Engine rebuilding
Thread Starter
Burning Brakes
Joined: Feb 2014
Posts: 1,045
Likes: 226
From: Cape Neddick Maine
2020 C3 of the Year Finalist - Modified
being involved with racing and rebuilding engines you see alot of dumb stuff happen....
I had some one come back with a freshly machined block after they assembled it because they had no compression and wanted to know what I did wrong. After pulling it all apart I found the assembler used std pistons in a .03 engine
Another time we where at the races setting up my funny car at the time and someone next to us was having many problems breaking pushrods. I offered to give them a hand to pull the intake to take a look down inside the valley. We checked the valves and they seemed to move free.What was found was amazing they arrows for the lifter bars for roller lifters should point up In this case someone actually put the lifters in with the link arm arrow facing down. This caused the lifter roller to skid across the top of the lobe wiping out both the cam and lifters.
Personally for me was a big hiccup on one of my own engines. We ran Nitromethane so to try and protect the lower end I used a set of Teflon coated bearings. the crank should have been cut .002 but wasn't. toasted the lower end once the Teflon departed from the inserts.
I had some one come back with a freshly machined block after they assembled it because they had no compression and wanted to know what I did wrong. After pulling it all apart I found the assembler used std pistons in a .03 engine
Another time we where at the races setting up my funny car at the time and someone next to us was having many problems breaking pushrods. I offered to give them a hand to pull the intake to take a look down inside the valley. We checked the valves and they seemed to move free.What was found was amazing they arrows for the lifter bars for roller lifters should point up In this case someone actually put the lifters in with the link arm arrow facing down. This caused the lifter roller to skid across the top of the lobe wiping out both the cam and lifters.
Personally for me was a big hiccup on one of my own engines. We ran Nitromethane so to try and protect the lower end I used a set of Teflon coated bearings. the crank should have been cut .002 but wasn't. toasted the lower end once the Teflon departed from the inserts.
Drifting
Joined: Dec 2011
Posts: 1,743
Likes: 289
From: Chardon Ohio
With a flat tappet cam.....put the lifters in the holes and mark them with a marker on the top edge. Rotate the cam (by hand is fine as long as you hold it in place back against the block). Watch the lifters rise and fall. As they fall you should see them rotate/spin as they go down. If they don't rotate, the cam WILL go flat quickly. Many things can cause them not to spin...but whatever it takes...you need to fix it.
Also measure lifter to bore size. Many cam failures come back to worn lifter bores. Also makes for noisy valvetrain with hydraulics.
JIM
Also measure lifter to bore size. Many cam failures come back to worn lifter bores. Also makes for noisy valvetrain with hydraulics.
JIM
Team Owner
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 30,894
Likes: 1,189
From: chicago
many moons ago, I had the eng out of my 67 barracuda,a 273 power pack,i used moms dishwasher to clean parts
or the time I cleaned all the eng parts in my 66' 389 tripower gto and ,didn't know you-had to oil everything when you put it back together,it ran for 5-10 mins
I had a guy at an pro eng shop I worked at ,do the machine work on a set of GM CAN-AM long rods for a boat eng,and I was going out of town,so he offered to assemble the eng,,I put it in my boat-put boat in water-fired it up and drove out of the harbor,made it 1 mile out and eng stopped ''DEAD'',got towed back,pulled eng ,only to find all the rods were welded to the stroker crank[he checked all the rod clearances when the rods were hot from machining them],I completely rebuilt that eng
or the time I cleaned all the eng parts in my 66' 389 tripower gto and ,didn't know you-had to oil everything when you put it back together,it ran for 5-10 mins
I had a guy at an pro eng shop I worked at ,do the machine work on a set of GM CAN-AM long rods for a boat eng,and I was going out of town,so he offered to assemble the eng,,I put it in my boat-put boat in water-fired it up and drove out of the harbor,made it 1 mile out and eng stopped ''DEAD'',got towed back,pulled eng ,only to find all the rods were welded to the stroker crank[he checked all the rod clearances when the rods were hot from machining them],I completely rebuilt that eng
Le Mans Master
Joined: Aug 2010
Posts: 8,519
Likes: 505
From: Bussey, IA
First thing I ever messed up was back when I was 16 and dropped a washer down an intake port on the 327 in my '68 Camaro. Got lucky on that one. Only messed up a piston. Can't count the number of times got the distributor in 180 out. Funniest one though was with the 327 rebuild that went into my '72 Chevy. On startup about 7 minutes in to the warmup it started pouring out white smoke. No noise or knocking but we really felt defeated. Then called a buddy and he asked if the previous engine had been burning oil which it was. He said restart and run to break it in - that it was probably oil buildup in the exhaust. We did, and sure enough, the white smoke was just from the oil buildup in the exhaust! Were we ever happy campers!
