71 Satellite Sebring 440 rebuild

well, the time came for the 440 in my '71 to be rebuilt. the old 440 ran great when i got it (16th b-day present for myself), but during college, it was pretty neglected. the last year or so, i've been upgrading things making it more reliable and drivable, so it became my semi-daily driver again.



however, recently, i had oil coming out the driver's tailpipe - popped the valve cover off and had an intake vavle not opening - my immediate thought was round cam...nope - caved-in lifter!



so, the tear-down began shortly after. running the numbers on the block, it's my best guess it was a police motor, as it was a 76 HP 440 with a HP C-body oil pan. as the stripping continued the motor started looking worse - i'm surprised it ran as well as it did





my least favorite part of it all - plastic-coated cam sprocket - what were they thinking?! anyhow, the coating came off, running through the motor, in addition to crud and gasket sealer most-likely from whoever did the motor swap MANY years ago...which ended up in my pickup tube - about a handful of stuff i got out of it in a coffee can





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currently, the block is still at the machine shop - hopefully done soon, as i'm caught up with about everything i can be. engine bay was de-greased, power-washed, and painted with undercoating to take some abuse. technically, for my '71 the motor should be orange, but i like the blue and almost everyone does orange.

all of the pieces are painted and ready to be installed. here's a look at my HEI distributor - nothing fancy, but way better than the stock points were.





factory HP '69 intake with a 650 double pumper. i made this coil bracket, since the stock location does not work with the dual-inlet fuel line.





Parts have been coming in pretty steady

milodon windage tray



7 quart zinc-plated oil pan and pickup





Bulk shipment of items...$400 worth....total for the rebuild, including the machine work and new higher compression pistons in the mix will be around $1400-1500. not too shabby imo

Cool little project. I'm surprised the nylon timing sprockets didn't go earlier? Have fun putting it together.

very cool

well, got word the other day....machine shop won't have it done til the end of THIS month apparently, he got another 440 to do and wants to do them at the same time...not too happy about that - the original time window was perfect, but we're passed that and i'm going to be busy the next 3 weeks, so could be end of july/beginning of august

well, after a long waiting process by myself, the motor is finally done at the machine shop...over 3 months later - anyhow, hopefully getting the block painted later this week with assembly over the weekend - not sure if i'll have time to get it back in the car due to other plans, but the weekend after is completely open, so we'll see.

accomplished this weekend...not much, got rocker shafts cleaned-up and protected, double-checked all of my stuff to make sure i don't have any last-minute trips to the parts store, got fitting for mechanical temp gauge to mount in WP housing, ordered a couple wix filters and a case of VR1 10-30

finally some progress this weekend...

Looking Great!

thanks

motor was all together, but had an issue with machine shop not putting in the lower front oil galley plug. he's getting me the plug and new gaskets, so hopefully will be back together and running this coming week - can't wait

Hope you found that galley plug problem before installing it in the car.

Sheldon

Very nice!

motor is in car, runs, everything is fine - got my kickdown linkage sorted out. still needs final tuning done, but man is it close. put it in D and just barely blipped the accelerator and squealed the tires

the XE268 cam is not at all what i would consider "lopey" as it is "supposed to be". to me sounds like a fairly stock cam - with manifolds and stock exhaust it probably would have a bit more lope though. it is also known to be "ticky" but it isn't either. i probably could have went with another step higher, but i wanted to be sure i wouldn't have to mess with my torque converter or gear ratio right now. i may swap rear ends at some point, but that's not on my agenda at the moment.

it was a LOT of work, but worth it - exhausted






just a short lil vid - not much, just idling a bit

Glad it worked out for you!
What mufflers are you running?
Jim

Please run a real air filter. Those triangle foam things are mullet-wearing Chivvy-boy filters!

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Glad it worked out for you!
What mufflers are you running?
Jim

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they are IMCO turbo mufflers, which are "summit" and "jegs" mufflers. i deliver a lot of them to exhaust pros shops. i'm very happy with it.