In the process of assembling a hot 383 that will soon be pushing my Express van around. It is a 1500 Conversion van that I already stuffed a full 1 ton suspension and running gear under including the 4L85E and 10.5" 14-bolt with 5.12 gears. Will also have a FTI custom converter. Rougly 2.3:1 STR, 2,800 stall speed and triple disc lockup clutch.


Specs

11:1 compression
Summit Racing 0.030" over 880 Vortec block
Eagle 1-piece rear main lightweight crank,
6" H-beam brushed rods with floating pins
Weisco forged flat tops with 2 deep valve reliefs
File fit rings 0.016 top and 0.016 2nd
SFI H230669 Fluidampner milled for the 24x reluctor
GMPP Single roller timing chain
Fully balanced
Coated rod and main bearings
Lloyd Elliot Ported Assault Racing 205cc heads
2.02/1.60 valves and dual springs
7/16 screw-in studs and adjustable guide plates
Heads milled 0.020" for flatness
210cc ports 64cc deshrouded/polished chambers
Flow 274/190 @ .500 and 291/193 @ .600
4.030" x 0.38" MLS cometic head gaskets
Comp Cam 215/224 @ .050, 110 LSA, 106 ICL
0.578" intake and exhaust lift
1.7 Scorpion 7/16" non self aligning rockers
Short poly locks for added clearance
Rhodes V-Max variable roller lifters
Hardened 0.080" wall Comp Magnum pushrods
Aluminum centerbolt short valve covers
Stock steel ones won't clear the rockers
Slightly modified a/c compressor bracket
L31s a/c bracket will not clear LH valve cover.
Mercruiser dual plane MPFI intake port matched
Buick 3.8 SC injectors @ 58 psi for 42 lb/hr
Edelbrock 38513 Elbow
LS2 TBSS 87mm DBW throttle body
4" custom air intake
LS3 cartridge style MAF
Stock LS Van air cleaner with a K&N filter
Doug Thorley Tri-Y headers
Factory dual 3" exhaust piping
Thunderbolt 3" spun metallic core cats
Dual 3" in and 4" single out muffler
EFI connection 24x reluctor
Holley aluminum timing cover
Aluminum L31 distributor for cam sync
LS Truck D585 coils
1 meg 2005 LQ4 Van PCM (Blue/Green connector)
Flex fuel enabled with the Ethanol sensor installed
5qt truck pan
Windage tray, crank scraper and oil pump baffle
High pressure big block oil pump
March 3 piece 25% underdrive pulleys
Flowkooler Vortec truck water pump
GM 19.5" 11 blade fan on a standard clutch
34" wide 454/8.1 van radiator with oil cooler
170°F thermostat

With any luck it will be in the 500 hp and 500 tq range on pump gas and 550 hp and 550 tq on E85 and be done making its power under 6,000 rpm.
With the Rhodes lifters I know it will sound like a solid roller cam but I want a very stock sounding smooth idle.

 

Intake and valve cover mocked up on the little 350 hp 305 that was in my 99 Tahoe prior to the 8.1 swap.

Nothing a little grinding will not fix and maybe a 1/4" thick washer under the bolt head.

This is on the way from Jegs. Will be forward facing and have a LS2 TBSS 87mm DBW throttle body with an adapter harness to use the TAC module and pedal from an 8.1 van.



EFI connection 24x reluctor and GM single roller timing chain is already under the cover. Still need to RTV the balancer and press it on. Project for another day.

 

I played around with Desktop Dyno 2003 and Engine Analyzer. Both have almost identical power predictions. I played around with lift redution from the V-max lifters and I am going to adjust them for maximum lift and duration reduction on the intake side and half reduction on the exhaust.

Given the Rhoads lifters give most of their effect on the closing side of the cam lobes it roughly makes the cam as follows down in the Idle-2,500 rpm range. Also just a rough guess the intake lobe should be 1/2 restored about 2,500-3,000 rpm and the exhaust lobe fully restored. Intake lobe should fully restore about 3,500-4,000 rpm.

