Baby Steps Progress Report

Never mind...

When it's running at the track again, I'll post an ET slip.

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that chamber does not look softened to me ???

Why the heck are the heads off now? I thought this engine was dynoed at Dwayne's place over a year ago? Is there a detonation issue on pump gas?

Even though your original post is gone, I'm going to assume you are making progress on the car... If so, good for you. Keep with it.

I started posting pics and updates, then some questions & comments came in. First thing that came to mind was: "I don't want to bother with this..." so I blew everything away.

No "Dog & Pony" show this time as things progress, although I'll still post questions for things that come up.

Hey Brad any progress is good progress. I started working on myself trying to walk at least 2 miles a day last week. Hopefully that will get me over my laziness and get me motivated. Goodluck on your projects.

Oh come on.

I sure want to know what you're up to. PM me if you wanna talk about it.

But as said...any progress is good including progress on oneself.

Brad, just keep a progress thread going... I know for me it helped motivate me, and kept me going at times. Here's a thought. Make a goal. Say, I want it ready for THIS event... and try to make it happen. How far is it for you to make Monster Mopar Weekend next year, at Norwalk, in July?

It don’t have to be a play by play documentary. Just an occasional picture. No need to add to the work.

Glad to hear you are getting back on it. Life tends to keep us all busy especially when the kids are young. But you have kept the car now its time to sjow her some love and time as you can. Keep plugging away!

/ /

At least things appear to be headed (pun intended) in the right direction.

Please... don't get me started.

Are those the Edelbrock Super Victors, or what ever they are called? What rockers are they?

I look forward to your post & progress on the car.

Edelbrock Victors in standard port size, ported by Dwayne P.

Hughes rockers, with their newer style on the exhausts and older version on the intakes.

I guess I'll never know then

What's the deal Brad? Don't let a few bad comments ruin the update for the rest of us that are interested.
This site gets a lot less traffic than it used to, sadly. Facebook has taken over it seems...I hate it b/c I'd much rather follow stuff like this here. That and I can't get on FB at work, lol.

This site has been a good learning tool to me.

I'm hoping to have an update (maybe not big, but something...) Sunday night. Let's see how the weekend goes.

Long story short: some questionable decisions on my part, along w/ the overall effort turning into a bit of a cluster-f***. Too frustrating to go into more details.

And you think that you are the lone ranger? IMO, this is a great place to air out the dirty laundry for comments. Being Moparts, put on your extra strength underwear.

Spill the beans.

How inspiring... but I'll pass.

No new posts cuz no new updates.

Logging off and going into the garage for a little while before I turn in.

Some times yo have to go down the wrong path to find out it wasn't the correct one
But I've never done THAT

Damn, who wears underwear, that costs extra....lol

Plan: Take about an hour before going to bed to set up rockers on heads w/ "real" springs to measure actual net lift before setting installed height for springs when I assemble the heads.

Reality:
1. Misplaced the dayum rocker hardware to install 'em... finally found it almost an hour an a half later "hiding" underneath some shop towels about 6" from the first place I looked
2. Also found my valve spring tester calibration spring during the wild goose chase for the missing rocker hardware and confirmed I can't put too much faith in one of those $100+/- testers, which is the same conclusion I came to the last time I used it (and suspected it wasn't reading accurately any more)

End result: Basically... no progress

Next step: See if I can squeeze in another hour of car time tonight and pick up where I expected to start last night.

I find it easiest to buy tools/parts/supplies and throw them out after one use or one week, whichever comes first. Saves time looking for them later, and doesn't usually end up costing more!

Threw a few "real" springs on a head, grabbed some of the new longer pushrods, set the lash at .018", mocked up the dial indicator and got .648" on the #1 intake and .651" on the #3. Loaded ratio checks right at 1.54, so it's losing around. 04-.05 ratio vs measuring with soft checking springs.

[quote=BradH]Threw a few "real" springs on a head, grabbed some of the new longer pushrods, set the lash at .018", mocked up the dial indicator and got .648" on the #1 intake and .651" on the #3. Loaded ratio checks right at 1.54, so it's losing around. 04-.05 ratio vs measuring with soft checking springs. [/quote


Oh boy here we go !!! Just bolt the engine together and don't worry about 04-.05 ratio.... For what your doing with the car it wont matter at all. Have a beer and enjoy the hobby and stop loosing sleep over thing that don't matter

No changes planned w/ this setup. It was very close to what it measured before w/ the same rockers and too-short pushrods; I was simply verifying the current net lift for spring setup purposes.

