Projects Austin Somerset Gasser Build (DragNasty)

We did have some good luck though (goodness knows we need some). The bolts Weiand supplied to install the intake were very nice, highly polished, twelve point head, grade 8 examples but they were way too short. If you got one started you only had a couple of turns (not enough). So I picked up some standard hex head grade 8 bolts the appropriate length to installed the intake (of course as you already know after tons of custom grinding). However, there are two bolts that need a twelve point or at least an Allen Head as there is not enough room to get a socket or wrench on the hex style.

So Dad reached way back in the parts bin and pulled out several perfect length an sized Allens. He had enough that, strictly for aesthetics, I decide to change out all eight of the exterior bolts with them. Now with all the grinding, we had taken off the tape that had covered all the intake openings so no shrapnel stuck to the underside of the tape and made its way into the motor. (by the way after every grinding and drilling session we completely washed and dried the intake)

So anyway there I am at the rear of the completely assembled engine replacing the last hex head bolt and washer with one of Dad's keen little "Allens." Suddenly, the washer slipped out of my hand, bounced one time on the back of the intake and then with absolutely no pomp and or circumstance went right down the distributor hole.

Plus Equals and Ultimately

I just stood there for about 10 seconds and did not move. Finally it caught Dad's attention and he ask what was wrong. I said he might want to duck because I was about to throw something. He ask what? I said I don't know yet, I am still scanning the shop looking for just the right object!

I know, I said we had some good luck today right? Well instead of throwing something I took a look down the hole and believe it or not, that stupid thing was sitting in the valley pan area about an inch from dropping on though. Dad grabbed the handy dandy telescoping magnet tool and we very carefully fished it out.

 

ALSO...Last Friday at 12:37 p.m. I got a call from ATI Super Dampners saying they had received my dampner and checking to see what needed to be done. I told them to convert it from an externally balanced unit to Neutral. He said no problem. He ask for my credit card and after taking the number he said I was good to go. Then Friday at 2:05 p.m. I received an email from Fed-X with a tracking number indicating it was on the way home. Now that was one quick turn around!

 

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one that has mastered the ability to have a small part bounce perfectly like this.

 

I feel your pain, anxiety, frustration at how these things line up to make for some bad days. I will all be worth it. Albert knows.... Enjoy, Dick M

 

But look how mature I have become. A few years ago, I would have thrown the first thing I could get my hands on. LOL!!!! I am pretty excited this morning as I had three emails with tracking numbers indicating I am getting something TODAY.
1. The Super Dampner will be back from ATI.
2. The Valve Cover Spacers will be here.
3. My Jalopy Journal T-Shirt is coming as well.
SCORE!

 

I really like the guys from ATI Super Dampners. Not only did they turn my dampner change out from externally balanced to neutral super quick but they sent me all the pieces back. Not that I will ever have any use for them but I was thinking that was pretty cool. I paid for them so they sent them back. They could have easily kept the weight and the internal hub but they didn't. Straight up guys if you ask me.

 

Dueced;

Did I miss the part showing how you fabbed the tilt front end? I don't see it.

Sorry if I just looked right at it and didn't see it.

 

There is an article in a old National Dragster about TCI .
It is amazing what they can do with a dampner.

 

ATI... TCI... WTF??? LOL!!!

My washer episode involved a stainless steel washer for one of my four Weber carbs... I heard it go... dink... dink... ten... made it all the way to the piston.

Couple hours later I was good to go as well as fit to be tied!

 

OOOPS Shit you know what I mean.

It's ATI

 

No you didn't miss it. I am going to cover it when we start putting it back together. We are going to have to engineer something a bit different with the "blower audible" as far as clearance. I can't take the time to remove the rear carburetor every time I want to open or close the hood. LOL! I will cover THAT modification and the original mounting etc. here pretty soon.

 

You know, when I Googled ATI to get a phone number to call them to find out about doing the change out, I read something about the owner and CEO just died. It was a very weird eulogy written by his wife. It never eluded to exactly what happened but I get the impression he was in a car wreck or something.
http://www.atiracing.com/jim/index.html

 

Thanx. If you know how you're going to do it please peruse this thread.

 

Seem like to article was saying that on a 4 cylinder Mopar stock class NHRA car that they tuned a dampner for the engine and made 70 more HP.
Now that is something.

 

Man I am stoked tonight! After installing the new high performance valve train, my vintage MT finned valve covers would not fit. I looked around the internet and found the thickest valve cover spacer available which was an 1 1/8". Since the heads were black, I ordered black ones. They came today and fit perfect. Below one of the spacers is just sitting on the blower intake before installing! When everything is said and done, most people will not even notice!

 

could you post a link to where you found them

 

It has been our goal for a while now to get the engine off the stand and back in the chassis. There is a big question with the transmission and we can not answer it until we have everything together. That is the goal today. So we installed the McLeod flywheel and dual RXT clutch per the instructions and put the heavy duty scatter shield bell housing in place as well.


