So I decided to stick with the 392, but progress seemed so slow, I never had much time available. So I took 5 weeks off of work in January - February to try to finish the 31 coupe for drag week 2016, and to beat Jeff out of a dinner. (We bet dinner on whether the car would be ready for dragweek) I was going to spend a week or so assembling and dynoing the 392 hemi, then 3 - 4 weeks making major progress on the chassis and body.
As usual, lost parts, (launched a circlip, never to be found, had to order a new one from diamond) stuff that didn't fit right,
cutting the main stud girdle for stroker clearance, remodeling the oiling system, setting up my ridiculous 8 carb intake, etc slowed down the assembly, and, burned up a lot of time. It took way more than a week but I got it done.
machining the rods for side clearance
Broaching the hub of a Mopar 340 super damper to fit the 392 Hemi.
Shortening the damper hub to align the pulleys
Cut and re-thread oil pickup for fit oil pan
Drill and tap oil drain back hole in head for external lines to pan
New drainbacks are slightly larger than the adjacent original holes.
I put it in Jays dyno hoping for big power numbers. (BTW, Jays 427 SOHC Ford headers fit with just re-drilling some holes)
Made some check out pulls, then some full throttle pulls, increasing the rpm a little more each time. The oil got milky, changed the oil. After the 1st 6000 rpm pull, I cooled if off and lashed the valves. Went to restart it, and it hydrolocked. Found water had leaked into #8 cylinder, causing the hydro lock. Pulled the head and found #8 cylinder wall was cracked due to the hydro lock. Figured it was a head gasket leak issue. Pulled it off the dyno, tore it apart, found shot rod bearings from the wet oil, had the #8 bore sleeved, pressure tested the block, took great care with the copper head gaskets when re-assembling, put it back on the dyno, made several pulls, but again milked out the oil. Pulled the heads, brought them to a head shop and had them pressure tested and milled .003 for flatness, put heads back on with thread orings around each water hole in the heads and block, put it together, filled it with water and pressure tested it, leaked. I pulled it apart, installed new custom head gaskets with all the un-needed holes gone, extra-extra carefull assembly with permatex red coppercoat. Mounted a radiator sytem on the dyno to use a closed cooling sytem so I could put moroso ceramic seal in it. Pressure tested with no leaks, made some pulls, testing 3 intakes and dialing the carbs on the 8 carb intake. It filled the oil pan with water again.
Now my 5 weeks was gone, no work done on the car, and a broke motor.
A few months later, I finally started working on the motor again, and found a crack in the #8 intake port in the head that leads to water. I poked it with a probe, and it went right thru. Apparently these is some porosity or a thin spot in the casting. Why didn't the head shop that did the pressure test find this and save me 3 weeks of chasing a head gasket problem????
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Sent the head off to Nick smithberg to get repaired. He did a great job, and it hasn't leaked since.
So 2017 was spent trying to finish the car for DW 17, and after a massive thrash, I finally drove the car for the 1st time the night before we had to leave for drag week. Too many problems came up, so I threw in the towel on the coupe and brought the red 67 GTX F.A.S.T. car.
