Let The Rebuilding Begin...AGAIN!

I should have known my shop time was going to be a bit trying considering the UPS didn't get here with my crank and rods until 5:30PM. Typically the drivers gets here before 1PM. So with that said here's what got accomplished and didn't get accomplished last night.
I was a bit surpised to find that the new crank has key ways. I'm going to have to find out if this means I need to find a keyed balancer or not.


Pretty oil holes.

Looks like it needed a little weight added.

New rods


Since the rods and the crank were so freaking cold, I decided it's time to go flow the heads so I can get stock and ported numbers.

This is where the night got difficult. If I light the IT guys crotch on fire, I would. I'm apologize to the IT guys reading this. The reason I want to do this is because he didn't save any of the important files, you know like calibration details, before he swapped hard drives. The numbers that the bench is putting out are way skewed. So a few phone calls were made this morning to try to get the bench recalibrated so I can get some accurate numbers. I'm sorry, I won't be posting stock vs ported numbers in this update.
Tonight I will weigh the rods and start balancing the rotating assembly and mock up. Tomorrow I will start short block assembly and get the cam degreed.
 
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What a day yesterday was. I mentioned before that there was an issue with the flow bench, so I made a couple of phone calls to see if someone would have to come out and fix it. It turns out that the issue was Windows 7 related. :banghead: One that series of clicks was made it was game on.
The stock heads flowed 256cfm @ .650 on a 3.910 bore on the intake side. The exhaust side flowed 204cfm @650 on a 3.190 bore. Ported the intake side flowed 261 cfm @ .650 on the same bore. I didn't do much on the intake side save for sanding with 40 and 80 grit. The exhaust side flowed 223 cfm @ .650 on a 3.910 bore. I'm not disappointed with those numbers at all. Maybe tomorrow I'll put the numbers in a spreadsheet and post them.

Since I still had the grinder in my hand and I came across Lonestar's intake porting thread, I figured what the heck I may as well touch the intake too.


So not that my shirt is filled with slivers of aluminium and plastic, I figured it would be a good time to get my rods weighed.


I've got my bob weights figured up and I'll start balancing tonight. If things run smoothly I may start short block assembly tonight too.
 
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Nice! Like this thread Im not a Chevy but like the step bye step You don't get this out of the drag magazines! Good job!
 
mustangmike6996 said:
have fun, keep up the good work and itll come together WAYYYYYYYY better than before!
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I'm getting anxious to get the build done. I wanna hear it run...LOL
Warden said:
Nice! Like this thread Im not a Chevy but like the step bye step You don't get this out of the drag magazines! Good job!
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Magazines are limited to print space, on the interwebs I can post anything...LOL I really won't mind doing stuff like this for car magazines. Right now, it's hard to be at home and not at the shop working on the engine.
 
mustangmike6996 said:
All of the care taken to build this makes me second guess all of the engines ive ever torn down and built back up lol.
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I'm sure all of your previous builds were done better than my last rebuild.

I actually did some work Friday evening on my build. I got the bob weights figured out and then the crank on the balancer. Then I got sidetracked and helped my friend finish a set of heads that needed to get done that night. It's amazing how much metal a set of heads will hold when you mill .035" off of them. The person he was doing the head work for wanted .040" taken off. It's one of those "if it's on the internet, it's gotta be true deals."
Getting prepared to figure out bob weights:


Ready to spin the crank:

So today I was fully expecting to go into the shop and be able to get right back to this point:

Yeah, that wasn't meant to be. It turns out that at some point over the weekend or even this morning the hard drive with the program for the balancer failed. :banghead:
So I switched gears and decided to clean the block again because there was some nastiness hiding under the main caps:

Once the block was clean, I decided to assemble the rods and pistons. Let me tell you from experience, spiral locks suck balls. One of those little bastards cut me and I bled pretty good for about a minute or two.

See that little point, yeah that's what got me. GRRRR

All done:

So I think all is well and the balancer may be fixed in time for me to finish my build before Dec 18 and then the fun starts. I was asked if I had checked the main journals on the new crank, and I had not. Out come the micrometers and the not so good news came. My oil clearance is only .0004" that's just too tight. So I have a choice to make. Buy new bearings or see if I can have the crank micropolished. Well if it's more cost and time effective, I will end up paying for the crank to be balanced and polished so I can finish my build on time. Talk about fun times.
 
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What a night tonight was. I got a lot accomplished, but man was it a PITA. My day started with trying to figure out what to do about the bearing situation. I made a couple of phone calls to local machine shops and got some prices and well as one rather informed opinion. That was, not much can be gained by polishing a crank, so if I needed more oil clearance, there's a good chance I'd have to turn the crank. Um, it's a brand new crank, that's not going to happen. I resigned myself to the fact that I'm going to have to buy new bearings.
I also got a text saying that the balancer was fixed :33: I knew tonight, if nothing else I'd get the crank balanced. After discussing the oil clearance issue with Jason, it was figured out that someone at school and use the bearings I have, and they'd just order the bearings that I need. The lesson here is don't order bearings until you know exactly what size you need.
After that conversation was over I got the bob weights set and started the process of balancing the crank. All is going well until I make the first pilot hole and then the damned thing crashed. :image_013 Are you kidding me? It turns out that the repair man showed up today, knowing what the issue was and didn't bring the parts to fix the machine. It needs a new hard drive and motherboard.
At this point I'm a rather unhappy camper because I'm thinking the program isn't going to come back up. Fortunately for me, I'm around some pretty patient people. We manage to coax the program back up and immediately get to work removing weight from the crank.

