Lesson learned

[MadHatcher]

Well I just found out why my car ran over a full second slower in the ¼ mile after installing a 383 stroker motor in my ’69 Camaro 3 yrs ago.
I pulled one of the heads off to check P/V clearance and discovered at TDC, the piston deck clearance was .150” in the bore. Further checking showed a 3.48” stroke. My buddy who built the motor for me bought a 383 Street Rodder kit from Ohio Crankshaft and assumed the kit was correct.
They gave him a standard crank instead of the stroker and I got a 350 motor with 6” rods, forged pistons and 8:1 compression. The motor should have had a 10.9:1 compression. No wonder the car ran fine on 87 octane , was hard starting, and was a big disappointment. I was going in all different directions trying to find out why the damn car went slower.
Now I have to pull the motor, purchase the correct forged stroker crank, out of my own pocket, and re-build it.
Just goes to show you, don’t assume anything.
Anyone else have something like this happen to them?

[wikd69]

Re: Lesson learned

Well I just found out why my car ran over a full second slower in the ¼ mile after installing a 383 stroker motor in my ’69 Camaro 3 yrs ago.
I pulled one of the heads off to check P/V clearance and discovered at TDC, the piston deck clearance was .150” in the bore. Further checking showed a 3.48” stroke. My buddy who built the motor for me bought a 383 Street Rodder kit from Ohio Crankshaft and assumed the kit was correct.
They gave him a standard crank instead of the stroker and I got a 350 motor with 6” rods, forged pistons and 8:1 compression. The motor should have had a 10.9:1 compression. No wonder the car ran fine on 87 octane , was hard starting, and was a big disappointment. I was going in all different directions trying to find out why the damn car went slower.
Now I have to pull the motor, purchase the correct forged stroker crank, out of my own pocket, and re-build it.
Just goes to show you, don’t assume anything.
Anyone else have something like this happen to them?

Before you do anything rash, consider this: You have the *perfect* starting point to add a huffer

12 lbs of boost and 2 x 750 Holleys will make you smile ;D

Just look at me. I only have 8:1 compression and you don't hear me complaining, right ?

[Nik]

Re: Lesson learned

I agree with wikd69, go with the blower and just change the cam if you have to.

Nik

[wikd69]

Re: Lesson learned

I agree with wikd69, go with the blower and just change the cam if you have to.

Nik

heck, you don't even need to swap cams - enough boost can overcome lots of stuff <g>

[min301]

Re: Lesson learned

I don't care who you are, that there is funny. ;D

[fahrenschnell]

Re: Lesson learned

Hell, you could even run a centrifugal blower and blow through carb if you don't want to cut up the hood.

[wikd69]

Re: Lesson learned

see, this is a perfect time for lemonade !! (paraphrasing my mom who always said "When all you have are lemons...")

Um, not to imply your car is a lemon...

Maybe I'd better stop now <g>

[HoosierGTA]

Re: Lesson learned

see, this is a perfect time for lemonade !! (paraphrasing my mom who always said "When all you have are lemons...")

Um, not to imply your car is a lemon...

Maybe I'd better stop now <g>

you tried, maybe he just can't be comforted right now . When I had my motor built by a shop,because I didn't want to screw it up, got it all in and tried for 2 wks. to get it started. I'd pick peoples brains at work come home try stuff to no avail .Then one day I just decided to pull it leave it at there shop let them figure it out. Then Right before taking the motor mounts loose I pulled the timing cover off . It was 120 degrees off.I called and had him come and look at it. He did the right thing and said we could put it in time and start it or pull it and check it out at the shop.I pulled it. Got it back in a week and ran great! I've had it in 3 or 4 cars .

[wikd69]

Re: Lesson learned

see, this is a perfect time for lemonade !! (paraphrasing my mom who always said "When all you have are lemons...")

Um, not to imply your car is a lemon...

Maybe I'd better stop now <g>

you tried, maybe he just can't be comforted right now . When I had my motor built by a shop,because I didn't want to screw it up, got it all in and tried for 2 wks. to get it started. I'd pick peoples brains at work come home try stuff to no avail .Then one day I just decided to pull it leave it at there shop let them figure it out. Then Right before taking the motor mounts loose I pulled the timing cover off . It was 120 degrees off.I called and had him come and look at it. He did the right thing and said we could put it in time and start it or pull it and check it out at the shop.I pulled it. Got it back in a week and ran great! I've had it in 3 or 4 cars .

This would have been one of those really rare occasions when more boost would not have helped.

How the heck could they mis-time it that badly ? I've screwed up and stuffed the distributor in wrong, being several teeth off (another instance where more boost would not only not help, but could actually hurt), but I've never did the 180 thing on the cam. ouch.

Which reminds me.

I did see my boss do a back flip off the top of a 67 Chevelle once. The Chevelle had a pretty lumpy 396 which had been rebuilt by this guy who didn't really know what the heck he was doing - he had the timing way screwed up and the carbs running so rich your eyes would water just looking at it. He brought it in so we could take a look at it. I took the car out, tried tweaking the timing a bit but no joy. So I pull back into the shop, shut it down and start pulling the distributor to static time it.

About then my boss comes in and sez "Hey, I'll do that !". He climbs up and straddles the dual quads on top of this big block, reaches down and twists the distributor and, of course, fires a plug on a cylinder with an open intake valve. So here we are, all the ingredients of a three-stooges comedy routine: A hot big block with an extremely fuel-saturated tunnel ram, dual quads without air cleaners *and* a little guy squatting with one foot on each fender well, laying over the top of both carbs to reach the the distributor.

You see where this is going, right ?

