Dropped everything off at Bryant's shop. We gonna work on it slowly since he has a shop to run. I'll take pics along the way and I'm sure I'll have plenty of Q's. Over the past few years I've slowly collected all the parts I needed, the balancer and the flexplate are the most recent additions and I still need a distributor and a timing cover, valve covers, oil pan, oil pump and a carburetor.
Something you might want to consider is a header evac system, it vents the pressure that the engine creates. Takes place of pvc, better for engine helps with rings sealing and a lot of other things. Relatively cheap $40.00 through Summit, you just have to have some pieces welded in you headers and have breathers on your valve covers that have a hose going to the headers. Cheap horsepower
Sure feels nice to have a big stack of boxes like that, doesn't it? Means that new motor isn't too far into the future ...
We uncovered the engine today and Bryant inspected everything on the engine, so far everything looks good. The block had this stamped on it: 5D24 He made a clean surface for us to work on and we decided to start by assembling the rods and pistons.
The rods looked like they had been machined right and the pistons look SHINY, love it. We couldn't figure out how to get the little rings to fit so we went online. Apparently they are supposed to be pulled apart slightly and sure enough, they went in pretty easily. We got the whole set done fairly fast.
The AFR heads we're gonna be using are aluminum heads which were heavier than I expected. I had some trouble in the past with these, I guess they got dropped or something and had them changed but they look good. We aren't gonna be dealing with these for a while though.
We got to put the rings on. We set them down in the bore and made sure they were square. All of them were in the 0.020-0.021 range. According to the kit, since we are going to build the engine for a supercharger we need a gap in the range of 0.024-0.026. So next time we're going to grind down the rings.
Bore is 4.030, stroke is 3.250, rod length 5.40 SRS flat top piston (part#10666) $60 CNC forged steel rods (10060) $300 Probe ind. street fighter cast steel crankshaft (10019) $240 AFR 185cc cylinder heads (1420) $1400 Probe hydraulic roller camshaft .542/.563 224/232 (112) (11503) $180 Ford SB dominator timing chain (430HDSTR) $50 Hydraulic roller lifters (11660-1) $10 each probe rocker arms 1.6 ratio, 7/16 stud (11274) $270 victor junior Edelbrock intake manifold (2921) $376
Depending on if it was stamped in or cast in, it's either the build date or the date the block was cast. That would be April 24, 19?5. Either 1975 or 1985 probably.
ooOOooOooohh... this is EXCITING, eh? I love seeing progress pics... all that time collecting now you're getting your hands dirty and I like seeing it come together I'm wishfully thinking of pulling my motor apart and start a 331 as well. My WINTER project is to build a work shed, so that my SPRING project will be to get the V8 Comet streetable, then paint and a motor wa-a-ay off next SUMMER. Of course, you should have this puppy assembled and running by then, eh? Thanks for posting the progress notes and specs... I'm taking notes "as we go".... heh heh