Here is the question. Will the bolt on McLeod hydraulic throwout bearing work or will we have to send it back to get a different piston length installed. McLeod actually suggests not even ordering the throwout until you take this measurement, information JEGS didn't pass on when I purchased this stuff a year or so ago. So above here is what we are measuring: distance from the mounting surface to the clutch fingers.


Then according to McLeod specs, we added .200 and the transposed the measurements from the face of the throwout bearing to the mounting surface of the transmission. We are looking for .200 to .150 of space between the fingers and the bearing at rest. According to all the official McLeod videos online, with the bolt on unit we have here, if we don't have the .200 we have to send the unit back to Mcleod to get a different piston. No cost for the service but still time consuming.


However, I noticed something about my unit. It had rings, each about .150 in width and what I would call removable. It was obvious to me that this was an upgrade from the original units that were in the videos. I finally found a confirmation "of sorts" on the McLeod website that my hunch was correct. It didn't come right out and say it but it is so obvious to me that between the limited info on their site and my common sense, we removed one ring and our measurement was perfect!


So, satisfied we had answered our trans questions and the proper adjustments had been made we set about removing the clutch again to clean all the surfaces and get it ready for final assembly. While Dad starting working on the clutch, I grabbed the high torque MSD Dyna Force starter and got it mounted. No shimming needed today, it was a perfect fit right out of the box.


We very carefully cleaned all the clutch surfaces with MEK (nasty stuff but very effective for removing oils etc).


We installed the inner clutch disk, aligned it and install the McLeod outer ring to the flywheel.


Then the outer clutch disk goes on and is aligned with the inner (note you need to rotate these clutches a few times before the pressure plate goes on. Also be careful the outer clutch does not sag a bit while slowly torquing the pressure plate.


When we were happy with clutch install we popped the bell housing back on, including the mid mounting brackets we built several pages back. We went ahead and bolted it all solid (as you can see) there are a total of 22 grade 8 bolts, washer and nuts involved in this process. Note: You can see where I welded up the area that originally was open for the manual throwout bearing fork. I also drilled the holes for both the bleeder and hydraulic line for the new throw out system.


Time to install the transmission. We took some copper wire to help guide the hydraulic lines from the throw out bearing through the holes. The bleeder line has to be on top. Then just slide it in right....? Riiiigghhhhtt. So you remember back a few paragraphs, I mentioned to make sure the alignment tool does not allow the outer clutch disk to slip down a bit. Well here is the experience that gave us the valuable knowledge to type that advice. We did not realize that was possible the first time around which "YOU GUESSED IT" means we had to take it all back apart.

The rear disk had slipped down just enough to get everything out of line. And with the pressure plate in place and torqued down, there was no moving anything. You know I vaguely remember thinking to myself as I tightened the 22 bolts on the bell housing that if something was not right this was going to be major pain in the ass (and it was)!

It is just as well though as after we got the clutch all figured out and back in place, we decided since the tolerances were so tight getting the trans into the bell housing that it might be easier to mate them up before installing. That is when we discovered one of the bolt holes that mounts the trans had its threads nearly destroyed. Up until now, we had never had a bolt in the hole as it was very hard to get to anyway. We tried to clean them with a tap but they were to far gone. So we just drilled it out and put grade 8 bolt through from the inside with a lock nut on the outside.


Then it really did slide right into place (cough, cough). Okay maybe just a soft love tap at the end but... Finally we installed the 22 bell housing bolts and nuts etc. a second time and poof there it is...

 

Catching our second wind after the near all day transmission install we torqued down the intake and installed the blower for real this time. (Well lets be honest. We didn't really start until around 11 a.m. and the near all day estimate most certainly include a long lunch at Heady's BBQ!) Our favorite Saturday lunch time haunts....


After pressing on the newly converted ATI Super Dampner we decided to install the accessory drive and lower blower drive pulleys. Check out the photo below.


The high end Billet accessory pulley "HAD" 6 bolt holes which perfectly corresponded to the six mounting holes on the dampner. That is always good! However, both the holes in the pulley and the damper were threaded. Of course this is not going to work anyway but to ad insult to injury, while they were the same bolt size, the dampner was fine thread and the pulley course....crazy!


Notice I said "HAD" course threads above. Of course it would not have mattered if they both had matching threads as you could not have installed one on the other, both threaded. It was obvious we needed to drill the threads out the pulley so the bolts could simply go through and secure it to the dampner. So that is what we did (very carefully).


So at the end of very long day...this is what we have. A few more days like this and we will either be ready to fire this beast or possibly be institutionalized.

 

Fire the beast and institutionalize yourself for a good nights rest and stick around for a wonderful buffet brunch!

 

Fairly laid back afternoon today in the shop. Our little machining foray last night with the front accessory drive pulley left us in need of longer bolts. So today started as usual with an all but fruitless Sunday search for specials bolts. Today it was 6, grade eight, three inch long 3/8 - 24 to secure both the accessory and blower drive pulleys.


Obviously we were successful. We also reinstalled the special low mount alternator bracket and the 120 amp GM style mini alternator. We took a quick belt measurement 45" and then off to the parts store for a new Gates "V" belt.


