All Small Six Starting new build

[awasson]

Yes the one @Otto identified at the back of the block, to the left of the frost plug behind the camshaft needs a threaded plug. Mine has a threaded Allen key plug.

The one on the exhaust side of the block to the left and above the C6DE also needs a plug. I have a square headed, pipe threaded plug in mine.

 

[Montytm26]

Got everything assembled pretty much and painted. I have an issue that hopefully someone might have encountered too. I purchased the billet thermostat housing and the water pump pulley doesn’t have enough room to seat on the water pump. The housing is the same height as the OEM. I’m not sure if the aluminum head sits further forward? Any suggestions?

 

[DON]

My guess is the billet is thicker than the cast housing. How much is it off?

 

[Montytm26]

My guess is the billet is thicker than the cast housing. How much is it off?

I’ll have to have about 3/8 to 1/2 spacers to bring it out far enough for clearance.

 

[DON]

Whoa!! That’s quite a bit. By the way, you don’t want to space out the pulley- that would throw off the belt alignment, I was thinking grinding down the housing, but I doubt there is enough material for that to work. Do you have the oem housing? Does it fit? You might find a smaller pulley, it would just spin the pump faster.

 

[Montytm26]

Whoa!! That’s quite a bit. By the way, you don’t want to space out the pulley- that would throw off the belt alignment, I was thinking grinding down the housing, but I doubt there is enough material for that to work. Do you have the oem housing? Does it fit? You might find a smaller pulley, it would just spin the pump faster.

I’ll have to pull it off and check. I know overall height is the same. I thought about a smaller pulley as well. Any idea where to start looking?

 

[DON]

If you could take what you can off the mating surface, then dimple the outside of the housing for the rest??
It runs in my mind someone stated a ranger pulley is smaller. Info from a serpentine conversion so don’t if the early Rangers had v belts.
A job for the machine class with a CNC mill!!

 

[awasson]

I think the new head sticks out more than the old log heads did. I could only find a couple of photos of when I built mine last year but it looks like my stock head sits back further than yours and the photo of the pulley shows it pretty close to the housing.

 

[DON]

A measurement from the installed pulley to the thermostat mounting surface on the head, from each head style, would tell the story. Maybe two different people, working with the two different heads??

 

[Montytm26]

I think the new head sticks out more than the old log heads did. I could only find a couple of photos of when I built mine last year but it looks like my stock head sits back further than yours and the photo of the pulley shows it pretty close to the housing.

View attachment 27292

View attachment 27291

Yeah I think it does too. I played around with some shims last night and I think I might be able to manipulate the housing enough by some machine work to get everything to fit correctly. I’ll see what I can come up with without having to get too extreme with it. Worst case scenario I’ll shim the water pump pulley out to match the balancer on the outside groove since I was only using one belt.

 

[vssman]

Yeah I think it does too. I played around with some shims last night and I think I might be able to manipulate the housing enough by some machine work to get everything to fit correctly. I’ll see what I can come up with without having to get too extreme with it. Worst case scenario I’ll shim the water pump pulley out to match the balancer on the outside groove since I was only using one belt.

If you do that, make sure the pulley still engages the snout on the water pump. Otherwise, you’ll put a lot of shear stress on the screws holding the pulley on.

 

[drag-200stang]

I would not space it out. See how thick the housing is a point of interference to see if notching it would work. If that is too thin, see how much room there is for the t-stat to open fully, if there is room, weld some material on the inside, and then make clearance notch.

 

[Montytm26]

New update. Motor and tranny installed. Starting on wiring up the new sniper system as well as the hyperspark coil and distributor. Question…the ignition wire to the old coil is a resistance wire correct? Can I use it to feed a relay directly off the battery for constant 12v for ignition and running?

 

[aussie7mains]

New update. Motor and tranny installed. Starting on wiring up the new sniper system as well as the hyperspark coil and distributor. Question…the ignition wire to the old coil is a resistance wire correct? Can I use it to feed a relay directly off the battery for constant 12v for ignition and running?

Probably, the current draw for the relay coil is milliamps, so volt drop across the resistor should be very low. (V=RI) Try, see how it goes.

