Bit of an update, Engine still blows smoke out the breathers, dipstick keepsb popping up slightly and was squirting oil on the hot headers (fixed that by welding a female hydraulic fitting on the tube and i screw a male into it but keep the stick in my toolbox). Have a X-Connection pipe running from the right rocker to the left and two breathers (speedway engine), what should the timing be at idle!, was told 14*, is that advanced or retarded, Roughly 34* advanced at about 2000 rpm is that correct!, Standard dizzy, 600 holley, Standard cam, Stock standard donk, cheers
petermcg,
Jan 4, 5:22pm
The breathing of the chev engine should work two ways, normally at low revs the PCV valve will draw any extra atmosphere into the inlet manifold, and then the air should theoretically pass into the pipe on the top of the valve cover, only one side is nescassary and use a sealed oil cap, the pipe from the valve cover normaly vents into the air cleaner. Now when you get to high revs the pcv valve wont do much as the vacuum signal is low, and there will be far more pressure in the crankcase,, now the air will be generated in the motor and should breath out into the air cleaner. Modifications to this breather system have to be done properly,, as with catch cans etc as you can get a pressure build up that will blow out a dip stick.
petermcg,
Jan 4, 5:31pm
Now the timing on the chevy, xraps has given you good advice,, that is the correct way to do it,,, but every chev engine is different and it depends on compression ratio, wear in dist,, activation of vacuum advance,, vacuum signal at the Inlet,,(alters with different carbs) and camshaft specs etc. I like to see that timing light advanced of the scale when you check it at Idle,but it is Important to listen to what the motor is telling you.,,, When you crank the motor it needs to turn freely and not sound like you have a flat battery, When the timing is to far advanced your motor will really load up when cranking and fight against the starter.,, This is telling you you are to far advanced and you need to back of a bit. When you get this part right, dont be suprised if the static timing at idle is about 20 degrees or just a bit of the scale, Good timing and the high tourqe that your 600 cfm holley will have you winning races.
mk3zephyr,
Jan 4, 6:23pm
the engines right hand bank oil breather has been blanked off and it runs a 1" pipe across to the left hand bank, It then has two breathers coming off the left side rocker cover, seems to have done the trick tho it is still a little smokey still. Checked the static timing and when the engine was at TDC the rotor was pointing at about 1/2 way between # 5 and # 7 cylinder (was wondering why i wasnt getting much adjustment), So pulled the dizzy and reset it so it was pointing roughly to #1 and reset my dizzy leads accordingly. Timing was rather retarded but managed to fire it and turned the dizzy till it ran a lot smoother. Shut the engine down and tried to restart it and yea was like i had a flat battery, lot of solenoid clicking. havnt used the timing light yet but will do that tommorrow ( i suspect that the starter isnt that flash either). Also noticed there is no vacuum advance hose on the dizzy either, is a stock standard one as well, not an HEI one (yet). just trying to keep it going for the rest of the season and then the engine will get a freshen up and some "flowery bits" installed, Kept it standard as i want to suss out how to drive the car etc before i go for more HP
petermcg,
Jan 5, 1:34pm
Some times the standard dist is modified so that it does not use the vacuum advance. Or it may just be disconnected. probably pay to not hook that up if the timing is well advanced, Im not sure what that would do.When you are setting up the dist initially, position it at TDC with the rotor pointing to no 1,, then slowly turn it back (that is the opp direction that the rotor turns) a little bit, just until you see the points open, and you are close then. Consider making up something out of an old oven tray, that fits between the Inlet and the carb, and then duct some cool air up to the carb and the aircleaner. The aliminium tray will reflect the heat away from the carb.