Shortly after this photo was taken, the computer crashed again. Ughhh!
Thankfully after rebooting this time, I was able to finish balancing the crank and I even managed to get some piston rings installed tonight.
I don't think I could have gotten any closer.

One hole and some grinding.

Another hole and some more grinding.

The last area were weight was removed.

It sure is pretty.

Oh yeah, right as I was cleaning up, the damned machine crashed again. I'm just glad it waited until I was done balancing.
 
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I had a short night in the shop tonight due to traffic court and dropping off my old rods to their new owner. Traffic court cost me nothing but time.
I put the crank in the big washer for about an hour. While that was going, I did some calculations and figured that my bearing clearances would be about .0012" which is a little on the big side. So out came the dial bore gauge to get some accurate measurements. The good news is I'm well within spec and I don't have to order new rods or rod bearings.
This is the only photo I got tonight. In case some of you are wondering, this is a Sunnen dial bore gauge in the set up fixture/micrometer. Sometimes I love this tool, sometimes I hate it. I'll have it set properly and forget how to read it...LOL Apparently I'm not the only one this happens to so I don't feel too bad.
 
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Well last night was the moment of truth. I installed the main bearings in the block and measured for oil clearance.

1,2,3, and 4 were .0012, which is okay, but not stellar. 5 was at .0006. So new main bearings were ordered instead of the short block being assembled. :( I left the bearings in the block because I wanted Jason to double check my measurements and moved on to checking rod stretch. I also learned that if your torque the rod bolts twice the big end become round. When checking oil clearance in the rods a couple of days ago, we notice that the rods were out of round by .0008" I was about ready to call Scat and ask what the heck kind of operation they were running. Then Jason said to me something that was taught to him a long time ago. Torque the rods down twice and then measure them. Sure enough, they were just fine.

So now that the rods are done, I installed the piston rings and my oh my do they look good.

At this point the build is somewhat at a stand still. I can do some more head work tonight, but the roads are crap. Thank you old man winter for the dusting of snow and ice. The rod and main bearings will be here sometime next week, as will my new balancer, so I'll probably wait to do anything else until they show up.
 
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im defiantly on the noob side of engine building buttt.....you say your ordering a new balancer? i thought that you need to use the flywheel/flexplate and balancer that you plan on running to balance the crank? again, im still a noob on this but im learning and asking questions to get me there. haha
 
nitrouspete said:
im defiantly on the noob side of engine building buttt.....you say your ordering a new balancer? i thought that you need to use the flywheel/flexplate and balancer that you plan on running to balance the crank? again, im still a noob on this but im learning and asking questions to get me there. haha
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I will have to double check this, but I'm pretty sure that my balancer is more for harmonics than anything else. The flywheel will be checked for runout.
1BADAIR said:
Using factory clearance specs?
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Yes, I am.
 
Yeesh. Not sure if LS specs are tighter but my mains measured out between .002-.0025 oil clearance. .0012 seems pretty tight
 
SuperStang90 said:
Yeesh. Not sure if LS specs are tighter but my mains measured out between .002-.0025 oil clearance. .0012 seems pretty tight
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Yes, LS specs are tighter because it's an aluminum block.

Tonight I finished porting and polishing the heads. I'm so glad that's done I don't know what to do. No more small pieces of metal getting stuck where it shouldn't be. I also sent my valve covers out to be powder coated. I couldn't in good conscience put the stock ones back on a new engine looking the way that they did.
Valve covers before they get powder coated.

Porting and polishing all done.

Next up is for the heads to be milled. I'm thinking .005", which is just enough to clean them up, and provide a nice flat surface for mating to the head gasket.
Tomorrow (later today) the new balancer will be here and hopefully so will my bearings. If the bearings show up, it's time to build a short block. :woot:
 
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nitrouspete said:
im defiantly on the noob side of engine building buttt.....you say your ordering a new balancer? i thought that you need to use the flywheel/flexplate and balancer that you plan on running to balance the crank? again, im still a noob on this but im learning and asking questions to get me there. haha
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Neutral balance
 
Tonight was a much better night in the shop than last night. I wasn't feeling well at all, thank you sinus issues, and pretty much gave up on getting anything done and came home.
Tonight I got a lot done. First on the to do list was to measure rod and bearing clearance, and after doing some splitting (x and standard) the mains are within .0003" of each other and all within spec.


The rod bearings were between .0019" and .0020". No need to mess with those guys.
Now that my oil clearance is set, I'm excited because I think I can get started building the short block. Then I remembered that I'm building a stroker motor and chances are I may have to clearance the block. So instead of installing cam bearings, I did some mock-up to see what if anything needed some massaging.



Rut roh. The block needs a little bit of love.

All better.


I'm sad to say that I'm not done porting my heads. After a little bit of discussion and reflection, I realized that I'm building a bigger air pump. I'm going to need more air coming into the cylinder as well as leaving, so I'll be doing some porting on the intake side as well.
With that said, here are some better pictures of how the heads look now.



I thought this was a cool shot.

No work will be done tomorrow. I'm going to my daughter's choir concert tomorrow evening.
Friday the plan is to wash the block again. Get the cam bearings installed. Start building the short block. If I have time, I'll start porting the intake side of the heads.
 
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