At first glance, I thought my block was OK too. But upon further inspection we found a hairline crack that runs around the top of the main webs (common on 351w blocks). Whether the crack happened first or the crank let go first is a good question. Kind of like the age old question as to which came first the chicken or the egg? Been busy ALL this week assembling. Got part of the short block done. Won't be any different than the last one except 6.300" rods instead of 6.250's and 331 stroker pistons rather than the old 408 pistons. And of course the heads...which should be interesting. They might pose a whole new set of problems but I won't know until I get 'em.
If you woulda not went and ate at Long John Silver's earlier you'da been done. lol That was me that honked and waved... was in the Jimmy taking my son home.
DANG man, I'm telling you...I was in the drive up (in traffic) there at LJS for over 40 minutes! I couldn't go around either..not enough room. If I had been in the Merk I would have just pushed someone out of the way...I don't care if I put a dent in that old piece of junk. Yeah I saw you...by the time I realized it was you, you'd already passed by. I tried to catch up but the Lightning just couldn't hang with da Jimmy woulda been in the Merk but I just don't trust it yet going across town. Still need to replace the TPS and the ECT. It's kind of quirky and I hate sitting in traffic cause once in a while it'll idle up on it's own...and when it does, it spools the turbo and tries to take off. And theres about a million other things that need to be fixed on it too...but after this whole engine deal, cheap transportation is a priority.
You wouldnt've followed me far. lol I turned in at McDonalds. lol I started to pull the tranny out of my Honda today to replace the clutch but got pissed at it cuz i didnt even time to do it today before work. I put it back together and it drove better. lol I adjusted the clutch cable some more and drives almost like a new clutch. Seems it was just out of adjustment and not letting the clutch fully engage (pedal all the way to the top before it would go) and now its just barely off the floor before it starts to move. YAY! Saved myself $260 bucks on a clutch kit and flywheel. Looks like I'll be running exhaust on the mustang soon. lol I still haven't gotten that truck running tho. Its in time, rotor moves w/ the crank, getting fire, getting fuel, just will not crank. I even wired it up 180 out to see, and it'll backfire but it won't crank and run if its wired correctly. Im about to give up on it. Anyways, ya get that motor put back together for that Maverick yet?
Not yet. Short block is assembled. Going to wait for the heads before I put the motor plate, water pump, damper, etc...back on. Heads should be here probably wednesday according to UPS...that is...if UPS doesn't lose 'em.
AFR225. Kind of wanted to stay with teh Victor Jr's but the ones I had were not your average Jrs...they were the EARLY ones (the good ones) that had slightly different chambers, deeper spark plug location in relation to the chambers, and over the years, they had been milled quite a bit. Figured if I went with a new set of Jr's I'd have to have about .040" taken off to bring them to what I needed, plus have them opened up a little to match what I already have...by the time I spent that money on porting, springs, and milling, the 225's were cheaper. And the person I got the 225's from did a little bit of magic on them (his words, not mine) so who knows what they're going to do. The new AFR's are using LS1 valves now (8mm stems instead of 11/32) so that's a significant improvement. Lighter weight.....smaller dia means better flow. I ordered them without springs so I can use my springs and ti retainers. Hopefully it all works together. Only thing that I'm worried about is headers...the ports are raised about 1/4" higher than the Victor Jrs were and there was VERY little clearance before. BFH might fix that problem.
He already has a Mustang II frontend His car might as well be on a chassis... as its backhalfed, Mustang II and got connectors between 2 the 2.. Firewall moved back quite a bit also. Very little, if any of the original floor is left either. Basically the shell minus the flooring/firewall is only thing left factory maverick No inner fenders either
Got it all bolted in and up & running again. The headers were NO problem (well, just a little). The Stahl fenderwell headers that I had only had about 1/4" clearance under the car with the Victor Jr heads, and on the driver's side, the tubes were right up against the frame rail in one spot. Long story short, the passenger side bolted right on with no problem. Driver's side I had to ding 2 tubes just a little (BFH) and grind a very small amount of slag off of a weld down on the frame rail where I boxed it. No big deal, took about 45 minutes at the most. Heck, it didn't take 3 hours start to finish to bolt the engine in, transmission (from underneath) and have it up & running...and that was after 2 trips to the parts store and waiting for the header "gasket" to cure (copper RTV). The AFR heads have a little different sound. Idles louder, but running on meth only (gas primer is still waiting on a part) at a low idle (1200 RPM) it "chirps" so to speak, similar to what a pro stock big block sounds like. Kind of weird but I don't really concern myself with sound quality...if it runs and stays together for 3 races, I'm happy. Now if I could only figure out how to get a video from my camera to the computer. Stupid capture device doesn't work for some reason By the way most of the stock floor is still intact from where the firewall was back to where the back seat goes. From the back seat to the rear of the car is all custom made .040" aluminum. I chose to keep 90% of the stock floor because the way that it is pressed, it is very strong and adds rigidity to the chassis. Keep in mind that on these unibody cars, the only "frame" there is betwen teh front & rear frame rails is the floor and rocker boxes. That's it! So if you remove the stock floor, you had better brace the thing up or go with a full chassis. Mine is not a full chassis....stock front frame rails but I hung a M2 front suspension off of it. REar rails are some rails I got with a 4 link backhalf kit and I welded them all up here at home. Then there is a 2x3 box tube "connector" that runs THROUGH the floor in the middle, one on each side, that connects the rear subframe to the front frame. Then of course the 14 point cage to tie it all together. There's still a couple tubes I should add, and I will when time permits.
Gratz on getting it back together. I mentioned that your car was "basically" a tube chassis it had a front and back half and the connector bars. I was thinking you took more of the floor out of it, but now that I remember, you just made a removeable tranny hump that works great. Anxious to hear what the thing runs
Rick, yeah I ran it all weekend long. It did it's job. Am I impressed with the AFR225's?? Nope...nice heads, great quality and good port job (out of the box CNC port job) but they aren't much, if any faster than the Victor Jr's...which were also "out of the box". For as much hype as the AFRs get, the victor jr's are, IMO, a better value. What it amounted to was a 2-4 mph increase more or less. From 112 at the 1/8 mile to 115 and from 126 at the 100' to 130. ET wise, not much changed...it's about .05 quicker, but the track really sucked when the sun came out and the air temp was 88 and humidity about 90%....pretty sticky and made for less than ideal track conditions. Still went to the semi's though. Important part is that it's consistent just like it was before the little motor problem. Probably a little more consistent to be honest. I was dialing tight (like dialing what the car ran) and running the numbers all day until the semi round where I got out of the groove a little and lose .04...other racer ran a 7.622 on a 7.62 dial and I dialed 7.80 and ran 7.84
