True, so true! I've only recently moved past purple shaft cams and ductile iron rockers!
The trip back from Vegas was an enjoyable drive, except for the usual Sunday afternoon traffic back-up into Kingman. I stopped for a drink in Wikieup, and the Bronze GTX drove by, we ran together into Wickenburg...thanks for rubbing it in guys...man, that's a neat car!
As I entered Wickenburg, I downshifted to 2nd, and it was no longer there, 2nd gear had officially left the building! So I eased it on home, doing the quick double slam on the ratchet shifter to get from first to third.
With the Belvedere moving on it's own, the Valiant was pushed into the prime operating bay, er, carport, and teardown started almost immediately, albeit about 4 months later than it should have taken place! Once I got the intake off, it was apparent that water had been tossed around along the bottom of the plenum, all the intake ports were rusty, and 2 had standing water. When the heads came off, there was surprisingly little moisture in the cylinders, and the cometics showed no signs of leaking, so I came to the conclusion that one of the heads was cracked in the intake port.
Allow me to digress and explain what I'm working with, what I have available and what leads to me to some of the decisions (regrettable and flawed as they may be) I've made to this point.
When I purchased the Valiant in 2006, it had been sitting for more than 5 years. It had broke the ring gear in the 9", which had taken out the sprag in the 904 on it's last pass, and the engine had well over 500 runs on it since it had been built in the mid-90's. I pulled out the broken 4.88's and replaced them with 4.30's, rebuilt the 904, and added a Griner LBA brake, then moved to the engine. It was a virgin 4 bolt X block 4.04 bore, bushed lifter bores, a 3.79 MP crank, stock rods, and the Ross pistons stuck about .030 out of the deck. The J heads had the chambers clearanced for the positive deck height, and were ported within an inch of their lives, with an M-1, and a MP part numbered 750 annular Holley on top. The cam turned out to be a purple shaft, the ubiquitous 296-557.
I simply freshened everything and stuck in a Hughes Engines 260/264 587/594 solid, which I had custom ordered on a 110 LSA.
On the debut weekend, it went 10.89-121 with my fat tail in the car, and later, 10.70-123 with my jockey sized buddy behind the wheel. 1 season, and 120 passes later, it was struggling in the low 11's, and I suspected the ancient Turbo Action converter wasn't up to all those trans-brake launches, and was going away. At the end of the 08' season, my jockey sized buddy bombed the brakes at the stripe and hit the wall.
At that point, I had a Super Street racing buddy who had pulled his W-5 top end off, and went to Indy 360-1s, so he offered me the W-5 stuff. I bought it, and put it on the shelf for a future rebuild, figuring the closed chamber design wouldn't work with my positive deck pistons.
In 09' however, I decided to convert the car to street use, and in conjunction with the exhaust, and tire/wheel swap I also made 2 other changes, a new JW 8" converter, and a 950 cfm Chuck Nuytten carb. Almost a year to the day of the Valiant's brush with the wall, we took it to the track in street trim, and promptly cut the drive shaft in half, trashing the tranny, and destroying the floorboard.
It didn't move again until Drag Week 2011, with 3.89's in place of the 4.30's then again until Drag Week 2012. Looking at those time slips, best of 11.33-116. I've decided it doesn't like that Nuytten carb. On both Drag Weeks, it took huge jet change swings for street to track, and that is 3-4 mph just gone. Another thing, the oil consumption between tracks was a little alarming.
So where do I go from here? That was the question I was mulling over the week after Vegas, as I ripped into the ole girl. 3/29 was Good Friday, and a holiday at my place of employment, so I had it off. I was reading and researching on Moparts, when I took a closer look at Performance Only's Molnar crank sale. Plenty of people had mentioned I make the jump to a 4" stroke combo, but in my mind, I couldn't justify the jump from a 3.79 for that little gain. The 4.125 stuff with the chevy journals however, that was intriguing. As a BB guy, I remember well when everyone started moving past the 4.15/ stock rod strokers to the 4.25 and 4.300 stuff with chevy rods, and that's something I'm quite comfortable with. I want a rotating kit though, not just a crank, so late Thursday night I fire off an E-mail to Dan, asking what rods and pistons he has available to match the 4.125/340 main crank.
Friday morning, my daughter drops off the 5 year old Grandson, and explains that since I have the day off, and his pre-school schedule is strange on that day, I'm in charge of getting him to class! I plunked his booster seat into the shotgun position, and he went to school in the Belvedere! Lets just say he really enjoyed it, especially all the thumbs up gestures and compliments!
When I arrived home, Dan at Performance Only, had answered my question with a question, e-mailing me back with "let me know what you want for pistons, flat top or dish. Do you know your deck height? How much compression do you want? Chamber size of the heads? Let me know and I'll put a package together for you."
I decided to let that breathe for a little while, I didn't really have all those answers, I hadn't even decided on a head yet!
