rebuilding after the crash

No. It will move the forward reverse lever so far forward i won't be able to reach it. To move the lever back would require alot of fabrication. The rear mount would require extensive reworking. A longer drive shaft would be needed. So I will leave the empty case on the trans. As you know they are magnesium so they don't weigh much at all.
The other big reason for leaving it all in place is if I want to street drive it I need three speeds. The alterations would make hard to go back. The way I have it set up I can go back and forth if I chose to do so.

 

The 20th anniversary is going to be big. The owner of the track is reaching out to teams to make this race. They want every team there. With a bigger purse it will attract alot of cars. I will be eating dinner next week with Gerald the owner while at the pri show. I will get more details.

 

Man that really turned out fantastic. Car looks great with the new rubber in back and I can’t believe how good the wheel wells/ tubs look. Would not have thought of gold but it’s perfect.

 

The interior is gold and so is the panel in the trunk. It ties in with the gold leaf lettering. Putting too many colors on and it's starts looking like a circus wagon. I need to redo the wiring. The radiator supports can be seen in the pic. I didnt remove them so i can go street driving again if i want to

 

It was alot of work today. The Bruno was serviced along with the lenco. The lenco looked really good inside. The clutch pack needed .010 to put it in spec on the tight side. The gap was .090 thousands. The pressure was a perfect 46 pounds. New fluid went into both. Now it's time to pull the engine out.
The blower comes back on Thursday after a full service.

 

Green n gold go together well, just a variation of Lemon/Lime('55 Stude Speedster), a favorite color combo. Combined, = Roth Gold. .
As usual, car's lookin' nice. I really like how this paint glows in the sunlight.
Marcus...

 

Blower is back from a full service. At pri for the next few days.

 

May see you there tomorrow (Friday)

 

I came home from the pri show and got to work. I pulled it all apart. The heads looked good. They will get serviced soon. The blower and injector are back together.
I did find that number sevens second ring was pinched. This cylinder gave us trouble all year. New rings were ordered. The cylinders were honed. To do it right you need the right tools. That being a sunnen rigid hone and a 5/8 drill. The rigid hone will make a cylinder round if it scored or worn within reason. The max pressure is applied. Honing oil or wd-40 is used. The drill needs a tight grip. I do this work with the block in the chassis because its safer. Theres a chance of flipping a engine stand over. The hone only needs a few revolutions. Measuring before and after is a good idea. I went from .008 to .009 well within the allowable .012 they look great. This stone provides a rough finish. I follow up with a dingle ball hone to knock off the sharp edges. Again only a few revolutions are needed. Brake cleaner and rags until they are clean. Then coffee filters with atf until clean. The block will be removed on Wednesday.

 

I have a hurky old 1/2" Milwaukiee, the thing wants to hurt me every time I use it.

 

Xx2 , I was thinking same thing when seen earlier this morning ( drill)
Mid 80s Direct drive 1/2 or 3/4 chuck
Has hurt me More then few times , would catch , Broke secondary handle off stripping thread out ,
Even after letting off trigger ,keeps on spinning , pulling plug out of wall ,
Winding its self up!
Arm breaker !' After about five times ,
I only use to stir up pant / liquid.

I know honing is different than actually using it as a drill

 

When I was in the Automotive Machining program at Ferris State, we had a cradle to hold the block with the cylinders upright at floor level. Then the 5/8" drill motor was suspended from an arm with a counter balance spring over the block. The auxiliary handle was about 2' of 3/4" pipe.
We would have contests seeing who could hone a cylinder round and straight the fastest. The coarse stones were run dry. Took a bit of muscle to manhandle that thing and you'd better be paying attention so you didn't hang the hone on the main webs.

 

My son graduated from Ferris with a automotive degree. Works for Chrysler. Prior to that he won the national championship in automotive during high school.

 

Cool on your son.

 

Dad has a similar drill. It came out of an old drill press. All aluminum body, direct drive, no clutch. We had to drill out some old, old concrete to install a drain pipe. Burnt out his normal hammer drill, so we decide to use the drill press drill. 2' of water pipe on the handle. It bit, threw me off the handle and kept spinning until it had wrapped up all the cord and pulled the plug. That thing is like a 9" grinder... it spends its days idle, thinking of ways to maim me.

