yeah nothing like the experiences of poor college kids trying to get their first loves back on the road...the only days i went out when it was snowing/raining where for jobs under the car lol. And once it stoped id come out and start working up top.

/regarding your story...i don't have any friends with cars that nice (a little expensive) but I would think there would be plenty of room in that engine bay with headers? unless of course he had the stock manifolds?

alot of headers are in the way of the starter and have to be removed for starter replacement. the hooker lt's are this way and would need to be pulled completely off if it weren't for the removable primary that hooker designed into the deal.

Apparently, there are two different styles of motor mounts for the old SBC chassis. Of course, I got the wrong ones. For now, I just switched the rubber ones from side-to-side, will have to decide whether to bother getting the polys exchanged. I also discovered loose bolts to the frame, so that may have been the only issue, anyway.

Plan on bleeding the brakes tonight (removed the adjustable prop valve, rebuilt the calipers and installed new pads), finish the drivetrain fluid changes (flush the converter, change the diff gear lube), and change the battery cut-off switch and electric radiator fan.

Oh, the electric radiator fan. I've had a 15" pusher on the front of the rad for several years, use it to cool down the engine between rounds only. It wasn't enough to keep the engine cool while running, so I have to run the engine-driven fan as well. Last week, a co-worker gave me an electric he wasn't using, it is big enough to cover the entire radiator, so I'm going to try it w/o the engine driven and see how it works.

A word to the wise about the Summit (Cole-Hersee) battery cut-off switch: Per the label, it's UL rated 125 amp @ 12VDC momentary, 20 amp @ 12VDC continuous. Small wonder fellow racers observed smoke from the rear bumper when starting. The one I put in to replace it is 1000/700 amp, respectively. The starter definately noticed the difference.

Last remaining item is the radiator fan replacement. I spent an hour looking for 4 short fine thread bolts to replace the long ones required for the engine driven fan and spacer, then found out the fan shroud removal requires moving the radiator. After that, rocker & timing adjustment, and rejetting. So, one more evening of work on it should wrap it up.

16 days, 3 hours, 55 minutes until the season starts!

five7kid, just realized i was going respond with your name but never caught it. Anyways, i don't run the 2 gauge cable for the starter through the on-off switch. rather the cable is run to a ford style solenoid for a starter. by doing the wiring this way, power only is traveling through it during cranking and the wire is "dead" at all other times. the wire through the on-off switch is only 8 gauge and does not carry much current through it besides, ignition, fuel, fans, lights, etc. Even though i bought the switch that is moroso's rated for 200 amp continous, I feel safer not having that kind of amperage running through a switch at the back of the car, when i've seen the smoke go through them and they get really hot really quick to the touch as well.

Why I don't use a Ford-style remote starter solenoid:
https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...hreadid=263394

ah yes i should have thought of that induction problem with permanent magnet starters.

Got everything done but the rocker adjustment Friday evening (nothing saying it "needs" to be done, just haven't done it for awhile). The engine mounts were the right thing the 2nd time.

Managed to sneak out to T&T Saturday afternoon (pulling out the Gold Card was sooooo sweet), felt good to be out there again. Hope to get the rockers adjusted during the week, then get out again this Saturday or Sunday (assume the 1.5' of snow we got yesterday will melt by then) to get some runs in with the mufflers hooked up. It was fun running with open exhaust, but the hassle of uncorking was more than I want to go through each time throughout the season.

Well, I managed to pull the hurt 383, install the 406 and hurt the new motor in 150 miles. Back to the drawing board.

that sucks man, keep us updated on that dude. sounds kinda like me, but mines been rearend and ignition stuff.

Money is tight. I am forced to stick the 383 back in. Got a new set of heads on the bench though. I am gonna slap them on the 383 and see if it runs a bit quicker than the last combo.

I had a cam swap go South last fall and shot filings through my 406. On tear down my pistons were tight on the rod ends as well. One machine shop said it was due to the material from the cam getting wiped but another thought it was from detonation.

Not sure which one to believe as I run it a touch fat and don't recall any detonation ever.

The motor is back together and I just need to find the time to put it in.

I have much still to do to mine. Car was running right about this time last year with the new motor. I took the car back down several months ago for several reasons. I was excited about getting the car going, so I didn't really finish what I started. I am in the middle of replacing the following parts: Injectors, chip, stall, tranny rebuild, valve springs, replacing stock fuel pump, replacing shorty headers/single 3" with longtubes and true dual exhuast, and an actual tune this time. The injectors were going static down the track, the car never had a chip burned for it, stall was a 2400 B&M that didn't stall, tranny was stock and was slipping horribly, the valve springs are shot(AFR valvesprings suck). Complete suspension revamp after all of that is done. I have had a slow winter, so I am shooting for end of June, beginning of July. I knew better than to half *** this thing, but I had been dying to get the car back. Now I am paying for it by having it down yet again...but this time, it will be right.

