Finally got all the stuff together and degree'd the cam. As it sits, it is 2 degrees advanced. This is starting to make a little more sense. With the extra 2 deg, I believe it moved the power band down from about 3000 rpm, to 2500. The PO said he had a 2200 stall in the truck. I don't know alot about how stall converters work, but when going from a standstill, to very mild acceleration such as bumper to bumper traffic, the truck began rolling when you let off the brake, and by 1800 rpm it wanted to run. Idle was about 1100rpm. So I'm not sure where any stall actually was. Maybe I felt more pull around 2200, nothing really noticable tho. I would describe it as smooth, no noticeable jump in power. So unless someone sees a problem here that I'm missing, I'm gonna go ahead and put it all back together, and see what its like in the car.

I'm super excited to finally start moving in the forward direction again.

 

I have the motor all put back together, and sorta cleaned, and painted. I didn't go crazy here cause I don't think much of it will ever even be seen. But I did wire wheel it, and clean it really good with acetone. If the original paint was stuck good enough to withstand the wire wheel, I left it. So it's only a "bubba" paint job on the motor. Not to mention I used the "very high temp" rattle can paint. Maybe that stuff is really good, but I can't see how it could ever hold up against all that's going against it in an engine compartment. And I am sure not going to spend the $$ for high end paint that no one could ever see anyway. Maybe if I get that 1970 numbers matching car, but not this restomod.
FYI: The high temp paint is certainly different than regular rattle can paint. With my fans running, I can spray just about any paint, and not really worry about overspray. It all gets sucked up thru the exhaust system so to speak. Not with the high temp stuff tho, It's heavy, and settled everywhere. Luckily it's flash point, or whatever you call it, is very fast. So it settles as dust. No big deal, just wipe it off.




Orange overspray on the black frame. Rubbed off spot with my finger

 

The old seal looked brand new. But I went ahead and replaced it.

 

To try and clear out some space, I bolted the trans up, and bolted the motor to the frame. At this point, the valve covers, intake, and carb are just sitting there. Also, there is no flywheel, or torque converter yet.<br/>




I could'nt help myself. I had to see how those long tube headers might fit. They are 1 7/8" tubes for a truck. Except for hanging too low, and extending too far, they are not a bad fit.

 

At this point, the right side header will bolt up no problem. The left side is iffy. I think that if I either removed the left motor mount bolt, or loosened the borg steering box, it would prolly slip in and work. With the help of come a longs of course. I have read countless threads where the "right" headers for this car can cause problems with needed brackets for a/c, or alternator. These truck headers In no way could affect front engine mounted accessories. I only tried them cause I had them, but I'm gonna keep this in the back of my mind. It might be alot easier to cut and refabricate the truck headers, than to fit the ones that supposedly fit the car? Food for thought. I won't know until the body is on, and everything else is in place.

 

Did a little work on the rear end today. I installed the fuel tank, and the rear bumper.




For the anti squeak pad, I used some 3/8" wool carpet pad. This is the stuff the casino's use under carpet. It's tough stuff. I was afraid it would be too thick, but it worked out real good.







I understand that I'll need to loosen the hold downs, to align with the body later, but I can't find the torque for them anywhere. Anybody know how tight these are supposed to be?

 

Everytime I even glanced at the back bumper, I got fiberglass in my hands. So I put a pretty heavy coat of paint made for plastic on all the rough fiberglass. I hope it kinda locks the fibers down. Prolly wishful thinkin.





Of course the plastic tee fitting broke. It should have been brass anyway.

 

I wouldn't use that pad. It's going to absorb moisture and hold it against the tank. It'll be very slow to dry. You're inviting rust-out on the bottom of the tank.
You don't need that little piece of vent hose. It serves no purpose if that's an aftermarket tank without a liner. Just plug it.

 

The big black metal tub in the middle of the car is the fuel splash containment system, or something. I'm thinking that it is there to prevent fuel from going in a horizontal direction if the car was rear ended hard enough to bust the fuel tank. That's just a plumbers guess tho. Anyway, if you have this system, don't hook up the rubber fuel lines to the hard lines until after this is installed. The rubber lines need to be fished thru the sides of the metal cover first.

 

Good call on the moisture. I was only thinking about how good it would soften the tanks ride. I just tested a scrap piece, yep sucks up water like a sponge. Thanks for the timely advice!!! After tomorrow, it would have been a lot more work to get to it again.

 

I've pulled the tank out and removed the wool carpet pad before the adhesive I used to secure it had a chance to fully cure. Now I'm back to the drawing board for what to use as a softner between the fuel tank and frame. When I took the car apart, there was a strip of velvet material on the frame rail only. Nothing was on the removeable tank support bracket. My research shows that the correct membrane to put between them is 30 lb. felt paper, however, I didn't, and still don't, think this is adequate protection for a thin wall gas tank resting against a frame rail. Maybe I'm big dealing it, who am I to question the GM engineers? I don't know, I guess I'll prolly bite the bullet and just use the felt paper. Hmm, seems like a good place for a teflon product maybe. Gonna think on this for awhile.

