Project thread:1972 street/strip restomod

looking good

 

Knocking out the engine bay (Nov 2012): As the previous posts show, we were taking the engine bay down to bare metal. So here are some more pics of knocking out the engine bay.

The first pic is looking through the radiator opening at the firewall and down the tunnel. I thought it was a cool view of all the shiny metal

 

Finishing up the brakes (Dec 2012): With the engine bay done, we could get the brakes finished up. I got a M/C for disc/drum and a new correct prop valve. All brake lines were replaced as well as new brake hoses. Brake restoration and upgrade complete!

 

Really nice job on the tower work

 

Yep ... Credit goes to Bruce for all the metal fab and welding work.

 

Sub-frame connectors and floor patches (Dec 2012): I got a pair of mustang rear floor patches and some 2X2 tube and Bruce made some connectors and patched the rear floors.

I can't seem to find many pics. No biggie. Anyway, here's a couple of in-progress shots to prove I'm not making this stuff up.

 

Power Plant: Along the time that I bought the '74, I ran across an ad for a rebuilt 351W. I checked it out and figured it would work for me so I bought it ... but there was a bit of a story.

This engine had been assembled in 1999 for a 196? ranchero project that never happened. The bottom end was from a 1984 truck. The crank was turned .10 under. The stock truck rods were reused and the assembly was balanced. Got some 9.5:1 pistons with valve reliefs. On the top end, it's got Edelbrock performer RPM heads and intake and a 600 CFM Edelbrock 1405 carb. We'll see how long that carb stays:16suspect

Anyway, since the engine had been assembled about 14 years ago, we thought it would be prudent to tear it down and inspect. Also the paint was chipping badly so that got cleaned up and the bottom end was repainted. We did replace the Edelbrock ACCUdrive gear set with a timing chain set. (No thank you!)

I'm thinking (hoping?) maybe 350-385 HP and 360-400 TQ at the flywheel on pump gas. I hope this makes a good base for a reliable street/bracket car for a little Friday night playtime.

Here are a couple of pics. Don't be fooled ... the Crites headers have to come off before the engine can be installed (but many of you already knew that)

 

I don't know how I missed this thread. Your car looks awesome! also love the story to everything. That's the best part of working on cars. The experiences you have while doing it! The pictures are great too! :Handshake

 

My Cleveland has been sitting 2 years now completely assembled with break in lube on everything and the pan filled with Joe Gibbs break in oil so I'm interested in what your engine looked like when you tore it down to "take a looK"

 

Wow, that is very cool!

 

To get to your Hp & TQ goal,you will need a cam w` 230 to 240 duration & at least a 550 lift.It would`nt idle that well but you could go w/ a 110 to 114 lobe separation angle which will help make it more streetable.

 

It had light surface rust all over that needed to be taken care of. I can't say that is a gauge for your situation. All depends on how your's was stored and climate conditions I suppose. For my situation, it was a no brainer to pull it apart.

Those numbers are more a prediction than a goal ( I did say hoping LOL). I was basing it on an Edelbrock dyno chart since my build pretty much matches their build. They got 400 HP and 412 TQ. They did use a 1407 carb (750 CFM) but like I said, the 600 I currently have is going to be going bye-bye.
The motor is what it is and I will live with whatever I get out of it.

Thanks for the feed back.

 

Everytime I talk to my engine builder about this, he keeps saying to just keep it sealed and don't worry about it - I hope he's right

 

I am sorry it has taken so long to reply to the motor reassembly subject. The condition of the engine when it arrived at my shop was the short block was assembled with the oil pan and timing cover bolted on and the cam and gear drive installed and new lifters in the lifter bores. The top end of the engine was in boxes. The heads and intake were lightly used but in good shape. The Edelbrock carb appeared new but had been sitting a long time and was covered on the outside with white dusty corrosion along with the intake. The Edelbrock aluminum valve covers were stained and corroded as well.

The short block was somewhat dirty from sitting around in a basement with dirt and mud dabber nests in all of the open bolt holes. At this point it was decided to disassemble the short block and give everything a thorough cleaning. When I tore the block down everything had been cleaned and assembled with assembly lube but most of it had hardened and was probably not going to provide much lubrication. Another result of how the short block was stored is that all of the internal surfaces of the block were covered with surface rust which was like little rust grains that could be scrubbed off. The crank and rod bearings were new and the crank was nice and smooth and I measured the crank and it checked out as .010 undersize along with the bearings. The pistons had new rings on them but they had accumulated what appeared to be an assembly lube that had hardened up and the rings were not free to move.

Once I had the engine completely disassembled I went about the process of cleaning everything. The biggest job was toughly cleaning the block which had been machined; all the cylinder bores looked good with a nice cross hatch pattern in them. I spent many hours scrubbing the block with HOT SOAPY water and using a bottle brush assortment and an electric drill scrubbed all the cylinder and lifter bores. Then I used a brush and scrubbed the inside of the block in as many nooks and crannies as I could. I rinsed the block out with cold water and then used compressed air and blew out as much of the water as I could and used a heat gun to dry everything. Lastly I sprayed about 2 cans of WD40 and soaked everything. I finished cleaning up all of the subassemblies and reassembled everything.

I installed the gear drive that came with the engine and filled the engine with 30W oil and a bottle of Lucas zinc oil additive to aid in the flat tappet cam break-in. I also used liberal amounts of Comp Cams cam assembly lube when I put in the camshaft. The initial break-in went off without a hitch. The only real issue was the gear drive which in my opinion was loud and I never really like the loud noise. Jamie came over to see and hear the engine and we agreed to swap the gear drive for a double roller timing chain.

So far I have been debugging the car and have burned up about a tank of gas and everything is running OK. The engine and AOD trans and 4.11 8” rear and brakes are working nice. I hope I didn’t just jinx things. At about 60mph the engine it turning about 2000 rpm which is a nice cursing speed. I have set up an appointment to get the front end aligned on Monday and after that I intend on going for a good long drive at around 100 miles round trip.

The last things to get done are finish up the interior and patch the two lower rear quarter panels. Then there’s the decision on the exterior paint color and stripe scheme. The wheels and tires that Jamie picked out I think look really sharp and his decision to lower the front and back suspension about 1” really make the car sit really nice. I think when the car is done he will have a really nice curser car and with the 351W and 4.11 rear gear the car so far seems to have pretty good power, more power than he has traction I can say from experance.

 

I realize this is an old thread but did you ever complete this project and/or have any recent finished pics?