The Great Pumpkin - '71 Duster

[mygasser]

we all have our own preferences which work for us. as i said i've had no leaks or bolts loosen on headers (including used ones) since using a light smear of silicone both sides of the gaskets. even on the cheapy gasket set shiny gaskets that i understand aren't suitable for headers as they leak, lol. i will say it is just a 'light' smear not gobs of the stuff but still.
neil.

 

[rmchrgr]

Fair enough, thanks.

 

[bjkadron]

Getting closer! Engine looks great!

 

[rmchrgr]

Thanks! Good things happen when I get off my *** and do stuff.

To follow up from my last post, I ordered a new oil pan gasket set and crank bolt from Mancini today. Parts should be arriving later this week.

And even though I really, really love them, the cool-guy reverse lip valve covers are turning out to be too much of PITA. Trust me when I say that locating/mounting a breather and PCV is unnecessarily complicated. So in the interest of getting the motor over the finish line I ordered a set of "regular" MP cast valve covers. Got 'em on sale too, $220 vs. $295. Those are going to need a little massaging as well but it won't be half as involved as the reverse lip ones would be. Should also save about 10 lbs off the front of the car...

More to come.

 

[rmchrgr]

Rainy day here so spent some time working in the garage and managed to get one project half done. I have a lot to say about it so grab a cold one and get comfortable.

As I mentioned a few posts back, I bought a different set of valve covers with the idea they would be easier to set up than my reverse lip ones. Thankfully that turned out to be true but they still required a lot of work. These are the "reissue" Mopar Performance cast type that Mancini Racing sells. I believe they are made by a different foundry now out in California and no longer come in a fancy 4-color printed box. The Mopar logo also has an ® under it on these which my older ones don't have so I'm guessing they're probably a licensed part now. They are cheaper than the wrinkle ones because they are essentially unfinished.

First off, these are "as cast" and come pretty rough. Like, right out of the sand casting mold rough. I believe Mopar offered a polished version of these way back when and I can see why - it's going to take some elbow grease to make these look presentable. Lots of sharp edges, different patches of rough texture/non texture, etc. That's what you get with raw aluminum castings. I'm considering media blasting them to make the surface uniform and then polishing them afterwards.

Second, like every set of these valve covers I've ever had, they required massaging to work. Years ago I had a black wrinkle set with a Victor 340 and the rails were ground down to fit over the ends of the intake runners. Same thing with these - no way they are fitting without grinding. With the Super Victor, the gaskets needed trimming as well and from what I remember that was not needed with the regular Victor. Sometimes you gotta do stupid crap.

It took a lot of time to get sufficient clearance while trying to avoid grinding the rail edge down to nothing. Kinda had to sneak up on it so as to not go too far. Started out with an aluminum burr in an air grinder to rough in the shape then a hand file to knock down the high spots and finally a sanding roll to smooth it out. Inevitably there would be one small point where the edge of the rail would hit the intake so take it back off, grind a little more and re-check. Also had to be hyper vigilant about cleaning out aluminum chips before setting the cover down to check it.

Turned out OK but could probably use a bit more whittling to be safe.

The other issue with these covers has always been the the fill cap and breather holes. You'd think by now they'd do away with the ancient twist-in cap idea but no dice. And since nobody in their right mind is going to bother to make a right and a left side valve cover, the holes are invariably not where they should be which is towards the back of the motor. So now I have to come up with a way to get them arranged like I prefer.

Putting a PCV valve in a filler cap hole is generally not feasible. And since I have a rather unique PCV valve with a .75" nipple it's an uphill battle to make it work. But, I did some research and took a shot on an outside-the-box idea with a Ford PCV grommet.

The main issue with putting something other than a twist-in fill cap in a twist-in fill cap type hole is the slots. The Ford grommet I found has the slot fillers but there are two sets of them on opposite sides and at different levels. The problem is easily solved by slicing a set the slot fillers off. Could not have been easier to do and it worked perfect. The only issue with this Ferd part is that the outside diamater of it is too large for my taste but it works so it is what it is. Thankfully my PCV block thingy mostly covers it up so it's all good.

BTW, this particular PCV "valve" was made by AndyF. He does not sell them as part of his normal offerings but he had an extra and luckily I was able to buy it. Pretty neat thing. It's not a conventional PCV valve. He designed it to be used with Holley EFI systems as it is a fixed orifce and provides a contant volume of air flow as opposed to the spring loaded type. The orifice is actually a Holley carb air bleed so a small amount of adjustment is available by changing the bleed size. There's no spring inside so again, the volume of air flowing through it is constant which keeps the EFI from adding or subtracting fuel based on a variable air leak. Or something like that. Yes, the M/E Wagner PCV valve can be made to work in a similar way but it's also pricey and not necessary if you're just using it in fixed orifice mode.

