Made alot of progress today thanks to the excellent assistance of the invincible Jimmie Jacobs. Finished teardown, cleaned the block. Honed the cylinders, got almost a factory looking crosshatch pattern, although the number one cylinder looked like it was having an issue with heat that was causing some side loading. If This engine wasn’t nicknamed “Stopgap,” i would have sent this out for a .030 bore, and we unfortunately got sidelined by new part out of the box failures. King bearings are garbage. I typically use Clevite in all of my builds, but I tried King on the advice of a buddy, and you can see in the pictures, one of the brand new bearings was total trash.

Also I ordered 2 sets of 8 count valvespring rotator eliminators, and got 1 8 count and 1 7 count.

We gapped our rings, installed our piston rings, and finished the valvespring upgrade on one of the heads.

 

..... I wish my work bench looked that good ! .....

 

Haha thanks! Its our first house, and we got it at such a great price we literally couldn’t walk away from the deal, we basically had 40% equity in it the day we bought it, and we only put about 10% down, so thats really going to help out fiscally down the road.

unfortunately it only has a 1 car garage, which has to fit the wife’s baby wagon, and a foldaway home gym deal, a washer and dryer, hvac, and we’ve been super efficient with shelving, and utilizing the attic as much as possible, but theres still really no room for working on things in there

I do love that monte though. Its my third one. Its an efi 454 4l80e, 8.5” gn rear car. It needs the drivetrain put back in, and I was working on suspension brakes and interior.

 

Great lines on the Monte, hang on to that one!

 

When I built my engine back years ago I used clay in EVERY cylinder to measure the piston to valve Clearance. If you are "at the limit" you might want to use a thicker head gasket to ensure that the Pistons and Valves never meet in a hurry. The problem is that you have to put the heads on and then remove them to measure the clay. It is well worth the extra work to be able to sleep better. I know you want to finish the project but this is an important test. Pistons and valves make trouble when they meet, big trouble.

My engine has over 20 years on the valve hardware from Comp Cams and I am a bit worried. I am going to verify the spring pressure to be sure just as I am a bit paranoid. Do Valve Springs weaken over time? 2 Decades?

The Closed Chamber heads really make a difference. Both of my heads were bought and completely rebuilt with all new components. The Cast iron heads were cheap, the ones I have I paid $50 for the pair as the seller was anxious to unload those HEAVY cylinder heads. They do Not have the small ovals either, these heads have the larger Oval ports. They had about $1k worth of porting and cleaning up the air passageways before they were built. When my engine block has the heads removed the Piston's Valve pockets stick out above the cylinder at TDC, not the piston top Just the valve pockets. Be sure to check and verify that #1 is at TDC and your timing pointer is "accurate". That will save you a lot of hassles.

Today you can find Aluminum Heads for the Big block much more easily. I might drop the compression a point and go with aluminum Closed Chamber heads when I give the Corvette to my daughter. I don't think many recent drivers are ready for what it has now. No Nanny's AT ALL and I love it!

That is a nice Monte Carlo, I have a neighbor with a Black one and it is sure a nice looking car.

 

[img]blob:https://www.corvetteforum.com/f8326bba-9595-4254-817a-e34322a14ade[/img]

Santa dropped off some late arrivals!

reverse rotation aluminum short bbc water pump, and a gen vi bbc to 700R4 torque converter!!! Yipee!!!

now, I just need a $1300 March Performance serpentine assembly (they have one that fits perfectly no mount relocation needed (but I really need to come up with a more i expensive solution), a $1100 haltech plug and play Platinum sport computer (No way around this one, just needs to be done, and really thats an excellent deal vs completely wiring a megasquirt, Holley, or efi connection 24x system in). $500 hedman Big block C3 headers, $$$ Billy Boat 3” Zr1 exhaust, $5-600 bucks to an exhaust shop to get it all to work, $500 in a/c parts, $400 in gauges, and I’ll have a running driving 475hp 525 ft lb of torque c4 corvette that will destroy the trans and rear the first time I floor it, stock brakes, and trashed paint!!!

No wonder my brother calls me the cash toilet.

 

Update!!!!! At long last!!!! The car has come home. That poor car. But we have the technology, we can rebuild it!!!!

i couldn’t finish the shortblock build, but we did get the crank in with good bearings!!!

then the Hastings rings I ordered, didn’t clear (just the oil control setup)

i ordered these sealed Power rings, hopefully they check out.

i will try to install a set tonight. If the rings work, I should ::knock on wood:: be able to finish building the longblock!!!

the heads have had the valvesprings re checked for seat hight. All of the PAC 1220 valvesprings are within .003 of 1.880” installed height, with Titanium retainers and 10 degree locks installed. I discovered a broken exhaust manifold stud hiding in one of the heads that I’ll have to get out, no big deal.

otherwise, a brand new sfi certified external balance gen vi 6.75” balancer arrived today, so I won’t have to cut the crossmember to clear the balancer.

i picked up that ACI 1990 zr1 style rear bumper (not germain to getting the car running, but cool nonetheless).

all in all, I am super excited to have the car home after 5 years of being abused by a shop, and I have my motivation back!!!

the final unknown clearance issue now is the crank pulley to steering rack clearance (which may fit.........), and oil pan to k-member clearance.

if it all fits, this thing will be on the road and put together pronto!!!!

 

@Marauderprime what's the status on this beast? What was the solution with the steering rack interference?

 

Bump!!! With the talk of BBC in C4s recently, I remembered this thread! I see the OP is still logging in to the site....so any progress, switch gears, put the Monte back together instead!? Let us know either way!!!👍