We popped the blower drive belt on as well just to see how everything fits etc.

 

Currently getting schooled here on the HAMB about the carbs. I have been a bit worried about my current set up since the "Blower Audible"... I have done the math and I believe from a CFM stand point we are good. Just to refresh your memory, I have two inline Holly 660s built for E85. They currently have 87 main jets and from what I have learned, I believe at this point, I am going to block off the power valves, bump the jets size to 92 and start tuning from there...any blower pros out there with better ideas, I am open!

 

Well after quite a bit of research and some good advice and encouragement from a few fellow HAMBers (thank you very much "oj") I think I am ready to top this sucker off! As I said before I have had concerns since the "blower audible" with what to do with the carbs. There is a ton of information on the web (maybe too much) about blower carbs. Discussions about power valves and jet size and idle adjustments etc. etc. Here is what I have gleamed. The blower wants fuel and lots of it. I know that is a pretty simple term but to be honest all the big fancy words and techno-jargon all basically mean just that. It needs all the fuel you can give it when you really want to go and it needs all the fuel you can arrange for it when it is just sitting at idle. Everything in between is simply tuning.


I think I "accidentally" made a very good choice for my application when I purchased these E85 converted Holly 660 center squirts for the original tunnel ram set up. After taking in all the knowledge I could find on blower carbs, I did a quick search on the 660s. I was very pleased to find and confirm on my units, that they did not come with power valves in the first place. Holly had no intention in the 1970s for this design to offer any fuel economy what so ever (bless their hearts). The 660s are a grip it and rip it carb. My carb builder set them up for E85 with the correct fuel management blocks and popped in number 87 jets. Taking his advice, I am going to up the jets to 90 to start with, install the carbs, make sure I get plenty of fuel at idle and tune from there.

 

I ordered the Holly #90 Jets today from my local performance shop they should be here tomorrow. He also said the Moroso oil filter adapter plate would be in tomorrow as well. It has an inlet and outlet to allow you to plumb in an oil cooler. So when I got home tonight, I decided we better figure out where to put the cooler. I must have laid under and walked around that chassis for an hour trying to find the perfect spot with Dad giving the official critique of every potential placement. It is always good to have a second pair of eyes. Here is where it ended up.


That is mounted to the bottom of the radiator tray and drops down into very clean air. While in clean air, it will still have a bit of protection from the lower front valance etc. This is a pretty cool Derale unit that I have had hanging of the wall for a while just looking for a home. It has its own fan unit (probably over kill like everything else). All I need is a couple of elbow fittings and it is ready to plumb.


After figuring out where to put it. We simply made some "L" bracket and basically hung it from the radiator support tray. It is a very tidy fit and Dad and I were both happy with it.


We also mounted the headers and installed the spark plugs.

 

I love this shit! Thank you ducie lucy

 

I was about to say my office looks like I robbed a performance store today. But after looking at the receipt, I think it was the other way around! Holy Mackerel fittings are expensive! These are the pieces to plumb from the oil filter adapter (that has still not arrived) to the oil cooler we just installed. Quality does come at a price, but this is my oil supply we are talking about here! I don't want any second rate parts, hose clamps or prayers holding this stuff together.

 

Well look what the cat drug in? Right on cue too. Looks like we are plumbing the oil system tonight after all.

 

Well things didn't go quite as planned. Par for the course fabricating a one off project from the seat of your pants. So I slipped the Moroso Oil Filter adapter in place tonight to have a look and this is what I see:


When it is fully engaged in the oil filter boss, you can only see 2/3rds of the ports. I got back online thinking I got the wrong pieces or something but what I had in my hand is what Moroso showed for my application. I downloaded the instructions and found in the small print...for BBC you have to grind the filter boss for clearance!
Thanks Moroso...(hey here's an idea) - how about just make one for a BBC!


So we covered everything we could and got out the old grinder...


...and POOF! I adapted my BBC for the Moroso BBC Adapter. LOL

 

So here is where I am this morning: Searching Springfield, MO for a "BBC remote oil filter kit"...
It should be obvious by that statement that things didn't get any better last night. After grinding the filter boss and installing the adapter and fittings (which fit absolutely perfect, thank you very much) we hit another small snag. It appears the fittings and ensuing hose work is going to interfere with the steering rod.

I tell you when you are working on a car this small and putting such large pieces in place, there is simply no room for error. Originally I was going to go the remote oil filter route as there are several things all fighting for space right there including the steering rod, clutch and brake master cylinders and mid engine mount etc. There was no reason to try and squeeze an oil filter and cooler lines in there when there was an alternative. I should have went with my first instinct. Oh well....easy fix.

 

So...to all of the above, add this stuff (all made in the USA)...


And what you have is the makings of a remote oil filter system with cooler. Basically I am going to plug the outlets in the stupid Moroso adapter that I worked so hard last night to install and screw the filter adapter from this Wix Kit on the bottom of it. Then we just have to mount the filter boss somewhere close by and plumb it up. If I remember correctly that is fairly close to what I said here yesterday before heading home...