Projectile Dart
Well-Known Member
I am getting ready to do a auto to manual swap on my dart. The current 360 was running fine but I am fairly certain the valve seals were leaking. Since I am most likely going to need to pull the crank to get it drilled for pilot bushing anyway, my plan was to do a very basic breakdown of the motor and check all seals and bearings, and only replace what is needed on the short block and clean everything up really well. On the heads I would like to replace seals, and do some very minor gasket matching and bowl work. I don't want to change the shape of the ports at all, I just want to smooth out the rough spots a little. Followed by smoothing out the tops of the valves then hand lapping them to their seats. The engine is in stock form out of a 1976 motorhome with an edelbrock performer intake and headers. Approximately 80k miles, 99% of which were pulling a 9,000 lb motorhome from Arkansas to California and back.
My question is this, what are your tips and tricks to maximize the stock parts on a small block. I want to avoid any cam swap out of fear of the current state of chinesium parts and lifters on the market. This isn't a "high horsepower build" and I don't really have any expectations of huge power increases from doing this, I just want a reliable cruiser and if I can do a couple free or at least minimal cost garage mods then I can consider that.
Again I would like to stay as stock as possible and really the only part I might consider changing is pistons to bump compression a tiny bit if that will wake up the engine a little without snowballing into a whole line of additional parts that need to be swapped. In general I want to try and avoid taking anything to a machine shop for cost reasons UNLESS I find any imperfections (gouged cylinder walls or terrible bore taper) to be absolutely necessary or if there is a consensus on operations that should absolutely be done to increase efficiency.
Go easy on me, while I've opened engines before to change a part here and there (Ive re-ringed an engine before and I've done a crank swap before) This will be the most involved I have ever gotten inside a small block. Any advice will be greatly appreciated.
My question is this, what are your tips and tricks to maximize the stock parts on a small block. I want to avoid any cam swap out of fear of the current state of chinesium parts and lifters on the market. This isn't a "high horsepower build" and I don't really have any expectations of huge power increases from doing this, I just want a reliable cruiser and if I can do a couple free or at least minimal cost garage mods then I can consider that.
Again I would like to stay as stock as possible and really the only part I might consider changing is pistons to bump compression a tiny bit if that will wake up the engine a little without snowballing into a whole line of additional parts that need to be swapped. In general I want to try and avoid taking anything to a machine shop for cost reasons UNLESS I find any imperfections (gouged cylinder walls or terrible bore taper) to be absolutely necessary or if there is a consensus on operations that should absolutely be done to increase efficiency.
Go easy on me, while I've opened engines before to change a part here and there (Ive re-ringed an engine before and I've done a crank swap before) This will be the most involved I have ever gotten inside a small block. Any advice will be greatly appreciated.
