FUUUUUUUUUUCK!!

Blue Shift · Post by **Blue Shift** » Thu Jun 26, 2008 11:01 pm

Looks like the shortblock touched down at Recarbco today.

It turns out it IS a one piece block, with a RMS adaptor installed. Clever. It's 4 bolt main, and has an OEM windage tray installed as promised - a little wimpy but it'll work fine.

I'll need to secure a replacement 7qt oil pan that has the dipstick provision on the passenger (starboard) side, but other than that, it looks pretty good. Came out to 600 in labor, and 150 to ship. Not bad considering that it's assembled with all the bearings, rings, RMS, and a replacement core block. Nice. Hope it's as solid as it looks.

I won't have time to get to it yet, but as soon as time clears up, I'll be landing into it, double time. I hope to have the boat up at Bullard's Bar reservoir by July 11th, ready to go. Hopefully I won't run into anything I didn't expect...

Series8217 · Post by **Series8217** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 2:25 am

Good luck. I'll be back on Tuesday and should be able to help out by Wednesday or Thursday.

Put some oil in the cylinders and turn it over by hand before you put the heads on.. make sure they didnt drop any steel shot in the cylinders this time. The shot will at least scrape the oil off the side of the cylinder wall so it should be easy to see...

-Steven

Blue Shift · Post by **Blue Shift** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 9:15 am

Series8217 wrote:Good luck. I'll be back on Tuesday and should be able to help out by Wednesday or Thursday.

Put some oil in the cylinders and turn it over by hand before you put the heads on.. make sure they didnt drop any steel shot in the cylinders this time. The shot will at least scrape the oil off the side of the cylinder wall so it should be easy to see...

-Steven

Yeah, I'm totally over steel shot getting in cylinders. Yeah let me know, it'll be another interesting pre trip scramble, as always, but I think we'll make it. :salute:

DiggityBiggity · Post by **DiggityBiggity** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 3:44 pm

I'm rooting for ya!! :thumbleft:

Atilla the Fun · Post by **Atilla the Fun** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 10:20 am

back when I was young and stupid, I installed heads in a 350, and the heads had had the exhaust crossovers cleaned in a sandblast cabinet. I did clean the heads, but.. So, two months later, I decide I want to make it a 383. You shoulda seen my bearings! But since I was buying a crank anyway, That left me only needing to add valves and guides to my budget. So again, I sympathize. Good luck! Your time's about up.

Blue Shift · Post by **Blue Shift** » Thu Jul 03, 2008 1:13 am

FAIL.

That's the status of the project at the moment. I've collected all of the parts to assemble, and finally got to it last night... only to find the god damn camshaft binds in its bore - I accidentally dropped it at one point and forgot to do something about it/check it for health in my haste. Damn it.

I have a new cam/lifter kit on overnight delivery on the way... now what I need is to convince my buddy (who's entrenched in getting his sailboat sorted out to spend 4th of july weekend on the water) to set me up some shop time at any time when I'm not working 43 hours a week + 3 hours commute per day. Ugh. Got till Friday, the 11th to get it done.

It must be done!

Blue Shift · Post by **Blue Shift** » Thu Jul 03, 2008 1:18 am

I ordered up a Hamburger (that's the name of the company, really) "Economy" oil pan of 7 qt capacity. A bit pricy, but it's nice and it claims to be for marine applications as well as street. It's got a pretty kick ass windage tray/scraper/louvered screen setup in there - shouldn't be any more problems with oil getting up into the crank. Thankfully the oil pump out tube to drain plug adaptor fits this pan as well - you have to pump the oil out of the engine through what's basically a second dipstick tube connected to the drain plug.

Got a lot of nice parts here... can't wait to get them all assembled. Gonna be pretty insane... Pics will have to wait till the deadline is past us.

Atilla the Fun · Post by **Atilla the Fun** » Thu Jul 03, 2008 1:03 pm

You should do a visual inspection of your cam bearings before sliding the new stick in. Be sure to use strong-enough light.

Emc209i · Post by **Emc209i** » Thu Jul 03, 2008 3:25 pm

Good luck today!

Blue Shift · Post by **Blue Shift** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 2:52 pm

Atilla the Fun wrote:You should do a visual inspection of your cam bearings before sliding the new stick in. Be sure to use strong-enough light.

At this point, it's going in, even if it requires the help of a sledgehammer! I'm out of t3h time. If its really bad I suppose I could try to switch out cam bearings - you know if they can be done with the engine assembled?