At idle cam should be about
251/274 @ .006
195/214 @ .050
0.548/0.563
107.5 LSA
100 ICL

At 3000 rpm it should be
261/284 @ .006
205/224 @ .050
.563/.578 lift
107.5 LSA
103 ICL

It will make for ALOT of cylinder pressure. Good thing I am using a P59 LS PCM and dual knock sensors on this build. Will have to be ultra conservative on the timing advance, especially under 3,000 rpm. That being said the DCR on this with the lifters at full lift/duration reduction is not even as high as my 9.6:1 Nissan Titan when its tiny intake cams where phased 30° advanced. With the stock tune it ran on 87 octane all day without knocking but a 93 octane tune worke it up ALOT.

Using the cam specs above I recorded the power numbers for both softwares and averaged them. Both software models were within 10 ft/lbs of each other at any given engine RPM. I did it for both Gasoline and Ethanol (closest thing offered to E85). If I can get anywhere near 500 hp and 500 tq I will be extremely happy especially if the torque curve stays that flat.

 

A few things caught my eye:

File fit rings 0.016 top and 0.016 2nd
cutting it a little close - don't you think?

210cc ports 64cc deshrouded/polished chambers
Flow 274/190 @ .500 and 291/193 @ .600
port size a little big esp. if keeping it under 6000 rpm?

Comp Cam 215/224 @ .050, 110 LSA, 106 ICL
0.578" intake and exhaust lift
Rhoads variable roller lifters
Rhoads usually recommends these for use with larger cams. Might cause detonation.

High pressure big block oil pump
Do you really need both high volume AND pressure?

Will that intake manifold be a restriction?

 

Weiscos Rings state a minimum of .004 per inch of bore. That is like 0.0161. The machinest I have used for years claims he goes down to 0.014 in the 355 and 383s he builds and has never had a failure even in circle track cars. Production line specs state that they could have come from GM as tight as 0.012.

When GM built the LT4 out of the LT1 they went from 170cc ports to 195cc ports. Even with the hotter cam the RPM for peak power only increased from 5,000 to 5,800 rpm. 195-200 probably would have been an ideal port size but 210 is what these heads came out as. I ran an as cast set on my 350 and they were right at 200cc. It had every bit as much low-end as it did with the cast-iron Vortecs. I looked at all 4 Dart Iron Eagle heads dyno'd on the same 355 engine. 180, 200, 215 and 230cc ports. The 215s were only down 5 ft/lbs at the start of the dyno to the 180s and by 3,000 rpm the 215s were already pulling ahead. The Assault heads are practically copies of the Dart Pro1 Platinum heads.

There is a reason I am buidling this engine with the gen3 style lifter guides. If this cam does not work out it will be getting a larger one. I had the Rhoads lifters laying around the shop and felt like giving them a chance. In my experience you can push the DCR limits a fair bit with the later model PCM control. I will be using dual knock sensors, one in each block drain.

My factory L31 came with a high volume and high pressure small block pump. I prefer the big block pump and its larger pickup tube as well as its internal bypass. The big block oil pump has some benifits compared to the small block pump. More teeth means it turns more smoothly, has a smoother flow and more accurate cam timing where the smallblock pump likes to cause harmonics and spark scatter in the older engines. Hold both pumps in your hand and turn the shaft. Its easily apparant that the small block pumps 7 teeth do not turn as smoothly as the big block pump. When the pumps are loaded churning out 70+ psi I am sure the inconsistent feeling smallblock pump is even worse.

The intake manifold is a possible restriction, but I have port matched the runners and cleaned then up as much as possible. The manifold looks just like an edelbrock performer rpm manifold that has had injector bosses added. It was probably cast for Mercruiser by Edelbrock truth be known. If it cost me a few HP up top I will gladly accept the tradeoff for the added low-end torque. Someone has already used this manifold on a cammed L31 in a S10 and it made way more torque and top-end HP than the crossram style L31 marine intake or stock vortec truck intake. With a carb I have seen performer RPM intakes on 450+ hp engines only down 10 hp @ 6,500 rpm to the VictorJr but making considerably more torque lower in the RPM range. I have seen an open center spacer added on top of the performer rpm effectively making the same carb larger because it can feed both banks from all bores gain 15 hp with nearly no loss of torque. My hope is that the big open plenum will allow the dual plane to breathe better than a carb. An 90mm throttle body is about 1100 cfm from what I remember. The 87mm will be slightly less but still comes in over 1,000. Basically I am giving this intake every chance I can to flow and make power.

