Inliners International Forums General Discussion Engines My 'new' 250 is alive!

I clarified my language Hank.. I want to trade my Clifford FOR an Offy...

Kerry I sent you a PM inregaurds to the Intake swap.

OK, I have the lifter bore sleeved, a new Comp Cam with lifters, new big valve head with Larrys bolt in lump ports and the correct springs for the cam from Tom Lowe, and a new gasket set. I'm ready to try it again. Larry and I are going to swap intake manifolds down the road but for now I'll use the Clifford for the test drive.

Glad to see you got that worked out,Let us know how it goes.

Kerry, I have to agree with Hank on this. A set of Rhodes lifters would probably help smooth out your idle and increase the vacuum signal considerably. You definitely need to ditch the small block 1.5 rocker arms and get either 1.7 or 1.75 rockers. The geometry on the SBC rockers is all wrong, even if they don't rub on the head, they put pressure on the wrong part of the pushrod seat on the rocker arm. Ditto for the BB 1.7 rockers; that's why your pushrod seats were, as you put it, "wallowed out" when you checked them. Yes, the BB rockers will work and they're close to the correct ratio, but the geometry is still off, but not near as far off as the SBC rockers. And by the way, I think you're building an AWESOME car.

OK, got the cam in, gears in, timing gear cover on, harmonic balancer on, oil pump on. Getting ready to sit the head on and torque it down. What do you guys recommend to put on the head bolts that go through to the water jacket? I have some 'Rector seal' pipe thread sealant that is good up to 450 degrees.

Zeke, I'm gone to the stock rockers/pushrods etc. With the new cam/head/springs I should have plenty of vacuum without having to go to pump up lifters.

i would also recomend a stud instead of a bolt in the front drivers side head bolt. it will help keep the block from cracking as seen on so many of these engines. got any pics? tom

>If I had drilled and tapped the cam for a bolt I'd have been OK.<

>Froze the cam and pressed the timing gear on,<

>The cam walked backward and <

>because the press fit has to be tight enough not to let the cam slide backward. If I had drilled and tapped the cam for a bolt I'd have been OK.<

Those are statements from your other posts. I have two quick questions.
Did you remember to put the spacer ring inside the thrust plate, so it isn't pinched?
Did you check the "run out" on the gear after you installed it?

I have concerns about what caused the cam failure and I'm not sure a bolt will fix it.

I would also seriously reconsider that 50 W oil for a street engine. My 4 year old 292 rebuild has been very happy with 5-30 W syn, but these other guys will be up in arms if I recommend that to you. Don't want to start an oil war here. I can only say it works for my 292 with 9.0 LPG pistons, Crane Gold 1.7 rockers, Carter AVS on a Clifford that seems to work well enough, thank you.

Richard

Yes the Bolt does fix the issue of the cam gear walking off the cam. Even at 8000 rpm plus. My 2cents on the oil I run 20-50 always have Race or street.(HP motors) 10w-40 stock street motors. I brake my motors in with 10w-30 That is about the only use i have for the weight oil. And Syn. oils are NOT good to brake a motor in on. But once they have some fair miles(brake miles) on them Then It's ok to run it.

I can imagine a cam bolt would help your engine at 8000. In this case he never made it out of the driveway. I'd want to know why. A check of the run out could give an indication of a possible installation problem.

I reused the original cam gear which may have been reused previously for all I know. I pressed it off the original cam, froze the new cam and pressed it on without heating it. Not realizing the original cam had a retaining bolt and the new one didn't.

The new cam didn't have a threaded hole either but I drilled and tapped and put in a bolt and fender washer. New gear, heated and pressed on a frozen cam. I don't think this one is coming off. The gears mesh well.

Btw, the competition cams literature says NOT to use synthetic for break in.

I have the engine and trans in the car. Might get it started tomorrow.

Richard

There was a guy I know who once pressed a gear on a cam with out
heating it Or useing a bolt. The gear cam off in a Very short time. I to once had this issue Back in the early 80s and The Motor never even seen 100 miles before the gear cam off. If a Alum gear was used and Reinstalled onto another cam The Gear can walk off the cam In No time Flat.
I have also known guys to Just Heat the gear and Freeze the cam
and get away with it. BUT this is not the case when Reuseing a Alum gear.espcaily if the Gear has not been heated. What happens is the gear Is shaved by the Cam. and it now becomes a loose fit.

Love the Dual Exhausts. I bet it does sound cool.

I think I,m the guy that pressed the gear on,,, I did, It came apart in about five minutes of the engines first start up,,when got the new gear set,(cloyes), it was in a different style box, in the box was a red paper instructing you not under any circumstance to press the gear on,,, I called to see if I could get a refund because the older(previous) box had no such literature,no refund, but they did say the hardening of the cam, shears material off the gear while pressing, causing the failures,,I froze and baked,, the gear went on with my hands, no pressing needed, for a street/mild engine this was supposed to be ok,, It has been so far,, about 3 years,,,, c-ya

She's ALIVE again! A truly historic day

Finally got the time to complete reassembly today. Checked everything twice and turned the key. Fired right up. Ran it at 2000 for 1/2 hour. Everything sounds GREAT. After it cooled down it starts with just the turn of a key. I've got the timing set at 8D BTDC for now. Vacuum gauge is jumping around a bit so I've no doubt got a lifter too tight. I'll adjust them tomorrow. Oil pressure at idle with the cam gear squirter blocked off except for a small hole and 50W Valvoline is 20psi at 700 rpm idle...about 45 at 2000. I'll also drain and change the oil tomorrow.