Well. I got the fresh shortblock in the car. Need to clean and prep 1 head from the blown up 406. Tomorrow (sat) I will have the heads and lower intake on at the very least. Things are looking up!

excellent dude! glad to hear the car is getting back together.

as for me. well, i picked up a rust-free slightly abused 1990 rs that i just finished taking the motor and tranny out of about 30 mins ago and the interior about 3 days ago. slowly but surely i hope to get this car up to snuff appearance wise so that i can do a full transplant from the red car to the white car.

Now I am getting somewhere. Car is up and running, minor issues to deal with, but seems good. Hopefully my troubles are over and I will make the May 27 Street Race at Beaver Springs Dragway. I get to spend a few days stopping the drips and making the tuning changes. Today is a good day!

Doctor has pills for that you know

Just saw this today.
New 383 bit the dust. Bad, Bad week.

What happened?

According to my machinest, the factory oil cooler is not flushable. Although I did flush it well, he claims it is impossible to clean without ultrasound. He also claims that when oil temp hit 200 f the "capillaries" in the cooler expanded from heat and dumped the load of metal trapped inside directely into the new motor. This caused the oil to be filled with gold dust and smaller chunks. This guy did not build the motor so I tend to except his opinion as fact. If he built it and told me that, I would think he was full of . He claims he saw it many times while he was an engineer for ford. Motor is probably ok. Needs total dissassembly, new bearings and gaskets at the minimum. Hopefully the crank is still ok. It picked up an additional .005 of thrust bearing wear though. Time and money and I will be all set

Well on the bright side it might be mostly salvagable. I've been there and it sucks. Its a waste of the racing season and money. Hopefully it goes back together nice and fast. What is the combo exactly anyways?

This is my back up motor. 383 10.7 compression. 219 cam. super ram intake and 113 heads. Ran 12.02 on motor and 10.97 on spray. You are right. There is a bright side. It could have dumped the crank out on the track. More work than money. Thankfully little money.

I thought I would bring this thread back from the dead. Finally got the 383 ripped down, cleaned checked etc. The thrust bearing surface was not polished correctly. This roughness made the thrust work like a file and eat the thrust bearing. 7th Scat crank I know of (now) that had this happen. Polished it, new cam, main and rod bearings, and I am back in the saddle again. Gonna go to the local strip tonight. Feels good, time slips will tell though. Hope fully the new trans, which broke on the 383 test drive, will hold up as well. If not I will choke my trans guy

Guess I can give an update too... The belt throwing went away for some time but then had a charging problem possibly due to the big honkin' alternator pulley I was using. Changed out the alt due to threads getting screwed up getting the pulley off and the belt throwing was back. Now I'm running a belt that goes from the crank to the water pump plus the one for the crank, water pump and alt. Theory is, not enough contact area with the alt belt to water pump pulley causing it to slip and fly off, happens when I shift or the engine drops rpms quickly.

Also been fighting an intermittent no-start problem and may have it fixed now. Replaced the ignition switch and had a look at the old one. It was warn really bad and was barely making contact on which I'm guessing was the start position. Hacked up and re-constructed my exhaust, still single 3 inch but about 6 feet of it is missing which has helped. Possibly getting new headers next month and maybe redoing the engine and nitrous fuel systems too. Next weekend and the following weekend are racing days woohoo!

Ran the pig at the track last night. The only things good were the hotdogs and soda. Et was slow, 60' sucked car bogged and then it blew the dipstick out and sprayed the bottom of the hood with oil. Hopefully 3/4 qt overfilled with oil can cause this. I hate the possibility of a new motor with a bad ring seal. After 1k miles, I will leakdown it. In the meantime, Just gonna drive it and enjoy it.
My 8 year old love to ride in the "good car" For some reason she does not think the buick Lesabre is cool enough.

[B]

UMMM, I thought YOU built that trans, Floor?

Brutal, too many parts and pieces in a trans. I had the guys at Kane's Corvette Corner take care of it. Hats off to those guys! Shifts perfect. Could not be happier!

You know I'm just bustin your marbles...

Me thinks the question should now be, "What do you have in mind for this winter's upgrades?"

Current plans for this winter... I have no clue. Kind of taken on another project which is a buddy and I are building a 66 El Camino drag car for fun. I still want to put a cage in my car, paint the dang thing, get some larger headers and clean up a bit more under the hood. The engine is pretty much done with, just keep tweaking on little things to try and run 11 something on the motor. I now have 2 big blocks sitting in the garage, 1 of them has an o-ringed block and Eagle H-beam rods. The other is basicly a stocker with forged pistons. What to do, what to do.