 

That big open plenum and dual plane intake should flow alot better than the other alternative I have run on my 350 in the past. That stupid intake elbow creates 4-5in/hg of restriction by 6,000 rpm on a 350 under 400 hp. I took it off in testing and ran an open throttle body. Had less than 1 in/hg intake vacuum. I put a vacuum gauge in the IAT which sits in an elbow after the MAF and recorded less than 1 in/hg restriction from the air cleaner and MAF. Prior to that throttle body intake elbow. For a stock 245 HP van that necked down inlet probably works just fine, for something making twice that not at all. I have found even the vortec truck one that is twice as tall is restrictive on a 350 hp engine. The air must get really turbulant attempting to make that 90° turn in a 1.25" space. Vortec truck unit is 2" tall but will not fit as it would hit the engine tunnel and comes out of the side. Luckily the Vortec trucks have the Volant cold air intake option that has a piece moulded as a nice radiused turn that flows exponentially better at higher rpm. I had a 350 hp 350 suburban and a 350 hp 305 Tahoe that both had noticeably more top-end power and nearly no intake restriction using the same Volant setup.



Looking in through the ~3.5" opening at how necked down and restricted the inlet to the throttle body is in stock form.

 

Well, this will be interesting. I can't wait to see the results. Hopefully, this combo works out as good as your others. I'm one that believes your results.
Have you used the V-Max lifters before? You do not adjust them like original Rhoads lifters. These adjust "from the bottom" of travel (plunger fully compressed). It's not an easy concept to grasp. Maybe you can explain it to me, if you comprehend it. I am using the V-Max FT lifters on a Crower SOLID FT camshaft in a 302 SBC (yes, 3.00" stroke). Jack sometimes refers to these as "hydra-solid" lifters. Anyways, my 302 only pulled a wandering 4-6" vac at 1100 rpm idle with conventional solid tappets. I got it up to a steady 9.5" with the V-Max lifters set for .025" reduction. And on the engine test stand, it revs to 8000 rpm effortlessly! I stop there. The cam card says the rpm range is 2000-6000.





Don't forget about the lash correction factors when setting them on a cold engine.
Cold engine lash correction factors

o Using iron block and iron heads, add .002"

o Using iron block and aluminum heads, subtract .006"

o Using both aluminum block and heads, subtract .012"

 

I went through something similar this past winter with oil-fired boiler & water heater vent pipe and the restrictions associated with bends, wyes, tees, etc.
Here is a good article: https://fueloilnews.com/2016/06/23/flue-pipe-design/

In the chart above, the numbers reflect how many FEET of pipe you must add to the TEPL (Total Equivalent Pipe Length) of a flue pipe.
Notice that the TEE is the absolute worst fitting you can use. It's a HUGE restriction. But of interest to you is the difference between the 90 and the 45 - roughly HALF for the 45.
So I absolutely believe what you said about the elbow you referred to as being restrictive.

 

5.12 geared 10.5 axle, 2.3 STR converter, 500 lb. ft. torque....you going into the stump pulling business?

 

This thing sure will like e85

 

That was actually the intent. Build something that can get by on 93 pump fuel, but be able to use the cooler burning, higher octane E85 when possible. I have 2 stations in my area that sell it and ran it in both my Titan and the previous 350. At 9.6:1 the previous 350 needed more compression to take full advantage of it. But even it gained nearly 30 ft/lbs of torque in the low-midrange compared to pump premium. E85 seems to have a slower, cooler burn that builds more cylinder pressure at low rpm, but to do so requires alot more timing than gasoline will tolerate.

