Hey guys, it's been quite a while since I've posted. Just letting you know I'm not dead. Unfortunately, I wrecked my winter car so I've been forced to drive my Firebird all season, and Michigan has taken its toll on everything. I figured I'd post some pictures of what I'm currently running.



I started with a bare 350 block, bored .040" over. It's a four-bolt main purchased from a fellow TGO member. The second motor I bought from him, actually.

I ported the Vortec heads I had, starting by laying the gasket on them. There was plenty of material to be removed- approximately .150" on the diameter!

They cleaned up pretty well. I did a 3-angle valve job on them after I was done cutting them up.


After honing the block, I was sure to clean out all of the coolant passages and oil galleys with compressed air.

Beginning assembly of the lower-end...


If you've ever removed an intake manifold, you'll have noticed the massive amounts of sludge that form on that spider retainer. Well I went ahead and added a preventative measure to this- mini drain holes!


Meaty H-beam rods


Here's a good picture of the bottom end assembled. What you can't see are the forged flat-top pistons! Properly adjusted the new high pressure oil pump and tack-welded the pickup, so it won't fall off.


Putting the valvetrain together is cake when you have a special tool to bleed out all of your lifters!


The crowning touches


Breaking it in on an engine stand was a GREAT idea... My damn FelPro intake gaskets didn't seal properly against my Vortec heads. I had to find my water leak and go through it all over again. What a waste of some break-in oil! Better safe than sorry- it's much easier to remove an intake when it's on a stand!



FINISHED PRODUCT:

 

very nice. i wish i could break in a motor on a stand. i had to do my motor swap with a borrowed hoist and hope it worked when it went in.

 

Running mine in on a stand revealed a brand-new rear main seal that leaked. I woulda been screwed. It also helped remove the "temporary paint" from the headers. It's definately worth the hassle.

 

uh oh. What gasket do you mean there?

 

The real way to avoid that is to use a real lubricant - not that stuff boiled off from crud pumped out of the ground.

 

I use synthetic only sir


header gasket of course!

 

If it's a "real" synthetic, you shouldn't have to worry about sludge build-up in there.

 

Dude that engine looks sweet, i wish i had the time to build and engine for my T.A. i get like 3 to 4 hours a week spare.

when it comes to synthetic oil it is only like 5w20 isn't that to thin for our engines?

 

Not sure what's on the shelves down under, but you can get synthetic in a bunch of different viscosity ratings. Check out http://www.amsoil.com/products/motoroils/index.aspx for one example.

 

Great looking mill.
What type of valve covers are you using - I am having a hard time finding taller center bolt v.c. to accomodate higher lift #.
-Andrew

 

haha, I was going to say, gee five7, got any lubrication suggestions?

Oh, exhaust, fair enough. I guess Vortecs are shabby on that side...

 

I run Mobil 1 5w40

Thanks man, I try

I think they're proform, but I'm not sure. I bought them polished but I took some scotch brite to them to cut the shine off

the Vortec exhaust is horrible!!!!

 

You shouldn't have to run 5W-40, as 5W-30 would be fine unless you left clearances loose. But, Mobil 1 is better than the pretenders put out by the other major oil companies.

Did you gasket match the headers?

 

Yeah I trmmed the headers up too

I picked 5w40 because I gapped my rings a little further, as this is a potential nitrous motor. I didn't want it to burn any oil so I went thicker. Is it still cool to go with 5w30?

 

If you just gapped the compression rings wider for nitrous, no problem. If you gapped the oil control rings wider, that would be a problem (and the higher viscosity wouldn't help much).

How about your bearing clearance?

 

You know what I dont like about your motor?????????? ITS NOT IN MY CAR..............Looks really good man......Hope to see some vid of it running...Congrats...Tom

 

Thanks Tom! I've already put about 5-6000 miles on it since I put the motor in the car last summer. I love it!

I didn't touch the oil control rings at all. And my bearing clearances are not abnormal, they're within spec... If I can recall about 1.5 to 2.5? they were all consistent for every rod, and every main. I just don't remember what it was. Everything was all milled before I assembled it.

Just wondering, why not use 40 weight?

 

Mellow idling
Microphone inside the car

and please excuse my lame rolling stones joke, I can't get no.... f'ing traction... The car is squeaky as hell because that was the beginning of the cold season when everything starts to get noisy. You can distinctly hear a severe lack of traction from my 2.73 open rear with bald tires! But the exhaust note is cute.

 

very nice