Happy Happy! Tom's head was really nice and I'm looking forward to my first drive hopefully this weekend. I have to redo the clutch slave cylinder linkage.

sounds like a successful day! i wouldn't change the oil so soon. give it 1-2 hundred miles or so. goodluck running the valves. keep me posted.tom

Thought I'd post some photos of the head I got from Tom Lowe (TLOWE #1716). I am VERY happy with it. Tom took the time to talk to me and built the head that met my needs, even down to springs that fit my cam.

The valves he used are Ferrera Stainless valves with hardened seats on the exhaust valves.



Here you can see the lump ports he got from Twisted6 Larry and installed in my head. Larry was very kind to talk with me at length about my situation. Good guy and I'm glad we're using his lumps!



The top of the head where the head bolt used to go through is tapped for a pipe plug which I installed with sealant to eliminate any vacuum leaks. Because it's a pipe thread (tapered), the pipe plugs can't go all the way into the port, bounce around, and ruin the head.



I won't post any prices but I was very pleased with what I got for my money as well as Tom's responsiveness. He also met my deadline and communicated along the way. I'd not hesitate to use him again should the need arise.

Looks nice.
So who did the cylinder head work? Valve job , porting etc?
Did it get flow tested?

MBHD

hank,
the lumps were installed by me and are made by our own twisted 6. i have worked with the PES bolt ins before and think larry's are superior. the bowl blending and cleanup work was done by me.

all machine work was done in dysart iowa @ heckt power products. that included: hot tanking, magnafluxing, hardened exh seats, 1.84/ 1.6 ferrea valves, new guides, guides machined for modern valve seals, 3 angle valve job, milled for straightness, springs setup for his lift cam, lite weight gm retainers, assy.

no flow testing was done. the lumping and bowl blending/cleanup take quite awhile and is not for the inexperienced person. these heads are quite thin and can be damaged easily. this is setup for a nice long life as a street/performance head.

tom

Tom

The head looks good it should make a good street head superior to most.

YEEHAW!







Everything worked great. LOTS of power...scary fast and I didn't even get on it....bat out of hell comes to mind. Got it in 4th probably up to about 60 and let off.

THEN I heard aGROWLING sound coming from the right rear. With no bodywork the right rear is about 3' from my head so it was pretty easy to pinpoint the noise even while driving. The suspension is C4 Corvette (84 front 96 rear). The growling sound is ONLY when I LET OFF the throttle over 25mph. I know nothing about Corvette rears so I'm hoping someone here can offer some advice as what the noise might be and how to go about determining the problem.

Happy happy! The motor is much stronger than I expected! FUN to drive!!!!

Looks pretty slick!

Hmm, growling, is there anything that could be rubbing when you 'compression brake' that hard (above 25 you said). Other than that, outer CV, or the wheel bearing is all I can think of (as if it were something getting into the wheel speed sensor teeth I would expect it to be all the time, and sound more like a baseball card in bicycle spokes).

cool

That build is impressive. As to the growling when you disassemble look for a shift in the brake caliper position or uneven rotor wear,properly snugged bearings,cvs joints,and so on as you work your way in.Hopefully the half shafts were in good shape so any bearings in the gear case aren't worn unevenly.It might just be something that has worked loose on your test run under acceleration.

be sure to double check the lugnuts.

i knew the inline would have plenty of tq to move that light chassis. your wife(and maybe you) is going to enjoy driving that around. you may have to go into bussiness making those chassis. it looks cool and has the right suspension and driveline. tom

That is a totally cool ride, something I have been wanting to do for a long time.

Turned out to be low fluid in the chunk. A tube of limited slip additive and some 90W and all is good.

Excellent, simple and cheap, my favorite kind of mechanical fix.

Great.Glad to read that.

A short video:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7758041730588186465&hl=en

Still have the unheated Clifford intake and have not TOUCHED the carb. Really starts to pull about 3000 rpm! I think the rear end is geared a bit low. It's a 3.07 with 30" diameter tires. I really haven't gotten out of third yet.

Looks like 'Too Much Fun', keep the videos coming.

Tim

That 3.07 rear end should give you a real interesting top end, probably somewhere around 140-150 if there's a road with a long enough straight stretch near where you live.

thanks for the ride!! i could almost feel it pulling through the gears. i could tell you were getting on it a bit. but i don't think you floored it all the way. i want a car like that too. tom

Yall know whats in this engine. Anyone got an idea what kind of horsepower it has?

Way too cool! I keep reminding myself that you pretty much built that baby from scratch.Awesome!

cool.

SahhhWHHHEeeeet!