Technical Breathing life into a 283 - FED Destined

Great thread, Nick. Super nice work! I saw you and your dad at the Onawa track on Saturday, but wasn't close enough to holler and say hi.

 

One of these days you'll have to swing by my shop. Too much cool stuff going on I can't share half of it. It's pretty rare I get to escape the shop these days but I did like what I seen at Onawa- #shophermit.

 

Hey Nick, we be jones' n for some 283.
What's up?

 

I'll get ahold of you and stop up sometime next month... may bring a couple hot rods up there.

 

The more Hot Rods the better! Got my dad's 37 going so we are looking forward to the fall cruise you put on.

 

Well a few things actually. I want to correct the cam tunnel on this block. It's not really all that bad but I'd like to take the opportunity to practice on my own stuff first to get more familiar with the process. In order to do that I need to make a drive assembly.

The piece on the far right goes into the 1-1/4" Kwikway boring bar. This piece allows you to use a hand drill. It works but it's a pain to operate that and watch how it's machining at the same time. I've learned from Jon Kaase that I can use my line hone motor to drive the bar instead. We have the same equipment for this process so he's been kind enough to give me some rather useful tips and tricks.

So, I need to adapt the bar to work with the quick connect mandrel driver and to my boring bar. I scored the U Joint on the left from Ebay that I will modify further to make the connection. The black piece at the top is what fits into the quick connect coupler for the line hone cabinet. I found the piece I need to tie it all together and adapt everything. I'm a cheap ass on these sorts of things so I will use this part, cut it up, machine it, to adapt it all to function together. I'm sure people reading this will scratch their head but put some trust in your guy here! More parts on order for this part.

 

The second part to your question @DDDenny is Gene called back on my fuel injection components and we had a great discussion some of which was discussed earlier in this thread. So the Hilborn Injector that I recently got as a Groomsmen gift (yes, that is what type of friends I have) Gene has resealed the Barrel Valve, flowed my new Hilborn PG150A Pump, and cleaned up my 6A Nozzles (found one plugged). Its all in route back to me now. The stacks are still off at the chrome shop and the rest is ready to be put back together. Gene and I discussed about converting this to alcohol and it just really isn't setup to do that effectively. So I plan to put this back together and will keep it for a Gas Only Injector.

Now, the other Hilborn Injector that I originally posted at the beginning of this thread is setup to be run on Methanol (Boosted) for right now. I will need to order a smaller nozzle size for it to convert it to Alcohol. The nozzle location on this later model injector is in the prime spot for alcohol as I can get a longer nozzle tip to get closer to the back of the valve. I will need to bore it an 1/8" to match the 2-3/16" size as the other. No big deal as I have the means and blades already here to do it which was my original plan. Slight sidetrack with the other Hilborn given to me but still moving forward.

Other than that, buried with customer work in my shop trying to get it out the door for them.

 

Well, took about an hour but my adapter is complete. Few pics from the process starting with the shaft I ordered from McMaster Carr.


Cut the sections off that I needed.

I machined the ends to match the other pieces.

And now I have an adapter to use my line hone to power my line bore now.

Have another tool holder ordered for my line bore so I can machine the small cam tunnel sizes. Oversized housing cam bearings are also on order from Durabond. Hopefully have the rest here within a week or so.

 

Here it is hooked up in the machine.

 

Well my tooling showed up today. It's not going to work but I can add it to my collection at least..... The dilemma is its too long and will not go into the bar deep enough to be able to bore the size I need which is around 2". So back to making more from scratch, luckily I found a piece of 5/16" steel bar to use.

A before and after pic.


Tiny little thing but must have it to perform this operation.

This is the tool in the bar, it's set at 2" for now to test fitment. The other end is short enough to not interfere with the cut.

They sent me the tool on the far right and said to cut the length down to accomplish what I need to do. Far from able to do that because of the material below the insert not letting it sit low enough. One last piece to the puzzle finished at least.

 

Last night finally got some time to get the cam tunnel done. Ended up going +.030 OD on the housing size to clean the bores up. The front was out the worst. Left it on the small side when boring and honed it to size from there. Durabond makes bearings in Standard, +.010, +.020, +.030, and +.040 for this type of work on a SBC.

After this I knocked in some bearings for my next process which will be correcting the lifter bores with a BHJ Lifter Tru. Hopefully I can tackle that tonight.

 

Thx for posting the video on this Nick,. and please, do the same for the lifter bore true up. As an old machinist, this stuff has a tremendous attraction for me.

 

I'll do my best. I'll get the first half done for now.

Bolting together the BHJ Lifter Tru Fixture is fairly straight forward. It's all based off the mains with the 2" precision ground bar and adapter rings (specific to which block you are working with). From there you slide in the cam mandrel which serves as a place for the core drills to pilot off of. The end plates go on and are held in place by the upper location bar. These positions are placed in the correct location by the GM Performance Blueprint.

