My 422 smallblock build

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Bewy said:
B3RE,
All good. I could have worded it better.
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Nah, I knew what you meant, Geoff. To be honest, I was expecting a fight, so I was purposely vague. My apologies.

When I set up to cut the rockers, my intent was not necessarily to lengthen the fulcrum, but to have the rocker resting closer to the center of the valve stem, in the perpendicular plane. I used that measurement from the head to determine the point where I would make the radial cut, and it happened to be slightly longer than the original fulcrum length. As bad as the rockers were, I had no choice but to re-shape the tips so they would actually contact the valve stem properly. T
Some of the pads had been ground almost flat and were resting on the valve stem tip chamfer when in the closed position. It just made sense to make it better since I had to do the work anyway.
 
UPDATE…….
Well, after a whole year has gone by I finally got around to buttoning this thing up. It was a VERY busy year for me and so my car hobby was put on the back burner. My 12 year old son became very ill and was eventually diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, which meant many 4 hr round trips to the doctor and tons of time in waiting rooms.
We bought our first travel trailer last spring and went camping as much as possible. Plus I was coaching little league and taking our daughter to T-ball. Between all that stuff and working 40-50 hours a week, the Duster hardly moved last year, let alone doing anything with the stroker.
I managed to get things buttoned up over the winter despite trying to spend as much time in the woods hunting with my son as possible. I gathered the last few accessories for the install like pulleys, stat housing, spark plugs and wires, bolts and all the other trinkets that make these things work.
Last night I started preparing the faithful little 318 for its eviction from the frame rails of the Duster and got everything on the topside done. Next it will go up on jack stands so I can disconnect everything down under.
I’m hoping to get things swapped out ad soon as possible since the weather here in PA is starting to turn for the better and before long I’ll be back to camping, and baseball, and working overtime, and etc, and etc, and etc…..

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I'll be interested to see how you feel about the dual-plane intake, simply because I have the same one as well as the iron MP manifold. Opinions seem to vary wildly about the aluminum one, but I've heard several good things about them from those with experience. I haven't heard a peep about the iron manifold (essentially a redrilled 1980s 360-4V truck manifold). I'll probably just have to try it myself and see.
I used a port-matched Strip Dominator on my Valiant, but I'm mid-process going to closed-chamber 15° heads. I'm thinking I'll try a Victor this go-round.
 
sorry to hear about your son's illness. hopefully the doctor's can come up with something to keep him healthy and not get dragged down by it. prayers included.
 
SSG_Karg said:
Yeah the tubed side. I’ll look at possibly tapping the hole but the feed from the #1 main is only 1/4” into the whole. I think a pipe plug would either block the feed or stick out the face too far. Suppose I could grind it down except I broke my bench vise last week and haven’t made it to Harbor Freight yet.lol!
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I tap this for a 1/2 pipe plug. Test fit the plug to see its position when tight.
On the outside of the plug scribe a line that’s inline with the number one oil passage.
Then I grind a notch on the opposite side of the scribed line.
When you install the plug, the scribed line
Will indicate to you where the position on the notch is, to be sure your notch is lined up with the oil feed passage.
I seal that pipe plug with loctite to seal it against leakage and to be sure it doesn’t move.
 
Sorry to hear that about your son.
The car looks awesome.
 
Couple more pieces of the puzzle showed up last week. I spoke briefly with @weedburner (Grant) about clutches, flywheels, and his clutchtamer. I took his recommendation on the Ram clutch and he also suggested going with an aluminum flywheel, which is something I had been considering anyway.
The Ram clutch is part number 98390 and is a diaphragm style. The flywheel is also from Ram, part number 2503 and weighs in at 13 lbs if I remember correctly. New flywheel bolts from ARP will round out the install.
Although this is a 90% street car, I do plan to add a clutch tamer to the Duster for the rare occasion that I get to the track.
Not much left to do before we drop it in. Getting pretty excited.
Also, a huge thank you goes out to @Bobzilla for the Summit discount code. Saved me $100!

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Well, my world just came crashing down around me. Serious ******* heartbreak.
I got the motor in and everything hooked up. I started adding coolant and and after adding a gallon and a half, I looked under the car and saw the dripping. The passenger side cylinder head has two cracks in it. One at each end around the lower head bolt hole. I’m totally crushed. I’ve invested so much time and money into these heads and now one of them is junk. How in hell am I going to find a replacement? I’m literally sick to my stomach right now. I can’t even look at the freaking car. Not only is the monetary hit devastating, but it’s to the point in the year that I don’t have any spare time to wrench on it. So, most likely the car will sit, untouched, for the foreseeable future.
I went from being so excited to finally firing this thing off to feeling totally and completely defeated.
If you have a single W2 head you’d like to sell, PM me.
Eff my life.
 