Did you gain rocker ratio with the longer pushrod's, if so how much?

.100" longer pushrods made no significant difference in max lift measured. But there's .100" less unsupported adjuster screw sticking out with a 600# open spring load pushing back against it.

Cool. Good idea, Hope the reassembly goes well and I look forward to reading updates on progress

One step forward, one step back.

Set up installed height for new springs on one head. All the measurements are +/- .003".

Noticed I got into a few of the exhaust seats while doing my recent chamber work, despite trying to avoid just that type of mistake. Tried a quick lap job hoping that would be sufficient, but it wasn't.

Gonna have to take the heads to a local shop to touch up those seats.

Bleep it...

Here’s some unsolicited 20/20 hindsight advice in case you find yourself in that situation again(chamber work after the VJ is done).

Sacrifice a valve or two and have them sitting on the seats while you’re whittling away.

I did have a valve on the seat for most of the work, but pulled it when getting the last bit of the transition from the top angle into the chamber. Had a few eff-ups, some of which I didn't even realize until today. I thought I was just "close"...

Grrrr... especially cuz I haven't been exactly thrilled with the results of the local shop's seat work in the past. I just want them cleaned up so I can put the heads back together. If it was more involved, they'd be going back to you, but the shipping vs labor for this is hard to justify at the moment, especially cuz it's both heads.

Can you afford to redo them if they get messed up again? Never again, will I not send my heads back to Dwayne to be refreshened. Might cost a little more from the start, but I know they are correct when they return.

I have been down that road before...

Nothing that can’t be fixed with replacement seats

Nothing that can't be fixed with another Visa card...

(For Gawd's sake, somebody buy my dayum carbs!!! )

A couple of minor things... Decided the heads are going back up to Dwayne's after I started having cold sweats over the possibility of somebody else doing a sub-par job.

Also, didn't like the raw fuel trail that was showing in the bowls behind the valve guides, so I went over the bowls & runner surfaces (but not the short turns) and put a bit o' texture on them to help w/ fuel fallout issues. Or so the theory goes...

Bowl pic is "before" w/ the fuel trail highlighted; runner pic shows surface texture applied.

I seem to remember sending someone a set of atage 6’s where I had left the intake runners roughed up....... and they didn’t like it, so they polished them smooth.
Maybe it’ll come back to me who that was.......

Hmmm... let me know if you remember. Whomever it was, I'm sure he's an idiot.

Back when I did port work I would blast the port in the direction of flow with Black Magic abraisive , I really dont know if it helped or not, but after blasting the port flowed a little more.

You won't be the first idiot that smooth up the intake port walls making the fuel droplets congeal and drop out and make the motor less efficient

Oh, I forgot to add riblets to the SSRs!

Once they leave my possession, what happens to them is beyond my control

I thought riblets was something McD’s used to have....... with bbq sauce on a bun.

I think that was the McRib Dwayne.

I feel the same way about my oldest son now that he's gone off to college.


I'll have to look and see if McDonald's is listed as one of the contributors on the research papers I've read about fluid flow over various surface textures. However, I don't recall sesame seeds being one of the surface textures tested.

Maybe I was having a premonition:

https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/mcdonalds-mcrib-returning

The only update is the heads are now in FedEx's hands to go back to PRH to fix my eff-ups.

Heads are fixed and will be on the way back to me Monday. Everything else has come to a halt until I get my schedule figured out for the next steps.

Heads are back.

That is all / carry on / smoke if ya' got 'em / nothing to see here folks...

Brad, I can really appreciate your frustration with th Victor heads. After looking at the pictures of the combustion chambers on your heads, I realized that the ones on mine appear somewhat different on the quench side of the chamber. Is there a production design change over the years, or is this what you have developed. Just happened to realize the difference. Ran into similar problems with losing effective rocker arm lift, going to B3 geometry correction. Hughes 1.5 rockers actually effectively turned into 1.45 & 1.43 ratios. Valve scrub was now correct but had to opt for 1.6 rockers to bring valve lift back into perspective. They actually come in at 1.55 & 1.53. Had lost valve lift in another area, so it became a new cam or rocker decision.Cam reportedly perfomed very well in a different vehicle so I opted change rockers. I can feel your pain with these heads. It deffinitely wasn't in the brochure.I hope we both get to where we want to be ,performance-wise. Good luck!! Bill

Brads motor sure didn’t seem like it was having any issues on the dyno when it was making nearly 700hp at about 7k.