 

Very nice build! (even if it's not going into an IROC/TA) Very similar to mine, I like the EFI especially!
Did you choose forged crank and rods?
How are you going to tune it?
How close to completion are you?

 

Scat cast crank.
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/s...050l/overview/

Rods are actually Pro Comp. I have a buddy that builds engines for street/strip cars and swears by them. His personal Lemans has a roughly 600 hp 383 running 13.5:1 compression and a nasty solid roller cam. He twists that engine 7,800 rpm. It has 4 years and hundres of "track" passes on it.

 

Bump

 

Sorry HP Tuners

Just depends on my work schedule to be honest. It may be a month or two before it finds its way back in and is running.

 

Those Chinese caps Summit uses are junk and from what I have seen and are not very durable. The blocks are not square decked and are not plate honed ETC.


https://www.chevelles.com/forums/13-...n-cap-wth.html

 

Thanks for the heads up. I had actually already read that post. I have a friend that built a 383 for a drag car about 3 years ago. It has over 500 passes in the mid 6s in the 1/8th. He is using the same caps in a Summit block. He actually used ARP studs. Those caps may not be the best but even with the ARP studs properly torqued they did not distort in his build. His main journals stayed round. He shifts at 7,200-7,600 rpm and has a 5,000 stall in his powerglide. He runs AFR CNC 220s and a nasty solid roller on a reduced circle. Reading of the failure in that seems like other factors were also a part of the failure. I do not see those cap being weaker than a 4 bolt 400 cap. I know the factory 4-bolt caps sometimes crack on 400s but for every cracked cap there are 100s that lived. At this power level I actually would not have had an issue running a studed 2 bolt main block. Cap walk or crankshaft harmonics are usually what break main cap(s). I would actually not be suprised if something else were not done correctly. Like the caps torqued wrong. I did throw the cheesy bolts they put on the mains away and replaced them with new factoey GM bolts. I measured a few of them and marked them. After they had been torqued I removed them and they had stretched 0.030" and I did not like the feel of them so they went into the scrap bin. Maybe his bolts stretched as well and the caps were not clamped as well as they should have been. Too little clamping force would cause them to walk.

That being said I was mocking up the top end yesterday afternoon on a spare 305 Vortec I have on a storage stand at the shop. Its unfortunate that I have those nice EFI Connection brackets and cannot use them on this engine. 2 of the coils actually hit the engine tunnel and the oil fill tube hits #6 coil. I found that I will need a 90° carb mounting adapter plate as well as a LS1 3 bolt intake to 4 bolt LS3 TB adapter plate. They make the plates but they are tappered down to 78mm. Will have to re-machine it to 90mm all the way through.

Just thinking out loud here but that intake manifold and plenum would work out phenominally well on a Vortec 350 truck. Its designed to be sideways mounted and looks great hanging over the passenger side valve cover as well. It would require a 1" spacer to clear the fuel rails when sideways mounted. A person could use a Colant CAI for a 454 Vortec and have a very high flowing induction system.

 

Thanks for the heads up. I had actually already read that post. I have a friend that built a 383 for a drag car about 3 years ago. It has over 500 passes in the mid 6s in the 1/8th. He is using the same caps in a Summit block. He actually used ARP studs. Those caps may not be the best but even with the ARP studs properly torqued they did not distort in his build. His main journals stayed round. He shifts at 7,200-7,600 rpm and has a 5,000 stall in his powerglide. He runs AFR CNC 220s and a nasty solid roller on a reduced circle. Reading of the failure in that seems like other factors were also a part of the failure. I do not see those cap being weaker than a 4 bolt 400 cap. I know the factory 4-bolt caps sometimes crack on 400s but for every cracked cap there are 100s that lived. At this power level I actually would not have had an issue running a studed 2 bolt main block. Cap walk or crankshaft harmonics are usually what break main cap(s). I would actually not be suprised if something else were not done correctly. Like the caps torqued wrong. I did throw the cheesy bolts they put on the mains away and replaced them with new factory GM bolts. I measured a few of them and marked them. After they had been torqued I removed them and one had stretched 0.030" and I did not like the feel of them so they went into the scrap bin. Maybe his bolts stretched as well and the caps were not clamped as well as they should have been. Too little clamping force would cause them to walk.
With the shortblock already finished I am just going to roll the dice and roll with it. If it fails I will get a Dart SHP 4.125" bore block which they make as a 1-piece rear seal.