I dropped the old cam while wrapped up in a sheet of butcher paper, I remember now and it hit pavement pretty hard - I forgot about it entirely. I bet its bent or the journal is mashed enough to cause issues (there was a small ding on the edge of a journal and I filed it down and relieved it, but not much difference). Im going all in, betting that it's the cause.

Also, I had to have the cam/lifter kit overnighted in from Comp themselves... and they sent me the XM278H instead of the XM270H. A little more duration and lift, still well under the .525" rating of my springs (.498IN .500EX). Running the simulation on t3h DD, it should make a little more peak power by 5500 RPM, and be making ~300 ft/lbs at 2000 RPM - that should do the job. It's gonna lope pretty good at idle though!

It will be pretty funny if I manage to pull it off, otherwise if it doesn't make it, I'll get it done in time to enjoy the rest of summer, at least...

Blue Shift · Post by **Blue Shift** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 3:00 pm

LOL @ people who select cams by sound. But Comp had a sound clip for some unknown engine with this XM278H cam in it:

http://www.compcams.com/Base/MultiMedia ... ams278.mp3

Yup. That's gonna be choppy - wonder if it'll be smoother on my 383? Bet this was done on a 350.

Atilla the Fun · Post by **Atilla the Fun** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 3:40 pm

Now you really need to change the stuff between the engine and the propellor, and maybe the prop also. You might find this combo unferior for getting a skier up, compared to the last time you used your boat, but you should be able to race once you do thething in my first sentence of this post. Yes, the cam bearings can be changed with the engine assembled, but it is a royal PITA, and the oilpan must be removed. Of course, the intake can't be on, nor can the lifters be in. But it has been done. I hope you filed the ding off the cam far enough, because if you put grooves in your cam bearings, you'll fail them in a few minutes.

Blue Shift · Post by **Blue Shift** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 4:36 pm

Atilla the Fun wrote:Now you really need to change the stuff between the engine and the propellor, and maybe the prop also. You might find this combo unferior for getting a skier up, compared to the last time you used your boat, but you should be able to race once you do thething in my first sentence of this post. Yes, the cam bearings can be changed with the engine assembled, but it is a royal PITA, and the oilpan must be removed. Of course, the intake can't be on, nor can the lifters be in. But it has been done. I hope you filed the ding off the cam far enough, because if you put grooves in your cam bearings, you'll fail them in a few minutes.

I have a wimpy 12YJ jacuzzi jet drive that's still set up for a 245HP 307 chevy. I'm pretty sure it'll have t3h torqz0rz to get it spun up ok... it's just a question of how high can you turn the pump before it cavitates or blows up. It's rated for 4700 RPM normally but it seemed to perform fine at 5200 last year with 50+ more HP - probably closer to 5500 or more now... If it were a prop boat, I'd be seriously worried at this point since I'm not sure how/if it'd plane, but with the jet, you just spool it up as high as the engine has the power to spin it and it starts pulling at 100% thrust. The wimpy impeller in there should help, too.

I think the cam bearings are ok (unless the new cam binds). It's sitting as an assembled shortblock right now so... I hope I won't have to pull bearings, as they're brand new. They're aluminum... didn't scratch em up too bad though you can see light marks from installation. Hopefully the new cam will slide in fine and we'll be good.

I'll have to post pics when I get the time.

Atilla the Fun · Post by **Atilla the Fun** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 9:22 am

Seems to me you're increasing the forces on your drive, and now you have a combo that should pull 6000 rpm, and in a car could be shifted as high as 6500. My thought was subtract 500 rpm dueto those exhaust manifolds. Still, I'll just have to wait to hear about it once you try it all.

Blue Shift · Post by **Blue Shift** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 5:07 pm

BAAALLLSS!!

So I have all my parts in, in my maddening scramble to to the finish line here... and am basically waiting for time to build the engine at a buddies shop and get it installed. So Steven and I decided to change out wheels and tires on the trailer, and found that the starboard side hub bearings were blowed the fuck up. DAMN. Another unforseen problem that I should have caught.

After a half hour of cross referencing, we found that the inner front wheel bearing from an 80's-90's 2.3L Rustang is identical to one of the bearings, and get this... the inner bearing from the front of a pre 88 Fiero is identical to the other. Go fucking figure. The hard part is the damn seal.. I traced it down and have it on order from Kragen. The seals will be in on the 7th (we go on the 11th...). I'm planning on greasing the bearings well and running at very low speed without the seals to the shop for engine install if we ever get around to it. Then reassemble correctly with seals when they come in... No other choice.

