Engine building fail.

[foamypirate]

So, as some of you know, my brother owns a 1970 Chevrolet C10 pickup, which I posted up a while back. Anyways, this thing has never run quite right since he bought it, so we decided to tear the motor down and see what we were working with.

Good lord, I'm surprised this thing ever even ran...

First: I removed the intake manifold to find a STICK in the lifter valley. Like, a real, wooden twig. Inside the motor.



Then, while I was pulling the heads, half the head bolts were barely even torqued, which, not to my surprise, resulted in a blown head gasket between two cylinders on the left bank, which partially eroded the block and head.





And the results of the blown headgasket on cylinder #3:



Oh...did I mention that they used two DIFFERENT kinds of pistons in the motor? All 4 cylinders were bored, but they used two oversized (.030 over) and two standard bore pistons:




Middle two cylinders:



Oh, and apparently it was homebuilt. You know that 60* crosshatch you are trying to get when you hone a cylinder? How about we go for 10*, eh Billybob?




And this, boys and girls, concludes our engine building fail for the day.

[TheNextEpisode]

Oh, and apparently it was homebuilt. You know that 60* crosshatch you are trying to get when you hone a cylinder? How about we go for 10*, eh Billybob?

ahahaha

Damn, that picture of multi-brand pistons... never thought I'd see that.
What's the plans for rebuilding?

[foamypirate]

ahahaha

Damn, that picture of multi-brand pistons... never thought I'd see that.
What's the plans for rebuilding?

Since it's going in a truck, I think we're going to go for a Vortec headed, 1 pc rear main, hydraulic roller 383. Looking for around 370-400HP and about 430-450 lb-ft of torque. We already have a BowTie Overdrives Level 2 200-4R overdrive trans ready to go behind the engine.

[wed3k]

nice hack job you got going there

[93F22A6]

Plans on the motor? 383 stroker?

[foamypirate]

Plans on the motor? 383 stroker?

For sure, the torque will be very nice, since it's in a heavy truck that will be used for some towing.

The Vortec heads should REALLY wake the motor up.

Though, I must admit, even with two low-comp cylinders on this motor, it could still light up the tires, but the 3.73 rear end probably helped with that.

[93F22A6]

What are you doing as far as the top end and valvetrain? And yeah a 3.73 rear gear will help alot.

[tn_accords]

lol so it was a true frankenstien engine ~NW

[foamypirate]

What are you doing as far as the top end and valvetrain? And yeah a 3.73 rear gear will help alot.

We're planning on the Vortec cylinder head kit from Scoggin-Dickey. It comes with two Vortec heads (duh, lol) that have been modified to accept Z28 springs. The stock Vortecs only accept about .460 valve lift, but modified to accept the Z28 springs, you can go up to .525" valve lift. The kit also includes an Edelbrock Vortec Air-Gap manifold, headgaskets, head bolts, intake manifold bolts, and all that sort. Looking at an off-the-shelf Comp Cams camshaft, dual pattern (longer duration and lift on the exhaust to make up for the exhaust ports lower flow relative to the intake port), definitely going to go for something with decent duration, as my brother wants that lopey sound, and with 383 cubes to feed, we need something big. No porting will be done on the heads, going to run 1.5 ratio roller-rockers. All of this will be going on a 1 piece rear main, hydraulic roller block.

It should move pretty well, and be dead reliable as well.

[93F22A6]

Carb? Gonna do any porting on the head and intake? Or at least a port match? Specs on the cam? Sounds like it should be pretty strong.

[foamypirate]

Carb? Gonna do any porting on the head and intake? Or at least a port match? Specs on the cam? Sounds like it should be pretty strong.

Still thinking about which exact cam grind to go with, but we are planning on running a Holley 700 with vacuum secondaries. I imagine it would be worthwhile to do a little port matching on the intake manifold. I really hadn't thought about that yet, haha.

[scudweiser]

it must have been tough for that guy to really torque down the bolts with the vice grip pliers he was using....

[foamypirate]

So, I posted this up on another forum and I learned something interesting. Apparently this is NOT a 350. Based on the little steam holes in the block (below the bolt holes for the cylinder head, inbetween each cylinder), this is actually a 400 cubic inch small block.

That's very good news! It means that, if the crank is in decent shape, we have the crank we need for a 383.

Or, if the block and head erosion can be repaired, we can build a 406 small block.

[MikeW]

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[foamypirate]

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