That being said I was mocking up the top end yesterday afternoon on a spare 305 Vortec I have on a storage stand at the shop. Its unfortunate that I have those nice EFI Connection brackets and cannot use them on this engine. 2 of the coils actually hit the engine tunnel and the oil fill tube hits #6 coil. I found that I will need a 90° carb mounting adapter plate as well as a LS1 3 bolt intake to 4 bolt LS3 TB adapter plate. They make the plates but they are tappered down to 78mm. Will have to re-machine it to 90mm all the way through.

Just thinking out loud here but that intake manifold and plenum would work out phenominally well on a Vortec 350 truck. Its designed to be sideways mounted and looks great hanging over the passenger side valve cover as well. It would require a 1" spacer to clear the fuel rails when sideways mounted. A person could use a Volant CAI for a 454 Vortec and have a very high flowing induction system.

 

I looked into those brackets when I was doing my conversion, too expensive for me and I knew I could make something that looked better. Why not take the same route? Just purchase a set of unfinished aluminum valve covers from eBay, make a layout template for the ignition coil placements and start welding! I detailed the whole process I used for the valve covers in my build thread starting here: https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/memb...ml#post6286824



I'm also in the category of thinking that for a 383 that cam with those heads wouldn't work as well as the same cam with 195 heads or 210 heads with a slightly larger cam. My 383 uses the AFR 195 competition ports with a mid 230's cam at 50 with a 110 LSA and is very enjoyable.

 

a 383 with a 195-210 head and a 230 ish deg hyd roller is a great combo and how most should be done imo lol. For a good street combo that is

 

My heads are right at 210s. The only head option AFR has for this build is the expensive 190cc Vortec. Even GM themself put 200cc heads on a 350 with a 203/210 cam.

I have had these same heads without port work that were about 200cc on a 9.6:1 350 with a 196/206 cam. They worked well on the 350 at that time. Flow was in the 245 cfm range. 30cfm more than the stock 350 Vortec heads.

Built a 10:1 383 for my buddies 98 K1500 back in 2014. 200cc heads with a Melling F-car LT1 cam. Strong runner under the L31 intake.

 

I was hoping you would start a thread on this...
Just a few observations I have.

There's too much anecdotal information on the internet for me to consider anything Eagle. But then I see you may have had a change of heart.

That crank was recommended to me by the one of the local racing engine shops (twin turbo Charlie here at thirdgen actually) as it was stated that for what I'm building it would be a suitable choice and less expensive. That was an assumption on his part though because after I said that open road events and/or road racing would be in this build's future, that cast steel recommendation kind of went out the window. Been actively searching a US forged and machined crank that isn't a bazillion dollars.

Will you be taking care of the block clearancing yourself? Not sure how those 6" rods stack up regarding stroker fitment. I do know that Scats 6", 7/16ths cap screw stroker rods require no block modification nor do they require the use of a reduced base circle cam. Something I wouldn't be particularly interested in using.

 

I do not know why I said Eagle, brain fart I guess. It is a Scat crank.

The block is already clearenced. Even Scat/Procomp 6" H beam rods will not fit a stock 880 block when used with a 3.75" stroke. You easily see where the bolt heads would contact the block.

 

I was under the impression that these Scat rods...




https://www.summitracing.com/int/par...000p/overview/

...would fit an 880 block without clearancing. 3.75" stroke and all. That's from at least one published article I've come across. That said, i haven't any direct experience with it.
On a similar note, it was pointed out somewhere on the web that GM's HT383 is an 880 block. It uses a 3.80" crank. I'd like to see how they managed that. The HT383 shortblock might be my cheap way out but it's far less than what I want or what you're putting together.

 

Have you considered Howards?

 

Sorry I was thinking you were talking about H beam rods.