The fitting will connect a hose to an air/oil separator on the inner fender before it routes back into the throttle body base.

Last thing I did today was drill out one of the "knockouts" for a regular breather. I used a large unibit chucked up in my drill press. Doing it this way is always a little sketchy but I went slow and it turned out fine. The hole was drilled to 1.25" diameter. I smoothed it out with the grinder since the unibit left some steps. Most breather grommets fit the 1.25" hole size and have a .75" I.D. I may try to find one with a 1" I.D. to open up some differnt breather options. The baffle under the filler cap hole needs to be moved under the breather hole but that's just 3 screws and some Red Loctite.

As seen in two pics above, I will be using some nice stainless studs to cinch these down. Pretty sure I'm not going to use any spark plug wire looms that screw into the valve cover bolt holes this time around either. They work OK but I just don't want to deal with them. Also not sure if I am going to glue the gaskets to the valve covers but I probably will. Sucks to remove the gaskets when you glue them.

Phase two on these things is to get them polished up or painted. Not sure what I'm doing yet. Paint never lasts and can look like crap after a while. Polishing these will be a lot of work but probably the best choice.

Never thought I'd write a dissertation on valve covers so if you made it through all that congrats.

More to come.

 

[bjkadron]

Looks good! I need to do the same thing with my MP ones.

 

[rmchrgr]

OK, so I cleaned up one valve cover. I suppose it's better than it was but there is still a lot of haze going on. I blame it on the casting because I think these things are made of tin foil. I worked hard trying to get the aluminum to look decent but despite 5 different steps of rigorous wet sanding and a couple rounds of polishing/buffing they still show a lot of imperfections.

10 footers. And no, the intake is not bolted down yet - soon.

Zooming in a bit closer you can kinda see what's happening. Maybe I need to go back to about 800 grit and see if that will help.

You can really see what I'm up against here. It's smooth but it looks like crap.

I will say that I'm not using pro-level stuff or techniques here so maybe this is the best I can do with what I have. This was all done with elbow grease and one round in my buffing wheel which is too small to do much of anything useful. I might hit a chain parts store and see what's out there to step up my polishing game.

That's all for tonight.

 

[mopowers]

I think it looks great and wouldn't have a problem sporting them that way. If you don't like it, have you considered painting them and just polishing the raised surface of the fins and letters? I've always liked that look too.

 

[rmchrgr]

I think it looks great and wouldn't have a problem sporting them that way. If you don't like it, have you considered painting them and just polishing the raised surface of the fins and letters? I've always liked that look too.

Thanks. They're probably fine but I'm just afflicted with an inflexible, exacting, perfectionist nature...

 

[mpgmike]

Even if you are able to polish and/or sand it out to your liking now, time will oxidize the metal. Be prepared to give it some sort of protection. I'm a fan of both powder coating and anodizing for aluminum. Both look amazing when done right.

 

[rmchrgr]

Yet another rainy weekend here (like EVERY goddamned weekend these days) so I finished polishing the second valve cover this afternoon. Same procedure as before - 320, 600, 800, 1,200 and finally 2,000 grit wet sanding. After that it's a round of Mother's mag and aluminum polish with one round on the buffing wheel and then a second application of the same stuff buffed out by hand with a microfiber towel. Is what it is, I'm done wasting time polishing these turds.

Same result as the first one which is just kinda meh.

I'm not sure a pro polisher would get better results as these things are just kinda low quality aluminum. The material is clearly porous in some spots and appears to have a lot of impurities. Maybe it's something with the casting process? Who knows. Don't get me wrong though - they are fine as far as valve covers go and I do like them but trying to make them look good is an exercise in futility.

In other Frustration Dept. news, I'm still working on the 3D printed dash bezel in the background. It's close but there are still some fitment issues with the mounting hole positions which is annoying. I've been through several rounds of test prints with this thing (6?-7?) based of a scan of an original part so it makes little sense why it's not lining up.

The guy facilitating the job is a good dude but even after working with him on this for almost two months it seems like he is still not fully grasping what needs to happen. Part of the problem is that he does not work in absolute measurements - he's more of a fudge it and pray type which really does not work when you're striving for accuracy. I'm at the mercy of his capabilities since I can't make this kind of thing happen myself. It'll get done but it's like come on dude, help me out here. I don't need to be coming back to your shop every week and have to re-explain the whole thing every time. I swear.