I crank my mill table over to one side to place the block and fixture on it using a engine hoist and crank the table back. I try to center it the best I can on the table for proper travel each direction.

The next step is to use a pilot bar to check and see how far off the bores are. This one was shifted slightly because of the cam tunnel correction so doing the lifter bores will be a benefit to put back in the proper position. You can see alot of cause and effect from all of this hopefully.

From this point I will tram in the upper bar edge to know it's parallel to the table. I will also indicate in the first bore in the bar to find center and note the location on my DRO (aka Digital Read Out) and zero the X & Y axis. From there I can go to the opppsite end and verify the center to know for sure it's setup perfect. In the past I have marked the X Axis placement on my top locating bar to make the process go quicker. Simply crank the table over to the next position, drill, and carry on to the next. There is a big core drill to open up the bore size to either a 1" or 1.062" to install Bronze Bushings. Another option would be to open them up to a .905 - "Mopar" size or a .875 -"Ford" size if there is enough material there to correct the bores completely (Chevy is .842 for reference). The bigger the lifter OD the bigger the wheel size that can be used which also means the more spring pressures it can handle. So opening up the bores to a Ford or Mopar size and not using a bushing is acceptable and possible for me to do but I prefer to use the bushing in this case for my build. I will snap a few more pictures and post the other portions of this. I need to order some bushings and get them headed this way in the meantime.

 

i think he just swept up before pic to show off!!---!-and wow,btw...

 

Same here.

 

People have no clue how much set-up time is required before a short machining time. For me this is fun to watch and brings back old memories. Is that about a 12" riser you have on the head of the mill ?

 

It is a 8" Riser - 9X49 Table. Just enough size to get the job done luckily. I have stood a SBC on end before to work on a timing cover area.

 

I keep my shop clean, use a shop vac to suck up chips as I go. Clutter and messes drive me nuts!

 

Guessing a machine like this you would want to limit the riser, or you would lose stability.

 

Anything is possible but the way its all fastened down I don't think it would be an issue honestly. I'm no vertical mill guru to know for sure.

 

I was just thinking if you had to add to the frame of the machine, then you are taking it past it designed duty. Though they do make risers so maybe I am just a little to uneducated on this stuff.
The machine work I get around here is............well I would rather not say.

 

Risers have been around a long time and work great. Once on, you are limited by the "Z" knee height as far as jobs go.

 

So, I'm going to bounce around a little here. I got the Hilborn Injector that was given to me as a groomsmen gift nearly finished. All I need to complete it is a fresh set of hoses.

Before


And after I refurbished it my way.



The goal for me was to retain as much of the original pieces as I could. Overall it was in excellent shape, just needed a good "spit shine" with a little elbow grease. Once the hoses get replaced I will install the nozzles. I'm pretty excited to reveal what I did to my friend and his father who gave it to me. Hopefully I will make them proud.

 

So my CHE Bronze Lifter Bushings showed up a few days ago.

I bought an extra one to use as a test piece. I plan to modify the oil circuits a little bit. First step is to knock in the bushing and establish the depth using a BHJ Bushing Driver.

I picked an end lifter bore so it would be easier to use a center punch in the oil galley to find a rough centerline. The factory drills from both directions so the drill tends to wander some.

After giving the center punch a few light taps it will help me establish where to put the oil band.

So in this case the center punch mark was .600 from the bottom of the bushing. I plan to machine in a .250 wide groove around .020 - .025 deep to allow oil to flow around the bushing to get to the next bore and I will also machine a oil slot and a .062 orifice to direct oil on the thrust side of the lifter bore. The nice thing about this is I can control the amount of oil and where I want to put it.

A quick setup on my mill and I machined in the oil band into the bushing. Now that the setup is ready I just machine the full set of 16.



In a few days I will finish the work to these bushings and show the rest of the process.

 

Any updates? I love this thread.

 

Buried in my shop right now trying to pump out some work before the end of the year. I need to finish those lifter bushings then I'm left to deck, bore, and hone. Block machining will be complete after that.

 

You ever figure out your cnc model for the Trick Flow heads?

 

I did score a few more blocks for some other projects of mine. I've stock piled so many parts over the years I think it's time to have some fun with this smaller cube stuff.

 

I need to revisit it. To be honest I'm not to happy with the casting. I need to figure out what is holding it back. I have an idea of what it is just need to dedicate more time to it. I think the issue may be in the combustion chamber.

 

I have a 1955 265 that dad held a National Record with in C/Gas years ago. It was in the Fly when I first built it. I would really like to get back on it and bring the internals up to snuff. The pistons in it are SUPER heavy! I need something with a really small cc chamber to get the compression up.

It's way easier and cheaper to build a 434, but everyone is doing it.