 

I just noticed you’re going with a 0.080” head gasket. Be careful. You may have too much quench. Summit Racing recommends not running more than 0.060” of quench. Too much quench could cause detonation. See the link below:

https://help.summitracing.com/knowledgebase/article/SR-04941/en-us

 

Yep. I’m in the middle of a build. I got on TA’s heads and roller cam waiting lists over a year ago. I’m not confident I’ll be getting a roller cam in the near future.

 

I wound up going with steel rods. Molnar. I appreciate your concern. But after speaking with my machinist and others. I believe that it should be fine.

 

Hope I'm correct. You definitely have me thinking. Wow.

 

Just thinking. Where exactly does octane # come into this formula.

 

Some are...some aren't.

Last I looked, they won't put the COO on the box. You have to open the box, and look on the filter itself to see if it's USA, or Poland, or China, or Mars, or Andromeda.

I dislike anything over .045; depending somewhat on bore diameter and piston-to-wall clearance. On a closed-chamber (i.e., not Buick) small-block with typical small-block skinny pistons, I'd really rather be down in the mid-.030s.

The "good" (well, less-bad) news is that unless this block has been zero-decked, typical Buick piston-in-the-hole plus .080 means that he'll have an "open" chamber. Lazy and inefficient, but probably won't detonate. Will likely need more-than-normal spark advance to help with the slow, lazy burn. May have issues with overheating if the cooling system isn't top-notch due to the slow burn/excess spark advance leaving more time for the cylinder wall and head to absorb heat during each combustion.

I keep hearing that the "danger zone" for detonation is with the quench distance from about .050 to about .100--.120. Too wide for turbulence, too shallow to let the flame-front in to burn the end-gasses. Less distance than that makes for good in-cylinder turbulence, a quick burn, less spark advance required, and less room between piston and head for end-gasses that absorb heat and self-ignite. More distance than that allows the flame-front to completely cross the cylinder without interference. The burn is slower, but the flame front gets the air-fuel mix burning before it can detonate. Of course, every engine family--and many aftermarket cylinder heads--have differently-shaped combustion chambers, so it's impossible to toss out distance measurements vs. detonation with any accuracy. In the end, if it detonates, you'll know better "next time".

"I guess" there's such a thing as an excessively-tight quench distance, which almost certainly involves the quench AREA not only quench VOLUME. SOMEBODY must have done some research on that. Then you get into Somender Singh grooves, and then the arguments start.

 

You pull the hood off?? I've removed and installed the 455 in my 72 a couple of times without removing the hood. That's with a B4B. Probably wouldn't work with a SP1.

 

Don't get too caught up in the quench theory.....you'll be fine....I ran a .120 gasket and a piston that sit almost 50 deep....no issues

 

Was that Kustom? I don’t see it on the TA website.

 

It's in the new TA catalog. I printed it out. Page 60. The only difference is that the catalogue says 112 lobe center. Mine came 110

 

Actually I pulled it with the hood on but I had the intake off because I originally was just going to replace the cam. We didn't like what we saw in the cylinders (some scoring) so we pulled the engine no problem. Going to try to install with the intake on soon. I'm going to see how it runs with the "performer".