Martin, Nice job man! I keep following this as I have a 324 to put together this spring. By the way, Tony sells factory correct paint that he has mixed for him by a paint manufacturer. Rattle can or bulk FWIW.
Thanks again guys, your comments mean a lot to me. I picked up the paint yesterday, it'll be "Sun Dance" Candy Gold: Now I'll just have to wait out the winter storm, and for the weather to be a little warmer. Then I'll throw some paint on it and make this thing shiny!
They calles for 5 inches over night and another foot during the day. But we've already got a foot over night, so we'll see... Good thing work is closed, so I'll get some garage time in!
Very nice choice of color - will it be 2-tone or just plain gold-candy? And of course love your documentation on the motor which looks killer. Will need to redo my motor soon. Keep it up, Jan
Yes, it's sun dance candy over the gold base you see to the left on the chart. Thanks for your kind words!
Advice? Like others said clean! Check everything!!! All clearances, specs, ect. Don't assume anything, don't assume new parts are good and the right size-check and re-check.
Made some more progress. Got the right length pushrods in, so I could get my rockers installed and the heads torqued down. Found a nice fuel pressure regulator that I want to use. The cool thing is, that it's got two fuel outlets, which makes it perfect for my 2x2 setup! And then I got the first batch of powder coated parts in: Finally yesterday I got a box from McMaster with casters for my engine stand and a bunch of hardware. Then I decided to try to get the exhaust studs out after all, since I want to fabricate headers for it instead of using the stock manifolds like initially planned. Well the first one snapped right off, so I need to figure a way to get it out. Spent 2 hours yesterday with no luck. Really sucks now that engine is basically finished... I'm thinking the other studs will stay in there, even though it'll look like shit!
Wow! I don't know how I missed this thread before, but I just read through it...the whole thing! The motor looks great, Martin. Good on you for doing it yourself!
Picked up an Eelco valley pan cover today, so I figured I'll show the difference between all the ones I got. Eelco - Vintage Speed - O'Brien Truckers Eelco: Vintage Speed: O'Brien Truckers: The O'Brien is at least twice as heavy as the other ones, and the Vintage speed is small at the Distributor bend. Not sure if it'll even cover the hole and make a good seal. The Eelco is the better one out of the bunch. I'll try to clean it up a little and use it on this engine. I also got my engine stand finished welding. The plan is to use it for cam break in. It'll have gauges, radiator, battery and all the other stuff mounted to it.
really enjoying reading this i am hoping to do the same thing here on my 324 next year. have a few questions was the block just bored and decked or did you have anything else done. what all was done to the heads, hardened seats, 3 angle valve job.? did tony do a custom grind on the cam based on your 2x2 setup. my engine is in over all good condition so it shouldn't need bored out unless i want to. i have a dual quad setup i want to run on mine. was going to budget about 2k for the build but dont know if that's high or low, any help in the cost department would be greatly appreciated. i am going to try my hand at building headers also, i modeled up header flanges on the computer and had them plasma cut out of some 3/8" plate and bought some stubs formed to fit the square ports then just buy a header kit to weld them up. was thinking i would try to make them like the old fenton style headers. mike
Mike, The block has been decked .013 and the bores are .083 over. That's what it took to clean it up. Check on the hardened seats. Oversized stainless valves and new guides in the heads. Also took .020 off the heads to get an approximate compression ratio of 9:1. Fistons are forged and had to be custom since the bores took so much to clean up. Big chunk of the money went into those. Yes, Tony did a custom ground cam for my 2x2 setup. I've posted the cam spec earlier in this thread. Your dual quad look nice! Is that a Weiand intake? Would you mind sending me the .step file of your flanges? That would save me some time I'm also planning on building my own headers, but haven't looked into the details yet. Thanks for following along!
the model for the header flange will work for both sides but i wanted to do another one for the passenger side to incorporate a mount for the generator, forgot to include that when i first did it. if you want let me know a e-mail and i will send you the step file. good eye, the intake is a weiand took me a little bit to figure it out when i got it someone ground off the name and painted it green. mike
Been waiting for the weather to get nicer so we can finally paint that sucker. Hell it was snowing yesterday! But looks like maybe this weekend. I got this figured out in the mean time:
My buddy Adam came by today, and we put some paint on this thing. Here is a little preview: More once I get some more shine parts on there. Big thanks to Adam, it turned out better than I imagined, thanks to him.
This is pure ART! The plumbing on those gas lines is outstanding! I can't wait to see it finished. It would have been right at home on the cover of an old HRM!