Well.......nothing related to anything mechanical.

I thought the overall package worked pretty well.

Some of the carbs we tested weren’t up to snuff though.

Now........ the amount of porting required just to get the bowls sized close to anything appropriate for the 2.20/1.81 valves in the gen 2 std port version heads....... that’s another story.

Happy to hear you are making progress hombre.

So we are going racing this spring, correct? : D

I want to see that hood scoop gulp some air!

Then you can spray it! (Kidding...okay not really)

Yeah, the early Victor heads had a different shape to the quench area. As Dwayne mentioned, the early heads also required a lot less work to get the ports (bowls) sized within reason.

Re Dwayne's other comments... NONE of my dyno carbs were close on the tune. I went through them all and sent three down to AED to be wet-flow tested. AED did some work on one, and I changed the tunes on the other two based on their test results.

Other than the carb setups, the irritating oil leaks and the coolant leaks from the MLS head gaskets, the engine "could" have been run as it was dynoed. However... I got major OCD over some things about the valve train that Dwayne wasn't phased by at all. End result has been more down time, more money spent, and all for something that 20/20 hindsight says wasn't worth getting so bent outta shape over.

So here I am ten years after the car last ran and two years since the engine was dynoed trying to put it all together again.

Thanks for the updates !!

Keep at it!! missed it what type of car?

What it looked like as a mid-to-high 10-sec ride...

What it'll be when it's back out with about 60 HP more...

Oops... that's Pip, our Crested Gecko.

Let's try again...

Nice ride Brad.

Thanks. It's a total 20-footer, though. The rust is about the same as when I bought the car in 1995 'cuz it's been garage kept, etc. It really needs to have the crack in the front frame rail repaired before it goes back to the track again, too. This $hit never ends...

If you park it outside mother nature will provide you with some free weight reduction.

Car looks nice though Brad. Do the heads go on this weekend?

I saw the "Where did everybody go?" thread and decided to bring this up since I haven't been posting for a few weeks.

1. My lack of online presence is basically because I haven't felt a need to add my to anything recently. Not like I don't have opinions... just not interested in expressing them.

2. No updates specifically regarding my Challenger, although I've been able to sell some parts to help generate some cash flow.

3. Engine reassembly came to a grinding halt a couple(?) of months ago. Sh!t is just sitting around waiting for me to get back in the groove.

4. I'm going to be in between jobs beginning in April until... ??? I'll have some time to wrench on the car, so my target for having it running is by the end of April.

5. In the meantime, this place is a pretty low priority with everything else going on for the next 3-6 months.

Gonna crawl back under my rock now.

1) Express your opinions. Food for thought or we all starve eh?

2) Cash flow is good! I am on the same mission right now. Lots of resto parts listed on ebay and some extra engine stuff here.

3) In combination with #4, my suggestion would be to use the time between now and April to get the engine together and start prepping the car for the frame rail repair. It's a three day job to strip it, weld/pain it, reassemble it. Do you have a welder?

4) See #3 - Your employment is coming to an end where you are working. Don't kill yourself on the 9-5. It's time to reinvest in Brad.

5) If it was me I'd start with painting that room. The dingy grey must make it hard to work even with good light. A few hundo in high build primer, semi-gloss white and some grey floor paint would go a long way. You could do the room 1/2 at a time as weather allows. Lastly spend 2-300 on LED shop lights and let the good times roll. Before you know if you will have a mini fridge and computer station.

Happy New Year!

Get car done! : D

Wow...good point. Environment does make a difference.

Anyway welcome back for 2 seconds Brad. I always look forward to whatever updates you might have.

Alot of times, like now, I may have made a little progress but sometimes I will hold back until I have something
fairly substantial to post.

I wondered where ya went. I understand, all of it. I too plan to have my 511 running by Aplril.

Yep, that's it for now.

Does ordering new license plates count? Did that this morning at the DMV while my younger son was taking his Learner's Permit test. Other than having bought some parts recently, that's about it...

Yep that counts. It was a big step for me when I got new plates and tags for the Duster project. I also had to call the insurance agent and get the insurance turned on. All steps on the road.

Yeah, the insurance is all set, too.

sometimes, the insurance part is the most painful !

Hagerty collector car insurance, about $200 per YEAR.

Damn, mine is like $600 a year for hagerty.