Winston Wolf

Well, After taking a 6 week hiatas from the broken down car to enjoy my Harleys and do my annual Sturgis trip, I'm back at it.... Got the trans ripped out. It was acutally worse than I thought. The bellhousing was completely broken from the back of the transmission. No way to JB Weld this one.... Drive shaft will be on order next week, and should have it back up and running by the end of the month. Here are some pics.

You can use a 2800 stall with that engine and still run 110 mph, I promise. And those heads are not "too big" for the "steet" IMO. If you want, let me know your budget and I'll let you know what I would use.

A PCV setup is the difference between the breather leaking oil on top of everything and it not leaking a drop. (in my car at least) It will also help your oil last longer, drawing out the caustic fumes from the crankcase. Unless you have a drag only car, I would run one for sure. Cheap, easy and they work.

Get a new PCV valve, your's is probably just shot. They are cheap <10$

I will not take this car to the 10's, in fact it will never have a roll cage so 11.50 will be the limit, I think for a street cruiser, stock body/interior sleeper that's plenty powerful. My main concern would be that the wheels are pushed further apart, taking away some fender to tire clearance. C-clip axles are around 250 or less, to convert would be that plus another 150. For those who have done it, do you cut off the ends of the axle after the backing plate? Then how do you press on the bearings to the axles? I think I just use normal axles, correct? Again, main concern is if it widens the width.

Well, Found a guy in town that has a 200-4r case for 100 bucks. He will also swap my internals for 300$ more, so I think I'll just go that way instead of doing it myself. Will try and get a driveshaft ordered up this week before I pull the trans so I can get the correct measurements. Still haven't decided where to go, but it looks like it will be a 500$ investment. Would I need to install a new 1350 pinion yoke before I measure? or are they the same length as a stock yoke? I feel I also need to upgrade my axles, as they are still stock and will be the next weakest link. For those who have done it, did you go with C-clip style or use the eliminators? With the eliminators do the axles/hubs stick out further? This would cause an rubbing issue with my big tires... For this HP level, I would think some standard c-clip axles would live just fine?? Opinions and suggestions?

the bottom analog would be easy to read imo. Are you planning to leave it in the car after its tuned? If not you might want to get an lm1 or lm2 for some better logging capability.

Yeah, I'm sure the 4.56's keep that thing spinning pretty fast... Thanks for the lesson after the fact Davey... I now need to decide if I just find a new case and put my trans guts in it or stick my th350 in for the time being. You guys think it wrecks anything other than the case when this happens? I'll have to get stuff on order this week. Do I really need the larger u-joints? The car will never be faster than 11.50's. I am planning to do the axles right away. Any recommendations there?

Looking to get a new driveshaft for my car. Standard/stock length TH350. Would like some insite on who people have used and experiences. I don't need carbon fiber or something wild, as I have a few other things I need to spend money on also. Needs to handle a fair amount of horsepower though. Thanks.

It blew at near the end of the track, so it didn't make "too" bad of a mess. We had alot of cars muck up the track today. More time cleaning than people going down it, unfortunately. I got pulled off way to the side right away, like I said I thought I had a puffed tire so I tried to get if off the track. The majority of the oil leaked out while I was waiting for the tow. I talked to the guy I was racing against, he had a brand new Corvette. Said he was pretty nervous when the driveshaft came out from the car. Below is the video of the run. You can hear when it breaks and it bops the rev limiter (7k). Keep in mind I'm doing 110+ when it happens, as I still ran a 12.1 @ 108mph. Got it shut down pretty quick. Sorry about the bad camera, it seemed to have moved at the take off.

Got to the track today. First time I had ever driven my car and not trailered it. Ran great all the way out there. First pass I spun pretty good out of the hole, ran a 12.0 at 115.8 Bumped up the timing a bit for the second run. Still not a great hole shot, but felt like a good run. Got to the probably the 1000 ft mark (guessing by the video playback) and the car just fell on it's face. I actually thought I blew a tire. Turns out the driveshaft snapped and decided to remove itself from the car. It twisted apart towards the rear of the car acutally. The stub swung around, still connected to the rear end and hammered my new mufflers and the bottom of the car before the u-joint retainers on the pinion gave way. In the mean time the front half of the driveshaft came out of the tailshaft and bounced down the track. I guess that's why they make you put in a loop... Whilst all that was happening, a flum of white smoke poured out the car as the transmission case cracked in half just behind the bellhousing and put oil all over the car and track..... Like I said, this is the only time I had ever driven to the track. My old man had my trailer 300 miles away, so a trusted friend had to rent a trailer and make the 2 hour trip to get me. I have had better days. But the car is MPH'ing 115+ now, so the changes I made with the carb and intake helped, but I didn't get a chance to do much jetting. What would cause the case to crack like it did? See pics below.

I got it from Corvette Central. Description ALL 396 427 EXCLUDING 3X2, L88, LT1 Corvette Central #: 152088 Original GM #: 6422188 Car years: 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972 I did alot of research and this seems to be the best one made. The way the air flows over the air bleeds into the horns is suppose to be better than any other air cleaner base.

