Loud Sigh from Murff's House

Got home from work a few minutes ago, message on the answering machine from the local Speed Shop.

IT"S DONE!

All machine work, balancing, heads, intakes, all DONE.

Folks, I dropped this stuff off in January. None of the delay was due to the shop, all delays were caused by parts vendors.

There were multiple issues found with the former machinsts work that cause me to believe there were many, many ponies left in the stable, and a few things came to light that were previously unknown to me that shed a lot of light as to why I was never able to get a tune on that thing.

But now it's done. I will pick everything up on Saturday and then the real fun begins. Assembly time. I plan to take a week of vacation to accomplish the long block assembly and then move on to the little remaining items from there.

With a little bit of good fortune and a tail wind we might be ready to fire this sucker up by late June and actually get down the track in July.

Big sigh.

Wow, I wish I had a project to take a weeks vacation to be working on it....

May have to invent a project, maybe Body work on my stang.... but that is one I don't want to do... engines are more fun...

Enjoy your vacation. I am sure you will have it running by the end of the week... Right?

I'm very happy for you! Good to see average Joe can still have fun too! Is your son in the states now to share in the good fortune?

Originally Posted by v8shadow

I'm very happy for you! Good to see average Joe can still have fun too! Is your son in the states now to share in the good fortune?

Who's Joe?

No, my son is still in the shi...umm, sandbox. Has leave in a couple of months but tour isn't up until early 2009.

Hopefully tho' this sucker will stay glued together long enough for some testing and then I can put him in it for next summer. He's on one of those duties that allows him to choose his base when he returns, so he's going to opt for the local Army base, Ft. Lewis. Close to home, I like that.

Tons of work to do and I am really getting antzy to get started. Told the boss today that I am taking Memorial Day week off to work on the engine. Fortunately he's a gearhead too and has been pretty patient with me grousing all winter about piston vendors, cam grinders, former machine shops, etc., etc.

Thanks for the good wishes.

Murff, I'd like to know what the machine shop found which was no good.
If it's posted somewhere else, please give us a link.

Murff, if you PM me his mailing address over there, I would like to send him a little something.

Pictars needed for the literary challenged!

Alright, that is just too funny!

Originally Posted by BlueOvalBandit

Pictars needed for the literary challenged!

Paparazzi, everywhere I go. The demands are almost overwhelming.

Too soon for pix, still in the cleaning and painting stage, but here's a bit of a teaser:



This is just a rough up of how I am going to re-route my injector lines. Didn't like the way they used to look so time for something different. Distribution block ued to mount under the upper portion of the intake, now relocated to back of the hat. Mechanics wire for fuel lines, and the intakes haven't been cleaned up or painted yet. Not even bolted together. Holes in the intake are where the injectors use to be. I did a little horse trading for these adpater plates that were already setup for injection. These plates came off of a front engine dragster known as the Kansas Twister. These plates were used on their 408W and helped propel them to some mid 8 second passes. They retired the 408 and have now moved to a hemi and the plates were gathering dust, so the deal was made.

Former machinist issues were primarily head related. First thing that was found was that the springs were not installed correctly, shims underneath them were pretty much wadded up and serving no purpose. Springs were dead. Second issue was that the intake valves were +.100 and the exhaust were stock length. This in itself may not have been an actual problem, although I have no idea why the different lengths. These were new heads when prepped. However, since I did not know there were two lengths I did not install two differemt length pushrods. I set up off of an intake valve and called it macaroni.

Last major item found was vendor related. Last summer I killed a couple of rods and the crank, plus a few other connected parts. New rods and crank were ordered and installed. I was in a major hurry to get this back together last fall and took a shortcut. Didn't cost me, but would have had I continued to run it. I did not have the rotating assembly balanced. I rolled the dice and took the chance.

Problem that was discovered at the balancer was that I had a 50 ounce crank in a 28 ounce box. Balancer took a lot of time getting this thing balanced up cirrectly this time.

Last machinist cost me a bit les than 1/2 of what this machinist did, but current machinist is a drag racer and fully comprehends the intended use of this engine. I will never again use a machine shop that does not race for machine work on an engine I intend to race. Lesson learned.

I won't name the former machine shop, but I will name the current shop for anyone in the Western Washington area: G & M Honest Performance in Federal Way, WA. 253-838-7070, G&M Honest Performance - Seattle's best source of performance parts and machine work!. These guys run one of the last remaining Speed Shops in the area and they know their stuff. I have used them for parts in the past but this is the first time for machine work. So far I am quite pleased.

As I progress I will post up more pics in the Making Progress thread. Maybe even a tech article on mechanically injecting alcohol into a stock block Windsor, and the associated results.

Hey Murff,
I'll be back in town soon again38 days. We'll have to hook up. I can drive the cougar up to meet ya. Hopefully we get some good weather this summer. I got lots of auto detailing to knock out.