Let The Rebuilding Begin...AGAIN!

Tonight I managed to get the block cleaned up from the grinding that happened Wednesday night. Once that was done I measured both the cam bearings and the came journals to make sure there would be enough "love" left in the block. Meaning that the cam journals are .0045" smaller than the bearings. I also measured the small end of the rod and found that there was .0008" of clearance between it and the wrist pin.
This is the gauge I used to measure the small end of the rod.

So now all of my clearances are set and I'm ready to install the cam bearings. Wait a second, I didn't double check to make sure the rods would clear the block, so it's mock up time again.
The rods clear the block, but when it came to cylinder #8 I noticed that the reluctor wheel was hitting the piston. My heart just sank. I'm thinking, "Great I either get to clearance more stuff or buy one piston." Right about then it was time to leave the shop. I figure by Monday I'll be able to find out what to do about the piston and reluctor wheel issue.
Of course the first thing I do when I get home is search and find out that the number 8 piston should have a little more clearance than the rest of the pistons. Now I have to wait until Monday to find out for sure. If that is the case, more building and less grinding will happen Monday.
Here's a photo of the rod bolt clearing the block.

 
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takes time but you will get it built never heard of that reluctor wheel issue hard to take to much off the piston .
 
yenkomike said:
takes time but you will get it built never heard of that reluctor wheel issue hard to take to much off the piston .
Click to expand...

Oddly enough, not much needs to be done to the piston to get the reluctor wheel to clear. Other people have run into this issue and I'll find out for sure Monday if my #8 piston is clearanced for the reluctor wheel or not.
 
Yet another interesting night in the shop.
Of course I could hardly wait when I got there to inspect the #8 piston, and all turned out great!

So after I saw that I finished my dinner...LOL Once dinner was consumed I mocked up two pistons and gave the crank a turn and all is well.


The fun with cam bearings will start tomorrow. My height is a disadvantage right now because of how tall the workbenches are in the shop. I'm going to have to have help installing the bearings. I'm okay with that. Since I couldn't really do that tonight because of some other instruction going on in the shop, I found other things to keep me occupied tonight. I forgot to get pictures, but I'll get them posted tomorrow.
 
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Tonight was a busy night. I finally got cam bearings installed!

The camshaft turns butter smooth. That's a big relief. I will tell you that swinging a 5lb hammer will tire you out pretty quickly.


The crank was also installed.

Tomorrow I have to shift gears and finish porting the intake side of my cylinder heads. I need to check piston to valve clearance before I get too far along in this process.
 
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Ahh the glamour of building an engine!! Mock-up then wash. Grind, mock-up, then wash. Grind, mock-up, then wash. Wait for correct parts to replace the ones that idiot you bought them off of swore were right. Grind, mock-up, then wash. Wait for your stuff the machine shop told you would be done 2 weeks ago. Grind, mock-up, then wash.

You're doing a great job!! Be patient and don't skip even the smallest step. It will be worth it.
 
OldbutNew said:
Ahh the glamour of building an engine!! Mock-up then wash. Grind, mock-up, then wash. Grind, mock-up, then wash. Wait for correct parts to replace the ones that idiot you bought them off of swore were right. Grind, mock-up, then wash. Wait for your stuff the machine shop told you would be done 2 weeks ago. Grind, mock-up, then wash.

You're doing a great job!! Be patient and don't skip even the smallest step. It will be worth it.
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Oh. My. Goodness. The wash, mock-up, grind mantra is stuck in my head...LOL Thankfully I don't have to wait on the machine shop, but I am waiting for the correct parts to show up. I had a long conversation with Clevite this morning regarding the thickness of a coated standard bearing and a coated X bearing. Needless to say, they were pretty cool to talk to and I'm pretty sure they were impressed that I had every measurement that they asked for. I got the answers I needed and can say their customer service is pretty cool.
 
Tonight I did more porting on the heads. I know I said I was done, but I fibbed. I'm not sure what's more nerve wrecking, porting or finding out your bearing clearance isn't what you thought it would be. Uggh.
I am incredibly fortunate to have people that know way more about porting than I do helping me out. Jason porting half of the intake ports on one head and I was left to follow his lead. From what I'm hearing, I've done a pretty good job. :)


I've got at least an hours worth of work left on the heads. I'll tackle that tomorrow.


I'm hoping the last of the parts I need to assemble the cylinder heads show up tomorrow. If that's the case, I may get the valve job done and start the surfacing process. It will be nice to have another part of this build completed.
 