Before I could say "Hey George, the ignition is still hot cuz I was checking fuses first", he gives the distributor a big twist and a yank and then was literally launched off the top of the Chevelle, fire trailing from the front of his shirt as he screams through a short parabolic arc past the front bumper. You heard me say "Hey Geor..." and then feel more than hear a **WHUMP**CRAAACK** and old George is down on the shop floor, trying to beat the flames out in his chest hair.

I thought I was going to pee my pants laughing. George wasn't quite as impressed by the whole thing.

I guess you could say there was a lesson learned there:

-> Don’t drink so much coffee before watching your boss do jet-assisted static timing.

[sedandelivery55]

Re: Lesson learned

see, this is a perfect time for lemonade !! (paraphrasing my mom who always said "When all you have are lemons...")

Um, not to imply your car is a lemon...

Maybe I'd better stop now <g>

you tried, maybe he just can't be comforted right now . When I had my motor built by a shop,because I didn't want to screw it up, got it all in and tried for 2 wks. to get it started. I'd pick peoples brains at work come home try stuff to no avail .Then one day I just decided to pull it leave it at there shop let them figure it out. Then Right before taking the motor mounts loose I pulled the timing cover off . It was 120 degrees off.I called and had him come and look at it. He did the right thing and said we could put it in time and start it or pull it and check it out at the shop.I pulled it. Got it back in a week and ran great! I've had it in 3 or 4 cars .

This would have been one of those really rare occasions when more boost would not have helped.

How the heck could they mis-time it that badly ? I've screwed up and stuffed the distributor in wrong, being several teeth off (another instance where more boost would not only not help, but could actually hurt), but I've never did the 180 thing on the cam. ouch.

Which reminds me.

I did see my boss do a back flip off the top of a 67 Chevelle once. The Chevelle had a pretty lumpy 396 which had been rebuilt by this guy who didn't really know what the heck he was doing - he had the timing way screwed up and the carbs running so rich your eyes would water just looking at it. He brought it in so we could take a look at it. I took the car out, tried tweaking the timing a bit but no joy. So I pull back into the shop, shut it down and start pulling the distributor to static time it.

About then my boss comes in and sez "Hey, I'll do that !". He climbs up and straddles the dual quads on top of this big block, reaches down and twists the distributor and, of course, fires a plug on a cylinder with an open intake valve. So here we are, all the ingredients of a three-stooges comedy routine: A hot big block with an extremely fuel-saturated tunnel ram, dual quads without air cleaners *and* a little guy squatting with one foot on each fender well, laying over the top of both carbs to reach the the distributor.

You see where this is going, right ?

Before I could say "Hey George, the ignition is still hot cuz I was checking fuses first", he gives the distributor a big twist and a yank and then was literally launched off the top of the Chevelle, fire trailing from the front of his shirt as he screams through a short parabolic arc past the front bumper. You heard me say "Hey Geor..." and then feel more than hear a **WHUMP**CRAAACK** and old George is down on the shop floor, trying to beat the flames out in his chest hair.

I thought I was going to pee my pants laughing. George wasn't quite as impressed by the whole thing.

I guess you could say there was a lesson learned there:

-> Don’t drink so much coffee before watching your boss do jet-assisted static timing.

;D ;D ;D
After spending the day changing the intake gaskets on a '99 Chevy Venture V6, I needed a good laugh.

[MadHatcher]

Re: Lesson learned

Bolting on a blower did cross my mind. Heck even with a low compression motor, the car did the 1/4 in 13.6. Not to shabby.
Looks like I need to get busy and yank that sucker out and start at it.

[HoosierGTA]

Re: Lesson learned

wicd69 ..................Just came home from a 12 hr day and the chevelle story was what I needed . The day started out at 5:00 am with the house at 58 degrees and the heat pump /furnas NOT working .And the furnas guy still isn't here at 7:30 PM . Well the guy that did my motor helped me out about 2 yrs. later when I accidently loosened the crank /harmonic balancer bolt and didn't know it till it chewed off the end of a perfectly good crank. The guy said bring it in I owe you one. The funny thing is I didn't give him the timming cover and guess what?...................yep it was 120 degrees out again .

[wikd69]

Re: Lesson learned

Back in the days when I twisted wrench for a living I was real bad about maintenance on my own rigs. Something about the cobblers kids going barefoot or something. So here it was, middle of winter, and I still hadn't anti-freezed the Camaro. I get home from work in the middle of a snowstorm after a long cold wet day and they're forecasting crystal clear skies the next morning. Rut-roh. For those of you who have *not* lived in the mountains, clear skies after winter snow storms usually indicate brass monkey weather, if ya get my drift. It was time to do the anti-freeze thing.

It's close to midnite, dark as hell, snowing like crazy and I'm in front of the house working on the Camaro. I drained the radiator and block and partially refilled it with fresh anti-freeze. I jump in the car to fire it up so I can burp the cooling system. I pop it in nuetral, start it up and hear SHRED-WHACK-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP until I frantically shut it down.

The old t-shirt I had been using as a rag ended up in the fan where it proceeded to remove both the top *and* the bottom radiator necks before winding both hoses around the fan taking parts of the shroud with it. Needless to say, the next day I got to sharpen my gas welding skills down at the shop. Tinning and brazing had never been my forte and I *hate* working on radiators.

Lesson learned ?

Don't own an automobile. Go back to a simpler time. In the old days you would never have had to burp your horse.

[HoosierGTA]

Re: Lesson learned

No but putting a coat/blanket on a horse that doesn't think they look cool gets about the same results, only to yourself .We have a Tenn walker. We brought him up from the slightly warmer clim of Ky. last summer.