69 Notch Barracuda - Rebirth

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Crank is in! Clearances between .0015 and .002 according to plastigauge. Rotates nicely by hand.

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When you're tired and drinking cocktails and you reach for the book to zoom in on a picture :)

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Got sidetracked on designing and building an air system for my new-to-me 60 gallon 240v air compressor. Works awesome... no leaks. 3/4" mains down to 1/2" copper pipe at the air dryer and regulator.

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Installed the timing chain set and degreed the cam... all checked out well at the 'straight up' alignment. 4* advance pre-ground into the cam.

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My only concern at this point is the camshaft endplay. As I just posted in the tech section, mine is around 1/8". This seems excessive but I'm not sure. If anybody can provide some advice I'm all ears.
 
Building her up. Decided to buy a stainless bolt kit from alloyboltz.com. I used Aluminum antiseize on those and torqued them to alloyboltz s' specs (a little less than stock bolts). Gaskets were all sprayed with Copper Coat, except the timing cover seal... that was lined with high tack gasket sealer.

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Daggertools body hammers... new-to-me... just got them in the mail today. Damn pretty.
 
Reconditioning the excellent stamped rockers I got from another fabo member a while back...

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I decided that I want to go with a bare metal finish on my oil pan (purchased from another fabo member). I just love a tattered metal (brushed aluminum/wire wheel) look. So I searched around and found that people building 'rat rods' consider Gibbs Penetrating Lubricant to be the best of the best as far as keeping the rust from forming on their bare metal finishes. The best part is... if you decide you want to paint down the line, you can just paint right over it. Granted, I'm sure someone who produces Show Quality paint jobs wouldn't think of it, but that ain't me. Regardless, it can be cleaned off before paint.

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I had a timing cover issue. The one I ordered from 440 Source was short about a 3/32" from lining up flush with The bottom of the block. They gave me a full credit for that one, and then I ordered a Proform replacement from Amazon. That one fit perfectly.

I've got a stainless steel bolt kit and I am adding a touch of aluminum anti-seize to each of the bolts before final installation.

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Thanks all! And thanks for the answers to questions, and for all of your inspiration.

Well... my plan all along was to paint the block, but since I don't yet know what color I'm painting the car, OR the engine bay, I'm not certain about a color for the block yet. I will definitely be driving the car as a sleeper, keeping the body in the gritty, yet VERY solid condition it's in now. I'm not going to stick with any traditional colors for the block, otherwise that would have made my decision for me, and I would simply paint it as I built it... or after it's all put together. I'll just pull it down the line to give it a proper paint job if I feel like it.

So my thoughts now are to, at least initially, keep the engine with a bit of a piecemeal look, making sure to protect from rust. I mostly stay away from car shows right now... but if i were to walk along a row of perfectly painted, shiny, and beautifully restored cars... I'd walk right past them all if there was something like this at the end of the row ;) I don't need flash, but I want a very high standard of functionality (within a sensible budget, of course). I don't know... my heart is old school... and old school levels of HP. I'd like to make it beautiful someday, but for now, any delay in getting it running and on the road.. i want only to come from lack of budget, or function... not lack of beauty.
 
JAndrea said:
And the part I've been waiting to order for a long time… the Performer RPM.

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I put the 440 version of that same intake on my car back in 2001. Between the block being decked, the heads being cleaned up and the intake the bolt holes for the intake did not even line up, it sat up too high. I ended up having to remove 0.110" from each face of the intake to get the ports to line up correctly. Just relaying this little tidbit in case you have not checked the alignment of the intake to the heads.

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mosleyme said:
I put the 440 version of that same intake on my car back in 2001. Between the block being decked, the heads being cleaned up and the intake the bolt holes for the intake did not even line up, it sat up too high. I ended up having to remove 0.110" from each face of the intake to get the ports to line up correctly. Just relaying this little tidbit in case you have not checked the alignment of the intake to the heads.

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Yes... the intake alignment has totally been one of my worries. The deck and heads have been milled, so thanks for the reminder. I already installed the heads and torqued them down.

Hopefully I'll be able to do any milling on the intake without removing the heads?

Damn that's a purdy powerplant you have there!
 
Sprayed the head gaskets with Copper Coat and installed the 906 heads. One of the gaskets was sprayed with some crappy old CC spray, compared to the nice new stuff I bought the next morning. I made note of this in my build journal in case there is a problem (leak) down the road. Incidentally realized I have to order 4 exhaust studs that were missing (the heads have been bagged since they were redone).

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Installed the harmonic balancer today. Holy god what an intense workout. I rented an installation kit and it was still a ton of work to crank it on. I did NOT use heat or freezer (next time I'll try that)... just lubed up the inside/outside of the balancer snout, as well as the threads of the installation tool and started cranking. Finally grabbed a big-arse pipe wrench (for the larger handle) toward the end when the muscles and tendons where giving out.

It seemed to bottom out, so that's when I stopped.

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I have to say I'm a little irritated because it seems to me, upon inspecting the 440 Source HBalancer, it seemed to have been slightly used.
 
JAndrea said:
Yes... the intake alignment has totally been one of my worries. The deck and heads have been milled, so thanks for the reminder. I already installed the heads and torqued them down.

Hopefully I'll be able to do any milling on the intake without removing the heads?

Damn that's a purdy powerplant you have there!
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The intake gets cut, so no worries, the heads stay on. Thanks, but that was the engine in 2001, it has a different set of heads and a new intake now:
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