680HPStroker

Glasstek will be your best bet for your cowl hood. I don't know them personally, but folks here swear by them. I have a 4" VFN bolt on hood. I wouldn't send my worst enemy to those folks for a bolt on hood. Maybe a pin on is different as a lot of racers use them. VFN wouldn't even work with me when my hood came out of the crate warped. Live and learn.

Dominator carb with Victor Jr, or 454R and stock hood go by by. Trust me on this. I measured it and then tried it with my stock hood way back when and it wasn't even close. With a 4" cowl hood I had room for a 2" HVH carb spacer, 3" tall 16" air cleaner assembly with room to spare. Now I want a cruiser motor with a hydraulic roller cam, 850 carb, Eddy air-gap intake, heat, and air conditioning. Go figure. I must be getting old.

Looks awesome David. When my tranny guy istalled the Ultra Bell on my Turbo 400 I don't remember him saying anything about BOP ears. Maybe he just took care of it and did not bother mentioning it. Although I haven't ran the car yet between the bellhousing, 900HP Mid-West Converter(expensive little bugger), and my Carpenter Enterprises lower tranny shield brackets I don't think I'd have to worry to much about the number of passes I make, or how hard I beat the car. I've been told numerous times to replace the driveshaft with an Aluminum SFI one and run this beast as everthing else in the powertrain of my car is ultra strong.

Torque Tech is the stuff.

Sounds like an exellent platform to start with. I take it your block uses sleeves. I'm not familiar with your heads, but if they are oval ports I'd stay on the smaller cube side(454-468) for a street/strip motor. 480+ cubes with square port heads can be a little lazy on the street, but awesome if you are winging it down the track at 6,500+ rpm's. I take it your intake is similar to a Eddy Victor jr. As far as your crank goes Callies is an exellent choice, but unless you have really deep pockets their Compstar 4340 is more than up to the task. For my money Weisco makes the best forged BB pistons you can buy. I agree with both David and Mike that a custom grind cam from someone like Chris Straub would optimize your combo. I don't like cookie cutter camshafts. I know you already know this, but no single roller timing chain assemblies. don't forget the titanium retainers for your valve train. The last thing I can think of is once you decide what you are going to use this beast for make sure your whole fueling system from the tank through the carb is up to the task. Quick Fuel is probably your best bet, but if it's a mild build a 850 Holley HP carb will do just fine. I've learned a lot with the three incarnations of my 489 and if I ever take mine down will go smaller on the cam, carb, and smaller on the heads as well as an oval port design and will make more useable real world power for the street. I hope this offers you some insight.

Exactly. That's the difference between a stock 12-bolt and a race ready 12-bolt/9" hybrid.

Been there, done that with three different 700R4 trannies. To answer your question, yes it will fit. It doesn't matter who rebuilt it, or how long ago the problem lies in the fact that a 700R4 with stock strength internals can only stand up to 300HP max. There are lots of high strength aftermarket parts out there for your tanny, but they cost. The sunshell is the weakest link and as a minimum you need one called the beast(that will get you to around 500HP). There are ones that are stonger, but they cost more money. A properly prepared 700R4 that will stand up to a maximum of 700 pound foot of torque(that's pushing it) will cost you at least $2K and that doesn't include the torque converter. I don't car what anyone says power costs money period and you can pay now, or pay later after you have blown through a virtually stock tranny at least once. Best thing to do is to get with a local builder who has extensive experience in building performance/race 700R4 transmissions. Anything else is a waste of time. You could just keep what you have as a backup and purchase a already built unit from someone like Gearstar, or PATC that have solid reputations in building hard core 700's. Another option is to for go the 700 and go straight to a 4L80(think turbo 400 with an overdrive). If you require automatic shifts you will have to buy the electronic control module. A 4L80 is expensive, but like a turbo 400 it is brutally strong right out of the box to the tune of around 900HP stock. The three 700's I had were one that was a little stonger than stock behind a 475HP 383 stroker. Second was behind a 575HP 489BB that was even stronger and the final one was behind a 650HP 489BB that had the strongest parts on the planet at the time along with a $700.00 torque converter. I only switched to a turbo 400 because I thought I was going racing and after 40+ dyno thrashings I started to get a little concerned. Hope this helps.

QA1 for the shocks and if they don't sell everything else they will point you to who best compliments their awesome shocks.

