What do you think of this engine, and what do you think of this...

The heads

Chris;

I'm sure you have checked this out, (wich means I'm wasting our time ) The way you talk about purchasing the AL heads is separate components. I sort of looked at doing the same, it looked alot cheaper, plus I have access to a valve grinder:grin: .

Then on one of the threads it sort of sounded like it was better to buy them complete then send them to Dr. W for a couple of hundred $ of port work to realy make 'em flow.

What it sounded like was if you buy the bare heads they still needed extensive (may not be the right word) machine work to get the valves and guides in this is b4 grinding in the valves. Something you may not be prepared for.

I'm probably wrong, but worth checking into.

What say others

 

The "guy named Dave" says as long as you have the large cap HEI nightmare already, might go ahead and do somethign nice for it, get that junker epoxy coil OUT of the cap and run a real coil, round, oil filled, remote mounted, OFF the cap.

MSD modified cap, p/n 8401
NAPA IC12 black coil
or
MSD 8200 chrome coil
Section the correct length of magnetic suppression, spiral or "magna" core coil wire

HEI will live and prosper to well over 8,500 rpms, NO MATTER THE MODULE USED. Distributor will LOSE just at 40 degrees undercap temp with the coil now in the right place, and the performance will be more consistant than with the epoxy rev limiter, sputter-spark coil in the cap.

Regards,

The "guy named Dave".

 

No offense meant, Dave. When I typed this up originally, I was quite new here and barely knew anyone. I shied away from typing "ignitionman" because I prefer to use people's names if I can, and I was only about 50% sure of yours at the time. I was trying to avoid sounding like an idiot, not snub you in any way.


It seems now that the large cap HEI I bought is giving me a small degree of trouble. My idle used to be rock steady, and now it wanders a bit. Also the engine rpms fall off more slowly if I rev the engine when it's hot vs. when it's first warmed up. I'm suspecting the module and advance weights. Supposedly, the distributor was set up to match my engine specs, but I've since changed the exhaust from a stock 2" with stock type mufflers to a system with a 2.5" system with mandrel bends that uses mufflers that are practically straight and unbaffled. The distributor is 3 years old now and I can't ever recall (since I put the engine, which came with a different HEI, in my car, back in '91) going over three years without replacing HEI components, sometimes on general principle givien the way the engine ran and/or how the parts in the HEI looked.

 

Ahhhh, engines are great aren't they?? First rebuild of my stage 1 way back in 1987 was with a stock GM stage 1 cam, sealed power 10-1 forged, stock bottom end, supposedly it was actually just a regular 455 cam as the P/N's merged somewhere around that time.

It was extremely smooth, and pulled ok. Now I have a TA 288-94H in the same engine, stock convertor, stock q-jet, stock manifolds, but with edlbrock (just for weight)...had stage 1 heads on but now just regualr 455 heads (long story), 9.8 to 1 and am at 3500 feet, it idles nice (well, maybe not so nice when cold but once warmed up its quite smooth)...off the line, first time I punched it, I scared myself...had to keep back pedalling to keep it under 5500 and it pulls like a freight train. have about 500 miles on it now, I wouldn't go back.

If you want, I can videotape this thing and post it online somewhere so you can get a feel of what the idle is like.

I'm with you, I have freinds with 500hp small block chevies and they are awesome, but they are so loud and idle so rough I can't even ride in them without getting a headache. Seems kinda silly to me.

later
tim