mk3zephyr,
Jan 5, 2:13pm
usually all the counter weights etc are welded together so no vacuum is needed, the engine had an hei dizzy in it and they guy i bought it off put a standard dizzy back in. was having a wee play this afternoon and hooked up a vacuum line, The engine certainly changed tone and sounded a lot nicer once i hooked it on. I got the timing light to do its thing but when i got the timing to a sweet sounding spot the timing mark on the harmonic balancer was at 12 o'clock which is miles away from the pointer on the block which i find is just bloody silly, anyway i shut the engine down and hit the starter only for it to wind over like the battery is flat, turned the dizzy slightly each way and it was still the same (battery is out of a small diesel truck). The earth lead is like the size of a pencil and twice the length it needs to be, was bloody hot to touch as well. I have left it for now as i think it needs a decent thicker earth lead and i am giving the battery a good charge. Not sure if that is the problem but certainly cant be helping.
pollymay,
Jan 5, 3:37pm
To add something I have a chev I wanted going and didn't want to buy a high torque reduction started till I knew it ran right. After 3 days of non engagement and it not being able to turn over fast enough to do squat I gave up and rang segedins. Starter came the next day and I put it on after adjusting it to clear the headers and wound over fine first try. I will never dick with the horribly heavy heatsoaking chev one again, can be boiling hot and I can still start it, wonderful things they are.
mk3zephyr,
Jan 5, 5:12pm
Yea i have one of those on my list of things to get, Engine is getting a rebuild in a few months and will be getting bits and bobs like that to put on
mk3zephyr,
Jan 10, 1:07pm
ok damned thing is overheating and blowing the coolant out of the overflow, put a new radiator cap on as the old one looked dodgy and i have no idea of its age, topped it up, ran it same thing, took the cooling system apart and flushed it all out, same thing, sounds like head gaskets huh!, what else could i check before pulling the heads off, guts of the thermostat has been removed so count that one out, water pump next or go straight for the heads!
pollymay,
Jan 10, 1:24pm
Why no thermostat! And rather than pull the heads a cheap nasty way to check for head gaskets leaking is leave the pressure cap off after bleeding the air properly, it'll relieve the pressure from the system and take longer to overheat. Also lay your hand on the core and check for blocked bits while it's pretty warm. Another thing is they usually use barely adequate systems so if the engine is running retarded with no fan and shroud on it they cook fast.
Been through all this on my V8 RX7 and I'm almost on top of it now, they take an assload of cooling.
petermcg,
Jan 10, 2:49pm
Is the motor out a jet boat as the block could be full of sand. If not it sounds like a cracked head or head gasket,, Now important you say overheating and blowing water out the overflow,,,this could be water pump, radiator or something blocked. but is it overheating or just blowing water out the overflow, as this would be cracked head or head gasket.
mk3zephyr,
Jan 10, 6:02pm
no motor is in a speedway saloon, temp gets rather quite hot and then blows out of the overflow, flushed the cooling system, backflushed the radiator (its a new radiator), no blockages. Oil in the sump hasnt got water in it either, guy i bought the car from used that orange silicon stuff so hopfully he hasnt blocked any water galleries up with it (man i hate that stuff), might pull the inlet and have a look in there as he has used plenty and i mean plenty of the stuff, probably used more $$ worth than a couple of real gaskets would cost
extrayda,
Jan 10, 9:25pm
Hi, I didn't read through all of the old posts - but did you actually find TDC (not assume that the dizzy at #1 is really TDC) and set the timing from there!If the timing is way out, that can also cause it to run hot. Did it run hot before you changed the timing around! If the timing is way out, that will also make it harder to start.
pollymay,
Jan 10, 10:56pm
Yeah they have to be timed right or they just turn into boilers. You will prolly find he kept having the inlet manifold leak if there is lots of orange stuff. They have to be torqued down right or they leak, the orange stuff reduces the need to torque it properly. The RX7 had this issue then leaked into the valley and caused all sorts of issues, those old motors are easy to rebuild anyway and parts are wicked cheap specially compared to my jap turbo, care less about tolerances to.