Also, while thinking about how an electric water pump works, I realized that I missed something when wiring it. There is no bypass hose so you can't use a thermostat. Some people will take the 'guts' out of one in these applications but all that does is create a flow restriction with the empty outer ring. Yes, you can drill holes in the outer ring to increase flow but why do that when you can just leave it out and get maximum flow.

However, without a t-stat and with the water pump on, the engine would take a long time to warm up. The solution in this case is to program the EFI software to keep the pump off until a set temp, say 150º which will allow the engine to warm up normally. This is done by creating an 'output' channel in the ECU that signals the relay block to turn the pump on. It's not a big deal to do that in the software but unfortunately I now have to figure out how to physically run another wire from the ECU to the relay block without having to take a bunch of stuff apart. I was really dreading something like this coming up. Sigh.

More to come.

 

[bjkadron]

Looking good! I will throw one thing out about 3d printing. Most hobbyist machines aren't that accurate to start with, and if you throw shrinkage into that mix, then it gets even harder to print a dimensionally accurate part. Hence why most people using them are the fudge and pray types. They kinda have to be.

 

[rmchrgr]

Most hobbyist machines aren't that accurate to start with

This guy has pro-level equipment and has had a dedicated 3D printing studio for a relatively long time.

He makes the test prints out of cheaper material and has to glue two parts together so that’s part of it. I left the last one in my truck the other day when it was hot out and it warped badly. When the part is printed ‘for real’ it will be much more robust.

I really can’t complain though as the guy has been good to work with and seems to be willing to see the project through. He hasn’t charged me for all the test prints because they are made from scraps. I bring them back and he dumps them in a bin to use again.

Also, most of his clients are artist types so the mindset for getting stuff made is completely different. He tells me I’m one of the few people he’s worked with that know exactly what they want and drive the project as opposed to someone who wants him to do the job for them.

He re-scanned the original dash and the file is much cleaner now so hopefully it fits like it’s supposed to.

 

[rmchrgr]

Couple updates for today.

Picked up the latest test print of the 3D-printed dash yesterday. Re-scanning the part was the right thing to do and it's finally ready to go. It seems to fit fine and there's no mounting hole misalignment like the previous versions. There is a lot more detail in this one too. What he told me was that he did a "higher resolution" scan this time. I'm not sure why this wasn't done to begin with since it would have been right from the start.

The final version will be one piece, all black and made of more robust material. The company that prints them will sand it down. It can be painted so I'm going to try and make it look like the factory part.

I am toying with the idea of getting these made to sell. I believe it provides an option for guys like me that want aftermarket gauges but want to keep some semblance of the original dash. It's also a bolt-in deal so no need to fabricate anything. There are ABS panels out there that are similar but IMO they're not worth the what they cost. I mentioned several pages back that I had one and sold it because it looked cheap and completely lacked any sort of detail. I'm happy with the way this turned out.

Other thing I managed to get done was install the oil pan on the 416". I detest doing anything with silicone. It's a necessary evil sometimes though and the Superformance gasket instructions specifically say to use it. If I had unlimited money I'd figure out a way to make a one-piece gasket for LA 318/340 blocks that does not require any sealer. Later Magnum 5.2 ones don't fit.

This is a Kevco 340 pan - 5 quarts + 1 quart for the filter. It has a trap door with baffles in the sump and a "built-in crank scraper". Nice pan. Obviously I used stainless studs instead of bolts. Gaskets are Superformance sealed with Permatex Ultra Black RTV. Have to remember to install new copper drain plug gaskets before filling it. The second drain plug is an oil level gauge and essentially eliminates the need for a dipstick. If you undo the plug and oil drips out, you're good.

My nemesis - RTV!

I'll let the pan sit overnight then will go back and cinch the fasteners down for good. Only thing left now is the intake. Hopefully I can get that done in the next day or two and the engine will be done.

More to come.

 

[bjkadron]

Dash panel looks good!

Are the studs a specific PN or did you just pick the right size stainless studs?

 

[rmchrgr]

Dash panel looks good!

Doesn’t it? A little effort goes a long way.

The ABS ones come with a lower column cover that I still have. Comparing it with the OE one makes the difference in detail pretty clear. How is the one on the left acceptable? It's basically a blob. These ABS ones are almost $280 now which is just stupid for such low-quality part.

