Heckeng

Morel makes many of the lifters for Comp, Lunati, Crane, etc. from what I understand--both upper end and middle of the road. When you talk to Dave, I would recommend going with the Morel Sportsmans, not their street lifters. They unfortunately run around $600 though and they are known to be a little noisy but they are the best for any sort of performance use.

The problem with these videos is that the rattling you hear is the exhaust pipes rattling on top of the jack stands. If you could get them to quit vibrating, it might sound pretty good!

They both sounded really good. My favorite sound were actually the Flowmasters without tailpipes--just sounds mean! But, like Andreas said, they wear you out. I ran them that way for years and got TONS of compliments and had ringing ears more than I would have liked. Since I added the tailpipes, and now that I have even quieter exhaust, I have not and am pretty sure I will not get nearly as many compliments on the sound but it will be more pleasant to drive.

The tailpipe data surprised me as well, especially how much the Magnaflows were dampened by them compared to how little they affected the Flowmasters.

Hey all, I wanted to quiet down the Monte some so I changed out my old exhaust. In the process, I did it in pieces so I could get videos and DB readings of both systems with and without the tailpipes. I went from 3" Flowmaster 50 Delta series mufflers with tailpipes to 22" long 3" dia Magnaflow mufflers with tailpipes. Here are the videos: Original Exhaust Original Exhaust with tailpipes removed New Magnaflow Mufflers without tailpipes New Magnaflow Mufflers with tailpipes Overall, I think the Flowmaster with no tailpipes sounded the meanest, but it was also the loudest which sucks on long trips. Both exhausts had significant interior resonances. Something that was interesting was that the Flowmaster noise behind the car actually was reduced by removing the tailpipes. I assume this is because the baffles disrupt the sound waves and instead of them flowing straight through in the direction of the exhaust flow, the baffles in the Flowmaster cause the sound waves to bounce all over when they exit the muffler and the body of the car and the ground probably dampen the sound. Just my guess. The sound types that these mufflers put out is also very different. I was surprised at the differences. Both sound good, but completely different.

After lots of reading on the net, I chose to go with a Morel melonized distributor gear. I got it from Mike Lewis. I had a year or so with it on my GM 502/502 cam.

Dave, your car reminds me of Robyn's Monte. I'm not sure if you knew him or not but his car was very mild but it ran way better than you would think it would just looking at the specs----as your engine, and his show, it is all about the combination, not the individual parts or how much you spend. freakin' awesome! Keep up the good work!

I must be a slacker, I don't have a problem going a year at least on a set of plugs. With as little miles as they get on them, I don't see a reason to change them. You can take them out and look at them, but I would reuse them if the edges are still nice and sharp and there was not a bunch of cr ap on them!

Gauges are one thing that I have always been disappointed in with our cars. It is a lot of work to get them looking good, I admire you guys who have taken on that project!

Last time I did this, I used a tractor, so we didn't run into these issues!

Update, it lives I got it started two nights ago, then yesterday took it for its maiden and test voyage to a cruise night. So far, I have around 10 miles on it but it seems to run well and without any major tuning issues at all yet. I have yet to get into it fully yet as I am going easy on it for the first 50-100 miles, just to get things "seated in" if you will. The cam has plenty of vacuum for the brakes and it is much more peppy than the old motor thanks to higher compression and less blow-by. The new converter honestly seems very similar to my old ATI converter, so that is a wash. If anybody wants a nice ATI converter let me know. It was $610 new, anti ballooning plate, stalls around 3500ish with 500lbs lbft of torque. The only issues I have had so far is EVERY one of my hose clamps leaking antifreeze! I guess the new hoses are just softening up. You can actually see some of the antifreeze pooling up in the back bottom of the intake--I hate that as it was so clean and perfect when I put it together! Performance so far: First gear is a joke, second gear has been able to break loose at any speed that I have tried so far, even with no full throttle. It has been really hot though so the pavement could be greasy making it seem like it has more power than it actually has. I also changed my valve covers and air cleaner, what do you think of the black on silver look instead of the old all silver? And lastly, I have a question for you guys who have swapped engines in a monte. . . . How the heck did you do it with a standard cherry picker? I bought one from harbour freight and it was about 8-10 inches too short as far as the boom length goes. It was quite a feat to get it to sit down in place. I ended up having my wife help operate the picker while I wrestled the engine into place and also did some "re-engineering" of the boom that I will not describe so nobody else tries to do something so stupid. In the end it obviously worked though!

Sure looks sharp Jared.

I think a decent general statement is that the shorter the stroke for a given engine design, the higher it can rev. A 400 uses a different block, so no, you can not make a 400 out of a 350 as most people would think of a standard 400 sbc. You COULD however, turn a 350 into a 400 cubic inch engine, but it would not be the same as a standard 400 sbc, it would be a different engine with coincidentally the same displacement.

^^^^what he said

So what changed? Is it the same set of gears that were in it before, with the same bearings?

Those joints need to be replaced unfortunately. If they are stock ball joints, they will need to be drilled out as they are riveted. If they are aftermarket, they will be bolted in. The biggest pain in doing that is removing the front springs to do the project. That will make a HUGE difference in how your monte handles. I would recommend holding off on the new steering box until you get the ball joints replaced. You may not need to do anything to your existing box.

I was surprised how similar it was too but I have no way to compare the actual lobes as opposed to just the lift and duration at 0.050". Now I have no excuse and need to get working on this thing.

Ok, here are the specs: 230/238 with .620"/.612" lift and ground on a 109 and to be installed at 105.

Whelp, I received a package in the mail today. It was an exciting one at that! It seems to be sized about where I figured it would be as far as overall duration (230's on intake and exhaust) and lift (low 0.6's) but I know the real detail is in the lobe profiles. It was ground on a 109 which surprised me a little but that ought to make it sound pretty good! I will have to get the ok from Chris about posting it but I figure he won't mind since this is not any super high end all out build.

That's funny to hear you say that Dave, I was talking with Tony Mamo at AFR about my new engine and he also figured he would shoot for the moon and try to talk me into a 7000rpm beast and he wanted me to send him my intake to port and he was going to get a cam put together for me. While I think all of these guys are extremely knowledgable and helpful, I still consider my car a 99% street car and would worry about throwing a rod if I were revving it that high! I am still holding my breath waiting to hear what my new cam specs are from Chris! Hopefully he doesn't want me to rev it to 7k What is your current stall, and where do you shift at? What do you cross the line at rpm wise?

Not sure what to say, just freakin' amazing Dave. Keep up the good work! Those Foxwell and Straub guys have really taken care of you in the power department, and you get lots of credit on everything else, amazing package you have put together there.

Head will read hotter than the intake. I believe the general consensus is to use the manifold. I have used both mech and elec temp gauges and like the electric for the exact reason you say. I like mech for oil pressure though because the electrics don't respond as quickly as the mechanicals for pressure.

Looks great. I love those meats under the back!

I just hope I can come close to you guys Al.

Great, in addition to paying for all of this engine junk, I'll have to buy some clean undies too! I hope you're right Sam, that would be amazing. I'm really curious what the cam is going to be but Chris has so much stuff going on he hasn't gotten to it yet. I've been reading a lot of cam theory lately and realizing just how little I really know. I am getting more and more confident that I made the right decision about having one designed instead of ordering an off the shelf cam. Davey, one thing at a time buddy! Paint can wait!