Things are a little slow so I decided to take a picture of my new engine. The car isn't ready yet to have the engine installed but it's finally together.

Somehow the colors in the picture just don't match the real color. Probably because I have flourescent lights in the garage and it's a flash photo. The block and oil pan are closer to a teal green called Torque'n Teal. I was just tired of having everything Chevy orange. The valve covers are going to be painted to match since that raw cast aluminum gets dirty fast. No water pump installed because the front motor plate needs to be installed first and it's a pain trying to walk around it while on the engine stand.

Estimated hp of this engine will be around 850 hp and I hope it gets me into the 9's at altitude in the spring.

 

Looks good! Too bad that you have about 2/3 of a year left until you can race again heh/ Are you going to dyno tune it at all?

I know you have posted some of them before, but what is the complete run down on the engine?

Also, I like the way the valve covers look as is.


Trevor

 

I don't really have the time to haul the engine down to the dyno. I'm not after every last bit of hp so whatever it produces I'll enjoy using. Track tuning is all I need.

Factory 454 4 bolt block. Not really sure what year it's from. Somewhere in the mid 70's I think. Bored out .070 to give 469 CID.
Eagle 4340 steel crank. 4" stroke.
JE forged pistons 13:1 with open chamber heads.
Howard aluminun rods.
Canfield aluminum 310 rectangular port heads. 2.25 In, 1.88 Ex. Titanium keepers, Ferrea valves.
Erson solid roller cam. .748 I/E, 274/278 at .050 duration
Weiand tunnel ram with 2 Holley 850 race carbs modified for alcohol.
Comp Pro Magnum rockers
Crane Pro series roller lifters
Reher-Morrison stud girdle

Lots of other goodies such as ARP everything, MSD distributor, SFI balancer and flexplate etc.

 

I still have to mount the Aeromotive 4 port bypass regulator and figure out all the plumbing to the carbs. I need to fabricate some brackets to connect the throttle cable to the tunnel ram linkage.

Once the engine is sitting in the car it will be easier to figure out where everything will have to go. Worst case is that for some reason the engine will have to be yanked out again but I'm hoping that won't happen.

May 2005 looks like a long way away but I've already been sitting around for a month waiting for parts to arrive. There's still lots to do before it's finished. I doubt I'll be able to fire it up before Christmas. I'm thinking more like Valentines day as a goal to set when everything is done and I can take it outside. (weather permitting)

There's not much else changing on the car. Just a few modifications but nothing major. I've cut out and fabricated a new tranny tunnel to allow more access to the bellhousing bolts. With the tranny and flexplate shields I have to have, there's no room to get the bolts out. When I pulled the engine back in August. It took over an hour to take out the 6 bellhousing bolts. It shouldn't take longer than 5-10 minutes.

 

if your not going to take it to the dyno, how does one know where to shift at???trial and error??or cam range???

 

I've played around a lot with Dyno2000 and Dragstrip2000. I use a powerglide so I only do one shift. Shifting anywhere from the 60' mark to the 1/8 mile is fine. The sooner I get into high gear the better.

The shift point of this engine will be a bit higher. The last one I shifted at 6500 and crossed the finish line at 7000. This engine I should be shifting around 6800 and crossing the finish line at 7500.

 

dd2000 DS2000 were not very accurate for me. on desktop dyno it said id make 524 hp.....but in the real world i made 450 hp.desktop drag strip id be in the mid to low 11`s....real world im mid to low 12`s.stephen with a camshaft that big id imagine that thing would rev easily into 7500 rpm range.

 

I use Virtual Engine 2000 and it seems pretty accurate. It matched the mph I ran this past weekend at 119 mph and was pretty close to the ET. Good luck with the new engine looks mean as hell hehe

 

:hail:

 

The new motor looks very good Stephen. Nice to have that much done already, leaves lots of time before spring shows up.

 

Looks pretty, hopefully when you get to flogging next yr all the bad luck you've been having will have moved onto somebody else

You've got a long time until the track opens for racing, the motor is ready to be loaded into the truck...get it dynoed!!! I constantly kick myself in the butt for not spending the $300 and taking an afternoon off to do this. I spent ALOT more in slicks, entry fees, fuel, advil, etc...trying to get it where it's at today. Too many advantages to dyno than not!!!

Just think, you could find a major flaw somewhere internally right now and fix it, not waste a bunch of time next yr when you should be racing, but instead your again pulling the motor, disassembling, investigating, rebuying, rebuilding, etc...not to mention it's 1 less thing on your mind trying to tune the car for bracket racing. Very smart investment on your part given history with motors and then you can spend more time going rounds when you do get to race!!! Box class does'nt take well to "figuring out your car"

 

:hail: stephen nice setup man

 

I wouldn't mind getting it chassis dynoed but I have no time to take the engine down to the engine dyno.

I work Tuesday to Saturday's until the race season starts so I have Monday's off to get things done. I can always book a Monday appointment to the chassis dyno in the spring when I'm ready to check things out.

Is it just my monitor or does the block and oil pan look powder blue in the pic because that's what I see. It actually looks better than the teal green I painted it.

All that orange silicone on the front (and rear) of the intake is to fill the huge gap. The block was modified to use a sheet metal style intake with a valley pan bolted to the front and rear valley walls. There is a 5/16" gap between the wall and the intake at both ends. I fabricated some aluminum spacers to help fill the gap but they're still not big enough to completely fill it. Like most race engines, there's always going to be silicone everywhere.

I can't wait to get it installed just to see how high it will sit. I already know that I need to cut a hole in the top of the 6" cowl scoop. If I had to take a guess, I'd say the partitian part of the intake would be where the original hood line of a third gen would be so you can get an idea how tall it will sit.

More things to add to the info list.
Twin K&N 9" x 5" filters with the filter tops.
K&N Stub Stacks in both.
Both carbs are sitting on a 1" HVH Super Sucker carb spacer.
NGK -7 race plugs, indexed so that the dome of the piston doesn't hit the plugs.
Those elbows on the valve covers are for the hoses to the header evacs. You'll notice there's no oil fill hole. I have to pull a valve cover to do an oil change.
You can see a drain valve at the lower front side of the engine. There's one on the other side as well. I drill and tapped a hole into the coolent gallery and installed the drain so I can easily drain the coolent from both sides of the block. They're mounted there because there's no access to the factory plugs with the headers on. The drains are installed just above where the block fill was added which is at the bottom of the lowest frost plug.
At the oil gallery port above the filter base is a Tee fitting with a pressure sensor for the idiot light and a port for the oil gauge. This block doesn't provide me with 2 seperate ports.
Timing pointer is adjustable. Never believe a factory pointer. Use a degree wheel and a piston stop to determine where TDC is and you can see how far out timing marks can be. I had to move the pointer another 2* when I installed it on this engine.
That oil pan is a Moroso 7 qt pan. Yes it does fit because it doesn't use kickouts for the extra oil. The headers won't fit with a kickout pan. At the bottom of the pan you can see a temperature sending unit to tell me how hot the oil is. An alcohol engine doesn't heat the coolent very much.

 

Looks Pontiac blue on my monitor.

I have to turn the sound down to look at it...