Are the studs a specific PN or did you just pick the right size stainless studs?

The studs came on the (blown up) engine that was in my Challenger. It took a lot of effort to clean them up as they were covered with silicone.

Without researching, I could not tell you what brand they are. Probably a generic part that vendors package and sell with their own label. They're definitely taller than regular oil pan bolts.

 

[mygasser]

if you offered the dash panel for sale would you also be able to have them printed 'blank' (no holes) so buyers could use different gauges to the ones you have?
neil.

 

[rmchrgr]

I've thought about making blank ones. Honestly though it's a PITA to drill holes in a panel like this. Of course it can be done but if you're looking for something like this it would save time to have it already done. There's only so many possible gauge configurations.

Either way, I'd probably ask what people would prefer and see what the consensus is before I do anything. I'm not a manufacturer so it might be a little difficult to make different versions.

 

[bjkadron]

Doesn’t it? A little effort goes a long way.

The ABS ones come with a lower column cover that I still have. Comparing it with the OE one makes the difference in detail pretty clear. How is the one on the left acceptable? It's basically a blob. These ABS ones are almost $280 now which is just stupid for such low-quality part.
View attachment 1716420780


The studs came on the (blown up) engine that was in my Challenger. It took a lot of effort to clean them up as they were covered with silicone.

Without researching, I could not tell you what brand they are. Probably a generic part that vendors package and sell with their own label. They're definitely taller than regular oil pan bolts.

Yeah the ABS Stuff always looks terrible.

It looks like they might be just regular 5/16-18 x 1.25 Studs.

 

[rmchrgr]

Soooo, I have an engine dyno session booked for August 6th. Had to shift gears a bit since I couldn't find anyone that had a universal Holley Terminator X system setup in their dyno cell. To have the engine dynoed with the EFI would have required taking the ECU and associated wiring out of the car and figuring out a way to make it work in a dyno situation - too much work. I'm sure there are places out there that have that capability but no one local to me does. I will go with a carburetor and regular distributor and see how it goes.

Either way, the main purpose of running the engine on the dyno is to make sure everything is OK with it before I put it in the car. Unfortunately the larger headers require taking half the front end apart to get them in so I'd rather not do that multiple times if I can help it. Having the engine installed will help with the remainder of the wiring and plumbing as well.

The other reason for doing this is to prevent ruining the header coating should there be any lean or overly rich cylinders. It will be run with an old, smaller set of headers first to make sure everything is mostly even/normal. Once we know it runs OK we will switch to the larger ones and let it rip.

No doubt about it, verifying the engine will be a huge step. There will still be some other things to finish - the interior, the hood, engine bay wiring, brakes, (bleeding) alignment and re-installing the glass but I'm starting to see a little light at the end of the tunnel.

More to come.

 

[mpgmike]

Lots of hype about engine dynos, but you just justified a chassis dyno -- whether you realized it or not. Great work, see it through however you do it.

 

[rmchrgr]

If I'm reading you correctly - engine dynos seem to be a polarizing idea. Some people swear by the process yet others think it’s a waste of money. All too often I've read that "We don't race dynos", right? No, but that's not the entire story.

No one needs to dyno an engine. It's really just another tool that provides information in a controlled environment. I put a lot of thought, money and time into what I was doing with this engine and it's importnant to me to know how well I did. I'm confident this combo will make decent power but mostly I prefer to have the peace of mind of a known good engine. Could I do that on my own? Probably but if there was a failure of some sort in my garage I know that there would be an emotional aspect of it that could end up stalling the project for a long time.

That said, if it wasn’t such a pain to deal with the headers I’d consider putting it on a chassis dyno. That test is more ‘real world’ since it accounts for driveline friction. I may very well end up doing that anyway if I am having trouble sorting out the EFI. We shall see.

The best method would be to do both. Dragstrip testing is fine but again whether you're working with an engine or chassis dyno, the tests are done in a controlled environment which limits variables. If you're trying to do things scientiffically, that's what you want. Not doing anything is fine but you'll never know exactly what you have.

 

[crackedback]

I run my stuff a little below the upper drain plug. Picked up HP on the dyno with a little less oil in the pan. Still have a dipstick.

If you want simplicity, the upper fill plug works fine.

 

[rmchrgr]

I run my stuff a little below the upper drain plug. Picked up HP on the dyno with a little less oil in the pan. Still have a dipstick.

If you want simplicity, the upper fill plug works fine.