The brakes are something strange, I hear they may be one time use only mobile home axles and brakes, and the wheels are 5x5.5" bolt pattern (large Ford) with mobile home tires rated for 2000+ lbs each. They'll have to make it another 200 miles before I figure out what to do with them.

Ugh. Anyways, nothing ever seems to be a terminal problem... always something I can concievably fix before we go. Sort of maddening. But hey, I enjoy a good challenge.

DiggityBiggity · Post by **DiggityBiggity** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 6:16 pm

Blue Shift wrote:BAAALLLSS!!

So I have all my parts in, in my maddening scramble to to the finish line here... and am basically waiting for time to build the engine at a buddies shop and get it installed. So Steven and I decided to change out wheels and tires on the trailer, and found that the starboard side hub bearings were blowed the fuck up. DAMN. Another unforseen problem that I should have caught.

After a half hour of cross referencing, we found that the inner front wheel bearing from an 80's-90's 2.3L Rustang is identical to one of the bearings, and get this... the inner bearing from the front of a pre 88 Fiero is identical to the other. Go fucking figure. The hard part is the damn seal.. I traced it down and have it on order from Kragen. The seals will be in on the 7th (we go on the 11th...). I'm planning on greasing the bearings well and running at very low speed without the seals to the shop for engine install if we ever get around to it. Then reassemble correctly with seals when they come in... No other choice.

The brakes are something strange, I hear they may be one time use only mobile home axles and brakes, and the wheels are 5x5.5" bolt pattern (large Ford) with mobile home tires rated for 2000+ lbs each. They'll have to make it another 200 miles before I figure out what to do with them.

Ugh. Anyways, nothing ever seems to be a terminal problem... always something I can concievably fix before we go. Sort of maddening. But hey, I enjoy a good challenge.

This is why I stopped working on cars after high school... I'm already bald enough

Blue Shift · Post by **Blue Shift** » Sun Jul 06, 2008 2:25 pm

Atilla the Fun wrote:Seems to me you're increasing the forces on your drive, and now you have a combo that should pull 6000 rpm, and in a car could be shifted as high as 6500. My thought was subtract 500 rpm dueto those exhaust manifolds. Still, I'll just have to wait to hear about it once you try it all.

Thanks for the feedback, Atilla - always good to hear from somebody who's been doing this a lot longer, and on a pro level. I probably should have stuck with a XM270H but this is what they sent and I'm really out of time now. Eventually I want to change up to a Berkeley style jet (Jacuzzi Energizer conversion), at which point I can pick out an impeller to perfectly match the engine at this RPM and power output. This wimpy impeller should make revving up into the power band from idle a snap. It should help avoid detonation on hot days too - little load down low.

So I hope, anyways. I'll make sure to post up videos when I get this bizzatch built and running. Which I hope will be soon. The plan is to assmeble the engine tonight and have it dropped in tomorrow.

I CAN STILL MAKE IT!! Failure is not an option.

The Dark Side of Will · Sun Jul 06, 2008 5:15 pm

Blue Shift wrote:I CAN STILL MAKE IT!! Failure is not an option.

O RLY?

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/fa ... _an_option

Atilla the Fun · Post by **Atilla the Fun** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 4:07 pm

I do hope you make your deadline. I didn't realize that this drive is kinda like a "loose" torque converter. I don't know much about jet drives, but you should still equal a stock 307 at the lower RPMs.

Blue Shift · Post by **Blue Shift** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 1:34 am

The Dark Side of Will wrote:
Blue Shift wrote:I CAN STILL MAKE IT!! Failure is not an option.
O RLY?

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/fa ... _an_option

I knew you were bright, I didn't know you were psychic though. :la:

As of today, I've officially resigned from trying to get the boat ready by the 11th. Last night while scrambling to assemble the engine, a heli-coil in the deck surface gave way during the retorque procedure while bolting on the heads... I have neither the tools, nor the time to order them to properly repair it in time. It's just not feasible. In addition to this, this Hamburger's oil pan I got has some really fucked up fit issues - even the cheap shit 60 dollar claimer 7 qt pan I had on it fit without issues and the seal was good. If I meet the guy, I'll beat him with my old camshaft.

I actually considered just running it until head gasket seal problems came up, but realized the only intelligent choice is to treat it like $2500 worth of precision parts and take however long it takes to do it right. I'm tired, I feel halfway sick, I'm sore all over, and I've even broken out with a mild rash on my right arm over stressing and repeatedly arriving to work on 2 hours of sleep. Just ain't worth it, not fun anymore. So once I come back from the lake, I'll properly repair and finish the boat up. I'll post videos and pics up then.