So the next big obstacle is gonna be the wheels. I have had zero luck locating used 17 or 18 inch wheels that will fit the c3. I never anticipated this. People swap wheels all the time, well, people who drive everything except c3's, swap wheels all the time. Before I can put the body back on, I really need some kind of full size wheel/tire on it. Pulling the body was a major pain because the frame was sitting so low. So another sacrifice, the cars gonna have to roll on 15's for awhile. I have not talked about budget too much, because I didn't want that to be an excuse to cheap out on something that was important. But as we all know, money is always an issue. So I'm gonna save the price of new aftermarket wheels, and hopefully find what I want for the car down the road. As to the budget, I'm actually doing pretty good. I have a goal of building this car for a not to exceed amount. I was budgeting 60% of that money to frame work, including drivetrain, etc. And 40% to body, and interior. Paint has never been in my budget, just body ready for paint. So I'm basically out of money for the first part of the job, but I'm also pretty much done with that part. What I can think of off the top of my head is rebuilding breaks, which I won't do until near the end, installing the break line bosses, or blocks, and the driveshaft. Oh yeah, I still need a torque converter. Other than those things, I think It's ready for the body. That is if I can get my head around my azz and finish the tank install.

 

thank god there is at least one other person on the this forum that has a basic understanding of cars. How does no one else (including the op) not understand you aren't making a 427 out of a 396 by boring? I'm now scared to believe anything I read here. (I get this is 2 years ago).

 

I see you have got your big block ,NICE.

Just a heads up on those rocker covers , I put a similar height alloy ones on my 69 and they just fit or cleared the firewall area when we dropped the engine back in, Vacuum booster was well in the way so that went ,now hydroboost. . But there was still no way to get them off/on while in the car . So I had to do some mods to the area next to where the brake booster went to get enough room to remove /replace.

Obviously drop that body back on first to check ,but....

Just an edit here, if those covers aren't filled with rocker gear then getting some 68 to 74 corvette BB valve covers might be an option.

 

Thanks for the heads up on those valve covers. I have these old ones that I like better anyway, Guess I'll play around with some spacers and see how much room I can save. Oh, and yes, the roller rockers are the reason.

 

I found a couple of pics on the old phone of things I missed posting.



I used cork gasket material for the softner between the gas tank and frame. I have a small concern that this might squeak, but I don't think it will, if it does, the side pipes, with electric exhaust cutouts should fix the problem nicely.

I'm missing half of the foam isolating pad between the taillights.

 

Came across a good deal on these wheels and tires, so I jumped on it. Maybe down the road I can put the 19's on it.

 

I think that brings things up to date on the build, the gas tank shroud has been installed as well, but I think that's about it. I took the summer off, so not much work happened. Now that it's cooler, I hope to get back into it, but I hit a mental road block. I'm really fighting the desire to convert it to a manual t56. I keep telling myself all the benefits from doing this, but the $5200 price completely shatters any claim that I'm still on a budget. But then there's still the unknown of how the big cam is going to work with the tall gears that are in the car. I don't have any real experience with big stall convertors, and I'm basically hoping that a 3000 stall with the 3.08 rear will work. So part of me keeps saying that I'll probably wind up spending that much money upgrading the drive train anyway. How nice would it be to cruise the interstate at 70 mph doing 1500 rpm to? Ahh crap,, I'm gonna blow the budget. Maybe I can find some milk crates to use for seats.

 

Brian,, I'm not going back and re reading the old posts, but I'm pretty sure I made it clear that I'm not an engine builder. I'm an old pipefitter/plumber, and as such I rely on other professionals who have the experience/expertise in their fields to tell me what options are available. As a rule, unless I trust someones opinion exclusively, I research what others have to say on matters. I did this research on said motor, and I posted the general consensus of the results I came up with. This did not come from my knowledge, but the expertise of several different engine builders. If I remember correctly, the critical factor was the year the block was cast. Pre 1968 cast blocks were supposedly made from a better alloy material, which could allow them to be bored farther, but still maintain enough integrity to not overheat, etc.

Is this practical, or even possible??? I do not know. The whole point of this thread is to highlight the issues and problems I come across during this build. The benefit of the thread to me is the thousands of members experience out there who have been thru what I'm trying, and help me out with problems they already encountered. When it's finally finished, I hope the resulting thread will benefit others who are just beginning this journey.

I truly appreciate the time you took to read thru my thread, I welcome any pertinent information you may have concerning my build. If you want to debate the 402/427 possibility, please start your own thread. I would like to keep mine contained to what is actually happening with the build. As you know, because you posted at the end of the thread, the motor actually chosen for the build is not even relevant to those old posts.

Thanks brother and no bad feelings here.

 

I may be in error here, I thought that replys stayed with the original post, but my reply to this one went all the way to the bottom, So I apologize.

 

The money tree hasn't bloomed yet to pay for the new transmission, but I dug around in the couch cushions and found some change so I got a couple new goodies.

Got a new high flow fuel pump with return. Clearance looks a little tight. I hope this works, because finding a pump that would flow more than 40 gph and had a return built in was harder than I thought. This is a Delphi, It's rated at 50 gph. The math says this motor needs a minimum of 40. Most of the high flow aftermarket pumps have a track use only warning on them, not for daily use.

I went with the OBX sidepipe kit. The price was too good not to. I'm happy with them out of the box, although they are certainly not perfect. Since they will be ceramic coated, the imperfections I see "should" be negated anyway.

The finish on them is perfect, the welds, well, not so much. I couldn't find any holes, or missed spots, but there is undercut on both sides of all the butt welds. The flanges, and collector welds are better, but all of them were too hot as is showed by the dark color of the welds. They should be bright rainbow looking.