You will get lots of opinions from folks and manufactures will tell you to use this, but don't use that, so who do you trust? I rely on folks that have been building and rebuilding rearends for both the track and the street for many years. Two guys I trust say they have never had any issues with synthetic gear lube and todays high dollar synthetics already have the friction modifier already in it. I bought into the conventional oil only when I had my rearensd put together due to the guy who built my custom carrier kept banging it home to use only Lucas conventional oil. Since getting my axle seals fixed for hopefully the last time I've switched to Royal Purple and I don't anticipate ever having any issues with my rearend. Just my $0.2

Thank David. I'll have to check my MSD mini starter and make sure everything is tight.

After four 30, or so mile trips my axle seals are still bone dry. As far as the carb tune goes I have mixed reviews. It idles better and cruises a little smother, but lays over more on hard acceleration from highway speeds. It did that a little bit with the 73 jets, but it was to be expected with a manual shift tranny with a big solid roller cam. The lay over(hesitation) might be from the accelerator pump setting. Brian set the clearance to Holley specs minus a few thousands, but the carb might like the pump on kill with zero clearance. I'll be going back to 73 jets and setting the pump to zero to check and I've specked out my wheels and Mickey Thompson drag radials fo next year. Brian said he would help me tweak the monte to run the best possible ET it can and show me the ropes at the track. My fear in all this is I'll get bit by the race bug and I'll end up cutting up my car if for nothing else to put a six point roll bar in. Once I do that next I'll want to run down into the 10's and my pocketbook can't afford to replace broken parts from running NO2. Somehow I'll have to find the restraint to just be happy where I'm at, but that isn't my nature.

I mostly agree with all responces to your question. HVH makes a spacer called a Super Sucker that is open at the top and tapered at the bottom(maybe it's the other way around), but either way with a high HP engine with 10:1, or better compression you will make significant gains on top end and if you have a high stall torque converter any bottom end losses will be insignificant.

Axles seals are fixed. Problem with second set was they were installed improperly(wrong tool and a little deep). As for the first set the only theory is that maybe my car sits for too long and after five years there becomes a wear spot where oil can get by. It's just a theory, but it's all we got. The car has been driven twice for thirty minutes since the seals were put in and so far everything is bone dry. Brian backed off on the jets in the carb from 73 to 71. If my plugs(switched from NGK to Autolite Racing) look better after some time on them problem solved. He also changed out my accelerator pump as it was leaking. You would think that a company like AED would have used the neoprene pump that comes in a Holley trick kit, but it had a standard dominator pump. To top it all off Brian is delivering my car to my house tonight so I can have it for a car show tomarrow. You can't beat that with a stick. We talked about my driveline vibration. It's the same one I've had since this drivetrain went in five years ago. Brian has determined as I believed that it's not in the motor, but in the driveline. So either the driveshaft has been out of balance since day one, or due to it's mild steel tubing it is either transmitting harmonics, or making some of it's own. Soon I hope to be getting a new aluminum driveshaft from either Mark williams, or Denny's Driveshafts. According to Brian based on experience with some of his race cars an aluminum shaft balanced correctly will solve any harmonics issues not associated with the motor. I might wait until I can pull the string for the Gear Vendors overdrive. That way the shaft is made up only one time. We will see. If I do spend another $3K on this car that put's me over $40K invested in it. At that point if not already I'm stuck with this car for life, but that's not really a bad thing.

That's good to know Davey. I wan't going mention it here as I was having an off line discussion with David Breese, but Pro-Systems responded to my post by saying that I don't make enough HP for them to help me and they didn't even offer to do anything to my carb, or offer to sell me one of there standard Holley design carbs. They said that currently they aren't building SV1's any smaller than 1,100CFM and you need a minimum of 700HP to use one. The guy who is working on my axle seal issue stated that he has a friend who bought a SV1 in 1,050CFM a while back to put on a 505 street/strip motor he had built, but never actually got it all together and is now selling the carb NIB for $900,00 . Brian at the shop says he might just buy it and test on one of his big power ford motors. We even discussed testing it on my motor as the 505 isn't built much different than my 489, but I opted to just let him play with my carb for now because as company I'm not all that impressed with the Pro-Systems customer service and I haven't even bought anything from them yet and they chased me away.

Well my car finally goes in tonight to have this axle seal issue put to bed once and for all. I'm getting my carb tweaked a little as well. If my new guy is even close to being the mechanic/tuner my last guy was it will be a good run for as long as it lasts. There still might be some test and tune nights in me yet as I've had the car set up for five years now and if something breaks maybe I won't feel as bad. I know I'm dreaming, but it makes me feel better.