 

[DON]

How did the water pump work out?

 

[Montytm26]

How did the water pump work out?

I was able to take enough off the front of the housing to make it work. Cleaned up the back face of the pulley too. It’s close….but should be ok

 

[Montytm26]

Ok I’m going to use the coil feed to power a relay. It only takes about 7.8v to pull the relay coil in so I should be fine. Another question I have is for anyone that using a sniper and hyperspark system. Is there a need to hook up the purple and brown “crank signal” between the sniper and distributor? Along with the white “points output” wire? Is there a reason to use one or the other?

 

[Montytm26]

It's getting closer to go time! Got the T5 in and driveshaft shortened. Fuel pump is in tank, plumbed and wired. I have a few small things to take care of in the engine compartment, just waiting on some fittings. I'm running a catch can system for the PCV valve, with the vacuum side pulling from the intake manifold. Getting a little nervous on start up and break in though. I know a few of you guys have converted to the Sniper/Hyperspark system, but I'm not sure how many have done a full build with them. Here's my thoughts for the process.....Unhook the fuel relay for the pump and coil wire and crank engine over to verify 15* for timing set on the handheld. After verified, rehook relay and purge enough fuel through line before pressurizing system. Fingers crossed and fire off engine. Manually bring RPMs up to 2000-2500 for 20 to 30 minutes for break in. I've got a oil pressure gauge to monitor oil pressure. A couple other things I need advice on. Idle RPM's I was thinking 750-800? Also, what should the timing be set to? I've seen from around 24-30 degrees? Any advice for any of this would be greatly appreciated!

 

[vssman]

It's getting closer to go time! Got the T5 in and driveshaft shortened. Fuel pump is in tank, plumbed and wired. I have a few small things to take care of in the engine compartment, just waiting on some fittings. I'm running a catch can system for the PCV valve, with the vacuum side pulling from the intake manifold. Getting a little nervous on start up and break in though. I know a few of you guys have converted to the Sniper/Hyperspark system, but I'm not sure how many have done a full build with them. Here's my thoughts for the process.....Unhook the fuel relay for the pump and coil wire and crank engine over to verify 15* for timing set on the handheld. After verified, rehook relay and purge enough fuel through line before pressurizing system. Fingers crossed and fire off engine. Manually bring RPMs up to 2000-2500 for 20 to 30 minutes for break in. I've got a oil pressure gauge to monitor oil pressure. A couple other things I need advice on. Idle RPM's I was thinking 750-800? Also, what should the timing be set to? I've seen from around 24-30 degrees? Any advice for any of this would be greatly appreciated!

View attachment 27635

I can’t help you on your questions but that’s a thing of beauty right there. I used a vacuum gauge to set my timing to max vacuum and pulled back just a bit to not bog the starter. No pinging and pulls really nice but I have a tripower and not EFI.

 

[awasson]

Hey @Montytm26 Very nice looking build you've got going there. I'm not fuel injected so I can't comment about that but your process sound reasonable to me.

Regarding timing, I'm running a Clay Smith 6474 and when I first fired up my engine for cam break in I was probably running it around 12 degrees advanced or maybe even less. I have an HEI distributor. When I decided to get the car on the road to put some mileage on it I was probably running +20 degrees initial and overly rich. I need to put my timing light on it again to find out where it's at now.

I have just over 2000 miles on my engine and for my setup and the limitations of the small log head, it's about perfect. I have backed timing down a little over time. I suspect I'm at about +15° initial advance. My vacuum advance is +10° and my mechanical advance probably kicks in somewhere in the teens around 1,500 RPM and is all in before 3,000 RPM. I am running one gold and one silver spring so one stock spring and one light spring. I ran two light springs for a while but it surged at parking lot speeds (1st gear on my T5).

I'm on a small log intake and my idle varies depending on level of warmed up. When it is warmed up enough to drive, my idle varies between 500 RPM - 600 RPM. When it is warmed fully and running at optimum, my idle is about 900 RPM. I think if it was fuel injected and an aluminum head and intake, I wouldn't have such a wide variance and I could probably set a smooth idle at about 600 RPM - 700 RPM.

I hope that gives a little insight.