 

From what I've researched a rod that'll fit without the small base circle (more important to me than clearancing) is more or less limited to the one product. For my power levels and endurance requirements, I can't imagine having the need for an H-beam rod. The small base circle, I've read, can invite a number of issues, some of which are directed at longevity. That is to say, thousands of street miles. And that's what this new engine will see if history has anything to do with it. I'll probably even back off on the aggressiveness of the cam profile, from a ramp speed point of view, so as to help with keeping it all alive.
Still plenty of research and shopping to be done.
I'll be watching your progress to see how yours all shakes out.

I've investigated Howard's, Ohio Cranks, Compstar/Callies and a few other of the more distinct brands. All of their advertising is directed around not saying where the forgings are from. Molnar is one which more directly states the country of origin.
Now that said, does it really matter for my performance goals (which are modest in power output at 475 hp but aggressive in endurance requirements) where the forgings are from? Probably not. But still, depending on the cost differential, if I can keep it all Made in the USA (said the Canadian) then I'm all for it.
As I said above, still plenty of research and shopping to be done.

 

Yeah, I get it. I got burned by Skip White "Guaranteed Made in USA" Delphi lifters actually made offshore. Would not pump oil to the rockers and ate my new camshaft.

 

Just going over your thread and this caught my attention.
Care to elaborate on how this fits together?
The distributor will only provide cam location to the PCM?
No spark distribution as that's handled by the PCM/truck coils?
And you'll tune the OEM PCM via HP tuners?
Does that sound about right or have I missed it entirely?
You know it's funny, I make my living working on automated equipment. From the smallest sensors to the most elaborate PLC yet I've done very little with the automotive side of input/output. It probably time for me as the results I see you getting tuning what I find difficult to tune (and sometimes impossible) leads to me to believe at least one my builds would have survived had I had more sophistication with respect to what I was doing.
Thanks in advance.

 

https://www.eficonnection.com/home/c...ne/efi-24x-sbc

So basically it makes the Gen1 small block run on a LS computer with 8 individual coil packs. I will also be using drive by wire throttle on this build. I have already been tuning it with HP Tuners for years. I did the 0411 LS PCM using the 2002 5.7 Express van operating system years ago.

 

Yup you got that right skinnyz

if hes using basically the efi connection type system, distributor modded for cam sync. Crank trigger is either 24x or 4x in case of the vortec 5.7 I believe. Hp tuners tunes it

same system i ran on my twin turbo setup

 

I'm curious to know how much you have wrapped up in the swap using EFI Connection materials. I decided against their components after I began to add up the total cost.

What did you decide to do about the valve covers?

 

Are the tuning aspects and results similar? I have a couple of potential donor vehicles. Both LM7's from an 03 and an 06 Tahoe.
I'm seeing this as a reasonable work around to adding this level of tuning to my existing Gen 1 platform. I have an EFI manifold and rails sitting on the shelf. If the engine controller is free to me, that's one piece of the puzzle taken care of.
I checked out EFI Connection's timing cover sensor assembly for my early SBC which requires a cam button. It's a little pricey at $925 (or $1200+ CDN !) but there's probably a way around that too.

 

The 120-00023 kit, with the 1x sensor in the distributor instead of the timing cover is $200 cheaper, fwiw. I'm running the 24x on my 383, with a fitech LS ecm. Lots of different routes I could have taken as far as ecm's go, factory, fitech, holley. Zero issues with mine after 6,000 miles. I hid my coils instead of putting them on the valve covers, since the engine compartments already look cluttered enough.

 

Thanks for that.
There's another couple hundred bucks that can be directed someplace else.

 

[QUOTE=GTA matt;6322209]The 120-00023 kit, with the 1x sensor in the distributor instead of the timing cover is $200 cheaper, fwiw. [/QUOTE]

I'm confused, are you running the cam sensor in the distributor or a crankshaft position sensor in the distributor?

 

Not to speak for Matt but the kit he posted a link to has the crank sensor built into the timing cover and includes a 1X cam sensor in a replacement distributor.