I signed up on Pro-Systems website and made a post. I'm waiting to se what they come back with and I'll go from there. Thanks guys.

David you have a pm.

Dave, no harm, no foul. I just hate to see folks get tunnel vison and lock themselves into one, or two brands without exploring other options.

Yesterday I got wind of Pro sytems SV1 carb. For all of us big cubic inch motor guys both small and big block that have big power these carbs look as though they are the ticket to no longer having to deal with all the issues associated traditional 4 barrel carbs. A mechanic I just hooked up with who is going to put my axle seal issue to bed once and for all swears by this carb. He has installed and tuned a good number of them and knows several racers and big power street guys that have them and they all love them. At $1,200.00 a piece their pricey, but if you have already spent &700.00, or more on a conventional style carb and are still playing with it to get it right the money spent might be well worth it to basically set it once and be done with it. I'm going to start saving my pennies and get one. It will solve all my idle and annual plug fouling issues in one shot. After hearing this and the prospect of having my rearend fixed for good I'm actually getting interested in my car again. This year with all the rain I've mostly been riding the piss out of my Triumph Rocket III bike. Peace.

To each their own, but I wouldn't trade my Torque Tech X-pipe system with Dynomax mufflers for nothing. It growls loudly when you stomp on it, but has deep mellow tone while cruising and NO interior resonance.

Thanks David. Your number one two and five are possible, but three and four have been checked already. Number five I'm not to sure about as the whole setup was golden for five years and now all of a sudden I'm having issues and I'm not very hard on parts(yet).

My GM 12-bolt housing was modified five years ago with weld on bearing housing ends to get rid of the factory c-clip setup. The shop that did the work is the same shop I've been dealing with for years and everything up until this has been golden. Now after five years my axle seals on both sides started leaking. The same shop replaced the axle seals with the exact same brand/part# seal as what was used during the initial setup of my rearend(only accepts this particular seal). Within two weeks the driver side seal is leaking yet again. I talked to the company I bought all my rearend parts from(Tom's Axles) and he believes that the jig used to do the setup was not running true, or I have a twisted housing. I'm not convinced on the jig theory as the same jig has been used for many modifications/installs with no issues. Ed at the shop is going to replace the seals one more time and really go over everything with a fine tooth comb to see if there is something going on with wear, twisting, or something else like possibly just a bad seal, or he installed it wrong. If it is revealed that he(Ed) did something wrong at any point in his work on my 12-bolt he will take care of it at no cost to me. If Ed doesn't come up with anything it is either beyond the scope of his expertise(I doubt that), or the housing is a little tweaked. If the housing is the issue I'll have to bite the bullet and get a new one(not used) and just transfer everything over from my old rear. Curry Enterprises has a housing that comes with the weld on housing ends already installed for around $800.00 . I just don't get after all this time something is going on now. I've never raced my car and I overpower the chasis so much with street tires that I just go up in smoke from a stop so there has never been all that much stress on the rearend. I guess it's time to dig the money pit just a little bit deeper. If I go down this road unless someone comes along and offers me over $25K for my car I'm stuck with it for life. Any ideas out there? Sorry to be so long winded.

Hey Scott don't worry about your power brakes being an issue with a big cam. Heck mine is .702 lift solid roller and with a canister my power brakes work just fine. All you have to do is bump the idle up a little. I run about 800RPM in gear and no brake issues. If I had it to do all over again my build would have been milder, but I had intentions of going racing. Now that isn't going to happen. With a Dominator carb, 4,000 stall converter, and a reverse manual valve body I can still cruise just fine.

After many a frustrating time at car shows and cruise inns over the years with my GM Performance valve covers no one will mistake my engine anymore. I finally had the set of marine tall valve covers I bought about six months ago ceramic coated and installed them on my BB. I must say they give my engine a totally different look. It looks much more menacing now. The ceramic coating is nice and shiny, but not quite the luster of chrome. It's actually a nice contrast with my polished aluminum, chrome, and black engine compartment.

If you go with 295/55/15 even with 5.5" of back spacing IMHO you are asking for trouble that is not worth the risk. A 275/60/15 is plenty wide with just enough clearance to be asured nothing will ever rub and cut a tire. If you just have to have more tire options just trim the wheel well lip and be done with it. Good luck.