When the 'FLATTIE' cried enough is enough it was time to do a bit of to her. So here she is in the shop getting the mains tunnel bored , the valve seats recut and the block bored to suit the pistons I had. The cam in there had been reground by persons unknown and the lobes were allover the place, with as much as 20 thou difference in lift between some lobes. Not worn off, just not reground well. Now we have a nice new ISKY 400 JR to go in , this should make her sit up and take notice. The main problem was when a valve guide retainer came unglued at revs it caused an bit of damage to the block , wearing out the guide tunnel so this is another block we're now using .
That sure looks nice with the new caps and girdle. What inserts are you planning on using? The Isky should be an excellent cam from everything I read. FWIW, as I understand it Clay Smith used to grind cams that way on purpose to maximise the power of each cylinder, from what I read no two lobes would measure or degree the same. Keep up the good work.
G'day Nigel...Looks like when you get "serious" you go all the way. Sounds like your new flattie is going to do the job!
Keep showing machine shop pictures, please. I can almost smell the hot shavings. You're going to exceed your Association's "speed & e.t. limit". What then???
Nigel, have you figured out how to fold that thing up and stuff it in a suitcase, so you can bring it to the HAMB drags? Looking good! Robert
Sorry guy's , this is not going to be any giant killer power house just yet , only inching up the power slowly . The reason for the crank support was this new block had no main caps , so this seemed to be the simple solution to fix that. We have removed about 2 pounds of unwanted cast iron from the ports and relieved the block to suit . Who knows it may even go better than it did before. Nigel.
Hey Nigel that is pritty much the same motor that we had in jeffs car before the big banger went in , it ran 13.4's and we arn't far off puttin it back in as we are in the process of freshing it up... r you running on the 19th at willowbank ?
Hey Steve , no I won't have the engine back together by then , but I will be there crewing for a buddy running in GAS. Should be a hoot.
Just finished with the boring bar , the valve seat have been cut and valves refaced , just need to have the cam bearings installed. Pick it all up tommorrow.
The mighty "flattie" is finally going back together , spent many hours refitting the valves and springs together , inside the block , not a lot of fun when you have big hands and not much room.
Caught in a moment when I wasn't swearing at those valves. My wife has a knack of doing things like this , bless her.
Nice to see you giving life to that block. Surely worth some frustration and a few nicks. You know, there are engines with the valves in the heads. Much easier to assemble. I love the sound of a healthy flathead though.
Valves in the heads? What an absurd idea...must take a bunch more parts to make that work...guess you can make it as complicated as you want these days.
Finally have all the valves in , valve clearances adjusted and the cam degreed in , went to fit the rings on the pistons and oh oh need to cut the ring grooves to suit . Oh well back to the lathe we go.
Not only that but my Edelbrock alloy heads only have 375 thou clearance over the valves , so now we're into flycutting the combustion chamber to suit a 400 thou lift cam.
Finally got the shoprt block assembled and painted . Just finished refitting to the frame. Next job will be machine the valve pockets in the heads.