Heckeng

Hi everybody it has been a while but I figured I would see what was gooing on on the forum and found my favorite topic! I have done some videos for this purpose on youtube. If you search for Scott Heck or 1971 Monte Carlo you will probably find them. I recorded a couple different sets of flowmaster mufflers, with and without tailpipes, spintech mufflers, and magnaflows. The flowmaster without tailpipes definitely sounds the best but it was LOUD. I have the magnaflow now and like them a lot. Spintech did not impress me at all unfortunately. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-9QYhaA_VA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlWalKMmsMo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7ZcS4HTmgY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbVU_ZCF0AY

You guys are right, the dogbone lifters won't work because of the maching being lacking. The retainer plate/spring will also not work. I have heard that the older blocks WERE drilled for a retaining plate type of cam retention system which the Gen 6 uses. I actually like that cam quite a bit for street driving. It is easy on parts and it makes decent power for what it is. Also, being smaller in duration it will help keep compression higher than a larger cam. Get some good Morel lifters, a retainer plate, and you will be good to go.

Freakin' awesome Mike. Congrats!

I agree with Sam, keep the converter, swap the gears. I would shoot for some 3.42's or something like that.

That will be a blast to actually drive places Royce. I had 2.73 gears with my 454 for many years and it had plenty of torque to get going, and the highway was actually pleasurable compared to my 3.55 gears currently.

Actually I was just talking with Al. . . I'll be talking with Davey soon too :-)

Hey Mark, you need to think of your carb as a multi-stage fuel mixing unit. 1: At idle, you are running on idle fuel ports and very slightly on idle mixture slots. 2: cruising, and off idle, say starting around 2000rpm ish, you start getting a good signal to the venturi which pulls gas from your main jets AND you are getting a better signal at the idle transfer slots. 3: If you have a double pumper, eventually the linkage will start to engage the secondaries so those jets will kick in. 4: If you nail the gas and get a large enough drop in vacuum, the power valve channel starts adding fuel too. If you tune your carb in steps, starting with the first step I described, the idle and cruise will be set and good to go, then you tune the next step and you are still good at idle and cruise/off idle, then you tune the secondaries and PV and you are good to go theoretically in all rpm ranges. So, if you are fat at idle/cruise, you will need to adjust the idle fuel port, idle transfer slots, and maybe or maybe not the primary jetting. At cruise on lower rpms, you may not be getting much signal through the venturi which would mean that the main jets aren't doing anything anyway so if you adjust them, it won't matter much. The idle fuel port would be the main one to adjust. This can be adjusted by either adding a restrictor (small jet) or adjusting an existing restrictor if your carb already has them. On top of all of this are the air bleeds which add confusion to things and unless you are doing major changes, I'd not mess with them much if any. I have had great luck starting at step one and adjusting idle and cruise using the idle feed restrictor which can actually restrict both the idle fuel port and the idle transfer slot. This might be a good topic to actually have a phone conversation if you want some time :-)

Ok, I am considering upgrading my rear end but am not sure if I really want to or not. There are three reasons I would upgrade: 1. To get a housing with ford style housing ends 2. To replace my existing 1310 yoke with a 1350 unit (unnecessary but I would upgrade if I changed) 3. Simply to get one that was all clean and degreased The housing ends are the real issue for me. I am at the level that I really think I ought to get rid of the c-clips but I don't want to get c-clip eliminators as the car is 99% street driven and I would feel better with new ends either welded on my rear or a new housing. The issue I would have holding me back is that I already have a decent amount of money tied up with it. It has Moser axles, an Eaton posi, Richmond 3.55 gears (that don't make any noise) and a nice aluminum cover What would a 12 bolt chevy rear go for with these features? I may try selling mine and swapping in a new one: I can do a Moser 12 bolt with trutrac diff, axles, and cover for around $3000 which seems pretty expensive, I can get a Moser 9" for our car for $1500 plus the center section. I can get a used center, put a trutrac in it and get some gears for around $750 I think.

Sticks will be hard to get to last, if it were me I would look at a T56 Magnum--700lbft capable if I remember right. a properly made th400 or th350 can handle it, I know you wouldn't believe me though. 400 for sure.

Are the Velle members the same as the monte ones, but bolting on instead of slip fit?

I am not familiar with that model, but I have had great results with the demon carb I have. I have also seen a friend mess around with his so much that he almost threw it in the woods--literally. I am not sure what the deal was with his--it is likely his own doing I think. I say get a square bore intake and a good old holley 600 vacuum secondary carb.

congrats on your latest failure! That is a pretty cool one I think I have seen several fail like that. Before I read your last sentence, I figured you were using a solid tranny mount which will break a tranny pretty quickly. Very impressive you are breaking them with your setup--lots of powa! Those JW bell housings are awesome, you will like that! AND, isn't it nice when life smiles on you and lets you find the problem BEFORE you have to pick up pieces of the problem that were exploded all over the drag strip!

With those gears, and on the street you won't be able to tell any difference from a cam change. It doesn't matter if you had a six cylinder in there, your mileage will likely suck with a final drive ratio of 3.5X. I have 3.55s and they are too deep for any real highway useage. You also won't tell any difference in torque from a cam change because your rear gears can probably break the tires loose at will anyway.

Wow, Mike, that is awesome. I can hear those tires screaming all the way in Missouri!

What about just changing rear gears to 3.73 or 4.11 even? 4.56 are DEEP!

I think 3000 will be fine. I had a 3200 ATI streetmaster converter put together for me and it did great and was not very noticeable at all as far as feeling strange driving it on the street. I am now using a friend's Edge Racing converter that was supposed to stall to 3200 in his 450lbft 383 and it theoretically should stall around 3800 rpm or so behind my engine according to the converter guy who built it. It feels identical to the ATI. I think the most important thing with your build is that you want a good strong converter in there (not a B&M) otherwise your engine may shred it and then you have to buy another new converter AND have your transmission rebuilt again.

