BBR's 83GT - turbo 302.... now with EFI!

[DanStokes]

Curiouser and curiouser......

Dan

[BBR]

Yep. #3 is definitely my culprit. I also moved the engine to the front (stock location) set of mounting slots in the kmember. Doing so will make quite a few things fit better.

[BBR]

I've been thinking about this for a bit. I think this time around, we will drop some shorty headers in temporarily, fire it up and heat cycle it a couple of times, then pull the shorty's and re-torque the heads. The headers block the lower set of head bolts so they have to come off anyway to re-torque.

I also think this leaky cylinder is likely a huge contributing factor in the carb tuning weirdness I was having. I may re-baseline the carb and start over with it.

[BBR]

Well, apparently we used the worst SBF head gasket known to man. lol It is a Fel-Pro 1011. It has a horrible reputation. The only reason we used them is because they are about the thinnest gasket we could find and the fact Jonathan had a set sitting on his shelf.

9333pt1 seems to be the gasket of choice. I have a set of 8548pt2's which is almost identical but the fire rings are made from steel as opposed to stainless steel.

[DanStokes]

Thanks for that info. As far as I know mine are OK but I have no idea what PN are on there so if I need to replace them I'll keep this info in mind.

Dan

[Beagle]

When I was looking at the different thickness available for the 460 I saw where Felpro's reputation had gone south for certain gaskets. SIGH... then again if you use something like a budget killing Cometic, surface finish becomes an issue? Then again, again, if the gaskets let loose, your chance of driving over the crank is reduced right?

[BBR]

Yeah they are a "fuse" of sorts. These 1011's have a reputation of being prone to leaking coolant. I am just going to use my 8548's. The real reason is that I already own them and don't want to spend $50 on a set of gaskets right now. You know, Christmas shopping is happening right now. lol They should be fine with the moderate boost levels we see. I have seen guys posting about running 30psi with them so we should be fine. I am also going to spray them with copper coat just for a little additional sealing help.

[BBR]

Started cleaning up the heads yesterday. Scraped gaskets and hosed them down good with brake clean. I also pulled each lifter, cleaned the bore, hosed the lifters out with brake clean, lubed them and reinstalled them. Can't be too safe when dealing with a flat tappet cam!

[Beagle]

.. when dealing with a flat tappet cam!

you're probably right... a turbo and a Bee Cam would probably blow both sides gaskets out at the same time. Once all the eek moment hair settles down on my neck and the search function fails me again, I'll probably ask why a flat tappet.

[BBR]

Non-roller block. And cheap Summit camshafts!

[Beagle]

Oh yeah. 1983... doh. Yay cheap cams!

[BBR]

Heads and block are clean and ready to assemble. Honestly it's probably cleaner than when we built the engine. lol Remember, this engine is the original engine from this car. When we built it, we just honed it and slammed some used stock TRW forged pistons in it with new rings, bearings, etc and a flat tappet Summit cam. Heads are stock D8's with better springs that were actually gone thru by a friend that runs a machine shop.

[BBR]

Heads are back on! I sprayed head gaskets with copper coat for the first time ever. I read that it may not be necessary, but certainly won't hurt so I opted to go ahead and use it. I also remembered to use some sealer on the lower row of head bolts. Back when we first built this engine we had coolant weeping around our studs on the passenger side. Eventually it stopped, but it was leaking because I didn't put any sealer on the studs when I put them in the block.

[BBR]

Valve train is all together and I installed the shorty headers so we van heat cycle the motor before retorquing the heads. I chose to do it this way because the turbo headers block access to the lower row of head bolts. No sense in putting all the turbo stuff on only to take it right back off.

[BBR]

Intake is on! I also drilled and tapped an intake runner for an IAT sensor.