The golden lion roared to life in my driveway

[four-thirteen]

After a few days of messing around with the 413 golden lion in my model A, It finally roared to life with the thunder of fire from the zoomies tonight. It was too late at night to run it for long, but man, what a motor. The coolant lines aren’t in yet, so the cam break-in time has to be limited to a few short runs. Anyone know how long it is safe to run a motor without coolant flow? I was going to fill the water jackets with water, but have no idea if the water will boil out or not. Thanks to Roothawg for the bit about the non-resistor sparkplugs. The vertex didn’t work well with the R type plugs I filled the holes with. After switching to non-resistor plugs, the mag worked flawlessly.

I learned that when you build a car outside, pick a really nice sunny day to degree the cam. It was starting to rain when I degreed mine, so I rushed it. When the motor didn’t start the first time, I assumed it was the cam, so I had to tear into the motor to check. It was right on, but I wasn’t sure the first time.

I can’t wait to get this thing on the track and the street. Going to be one bitchin ride.

A friend of mine gave the car a name, the ”cheese grater”. I wont say why yet, but once the car is finished, you’ll see why. Dave

[Darwin]

I wouldn't run it for more than about 10-15 seconds with no coolant and only about 30-40 with it. It'll probably start to boil after a minute or two. If you just gotta run it before the whole cooling system is done you might as well put liquid in it to guard against any sort of block warpage that might happen---unlikely considering the well seasoned nature of the engine but not impossible. Just keep the revs up a bit for the cam's sake. Don't let it idle much until you can get it finished enough to do the 20 minute/2k revs cam break-in thing.

[four-thirteen]

Darwin thanks for the advice. I wanted to run the motor a bit before I put it away for the winter to make sure it runs and get it lubed up for storage. I've seen many new motors put together and stored, then get rusty. Don't want that to happen to this one.

I'm not going to, but I could probably run the motor for 10 minutes without circulation of the water. I ran it for about 2 minutes full of water, let it sit awhile, then let it out. It was barely luke warm. Good to know. For the strip I was thinking about tossing out everything I don't need, gas tank, radiator, battery, alternator...

I've got the world biggest vacuum leak on the intake. With the butterflies comletely closed, it still runs at about 3000 rpm. At this point, I don't care. It runs, I can put it away, build the rest of the car, put the injectors on, then break in the cam in the spring. This ones definately the fastest one I've ever built. Dave

[gettingreasy]

What no pics! I love MoPar B engines(I wanna put a 413 in my Valient someday).
-Jesse

[a/fxcomet]

Here is your solution: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB1&Number=119226&Forum=U BB1&Words=bfd%20&Match=Entire%20Phrase&Searchpage= 1&Limit=25&Old=allposts&Main=119226&Search=true#Po st119226 .

[daddylama]

a/fx:
that's a hell of a lot cooler than the setup/rig i've been doing: quick PVC adapter for my garden hose to flow into the lower radiator hose... waterpump circulates and spits it out the upper hose, through a brass ball valve (so i can limit the amount of water coming out... and kinda regulate the temp).

[four-thirteen]

I gotta send the roll to walgreens for developing, then I'll post pictures.

I'd already thought about the garden hose idea, but just decided to skip it because hooking up the cooling system would be just as easy. The garden hose thing is cool, and a great idea. Just don't get the thing to run too cold. You just want to hold it at operating temp.

Dave