Cheers,
Harv

 

I mentioned having the right tools. We all know how important they are. For measuring the bore there are a few options. A snap gauge and micrometer is the least accurate. It will get you close. Then there is the inside micrometer. This is much more accurate. The rods are one inch longer than the other. The micrometer is built in it's the rods that change. There is a third option that being a dial bore gaue. The accuracy depends on the quality of the gauge. You get what you pay for.
The engine came out today. Only the crank needs to be removed.

 

My buddy Jim that gifted the vette to me was over helping out. Jim is a retired tool and die maker. He is so exited to use his skills on a nitro hemi. He says he can't wait to tell his friends what he was doing today. It makes me happy to see him happy. He has alot of knowledge to share. He teaches me alot. I don't take it for granted.
The block wouldn't fit the way we wanted. We tried several things. We ended up using square tubing to extend the deck. A tap was screwed into a hole for indexing. It was within .0005. The stud holes in the deck on the exhaust side are pulling threads out. I have heli coiled three already this season. The high heat on this side of the block softens the aluminum. I have already gone from a half inch stud to nine sixteenths. The heli coils have not pulled out. So we are doing the rest now. Pulling a stud will result in a blown gasket. We check the head bolt torque after each pass

 

A question heli core
What type are you using
The spring stlye
Or the
Self locking type ? Solid OD thread with ID thread

 

Spring style. They work just fine. The solid style is larger on the od. We don't want to remove too much material. If for some reason the spring style fails we would consider the solid option.

 

Dumbass Helicoil question. I use the spring type. There are MANY manufacturers that sell the spring inserts, often with the tool kits to install them. Brands are similar to Recoil or Powercoil. Same design, often advertised as helicoil. They are very cheap-to-moderate-priced, but used in most workshops Down Under. My mental model says that the cheap stuff can only be as good as you pay for. I go out of my way to buy genuine Helicoil inserts, paying double the amount (or more) and sometimes having to import them from the US.

Am I being over-cautious?

Cheers,
Harv

 

I have only used heli coil brand inserts. I think they were recently bought out by stanley.

 

They also make a coil to fix a coil that went bad. One goes inside the other. This is what I use.

 

Thanks. I bought Helicoil fine and coarse master kits years ago, and keep topping them up with the genuine inserts and some weird sizes for one-off jobs. Looks like I'll keep buying the genuine inserts.

Hope you get a good break over Christmas. Looks to have been pretty busy between work and the car. All the best for you and the family for Christmas and the New Year.

Cheers,
Harv

 

Man I really love this thread. Thanks for putting in the extra work/effort of keeping it going for us all.

 

I'm glad you like it. There is so much going on that's not posted.

 

It's very enjoyable reading everything that is posted, I feel like I have learned a lot by following this thread! Thank you for taking the time and the effort to educate us.

 

I second having learned a lot reading this thread. It’s not just the how to go fast info that makes it a great read either. I have a blower and was going to just bolt it on and let it eat. I thought about some of the discussion and chose to have it checked out properly. Turns out it would have been ok, but in talking to the expert, I learned a lot and found out running a competition blower on a street car can turn out badly if the blower wasn’t properly clearanced for gas. The attention to detail in this thread convinced me close enough wasn’t good enough. Keep up the good work!

 

I learn stuff here too. The art of nitro is a tribal knowledge thing, I think because there are so many guys that can't express what they know. Thank you Brian for taking the time to share it here. Yes, the fuel you run dictates the clearance in the blower. Alky can run tight, Gas needs loose. Also, I wish I had known about Brian's manifold truing process eons ago. I had a 454 with a Weiand maifold and a 6-71 and it was very finicky about blower tightening.

 

I used Brian's process for my intake when I built the blower mill in my coupe. I think a lot of us have learned from Brian. He has been very generous sharing his journey. Thanks again Brian, and Merry Christmas.