Well as some of you may know, my old engine bit the dust. It was my fault that it happened however. There were some crucial engine measurement that I did not take and the result was *catastrophic* engine failure. I'm talking piston to valve clearance, or a lack there of, in my case. If I would have checked it, then I would have known that soemthing was wrong. The lack of clearance stemmed from pushords that were too long. I used an adjustable pushrod length checker with the setup that I was using(heads botled on, cam/lifters, etc) and in hindsight realized a major problem. When you check for piston to valve clearance you either need to....

A. Replace the valve springs with lightweight checking valvesprings so that they will not compress the lifter cups and give inaccurate readings(indicating a pushrod that is longer than needed, and that is what happened to me!)

B. Use a solid lifter so that there is no compression to find your true readings.

Needless to say, things were double and triple checked with this new engine and everything is in order. All of my valves have .140+ clearance so that is good news. It has been in the car for about a week now, and has roughly 40 miles on it so far. The power is incredible!!! 1st and 2nd gear are useless for acceleration(I need better/wider tires) but it is fun to drive. Anyway, here are the specs on the engine....

383 Stroker

-Forged Eagle Crank/Forged Eagle SIR rods (6.0 inch)/Mahle forged pistons
-AFR 195 street heads 70 cc chambers 10:1 compression
-Edelbrock Performer RPM Air Gap manifold/750 CFM carb
-COMP Cams Hydraulic retrofit roller camshaft 12-433-8 .520/.540 @236/242 duration 110 LSA
-Hooker Super Competition Long tube headers 1 3/4 primaries

Plus much other stuff but that is the most improtant. Anyway, here is a pic that I took this afternoon. What do you guys think???

 

Looks real nice. you have a LOT of what I have, I just have a Vic jr. intake, and a bigger cam. I am also running N20 ready rings and N20. Looks great

 

Thanks!! I still haven't decided if I am going to use any nitrous on this motor yet. I mean, with all the forged internals she should be good for a 250 shot I would think. I modeled this engine after the one in the back of the AFR catalog. With the 383, AFR heads, the COMP camshaft, Edelbrock intake and adequate fuel and ignition along with a 9.5:1 compression ratio it makes 502 HP at 5500 RPM and 517 ft. lbs at 4500 RPM. For a *street* engine I think that is decent power output.

 

Hmm, I didn't realize that the pic was so big. Let me see if I can scale it down a bit....

 

looks sweet! just finish taking care of those spare wires over yonder

love black engine bays.

 

Yeah, thats is what mine is making. That ballpark at least. Just over the 500 mark. And yeah, if you have all forged internals, might as well reap the benefits and shoot some N20 in there. I really like how organised it all is. For me, right now, I just tossed all my stuff in there, just to get it in there. Over the winter, when she is sleeping, I am going to try and do some detail work to "hide" more stuff. More like you have done. Looks great.

here is a pic of my mess. It looks a bit jumbled, but it all works great so far.

 

Paulmoore - Engine looks great. Nice work. Could you tell me a little more about your pulley setup? I'm thinking about getting a better looking setup for mine, I'm using all the stock brakets and whatnot at the moment.

 

dennisbernal91z- Very nice! I don't think that you engine bay is messy per se, but you do have alot of associated plumbing for the nitrous system. But those are things that you really can't hide very well to begin with. I am confident that you will get everything sorted out in short order.

Tobias05- I assume that the wires that you are talking about are the ones poking out of the drivers side wiring harness?? If so, the reason why they are all out is because I am trying to rewire my reverse light circuit. Once I get that fixed and working, those wires will not be hangin out anymore. I've got a few other wires in the engine bay that I want to reroute and loom up to spiffy things up a bit.

Thomas Aquinas- Absoultely. I am using a March Serpentine Conversion kit designed for use with the longs style water pump, and power steering. The kit comes with all the brackets and pullies, and detailed instructions on how toinstall everything. The only issue that I had with it was getting belts. They don't make serpentine belts specifically to fit this application but it is easy to get them. Once everything is installed simply take a piece of string and route it all the way around the pullies. Then get the length and add 1 inch. Go to any parts store and tell them that you need a 6 ribbed belt that is X inches long and you should be set. Oh, I bought this kit about 2 years ago on Jegs. I'm pretty sure that it is still available. If I'm not mistaken, I spent about $500-$600 on the whole thing.

 

Cool, thanks a lot. I'm going to start some other projects over winter, and I'm thinking that might be one of them.

I'm running pretty much the same combo as you (My CR is 10.5 with a dished piston and 58cc chamers is the only difference). How do you like that cam? I haven't driven mine yet, just tuning it in the garage. How much vacuum do you pull and what is your idle speed?

 

Thomas Aquinas- The camshaft is a really nice piece. As of right now, the engine likes to idle at 950 RPM, and it has about 9-10 in Hg at that speed. It has a really noticeable lope to it. The engine has really nice throttle response and a great powerband. Are you planning on upgrading your camshaft? If you do decide to use this particual cam, or any camshaft that will gove you low vacuum at idle, you might also want to look into a vacuum reserve canister of some sort. A typical brake booster likes to see at least 12-13+ in Hg. at idle to work properly and efficiently. With the reserve canister, it acts as a buffer and stores what little vacuum you do have. My power brakes still work, but the pedal is a little bid harder to apply that other vehicles I've driven.

 

Yea, I have the same camshaft. Its pretty mean, I like it. I haven't had alot of time to tune it, but I'm sitting around 750 rpm with 9 in. However, I think my initial timing is bit low. I think I'm around 16* and I need to be more in the 18-22* range. I've started looking around for a vacuum resivior, I'll probably pick one up at summit racing over thanksgiving. Its starting to get cold up here in Ohio, so I don't know how much time I have left until I have to wait for spring, must be nice in FL! Thanks again for the info.

 

I have a big cam like that. I have a pic of the specs that I will post. Mine has not really been tuned at all. Just enough to get her to the paint shop, after that I am having her get a full dyno tune. But as of now I got her to idle at just under a grand and be pulling 11 or so inches. Not bad I guess. I too got a vacume canister. Super cheap from summit, like $25 I think. Pretty nice part.



Side note: this is my first car I am building, I have no automotive exparience, appart from what I have learned along the road building this car. I am not 100% sure about hoe to read all the specs on my cam yet. I didn't build this motor.

 

Looks nice! What's the part number of the upper radiator hose?

 

Not sure exactly what the part number is, but I do know that I told the parts guy that I needed a upper radiator hose for an 86 5.0L with TBI to get the right one.