Hi All,

I am wondering if anyone has any tips and or advice for my stepfather for his '67 Fury II with a 440 Stroker engine. The engine was built years ago by a well known high performance Mopar engine builder. We swapped out 3 carburetors and ignition modules and the car now has a Demon carb. We have TTI headers that came with the exhaust kit on it. When the car is cold, it runs like a bat out of hell. It can do burnouts and runs pretty good. But when it gets hot, it does not want to run, and when it's at a stoplight it stalls. mind you We just honed the pistons. My stepfather mostly uses Edelbrock, so the intake got changed from a performer to a regular rpm. Mind you he put an aluminum radiator and electric fans in it too. He did a compression test and checked parts of the engine, and he thinks everything looks fine, everything is new. Since he got so disgusted with it, he just stopped working on it. Now it just sits and collects dust. Since he did a resto, he drove it a little over 200 miles. We took the car out yesterday and it still doing the same thing before we honed the pistons. At this point this stroker engine will be taken out and a stock 440 will be put in, but I figured I would ask you fine folks to see if we can do anything to salvage this engine before we take it out. Here is a picture of the car and a couple of the engine. PLEASE , it would be much appreciated.

The pistons were measured from top to bottom before honing, these were the starting numbers

These were the final numbers, the tool in the picture was used to measure the pistons.....

That’s a neat sleeper !

Who is that famous builder ?

My FIRST THOUGHTS were ... the pistons weren’t properly fitted into the block

The engine builder was well known in Ohio, rather not mention his name but his last name was Mr. Wilson. Now since passed on

These tools were used to measure the inside of the cylinder heads. After measuring the cylinder heads with the tool in the 2nd picture we have these numbers in the 3rd picture.....

Maybe the cylinders are a little to small so when the pistons get hot it seizes up. My first stroker had that problem. The stroker kit I bought came with blower pistons and the machine shop set the engine up for regular pistons. When the engine got warm it would seize up. It required a complete rebuild to fix it. All it takes is one small mistake when you build an engine. My advice is to pull the engine out and have a good mechanic go thru it. Might be an easy fix once it is all apart.

We actually did "call in the big guns", and had a specialist/good friend/Mopar mechanic and guru. He suggested the same thing with honing the pistons, we honed them out, and that unfortunately still did not work.

It could be 50 things.

Including being something as simple as vapor lock with today’s crappy gas....... if you’re still running a mechanical fuel pump.

Cool car!!

Love the car.

I'm not sure I understand the question about pistons. Piston manufacturer specifies a specific clearance at a specific measuring point on the part. Typically the clearance is achieved right at the specified bore diameter the pistons were built for.

If you really think the pistons are stuck in the bores......Get it good and hot, put on some welding gloves so you don't burn yourself, pull all the spark plugs out, put a breaker bar on the damper bolt and see how hard it is to turn with a bar.

"it does not want to run, and when it's at a stoplight it stalls"

When that happens, Does the starter work okay, does the engine spin relatively fast when you turn the key?
If it does, it's not piston to wall clearance.

It's hard to tell by the pictures, but if there were a major problem with clearance, the pistons would be visibly damaged and it doesn't appear they are (from the little bit that is visible).

Lots of things it could be, ignition, fuel, vapor lock, a ground or connection that goes bad when it's hot, stuff like that.

When he swapped the intake, did he block the heat crossover?

[quote=fast68plymouth]It could be 50 things.

Including being something as simple as vapor lock with today’s crappy gas....... if you’re still running a mechanical fuel pump.

Cool car!! [/quote

Thank you for the compliment. It acts like it has vapor lock but it has a carburetor spacer on it, and an electric fuel pump to boost the mechanical one and that still did not work.

first place i'd go is fuel delivery. check hose connections, pump push rod, and pressure.to my knowledge all mech pumps that don't need a regulator are marginal and some are horrible, like the stock replacements. I modify carter 6903's and I think they're borderline for 450hp. i'm just too stubborn to go electric/regulator. mech pumps do better cold than hot. they'll lose a pound or so in psi when warmed up. I have one of those high pressure carters, 4862, that's a real gusher but it would have to be regulated. finding regulators that work good with pulse pumps has been an issue for me.

QUICK EZ CHECK ... when it gets hot ... stop the motor .. pull the coil wire and see how it cranks over.

If it LABORS ... I’ll bet it’s toooo tight piston to wall

The starter works ok yes. As far as the engine sometimes it turns fast, sometimes it does not.

The car has 440 source heads and they unfortinatley do not have a crossover

easy test drain all the gas out and get some non ethanol gas or cam2 and see if it runs better. mine does the same thing. its even worse with the winter blend. since I put a return system its way better.

my first impression was ignition....looks like stock distributor and coil but i see no ballast.....what's inside the distributor?.....12 volts to the coil all the time?....does the coil get extremely hot to the touch?

on my sons car we pulled the hood off and it ran fine. his was doing the same thing. get the heat off the carb.

There is indeed a ballast but you can't see it from my picture though, it is mounted elsewhere also. There is not 12 volts inside the distributor that I know of, and I do not recall on the coil being hot. We will check it next time we look at the car.

I had a magnetic pickup do this in a '75 Powerwagon a few years back. It would run fine until it got warmed up and then wouldn't start. Turned over fine, though, just no spark.