----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, December 24, 2002 9:42
PM
Subject: [Chevelle-List] 350 buildup
progress
I don't
know if I every mentioned it but I picked up a nice four-bolt 350 pickup
truck motor a couple years ago and gave it to my nephew for Christmas with
the promise that we would tear it apart and learn how they work and maybe
even rebuild it if it turned out to be a good block &
crank.
My nephew
and I spent many an hour fooling around tearing it apart, cleaning, and
generally learning a lot about mouse motors in the process. Along
the way, we were lucky enough to meet a professional engine builder by the
name of Bob Thomas. He's a local guy that builds a variety of ordinary car
& truck motors and builds a handful of high performance engines every
year. If you can believe this, he sort of took my nephew under his wing and
over the last two years has basically taught that 15 year-old how to build
motors! Cool, eh? And it turned out that the block was in excellent shape,
as was the crank and heads, so we decided to rebuild it into a street
performance motor.
We had Bob
deck, bore & hone the block and, over the last few days (with
the hands-on supervision of Bob), installed the cam (a nice Edelbrock
Performer RPM grind), the crank, and a matched set of Keith Black
hyperutectic slugs. We took care to size the compression ring to each bore,
lubed all the lobes & bearings properly, and did all the other fine
detail work that should help make this engine live and long and happy life.
Last year we had picked up a set of Edelbrock Performer RPM heads, and
the matching Performer RPM intake and Edelbrock 750 carb.
With all these parts, the book says it should make 420 HP. We added Scorpion
roller rockers to the mix along with anti-pumpup lifters, 7/16ths studs, and
a couple other improvements over the Edelbrock crate
motor.
Now we have
a very nice motor sitting on an engine stand. Guess what we need??? So, if
anyone knows of a nice, clean Chevy that needs a motor - and that we could
pick up cheaply (my nephew's family is of very limited means) - I sure would
like to hear about it. I'd look at anything in the Nova or A body family
right up through 1985 or so. As long as it's RWD and will accept a SBC, we
are interested. We'd love to find a decent '65 Nova but we're sensible
people - if you hear of a low-rust body ANYTHING out there and are not
interested in it for yourself, please drop me a note. It was balanced for a
slushbox so I guess I'm looking for one of those, too! My nephew is a good
kid. If we find a car for this motor, he'll be paying for it and he'll be
paying me for the parts that went into the new engine. I gave him the
machine work and Bob's help for Christmas.
Thanks,
gents,
Eman
