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Awesome picture and great story.
Hey, You Rescue and I should plan a cycling trip.
We can cycle separately and meet up where the three points come together.
Kristine and I just bought new E mountain bikes and we are itching to get out and see what they will do.
My passion has always been running.
Where ever I go I would pack running shoes, shorts and music.
My dream was to run across the USA.
After 55 years running on them, my knees started giving me problems.
I am temped to start running again and my doctor said no problem after she replaces both my knees.
Well I just got my new Aluminum flywheel back from the balance shop.
Let's go into a little background on externally balanced 454s, as they are also completely different than internally balanced SBC, or 427. You just have to be more careful as both the harmonic balancer and the flywheel are part of the crankshaft balance, and have weights attached.
To make matters worse Chevy changed the flywheel counterbalance weight THREE times on 454s. (Courtesy Jeff Smith online)
A 427 or 396 BBC has zero counterbalance weights, it is internally balanced
Gen IV 454 has a 33.0 oz counterweight on the flywheel
1999 Gen V/VI 454s have a one piece rear seal and have a 42.5 oz counterweight
454 HO and 502 engines use a 41.7 oz weight
The worst part is any of these FOUR flywheels will bolt up to any of the other BBCs and cause it to vibrate. This is the kind of engine you really need to trust your engine builder or machinist on.
"To put this in perspective, there are 28.3 grams in an ounce. One ounce of imbalance located one inch from the crank centerline will create an imbalance force equivalent to 31.9 pounds at 6,000 rpm. At 2,000 rpm, it would be 3.5 pounds of force. It’s possible that you could feel that imbalance even at 2,000 rpm." (Jeff Smith) So if you can feel 28 grams I want to be under a couple grams.
And then when I rebuilt my engine with lighter pistons and rods, the rotating assembly was 140 grams lighter, so everything had to be custom balanced. As an assembly including the harmonic balancer and the flywheel. I had mine balanced when originally built, and now if I make any alterations to the harmonic balancer or the flywheel, I need to check them carefully.
It turns out there were some balancing marks on my iron flywheel. So I had to take my new one to the same shop and have the two of them match. No need to do the whole engine. They just match the weight of the new one to the old one.
My ~30# OEM iron flywheel actually weighs 27.8 # and looks like it is original to my car, with a 10/1971 date. Obviously it has been cut, at least once.
After some more research I decided I wanted to go with a lighter flywheel so it would rev better. I had a lightweight Al one in my LT-1 for 30 years and loved it. I selected a Ram 2521 Aluminum 454 balance flywheel with steel insert and 168T ring gear. They carefully balance these but my engine had a custom balance, so I wanted to check. It weighs 15.8#, is actually a little heavier than my old SBC one, but I found out today it weighs basically the exact same as a 15.2# L88 10.5" factory HD iron flywheel and is slightly lighter than the GM MA-6 454 dual disc flywheel at 23.4#. I am running a dual disc also (ACE) and still want this to rev well.
My machinist said my brand new flywheel was out by 20 grams so they corrected it. It would have definately vibrated. Glad I checked. It may have been OK on a stock engine, but my rotating assembly is lighter.
Clutch side. It is easy to see the steel insert. The insert is replaceable.
You can see the big 33 oz counter weights in this pic. I was glad RAM used heavy Mallory metal to balance theirs, and not a screw on weight.
My shop took out 20 grams to custom balance it.
Screw-on Weight kits are available. But I did not want something that screwed on, so I passed on these, and went with a Mfgr that uses Mallory Metal.
Last edited by leigh1322; Nov 19, 2023 at 02:57 PM.
After checking my front end alignment as I began re-assembly, something still wasn't right. Wow a month ago now.
I had a hard time dialing in the front alignment, and there was very little stud left.
This is the original shim stack. Much thinner with almost no shims on the left. Alignment specs unknown. Left rail was bent over 1" (up) due to an accident. Likely a ditch. This was straightened a while ago.
This is the frame as it sits today. Alignment shims are 1/2" in front and 3/4" in rear, with 1/4" offset shafts in place. Aligned at ride height, Z=2.5". Specs are -0.5 Camber, 5.0 degrees pos caster.
My alignment modifications were successful. The shim stack is equal on both sides. YAY! And I have 5.0 degrees pos caster! And it looks "factory".
We had straightened the left front frame rail.
I cut off and re-welded the right lower rear a-arm bracket by 3/8" due to being out of position, by factory, or by accident.
The 1/4" offset shafts allowed me to run 2 less shims (1/4") in every spot.
The slotted control arm shafts (1/4") allow me to get the 5.0 degrees caster I desired with only 1/4" of extra shims on the back vs the front.
The Ridetech Delrin Bushings even "look" factory.
But I only have TWO THREADS left on the alignment studs.
How am I going to bolt on a front tower strut brace?
The tower to tower measurement is TOO WIDE.
Mine is 26-6/8 vs the 26-3/8 it is supposed to be.
I had to wait on my frame guy. For a while. He made a house call yesterday to my home garage.