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Today the shop was finally open and it was a short day due to weather. I got hit by every major holiday (Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years) and that interfered with getting the build done. It felt good to be back at the build.


This is the cool and nerve wrecking part for me.
Tomorrow I will degree the cam and finish up the short block install. Hopefully I'll be able to measure for proper push rod length and get my push rods ordered tomorrow too. We'll see.
 
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I had an awesome day in the shop today! I am rather surprised at how quickly the build is coming together now. The first item on the to do list today was to get the camshaft degreed.

The camshaft is installed at 110 and did not need to be advanced or retarded. The Hex-A-Just timing chain actually made me get the destructions out so I could make sure I was installing the crank gear properly.
Once that was done I was shocked at how fast everything went together.
Setting rod side clearance:

Moving along with assembly.




I've gotta get this assembled and installed:

At that point the short block will be done.
I need to finish porting the heads and get them assembled which will happen next week. After they are done I'll check piston-to-valve clearance and for proper pushrod length. After that's done and I've got the right length push rods, I'll get the engine on a cart and get it ready to go on the engine dyno.
 
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You're braver than Dick Tracy to be this far without a piston-to-valve check!
Check the sizing of the ATI hub and your crank snout. In my experience, they come small and you may have to hone the hub for proper fit.
 
OldbutNew said:
You're braver than Dick Tracy to be this far without a piston-to-valve check!
Check the sizing of the ATI hub and your crank snout. In my experience, they come small and you may have to hone the hub for proper fit.
Click to expand...
I haven't checked the PTV yet for two reasons. 1) The heads aren't assembled yet. I have to finish porting them, and 2) I don't plan on milling the heads much. In fact, they'll only get milled enough to make sure they have a flat mating surface.
Nothing was done yesterday because of the snow storm that hit us. Today I got by the shop and did a little bit.
Now what I didn't realize is that the o-rings on the valley tray didn't come with the valley cover gasket I bought. The search for those pesky bastards began. I was surprised to find that all of the dealers I talked to only stocked 2 o-rings. I understand not having a lot of room, but if you're going to replace two you should replace all of them. Anywho the part number for them is: 12610160. It looks like the Fel-Pro kit that Speed Inc sells comes with the o-rings. I ended up order 8 from the dealer and calling it a day.
Once the valley cover was installed with the new o-rings it was time to tackle the balancer. I made a mistake and forgot to put the accessory pulley on with the hub, so it had to be removed.
Fortunately for me, I had the GM balancer install tool so I assembled the balancer and used the tool to install it.

That was the end of my day in the shop.
Tomorrow I will be in the cylinder head room finishing up porting the cylinder heads.
 
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It took two of us to get the balancer bolt torqued down, but it's done. After that fun stuff, I went upstairs to finish off porting the intake side of the cylinder head.
Thankfully the last bit I needed to do went by rather quickly, and I didn't end up with metal down the back of my shirt. :)
Finishing up some port work:


Not too bad.

So now that the porting is done, it's time to test out the flow.

The intake side flows 297 cfm with a 3.910 bore.
Monday I'll start getting the valve job done. Depending on PTV and push rod length, I could have this engine on the dyno by the end of next week.
 
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Today's adventure was cutting the valve seats. I'd say it went quite well. The exhaust side got finished up and the valves were lapped. Tomorrow the intake side will get done and I should have enough time to get the heads assembled.
Today's machine of choice:

All done.




 
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Well I'm waiting on parts again, so I decided to tackle the factory battery cables. I am going from 4 gauge to 0 gauged on everything but the alternator wire. I'm sure this mod will eliminate my slow cranking issue. I didn't get it completed because I forgot to order five feet of 4 gauge wire. So guess what I'm doing later tonight?
 
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You better be posting vids when that thing is done! That's gonna be one sick car for sure.
 
Parts showed up, but they showed up too late Friday to get anything done. Yesterday was a holiday and today the roads made life a bit miserable. I'm ready for winter to be over.
The new parts that showed up were Ferrea intake valves and injectors. I didn't like the way the 2.02 intake valve sat on the stock seat and didn't really see an advantage to running that valve so I decided to go back to a stock sized intake valve.
I didn't realize that Ferrea makes their valves look like candy when they ship.


I went with Injector Dynamics ID1000 injectors. I doubt I'll ever need an injector for this car, unless something goes wrong with one.

Today, I helped out around the shop with various tasks. Tomorrow I'll get back to my build. Intake valve seats will be cut and valves lapped. I should also be able to get the heads cleaned and start assembly.
 
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