I've read about that idea but never tried it myself. If I am able to get a good tune on the dyno maybe I will give it a shot.

 

[rmchrgr]

Soooo... the dyno session I had booked back in August never happened. I've been reluctant to write about this because I'm embarrassed by what happened. I'm over it now but it took a long time to come to grips with it. I had everything done and ready to go - the engine was timed and primed. I waited until everything was done and the night before I went to put the intake on and that's when things went south. The Super Victor intake has really tall runners and it's difficult to get the #3 and #6 hole bolts in. There's no way 'regular length' bolts will fit so you either have to grind the inside of the runner or cut the bolts down or both. I chose to cut the bolts since I had put the silicone down already and didn't want to have to clean the intake off, grind it and re-glue it again. That was poor decision #1.

Problem was, I didn't do a great job cutting the bolts and ended up cross-threading both sides in the cylinder heads. They were likely messed up already from the first attempts but that was the nail in the coffin.That's what happens when you're in a rush. I tried cleaning the threads up with thread cleaning tool but they were toast. Next morning I called the dyno place and cancelled. At this point, the only way to fix this problem was to put helicoils in the cylinder head intake bolt holes. That in itself was the right call but deciding to try and do the job with the heads on was poor decsion #2. (More on that in a bit.)

When looking at it closely I realized that the intake holes are not perpendicular to the intake face on the heads - they are at a slight angle, like 7º or something. I didn't know that or at least forgot about it. Not trusting myself to drill the holes properly with a hand drill, I went through a whole process of making a jig out of a piece of steel to bolt to the other holes and make sure I drilled the holes correctly. That took a while since I had to order the material and then figure out how to drill the holes for the jig on an angle. Somehow I manged to do it and ultimately it worked.

As you can see, I made sure to tape cardboard over the lifter valley to capture any aluminum debris before doing any drilling. I did a bang-up job on that but it didn't matter since I did not know that the bottoms of the intake bolt holes are open to the lifter valley. In all my years of messing with these engines I have to admit I just never knew that or even thought to consider it. I don't even know what to say about that.

What's even dumber is that after I put the helicoils in, I knocked the tang off the bottom of the insert like you're supposed to. I tried to fish the tabs out with a magnet but couldn't seem to get them. I kept asking myself what the heck happened to them and thought it must have fallen into a little recess at the bottom of the hole I just couldn't get to. Seriously. I'm an idiot.

So when I pulled the cardboard off my heart sank and I felt nauseous because as you'd expect, the lifter valley was filled with aluminum debris. How could I have done something so stupid? I began to doubt everything I had done up to that point. It was a rough moment. After a few minutes of standing there in shock, I walked away, turned off the lights and shut the door to the garage. Thankfully we went on a family vacation a few days later and I managed to forget about what I had done for a week.

Before we left I ordered new gaskets and once we got back, I started tearing stuff down. Thankfully, I was relieved to find that it wasn't as bad as it could have been - just about everything stayed in the lifter valley. It was kind of clumped together because of the oil. Yeah, there were bits everywhere though thankfully not enough to have to take apart the entire bottom end. I didn't turn the motor over either except for a little bit to take it apart. I took the heads off and the cam out, turned the engine upside-down on the stand and just started cleaning it.

Trust me though, this wasn't a 5 minute operation. I went through the bottom end several times cleaning and re-cleaning and finishing with compressed air. Every round I'd find smaller and smaller bits until there really wasn't anything left that I could see. All the valve train parts were cleaned spotless and perhaps were even cleaner than when it was put together the first time. BTW, I found one heli coil tang in the valley and one in the oil pan.

I'm fully counting on finding some debris after first startup. Fortunately, it's soft aluminum and won't really hurt anything. There was no way I was getting every single little bit out but I was OK with that as long as there were no big chunks floating around and I'm positive there are no big chunks. Whatever is left will either get embedded into the bearings or pump gears. Guess I'll know how well I did cleaning the next time it comes apart.

The engine is back together now. I re-degreed the cam with my new, large degree wheel and it's where it should be. The intake is on but it was no cake walk this time either. Obviously I was very careful about threading the intake bolts in. Any resistance and it was back out, check the threads and try again, gently. I was gritting my teeth on a few of them but eventually they all went down. Ports line up pretty good too. There will be violence if there are any intake leaks.

Yes, it's going to have a carburetor and regular distributor for the dyno. The shop I'm going to use was not set up for EFI.

Only things left now engine-wise are to oil prime it, check the timing and let it rip.

Thanks for reading. More to come.