I agree with what some have said above--it depends on what you are looking to do. I have had a GM crate 454HO for 14 years, and just bought a new 502 short block and added my own heads, cam, intake etc. I considered having Mike Lewis, or a couple other builders put together an engine for me and I have NO doubt that it would have kicked @#$% but I didn't have a block or crank that I wanted to use to start out. If I bought a forged crank and a new block, I would have gone overboard and bought a Dart or similar block and my cost would have gone up pretty quickly. Getting the GM crate gets you a good combination of quality parts with performance for what I would consider a reasonable cost. The new 502 blocks are supposed to be even stronger and more reinforced than the old ones which were already great so I liked that option. Their cranks and heads are all forged on the high performance stuff to my knowledge and if you get their heads, they are Edelbrock which have a good solid track record as well. The complaints you hear are oil burning because of the low tension oil rings, and some people claim that on the 454 Gen VI blocks there is some ring seal issues that can be taken care of by honing the cylinders with a torque plate installed. I am sure there are people who will have horror stories about any crate motor you can find out there, but there are also horror stories to go along with people having their engines custom built, so pick your poison! Also, that sounds like your last motor was a beast, put up some engine specs like cam and heads! Love that stuff :-)

Wow, I wouldn't have expected that--that sucks!

Sorry to hear that, and see it too for that matter! Was that a one piece valve or one of the ones where they weld the heads on to the stem? I've heard of quite a few stock style valves doing that but not as many aftermarket. That sucks.

I have no idea but it is becoming all too common of a story. I also am now doubting if it is all the lack of zddp in the oil that everybody talks about. After seeing some tests, I'm just not so sure on that stuff.

The number of distributor gear wear issues seems to have gone up dramatically in the last several years. I have seen abnormal wear on an MSD gear personally. People are talking about metalurgy being the issue and I am sure that is part of the problem. Part of the issue is also that cam manufacturers are sometimes installing iron gears on billet cams, sometimes having billet gears on billet cams, and end users are running cast iron, melonized (basically a treated cast iron I believe), everwear, bronze, or probably a couple more different types and the key is to make sure they two are compatible. I also suspect that different oils may be a problem. I just read some testing posts on the Chevelle website for lots of oils and additives that showed that a ZDDP additive that I have used in the past actually makes things wear MORE than oil without it! Needless to say I will not be using that stuff any longer. I am also switching to use Penzoil 5w-30 Ultra as my oil. I have always used regular Valvoline 5w-30 which turned out to be ok, but not the best.

Oh yeah, I don't think the starter gear should engage the flywheel completely actually. According to Powermaster in this video, you want half to 2/3 of the thickness. Watch at 1.45 of the video.

Congrats on the rebuild, that is great news! I'm going to be a devil's advocate on the crate motor deal. Yes, we have all heard about bad crate motors and issues that have come from them. I may be the only one who has heard of this, but I have heard of many more issues with machine shops doing things wrong or having the exact same issues as the crate motors occur. Sometimes they fix things, and sometimes they blame it on the owner and do not fix things. On top of that, I have heard of some shops taking 6 or 8 months to get an engine together--it depends on if it is circle track season or not and what else is on their plate. I know there are good engine builders, as I am sure there are good crate engines. My 454 was a GM crate and I had no real issues with it for the 15 years I ran it. My current motor is a 502 crate and it has also been nice so far. Now, a rod cap installed backwards is absolutely ridiculous. That person should be fired.

I was told that most blocks have all three holes. 168 tooth flywheels typically use the staggered holes OR if you have a mini starter that has two sets of holes drilled in-line, you can use one of those. If you have the 153 tooth flywheel, you typically use the inline holes. I have installed two DB Electric starters. I had a regular non gear reduction mini starter ($80) and it worked fine. I just ordered a 3hp gear reduction style starter and it spins the engine much faster and sounds better. I hope it doesn't have heat soak issues like mentioned earlier in this thread.

I agree with Dave, there is no way the control arms can afect ride height but you might check the spring seating and make sure it is ok. Regarding the trans gears here is my theory: Street BBC put out tons of torque but are not notoriously fast revvers. The more torque our cars make, the more "highway" gears people install. The torque of the engine will push through the tough gearing. I have heard of lots of guys changing to lower rear gears (I know it is not 100% the same as trans gears but similar deal) and lose ET. I would wonder if your car likes the original higher gears in the tranny than the new ones. Regarding the sway bar, I would probably leave it on. If you are spinning the tires and can't get her to hook, then yeah, take it off. If you are hooking, there is no need to remove it though--just more work for you. The car took off pretty square, just a little twist. What heads do you have on the engine? For some reason I am thinking Edelbrock? I was surprised to see that my AFR heads did NOT like 38 degrees like I used to use on my factory rectangle port iron heads, they ran best with 34 degrees on my 454. I would play around with timing some more. It didn't look or sound like it had any major bogs, nor did the engine rev up real high on the launch but it was hard discerning your car from the other one. From that, I would think that like Dave said, a good converter could help you out a lot--I think your current one looks like it might be just big enough to keep you from bogging but more could help. The plugs can be deceiving--it is hard to tell what rpm or loading of the engine they are running lean/rich in. Maybe the actual run was good, but then the idling back to the pits was rich and blackened them, or maybe it is backwards from that. I always found that tough. There are some websites that go more in-depth into plug reading like looking at different areas of the porcelain etc. They might be able to help you figure out the plugs too.