well, just so people don't think that the swap has gone sour (not that it's sweet or anything) but i thought i'd put some more ideas forward w/ how it's standing.


the final project into the car will be a carbed setup, although switching it to FI sometime down the line will most likely be in order, but for simplicity sake the carb setup will be utalized....Finally got the heads off the car, carbon buildup on the pistons , but that's all, cross hatch on cyilnderwalls still intact and looking good, no scouring etc. Head gaskets looks pretty well, think one of them did fail however, saw what seemed like some water pushing between the cylinders walls on one side, but i'll have to do a lil' better inspection. The cams are on order, set of 288 duration from chrfab, and won a set of headers from ebay which are being shipped out today and should be in my possession by mid week. The headers are from an aurora indy car and are perfect for small space areas such as "firebirds", the're designed to hug the block, althogh i won't be using the side pipes, just headers to collectors. 300 bux for 6,000 unsued headers isn't a bad deal if i say so myself. some pix for the eager.

 

$300 for 6,000 headers

Good to know what's up w/your progress. You gonna sell the extra stuff, or keep for future FI reconversion.

 

nice headers although they are going to be completely wrong for a mild northstar and i doubt they will fit. aurora motors idle somewhere between 3 and 4000 rpm. and would run to 10,500 rpm.

 

to 85, i'm keepin all the FI stuff i've got, intake, TB, Fuel INjectors and wiring for them, plus all the sensors that are on the motor. Thought it'd be easier to hold onto that stuff rather than trying to hunt things down piece by piece , or trying to grab a new motor w/ everything for "****s and giggles"...

On the headers note, thanx on the nicenss, they're apparently beautiful. fit or not? don't know, won't know till i try it...bought a set of header flanges from ebay also, so in the instance that i can't get them to fit, ill just end up fabbing up a set, not fun, but if it's needed, then it's needed. Neway, ummm, since i paid 4 thousand for them, i'll give you a deal on them for three and a half, nevermind, that's not a deal, lets go with 3k and i'll part with them...there just takin up space anyway and are worth 6k... get the idea

The guy where the headers are coming from told me to call him if i wanted any other indy car stuff, so there's a chance i might call him about heads, if he's got a set lying around anywhere, for say under a grand. LOL.

but like i said once b4, bottom end is staying stock (apparently it's good for 700hp roughly) and it costs a million to redo it, so yeh, unless i win the lottery, it's not getting touched. According to CHRF a good set of headers and their mid range cam adds 75 horses to the Northstar engine, so i'm all for it...so far.

 

I believe 6SPEED was referring to them being totally wrong in primary diameter for the powerband you're looking to use.. and I'm with him.. however, they're not long tube headers.. they're blockhugging shorties.. so the ill effects of the mistuned header are not going to be drastic.

Will it be faster than your 2.8 still? Did the US drop a pair of atomic bombs on Japan?

 

yeh, they're definately large tubed shorties, hopefully the diameter doesn't kill the perfroance, or make me lose power over the stock setup, although i'm under the impression that any header will be better than running the manifolds. And will it be faster than stock, eh, hopefully 200 horses faster.

 

check out the last 4 issues of HPP mag, they did a tes on headers & stock manifolds on a 455. The new shoty's for it actually were outperformed by the stock manifolds on a "stock" engine. When it was modded, how ever,

 

Very cool I can't wait to see pics of this car done!

 

Yeah that story was great.
I was going to use those shortys in my '73 formula utill I saw that story (I'll be running a turbo so I can't / don't want to mess with a set of LTs). The HO manifolds walked all over the shortys (even though most mags cut down the HO manifolds as being junk)!
One of the repop sets of HO manifolds flowed better then the other repop set and the factory ones (I can't rememeber what the name of the company that makes them was at the moment), anyways I'm going to get that set and get them extrude (sp) honed then they should be as good or better then the shortys on a modded motor. The HO manifolds should provide me with some much needed room over the shortys also.

 

i'll have to take a look at the HPP issues, sounds interesting enough. Althouhh the northstar manifolds flow decent enough, rumors from CHRFAB was stating improvements w/ headers and a carbed intake manifold (since the stock FI manifolds restricts inlet air suffeciently) We'll see how the exhaust works out. Hope i don't have to keep you guys waiting on this swap forever, still trying to get the motor finished up and ready b4 it goes in, it'll probably be a while b4 the engines together, after that then there'll be the downtime as i try for the swap. Hopefully though, i'll be able to keep people posted on progress, and you guys can see the lil rat come together.

 

Take your time & get it right the first time.

I'm very patient when it comes to engine swaps