mk3zephyr,
Jan 11, 4:35am
yes the engine turned into a steam plant before i changed things around so it has made no difference, yes i found TDC by carefully using a small screwing stick down # 1 plug hole, Found the starter issue it was because the rear of the starter solenoid was loose so fixed that and all good there now, As for the Orange stuff, when i viewed the car it had an HEI dizzy, super damper on the front and a different inlet manifold, he changed things around and said they wernt part of the price (still was a bargain without them, actually a good car apart from this cooling issue), he had put a different edelbrock manifold on and just used the orange stuff instead of real gaskets., Read last night a couple of guys were having cooling issues because of this, ran without the radiator cap and there were no bubbles either
pollymay,
Jan 11, 9:45am
Remove the inlet manifold and the orange goo then put it back on and torque down in order, I forget the order and how much cause my dad just went "no no no like this" and did it in 3 seconds and not been a problem since. He knows chevs better than me.
mk3zephyr,
Jan 11, 11:45am
yea that was my plan to remove the inlet and put new gaskets in (well i have a heap of gasket paper so i will make some), looked up the Block ID but doesnt tell me anything, The head castings (3947040) were used in the 327Ci chev truck in around 69 and apparantly are a good performance head. I ran the engine again last night with the twin electric fans running and still got hot but took a while
pollymay,
Jan 11, 11:49am
Also interesting note with my 327 is it overheats at idle but load it a little or bring the revs up slightly and it's fine. I can bash it in the paddock but let it idle in the shop and it won't scrub off the heat, dunno why. I have no fan on the motor and the radiator is in the rear of the car so it has to push the water a long way which might mean it needs a little revs to get the flow going.
extrayda,
Jan 11, 12:45pm
I would get the proper gaskets if possible, as they are likely to be thicker than gasket paper (from memory) and also aren't that expensive. It is possible that either the heads have been planed, or the intake may have been modified if not new - either of those two things can cause the intake not to seal properly.Whenever I did intake gaskets I only put a very light bead of sealant around water passages, and just fitted the gasket.I also made sure that the dizzy rotor was pointing either directly backwards or forwards, so it was easy to remember where it should be when you re-fit the intake.
mk3zephyr,
Jan 11, 12:56pm
cheapest quote i have for intake gaskets is $47.00 for a pair, thats why i was going to be a cheapskate as ive got quite a few rolls of gasket paper/hole punches etc and i dont mind tapping a couple out, i'll see if i can find the thickness and then see if i have any the same or slightly thicker, I just thought $47 was a bit steep, but if i have to buy some so be it
mk3zephyr,
Jan 11, 1:05pm
bugger 0.06" or 1.6mm which i dont have, darn i'll have to go buy some
extrayda,
Jan 11, 8:30pm
good call to buy some - easier to do it right the first time. I remember that I also used to run a bit of silicon on the top and bottom of the front and rear seals under the intake. Hopefully neither have been messed around with, and you get a good seal. good luck.
mk3zephyr,
Jan 22, 8:09am
yay, took the car to the track last night and turned it into a 5.7 litre oil pump, oil pouring out the rockers, looks like new rings and bearings time lol
extrayda,
Jan 22, 11:29am
damn! you haven't had much luck with this motor have you.Hopefully things improve for you
mk3zephyr,
Jan 22, 5:55pm
started to pull engine down, inlet manifold hadnt been torqued down. when undoing the head bolts i saw one that had been welded, pulled the bolts out and when i put my socket on it it sheared it off, removed head and put some stillsons on the so-called bolt to remove it, got it out and found the useless prick had put in a unf thread bolt into a unc thread with lots of orange poo around it, didnt take much to get it out with stillsons lol, thread is still ok as i wound another unc head bolt into it to see if it was ok. Oh number 7 inlet port had an orange film covering it from that orange gasket stuff, cant have been getting much fuel in it. Left hand bank looks in good nick, right bank you can see where the oil has been burning and bore has slight score marks. Havnt taken the sump off yet, job for tomorrow
Since the public registrations are closed, you must have an invite from a current member to be able to register and post in this thread.
Have an account? Login here.