Page Three

Now I'm rebuilding the motor myself, I'm going to change a few things. The Engle FK-87 cam was a little peaky, it really came on at 4500rpm, so I thought I'd try a Web-Cam 86c (310*dur, 0.585" lift with 1.5:1 rockers) out, I read good reports on this cam on the Cal-Look forum (www.cal-look.com), and bought some new Scat lube-a-lobe lifters that are reground by SLR and re-parkerized to stop cam wear. I also got rid of the super-rods and bought Scat H-beam rods (5.394" length), these are the new ones with 3/8" rod bolts, I upgraded them to ARP 2000 bolts, because I'm getting paranoid. At the same time I'm gonna bump the compression ratio up to 9.75:1, and install 42mm vents into the IDAs. My friend Jeff is helping me rebuild the motor, he's a mechanic at the local Ford dealership, and has more experince then me.

I bought a digital camera so I'm gonna photograph the rebuild.

Here I am cleaning the case:

Here is the Engle cam I took out, it is in great shape, as it should be for a dozen dyno pulls and only 50 miles:

Here is one of the Elimiator heads after it came back from being repaired, look at the huge oval ports and the polishing work:

The reshaped chambers:

A photo of the Chevy springs, with chromoly retainers and keepers, look how close they are to the head studs, they just barely fit in there:

Here I am marking the crank/flywheel before seperating them:

Now seperated:

This is photo of the stand I made out of a old stock Gland nut, I welded it onto a peice of 1/2" plate. This clampis into the vice so I can assemble the crank assembly:

Here it is clamped in the vise with the crank mounted to it:

These are a couple of photos of my new Scat H-beam rods, the one photo has a H-beam beside one of the old RIMCO super rod for a comparison:

This is one of my IDAs, they are some of the older Italian made carbs, as you can see the studs (instead of bolts) to hold the top plate down. If you look close you can see the old intakes in the background, the closest on is one cracked.

My new Jay-Cee 42mm vents for the carbs, I bought these at the Las Vegas Bug-O-Rama. I got them from VeeDub Parts Unlimited. They are machined from billet aluminum instead of cast, so they have a nicer finish for better flow than cast vents. Gonna have to rejet now.

The project is on hold for a couple of days. While we were checking the radial and side clearances on the new rods, the radial clearance was perfect, .003" across all of them , the side clearance was about .007" tight, so the rods will need trimmed. I then did a trial assembly of the rotating assembly and when I torqued down the #3 rod it would not turn freely on the crank. After we dissaembled it again, the bearing had a slight goove in it, looking more closely I noticed a tiny nick in the crank, damn

I took the parts to a local machine shop to get the crank polished, this should clean in up, at the same time they are gonna trim the side clearance on the new rods, don't want too much oil pressure.

I got the new bearings and the crank and rods are back from the machine shop. They did a nice job on it all, the rods looked great. I took them to a friends, he builds race motors for dirt bikes, and he helped me balance the rods, we did them end for end, and total weight. We go them to within a 0.1 of a gram, using a belt sander to remove material.

I then installed the new rods on the crank with KS bearings, the side clearance was between .012-.014", so that within tolerance for a stroker. Here is a photo of the crank with the rods hung:

We then heated up the cam gear and dist drive gear on the barbeque:

Here is a photo of the complete crank assembley ready to install in the case:

I gave the case a final cleaning and prepped it for assembley:

With the distributor drive case-half mounted on the stand I put the new main brearings in after giving them a rub with some fine steelwool and a clean. Jeff intalled the distributor drive using the same shims as before. I used Clevite 77 assmbley oil on the bearings and all wear surfaces and dropped the crank into place. Here is the case-half installed on the stand, with the crank assembley and lifters installed waiting for the cam:

Here is the new Web-Cam 86c (with the cleranced option) and the Scat Lube-A-Lobe lifters:

The cam beraing needed a little massaging as the case didn't have a tang, so here is Jeff giving the cam bearing a little love with the file:

The clerances are really tight with the 82mm stroke (the stock is 69mm) in the case, the H-beam rods are a little closer than the old Rimco rods:

They were a little too close actually, the corners of the rod were touching the cam (even with the clerancing), so they are gonna have to come back out and have the corners trimmed off the rods, and then be re-balanced. Ohh the fun!!!