SSG_Karg said:
Well, my world just came crashing down around me. Serious ******* heartbreak.
I got the motor in and everything hooked up. I started adding coolant and and after adding a gallon and a half, I looked under the car and saw the dripping. The passenger side cylinder head has two cracks in it. One at each end around the lower head bolt hole. I’m totally crushed. I’ve invested so much time and money into these heads and now one of them is junk. How in hell am I going to find a replacement? I’m literally sick to my stomach right now. I can’t even look at the freaking car. Not only is the monetary hit devastating, but it’s to the point in the year that I don’t have any spare time to wrench on it. So, most likely the car will sit, untouched, for the foreseeable future.
I went from being so excited to finally firing this thing off to feeling totally and completely defeated.
If you have a single W2 head you’d like to sell, PM me.
Eff my life.
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I have two leakers just like it buried in my yard. Best Mopar heads ever made I’ve heard.
 
You absolutely, positively MUST measure the depth of the dowel pin holes in the head.

If its fractured around the bottom bolt holes you can pretty much bet the holes weren’t drilled deep enough.

Ive posted that here more that once. That’s what causes the fractures like that.
 
SSG_Karg said:
Well, my world just came crashing down around me. Serious ******* heartbreak.
I got the motor in and everything hooked up. I started adding coolant and and after adding a gallon and a half, I looked under the car and saw the dripping. The passenger side cylinder head has two cracks in it. One at each end around the lower head bolt hole. I’m totally crushed. I’ve invested so much time and money into these heads and now one of them is junk. How in hell am I going to find a replacement? I’m literally sick to my stomach right now. I can’t even look at the freaking car. Not only is the monetary hit devastating, but it’s to the point in the year that I don’t have any spare time to wrench on it. So, most likely the car will sit, untouched, for the foreseeable future.
I went from being so excited to finally firing this thing off to feeling totally and completely defeated.
If you have a single W2 head you’d like to sell, PM me.
Eff my life.
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So sorry this happened to you, hope you can get it corrected. Best wishes .
 
I had this years ago on my tow truck with 351 clevland. I rebuilt the engine and cyl heads with new guides and all and when I put water in the engine water was gushing out from the back of one of the heads. after taking that head off and examining what was wrong it appears that when I put that head on it has got caught on the dowel pin during tightening and cracked a piece at the back bolt hole in the head. I had to find a new head and recondition it and install that one very carefully.
 
Rat Bastid said:
You absolutely, positively MUST measure the depth of the dowel pin holes in the head.

If its fractured around the bottom bolt holes you can pretty much bet the holes weren’t drilled deep enough.

Ive posted that here more that once. That’s what causes the fractures like that.
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I did verify. Twice. I suspect the cracks have been there since I bought the heads. Im wondering if they relaxed enough to pass the pressure test and when torqued down the crack opened up again. Either way, I think it’s junk.
 
SSG_Karg said:
I did verify. Twice. I suspect the cracks have been there since I bought the heads. Im wondering if they relaxed enough to pass the pressure test and when torqued down the crack opened up again. Either way, I think it’s junk.
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I check mine too on the engine stand without a head gasket just to make sure. Mine were brand new and at a giveaway price from a buddy but still not a cheap or easy combo. I hade porting time in them to get them up over 300, time porting the Victor intake, one set of Crane rockers and one set of Mopar Performance. I didn’t even change out the 3/8 (2.02) valves thank God because of what I read about them
Being crack prone.
 
Bummer man seriously. Don't give up hope though. You still have most of the expensive bits there. Rocker gear, valves, springs, etc. Source a head, get a new head gasket, use a hoist to yank the old head out. It'll be back together before you know it.

There are a couple of W2 heads W2 engine groups on Facebook, you can probably find a replacement there. Post in the wanted ads here, and possibly the racers forum. You'll find a replacement.
 
pittsburghracer said:
I check mine too on the engine stand without a head gasket just to make sure. Mine were brand new and at a giveaway price from a buddy but still not a cheap or easy combo. I hade porting time in them to get them up over 300, time porting the Victor intake, one set of Crane rockers and one set of Mopar Performance. I didn’t even change out the 3/8 (2.02) valves thank God because of what I read about them
Being crack prone.
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That’s exactly how I did it John. Set the head on the deck without a gasket and verified it was all the way down. I even checked it with my calipers to be 100% sure as I too had heard about the cracking problems.
 
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