Still haven't been to the track, they were closed last weekend. But am planning to go this upcoming one. I wanted to put on a 1" open spacer to help on the top end, but as most of you know the room is somewhat limited under a stock hood. I was running a 1" drop base air cleaner, I think it was a K&N base. I could fit a 4" element without the spacer, it's tight but it does work. Didn't want to use a 3", my calculations showed it didnt flow enough for my setup. So....in order to stick with a 4" filter I needed a new air cleaner base. I ordered a factory GM L-88 Corvette drop base. GM used this on several combos when they had a high rise intake and a Holley carb. It is suppose to be the best flowing drop base ever made. It is actually molded around the Holley carbs that came on the L88 and LT1's. I did have to notch it a bit where there was some alignment tabs, and I also needed to remove the PCV air inlet pipe as it hit the rear accelerator pump. It looks like it will work great. It drops the filter 2" below the carb top and flows around it beautifully.

ps. The line pressure varries in each gear. At idle in park its usually around 50 psi. Reverse and 1st at the highest, maybe 150 at idle.

the tv cable is very easy to set up if you have the correct parts. Get a tv made easy kit from bowtieoverdrives. its as simple as pressing the pedal to the floor to set it then. You will know the tv is set correctly when the line pressure jumps immediately as you touch the pedal. The tension of the tv spring controls the pressure, and it can be modified with spacers if needed, providing you have the correct spring to begin with.

I would have used this: Clock to Tach Conversion But I like the factory look.

Where are the timeslips??

Impressive. You're going to twist that white whale apart. Did Straub work your intake too?

With the Air Gap intake and the Holley carb, the bowl sits too low and you are not able to install a fitting in the manifold port. You must use the large port on the carburetor. I would bet the marketing people at Edelbrock did this on purpose.

Here is what I did today, before I even started the car. Pulled all the plugs. They all looked great. I installed new ones anyway, gapped to .040 Unhooked the MSD 6AL and wired to run on distributor only. Changed coil to dist wire for a new one, only that wire. Took the car out for a spin and it ran good, no miss at all. Came back and put old coil wire on, still ran correctly. Hooked the MSD box back up, still ran correctly. So it looks like my issue was a bad spark plug.....again, these plugs looked great and showed no signs of trouble. I did pull them when I changed intakes, not sure if one was damaged somehow after that?? But the car runs well now and revs right up to the end of the tach. I set the timing to 36 degrees all in and hooked the vacuum advance back up. I still need to play with the carb a bit and I think I need to go to a 10 deg mechanical curve vs the 15 deg. I could use a bit more timing at idle to keep the vacuum up a little, it kind of wants to die at times. I can tell you from the little cruising I did tonight, when the 4 barrels kick in, you notice it big time. It's a totally different feel than the Edelbrock. A bit more tuning and it should be ready to hit the track again and see if it works....

I do not believe the cam was ground off at all. The difference, I feel, is in the chain set. The Hex-Adjust does not have multiple keyways to advance or retard the cam timing. It only has one way it can be installed. It uses a oblonged bushing that you turn with a hex wrench to adjust the timing. All I was saying is that when I lined up the bushing with the middle adjustment between A and R, which should be 'straight up' it came in off by a couple degrees. It's infinitely adjustable, so it wouldn't matter if it was off a half degree or 3 degrees, it's easy to correct, unlike most that have a straight, +4 or -4. (See below) I guess that's why we degree cams. I really didn't feel that it was a big deal at the time, I just put it in like it was suppose to be. Again, I do not think the cam was ground incorrectly what-so-ever. I believe the difference in cam timing is in the chain set.

When you time an engine you hook the light up to the number 1 cylinder. If it was off a cog, you would just have to turn the distributor to get the mark back where you wanted it. The only way it would cause a performance drop is if you didn't time it correctly. I don't have a vaccum can so I can rotate my dist freely. I think what you are talking about is having the distributor in 180 deg off, and that ain't my problem.

Thanks, but I'm not sure how this would make any difference? I set my distributors up by total timing, and if it was off a tooth you would just have to turn it a little further in one direction to get the timing set right.

I agree with you Allan Here is the cam card. It is installed so that the valves open and close at the exact degree the card says on both the intake and exhaust. I would call this "Straight up". The cam is ground with a 4 deg advance into it, but I did not advance it 4 degrees. When the dots are aligned (and they did not perfectly align, but as close as it could be)and the adjuster was set at 0 deg change on the hex adjust the intake valve at .050 was at 22 degrees. I had to retard the cam gear 3.5 deg to get the intake to open at 18.5, which is what cam card call out. I can change my cam timing without pulling the engine apart with the Cloyes cover, but it is installed per the manufacturer.... Do you not agree? And even if the cam was installed a bit advanced or retarded, it wouldn't create the missing I have.

I double checked that the plug wires are correct already, along with the other obvious stuff. It seems to run fine at low rpm while not in gear. When you rev it up in park and hold a steady rpm, say 2500, it sounds like it MIGHT be running rough, but its hard to tell with the valvetrain rattling and the exhaust. As soon as you go drive it and accelerate, it runs like crap. very hard to accelerate and keep it below 3500 under light accel due to the converter. You can see in the video how soft i am gassing it. So I would say it is prominent under load (light). If i had a vacuum leak, it should be less of a factor in upper rpms i would think. I just picked up some new wires and plugs, so i will start there tonight, then get rid of the 6al, then change coils, then distributors. I will also double check a/f while testing.