We have a plan to take it back to his shop and correct it.
If we can tighten the towers together roughly 3/8-1/2", I will have a normal tower-tower measurement, 2 less shims everywhere, and be able to add a tower strut bar.
That would be a win-win!
Stay tuned.
I have been fortunate to have 3-4 guys graciously stop by to make a house call, for various reasons, on my C3 project.
That is one advantage of living in the most densely populated state in the country (NJ), none of them had to drive far, maybe 20 min.
I can't imagine trying to build this car where I grew up in a very small town in rural SC, where everything was 1 hr away, not to mention a Corvette expert. I would have been totally on my own!
That is one of the reasons my heart bleeds for guys on this forum trying to fix these cars overseas!
I can’t imagine trying to build one over seas.
Its bad enough for me in California.
No Corvette people around and even finding someone with Corvette experience to do the paint and body work was tough.
As it is my choice of painters is a 3-4 hour drive, depending on traffic.
I can’t imagine trying to build one over seas.
Its bad enough for me in California.
No Corvette people around and even finding someone with Corvette experience to do the paint and body work was tough.
As it is my choice of painters is a 3-4 hour drive, depending on traffic.
So being on the other side of the world certainly means you can’t easily just drop around and look at another C3 to check something out, you pay a lot in shipping, sometimes way more than the parts them selves, and rely a heap on forums like this.
Sorry about that. I have 3 Corvette shops within 20 min, and 2 possible painters.
Beach 1 hour, mountains 2, and State Forest 30 min. NYC in 2.
But getting away from the congestion of the N.E. Corridor takes 3-4-5+ hours!
I could do without the traffic!
It's a sad day. But I need to take a little break from the Corvette for a month or two.
I need the other garage bay back.
So After 2-1/2 days of garage Tetris, I moved every single item in the garage.
My frame had to get moved out of the 2nd bay, back under the frame.
And then one by one it got buried with all the boxes and parts.
It's packed almost solid. I am surprised it all fit.
But the other bay is now open, for the first time in years.
And my daily driver needs a little love...oil rings......PITA....but it has to be done. It burns oil like a wino! 250 miles/qt. The oil rings are carboned up and locked solid after 200k miles.
I remember back in the day we would say fill it up with oil and check the gas. That's what I've been doing lately.
I'll be back! I'll unbox all this when I'm done with that "lil" project.
Last edited by leigh1322; Dec 4, 2023 at 03:14 PM.
Yes it is my Caddy CTS. It has GMs 3.6 LLT D.I V6.. Mine has 200k miles on it.
They have oil squirters, direct injection, and are nortorious for coking up the oil rings. It has terrific compression and 97% leak down so I know it's not the compression rings. A borescope shows great cylinder wall hatching.
It's just a weakness in the piston design or the direct injection. They even have re-designed pistons for it now.
It was never over 1500 miles / qt even when with 20K on it. I have owned it since then.
This issue is apparently very common with all the new D.I. engines, so if you are considering a D.I. engine, just BEWARE.
As they are getting very common.
It is just unfortunate that the oil rings are such a PITA to get too.
I was going to do it in the chassis, but I can't even get the oil pan off in there.
So it's coming out. For $40 worth of rings. Grrrr....
If it wasn't such a rare manual shift Caddy, and drive so wonderful, I would just unload it.
I was just eyeballing CTS-V Coupe 6pds, but one toy is enough.
And $1500 vs $40-50k makes the decision a lot easier.
This one has been paid for for a looong time, and I still love it, except for it's achilles heel!!
I know everyone likes engine pics.
This is an example of the carbon coking in this 3.6 V6 engine at 200k miles.
Intake valves shown.
CorvettePassion thought he had oil burning problems!
BTW it still runs terrific even like this.....
My SBC LT-1 had some valve deposits on it after 27 years of racing, and maybe 20,000 miles. But I do not remember them being this thick. This should be fun cleaning off (not). This is why the skinny low pressure oil rings are stuck. The pistons I am just going to toss and put in new ones.
Last edited by leigh1322; Dec 5, 2023 at 10:03 AM.
This is my idea of the perfect "daily" . There are still a few of these around in low mileage stick shift combustion engine form.
I actually seriously considered this. But the BB C3 won the mental debate. And my wife would definately not be happy with two "toys"
She "OK'd" one.
Happy wife...happy life!
And the best part of the "deal" is all the money I save from not buying a new "daily", and just keeping my old CTS girl running, gets to go into the C3! That was the icing on the cake.
Last edited by leigh1322; Dec 5, 2023 at 10:49 AM.
I went to see mine at the painter’s today.
On my last visit we talked about Jeeps and he said he was thinking about selling his.
Today we talked more, agreed on a price and I will tow it home after the holidays.
Good luck with the Cadillac project. Keep us posted.
My daily is an ATS - not a V though. But it has V6 engine, REAR wheel drive, with limited slip diff and, believe it or not, the factory wheels are 1 inch wider on the back than the fronts.
