Derek, I thought about that on my drive home. The car is stored such that it is readily accessible if necessary. I'll coordinate with the shop for allowing me to do the underhood clean up/painting that I want to do. They're a really easy going bunch of guys whom are all excited to work on the car, so I'm sure it won't be a problem. I got the carb pulled. I just got off the phone with Mark (carmantx). I'll be shipping the q-jet to him on Monday, along with delivering the engine to the builder. I'm kinda disappointed in the original mechanic I targeted to do the work. I've never run a repair shop myself, but I have a hard time believing he could not have gotten me in any sooner for the engine removal. Significant time wasted. Once he sees me dropping the motor off on Monday, he'll realize the $$ he lost. The world keeps turning. I'm happy to have some traction on my project again.
I tried to remove the intake manifold (so I could then try to remove the heads) but I can't get the bolts to budge. I sprayed them with pb blaster, but I can't get good leverage to apply torque with the thing being in the back of my jeep.
That's cool, I didn't want you to have any regrets if you forgot to detail under the hood. By the looks of all the grime on the engine it probably needs it. You know a freshly painted engine will make the rest of what's under the hood look like crap if it isn't freshened up as well and a lot of people will want to see it.(I know I would ask you to pop the hood) Looks like you're only weeks away, hopefully things keep moving smoothly all the way to having it run. The bad part about the shop that's building but now not installing it won't be the ones to fire it up and break in the cam unless they have a break-in start up engine stand or you're having them dyno it and they'll break-in the cam right before the dyno pulls? Anyway looks like there's light at the end of the tunnel. GL best of wishes and keep us posted. Derek
Yep. I paid for a cam break-in/dyno tune session. Defintiely best for the builders be there to control everything for those initial moments of running the new engine. I Initially planned on reusing the old rocker arms & shafts. But I went ahead and purchased a new set. No point in skimping at this point. The new rockers arrived yesterday. Nothing special. Just some autozone piecesc(melting brand). They arrived yesterday, and will be dropped off to the builder on Monday.
Dropped the engine off at the builder's shop today. Happy to have them able to get back to work on this. Ball park estimate to engine completion is about 3-4 weeks. In the meantime, I'll be cleaning the random components such as the fan shroud/coolant reservoir, brackets, etc.
Got a call from my builder yesterday, asking me to come in to finalize my engine painting requests. Good...that meant we are nearing the finish line!!! The timing is impeccable, as for yesterday, I saw that my carb was dut to arrive from our resident q-jet specialist, carmantx today. Today I went to pick up the carb so I could deliver it to the builder. The carb....wow...what a job that was. It looks marvelous!! I also paid to convert to an electric choke, as my aftermarket intake manifold does not have a hot air outlet to allow the original hot air choke to function as designed. Extra $50 for this conversion. I got to see the engine today, almost fully assembled!!! So exciting to see this project progress. I supplied the builder with the paint, GM corporate blue. They've painted the oil pan, the valve covers, and the harmonic balancer thus far. I will leave the intake manifold painted aluminum, while the rest will be GM corporate blue...which is the color that came standard on the '76 "blue blocks". The engine will be ready for dyno in a week or so. I am on travel for work during the week of May 11th, so I am hoping to get the build completed before that time. I told him that I ABSOLUTELY MUST be there for the dyno tuning/cam break-in. He kept all of the parts from my old engine. Today I told him to discard the heads, and the intake manifold. I left the block & crank behind...I'll pick them up at a later time and probably sell them to recoup some $$ for other things I need to do to the car. SO CLOSE!!!
Looks good man. I'm hoping to be done with my engine build by mid may as well. Good luck to you. Have fun.
Soooooo.... I'm on travel for work next week. I told my builder that I ABSOLUTELY need to be there for the dyno session. That being said, dyno day is Wednesday, May 20th at 9am. Beyond excited.
Any guesses on hp/tq output? Specs are as follows: -Rebuilt q-jet -Edlebrock B4B Intake -'72 heads, ported. (heads flowed in the 250cfm range on the intake side at .500" lift) -SpeedPro forged pistons -TA 212 Cam, degreed -TA Shorty headers -Balanced rotating assembly, Mallory ignition -Static compression ratio: 9.3:1 367hp/450tq?
i would like to see 450hp-535 tq, im building basically the same set up as yours, but w a ported stock intake,
I'm more with shawn. I'll say 382 HP with 520 Torque. I should of price is righted ya. 386/516:bla:. Who knows though. Will see what kind of numbers it lays down in the quarter then will know where it really is.
Man...the thought of that torque is mind-boggling. And to think how much I enjoyed the stock 345lb-ft. I'm sure the 2.56 rear won't allow me to be great in the quarter mile. I'm already researching for the 2016 budget...
I'm pretty sure I don't have enough cam to support those numbers. Would be nice, but since I'm not racing, tame idle behavior is more of a priority. those numbers seem to be easily achievable with compression, heads, and cam though!
