getting the motor ready for aluminium

Mpg- My issue there is that anything other than just the engine right now, does not fall under my father's offer to help me financially, as would anything that would be considered anythign other than a swift swap. Which blows my bank account and credit limit out of the water. Which would mean that the downtime would likely be a year or longer, but I need to get this rolling soon.

This is the third time I have had the engine out since I got the car, I don't want to make it a huge six month project for the third time either, and the 250, new trans, moving the radiator, and everything else involved, along with the little hiccups that always pop up, I just can't do it right now. I will be MORE than happy with a fresh 200 with this head for plenty long enough to save up for the build I have been planning since I finally threw down on the head.

But Getting the compression to around 9.5-9.6 would be perfect for the 274/274-cam. And seeing as my calculations finally correlate with sanity, I doubt the offset grinding will happen unless it can be done for minimal difference over a standard grind operation.

And offset grinding, I was thinking of just using undersize bearings so only like .005-.010 offset. but that would translate into .010-.020 stroke. Not the whole finding new rods, and everything that is usually done.
 
Other than the off set crank grind the second way to do it is with a piston that has a higher compression height. Takes some research to find pistons from another apt. Or also you can get a custom made piston.
 
Actually if I only bore over .40" and use a flat top, it goes you about 9.66:1 factoring in dynamic it puts me around 7.8 dcr. Which is at the top of 87 and bottom of 89 octane fuel. So I think that may be the best path. To use the 274/274 112* cam that is.
 
Well just a bit of an update since my 170 flew the coop on me.

I got a 66 200 that was "running when it was pulled" according to the guy i got her from. We got her all torn down, inspected a few things, she's a bit rusty internally, but entirely located in places that shouldn't hurt too much. We will spend the extra few bucks to get this one sonic tested and whatnot before investing in it too much, but I was pleased to see what appears to be forged rods. :D

I can tell that it is obviously a virgin block, as there is no single marking that would be found in one that had been dismantled, no rod # markings, no oversize markings, not machinist marks, etc... In fact, the bearings look COMPLETELY unworn and darn near pristine. also, there was hardly any ridge to the cylinders and the hone, while you could not feel it, was still visible. I am assuming that the donor car was wrecked early in her life and the engine has been passed around until someone actually cracked her open to do something with it.

Now the next step is the machine shop, going to spend a few bucks extra and get everything done right, balancing, bore, line bore, see how much shot peening the rods might run. While I would love to invest a lot more in this engine to make it my last I6 build for this car, it just isn't in the cards right now, and it will be done in my own time when I can maticulously work things out in the basement with no deadlines. For now I want to get a solid, reliable block going that I can drive my car with.
 
the best money spent is in balancing that long block... getting everything the same weight for each cylinder is really where it's best spent.

don't forget to get your cam in form your 170, it's better than the stock at least :)

absoultely keep the 66 rods, most likely they are forged, you really dont need to shot peen them unless ur going turbo or super. money is better spent balancing them.

sounds like you got yourself a good block hopefully the sonic test comes back positive.

did you look to see if the block has the dual pattern for the tranny, if so that's a heck of a find. I'm just courious.. it will have the smaller grind but if it's a later 66 block then it will have the 67+ bell housing pattern too. and mixed with the forged rods you're in good shape for lucky a find.
 
Unfortunately it is not a dual pattern block... I don't think, I can't remember what holes were different. I thought that some were the same between patterns??

I am not 100% they are forged, All the forged rods I have seen have had almost grindings where the cast would be on a cast rod, these have a more noticeable ridge all the way around where the cast line would be. and they just look a bit different than the cast ones out of my 170... less smooth, more skeleton like i gess??
 
170-3tree,

The dual block should have 6 - 3/8" course threaded bolt holes and 4 - 3/8" dowl pin holes. Sometimes they left out the second dowl pin holes.

Look on the side of the rod - if it has "C3OE" they are forged rods. The 170 and 200 uses the same rod.

The forged rods are a lot lighter than the late model cast rods.
 
Hmm I will check into that nd report back my findings. I was always taught that forged would be significantly heavier though.
 
I know for a fact that the 170 had cast rods in it. Not sure why in such an early block, but they weren't forged. These 66 rods look forged to me, just need a chance to go look at the casting

Edit: Went out and looked over these rods, they do have the C30E casting on them. They also all have different sized weights at the cap end. So I assume it was "balanced" at the factory.

Also, I couldn't get lucky enough to find a dual pattern block. So when it comes time to do the t5 I will just have to use the plate, which looks a bit simpler on the instructions to me.
 
IMO I would stick with the c4, if I had to do it again, I like the t5 for the over drive but the opportunity is very rare and mostly ONLY freeway driving with my 3.2 rear, which looks like I'll be keeping cause I can't affor a 3.55 or 3.8 cause it costs more than the 8' axel. oh and even on the freeway I drop to 4th to pas, unless in a hurry then skip down to 3rd even (75mph in 3rd is a ride). now if you just want a manual tranny then go for it, but if it's just for the over drive, stick with the c4 if you can and go a tall gear in rear like 2.8 or 3.0 , with a fresh rebuilt engine and a good c4 you can get the same gas mileage in city or better than I can with t5, the t5 really only shines on the road.

grats on the forged rods, how fun :) , IIWIYS I would still balance them, over the years who knows what could happen.