I got the rods back from the machine shop and they have been nipped at the corners, I had seen this done on Muffler Mike's web-page. Here they are:

We installed the rod that was hitting the cam onto the crank and installed it into the case half... guess what it still hits. Just the corner is hitting the cam journal:

I asked on ShopTalkForums and they advised me to clerance the cam on the journal that is not contacting the bearing.

I got this done at a local machine shop and we rechecked the clearances... finally were good. So I got all of the rotating assembly balanced and we were ready to build it.

I cleaned the caes and all the internal parts. We put the crank on the stand and assembled the crank assembly. I used a Bosch 009 dist. to install the dist drive in the engine because it was easier to set at TDC. We then installed it into the case, and then set the crank down into the case. I slightly lifted the crank and rotated the bearings till they are set onto the dowels. I then lubed up the cam and lifters (on both case halves) and carefully installed them. This is a picture of everything installed and ready to cover with the other half:

I used some Permatex aviation sealant on both case mating surfaces and installed the other case half, being carefull not to drop the lifters. Jeff lined up the studs and slid the rods through the top. Once we had the case set together, Jeff put some sealant on the oil pump and installed it loosely into the case held in by a couple of bolts.

We then torqued the case halves together in the sequence shown in the Hot VWs book, checked to make sure nothing was binding and it was rotating freely and tightened up the oil pump and Berg full-flow cover.

Here is Jeff checking the deck-height:-

With the 0.090" shims that came in the motor the deck-height at 0.060" and the 59cc chambers in my heads the compression ratio was 9.1:1. I was hoping to get the compression ratio close to 9.75:1, but the deck-height shouldn't be any lower than 0.040". I didn't want to fly-cut the heads to lower the compression (thinking about later mods), so I decided to order some 0.070" shims, this set my deck-height at 0.040" and the compression ratio is going to be 9.4:1. Should work good with my cam.

I decided to go with Deves rings instead of the Total-Seals. Jeff and I checked the rings in the bore and found they didn't need any filing to get the gaps correct.

Here is one of the cylinders installed and we are working on the other.

Once all of the cylinders were on I brought the motor back to my house and started the top-end build up. I double checked all of the deck heights and cleaned the mating surfaces ready for the heads. I cleanded the heads and pushrod tubes and set the pushrod tubes and seals into place on the case. I then lowered the heads down into place. Here is a pic of me installing one of the heads:

Once both heads were installed and finger tight I torqued them down in a criss-cross pattern and torqued one head to 10ft-lbs then the other head, I then reset the tourque wrech and redid both sides at 15ft-lbs and so on till I reached 25 ft-lbs on all the studs.

I cleaned the pushrods inside an out and placed them down into the tubes and lowered the freshly cleaned rocker assembely onto them. Once I was sure none of the valves would be under pressure when I tightened the rockers I torqued them to 18 ft-lbs.

Once they were both set and torqued down I set the valve lash at the 0.006" that Web-Cam reccomended and checked the rocker geometry. It needed some love as the cam, lifter and compression change had thrown it out of wack. I adjusted the pushrod length and had some of the lash cap mashined down a bit to get the heights equal. I checked everything a few times and when I was happy with the set up, I took everything back out ready for break-in.

I then set about putting all the freshly painted tin back on. I had to be really careful not to scratch it up. I used new stainless bolts and washers I located here in T-Bay to bolt it all downand installed nylon washers under every fastener to prevent scraching and rust. Here is the motor all finished up, just have to put the carbs on it.

Close up around the intake area. Not all of this has been cut only as much as needed and the left over area in the middle was bent up and toches the head so as little air escapes as is possible.

The oil pressure sender is in-line with the factory sender, I just installed a tee.

The cylinder head temp was tricky, I drilled a hole in the webbing under the exhaust on #3. I thne tapped it with a 1/8" NPT tap to accept the sender. I hope this is going to work I should have used a VDO unit, it may run too hot for the Autometer (340 deg) gauge, time will tell.

