The Great Pumpkin - '71 Duster
Still plugging away and got a couple things done recently.
So the Victor 340 intake I was working on in my last post was a fail. In all honesty, I trashed it. It's not really worth explaining in any great detail other than the fact that I learned what not to do. Essentially there is not enough material on the top of the runners to do the job right. The answer was to get a Super Victor.
Once that idea became clear the search was on for an intake. I lucked out pretty quickly and made a deal on an older, non-EFI version that had been ported by Hughes. Though it was gasket matched already, the ports still needed to be opened up further to match the BPE heads. I posted about the job here. As I said in that post, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and I believe it will work out fine.
The previous owner (member 1965fish) painted it 273 red because it's the correct color for an Early A but my preference is the natural finish. The paint was removed with a combination of paint stripping chemicals, elbow grease and my power washer. There's still some spots left in hard-to-reach areas but it's good enough for horseshoes and hand grenades.
Hard to see in this pic but I also ground down the cast-in bosses on the tops of the runners so the reverse-lip valve cover edges will clear. Not sure what purpose those bosses serve anyway other than possibly providing a spot to leverage a pry bar on the underside of the valve cover lip if it's stuck. Or maybe they are there to keep wires in place? Not sure but they're gone now.
At this point I can pretty much put the engine together. It needs to be timed and there's a few peripheral things that will need to be finalized before it can be fired up but the intake was the last major component that required some thought and effort.
I'm also happy to report that dash is ready to go back in the car. There are more connections that will need to be made after it's installed but those would not be possible without the dash being in place first. The plan was to make it easy to service if/when trouble arises and we'll see how that works out when I have to deal with the remaining wiring. Sorry, no pics this time but it will give you something to look forward to in the next post.
Thanks for following along. More to come.
Still plugging away and got a couple things done recently.
So the Victor 340 intake I was working on in my last post was a fail. In all honesty, I trashed it. It's not really worth explaining in any great detail other than the fact that I learned what not to do. Essentially there is not enough material on the top of the runners to do the job right. The answer was to get a Super Victor.
Once that idea became clear the search was on for an intake. I lucked out pretty quickly and made a deal on an older, non-EFI version that had been ported by Hughes. Though it was gasket matched already, the ports still needed to be opened up further to match the BPE heads. I posted about the job here. As I said in that post, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and I believe it will work out fine.
The previous owner (member 1965fish) painted it 273 red because it's the correct color for an Early A but my preference is the natural finish. The paint was removed with a combination of paint stripping chemicals, elbow grease and my power washer. There's still some spots left in hard-to-reach areas but it's good enough for horseshoes and hand grenades.
Hard to see in this pic but I also ground down the cast-in bosses on the tops of the runners so the reverse-lip valve cover edges will clear. Not sure what purpose those bosses serve anyway other than possibly providing a spot to leverage a pry bar on the underside of the valve cover lip if it's stuck. Or maybe they are there to keep wires in place? Not sure but they're gone now.
At this point I can pretty much put the engine together. It needs to be timed and there's a few peripheral things that will need to be finalized before it can be fired up but the intake was the last major component that required some thought and effort.
I'm also happy to report that dash is ready to go back in the car. There are more connections that will need to be made after it's installed but those would not be possible without the dash being in place first. The plan was to make it easy to service if/when trouble arises and we'll see how that works out when I have to deal with the remaining wiring. Sorry, no pics this time but it will give you something to look forward to in the next post.
Thanks for following along. More to come.