Red 95 GTS - Just Another Turbo Mustang

[DanStokes]

Teardown continues! Everything is going good!

[BBR]

Disassembly is finished. It went as expected and some lingering questions about this engine have been answered.
We were under the impression that this thing was a 347. We attempted to measure the stroke after Jake bought it and it seemed as if it was 3.40". Well it is definitely a 302. Stock TRW forged pistons with a 3.00" stroke. That is kind of a bummer, but also a relief. If we frag it, well it was just a 302 and nothing fancy.

The heads are a pleasant surprise in that they are DOOE castings that have port work, larger valves, and smoothed chambers. The chambers really look nice.

[BBR]

Valve sizes are 1.94" and 1.60". From what I have read, that is about as big as you can physically go with these heads. They are darn close to each other.

[TheSilverBuick]

Same size valves as my Firebird!

[BBR]

Cleaned, cleaned, cleaned today. Not my favorite task. I did discover a few things that need to be addressed. Heads are cleaned, block is cleaned and intake is cleaned. I sprayed the head gaskets with copper coat.

The exhaust crossover on the intake was leaking into the valley. For some reason Felpro and others insist on making the hole in the gasket for the crossover waaaay bigger than it needs to be. It's just stupid and it's not the first time I have run into this problem. I ordered different gaskets that do not have a crossover hole.

Driver's side head had an extra set of dowels jammed up in it. I don't know if they were causing a problem, but I went ahead and banged them out.

The rockers look like Scorpion rockers. They are nice pieces. The problem is they put really thick guideplates in this thing so when the rocker is adjusted down properly, the rocker body interferes with the fillet on the stud. Well, it used to interfere. They self clearanced, so they should be ok now. Haha.

Cam is unknown but I measured twice and think it has around .488" lift. I'm going to research a little and see if something out there matches that.

Thermostat housing had no gasket. Just a crap ton of rtv. Haha.

[DanStokes]

and


I'd like to criticize the original builder but this all looks like stuff I could have messed up. Except I would have bought thermostat gasket.

[TheSilverBuick]

That cross over leak issue is wild!

302 you say?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeOn5FjsYAI&t=2s

[BBR]

Literally if Edelbrock would add a bump to their casting or Felpro would make the hole smaller, it would be a non-issue.

[TheSilverBuick]

There are two intake manifold gaskets for big block Buicks, large exhaust cross over and small cross over. I remember having that same issue once with big cross over heads with a small cross over intake. Fill the cross over with JB Weld!

[BBR]

I actually considered that.

[BBR]

Reassembly begins!

[BBR]

I started putting the rockers back on and it became evident very quickly that it really needs to have the correct pushrods. I ordered a set from Summit and they should be here tomorrow.

Even though they had "self-clearanced", some were binding up before you could get the initial zero lash. Rocker would get tight and the pushrod would still have 1/16" of play.

Yesterday I took a flapper wheel to the header flanges and made more spark plug socket room.

With those little details fixed, it should start going back together rather quickly.

[BBR]

Headers back on!

[BBR]

New pushrods and rockers adjusted. Short video this time!

[BBR]

Lower intake and fuel rails!