I then got Rookie to come over and help me put the motor onto the test stand that I built at work using a old case I had lying around. Once I had it on the stand I filled it with oil, I used Shell 15/40w Rotella-T oil and added a bottle of GM EOS (engine oil supplement) to aid in the cam break in. No busting my balls about the crusty valve covers, the new ones are ready to go on, but the breather system that they are plumbed for isn't hooked up. Here it is ready to crank:

I then wired it all up to the car using extensions for the wires. It looked like it was on life support. We cranked the motor over without the pushrods or rockers installed to build oil pressure. I had some difficulty getting oil pressure because the pump wasn't primed, I poured oil back in through the full-flow line to get it going. Once I did that I had a steady flow coming out of the pressure switch hole. I then installed a Snap-On mechanical oil pressure gauge into the hole and re-cranked it. It immediately got 40 lbs of oil pressure I cranked it for another 10 seconds then stopped and pulled the valve covers to reinstall the pushrods and rockers.

I then primed the fuel sytem by turning on the pump and letting gas come out of the still not connected fuel lines. Once I had a good flow I connected them to the carbs and let the bowls fill. Once I was sure the timing was close I was ready to fire it.

Rookie and Terry were there to help me, Terry was going to start the motor and study the gaugesfrom inside the car, Rookie was going to check for leaks and my job was to operate the throttle and keep one eye glued to the mechanical pressure gauge. Terry turned on the iginition and then fired the motor. It fired right up!!! It sure was nice to hear it roar again after all this time.

I brought it up to 2500-3000rpm and was starting the break-in. WebCam recommends a 15-20min break-in not letting the motor rev below 2500ropm. The motor was running good and seemed healthy, there was a small leak out of one of the full flow lines, but not to bad that I coudn't break it in. I got comfortable as this 15 mins was going to seem like forever.

About 10 mins in the motor just died, didn't stumble... just died. I looked around and noticed the coil wire had jumped off the Blaster 3 coil. I forgot that the Blaster 3 has a male terminal on the end and wasn't connecting to the male wire end on the MSD Super Conductor wires. I grabed an old spare I had lying around and hooked it back up. Turned the motor... nothing! WTF!!!

The stupid starter was sticking and wouldn't turn the motor over. I pulled the green limousine up to jump it.... still no go. I tried for about 1/2hour then finally gave up and disconnected everything.

I pulled a starter out of a '75 Std Bug that I have for parts but it was a no-go too, so I took both of them to my friends shop Superior Alternator. They took it apart cleaned everything and didn't find much wrong, so they sanblasted and repainted it for me and I reinstalled it.

The motor fired right back up agian.... SWEET! I did another 10 mins then shut the motor down. I drained the oil and pulled all full flow lines off. The oil looked good, no ugly stuff at all, there was no particals to speak of, but some small peices of aviation sealant and some ultra black. The filter didn't hold any nasty suprises either. So all was looking good.

I then pulled the carbs, exhaust and dist out to install the motor. I've had some difficulty putting the motor in and out of my car so I pull these off as a precaution now. I had also cut some of the bumper support area out to ease the installation before we painted the engine compartment.

I put some tape on all the exposed areas and a big cloth (old bed sheet actually) over the motor and slid it under the car. Rookie was on hand again to help and the motor slid up and in in 5 mins. No problems what so ever.

I then had the tedious task of reinstalling all the accesories and lines. Here are some pics of the motor as we start to reinstall the peices.

Once it was in I pulled the valve covers, readjusted the valves to 0.006" clearance (they wern't to far from the 0.008" I set them for for break-in) and installed the new valve covers and breather lines. Then the motor fired right back up.

Finally done!!!!

See:
Page 1 - intro page
Page 2 - engine specs.
Page 3 - engine rebuild
Page 4 - new rims
Page 5 - beam narrowing
Page 6 - misc mods
Page 7 - the green limousine
Page 8 - friends rides
Page 9 - 2003 Las Vegas Bug-O-Rama