I would also stick to yoru 264 cam from your 170, I think you'll like the torque range better than the 274, cause torque is what you feel when racing other cars from stoplights.

just my opinion on what I would do IIWIYS
 
I don't have the c4 to begin with. It would be easier to keep that in the car, but I have the 2.77. I rebuilt it last year and it looks to be in good shape. I got about 25mpg with this trans driving like a high school girl breaking curfew with her boyfriend. That was mix of highway and around town.

Actually I always hated how my 1963 got better gas mileage with no o.d. than my 2006 impalla that was lighter and had an o.d. I know that the 2.77 won't hold this power forever and since I already have 3.55 gears I think the overdrive would see a bit more use for me its about 20 minutes of highway driving to get anywhere from my Podunk town.

As far as cam, that's still kinda up in the air for me, with my dad actually pushing the 274. I'm just worried that the 264 might be worn horribly after having the lifters so tight, I will likely pull it and do some measures to see where its at and give it a good close inspection.

EDIT: Also, I was more concerned with whether or not I would be able to use my DUI with the new engine. I thought that the distributor bore was different in later model engines, but this one is exactly the same as mine, so I believe I should just be able to use an early oil pump and still use the DUI saving me hundreds
 
we both know that a 200ci and alum head with the 264/112 cam can give 211hp at the tires, the 274 would be more but at the cost for torque. the 110 LC u have would help raise the rpm hp band for little torque loss. and the 274 will be alot rougher on idle even with a 112 LC. it's up to you and what you want your car to do, remember the longer duration cams take advantage of the low flowing heads, whereas the alum head is high flow so you'll see more advantage with the 264 cam than the 274 cam IMO.

Lets hope it's the right DUI for your block. that would be sad to see that be set-aside...
 
Well the distributor fits "snuggly" in the hole on the new engine. about as snug as it did in the old block. So i'm thinkin it'll work as long as I get the right oil pump.

I was actually looking at all the dyno pages on Classicinlines. There isn't one person using the 274 cam on the Al head with. I thought, mraley had the 274 but I was mistaken. I just wanted to find one to look at the torque curve compared to the 264. I suppose I could get a rough estimate looking at both cams on the log head, but flows might make that vastly different.

Unless someone on here can point me to a dyno of the Al head with the 274 cam....
 
SO I found a bit more odd wear on my 264 cam than I had hoped to see, which means I won't trust it in my most current build. I want to be sure this is right this time.

I am most likely having a cam custom made to be a good middle ground between the 264/264 110* and the 274/274 112* cams. It will provide, roughly, the same overlap as the 264, but have the wider lca's that will help in the upper rpm ranges. Thinking in the range of 268-269* of duration.
Now I need to decide what compression to use to get the best out of this cam on 87-89 octane pump gas. And the best way to get to such compression.

When it comes to dynamic compression ratios, Does the intake valve close, on the camcard, assume that the cam is advanced as CSC recomends or straight up, as a standard timing set would put you? If it is assuming that the cam is straight up, and I would advance it 4*, Then that has to be factored into the calculations and just moving to a flat top piston puts me in the 89 octane range of the charts.

This is without remembering what figure to use for the head gasket bore and not 100% what the deck height will be. I don't like that because I want to have everything pretty well figured out before investing in pistons and having to decide between flat and dished pistons..
 
Well it has been a while since I've posted on this project at all, but I'm making solid progress again, now.
I have the block and rotating assembly at the machinist, he is trying to cut me a good deal with the work since the last block went sour on me and he is just a decent guy like that. I confused the heck out of him when I told him I needed tempo pistons, which led to him discovering classicinlines and this site, he was pretty astounded by what everyone is doing with these engines.
After looking at the nearly pristeen bearings and the races on the crank journals, he was hesitant to do anything other than bore it out, but I convinced him to do a full job, or at least check everything to be on the safe side.

I called clay smith to inquire about a very specific grind, they charge a little extra, but not nearly as much as crane charges for the same deal, plus crane wanted to grind my old cam which always has bothered me for strength and twist reasons.

On my own side, I am killing time with playing with dual plane or plane devider setups on my intake, this will be removeable to get an idea on the dyno of the effect of the divider. This will also lead to an actual new intake design that will have smething closer to a true equal length runner, dual plane intake, but will likely be a long ways down the road.

All in all, things are really coming together, but slowly, I just hope that there is plenty of time to do test and tunes in my Engine Performance on the school dyno.

Gerald.
 
FWIW - the other day I did a Google search on "intake manifild plenum divider" and saw a few home made dividers. One of those (I don't recall where) was for a single plain 4 barrel manifold. In that case, the opening of the manifold was slotted on each (opposite) side and the divider simply slid into those slots. It appeared to be removable, with a little tugging.
 
Sounds like what I'm playing with. I want to make it a quick placement setup at first to be able to test on the dyno without buying a second intake. I am also lookin at using some for of deflection to curve the mix better into the runners, but not sure if it would even be worth the trouble to build.
 
The one I recall appeared to be just a flat piece of aluminum; no curves or coping at the bottom (where the divider contacted the floor of the plenum).
 
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