 

Exactly. 24x reluctor is behind the timing cover, it uses the L31 distributor base with the 1x cam sensor built in.

 

That's what I like about thirdgen.org. Lots of good tech and info.

 

Fascinating build idea.

Even though you kept the cam duration below 230* at .050, I don't think you will be exaclty getting the stock idle sound. The 11:0 compression will definitely kick up idle note. Comp's 110* LSA will have it loping a bit. It won't sound like a Pro Stock dragster, but it won't exactly sound like a cargo van's smogger 350.

Scott Liggett
BluePrint Engines
Product Specialist
800-483-4263
info@blueprintengines.com
www.blueprintengines.com

 

With some silicone work or some epoxy, it may be possible to use the Plastic L31 cover on older sbc. Not sure. My old dart shp had late model front pattern. Goin that route saves alot.

I still use the 1x cam dizzy on my bbc. Works great

tuning hp tuners for stock ls1 411 pcm is same as tuning an ls1 except timing values are way higher on old sbc.

 

The Holley L31 aluminum timing cover has the old bolt pattern and uses the dowl pins. Its about $70.

 

My block had dowels so i cut and drilled out the L31 pins and siliconed around it

 

While we're on the subject of hot 383's, and I fully appreciate where Fast is going with his, here's an article by one of my favourite tech authors. It's in regard to a Gen 1 383 and morphs through various head port sizes and how it correlates to cam timing. For me, I find it especially interesting because one of the iterations (there are several in the article) directly addresses all those cubes under a small port (170-180 cc) cylinder head. Not unlike my RHS Vortecs. I believe there are examples of Fast's approach as well, which is more tried and true with a more appropriately sized head. That said, it's upped my enthusiasm for putting these ported Vortecs (255 cfm @ .550") on more cubes.

 

Thanks for attaching the Vizard 383 article Skinny.

 

Happy that you appreciate it.
Now if I can only get my tuning as tight as Fast's, even mechanically as I do now what with centrifugal and vacuum advance and my lonely O2 sensor giving me AFR feedback, I'd be off to the races. Again. (So to speak)

 

I have heard that one of these makes that a lot easier.

 

I've been using one of those for the last ten years. Probably explains why I can get 21+ (US) MPG highway. And go 109 in the 1/4.
It's ignition timing and all the hoops I have to jump through that's the real pain in the ***.
Adapting a late model PCM for at the very least my ignition control would probably have several benefits. I can live with a carburetor. I've been working with Holley carbs since I was a college student. And that's BEFORE the onset of today's EFI.

 

Time for an update. Have had this up and running for a while now. I never did upgrade to a FTI converter. Was running a Phoenix small body converter that was completely wrong for my setup. It was a nitrous converter for a 6.0L in a light vehicle. It stalled about 3,200 rpm but had no torque multiplication from a stop. It also slipped alot and ran hot. A couple of weeks ago I stabbed the throttle from a stop and the engine jumped right up to about 4,500-5,000 rpm. I got off the skinny pedal. Rolled back on it lightly and the it still had massive amounts of driveline slip. Got it into 2nd gear and lockup and I stabbed the throttle again. It held 2nd gear WOT lockup with no issue. The 1 way clutch in the converters stator had failed. Rather than spend $900 on the FTI converter I had a local shop restall and strengthen a factory B82 converter. Will be installing it in the next week or two. It has been re-stalled to approximately 2,800 rpm, the fins hand brazed, the tolerances tightened up so that it generates less heat, the lockup clutch changed to an improved material, and a billet front cover added. $425 after taking them my core. I am eager to run it and find out how it works.



This was the Phoenix converter I was running

 

Did you see chad speiers build?

its a 4.165 bore 3.48 stroke deal but it has his 205 cc heads and a small 231 deg solid roller which would be like a 220’s deg hyd roller. Mid 500’s lift. Peaked at 6000-6300 making 538 hp. 500 lb ft

Theres something to good size head that can flow and mild cams with good valve motion/lift. It was the emc recipe for a while in the earlier years i believe. May still hold true havent followed it much

either way i can see it being torquey