Vettrocious

My 63 327-360 engine has been changed to the 350 horse hydraulic cam and the Rochester injection will soon be EFI. In this configuration I don't necessarily need the extra oil capacity of the original high-performance oil pan, so I'm switching to the smaller capacity pan from the standard engine, in order to clear my new Steeroids power steering. Does the standard pan require a different oil pick-up?

Thanks,

MikeM

No.

Nowhere Man

Sure sounds like a good way to devalue a car

Bluestripe67

You haven't committed any sin despite what has been said. The way I see it, you want too enjoy your car by removing a troubling FI. Put the oil pan and the FI on the shelf and steer yourself down the road. Enjoy the drive! Dennis

Vettrocious

Didn't buy it for an investment, don't much care what it's worth, I'm not gonna sell it during my lifetime. Its real value is in my enjoyment and its more valuable to me in a more drivable state.

In any case, I still have the original chassis. This new chassis is a repro frame, with a more dependable engine, better, easier steering, air conditioning, four wheel disc brakes, a five speed Tremec, and some other stuff.

Since I have another 63 fuelie, a Duntov car, that's as original as they come, I can drive that when I need a pure 63 L84 fix...

Vettrocious

Thanks, Mike, also wondering if the one-piece pan gaskets are any improvement (leak-wise) over the one I just scraped off?

warrenmj

Absolutely agree with Dennis! Do what you want and enjoy your car.

MikeM

Many say the one piece is better. I've never used a one piece. Never had any problem with the four piece.

tubman

I used a Fel-Pro one-piece gasket when I replaced the hi-pressure, hi-volume pump on my '67 L79 with a stock pump; it sure made the job easier. It is especially helpful when doing it with the engine in the car. The gasket comes with 4 plastic spring thingeys (Fel-Pro calls them "Snap-Ups") that screw into the block and you just push the pan on them and they hold it in place until you get the rest of the bolts in. I saved mine, and they worked just as good installing the pan on one of my Ford flatheads. No leaks either.

Mark_Milner

You have the right to do whatever you want with your car, as I have done with mine over the years.

However, I have never understood the idea of getting a rare car only to change it, when a more common one could be had and changed with no one being upset.

I mean, if you took an NOM 250 hp model that was painted Hugger Orange and then made it into the car you wanted (chassis, paint, engine, etc.), then no one would say a thing. No one would give you grieve for "ruining" a classic. In fact, most would probably praise you for saving a mutt from the pound.

Again, not an attack on you, just a genuine question on why.

warrenmj

Nothing he has done to the car can't be easily reversed. Swapping the engine, fuel injection and adding the Steeroids rack & pinion steering didn't require him to do any cutting, drilling or welding to his car. If he, or a future owner, wants to put the original parts back in (provided he keeps them), they are easily done.

Mark_Milner

That isn't the question. The question is if you are building a car that is different from the classic you bought, why buy a rare expensive one to start instead of a more common cheaper one?

Why buy an OM FI car to put the engine for an EFI 350 when you could buy an NOM car and then put in the EFI 350?

Now if it was his dad's car and in the family for 50 years, that is one thing. He didn't have to buy it. But we have had several on here, and you run into many at shows, that buy a rare car only to take off many of the things that make it rare.

warrenmj

I don't disagree with you on this as I would've looked for a cheaper non-original car if I was going to make substantial changes and upgrades like he has done (and which I have done to my car). However, it is his car and he is free to do whatever he wants to do to it.

jim lockwood

While this is unarguably true, I think it misses a key point: The reality is that once changed, it's unlikely to ever be changed back due simply to inertia. Inertia? Yeah. It takes energy and motivation to unbolt all the new stuff and put the original stuff back. Both are hard to obtain. That's inertia.

Jim

Vettrocious

This was not some rare car that I have committed a sacrilege on...Its not the rare 63 Duntov fuelie in my avatar, its just some car...

I don't believe anyone stated this was an original motor L84 car. It isn't, it may not even have been a fuelie originally. The fuel unit wasn't on it when I bought it, so, although it had some signs of having been a fuel car, there is no evidence to support any kind of high value for it...not that I care, I didn't buy it as an investment and it's not gonna be for sale.

I drove this car a lot in its original state, and though it did not suffer the normal fuelie tendencies to stall, etc., it was hot, difficult to steer, and fuel was difficult to find. So I'm fixing all that...plus more...

The original frame is sitting in storage, with most of the original chassis parts. Maybe someday someone will put them back, though I doubt it.The fuel plenum that I'm altering and turing into EFI was from a scrap unit. (The fuel unit I took off the car was Jerry Bramlett restored and a very nice unit, so I'm not altering it. ). Most of the other chassis parts are new, the engine is rebuilt 870 block, stamped appropriately, but its not the original block, so I put it in the new chassis.

Its just a car, not a museum piece; I'm having fun doing this, that's why most of us mess with these things...

Easy Rhino

Don't want to pour kerosene on a fire, but I've never understood what seems to be passion when somebody else does with their car what others would not do with their own car. Why do you care? This goes for ethanol, Petronix, type of oil, or several other topics that can devolve into personal attacks.

Warning a non-knowledable person about destroying thier investment is one thing, and that makes sense.

I respect everyone's opinion as their own here, even if mine is different.

I like single malt scotch and single barrel bourbon, and hate gin, but am not offended if you love it.

I thought this thread was about the oil pickup?

Vettrocious

What oil pick-up????

Easy Rhino

Vettrocious

Its amazing that one little question about the oil pick-up could cause such consternation among Corvette aficionados...

By way of reassurance that original 63 fuelies don't come to my house to die, check out the blue car in my avatar, a car that really has its original engine and one I restored (believe it or not) to achieve a 99.2 and Duntov at the NCRS National...




Maybe I do care and actually know something about the "value" of original 63 fuelies...

Mark_Milner

Now this is a great answer. The reason I asked was it seemed to be an original car and was now modified to something less.


A couple of years ago, we had a guy here who bought an original '63 coupe to do a resto mod out of it. I think it was a fuelie. Several tried to talk him into getting a run of the mill '63 instead of that one. He never did seem to have an answer why.

It was an unhit car, original, and had a restoration done to make it excellent.

Now he was going to replace the chassis, put in a C5-C6 suspension, an LS engine, replace the rear quarters with wide ones, and so on.

That seemed like such a waste to do to an original, unhit car. Why not find one in rough shape which would be cheaper and not be undoing anything?





It isn't that I cared, it was that I don't understand the thought process. Why by a high dollar car, one that can't be replicated, and then change it all when you could start with a cheaper car that has nothing original and so doesn't matter?


If you were going to build a '67 restomod with an LS engine and C5 chassis, would you buy:

1. an original L88

2. an NOM 300 hp car



I figured the oil pickup question was answered and probably done.

I also never thought my one question would prompt so many responses, especially those thinking I was condemning you for changing your car.

As I said in my first line:

I've had a couple of cars that might have been rare once upon a time, but by the time I got them, they were such mutts, nothing I did mattered and probably made them nicer than they were when I got them.

Corvettes were made to modify, to make into "your" car, not to be one of 20,000 just like it.